Tournament SPL XVI Discussion Thread

Week 6 is up with some highlight matches:
Nat (3-2) vs leng loi (4-1) - leng has been doing great and helping carry the classiest to the second best OU record and #1 team in the tour right now. Nat has been the best OU player for a scooters team that is faltering in OU but holding on in the GC at third place.
hellom (2-3) vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d (4-1) - hellom's sophmore season hasn't lived up to the heights of his first one, but 2-3 isnt terrible. Here's his chance to get back to .500 vs a player who has the best record in the pool and only cost 3k

DugZa (4-1) vs crying (3-2) - big crying fan but the Duggening has been fun to watch as well. This should be a good one

Yovan (3-2) vs Fogbound Lake (3-2) - two players just over .500 playing for teams locked at .500 but very far away in the GC. Who is going back to even and who is going up 4-2?

Usage trends:
I'm not super surprised to see stall showing up as its the natural conclusion of us heading in bulkier and bulkier directions, however it didn't win a lot. I think in this meta stall is just not very good. Sure it can catch out the odd offense without a breaker but there are so many breakers available and good. Pecharunt up to 5th and Gliscor up to 60% win rate. Raging Bolt continues to suck
 
Here's a quick news recap for W5 of SPL and some personal highlights for W6.

  • :dondozo:
    Everybody apparently decided to start stall maxxing this week. Seven players brought stall or semi-stall if we count the nasty-ass Pais/Fusien game that ended in a draw and therefore never happened. Only one person, tko, was able to win with the archetype. Just A Little Something I'm Noticing.
  • :deoxys-speed:
    Is Deoxys-Speed back? It received a fair few uses as an extremely fast offensive facilitator on HO and BO alike.
  • :glimmora:
    Glimmora has popped up a little bit more with three HO appearances and two wins: of the ones that weren't sacked we saw Red Card from two. Pecharunt and Glowking being everywhere really doesn't help its case.
  • :ogerpon:
    Two Ogerpon-Teals showed up to this SPL and won: one of them was crying and the other one was Storm Zone.

In other news across SPL:

  • :gardevoir-mega:
    The Classiest still sit alone atop the table with nine points, and are all but certain to make playoffs save for an unbelievable crashout. They do have a strong schedule left (Scooters/Ruiners/Raiders/Wolfpack) but it's hard to see them completely collapsing from this position.
  • :snorlax:
    On the flipside, the BIGs are not looking good, sitting at two points with only 8 more possible. Tyrants super-manager reyscarface is saying he wants to take the BIGs and rehabilitate them should he win this SPL: if he can't save them it might be time for a rebrand. Cursed franchise?
  • Let's check in on the SV records across the board. The Tigers are very strong with a 13-7 record, all four starters having three or more wins. The Classiest are close behind at 12-8, boasting two 4-1 records but a more uneven fourth slot. Unfortunately, the BIGs and Cryos sit at only 8-12 in SV despite substantial investment on their parts.
  • Really insane SWSH game this week between SpookyZ and damien the genius. Now, here's a screenshot at turn 33. As you can see, SpookyZ is up 4 to 1. Who wins this, and how many turns does it take for the game to end?
1739754275876.png

  • On the other hand, would you like to see the nastiest game of the week? Please enjoy crucify vs Dridri457. I've never been a true DPP hater but this was egregious. Then he posted a Falling In Reverse song in the winpost to add insult to injury. Nasty work all around.
  • :buzzwole:
    This is not SPL-related but DaddyBuzzwole has been banned from Smogon.
  • :marowak-alola: Team Raiders have picked up Endill at midseason. 1LDK tells me this is an ADV and SWSH main who last appeared in SPL 5 years ago, but is now a much different player. I'm unsure if they'll be starting, but good luck!
  • Two undefeated players remain. baddummy is still farming ADV for the resurgent Tigers, and Garay oak is similarly taking souls in ORAS for the Scooters, both at 5-0 records.
  • In the biggest upset of the week, tko (12.63%) outstalled hellom (87.37%) in SV.
  • For the predictions contest, tahatahat stomped this week with a 42-17 (71.19%) record. Lime and Roller K are locked in a tie for first in the overall contest, with Roller K's 62.71% from this week helping propel him.
  • ninth beat The Ape with 52.54%, while 1LDK fell a little short at 45.76%. 1LDK currently leads ninth by just one game in the overall standings.


Indie Scooters (0) vs (0) Congregation of the Classiest
SV OU: Nat vs leng loi - pretty curious about what Nat will bring to this one. I've thought of her as tending towards unique BO structures but she's been bringing straight-up offense more as of recent and seems to be working out with them. With leng it has mostly been offense and she's been one of the more creative players team-wise. I generally like how Nat handles endgames so this is gonna be a test of leng's killer instinct; I can't bold against a 4-game winstreak, especially when you're winning with Tornadus-T in 2025, but very much looking forward to this.


Dragonspiral Tyrants (0) vs (0) Ever Grande BIGS
SV OU: Fusien vs emforbes - these two are at an interesting crossroads, both being at 2-3. Fusien is a newer face and started very strong but is on a three-game losing streak, including a loss to a man who didn't know what a Pecharunt was; emforbes had a rougher go of SCL but is historically a sheet farmer and just got a dominant win last week. One of them is going to end up 2-4 and both are gonna try their damndest to avoid that.


Circus Maximus Tigers (0) vs (0) Cryonicles
SV OU: JJ09LIE vs zS - these two are players that kind of go under the radar until the season ends and they're 6-3. Both are highly competent pilots that generally favor offense builds, so this one is going to come down to single-turn minutiae. I think JJ has occasionally self-sabotaged this year by loading old teams (bro that Scream Tail sun was damn near 3 years old) but both being willing to use Glimmora in current climate is something I respect.


Stark Sharks (0) vs (0) Wi-Fi Wolfpack
SV OU: Niko vs Ewin - well this was supposed to be a highlight, I had a whole thing written up, but I forgot to post it and by the time I got on here these mans played mad early lol

Team Raiders (0) vs (0) Alpha Ruiners
SV OU: Yovan vs Fogbound Lake - Yovan is absolutely not letting Fog set a backup time lol. Both of these players had what I can describe as the games of all time last week, but Yovan won his and Fogbound Lake wasted his own time so he gets the edge. I think it might be possible that the Lake could run dry after a strong start, but his sheet is usually very solid outside of last SPL so there's no urgent cause for concern yet. If he drops this one it may be worrying for the Ruiners, who are similarly on a two set loss streak.
 
SPL XVI Week 6: Please Less Stall This Time
presented by ninth and 1LDK
We're getting closer to the endgame and a proper understanding of who the favorites are for this SPL. We saw the last undefeated full-time SV player's streak snap, but four players entered Week 6 on four-game winstreaks. That said, last week was kind of hard to watch at times. Seven stall brings is beyond OD. Do you know how bad it has to get for me to be excited to see Tornadus-Therian on my screen? I'm hoping this week is easier on the eyes...



:alakazam-mega:
Indie Scooters (6)
vs (9) Congregation of the Classiest
:gardevoir-mega:

:gliscor: :clefable: :serperior: :corviknight: :ting-lu: :toxapex: Nat (3-2) vs (4-1) leng loi :roaring-moon: :samurott-hisui: :great-tusk: :gholdengo: :heatran: :enamorus:

ninth: In a heartwarming throwback to ORAS, we have a Serperior and a Heatran facing off. Almost surprised there's no Chansey. leng loi is using the Heatran to accompany a popular Dark-heavy HO structure in Roaring Moon + Samurott + a Ghost (Gholdengo) + removal (Tusk). Enamorus is her choice of speed control here and adds special Fairy-type damage; at a glance, the Heatran looks like an anti-fat trapper on this squad. Nat's team is a chunky fat structure using the double bird structure of Gliscor + Corviknight, this time alongside Toxapex. Between those three and Clefable Nat is essentially immune to passive damage/status, which helps to facilitate the hazard game from Ting-Lu and an eventual cleanup from Serperior. leng starts by repeatedly attacking Corv with her Samurott, knocking it and setting a spike while living a Body Press (no lie I forgot Razor Shell drops lower BP damage lol). When Nat U-Turns into Gliscor, leng replies with her +Attack Tusk, which CCs the incoming Corviknight for 57% and 2HKOs it. This brings in Nat's Serperior, which forces in Heatran and allows for an immediate Sub + Glare + full para. Heatran breaks through on the Leaf Storm, but it's not Magma Storm - it's Eject Pack Overheat. The sub breaks and in comes Scarf Enamorus. Nat pops Tera Steel as leng hits Mystical Fire, which amusingly raises the SpA, and Tera Blast Steel comes out of the Serp to instagib the Enamorus.
Now, this Serp has revealed being 100% walled by Heatran, but this Heatran is also paralyzed and therefore outsped and killed by Ting-Lu. Nat switches her Toxapex in on leng's Tusk hitting CC, then keeps it in without any fear as leng switches to Ghold and then Samurott, which takes an Infestation and dies. Ghold comes back out and sets up Nasty Plot (losing its balloon), and when it turns Tera Fairy it's suddenly taking nothing from Ting-Lu any more. However, with no MIR revealed on Ghold, Nat reveals the secret: her Clefable is Unaware Cosmic Power. leng Shadow Balls repeatedly for drops, and Nat works through 7/8 Moonlights. leng recovers a couple of times herself on the Moonblasts, but on Turn 43 Nat immediately uses the last Moonlight exactly as leng goes back to Shadow Balling, saving its life and getting 2 Moonblast drops, enabling her Toxapex to come back in. leng's Tusk now has to come in and click Headlong Rush twice to kill it, dropping its defenses low enough that a crit Facade from Gliscor can finish it off (after Head Smash goes sideways). The Scor goes boost for boost with leng's Ghold, and outspeeds + crits Facade again to threaten the 2HKO. leng's Moon has to come in and Knock to finish it off (it takes 62, this is definitely a fat Moon lol), and Clefable survives EQ to Moonblast it down. The Ghold is finished off by Serp's Tera Blast, and Nat takes the win. Things did get critical near the end but overall very entertaining.

:kyurem: :iron-valiant: :zamazenta: :gholdengo: :landorus-therian: :roaring-moon: TheFranklin (1-3) vs (3-2) LpZ :araquanid: :iron-valiant: :great-tusk: :pecharunt: :kingambit: :moltres-galar:

ninth: This core four of Kyurem/Valiant/Moon/Lando that TheFranklin's using has been making the rounds as an HO cornerstone and I honestly don't mind it. Lando naturally serves as great defensive glue for all four, who generally can't switch into Ground or heavy physical force. Kyurem I believe is 4-attack on this setup, going for upfront damage. The last two are entirely reasonable choices of Zamazenta, the best mon in the format, and Gholdengo, who will be more of an attacker here than a spinblocker. LpZ is using the Classiest webs that popped up I believe in W3, where the twist is a weirdly bulky Moltres-Galar. LpZ starts well by leading Balloon Gambit into Moon, instantly demanding a switch to Lando and burning its Booster: the Lando gets sacked to Araquanid for the purpose of getting up rocks and Taunting it to deny webs, as Franklin has no removal. Kyurem temporarily scares out the Araquanid, but Webs nonetheless go up as LpZ switches three times in a row (including burning +SpA booster on Valiant) to spook Franklin into switching the Kyurem out as he goes Araquanid.
This setup of webs has, however, enabled Franklin's Moon to come in and set up, and Tera Fairy ensures that the Vacuum Wave from Valiant tickles. After Valiant falls, LpZ sends Pecharunt out and baits the Knock with Tera Fighting - it works, but Malignant Chain doesn't poison, so it just dies the next turn anyways. Kingambit is LpZ's next attempt, with his timer rapidly decaying, but Franklin immediately Roosts on the Sucker, and yeah the game is over.

:roaring-moon: :ting-lu: :dragonite: :zamazenta: :gholdengo: :ogerpon-wellspring: Srn (0-1) vs (1-1) Kate :pecharunt: :great-tusk: :ogerpon-wellspring: :garganacl: :moltres: :kingambit:

ninth: Srn has LuGholdNite and Zamazenta, yes, but he's also going all the fuck in on physical offense with the addition of Roaring Moon and Ogerpon-Wellspring. The Ghold feels kind of load-bearing here, especially facing a team as physically robust as Kate's. Pecharunt's 160 Defense and Moltres' blanket contact punishment are strong deterrents, not to mention Garganacl, who is protected from taking EQs by the flaming bird. Kate's team is also quite physically aggressive with Wellspring and Gambit as her primary attackers, as well as Tusk for doing Tusk things. Srn immediately leads with Moon and sets up on Pecharunt, only for Kate to Parting Shot into Tusk: it lives a non-Tera Acrobatics with relative ease and flattens the Moon with CC. Srn's Wellspring is ostensibly strong here, with Kate's whole team outsped and her own Wellspring as the only resist, but practically he cannot safely keep it in against Pecharunt. Nor can he keep his Gholdengo in safely against Kate's Moltres, which outspeeds it and hits Fire Blast to oneshot it from full. I forgot Moltres has 125 SpA but I really wasn't expecting it to die instantly lol.
Wellspring is the response here, but Kate's Pecharunt chips it heavily with Foul Play before it dies, and Kingambit gets to scare it out. Srn switches to Ting-Lu to try and force a switch as he doubles to Dragonite, but Kate instead stays in and SDs, Kowtowing through Multiscale for 60% as it takes less than that from EQ. Kate now flips over to Wellspring on the EQ, and Encore locks it into Extreme Speed, which means yep, big Gambit is coming right back out, and it takes Wellspring's life. Srn's Zama comes out next, and Kate naturally brings out Moltres. Now, Tera Fire Zamazenta is normally good to help Iron Defense/Body Press brute-force past Moltres, but it is perhaps less useful when Hurricane does over half and two-shots it. I'm crunching the numbers right now and this Molt might be 252 SpA Modest. Like, how can you do 29% to Ting-Lu with a neutral special move? This game is over, by the way, this is now a 5v2 in Kate's favor and her Garganacl is full health.

:gliscor: :blissey: :clodsire: :corviknight: :dondozo: :amoonguss: hellom (2-3) vs (4-1) S1nn0hC0nfirm3d :goodra-hisui: :cinderace: :darkrai: :alomomola: :slowking-galar: :great-tusk:

ninth: hellom has stall. Sinnoh kind of has a VoltTurn balance core going on between Cinderace, Alomomola, and Glowking, and it does kind of resemble a generic purple balance core with Tusk and Darkrai as primary damage threats, but the real strange mon here is Goodra-Hisui. I assume this is some kind of slow mixed attacker, probably AV. In any case a Steel-type is nice to have into stall, and Sinnoh recognizes this by leading it and immediately trying to Ice Beam the Gliscor. It protects, but what a jumpscare that almost was, lol. Blissey walls, but Glowking reciprocally walls it and can fire off a Future Sight as hellom switches to Amoonguss. Now the mushroom obviously has to fear FS and goes back to Blissey, but Sinnoh just Chillys back into Goodra and reveals it has Dragon Tail, which now means hellom cannot consistently control the target of Future Sight. This time it pulls Amoonguss and it drops to 10%. hellom uses Clodsire to get up a Spike as Sinnoh Future Sights again, and again, but this time the Clod lands a Toxic on Sinnoh's Alomomola. When hellom tries to set up his SD Gliscor against Glowking, Sinnoh just switches into Goodra with full confidence that it's not EQ (it's not).
The singular spike is racking up damage slowly on Sinnoh's team, so eventually he lets his Tusk get poisoned in exchange for Spinning them off. In the 50th instance of Blissey sitting in front of Glowking, this time Sinnoh Tricks to steal the Blissey's Boots; he would have gifted it Sludge had it not been knocked previously. The Blissey sets rocks but Cinderace is able to come in and switch them around. Did you know Avalanche makes contact? Why the hell does it make contact??? Anyways, Alo passes a Wish to Goodra and it's back to full. hellom's problem is that only Blissey and Clod can stand in front of Goodra confidently, and they keep getting Dragon Tailed out. Eventually the chip racks up enough that Sinnoh decides it's time for game, and since Blissey is probably not 4th move CM, Tera Ghost Darkrai comes out to start Nasty Plotting. Clodsire is hellom's response, and it looks like it lives 2 Ice Beams, but Sinnoh instead goes for an evil Dark Pulse and flinches it to prevent Toxic. Blissey ends up revealing Calm Mind last anyways, but it's too late, Sludge Bomb has poisoned it but it can't leave and lose its boosts, and on a long enough timeline the Flinches come to whittle it down. Also the Darkrai is Red Card too. It's Over.



