Hello,
I recorded a video with an amazing player, aim, to discuss a game they and the wonderful Jamvad played vs a great UU member MavRott.
The video is here obviously I didn't pick the title (
) but I wanted to share on Smogon the "replay analysis" text that drove most of the video here - hopefully it is helpful to people taking reqs seriously and trying to get them:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1831907409-hm7g6hnehyisk4b432rkb5uwtqv9lv4pw
Match up and Preview
The first thing I notice is that Hariyama basically has no natural counter from the opponent - if the opponent s running standard sets and doesn't use their tera, none of their mons can comfortably beat Hariyama because Guts prevents Talonflame from being an effective check and Bulk Up's defense boosts stops Hippowdon and Talonflame from doing much damage.
Another important consideration here is who wins the hazard game, because on preview, it appears both sides may have Spikes and SR. It appears Jam's team has the superior hazard control because Brambleghast can spin easily against Hippo and at least bluff a grass move vs Gastrodon.
No doubt the opponent also has ways to make progress, but none of their win cons can make progress by themselves. This concept of self sufficiency is important and requires you to understand the meta, not just a single Pokemon. Jam's Hariyama is self sufficient because it can beat it's "checks" alone - it can boost vs Hippowdon/Talonflame/Tera Ghost Wochien, remove it's item, and simply beat it 1v1 in a last Pokemon situation.
MavRotts are not as self sufficient (most concepts are best thought of on a scale, not a discrete yes or no) - Pawmot for example is always going to have trouble breaking Scream Tail because Scream Tail has recovery and outspeeds and KOs Pawmot. It's going to take hazards and perhaps item removal for Pawmot to overpower Scream Tail - i.e., it needs help from it's teammate.
From these points - identifying win cons, identifying who wins the hazard war, and identifying who has the superior win condition, we can safely say Jam has a sizeable match up advantage.
Turn by turn
Turn 1
Magnezone is a reasonable choice to start the lead but arguably not the most principled one. The principle in question is that when you have the match up advantage, you want to be able to play as flexibly as possible. Why is Magnezone inflexible then? Because in order to make progress at all vs Gastrodon and to some extent Hippowdon, it will have to expend its tera. While Magnezone is highly likely to Tera grass in this match up, if we're following principled play we probably don't want to potentially commit to tera on turn one.
That said, Magnezone is very likely to Tera eventually, so that's why it's only "arguably" not the best idea here.
The choice of Volt Switch vs Wo-Chien is obvious and good, but Hariyama I find to be a clear mistake here.
Hariyama as discussed previously is the main win condition and can win practically by itself (self sufficient!) - no reason to make it's life moderately harder by removing Leftovers.
One metagame specific match up that isn't intuitive is that Brambleghast often switches into Wo-Chien - although it loses long run, it can still set up hazard. Another option was Talonflame - it's important to know when you can give up boots, this goes back to the hazard war discussion - if Brambleghast can nearly guarantee rocks are always off, then Talonflame's boots are not actually needed. Of course Wo-Chien being tera ghost does mean rocks would be more difficult to get off - but Brambleghats can still break Wo-Chien with Shadow Balls at that point. Both of these options would have been superior to letting the win con lose it's item.
Turn 2 - 4
Nothing much to say here except it's important to get information - we know now Hippowdon can Roar out Hariyama, Hippowdon are frequently running Stone Edge over Roar these days so this is important information.
Turn 5 - 7
The first critical moment of this game occurs at turn 7, which is a speed tie deciding who's Talonflame live. The real question is how do you weigh this decision. Clearly you knew what was at stake (roughly), as Joey said in the video he'd nearly win the game if he just won the tie. We go back to the same principle we discussed earlier - the person who has an advantage should be trying to play as flexibly as possible. In that sense, although the speed tie worked out, it wasn't the most principled play.