:tyrantrum:
Dragonspiral Tyrants (6)
vs (2) Ever Grande BIGS
:snorlax:

:dragapult: :slowking-galar: :skarmory: :great-tusk: :darkrai: :garganacl: myjava (4-1) vs (2-3) bhkg :darkrai: :scizor: :great-tusk: :primarina: :dragapult: :zapdos:

ninth: This myjava Skarm/Garg/Glowking balance has been around since like DLC1 and has done the same thing forever: you put up mad hazards, wall everything between Skarm and Glowking, crank out passive damage, and finish the game with Darkrai and Pult. bhkg's team is significantly more novel, consisting of four special attackers. Between Primarina, Zapdos, Darkrai, and Dragapult, they cover all four axes of [setup vs upfront damage] and [fast/frail vs mid-speed/bulky]. His physical attacker accompanying Tusk (necessary because a lot of those guys are Not bootsed up) is Scizor, who pressures what the other four can't. It punches everything pretty hard on java's team, allowing him to knock the Skarm immediately. The two trade rocks for spikes, bhkg spins them off, then goes hard Darkrai as java sets them back up. The enemy Darkrai comes out to wall, but bhkg Nasty Plots on the switch - then pulls out Tera Fairy Tera Blast and obliterates java's Darkrai. Now, I'm looking for a resist on java's team and I'm coming up blank. The best myjava can do is bring out Glowking and Tera Grass it, which turns out working better for bhkg as he goes hard Scizor. That's a free U-Turn into Dragapult, which Dracos the incoming Garganacl and immediately just Eject Packs himself out into Scizor again. bhkg now trades Salt Cure chip for a Knock on the Garg, crippling its endgame ability.
bhkg sends out Primarina and myjava replies with Grass Slowking, which ostensibly should still wall it. The response is to Flip Turn into Zapdos, which immediately smashes Hurricane, confuses, and makes the % Glowking hit itself nearly to death. With java's special wall crippled, and four special attackers on bhkg's team, he just has to protect the squad from taking excessive spike damage. +2 Dark Pulse fries Garg in two, then finishes the Glowking, and now Primarina can attack until it dies, taking Skarm with it. java's Dragapult tries its best but just ends up dying to Scizor's Bullet Punch, and bhkg takes the win after a brief period of trying to preserve the 6-0.


:kingambit: :iron-moth: :tinkaton: :dragonite: :darkrai: :great-tusk: Mada (2-3) vs (2-3) lax :kingambit: :iron-moth: :great-tusk: :dragapult: :ogerpon-wellspring: :ting-lu:

ninth: lax said he was bringing Bellibolt on blunder's tier list video (among like 12 other mons) so I'm very happy that he actually did bring it. It's a niche but honestly pretty good mon: Electromorphosis makes its Volt Switch spamming hit unexpectedly hard in combination with decent bulk and weirdly functional utility via Soak + Toxic. In combination with Alomomola it can VoltTurn everywhere, and Tinkaton patches up all the utility needs. The main offensive presence here is obviously Dragonite + Darkrai with Tusk supplementing, but I wouldn't be surprised if those first three put up more DPS in a longer game. Mada has an interesting-looking team that operates in a couple of modes: Tusk and Ting-Lu are lumbering hazard controllers that double as physical strikers, Moth and Dragapult (which looks Specs on this) provide fast and immediate special damage, and Gambit and Wellspring serve as setup threats for later. lax starts the game by immediately critting Ice Beam on Lu for 65%, which I can only calc as a Specs max roll, and Mada ends up sacrificing it after a Ruination. With one Ground-type down, lax uses Bellibolt to bait in Mada's other Ground-type, switching to Tinkaton to lock it into Headlong and burn its Booster. Tinkaton paralyzes the incoming Kingambit, then Bellibolt comes back in on the full para and Soaks the Gambit on another full para. Dragapult has to take the Toxic, and U-Turns out leading to Tusk getting Soaked. Mada has to bring Pult back in and Electromorphosis Discharge does a third; Shadow Ball doesn't out-damage Recover, and Pult almost bleeds to death before Mada rescues it with Tusk, who eventually kills the Bolt but not before taking a Toxic on T15.
With the Tusk walled by Tinkaton and enabling free rocks, Mada opts to sack his Dragapult for as much Shadow Ball damage as it can manage, putting Darkrai in range of Moth before the Moth gets scared away by AV Alomomola. Mada sees this as an opportunity for his Wellspring to set up, but lax sees this as the time to reveal Tera Poison Tera Blast Alomomola, which forces Tera out of the Wellspring. Horn Leech rescues it temporarily, but now lax can Flip Turn into Darkrai and get a free kill, which ends up being on Tusk. Moth is outsped and dies as well, and suddenly it's all on Mada's Kingambit to save the game. One Iron Head crits Tinkaton, but Tusk survives it long enough to whittle it down, and lax's Dragonite can clean up the game. I've never seen an Alo click Tera Blast before dawg.
You can watch lax's POV here!

:ting-lu: :weezing-galar: :alomomola: :tornadus-therian: :gholdengo: :zamazenta: Fusien (2-3) vs (2-3) emforbes (1-3) Danny :pawmot: :pelipper: :basculegion: :raging-bolt: :gholdengo: :ting-lu:

ninth: These guys played after the deadline - the sub from emforbes to Danny was made at midnight EST. We got work in the morning, damn it. At least Danny has (checks notes) Pawmot + Basculegion + Ting-Lu rain, that's interesting. Pawmot is probably a revive bot, which will be helpful considering the team has no removal. Fusien has Alomomola + Tornadus-T bulky offense, with Weezing-Galar on burn duty and Ting-Lu on Ting-Lu duty. I'll note that the Lu/Ghold/Zama core is back here, but the Torn seems to somewhat mirror the role Dragonite plays here as a robust Ground-immune. Anyways, Fusien leads with Weezing and immediately Wisps the Lu. Pain Split in combo with Lu's base 5000 HP means it never dies and eventually outduels the Lu. Danny sends out Gholdengo and then doubles into Pelipper to set rain, but Fusien's switch is to Tornadus-T, who chunks the Pelipper as it retreats to Basculegion. Right, six turns of rain left. Wave Crash thuds against Alomomola, which in combo with its Rocky Helmet means Legion takes damn near as much as Alo, then Fusien flips on the Bolt switch and brings out Tornadus. Fusien stays in and Knocks as Danny hits Weather Ball, presumably expecting the Lu switch-in...and rain ends. It's not Damp Rock. Now Lu actually fully walls the Bolt, and it's free to set up rocks as Danny goes back into Pelipper.
The Pelipper starts by attacking, using Knock Off and taking chip from Alo, then - now dead to Rocks - he pops Custap Hurricane, which does 50% to the Alo. Two pivot moves and that mon is dead. Fusien sacks Weezing to Basculegion for the last turn of rain, and the skies are now clear. Danny's brief threat with Pawmot is stuffed by Zamazenta, which Crunches his Scarf Gholdengo to death. Fusien's personnel advantage is now hard to overcome: Lu hard walls Bolt, and his Scarf Gholdengo can Shadow Ball down the remaining mons to death.

:tinkaton: :zapdos: :garganacl: :great-tusk: :keldeo: :dragapult: vk (3-2) vs (1-1) tko :corviknight: :weezing-galar: :alomomola: :ditto: :gliscor: :weavile:

ninth: Weezing-Galar + Ditto semi-stall is not what I'm looking to see here but it's at least a unique approach. Ditto serves as a general check to setup and stall mons, as it gets essentially infinite PP/Regen usage. Weezing-Galar helps a fair bit against Gliscor + Garganacl combos thanks to disabling the first's healing and being able to burn the second - say, what's that third mon on vk's team? He's got a bootleg birds+Garg core with Zapdos and Balloon Tinkaton as the kinda-birds: Zap also serves purpose as a VoltTurn core member with Keldeo and Dragapult. There's a fair bit of special damage here between those three so the Tusk is going to be holding up a fair bit of the physical wallbreaking. Nothing really happens that isn't undone in the first few turns.
This is a long game, it's not over 100 turns but the central conflict is that vk cannot ever let his Garg get burnt by Weezing. His Hex Dragapult is an eminent threat with tko having a burnt Alo and a Gliscor, but he has to not let it die to Weavile or Ditto. Over the next few turns tko slowly racks up chip on vk's main wincons of Keld/Tusk/Garg, including Knocking the Garg. vk does catch the Corviknight incoming with two CCs and blow it up, then later Headlong Rushes a Gliscor as it switches to Weavile and blows it up as well. Now we've shifted a bit: vk is up 5-4, and has two mons in Keldeo and Garg that can theoretically win, but both them and Tusk are critically low and die to a light breeze. On turn 54 tko switches his Weezing into a Salt Cure and it drops to 33%, and it Sludge Bombs vk's incoming Zapdos to 8%. tko sacks his Ditto to Tusk in order to kill it with Alomomola, and now Gliscor has an angle to get +2, survive two Hexes, and OHKO Pult with Knock Off. Now Keldeo actually does negative damage to Alo with Surf, so it can't win that way. vk has to pray for Curse Water Garg to work magic, but it just gets burnt by Weezing and walled by tko's Gliscor, which crits it on the third try and ends the game. This recap was a little sloppy on my part, I kind of lost track between T18 and T54, but I think it was just vk getting out-chipped and the Garg angle not paying off into a mon that neutralizes it.



:raikou:
Circus Maximus Tigers (5)
vs (3) Cryonicles
:suicune:

:ninetales-alola: :iron-treads: :roaring-moon: :iron-moth: :ogerpon-wellspring: :dragonite: Storm Zone (3-2) vs (1-3) Pais :gliscor: :pecharunt: :tinkaton: :lokix: :zamazenta: :raging-bolt:

ninth: One of these team structures is cheap (derogatory) and the other is cheap (complimentary) and I'm not telling you which is which. Storm Zone has Veil HO with three Booster mons and Wellspring + Dragonite, he just wants to set up and win fast. Treads is here for guaranteed fast spins. Pais is using the combo of Pecharunt and Lokix to constantly pivot around and spread debuffs between Pech and Tinkaton. Gliscor serves as an EQ absorber and momentum halter, useful to keep his offensive core of Zamazenta + Raging Bolt safe. Now, Pais has one (1) Water resist that also folds to Play Rough, which means Storm can lead Wellspring and then Taunt the incoming Pecharunt, then U-Turn to +SpA Moth. Fiery Dance does 29% to the incoming Raging Bolt (jesus), then Dazzling Gleam takes the rest of its healthbar. Being +SpA does mean Stone Edge Zamazenta threatens it out, though, and Storm has to throw his Treads to the wolves (wolf singular?), though getting rocks up first before dying. Storm tries to set up on it with Dragonite, but Pais simply Roars it out into Wellspring and 2HKOs it with CC.
Three CCs means Dragonite now threatens Zama immediately and it can't Roar, so Pais has to go to Tinkaton on the incoming Ice Spinner. With Zama low and forced out, Storm can send Iron Moth back in and start Fiery Dancing, 2HKOing the Gliscor - wait, he misclicked Sludge Wave and Gliscor just fried it with EQ. Luckily for him, his Dragonite is carrying a reasonably fast Encore. He sets up as Pais goes to Pecharunt, and Tera Dark Foul Play 2HKOs the Nite, though it's Encored into FP as a result. This lets Ninetales set up Veil as a result; over the course of the Veil, it finishes off the Gliscor, then kind of stalemates the Pecharunt and dies to Tinkaton. No Veil left, can Roaring Moon 1v4?
Let's find out. Tinkaton has no status and has no choice but to let it set up and Knock. Weak-ass Boots Lokix does 41% with First Impression on the Tera Fairy and dies to Tera Blast Fairy. Pech drops to TB Fairy as well. Zama is 24% and outsped. It's over.

:corviknight: :cinderace: :kyurem: :deoxys-speed: :gliscor: :garganacl: DugZa (4-1) vs (3-2) crying :dragapult: :corviknight: :ting-lu: :ogerpon-wellspring: :kyurem: :slowking-galar:

ninth: Okay I see that we're Blimax-maxxing today with two Corviknight/Kyurem teams, one with a Cinderace. DugZa's is part of that double bird + Garg structure I keep yapping about, but paired with a much more offensive other half between Deoxys, Cinderace, and Kyurem. Could potentially be double removal on Ace/Corv to protect the Kyurem. crying has paired Kyurem with Glowking for guaranteed Blizzards, and it also forms a special/physical core with Corviknight and Ting-Lu. Corv is mandatory to protect the Kyurem from hazards, but it also protects Wellspring as well, and potentially the Dragapult if it's a weird set (it's crying, it's a weird set). Turn 1, crying's Glowking Tricks the Cinderace a Black Sludge, stealing its Boots. Now it's free to Chilly into Kyurem as DugZa goes Garg, and Specs Blizzard does over half as DugZa crits Salt Cure for about 40% in a turn. Blizzard comes out again and does over half to Cinderace, and the rabbit is at death's door between losing Boots and the Black Sludge. However, crying stays in and takes a Pyro Ball to guarantee the kill on Ace, resulting in the Kyurem dying to Salt Cure within the first 5 turns and crying losing her main breaker.
The two trade rocks, but DugZa is able to get his Gliscor in on a Ting-Lu EQ and start Swords Dancing up. crying brings in Helmet Corviknight to try and stop this and/or get chip for Wellspring, but Brave Bird is tickling as Gliscor gets +6. He's rewarded for his greed as the first Ice Fang freezes the Corv, meaning the Scor can secure the kill and escape with essentially full health. Now it just Tera Fairys and lives a Cudgel, nearly killing back with EQ. The dead-to-rocks Wellspring can only stay in and SD/Cudgel to the best of its ability before dying to Kyurem. crying's last trick is Band Dragapult, but it gets knocked by Deoxys and Tera Dragon Darts leaves Deo on literally 1 HP. The Deo does die to Ruination later as a result (which is always funny when it happens and it's not thanks to Sash) but the Superpower chip ensures that there's no way out of the Gliscor angle, and the loss of Band means Pult can't even OHKO a half-health Garg. At the end, it's just birds left for DugZa.