Turn 8 - 9
Safe solid play. Notice the priority here is to play with SR almost permanently off the field instead of Spiking, a similar principle is at play here, the better the position is, the less double edged you want to make it. Playing with no hazards is less double edged than both sides having hazards, hence the spin instead of Spikes.
Turn 10 - 17
Turn 11 is a nice example of long term planning - yes of course Drain Punch will do more to Wo-Chien than Knock Off, but removing Leftovers long term is going to be much more helpful than one time Drain Punch damage, which gets healed off by Leftovers fairly quickly. Everything else is very straightforward here.
Turn 18
This is another critical moment that really does come back to bite Jam. There to get minor damage here but lose Bramble, which means MavRott wins the hazard war. It's about weighing costs and benefit - not only does Jam lose the hazard war because Brambleghast dies, but he also loses it from a position where he should have been completely winning it, or at least completely able to stop SR from going up and he only got 1 spikes up instead of 3, which should have been fairly easy to do vs Wo-Chien and Hippowdon.
That's the cost side of the equation. The benefit he gets? Best case scenario, he gets Shadow Ball damage while Pawmot mispredicts and uses Double Shock. That's hardly any benefit at all, especially as Pawmot often uses Rest anyways to heal off this chip.
The superior choice here was obviously to go Scream Tails which would have forced Pawmot to use up it's tera to have a chance of beating Scream, and even if that happened, Pawmot would still have to predict around Gastrodon and Jam could still sack Brambleghast later, to get a similar position but having made MavRott use up his Tera, a fantastic concession.
Turn 19 - 31
The match shifts considerably here, from Jam previously having a very sizeable advantage when Brambleghast was alive to the position being roughly level or even Mavrott being slightly favored.
Basically this series of turns can show us two basic but very important concepts - order of operations and "fishing."
Order of operations is conceptually easy enough to know - sometimes, somethings are clearly more important than others. For both sides, setting up hazards with Gastrodon is more important than "fishing", going for hax/depleting recovery. We know this because there is a guaranteed and significant benefit from setting up hazards, moreso than fishing. Things that are guaranteed and beneficial tend to be higher in the order of operations than things that are riskier and less beneficial. Setting up hazards, especially if the opponent lacks hazard control, is almost always very high in order of operations.
Fishing is what Pokemon players describe as going for luck - but it still can be strategic. Fishing tends to be most strategic when it happens over a long sequence of moves which gives more opportunities for hax to happen. One Ice Beam is unlikely to freeze, the seven Jam used were much more likely to get at least one freeze. It was smart for Jam to go for it, but MavRott when for an even better fish with Sludge Bomb, which damaged Jam so much he couldn't keep going for the freezes.
Turn 32 - 47
Not a lot to talk about but it is an example of being able to recognize losing and winning battles. Jam realizes Scream Tail can beat Wo-Chien so he stays in with it as long as possible vs Wo-Chien but then MavRott knows this too so he switches out, after removing Scream Tail's leftovers.
Turn 48-67
Again not much to say, both Gastrodon are just burning each other out and neither side has a much better reply.
Turn 68 - 77
It's clearly towards the end of the game now and the most important principle towards the end of the game is to not play by principle - and simply try to calculate the best way to win towards the end. Unfortunately, that doesn't help that much in choosing who to revenge the Gastrodon - if Talon comes in, it has to contend with Scarf Rotom-C (it still appears to be Scarf here) coming in and getting a KO with Volt or Tbolt
Turn 78
It's not always easy when to decide to tera but it's very obvious here that Tera Wo Chien is critical to having a much better match up vs Scream Tail and Talonflame.
Turn 87
Very important and good turn by MavRott here - it could have backfired obviously if Jam used Brave Bird, but it didn't. This is Mav's logic - he doesn't want to get in a position where he's pressured because your plays become more obvious when pressured.
He didn't want to swap out later Rotom-C on the Talonflame when Wo-Chien was more pressured, it would have been easy to stay in on turn 87 with Wo-Chien and Ruination and just delay the decision, but MavRott knows he has to switch out eventually. So he did so here, knowing Jam is less likely to call it out when Mav wasn't forced to switch out.