:dragapult: :corviknight: :ogerpon-wellspring: :great-tusk: :garganacl: :slowking-galar: 3d (3-2) vs (0-0) TPP :iron-valiant: :ogerpon-cornerstone: :landorus-therian: :gholdengo: :great-tusk: :samurott-hisui:

1LDK: Lando sets rocks, on tusk coming in, then samu-h tries to surf tusk but oger-w come ins and bonks it with horn leech, then oger-c and corv go at it for a while. Ghold comes in and sballs oger and uses tera water to win the 1v1. But Tusk brawl and 3d's tusk wins but dies to scarf lando... scarf lando with rocks... uh, welcome back SM OU. Corv actually does some damage with bbird vs oger-c and both double into pult and dengo, the former dropping a dump on lando. Piss weak I-val does 70% to pult with sball and gets burned with wisp, and glowking takes out the booster and oger-c dies to sludge bomb. Garganacl uses tera water and 3d perfectly reads TPP's attack patterns like a dark souls boss with a +6 dengo, with Corv as the only loss. With that out, Valiant has no chance.

:roaring-moon: :iron-valiant: :landorus-therian: :ting-lu: :scizor: :kyurem: JJ09LIE (3-2) vs (3-2) zS :goodra-hisui: :cinderace: :great-tusk: :darkrai: :alomomola: :slowking-galar:

1LDK: zS team gives me pinkacross vibes ngl, i like the double removal allowing for items. Mola and ace take control of the match against JJ, ting lu cannot punish the momentum with rocky helmet because both are super effective vs him. Scizor gets frozen thanks gamefreak. Ting lu gets packed by the hoodra then lando-t eats hoodra. Tusk be acting like a ingame pokemon with how much he using headlong rush bro, lando dances over him. Boots scale shot earth power kyurem is not it bro, even sucker punch darkrai is more real than that. Roaring Moon gets to +2 with tera flying, but rocky helmet + momentum spam + sacking glowking saves the day. Cinderace uses tera fire to bomb valiant



:garchomp:
Stark Sharks (5)
vs (4) Wi-Fi Wolfpack
:lycanroc:

:dragonite: :weezing-galar: :heatran: :ogerpon-wellspring: :slither-wing: :landorus-therian: Attribute (4-1) vs (3-2) clean :great-tusk: :deoxys-speed: :roaring-moon: :iron-boulder: :gholdengo: :ceruledge:

1LDK: Ima be real I wasn't really paying attention to this match since I saw ict in chat saying that Slither Wing is uglier than Iron Boulder tf that shit is not gonna work for me brother. Anyway, Atri has to dance around deo-s. Ceruledge goes to the sweep, but weezer galar puts him on timer with toxic. Oger gets sacked and lando revenger kills with Stone Edge. Lando and slither wing shuts roaring moon down and gets fatality'd by heatran. Gholdengo gives a Scarf to heatran and avoids magma storm, tusk doesn't need to avoid he just tanks. Gholdengo comes back into later into EP and the damage is not enough so ghold actually wins. Lando kills tusk and gives Iron Boulder a place to sd and shit on weezer with life zen facebook tips. Tera ground lets it put slither wing into the ground. Espeed normal dnite blitz Iron boulder, tanks a MiR and kills dengo with eq

ninth: valid, Slither Wing is beautiful, Iron Boulder looks like the after effects of overdosing on anabolic steroids.

:weavile: :dragonite: :gliscor: :clefable: :corviknight: :ting-lu: Lily (4-1) vs (2-3) Stareal :kyurem: :cinderace: :zapdos: :tinkaton: :great-tusk: :roaring-moon:


1LDK: Evill ass clef team is back for another round of evil ass mischievousness, tinka trades being parad for rocks, and ting lu also gets rocks too, Tusk with CC puts corv trought a lot of preassure. Both tusk and ace try to tag team corv, but gliscor and dnite make it complicated. Gliscor removes tusk's boots, which lets ting lu kill tusk early on. With rocks in the field, tinkaton loses its leftovers vs weavile and kyurem, zapdos and ace all of them lose their lives vs a +2 tera normal gliscor. Tinkaton tries to bait a facade with tera ghost encore, but gliscor knock offs her lights out. Roaring moon suffers the same fate as its mates

:zapdos: :ting-lu: :gholdengo: :araquanid: :gliscor: :zamazenta: Ahy Wddicted (1-0) vs (0-0) One Last Kiss :samurott-hisui: :clefable: :gliscor: :dragonite: :gholdengo: :zamazenta:

1LDK: Araquanid on a balance team gives me mayor "what is a polar bear doing in Texas" with samu-h putting hazard preasure, only getting haxed by zapdos when its job's been done, boots zama aggros into gliscor with ice fang but gets punished by rocky helmet clef. Gholdengo trades scarf for boots on araquanid that.... puts webs..... yeah I don't see the vision, with now free will, gholdengo does critical damage vs ting lu, but both avoid further conflict with gliscors. Both Gliscors get to +4 and whyad wins the bet, OHKOing OLK's gliscor with tera normal, zama uses resto-chesto strats to fully neutralize the gliscor. Then whyad's gholdengo clicks trick trying to lock something, but OLK weaves that with his own dengo. With ting lu dead, samu-h gets sacked which gives dnite a free turn to dd, zapdos tries to chip it with hurricane but dnite avoids it, clicks tera ground and dds again, at +2 it mows down zapdos and araquanid with rock slide, then mows the rest with eq

:zamazenta: :dragonite: :weezing-galar: :heatran: :landorus-therian: :ogerpon-wellspring: Niko (1-4) vs (3-2) Ewin :gliscor: :volcanion: :ninetales-alola: :hatterene: :zamazenta: :roaring-moon:

1LDK: People be using hellom hail the same way people use Paracetamol for anything. Hatt cripples ogerpon-w, then Niko reads everything perfectly letting to a malinjured ninetales, a super low volcanion and a tera electric +6 zamazenta looking down a 5'4 thick hatterene who wanted nuzzles, this is where you remember hatt is quad resistant, so this only tickles her, to which zama just heavy slams her shut. This is where the GOAT tera bug volcanion comes in to save the day by taking the hit and burning down zama, rendering him incapable of sweeping, still, it needed gliscor and volcanion to kill it. Lando kills volcanion and invites ninetales alolan to come in, but weezer galar defogs all attempts to screen up, zama then crashes out his whole bar against lando with rocky helmet + LO damage. Heatran and Weezer galar tag team both ninetales alola and roaring moon



:marowak-alola:
Team Raiders (4)
vs (6) Alpha Ruiners
:entei:

:kyurem: :hoopa-unbound: :cinderace: :clefable: :corviknight: :gliscor: Yovan (3-2) vs (3-2) Fogbound Lake :dragonite: :kingambit: :deoxys-speed: :great-tusk: :ceruledge: :hatterene:

1LDK: Hatterene and gliscor duke it out, dnite sets up and smacks kyurem, but kyurem counter slaps with ice spear. Hoopa-U tanks deo-s and does 66% to tusk don't even have to look at calc gun to the back of my head this is av. Ceruledge sds and ohkos clef with poltergeist. Tera fairy lets it health back after kyurem using freeze dry. Despite being burned and having defense drops, bitter blade's healing factor is so big it takes cinderace, gliscor and tera dragon corv to take it out. Tusk eats the rest of Yovan's team with deo-s picking the last kill vs ace

ninth: I want to state for the record that the Ruiners tagged at :20, this screenshot shared by goldmason on the Smogon stream says :40, and then the game did not start until :48. Fogbound apparently got infracted for repeatedly doing this lol.
fogbound.jpeg


:great-tusk: :tornadus-therian: :garganacl: :kingambit: :gholdengo: :hydrapple: Thiago Nunes (0-0) vs (1-4) Laroxyl :dondozo: :corviknight: :gliscor: :clodsire: :blissey: :toxapex:

1LDK: At first glance you would think tnunes has the whole anti stall squad with 2 knock off users, garg, black glasses gambit, and dengo. Turns out, he had none of the stall breaking sets, so he lost

:iron-valiant: :darkrai: :enamorus: :roaring-moon: :gholdengo: :ting-lu: Eternal Spirit (4-1) vs (2-3) pdt :primarina: :kingambit: :blaziken: :dragapult: :iron-boulder: :landorus-therian:

1LDK: Enam subs on blaziken and primarina is forced to the brink of death to kill enam with custap and dies to darkrai the turn after. Trades happen, with blaziking and pult killing ting lu and valiant killing pult. Blaziken uses tera fire overheat to crit one shot val. Lando and Kingambit put the preasure on roaring moon, not letting it heal, but kingambit dies by tera ground eq. Boulder rushes trough moon, darkrai and gets lucky crits vs dengo

:ogerpon-wellspring: :roaring-moon: :zamazenta: :weavile: :landorus-therian: :dragonite: Hiko (2-3) vs (4-1) oldspicemike :lokix: :great-tusk: :ogerpon-wellspring: :corviknight: :slowking-galar: :dragapult:

1LDK: aight campers, weavile deals a massive amount to pult with LO ice shard and pult almost kills with U-turn, remember this turn, it's gonna be important later. Weavile nails a three-piece combo onto oger-w, OHKOing her. Hiko's oger-w uses tera water to force trought corv, but corv lives and uses tera grass to heal back to safety. Which lets pult pick up oger, making the tera useless. Lando reveals EP making Glowking come in for free and slice lando in half with ice beam. Roaring Moon slaps tusk but gets forced out by lokix. Glowking takes a risky gambit but survives and wins a 1v1 vs crunch zama with some help from lokix (zama had a clear amulet btw, early dlc2 looking aaahhh set) Roaring Moon kills glowking and pult revenge kills with draco. Weavile comes back and hiko does a double into dnite predicting corv, at +1 it shits on pult and at +2 it kills corv. Lokix survives but weavile ends the game the same way he started it, ice shard.



I had more written down here but my stupid ass closed the tab. Anyways, the BIGs, Tigers, and Sharks won their sets, with the Classiest/Scooters and Raiders/Ruiners series ending at 6-6 ties.
  • :gardevoir-mega:
    The Classiest remain alone at the top, tying this week to reach 10 points and no series losses yet. There are realistically very few worlds where they miss playoffs.
  • :suicune:
    However, at the bottom, the Cryonicles are at 3 points with 6 possible remaining. It is not mathematically impossible for them to make playoffs, but it is practically impossible.
  • :snorlax:
    The BIGs picked up a second week win in a dominant victory over the Tyrants, doubling their points to (checks notes) 4. Could this be the start of a comeback for the cursed franchise? Is their victory correlated with lax not uploading a cast this week?
  • :alakazam-mega:
    The Scooters' Garay oak is the last remaining undefeated player in SPL XVI, currently 6-0 in ORAS after a thriller match against pj.
  • :marowak-alola:
    Raiders mid-season pickup Endill started this week and immediately got a win, defeating Pak in ADV in what turned out to be crucial to achieving the series tie.
  • :tyrantrum:
    This week saw the official SPL debut of Youtube sensation temp6t, playing for the Tyrants. He defeated Charmflash in SM OU late on Sunday night. Now that I think about it, between blunder, BKC, Luthier (retired), and temp, the Tyrants might have the most Youtubers on their team. Really just missing freezai and aim for the ultimate content core.
In terms of Stuff I'm Noticing (all of these observations were recorded before the Fusien vs. emforbes game, because they are both West Coast and playing close to deadline, I have work in the morning):
  • :gliscor:
    Eleven Gliscor brings this week for just over 25% - this is clearly a mon you have to respect.
  • :garganacl:
    Six Garganacl is the highest it's been in some time, so we are clearly around the peak of its oscillating usage.
  • :blissey:
    Hard stall is 1-1 this week and the win was against a team with a grand total of zero Knock Offs. I'm glad people toned it down from whatever the hell was going on last week.
  • :glimmora:
    Absolutely no Glimmora this week, a contrast to the handful of brings previously.
    :rillaboom:
    Rillaboom is still MIA.
  • :darkrai:
    Darkrai is potentially back with six brings including a Tera Blast Fairy set.
  • :iron-boulder:
    Wait, what the fuck? Two Boulders brought this week and one won. Sure???
Uhh I gotta head out in a bit. I'll append predictions/highlight MUs later. Peace.
 
As an outside observer who rarely follows touneys....
1. Many of these games seemed to centralize heavily around SD :Gliscor:, with many players either bring multiple checks, several surprise tech (Tera Blast Ice Zapdos), or their own SD Scor. I think the game between aesf & mada was interesting in particular since mada basically was able to start dealing lethal danage at the start of the match. I saw a fair amount of Wins / losses for the scor players, but it is an interesting observation.

2. :Corviknight: is rocking a nearly 70% Winrate. After getting shafted on and ridiculed by 1LDK for so long, it is finally establishing itself as the top bird, saving the tier from the likes of Tusk, Gambit, Gliscor, and more. With such a dominant performance, perhaps it's time we took a closer look at it....
 
SPL XVI 1LDK + Ninth reports week 7

Hey, wellcome to week 7, sorry for being so late, IRL issues came up, but we are back on track with some juicy picks and news, come in and join us with a like and suscribe

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:Gardevoir-Mega: Congregation of the Classiest (7) vs (5) Alpha Ruiners :Entei:

:Landorus-Therian: :Roaring Moon: :Gholdengo: :Keldeo: :Ting-Lu: :Pecharunt: Kate vs oldspicemike :Ribombee: :Gholdengo: :Ceruledge: :Great Tusk: :Manaphy: :Roaring Moon:

1LDK: Manaphy Webs vs no removal no boots Ting Lu HO, sure. Once bee sets webs and tricks its specs vs gholdengo, Moon spams knock off no matter how many intimidates lando gets on him, killing lando and knocking pecha's boots in the process. Ting Lu losses most of his health vs +2 dazzling gleam dengo and red cards into ceruledge who doesn't wanna sweep, tusk takes command and rams over pecharunt. Black and White relic scarf keldeo makes an appearance and OHKO's tusk with surf, this of course gives manaphy settup chances. Ting lu gets wiped out of the planet, then both manaphy and roaring moon use tera fairy to take on each other, but manaphy wins thanks to webs. Keldeo does outspeed, but cannot deal the finishing blow. Gholdengo takes a hit thanks to sash and kos manaphy, but at that point, even ribombee can just push dengo into the abyss.

:Primarina: :Great Tusk: :Dragonite: :Scizor: :Pecharunt: :Roaring Moon: leng loi vs Fogbound Lake :Dragonite: :Weezing-Galar: :Darkrai: :Great Tusk: :Alomomola: :Garganacl:

1LDK: I actually left this one for last because look at this bruh

View attachment 719242

People really be tired of Fogbound to be Late's bullshit lmao, anyway as for the match goes this was even funnier because the match lasted less than the scheduling. Fog traded its tera poison for damage on AV prima, both mola and prima pivot into tusk and scizor, both trade knock and damage. Leng's tusk gets rocks, then spams headlong untill mola kills it but its at low health. This is where Lengbron James pulls out roaring mid, i remember in the match thinking "what is this set, tera fairy bulky? that would do some damage" nah its tera ground baby and fog didnt wanna bet for the scald burn, so a +1 tera ground eq bonks weezer, and nite is cb so he cant take shit either and its over.

:Ninetales-Alola: :Roaring Moon: :Deoxys-Speed: :Iron Moth: :Hatterene: :Gliscor: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs pdt :Cinderace: :Great Tusk: :Slowking-Galar: :Dragonite: :Dragapult: :Kingambit:

1LDK: Everyone tought this match was gonna last less than 20 turns, and it lasted 21 turns. deo-s knocks glowking's boots, and then goes gliscor to activate poison heal, dnite forces gliscor out into ninetales-a hoping to pivot an ice spinner, but instead meets a freaky tera flying tera blast, realizing that its band, ninetales can stay and get veil but ace yoinks it, but ninetales encores ace so that he can give it back or be forced out, with both players having aurora veil in their fields, deo-s knock's dragapult's boots and gets kod by hex. Gliscor uses tera normal + double dance to run the fades on dnite, both trade damage, but pdt decides to sack tusk to eq in order to save nite. Gliscor also takes a sucker punch and kills kingambit. While dnite gets the revenge kill on atales, hatterene nuzzles glowking, letting gliscor coming in while glowking suffers from paralisis, one agility, and ace gets smoothered by eq and dnite gets cut in half with facade, winning the game.

:Slowking-Galar: :Garganacl: :Corviknight: :Dragapult: :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Great Tusk: LpZ vs Laroxyl :Zamazenta: :Pecharunt: :Lokix: :Raging Bolt: :Gliscor: :Tinkaton:

1LDK: Ima be real while I was watching this game on the tape, my cat and my dog decided to run the fades on my room like this was a fighting anime and got distracted, btw this match was just Corviknight sweeping Laro's team

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:Lycanroc: Wi-Fi Wolfpack (7) vs (5) Team Raiders :Marowak-Alola:

:Ting-Lu: :Glimmora: :Zamazenta: :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Dragonite: :Hatterene: Ewin vs Eternal Spirit :Gholdengo: :Dragonite: :Great Tusk: :Enamorus: :Ogerpon-Cornerstone: :Hatterene:

1LDK: Both ogers start the match, but wellspring decides it's better for glimm to take it, red card into tusk makes it take tspikes, hatt tanks the headlong and wants to kiss tusk but ghold quagmires the hatt. Ting Lu comes on a nasty plot, 2 MiRs and 1 shuca berry for ting lu and it's out. Gamma uses dnite to scout for the ogerpon set, which looks to be taunt + 3 moves, zama takes an eq and uses howl, tusk sacks itself to spin the t spikes and forcing zama to use cc on it. Enam comes and hatterene gets thrown to scout for scarf or specs, turns out its scarf, so glim comes to revenge kill but enam uses tera fairy to kill it, which forces dnite to use tera fire, hatt takes a fire punch and nuzzles it. Paralisis + Scale shot misses cost dnite everything and Ewin loses to enam

:Primarina: :Gliscor: :Pecharunt: :Garganacl: :Zamazenta: :Kingambit: Stareal vs Hiko :Clefable: :Gliscor: :Skarmory: :Weavile: :Ting-Lu: :Slowking-Galar:

1LDK: This is a must win game for both teams, whoever loses this one is out of SPL, and with those stakes, let's see what happened. Hiko's gliscor uses tera normal turn 1 to take a surf from prima and knock her item off. Skarmory walls gliscor but has to run away from prima and garg, yet glowking deals with both, so now everyone has to be careful, this switching / hit-and-run tactics continue until Weavile hits pecha with a knock off, but he survives and counters with a malignant chain that badly poisons it. Weavile does manage to deal half to zama with a triple axel and a 1/3 of a crit, switching around with rocks up makes skarmory get in range of a +3 tera normal facade, killing him instantly. Gliscor then deals 77% of ting lu with another facade, gets subbed out, and while ting lu does get a layer of spikes, he dies to pecha. With both walls down, Hiko's game falls apart pretty much with glowking throwing a twave on gambit but gambit powers on and suckers out weavile. Gliscor ALMOST haxes kingambit with para, but loses anyway. CM Clef tries to make one last run in, but good positioning from both Primarina with encore and zama with heavy slam ensures Stareal's victory. The wolfpack is barely alive, and the raiders have officially lost all chance to qualify

:Weavile: :Dragonite: :Gliscor: :Clefable: :Corviknight: :Ting-Lu: clean vs Yovan :Meowscarada: :Iron Crown: :Iron Hands: :Ting-Lu: :Dragonite: :Primarina:

1LDK: this was the match before hiko vs stareal, both teams really needed to win, so of course clean puts out the evil ass clef team. Corv walls Meow, +2 hands chips clef, ting lu dodges a fat focus blast, Corv and Prima brawl out a bit with prima winning, but it's effectively dead because of hazards. Both Ting Lus get max hazards, Yovan whirlwinds into weavile who barely missed the KO on ting lu and takes over half with eq, but ice shard secures the kill. Crown takes hazards and kills gliscor, ting lu takes hazards and forces crown out, hands takes hazards, dies, Meow takes hazards, kills ting lu. Yovan uses tera ghost meow to OHKO nite. Weavile kos meow. dragonite comes in clef, crown comes takes hazards kills weavile you know the drill. Clef comes back in and uses tera poison + twave, to hax dnite, winning the game

:Corviknight: :Darkrai: :Gholdengo: :Ting-Lu: :Great Tusk: :Dragapult: One Last Kiss vs Suzuya :Weavile: :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Roaring Moon: :Zamazenta: :Iron Treads: :Iron Moth:

1LDK: In what might be the worst game of this SPL, we see treads sacking himself for some damage, we see band pult take a hit from oger-w and pivot out from moth into ting lu, weavile hits axel but gets 2/3 and gets a red card, Moon comes in after another whirlwind and also gets whirlwind, ting lu decides to not kill moth, but instead he gets rocks + 1 layer of spikes, we then see pult showing off band by killing moth. Weavile comes in and grabs a sd on the tusk switch in and KOs it with LO ice shard. Now, if you look at the state of the game, tera fire or tera dark zama can easily win from here if he is careful with how he handles the obvious scarf darkrai on the back. But with +2 weavile, he can easily grab a turn by sacking itself while KOing corv right? WRONG, Suzuya uses tera ice and his whole game goes down, because now darkrai tricks zama for free. dragapult takes out moon, zama comes again... and uses bp when OLK's last 2 mons were ghosts, now this is obviously a missclick but man. And btw OLK still had tera so tera fairy gholdengo with dazz just pim pam pums the game

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:Suicune: Cryonicles (3) vs (9) Stark Sharks :Garchomp:

:Gholdengo: :Ribombee: :Glimmora: :Zamazenta: :Suicune: :Roaring Moon: zS vs Niko :Zamazenta: :Garganacl: :Gliscor: :Corviknight: :Clefable: :Kingambit:

1LDK: This is the rare Niko bringing fat balance into sv, when he was mostly known for janky HOs, which is just what the doctor ordered for zS's team who funnily enough, it would've done well vs these teams. Clef gets rocks vs bee and gliscor gets spikes up at the cost of its life. Zama comes in to finish the bee and glimmora uses this as entry point for red carding into clef, Corv easily washes down the HO rock. What I think its shuca berry gholdengo comes in to put some good damage into corv and zama but its forced out thanks to hazard stacking and bee gets sacked. Niko pivots around zS's LO zama with clef and corv, both die but the self damage from LO is massive, which lets Kingambit kill with sucker punch thanks to the -1. Kingambit trades itself for suicune who tries to bait sucker punches with CM but fails. With roaring moon killing kingambit, both it and garg use tera, ground and fairy respectively. Id garg makes quick work of garg, and gholdengo who ends up being custap berry, cannot do any damage to it.

:Raging Bolt: :Slowking-Galar: :Iron Valiant: :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Avalugg-Hisui: :Gliscor: crying vs Ahy Wddicted :Dragapult: :Ting-Lu: :Cinderace: :Gliscor: :Corviknight: :Weezing-Galar:

1LDK: Crying has brought the bottom of the barrel of shit mons, peak crying gameplay with avalugg hisui who actually makes ting lu trip with mountain gale flinch, Corv comes in and avalugg sets veil on that. Corv shits on both lugg and gliscor, so raging bolt has to put in work, both ting lu and weezing galar have to team up vs it, and while ting lu dies, both manage to stall out veil, which lets ace kill. Both Gliscor and corv set up to +6, while gliscor uses tera ghost + scale shot and dual wingbeat to chip it, corv was click id + bp to stall it. Then suddenly ahy realizes gliscor is at -6 defense, and lets weezer come in thanks to a slow U-turn, gliscor then suddenly loses 100000000000000000% of its health, crying forfets.

:Kyurem: :Skeledirge: :Iron Treads: :Samurott-Hisui: :Zamazenta: :Moltres-Galar: Vivalospride vs Lily :Dragonite: :Ogerpon: :Ting-Lu: :Gholdengo: :Moltres: :Clefable:

ninth: Originally slated to be TPP, the Cryos decided to substitute in UU tier leader vivalospride to battle UU tier leader Lily. True to his job, vivalos has 2 UUs in Skeledirge and Moltres-Galar. His whole team is kind of a weird hyper offense that just has Samurott-Hisui, Treads, and a bunch of setup spammers between the aforementioned two and Zamazenta. Guessing the Kyurem is some kind of wallbreaker set because otherwise it might have trouble with teams like Lily's, a fat LuGholdNite balance featuring Clefable on utility duty. Ogerpon-Teal works well on fatter structures as a Boots mon with the combination of fast Encore and U-Turn for infinite momentum, complete with Knock Off. It can cycle back and forth with contact punishing demon Moltres forever to make physical attacks permanently unsafe. vivalos starts with Skeledirge, who immediately starts clicking Torch Song, but it gets Knocked, does a cool 22% to Moltres-Kanto, and gets Roared out. Roar calls in vivalos' own Moltres-Galar, who misses a Hurricane and does about as much before Lily brings in Ting-Lu, sets up a spike, and runs it out of town. This Whirlwind pulls out Kyurem, who Icicle Spears for Big Damage (it doesn't kill) before getting kicked into Treads, who can finally Rapid Spin away the spike. vivalos tries his hand at Skeledirge again, but Ting-Lu comes back out, dodges some Wisps, and believe it or not there's a spike on the floor again. Moltres-Galar finally gets the kill on the Lu, and Lily deploys her Dragonite to start setting up: this necessitates the appearance of vivalos' Zamazenta, which reveals a set that is walled by Clefable.
Gonna be honest here this whole team from vivalos is walled by Moltres and none of them have boots. Lily stays in for 6 turns just Roaring and Wisping, racking up chip until Roar eventually pulls Samurott while it's in kill range. Now Lily has to go Ogerpon and Encore on the Razor Shell drop, and the Ogerpon is the first death as Dirge torches it. Lily takes the revenge kill with Dragonite, then uses Tera Normal to stop vivalos' incoming Kyurem and force the Treads sack. His initial threat of Zamazenta doesn't work out as Lily just Roosts on the attempted double, restoring Multiscale and enabling a bit more chip on Zama. Now, there's two Dark-types, a Dragon-type, and a Fighting-type left, and Lily has a Clefable. Even when vivalos hits Tera Ghost on the Moltres-Galar, flinches the Ghold, and forces a half-health Clef to come in, Hurricane isn't a guaranteed kill from 52%; he has to pray for a Fiery Wrath flinch that doesn't come, and the Clef ends the interaction with two kills and half health. Kyurem finally kills it, but at this point the Dragonite can revenge kill it and Moltres walls the Zama to hell and back.

:Clefable: :Pecharunt: :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Tornadus-Therian: :Great Tusk: :Kingambit: Pais vs Attribute :Gliscor: :Corviknight: :Dragapult: :iron Treads: :Deoxys-Speed: :Roaring Moon:

ninth: Do you like birds? We have some birds in this game. Attribute has the increasingly common Gliscor/Corviknight bird core, but this time it's on what looks like hard HO with Roaring Moon, Dragapult, and Deoxys, alongside common HO spinner Treads. I was a little confused at first but both birds are capable of setup sets. On Pais' side we have Clefable x Torn-T, yeah nice Masters team. Those two are actually interesting choices for special attackers (and the latter as speed control-ish) complementing the Wellspring/Tusk/Gambit physical overload core, and the presence of Pecharunt allows them easier entry via Parting Shot. I figured the Torn was probably AV because this structure normally has AV Glowking, and I was right [lebron knowing kobe would get 81 voice], as it gets Knocked turn 1 by Deoxys. Bleakwind Storm is really more like Weakwind Storm as it doesn't even do half to Deoxys, who is Rocky Helmet Recover Thunder Wave (nice clef larp), meaning it takes hardly anything from Knock and paralyzes the Torn for good measure. A series of nice doubles from Attribute allows his Gliscor to get activated against Torn-T and set up SD, scout out Wellspring's Encore, confirming he doesn't have it, then Tera Normal Facade - Pais rescues it by going hard Pecharunt on the Facade, then hitting Tera Dark Foul Play on EQ to threaten the Gliscor, though it doesn't 2HKO Gliscor's bulky ass and both just leave the scene. Please note that the Ghost-type is now a Dark-type, this will be on the exam.
Another round of Gliscor vs. Wellspring ensues, but this time Gliscor isn't +2 and Pais' Wellspring can set a Spike and Synthesis on the Protects. Clef and Deoxys exchange chip and both get knocked eventually before Attribute uses Treads to remove the Spike, though Pais threatens it with Tusk and just sets Rocks. After a brief moment of Pais getting his Gambit in position before realizing it's Fallen: 0 and tickles Corv, we get another round of Deoxys vs. Clefable and I think both mons end the interaction with more health than previously. The Deoxys gets a little more chip on Torn until Pais eventually U-Turns into Gambit, and Attribute opts to Knock its Leftovers and let the Deoxys die. Pais' Flamethrower Clefable takes the kill on Treads, but not before it sets rocks. Without LO in hand, though, Moonblast narrowly misses a kill on Attribute's Gliscor, and it scares it out. What's still scary for Attribute is Headlong Rush from Tusk, and Attribute throws away Pult to that extent. Now, Mr. Bute is down 3-6, but a lot of Pais' team is heavily chipped, and wouldn't you know it - Pais Tera'd his only Fighting immunity 44 turns ago. Corviknight comes in and reveals Iron Defense Body Press (yes, this set also has Brave Bird - it's no U-Turn), takes nothing from the non-Heat Wave Torn, and the game legit just ends. Flamethrower Clef doesn't get close enough to a kill, and no crit comes from Ivy Cudgel.

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:Snorlax: Ever Grande BIGS (6) vs (6) Circus Maximus Tigers :Raikou:

:Milotic: :Gliscor: :Skarmory: :Pecharunt: :Clefable: :Darkrai: lax vs DugZa :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Enamorus: :Darkrai: :Iron Moth: :Scizor: :Great Tusk:

ninth: Milotic Clefable Gliscor balance is back on the menu...I saw that first slot on lax's team and immediately got flashbacks to that xavgb squad from SCL III. The point of Milotic on these structures is as a reasonably fast bulky Water with access to Haze and Scald that can also be a backup status sponge thanks to Marvel Scale boosting its defense. 95/125 special defenses make it a good counterpart to mons that typically skew physically defensive like Skarmory and Pecharunt, not to mention it's the only Water resist on the whole team. Darkrai is the designated attacker here. On the other side we have DugZa with just straight HO. Moth + Enamorus on HO feels like a bit of a throwback but it's cool, them and Wellspring are all in that slightly bulkier 350-ish speed range. Notably DugZa's choice of priority here is Scizor. lax and DugZa lead with Clef and Darkrai respectively. Darkrai Tricks and somehow both parties end up worse, as it acquires a Sticky Barb (and paralysis) and Clef acquires a Scarf. lax switches in Pecharunt to Parting Shot for a bit of momentum and brings the Scarf Clef right back in, trading rocks with DugZa's Tusk. The -1 Tusk proceeds to get outdueled by Pech and die, as Headlong Rush is doing a cool 39% and no crit occurs. lax's Pech even manages to survive a shot from Moth and Parting Shoot itself back out into Milotic.
DugZa intends to absorb a Water move with Wellspring, but lax reveals Dragon Tail and drags Moth back in for a kill. DugZa's Wellspring does still have the ability to force things, making lax sack Pecharunt and take heavy damage on Darkrai to take it out. It looks like an opportunity for his Scizor, but lax's Skarmory completely walls it even at +2. Whirlwind pulls his Darkrai, and lax sacks his own Darkrai to bring in his Tera Normal Gliscor. A paralysis helps it get an SD and survive Darkrai with full health, and now the only thing DugZa can do is Tera Fairy his Enamorus and pray it can oneshot. It doesn't, and somehow Scizor's Bullet Punch can't finish the kill either. lax finishes the battle 4-0 as part of his attempt to Lock In and save the BIGs.