Turn 90 - end
At this point is what I like to call an end game. Different players will have different definitions of commonly used terms (like end game) but I strive to be consistent when using this language. An end game in this case means when there is an objectively best move for a player for the rest of the game (it can be an endgame for one player but not the other). MavRott is at the end game (or very very very close to it) because he clearly has to Rest then fish for Sleep Talk rolls on the Magnezone, which he does ultimately get.
As a technical note, remember that Encore can't force struggle this gen if your opponent has other moves still, so that's why Jam forfeits.
I recorded a video with an amazing player, aim, to discuss a game they and the wonderful Jamvad played vs a great UU member MavRott.
The video is here obviously I didn't pick the title (
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1831907409-hm7g6hnehyisk4b432rkb5uwtqv9lv4pw
Match up and Preview
The first thing I notice is that Hariyama basically has no natural counter from the opponent - if the opponent s running standard sets and doesn't use their tera, none of their mons can comfortably beat Hariyama because Guts prevents Talonflame from being an effective check and Bulk Up's defense boosts stops Hippowdon and Talonflame from doing much damage.
Another important consideration here is who wins the hazard game, because on preview, it appears both sides may have Spikes and SR. It appears Jam's team has the superior hazard control because Brambleghast can spin easily against Hippo and at least bluff a grass move vs Gastrodon.
No doubt the opponent also has ways to make progress, but none of their win cons can make progress by themselves. This concept of self sufficiency is important and requires you to understand the meta, not just a single Pokemon. Jam's Hariyama is self sufficient because it can beat it's "checks" alone - it can boost vs Hippowdon/Talonflame/Tera Ghost Wochien, remove it's item, and simply beat it 1v1 in a last Pokemon situation.
MavRotts are not as self sufficient (most concepts are best thought of on a scale, not a discrete yes or no) - Pawmot for example is always going to have trouble breaking Scream Tail because Scream Tail has recovery and outspeeds and KOs Pawmot. It's going to take hazards and perhaps item removal for Pawmot to overpower Scream Tail - i.e., it needs help from it's teammate.
From these points - identifying win cons, identifying who wins the hazard war, and identifying who has the superior win condition, we can safely say Jam has a sizeable match up advantage.
Turn by turn
Turn 1
Magnezone is a reasonable choice to start the lead but arguably not the most principled one. The principle in question is that when you have the match up advantage, you want to be able to play as flexibly as possible. Why is Magnezone inflexible then? Because in order to make progress at all vs Gastrodon and to some extent Hippowdon, it will have to expend its tera. While Magnezone is highly likely to Tera grass in this match up, if we're following principled play we probably don't want to potentially commit to tera on turn one.
That said, Magnezone is very likely to Tera eventually, so that's why it's only "arguably" not the best idea here.
The choice of Volt Switch vs Wo-Chien is obvious and good, but Hariyama I find to be a clear mistake here.
Hariyama as discussed previously is the main win condition and can win practically by itself (self sufficient!) - no reason to make it's life moderately harder by removing Leftovers.
One metagame specific match up that isn't intuitive is that Brambleghast often switches into Wo-Chien - although it loses long run, it can still set up hazard. Another option was Talonflame - it's important to know when you can give up boots, this goes back to the hazard war discussion - if Brambleghast can nearly guarantee rocks are always off, then Talonflame's boots are not actually needed. Of course Wo-Chien being tera ghost does mean rocks would be more difficult to get off - but Brambleghats can still break Wo-Chien with Shadow Balls at that point. Both of these options would have been superior to letting the win con lose it's item.
Turn 2 - 4
Nothing much to say here except it's important to get information - we know now Hippowdon can Roar out Hariyama, Hippowdon are frequently running Stone Edge over Roar these days so this is important information.