:Ninetales: :Venusaur: :Walking Wake: :Roaring Moon: :Great Tusk: :Corviknight: bhkg vs 3d :Zamazenta: :Ninetales-Alola: :Darkrai: :Kingambit: :Kyurem: :Hatterene:

ninth: I guess we're weather warring now. bhkg has Ninetales Venusaur sun HO, 3d has Veil + setup HO. I'll note that bhkg's team has more of a defensive backbone with Corv and Tusk, while 3d is just going for full-on violence - his Fire resist is Kyurem. The key here is going to be keeping weather up, as the second bhkg sets sun up, 3d hard switches to snow. Two doubles lead to two U-Turns for bhkg's Corviknight, giving his Walking Wake space to come in and Flamethrower 3d's 0 fallen Kingambit to death. This is it for bhkg's Corv, though, as 3d's LO Zamazenta comes in and necessitates its death, costing the Zama about half of its health due to Helmet. The Zama obtains half-health chip on Venusaur before dying, but this just means that the Venusaur - not under sun - is setup fodder for 3d's DD Kyurem. A DD and Scale Shot later and it's scary hours for bhkg, who has to exhaust Tera Fire on his Tusk to kill the Kyurem.
bhkg sets up Sun for a grand total of two (2) turns before 3d's own Ninetales comes back in: it gets Knocked by Moon before 3d's Red Card Darkrai ejects it, but the interaction also reveals that the Moon is not Choiced. The Wake, however, is, and forces the Darkrai sacrifice and necessitates Tera Water Hatterene from 3d. It starts clicking CM and now bhkg has to figure out a way to break it: his response is to send out Ninetales, Healing Wish his Fire-type +Attack Tusk, and mash Headlong Rush twice. Draining Kiss just barely heals enough back for it to survive two HLRs, though, and the Hatterene gets the kill and brings itself back to half health. Wake comes in to try and Draco - and this is where things get real interesting. 3d hard switches to Ninetales to absorb the Draco, and sets up Veil as bhkg's Moon comes in. However, bhkg intentionally avoids clicking the 4x effective Iron Head, instead spamming not-very-effective moves to kill it as slowly as possible and run out the truncated Veil. This times it so that Veil wears off exactly as bhkg's Moon comes in to click Draco against Hatterene for the win. (The Draco crit anywayas, but we'll call it RNG manipulation.)

:Dragonite: :Ting-Lu: :Pecharunt: :Weavile: :Iron Crown: :Keldeo-Resolute: emforbes vs Storm Zone :Venusaur: :Great Tusk: :Comfey: :Kingambit: :Torkoal: :Walking Wake:

ninth: Is Storm Zone trying to make Comfey a thing again? It's on sun HO so Synthesis heals 66%. Also interested in the increased Venusaur Gaming this week, and Storm's still bringing good ol' Overgod (Kingambit) instead of Roaring Moon even on sun. emforbes I'm pretty sure just has the Ting-Lu Pecharunt Keldeo spikestack sample team but he replaced the Tinkaton with Iron Crown, which has no utility besides Volt Switch but does about ten times more damage. Volt Switch is the click T1 as Storm leads Torkoal, and emforbes brings in Red Card Lu as Storm attacks, pulling Venusaur - who needs to boost - and allowing him to set rocks against the incoming Wake. He is forced to Tera Water against the Wake, which allows him to set a spike. As the Wake reveals it's not Choiced, emforbes then opts for the anti-BKC maneuver and sets a second layer before Ruinating for half and dying. Weavile comes in for the revenge kill...but Triple Axel only hits twice and it gets fried by Hydro Steam. That's not good news for emforbes, and neither is the Wake turning Tera Ghost on Keldeo's Vacuum Wave, Dracoing it for a third kill before sun fades.
Storm Zone now has a secondary mission: get all this stuff off the floor. emforbes can theoretically run him out of Headlong Rushes if he gets every switch right with Pecharunt and Dragonite, and he burns two of Storm's HLRs before Mr. Zone goes hard Balloon Gambit on Pech, using this as a chance to break Dragonite's Mutiscale. Somehow this exact line repeats itself, but now that Gambit has broken Dragonite's Multiscale, +1 Kowtow just kills Dragonite straight up. Two Dark-weaks left means that emforbes realistically has no path out of this. I was hoping for the Comfey to hit the field once but a win is a win. His aura made the Triple Axel hit twice, let's say that.

:Deoxys-Speed: :Gholdengo: :Ting-Lu: :Zamazenta: :Okidogi: :Dragonite: tko vs JJ09LIE :Iron Moth: :Landorus-Therian: :Roaring Moon: :Dragapult: :Iron Crown: :Primarina:

ninth: JJ09LIE has Prime Pult but he replaced the Kingambit with Roaring Moon and the Samurott with Moth. Go read the RMT. (The swap is actually interesting as Gambit has been falling out of favor in general and people are running bulky-ass Moons.) tko has an Okidogi so you know lax built this, I bet this thing is AV too. Constant threat of Knock Off and Toxic whenever it attacks kind of makes it the polar opposite of Zapdos in a way? It's a good offensive presence and method of making progress on slightly fatter structures like the LuGholdNiteZama going on here, although this is a reasonably offensive take here with Deoxys as the utility/speed piece. Okidogi ends up being the switch-in to Primarina (took 36% from Surf I KNEW it was AV), which means JJ has to bring in his Landorus, which just EQs and gibs the dog. Featured shitter is dead on Turn 3, blunder would be proud. tko sponges a U-Turn with Red Card Ting-Lu, which brings out JJ's +Speed Moon a bit early. Acro does 20%, dawg these fat Moons are out of control. The Lu gets to set Ruinate, set rocks, and Whirlwind until it dies because JJ has no Boots (although his Lando does get up rocks itself).
tko deploys Gholdengo against JJ's Crown, and Makes it Rain on the switch as JJ throws out his Moon. There is, however, another issue for tko: JJ09LIE's Iron Moth outspeeds tko's entire team and got a Fiery Dance boost on the Ghold. Tera Fairy Dazzling Gleam destroys Zama, and tko hits Tera Ground on Dragonite to set up and try to claw it back. Unfortunately for him, the Moth is Fire Blast too, which is definitely greedy as hell but it guarantees the kill on Dragonite and the game. Gotta say I fully respect this JJ09LIE take of just taking Prime Pult and changing every set.

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:Alakazam-Mega: Indie Scooters (5) vs (7) Dragonspiral Tyrants :Tyrantrum:

:Weavile: :Landorus-Therian: :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Roaring Moon: :Zamazenta: :Dragonite: robjr vs myjava :Gliscor: :Pecharunt: :Ting-Lu: :Rotom-Wash: :Tinkaton: :Deoxys-Speed:

ninth: This new Tinkaton sprite is incredible. It blocks the mon to the left with the big-ass hammer and it hides itself behind the mon to the right. No notes. myjava has Ting-Lu hazard/Ruination/Whirlwind spam balance, with the Lu accompanied by spinblocker Pecharunt and two Ground-immunes in Gliscor and Rotom-Wash. Rotom's popped up a bit recently as a sensibly bulky, sensibly fast Wisp and Volt Switch user that's immune to Spikes and also completely ruins Great Tusk's day. Tinkaton compresses utility and Deoxys handles speed duties, as usual, but the real funny thing going on here is robjr's team, which appears to comprise six fucking physical attackers between base 80 and 138 speed. There's a Weavile in the first slot, this is the most obvious Beat Up setup I've ever seen. He went to the builder and sorted by Attack stat. Anyways what you want to watch here is myjava's two main status inflicters in Rotom and Pecharunt, which are both physdef either naturally or by build. rob gets rocks up early but java replies with his own. Rotom forces basically all of rob's team to switch, including Landorus, and java ends up hitting Weavile with a burn, meaning rob just lets it die to Tinkaton as a result. Wellspring, who lowkey kills most of java's mons with setup, gets the revenge kill, but has to run from Pecharunt and necessitates the death of Landorus by Malignant Chain.
An opportunity arises as robjr deploys Roaring Moon, forcing myjava to hard switch to Lu as it DDs up. If this is Taunt and/or Tera Blast Fairy, it might just win here. Unfortunately for rob it is none of those sets, clicks Acro for a whopping 42%, and gets Whirlwinded out. rob tries to bring it back in to get set up again, but java just flips between Pecharunt and Lu, the latter of which still walls and Whirlwinds it. Out comes Wellspring, and rob goes for a desperation Swords Dance that doesn't pay off in the slightest as Malignant Chain nearly kills, then poison finishes the job. The Tera Fairy Pecharunt claims another kill on Moon, and it's looking pretty over, but rob has one more attempt: Tera Steel Heavy Slam Iron Defense Zamazenta. It forces the Pecharunt to hard switch into Gliscor, who has to start SDing up to try and go band for band. java narrowly escapes the predicament as Gliscor is fat enough to live 2 Presses after Protects, leaving the Zama in Rocky Helmet range, and rob's Dragonite in range of Deoxys' Ice Beam. I thought this was joever early on, because loading Beat Up into Pecharunt x Rotom is crazy, but that Zama made it pretty close. Cool game.

:Kyurem: :Great Tusk: :Slowking-Galar: :Corviknight: :Kingambit: :Dragapult: TheFranklin vs vk :Ting-Lu: :Glimmora: :Roaring Moon: :Dragapult: :Ogerpon-Wellspring: :Iron Valiant:

ninth: We're Glimmora Gaming, folks, vk has brought the weird rock flower thing. It's found itself onto a Ting-Lu HO structure, where it is the sole spinner for four demonic sweepers in Moon/Valiant/Dragapult/Wellspring. Lu on HO may seem oxymoronic at first but this mon is basically a guaranteed 100+% worth of healthbar damage over a game, which is often all you need to overcome a soft check and keep a sweep going, and Whirlwind also helps to disrupt an enemy HO setup. TheFranklin has Corviknight/Glowking/Kyurem BO, you know what this does, you Chilly into Kyurem and click Ice moves ad infinitum, Corv and Tusk are both designated removal to protect the president. Kingambit's here! Never thought I would be excited to see this bastard but he's been quiet lately. The game opens with vk's LO Dragapult whiffing a Draco but nonetheless doing a ridiculous amount of work, as it Darts the Glowking, Shadow Balls it as it cycles back in to bring it to critical health, then vk hard Fire Blasts the incoming Kingambit for 77%. That's easily his money's worth out of the Pult. vk brings out his Wellspring on Franklin's Tusk, forcing him to go hard Kyurem; vk attempts a Play Rough, but it also goes to the left and the Pon gets freeze-dried to death.
Still not a ton Franklin can do about that LO Pult, which revenges the Kyurem and gets out unscathed. Franklin gains a bit of tempo as he gets Tusk in on Lu, allowing him to set Rocks and kill the Lu, but his lack of CC and vk's Rocky Helmet means the Tusk leaves the encounter at 26% and -2/-2 defenses. Dragapult cooks again, frying the Tusk, and Franklin finally ends its reign of terror with Kingambit's Sucker. He's expended plenty of resources to get here, though, and vk's Red Card Glimmora can now free-fire to kill Gambit and chip the Glowking. I haven't mentioned this yet but Franklin's Dragapult is Band Phantom Force, which means it has to run from Roaring Moon, which means Roaring Moon gets a turn of setup. One crit Knock on the Corviknight and the game is done for.

:Magnezone: :Slowking-Galar: :Keldeo: :Great Tusk: :Zapdos: :Dragapult: Nat vs Fusien :Weavile: :Clefable: :Gliscor: :Toxapex: :Ting-Lu: :Skarmory:

ninth: This team from Fusien is fat as hell. Respect the Yasiin Bey nicknames though. The core here is double birds (Gliscor and Skarmory) paired with Ground-weak terrorist Toxapex, who has always been an extremely bulky and obnoxious mon since it dropped. Lu and Clefable do hazard stuff, Weavile is the token attacker, this is just one of those passive fat squads that outlives the opponent. Nat has a Magnezone which serves to trap and kill fat Steels like Skarmory and Corv. There's a Glowking and a Dragapult here too, this is just a SWSH team with Great Tusk. Two thirds of ZapKingLu are in attendance (the Lu is absent) to click Future Sight and switch around for eternity, assisted by more offensive pivot-move-clickers in Keldeo and Dragapult. Also Nat's really been pushing the alt rule this season but I respect it lol. Fusien's Ting-Lu runs into Nat's CC Great Tusk, and it watches Nat get up rocks, gets up no hazards of its own, and has to run from the 2HKO with CC. He has to bring out Skarmory, but Nat Headlong Rushes (this ironically works fine for her as Skarm is probably Helmet and would have killed Tusk) and then just shuffles in her Magnezone, which survives Body Press to trap and oneshot the bird. Magnezone: Mission Accomplished.
Fusien's second most active mon on this team is somehow Infestation Toxapex, but every mon on Nat's team except for Tusk has a pivot move lol. Also, Fusien's Dark/Ice Weavile is scared of Nat's Ghost/Dragon Dragapult because it's faster and oneshots with Band U-Turn (is that Band? It does a goddamn lot with U-Turn) so that's not an outstanding vector for progress on his part either. There's no contact punishment left alive either so Nat can hit U-Turn forever. Gonna be honest the rest of this game is Fusien's one-offense team bleeding out. His one method of offensive pressure (Weavile) can't oneshot Colbur Glowking even with a crit Knock and has to run whenever Keldeo or Dragapult show up. Future Sight falls out of the sky to fry the Pex. Magnezone Body Presses the Ting-Lu to kill it, and in the face of SD Gliscor, Nat accelerates her victory by using Tera Blast Ice Zapdos. This game is super over. Tera Steel Clef isn't enough and it drops to Zone too. Weavile at least revenge kills to avoid the 6-0 (and reveals the Zone was AV), but it's a completely dominant victory from Nat who seemed very ready to punish Fusien's fat. Magnezone MVP for sure.