Turn 5 - 7
The first critical moment of this game occurs at turn 7, which is a speed tie deciding who's Talonflame live. The real question is how do you weigh this decision. Clearly you knew what was at stake (roughly), as Joey said in the video he'd nearly win the game if he just won the tie. We go back to the same principle we discussed earlier - the person who has an advantage should be trying to play as flexibly as possible. In that sense, although the speed tie worked out, it wasn't the most principled play.
Turn 8 - 9
Safe solid play. Notice the priority here is to play with SR almost permanently off the field instead of Spiking, a similar principle is at play here, the better the position is, the less double edged you want to make it. Playing with no hazards is less double edged than both sides having hazards, hence the spin instead of Spikes.
Turn 10 - 17
Turn 11 is a nice example of long term planning - yes of course Drain Punch will do more to Wo-Chien than Knock Off, but removing Leftovers long term is going to be much more helpful than one time Drain Punch damage, which gets healed off by Leftovers fairly quickly. Everything else is very straightforward here.
Turn 18
This is another critical moment that really does come back to bite Jam. There to get minor damage here but lose Bramble, which means MavRott wins the hazard war. It's about weighing costs and benefit - not only does Jam lose the hazard war because Brambleghast dies, but he also loses it from a position where he should have been completely winning it, or at least completely able to stop SR from going up and he only got 1 spikes up instead of 3, which should have been fairly easy to do vs Wo-Chien and Hippowdon.
That's the cost side of the equation. The benefit he gets? Best case scenario, he gets Shadow Ball damage while Pawmot mispredicts and uses Double Shock. That's hardly any benefit at all, especially as Pawmot often uses Rest anyways to heal off this chip.
The superior choice here was obviously to go Scream Tails which would have forced Pawmot to use up it's tera to have a chance of beating Scream, and even if that happened, Pawmot would still have to predict around Gastrodon and Jam could still sack Brambleghast later, to get a similar position but having made MavRott use up his Tera, a fantastic concession.
Turn 19 - 31
The match shifts considerably here, from Jam previously having a very sizeable advantage when Brambleghast was alive to the position being roughly level or even Mavrott being slightly favored.
Basically this series of turns can show us two basic but very important concepts - order of operations and "fishing."
Order of operations is conceptually easy enough to know - sometimes, somethings are clearly more important than others. For both sides, setting up hazards with Gastrodon is more important than "fishing", going for hax/depleting recovery. We know this because there is a guaranteed and significant benefit from setting up hazards, moreso than fishing. Things that are guaranteed and beneficial tend to be higher in the order of operations than things that are riskier and less beneficial. Setting up hazards, especially if the opponent lacks hazard control, is almost always very high in order of operations.
Fishing is what Pokemon players describe as going for luck - but it still can be strategic. Fishing tends to be most strategic when it happens over a long sequence of moves which gives more opportunities for hax to happen. One Ice Beam is unlikely to freeze, the seven Jam used were much more likely to get at least one freeze. It was smart for Jam to go for it, but MavRott when for an even better fish with Sludge Bomb, which damaged Jam so much he couldn't keep going for the freezes.
Turn 32 - 47
Not a lot to talk about but it is an example of being able to recognize losing and winning battles. Jam realizes Scream Tail can beat Wo-Chien so he stays in with it as long as possible vs Wo-Chien but then MavRott knows this too so he switches out, after removing Scream Tail's leftovers.
Turn 48-67
Again not much to say, both Gastrodon are just burning each other out and neither side has a much better reply.
Turn 68 - 77
It's clearly towards the end of the game now and the most important principle towards the end of the game is to not play by principle - and simply try to calculate the best way to win towards the end. Unfortunately, that doesn't help that much in choosing who to revenge the Gastrodon - if Talon comes in, it has to contend with Scarf Rotom-C (it still appears to be Scarf here) coming in and getting a KO with Volt or Tbolt
Turn 78
It's not always easy when to decide to tera but it's very obvious here that Tera Wo Chien is critical to having a much better match up vs Scream Tail and Talonflame.