:Darkrai: :Pecharunt: :Gliscor: :Tinkaton: :Moltres: :Walking Wake: aesf vs Mada :Dondozo: :Corviknight: :Gliscor: :Clodsire: :Blissey: :Toxapex:

ninth: Mada has stall and aesf has Pecharunt Moltres Tinkaton status spam balance. My eyes hurt looking at this team preview. aesf says he should've eaten lunch before the game and he might be right; at least he has a raw Walking Wake to make it interesting somewhat. We got two Gliscor staring at each other, but Mada's is SD Knock and forces Tera Dark out of Pecharunt very early. When aesf Parting Shoots into Darkrai, Mada hits Tera Normal Facade on the predicted Ice Beam, though Pecharunt just comes out again. Gliscor sets up more and just two-shots the Pech, and somehow Tera Dark Foul Play does under half to +3 Gliscor. Tough scenes. aesf's Darkrai is pretty strong but can't 2HKO or flinch with Dark Pulse, meaning it also drops to Facade.
aesf deploys This A Walking Wake to finally scare out the Scor, but in comes Mada's Blissey, who gets Knocked out of its boots. This gives aesf's Gliscor a chance to set spikes, but only Moltres actively threatens Mada's Corv and it can Defog them away instantly. Moltres gets Knocked by Gliscor, then Mada deploys Infestation Toxapex to trap and very, very slowly whittle away at Tinkaton, dropping it to half health. It briefly does the same to Moltres before it gets Roared out, then nabs the Wake with yet another Infestation. This time it isn't Encored and can Toxic the Wake, leaving it dead to rights, and aesf forfeits. At least he can go eat lunch I guess.​

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and thats week 7, once again sorry for the delay, this project is mad exausting ngl. as far as news go:

:corviknight: ninth wants me to talk about how good corv is doing, because its walling all the gliscors and pechas, I actually toned down the hate after I got some feedback. Still, this is more for charity than anything and I still dont find the apeall of the bird, and never will probably.

:tinkaton: this sprite fucking sucks lmaoooo I fucking hate gamefreak bum ass company

:gardevoir mega: the classiest are 100% in, congrats

:snorlax: :marowak-alola: while not out on a mathematical standpoint, having only 1.2% chances to make it means both raiders and bigs are eliminated from the tour, -Tsunami- is already writing the eulogys even. also the :suicune: cryos are also out as fuck idk if we mentioned that

This leaves sharks, tigers, ruiners, scooters, wolfpack and tyrants as the remainder fighters

And for the final predicts ninth and 1LDK posted the same record this week at 30-27. Overall, both are trailing The Ape by a few games: ninth leads 202-207 to 1LDK's 200-209.

Now if you excuse me, theres a couple of plants I need to water because I forgot to do it yesterday and they gonna die from global warming
 
As we head into the final week of the regular season, it's time to reveal my shortlist for the seasons top awards: pokemon edition. These awards showcase what mons really excelled throughout almost 200 games, in a stabilized but still very variable meta.

Rookie of the Year - Runners Up
:Goodra-Hisui: With only 2 uses, Hoodra didn't make a huge impact, but both were wins and it did hold its own in these games. Dragon steel is a pretty solid type combo and in this heavy bulk meta, dragon tail + poison immunity is pretty valuable.
:Keldeo: While not a true rookie (2 uses last year) Keldeo made it's mark this year in a very popular team and beyond, flexing its classic and new tools as well as a prime type combo on its way to 60% win rate.
:Araquanid: The Better Webs Settertm has an average 50% win rate at the time of writing but it made its mark with 10 uses and solid in game impact.
Winner: :Pecharunt: Unbelievable rookie campaign from the goat, he literally went lebron james becoming a top 10 player as a rookie. This is legendary stuff and a well deserved accolade, and particularly unique to see it in a weak rookie class.


Defensive Player of the Year - Runners Up
:Pecharunt: The rookie of the year also held one of the top defensive roles this year, flexing into many balance teams as a sturdier replacement for Gholdengo. All that was said above relies on the efficiency of this role, and the combination of that defence with the pivoting and status offerings gave unique and powerful benefits.
:Zamazenta: For a pokemon with an ability that boosts its defence to not win DPOY means it isn't really trying to, and this is true of zama. While used more often as an offensive pivot, it earns a runner up here as its defensive benefits for those offensive teams, something that really cannot be replicated by others.
:Corviknight: Despite the constant negative press covfefe... Corviknight is BACK! The metal bird retained an insane 69% win rate this season and edged up to 13th in usage, putting up a legendary defensive season that in any other year would probably win the DPOY. This is truly something that could be the best defensive mon on a championship team, a mon that offers insane value and adaptation.
Winner: :Ting-Lu: Top 3 in usage, and he controls the metagame. Love him or hate him he is inevitable and the heights to which this defensive beast has climbed puts him as the DPOY for this season. Hazards and phasing have defined the season, with once proud threats like Raging Bolt and Sun taking a big step back as a result.


Most Improved - Runners Up

:Latios: Latios is a pokemon that did not seem alive last season, posting only 1 appearance. This season is different, as levitate proved extra valuable in a spiky battlefield. 13 uses and a positive win rate are a clear step up for a mon once called OUs biggest threat.
:Moltres: The discovery of Moltres as a major metagame player happened during the SPL offseason, and it shows. Last season Moltres had a strong but quiet 8 uses, which increased to 25 this season. A positive win rate showcases strength even in the face of increasing metagame preparation: stone edge Zamazenta is a real set now.
:Tinkaton: Tink has been on again off again for OU but last season was a disctinctly off period. The hammer posted 3 wins in only 4 uses, a number which this season rose all the way to 27 uses, and a solid 15 wins. Just in time (lol) his model was added!
Winner: :Scizor: No one expected to see the bug here. With a paltry 7 uses and a negative win rate last season, it seemed he was destined to be a UU threat for eternity. But this season he climbed to 18 uses and a strong 12 wins, posting one of the best win rates in the tier. Relying more on U-turn than its admittedly weak SD BP set, and mixing in options like Dual Wingbeat, the red bug continues to adapt and improve.


Most Valuable Pokemon - Runners Up
:Great Tusk: The perpetual top 3 mon came in as the scoring champ this year, notching 59 wins at the time of writing. A write-in mention for most improved despite his high status, he has already exceeded his total wins from last season. Hazard removal, defensive synergy, and strong ground type attacks are as valuable as ever and he remains as important today as he was on day 1 of SV.
:Dragonite: Peaking at 4th place in the usage statistics, Dragonite enjoys the benefits of flying type and multiscale now more than ever. Defense, Offense, Counter-Offense, and even Counter-Defense (?) were highly effective from the og this season.
Winner: :Gliscor: Yeaaaaaaaaaahhh its BAT time everyone. Rising into the top 5 at a time when the metagame seems perfectly suited for his success, Gliscor posted the second most wins of any pokemon, at a rate of over 60%. This is dominance pure and simple, a pokemon who's every aspect wields advantages vs others and can adapt to any scenario. Currently in talks for another suspect, this pokemon deserves its spot in the SV Hall of Fame as a perpetual threat and the most valuable pokemon in the game.

Conclusion: This is my ballot but it doesn't have to be yours, the metagame is open to interpretation and all the honourable mentions deserve their... well, honours I guess. As we head into playoffs there will no doubt be a Finals MVP race to watch, but for now its time to see if any of the eliminated teams load Toedscruel this week.
 
Extrapolating the usage stats + from the games I've watched:

- zama & lu have settled in nicely from the explosive start they had week 1 usage wise
- lots of fun tera blast variations this last week (water blast moon & electric blast keldeo)
- dnite & pech have firmly established themselves as high tier staples. The former also has seen more experimentation, finally, and is shaping up to be a very nice volcarona analog.
- in a similar vein, roaring moon has been a nice dnite sidegrade with more power in exchange for less splashability
- the 3rd best (read worst) dd mon in the tier, kyurem, had been on fraud watch all tour. Abysmal sheet stats and even in game I'm left wondering if it's good at its job.
- clef has way more usage than I thought it would, not always the flashiest mon but it's great glue as always
- prim, glimm and wake are massive losers here, finding it hard to find themselves on a 6. However both waters are still quite strong at least, wake working as a nice keldeo sidegrade and prima still having no switchins
- contact birds are down loads, good news for rng haters, corv is up big time with a 70% wr. Ban corv when?
- not just necessarily in spl but taunt has seen a huge resurgence recently and has been immensely valuable at farming these fatter structures that have been circulating
 
SPL XVI SV OU Recap: Ran Out Of Time For A Funny Title
by 1LDK and ninth
Welcome to Week 8. We're in for a rather unique slate of games this week. Two series pit bubble teams against each other on the verge of playoffs, as the Tigers and Scooters rematch from last year's semifinals and the Ruiners and Wolfpack fight for a chance. The Tyrants have to take down the dominant Classiest to keep their fate in their own hands, while the Sharks just need to not throw against the eliminated BIGs to lock playoffs in. And we've also got a series that absolutely doesn't matter in the slightest, as the eliminated Cryos and Raiders face each other. Are we gonna keep Corviknight-maxxing or will 1LDK be vindicated? Tune in to find out...



:raikou:
Circus Maximus Tigers (8)
vs (7) Indie Scooters
:alakazam-mega:

:hatterene: :ogerpon: :iron-crown: :deoxys-speed: :indeedee: :armarouge: Storm Zone (5-2) vs (2-4) hellom :roaring-moon: :gholdengo: :ogerpon-wellspring: :deoxys: :iron-valiant: :landorus-therian:

1LDK: Psyspam! Groovy and cheesy too! With ogerpon and gholdengo trading, with indeede taking a healing wish, and hatt using trick room, it takes control of the match by killing dengo, and deoS. Ogerpon teal uses tera to dump on valiant who btw lost the booster in a scary encounter with armarouge. roaring moon takes a rock slide and kills oger with knock off, then BARELY survives a tachyon cutter from spa booster iron crown, and kills it with eq. Ogerpon-W uses tera water, trailblaze and synthesis to hold her own vs deo-S and manages to come out alive against both deo-s and armarouge

:tinkaton: :kyurem: :slowking-galar: :samurott-hisui: :zapdos-galar: :great-tusk: JJ09LIE (4-3) vs (3-3) aesf :roaring-moon: :gholdengo: :ogerpon-wellspring: :deoxys-speed: :iron-valiant: :landorus-therian:

1LDK: Ive always wanted to use zapdos galar, but the idea of facing zapdos or moltres is not too appetizing for me, kyurem makes some nasty damage vs deo s, samau-h tries to set hazards, but it's aesf, you never click ceaseless vs aesf, that shit always fails, zapdos-galar gets a hit on ghold, but lets samu tank, instead he gets zapped down by tbolt. Valiant takes a chance but tusk uses tera fire to spin the spikes. Glowking walls valiant and lando comes in to dispose glowking, but this was a trap as stone edge eviscerates tusks. Kyurem them knocks lando out with freeze dry, glowking comes to wall valiant again, but Roaring Moon uses this chance to dd, despite being av, glowking doesn't seem to have ice beam, which combined with the lack of poison from sludge bomb, lets roaring moon set-up to +4, then sweep with tera ghost + roost

:gliscor: :blissey: :corviknight: :dondozo: :clodsire: :hydrapple: DugZa (5-2) vs (2-4) TheFranklin :darkrai: :great-tusk: :ogerpon-wellspring: :gholdengo: :dragonite: :ting-lu:

1LDK: Stall vs a team that has no real answer to stall besides praying for darkrai flinches, which he doesnt get btw

:weezing-galar: :alomomola: :iron-treads: :gliscor: :dondozo: :blissey: 3d (4-3) vs (5-2) Nat :alomomola: :dragonite: :great-tusk: :toxapex: :pecharunt: :kingambit:

1LDK: Normally I wouldn't give 2 flying fucks about a match going +100 turns because I have matches to talk about, but this one I caught live, and I was invested enough, so I'm gonna make an exception for once and talk a bit about this one, 3d's team is a stall team with double removal meaning there are actual items to be had, while Nat was packing double removal with pecha to pivot into stall. While Nat had a bad matchup due to the team having a bad hand vs stall, you could make an argument as for a possibility of stalling enough to ask for a tie. Sadly, Nat's mola gets twaved by blissey, then gets haxed every time Nat needs it the most, meaning 3d's gliscor can easily bully her out, and once mola goes down, the game was pretty much won for 3d




:tyrantrum:
Dragonspiral Tyrants (8)
vs (12) Congregation of the Classiest
:gardevoir-mega:

:landorus-therian: :ogerpon-wellspring: :enamorus: :kyurem: :glimmora: :zamazenta: myjava (5-2) vs (4-3) LpZ :moltres: :gholdengo: :keldeo: :great-tusk: :roaring-moon: :dragonite:

1LDK: We have a enam killing tusk and kyurem killing gholdengo, pretty quick, then moon gets a dd and pops down tera water tera blast into lando, Zama tries to wall but moltres comes in roars around, eventually glimmora red cards back into moon who uses this chance to dd, he gets poisoned by glim, but not too badly, so moon kills oger with eq + knock, it takes a nasty portion zama's health then moltres gets back in, java in general cannot take moltres on, so once moon gets sacked by kyurem, moltres comes in and kyurem has to gamble for freeze dry freezes. A mad predict of enam makes dnite explode, but keldeo outspeeds and drowns enam, with zama being forced to rest, both moltres and keldeo jump zama

:ninetales-alola: :gliscor: :manaphy: :hatterene: :zamazenta: :roaring-moon: Fusien (3-4) vs (6-1) S1nn0hC0nfirm3d :meowscarada: :weavile: :garchomp: :quaquaval: :gholdengo: :dragonite:

1LDK: the hellom veil but with manaphy over volcanion, you can see the consequences of that change tho, that simple change means quaquaval can land water moves, weavile doesn't have a quad resist taker, there's no quadruple steel resist, and meow doesn't have a clear pivot beyond zama, meow actually puts effort for once by brute forcing hatterene and zama out aswell as taunting moon, gholdengo kills everyone but gliscor, chainchomp cannot kill (fraud set) but dnite easily does.