Turn 87
Very important and good turn by MavRott here - it could have backfired obviously if Jam used Brave Bird, but it didn't. This is Mav's logic - he doesn't want to get in a position where he's pressured because your plays become more obvious when pressured.
He didn't want to swap out later Rotom-C on the Talonflame when Wo-Chien was more pressured, it would have been easy to stay in on turn 87 with Wo-Chien and Ruination and just delay the decision, but MavRott knows he has to switch out eventually. So he did so here, knowing Jam is less likely to call it out when Mav wasn't forced to switch out.
Turn 90 - end
At this point is what I like to call an end game. Different players will have different definitions of commonly used terms (like end game) but I strive to be consistent when using this language. An end game in this case means when there is an objectively best move for a player for the rest of the game (it can be an endgame for one player but not the other). MavRott is at the end game (or very very very close to it) because he clearly has to Rest then fish for Sleep Talk rolls on the Magnezone, which he does ultimately get.
As a technical note, remember that Encore can't force struggle this gen if your opponent has other moves still, so that's why Jam forfeits.
and 
can take a +2 trailblaze before punishing it, but they need to be healthy in order to do so. Tera is also a big reason as to why 
is as unhealthy as it is rn, to say nothing of its ability to bolster several offensive threats in the tier such as 
and, as BigFatMantis mentioned above, allow 
rain! i do not consider rain to be broken, i think its pretty easily manageable with two of the best pokemon in the tier, tyranitar and hppowdon, setting sand and plenty of top pokemon resisting/being immune to water type moves, also pokemon like lucario completely own rain teams if they ever get an opportuinity to boost. rain just feels like a matchup fish to me and it doesnt even have many good matchups
I definitely thought the duck was broken, but in reality it's not (or at least for now), thing with this mon is the variety of sets it can run, band, defensive spin, bu, non choiced AoA, etc. Most either have 4mss or are very prediction reliant, that's for granted, but I still think the unpredictability is annoying, not bannable though unless some crazy ass broken set appears with tera
and 
. Tera Steel enables it to muscle past bulky revenge killers. Tera Normal allows it to break past bulky electrics such as 
, 
and 
, 
and 
which are able to do all the same functions as scizor whilst being able to roost off damage and threaten common setters such as 
, 
, 
, 
and 
are able to be easily checked with a life orb/ choice band boosted bullet punch. After a +2 even bulky threats such as 
, 
and DD 
, possibly forcing them to commit tera to prevent volt-turn spam.
can offensively check the same threats (except mimikyu) and function as pivots, with a much lower chance of them abusing tera + SD to sweep entire teams. The aforementioned pokemon can also fit on the same sort of team styles Scizor can, and as previously mentioned, Scizor's defensive utility outside of priority + u-turn is not common or defining for most teams.
and 
resist Scizor's stab priority and can threaten in return with powerful stab attacks, a burn or a well-timed trick. However, trailblaze or tera normal SD Scizor sets can seriously threaten these Pokemon. Not to mention 
over their water resistant counter parts which happen to be worse into most Scizor sets, which will force you to add secondary checks to Scizor. Furthermore, rain and 
and weak attacks from 
, 
and choice locked 
and non flamethrower 
, although most steel types in this metagame can achieve this feat. In an arguably unhealthy way, Scizor can use these pokemon to setup free SD's and potentially end a game just because an opponent used one of these pokemon to pick up a KO or to get a wish off.
He's baaaaack! Real talk I'm very glad to see this goober come home. More Fire-types in this tier is never a bad thing.
If Specs gets this thing to a reasonably high power threshold it might be suspect worthy. On paper it feels like everything people say is bad about Gengar but like, actually true. Free STAB on everything, great speed tier, blends well with meta trends, etc etc. We shall see!
Knock and Spin with Regenerator and U-Turn and a good speed tier? Christmas in May over here, goddamn. I think that just because of how exclusive the tools on this bad boy are it's gotta be okay. 
LMAOOOOOOO