:tinkaton: :dragapult: :dragonite: :keldeo: :weavile: :ting-lu: Mada (3-4) vs (2-2) Kate :iron-treads: :raging-bolt: :moltres: :pecharunt: :ogerpon-wellspring: :zamazenta:

1LDK: Burns galore with weavile, pult and oger-w getting burned, the latter getting burned frozen by keldeo, raging bolt tries to chip ting lu but meteor misses. treads trades itself for rocks and damage on ting lu, this lets pecharunt outheal the damage eq does and kills ting lu. Zama sets up and dnite tries to stop him with tera fairy tera blast, zama counters by using tera fire, but this was a trap by mada to activate his suzano, encore, which means now sets up for f r e e and wins

:ribombee: :great-tusk: :gholdengo: :manaphy: :kingambit: :iron-valiant: vk (4-3) vs (5-2) leng loi :dondozo: :hatterene: :great-tusk: :arcanine-hisui: :kyurem: :kingambit:

1LDK: webs vs a double removal, that has a bad manaphy problem, with donzo as the only check, ribombee also trades both itself and its ability to arc-h, without rock head, he takes off half its hp with head smash. The whole game is basically vk trying to catch donzo, but due to the mon not being rest, it eventually overpowers it thanks to the combined efforts of everybody, allowing manaphy to sweep




:garchomp:
Stark Sharks (9)
vs (5) Ever Grande BIGS
:snorlax:

:clefable: :heatran: :latios: :ogerpon-wellspring: :great-tusk: :tornadus-therian: Attribute (6-1) vs (2-2) tko :latios: :samurott-hisui: :tinkaton: :garganacl: :landorus-therian: :dragapult:

1LDK: despite not having a ghost resist, Atri makes immaculate surgical plays to not get rolled over by the phantom. With some luck in avoiding twave, pult starts getting chiped, samu-h gets burned, oger gets chipped, but synthesis helps, every turn some damage is added up, tinkaton steal's tusk helmet, which eventually gets a double KO. CM latios tries to make the last run in, gets twaved by clef, then heatran comes in, it misses 1 magma storm, then 2, then 3, then the 4th one finally hits, but not only that, it's a crit. With that, tko ran out of win cons

:dragapult: :landorus-therian: :kingambit: :ogerpon-wellspring: :arcanine-hisui: :scizor: Ahy Wddicted (2-1) vs (4-3) lax :glimmora: :blaziken: :ninetales-alola: :kingambit: :dragapult: :great-tusk:

1LDK: Lax is honoring Vert with this team, but ahy had other plans, everyone gets into a messy brawl looking for trouble, untill both tusk and lando kill each other at the same time. Pult uses tera dragon to OHKO oger, Arcanine hisue slams glimmora into the ground. It barely cannot kill ninetales so veil goes back up, which means scizor is coming in to avoid encoring into pult. Blaziken burns scizor with the shitty focus energy over heat meme set. Whyad makes an agressive play and KOs blaziken who tried to come in with a kingambit mask, kingambit finally kills pult but its low on hp. Arc-h uses extreme speed to both kill gambit and chip pult, Kingambit sweeps

:latios: :ogerpon-wellspring: :landorus-therian: :kingambit: :glimmora: :zamazenta: Niko (3-4) vs (4-3) bhkg :zamazenta: :darkrai: :great-tusk: :dragonite: :primarina: :heatran:

ninth: Thank you, bhkg, please inject Glimmora HO into my veins. And Latios is there too? This is a team after my heart - set up a billion hazards and then send out OU after OU in hopes that one of them wins. Lando and Glimm is a cool combo to especially mortify physical attackers. Niko's team has three sub-300-speed bruisers in Dragonite, Primarina, and Heatran, the latter two of which are known to trade well into many mons assuming Heatran can hit Magma Storm. Zama and Darkrai take the initiative on speed, and Tusk glues it together: I'd call it bulky offense, because a lot of these mons are pretty robust, but this team definitely looks like it plays like HO. Niko leads with Darkrai and frame 1 goes for Thunder Wave on Wellspring, an evil but rewarding tech as it U-Turns out. This paralysis means that when it comes back in, Niko can go Zamazenta and start setting up freely as the 'Pon gets paralyzed. As soon as it attacks, though, bhkg goes to Glimmora and ejects it with Red Card. He also gets the best possible pull in Primarina, who takes the Toxic Spike and subsequently dies to the combination of Wellspring's Horn Leech (hell yeah brother, never use inaccurate moves) and Glimmora. When Niko tries to spin them away, bhkg exhausts Tera Ghost to ensure they stay up, then trades his Lando's health to kill and ensure everything will now take 5000% upon entry.
Niko's Heatran gets up its own rocks, as Earth Power does frankly very little to it; it traps the Latios but is still walled and loses to a crit Psynoise. He tries to mix up bhkg by switching in his Zama on Latios, but just ends up eating a Psynoise and dying too. Dragonite itself also has very little it can do, as it can't aim Scale Shot worth a damn and the Latios is Ice Beam as well. bhkg ends with a 6-0 enabled by Glimmora getting off The Noob Gut: glad to see this little flower rock thing still has it, even though it did in fact play a team with zero Poison-types.

:weavile: :dragonite: :gliscor: :clefable: :corviknight: :ting-lu: Lily (6-1) vs (0-0) Ruft :zamazenta: :amoonguss: :clefable: :magnezone: :samurott-hisui: :gliscor:

ninth: As of the latest ruling, Ruft is no longer allowed on Team Europe due to being from Belgium, so these are two longtime teammates now separated by starmaster. Hopefully this makes for a fun matchup. Lily has double birds+Ting-Lu+Clef balance, not gonna talk about this in detail; 1LDK has christened this squad the "evil ass clef team" and I agree. The real interesting team is whatever the hell Ruft has going on. The first thing that jumps out is the Magnezone, which is a good punishment for the rise in Corviknight as of recent. From there he has a team that would qualify as stall in any other gen but is bulky offense here, as it's accompanied by Gliscor, Clefable, and Amoonguss. This entire team is immune to Toxic unless the Clef is Unaware. Two physical attackers in Samurott and Zamazenta round out the squad. Lily's Ting-Lu gets up all kinds of hazards early on but takes a Toxic from Amoonguss. Lily switches in her Gliscor, and it's now that we find out what this freak even does: it clicks Leaf Storm and frankly does very little, then clicks Worry Seed and disables Gliscor's healing, forcing a switch. Unfortunately for him, the momentum is immediately lost as he switches into Gliscor as Lily goes Weavile and therefore gets a free Knock, dodges a Ceaseless, then sets up and kills Samurott.
With Zama walled for the moment by Dragonite, Ruft has to escape Lily's Weavile somehow, so he has to Tera Normal his +2 Gliscor as Weavile comes in. But Icicle Crash flinches and it fails the kill, meaning Lily is free to wall it with Corv - though naturally, this means Magnezone can come in and get a free Thunderbolt. Lily's own Gliscor trades with Amoonguss for chip, then both leave and Ruft gets up rocks with Clef. Gliscor comes back in and Knocks, revealing that Clef is rocking fake Magic Guards and is Boots Unaware. It starts setting up, but Lily's Clefable is also Unaware, so that's the end of that. Now, there's two relevant MUs here: Gliscor vs Clef and Clef vs Clef. Ruft's Clef is knocked, so when it comes in against Lily's Gliscor it has to burn a ton of Moonlights just offsetting Facades. Lily's is not Knocked, so when the mirror scenario happens she's able to set up to +2 and stay in, though at the cost of every Moonblast. Moonblast performs a ridiculous 57 to 51 roll and fails to 2HKO, but Gliscor has been weakened enough that Lily's faster Gliscor can come in...and also fail to kill, leaving Ruft's at literally 1% and mandating Weavile to come in and finish it. Lily brings out Ting-Lu in response to Zama, who opts not to attack, and Ruft sends out Magnezone as Lily gets the BKC layer up, lives a Body Press, then EQs for essentially a free kill before Ruft runs out its Toxic timer. Weavile kills Amoonguss, then dies to Zama, and this is it. Lily's Dragonite with no Multiscale vs Ruft's Boots 4-attack Zama and knocked Unaware Clef. Let's go.
Stone Edge clips the Dragonite as it DDs; Ruft tries to predict Tera Normal with CC, but Lily stays Dragon/Flying and Roosts back to over half. Stone Edge misses, and now Dragonite is back to full. It takes a Crunch easily, DDs up again, Roosts for good measure, and oneshots Zama with Extreme Speed. Clefable comes in, takes hazards, gets crit by ESpeed and Moonlights. ESpeed does just enough to drain Clef of its last 3 Moonlights, so it starts attacking: the first Moonblast does 26, but the second Moonblast crits and leaves Dragonite at a measly 7%. That's not zero, though, and one more ESpeed wins the game for Lily. Cinematic endgame, no notes.





:marowak-alola:
Team Raiders (5)
vs (3, ELIMINATED) Cryonicles
:suicune:

:ninetales: :great-tusk: :iron-moth: :walking-wake: :raging-bolt: :iron-moth: Hiko (3-4) vs (4-3) zS :kyurem: :landorus-therian: :glimmora: :zamazenta: :dragapult: :kingambit:

ninth: I'm gonna get a little loose with commentary on this series because literally none of these games matter. Fun fact, Hiko would have been 100% within his right to call act here; he tagged looking for zS at :13 and the game started at :49. Hiko clearly a member of the NTA clan. He has sun HO and the first Raging Bolt in ages but there's also a Ting-Lu right next to it, which is the reason Great Neck isn't around anymore. zS has Glimmora and a bunch of mons with average BST 620, everything here is mad bulky. (Dragapult is 88/75/75 that's literally not even that bad.) It's basically just stacking brokens in the hope that one of them sweeps. Hiko sets up Walking Wake under sun on turn 2, which means that zS has to Tera Water the Lando on turn 2 because that's his only way of not being hit super effectively. The Tera Water is accompanied by a U-Turn to Pult, which makes the Wake reveal non-Choice and annihilate it with Draco, meaning Zama can semi-safely come in on it and scare it out. Hiko sacks the Lu, then tries to set up his Moth on the weakened Zama, but zS' Red Card Glimmora takes 51% from Fiery Dance under sun (this is an impressive calc but I legit don't know if it's a lot or nothing) and kicks it out...into Tusk, who obliterates it.
zS tries to set his Kyurem up on the Tusk, as he probably expects it to spin out the rocks and Toxic Spike, but Hiko just Tera Waters, CCs, and kills it instantly. Somehow Lando's EP doesnt oneshot a -2 SpDef Tusk, so it also gets to spin anyways for free; Lando gets them back up as Hiko goes Ninetales, but then zS switches the Zama directly into a Wisp. Moth and Lando double in on each other, and Fiery Dance under sun actually just does 48% to Tera Water Lando who clearly has no attack investment; either this Moth is Specs or somebody forgot to EV this Lando. Now, normally when someone is up 5-1 (I'm not counting burnt Zama as a real mon) but one of the 2 is Kingambit, it's never safe. However, Hiko has the one mon that consistently outnecks Kingambit (Raging Bolt), and he also just clicks Thunderbolt twice in a complete refusal to engage with Sucker Punch mindgames and wins.

:great-tusk: :keldeo: :skarmory: :kingambit: :raging-bolt: :slowking-galar: Eternal Spirit (5-2) vs (3-4) crying :gliscor: :sinistcha: :garganacl: :latios: :kingambit: :tauros-paldea-aqua:

ninth: Pretty normal Sinistcha/Garg balance from crying, Latios is a neat pick as the mandatory speedy mon that's also Spikes-immune...oh, that's Paldean Tauros-Water. Why not. This game doesn't matter. Gama has Keldeo and Skarm like it's fucking ORAS, sure, this is basically the Glowking/Gambit/Tusk/Wellspring/electric mon core but with Keld over Wellspring. Latios does absolutely nothing to AV Glowking with Draco, and Gama trades a bit of chip on the Skarm for spikes as crying replies with her own rocks. Keldeo comes in, but crying's Latios more or less walls it (still takes 45 from Hydro), so Gama just goes Glowking again and freezes on the first try. This lowkey kind of stinks, because Keldeo is now the fastest mon alive and crying has no real Specs Hydro switchins (Sinistcha doesn't count) and means Skarm can get up the unholy second layer of spikes.
This does invite in crying's Tauros, who gets to freefire a couple of attacks but ultimately does very little damage to Gama's various resists. Sinistcha has to come in on Hydro and takes 54% (I told you that's not a real switchin) so crying just sacks the 4% frozen Latios. Water Garg comes out as her last method of stopping this Keldeo nonsense, but unfortunately the enemy Great Tusk has Knock Off like it's 2023...and also Gama has Raging Bolt, who correctly Dragon Pulses the Gliscor to death and then trades with Gambit. crying's Garg actually does pretty admirably, getting kills on Tusk and Gliscor, and it seems like it might have a chance to wall the Keldeo as well. However, this is not true if the Keldeo is Tera Blast Electric and just goobs it. I told you this was some ORAS shit, that's basically HP Electric. Sinistcha still kind of walls the Keldeo, but it misses the Matcha Gotcha and dies in 2 TBs - lowkey if it connects Matcha, it lives the second TB and kills, then I think Tauros possibly wins from there, and that would be the first time since December 2022 this has been said outside of RBY. But it doesn't connect, and Keldeo just rampages through crying's team.

:gholdengo: :mew: :landorus-therian: :kingambit: :raging-bolt: :weavile: Mimikyu Stardust (1-4) vs (0-1) TPP :slowking-galar: :great-tusk: :zamazenta: :ogerpon-wellspring: :garganacl: :dragonite:

ninth: Mimikyu said he got this team from georgiethefirst and I can't explain why but it does in fact look like it came from the OU room. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? We'll find out. It's HO with a bunch of slow-midspeed Ground-weak bruisers, a Weavile and Lando to help out with that, and a Mew for some reason. This is either gonna be an Azelf larp or some kind of disgusting setup set. On TPP's side we have Glowking/Garg/Great Tusk because they all start with G and cover each other. The rest of his team is all physical attackers like Zama/Wellspring/Dragonite, although TPP is in fact from US South so it's probably a weird mixed set. Okay yeah the Mew leads, it's Rocky Helmet Wisp Spikes Rocks Taunt, which is really evil. Mimikyu Taunts the Glowking and gets up max fucking hazards by turn 6 before dying and letting his Weavile finish off the Glowking. It goes without saying that this is not great for TPP, Worse yet, when he brings in Tusk to try and spin them, Mimikyu gets the Gholdengo switch right, then Tusk doesn't remotely kill with Knock (it was Shuca so HLR didn't kill either) and gets nuked by crit MIR. Those hazards are never going away.
TPP tries to bring in Dragonite to try and sweep, but the offensive Lando forces it to Tera Ground, stops it from reaching critical mass, and it has to settle for a single kill on Gholdengo before running from Mimikyu's Weavile, which is often Tera Ghost in this economy. This game is extremely over btw, Mimikyu has a Lando that comes in on all of TPP's remaining physical mons, none of which meaningfully resist EQ now that Tera Ground was burnt on Dragonite. Wellspring gets two switch-ins before dying miserably, and Raging Bolt gets to have the last kill on Zama as a treat.

:deoxys-speed: :landorus-therian: :primarina: :kingambit: :dragonite: :cinderace: Yovan (3-4) vs (0-2) vivalospride :ting-lu: :pecharunt: :iron-valiant: :lokix: :garganacl: :hydrapple:

ninth: Pretty sure vivalospride's team is just the Lily Lokix/Hydrapple BO team she kept spamming earlier this season. Just because y'all are both UU tier leaders doesn't mean y'all have to use the same teams. Yovan has an HO team that features Primarina, which I feel like people have stopped using recently. The two fast mons are Deoxys and Cinderace (also I guess Dragonite and Gambit technically count as fast), and Lando is there as glue. Ace is also useful because there's gonna be like two boots on this team max. These two just click pivot moves and switch around for the first 4 turns, then Yovan dumps a Life Orb Superpower and an Ice Beam into Yovan's Ting-Lu and it ends the sequence at 26%, getting a spike up in the process. This mon is really gross sometimes. Yovan replies with Lando, who sets up rocks as Hydrapple comes in: he deals with the Apple by U-Turning on it twice and ending with Prima, who somehow lives a crit +2 Giga Drain after a spike (what the fuck) and consequently gets a free kill on Lu. I know this Prima is Vest but that is absurd, I know Giga Drain is 75 BP but that's coming off 120 SpA and a crit.
Yovan's weak-ass Deoxys nonetheless does enough damage to stuff to actually be a meaningful chip threat, so Garg can't stay in long. The Deoxys (and Lando) also mean viv's Pech initially can't come in safely, which means Yovan can just click U-Turn constantly with Ace and Lando after sacking Primarina to dodge a First Impression. This helps him eventually secure a kill on Garg after getting the Deo into position, and helps to clear his Dragonite for takeoff. Yovan DDs, and viv tries a Malignant Chain, which poisons but fails to fully confuse the Dragonite as it spams Tera Blast Flying. This kills the Pech and forces the Hydrapple to Tera Poison (side note, two U-Turns, Ice Beam Deoxys, TB Flying Dragonite, full-on AV Prima, this could not have been a worse scenario for apple lol), but needing to Draco just means Kingambit can come back in and revenge it. viv's mixed Valiant tries its best, but Yovan just sacks Deoxys, lets Ace get the kill on Lokix, and no-sells the Encore mindgame to just Iron Head for the win.




:entei:
Alpha Ruiners (7)
vs (6) Wi-Fi Wolfpack
:lycanroc-dusk:

:cinderace: :alomomola: :landorus-therian: :kyurem: :kingambit: :iron-valiant: oldspicemike (5-2) vs (4-3) clean :clefable: :dragapult: :ting-lu: :zamazenta: :kingambit: :dragonite:

ninth: clean's playoffs run lock-in has mostly consisted of bringing more Clefable, which I suppose is a sign of commitment. Respectable. His loadout is Clef + Ting-Lu as the physical/special wall combo, paired with permanent pivot Dragapult and three strong-ass physical setup sweepers in Zama, Gambit, and Dragonite. Terrifying blunt rotation. mike is using that Kyurem/Lando/Valiant HO core again, which I feel like is especially potent because all three of those mons can be customized for physical or special attacking and you don't know until you lose a mon to it. This variant does have hazard control via Cinderace and auxiliary healing support via Alomomola, as well as break-in-case-of-emergency Kingambit. clean leads with Pult and Wisps the first thing it sees, which is Alomomola, then pivots out and helps clean set up rocks. mike sends his Leftovers Kyurem out to attack the Lu, but clean responds with Zama and the Kyurem has to run soon enough. The ID/Press Kyurem sets up as mike goes Alo, then clean hard Body Presses for huge damage without a single fear of Scald as mike Flips out. mike has to go Valiant to threaten it out, but clean still has a full-health Clefable, so now mike has to Moonblast until it dies...or it gets the SpA drop, enabling it to kill the Clef. This also enables a smooth Destiny Bond trade with Ting-Lu.
As the conditions reset with mike up 5-4, clean's Dragapult is still the fastest thing on the field and immediately threatens mike, and he throws his Alo to the wolves as it Dracos. This lets mike go into Cinderace, and as clean U-Turns to Zama, it gets Wisped on the Iron Defense and an interesting conundrum occurs. clean's Zama is obviously Rest Chesto, but if he Rests, he's faster and just gets Wisped again, meaning mike gets 2 free turns. So mike opts to just keep clicking Wisp in hopes of clean Resting: he clicks it once, twice, thrice, but clean refuses to Rest and just keeps Iron Defensing. Once clean hits +6, he reveals he's Tera Fire, finally rests, and reveals that this whole exercise was just leading to an inevitable Body Press sweep with no Tera Ghost in sight for mike.

:dragonite:
:samurott:
:great-tusk:
:gholdengo:
:clefable:
:cinderace:
harshest (0-0) vs (3-4) Ewin
:ting-lu:
:gliscor:
:dragonite:
:clefable:
:moltres:
:zamazenta:


ninth: When harshest got subbed over JUST ONE GALATINA I was like "hang on who the hell is this and when did they get drafted," turns out this is a rename of marsandback. They have some old-fashioned Samurott/Clef/Ghold hazard stacking going on, and as usual Dragonite is a beneficiary of this. Ewin has maybe the most annoying looking team I've ever seen. You can't have Ting-Lu, Gliscor, Clefable, and Moltres all on the same team. Those last three mons are just gonna Knock and spread status conditions everywhere, sounds miserable. And your speed control is Zamazenta? This is the nastiest shit ever. We lead with Clef vs. Clef, but Ewin's is faster and full-paras harshest. They both get up rocks before retreating into Gholdengo as Ewin sets up his own rocks, then harshest goes hard Tusk on Ewin's Lu to spin the rocks away then two-shot it with HLR into CC. We then get several turns of doubling and a Wisp miss until Ewin predicts an incoming Gholdengo and Crunches it with Zama, and harshest opts to let the Scarf Ghold die in exchange for some chip. The Zama CCs the Ace for 80% before dying to Pyro Ball, enabling Ewin's Dragonite to come in and finish it off.
You may have noticed that harshest has a total of three Fairy-weaks and no Fairy-immunes left, and the one that doesn't die to Moonblast is paralyzed. Ewin also notices this, and clicks it a total of seven times without switching out, landing a kill on harshest's Lefties Samurott after a slightly evil 51 to 54 roll. Tusk is able to revenge it, giving hope for harshest, but their Clefable ends up getting two-shot by Moltres who has Overheat. The Molt also has Wisp, meaning it walls Dragonite, so Ewin's own Dragonite can pop Tera Normal and mop up the last two kills.

:corviknight: :great-tusk: :roaring-moon: :slowking-galar: :dragonite: :tornadus-therian: pdt (3-4) vs (3-4) Stareal :ogerpon-wellspring: :landorus-therian: :weezing-galar: :heatran: :slither-wing: :dragonite:

ninth: I respect both of these guys for bringing Slither Wing and Torn-T with their seasons on the line. pdt's team looks like he copied his Torn/Glowking/Corv double regen core from SWSH into SV, complete with Dragonite as a later-game wincon, and slapped on two violent physical attackers in Tusk and Moon, the latter of which I doubt will come out at all until the final like 10 turns. Stareal has a frankly unprecedented amount of Will-O-Wisp and burns on his team between Weezing-Galar, Heatran, and Slither Wing; those three and Lando form the defensive backbone for an offensive gang of Wellspring and Dragonite. He clearly hates physical attackers based on this build lol. Initially, pdt's Torn trades Toxic for Bleakwind doing over half to Weezing, then pivots out and enables him to get rocks up. Glowking also takes a burn from Heatran but it does sparingly little with EP and can just Chilly out. What follows is some riveting gameplay in which nothing really happens but Stareal has to contend with Rocks and pdt has double Regen so the former takes more damage over the time period. Notably, Stareal switches Dragonite into a Knock on Turn 16, so he'll have to limit switch-ins until he can Defog. Helmet Corv completely walls Dragonite too, so that's bad news. Stareal eventually gets the Defog off, but he's still net taking more damage as pdt's Regen combo and switch around permanently. They eventually trade rocks again anyways so really nothing ever happens.
...is what I would say until Turn 31, when Stareal doubles in his Wellspring on Gliscor. This forces pdt to go hard Dragonite, which gets Knocked and immediately drops to crit Play Rough. Now existentially threatened, pdt U-Turns to sack Tusk and scout the Tera Water from Wellspring, enabling him to go into ID Corv and force the Wellspring to leave. On turn 36, as mutually-walled Torn and Heatran stare each other down, pdt and Stareal simultaneously go hard Glowking and Dragonite respectively. This looks fine for Stareal, until pdt survives the EQ, reveals he's Ice Beam, and booms it from orbit. Now, one Corv U-Turn later, it's Roaring Moon time. Stareal tries to predict the Tera and Cudgels instead of Playing Rough, but pdt doesn't Tera and DDs instead. Wellspring drops. Lando drops. Slither Wing comes in, and hopes to kill, but First Impression does 24% to Tera Fairy Moon and it survives with literally 1% HP, meaning it too must die. Weezing stops the bleeding at the cost of half of its health, and now we have a second endgame to figure out. Stareal's Heatran should, by all means, beat Corv, but it misses Wisp and either refuses to click or doesn't have a Fire move, so pdt just Presses it a few times and starts Iron Defensing up on the Weezing. Weezing also seems to lack Wisp, but +4 Body Press does 17%, but Weezing also only uses Pain Split for recovery...so pdt simply Presses 10 times and times his Roosts to ascertain the kill on 10%. It outspeeds the Heatran too for some reason, and pdt wins a thriller endgame.

:ribombee: :blaziken: :raging-bolt: :gholdengo: :great-tusk: :roaring-moon: Fogbound Lake (4-3) vs (2-0) One Last Kiss :garganacl: :weezing-galar: :blissey: :gliscor: :toxapex: :skarmory:

ninth: Bro, One Last Kiss has Garganacl stall and Fogbound Lake has webs so Mr. Lake is basically playing 5v6. It is 10:08 PM at the time I'm writing this. I'm not doing this. Turn 5 we find out the Ghold's not Trick. I just got back from watching MICKEY 17 (good watch), +2 Focus Blast does 47% to Blissey. Take my word for it, this is a decent matchup for stall and OLK just kind of outstalls Fog. I'm going to bed, I got work in the morning.



Meta trends in a sec, I'm getting fried by the 65k character limit. This won't be an issue in playoffs.
 
Some pretty interesting meta trends from this week.
  • :raging-bolt:
    Is Bolt back? A handful of high-efficiency uses tells me it might be back on the upswing.
  • :roaring-moon:
    Bit of a falloff for the watchlister? We saw a dramatic drop in Moon usage all of a sudden this week, going from getting off a sweep seemingly half the time to six appearances and much fewer sweeps. Maybe the next two mons have a hand in it...
  • :clefable:
    Lot of Clef this week, but notably, lots of Unaware Clef. It's an anti-offense mon as old as time itself.
  • :glimmora:
    This guy's also back! With Moons getting complacent and running TB Fairy over EQ, combined with less Pecharunt on HO and a general rise in physically biased HO, Glimmora has risen again as a Red Card sweeper-stopper that forces you to play the lottery on who's getting poisoned.
  • :gliscor:
    Also on the watchlist, Gliscor has somewhat toned down its appearances, with less SD sweeps than before. Again, Unaware Clef is probably a contributor, as well as everybody and their mother running Helmet on random stuff like Lu.
  • :arcanine-hisui:
    Not gonna act like this is a meaningful meta trend but two people brought this thing??? Sure.
In other news across SPL:
  • Major upsets happened across the board in SM as (9.68%) gorgie defeated (90.32%) Skypenguin and (10.75%) GeniusX Volc'd (89.25%) Punny.
  • Garay oak's undefeated streak came to an end last week at the hands of RufflesPro, who defeated his evil-ass stall. There are now zero undefeated full-time players left in SPL. The closest we have is 3-0 and 2-0 from super-subs One Last Kiss and Separation respectively.
  • Big news for SWSH haters: ChrisPBacon and Gtcha played a disgusting double-regen-and-Rillaboom-vs-stall match with a total of four Regen mons and one Grassy Terrain setter between them, which eventually finished in a turn 796 tie. In the rematch, ChrisPBacon brought...more regen stall, and won to really rub salt in the wound. (This was actually a good tactical choice; this game was at like 3 pm in ChrisPBacon's timezone but 1 am in Gtcha's.)
  • [edit in preds contest stuff when the sheet updates]
  • One week left - the
    :gardevoir-mega:
    Classiest are locked for playoffs in the first seed, but every other team save for the Cryos can still make it. Thanks to Magic Mayhem Maiden for the breakdown:
    • :raikou:
      The Tigers can win or tie to get in, and are more or less safe unless they lose and the Pack/Sharks win.
    • :garchomp:
      :tyrantrum:
      The Sharks and Tyrants have win-and-in series at 9 points, but if they tie or lose, they need the other 9-pointer or the Wolfpack to lose. The Sharks have marginally better odds thanks to a better BD.
    • :lycanroc-dusk:
      The Wolfpack don't control their own fate, needing primarily some misfortune mainly from the Tyrants even if they win, but the dream is very much active.
    • :entei:
      :alakazam-mega:
      The Ruiners and Scooters are in trouble, as they need the other contending teams to fumble badly. Ruiners do face the dead-last Cryos, but an eliminated team in W9 with potential to gatekeep is deadly...
    • :snorlax:
      :marowak-alola:
      The BIGs and Raiders are technically in the same points bracket as the Ruiners and Scooters, but thanks to bad BD, they need disgusting loss differentials from the other contenders.


With that done, let's look at some highlights for week 9! As usual, I've selected one matchup per series, and bolded whatever I put on the predictions form.

[BIG] bhkg vs Mimikyu Stardust [RAI] - I've enjoyed bhkg's games, he's taken well to starting in his first ever official. His offense brings always feel a bit bolder than the usual pilot's fare of cycling HO from the same 5 people, and he's recovered from a 1-3 start with four wins in a row. Mimikyu Stardust definitely had a rough run earlier in the season, but he's hoping to end his season closer to parity after coming back to starting with a strong win over TPP. Now, due to the status of both of these teams being damn near out, there's a non-zero chance that they get eliminated on Saturday and game just doesn't happen, but I hope it does.

[CRY] crying vs oldspicemike [RUI] - okay hear me out. Most reasonable people are going to bold mike here, based on mike being much more consistent/having a stronger record over the gen/being less likely to bring a ZU mon or forget how Weezing-Galar works, but there are two important factors here. 1, the Cryos are eliminated and the Ruiners are desperately trying to make playoffs, and the W9 gatekeeping buff is absolutely real. 2, mike's playoffs record is generally a bit worse than his regular-season record, and now he has to face a maniac with nothing to lose. This will be a true test of his resilience.

[CLA] S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs clean [WOL] - this SPL is shaping up to be yet another Sinnoh sheet-farming session. As a spectator I enjoy that he's kind of embracing a heel persona; when he beats you, you're lucky if he just posts the replay with no gg, because he's followed up a win by using Taunt post-game several times now. With teams powered by the Classiest brain trust it's hard to bet against him. His opponent, clean, is also one of the sharpest SV clickers working - his brings are generally a bit bulkier and safer but he is very consistent and has exhibited strong single-sequence precision more than a few times this year. There is a combined twelve wins between these two this SPL - I am locked the fuck in for Sunday 4pm GMT-4.

[SCO] aesf vs Lily [SHA] - Lily is 7-1. You can argue about strength of schedule - arguably her strongest wins to date are JJ09LIE followed by pdt - but seven wins in a row in Pocket Monsters, the notoriously variance-heavy video game franchise conceived by Satoshi Tajiri, is serious goddamn business. Speaking of variance and Pocket Monsters, did you know aesf has dodged the first Ceaseless Edge every time Samurott-Hisui has been loaded against him this SPL? What a wonderful preview of the new mechanics soon to be introduced in Pokemon Legends: Z-A. If I see Samurott-H on team preview Lily should be tourbanned for throwing. That aside - aesf is a strong player in his own right, and I'll always remember how he clutched an emergency sub appearance against prime mind gaming with his season on the line. Both teams need a win here and this will be a pivotal game.

[TYR] myjava vs DugZa [TIG] - I think DugZa has gotten substantially better over the past 12 months, and his grind has clearly paid off with a 6-2 SV record. I also think there have been a few games this year where his opponent got mind-controlled by him at some point during the building or battling process. Which is obviously not his fault, not crashing out is a skill in mons, but myjava is very overall consistent and sharp in endgame scenarios, and pretty unlikely to sack his wincon before he reaches that point. This is part of a win-and-in duel for playoffs so both of them will bring their all - myjava's been in official must-win scenarios before, will the SPL experience prove to be the difference?

And I know this is an SV writeup, but there's some true heaters happening this week all over SPL. The Tyrants' Rubyblood and Tigers' Don Eduardo face off in GSC to determine the best regular-season record and squabble over a playoffs spot. The Classiest have submitted an interesting lineup, putting in Australian upstart Arc (formerly Exotic64 of "that one fucking moth HO" fame) and shuffling their old gens lineup all over the place. Facing the Wolfpack, who have done the opposite and realigned GeniusX and fade to their home tiers, it'll make for an interesting way for them to potentially make playoffs. MichaelderBeste2 is back in his stomping ground of SWSH for the Raiders as they make a last-ditch playoffs effort. The Cryos, despite being out, are reportedly 100% tryharding in an effort to help the BIGs dream playoff run - might they gatekeep the Ruiners, who have not won a week since Week 3, in the process?



That's all I got for week 8. I'm posting this from my chemistry lab as we speak, I gotta go work. Take it easy, y'all, we'll catch up next week for more heat.
 
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