Tournament OLT V Discussion Thread

[Leo]

original idea by bloo
previously ran by p2
approved by everyone’s favorite ou mod, myself
banner by ium
trainer "card" art design inspired by bloo, done here by GMars

Introduction

Smogon's Official Ladder Tour (OLT) is currently underway, and many players are hitting the ladder for the chance to win their very own trophy!

As for this thread, its purpose is to discuss the OLT ladder metagame, trends, player experiences, ladder advice, popular teams and why they are popular, and any other information players feel like discussing! I will be following OLT closely and updating this thread accordingly with any trends I notice, a list of individuals who qualified for each cycle, and so on. There will be plenty to discuss during the duration of OLT. I'd love for this thread to be fun and hope to see players share their thoughts and experiences during each cycle. After each cycle ends, I will be writing an overview for them each. These overviews will be archived and linked in the OP for easy access, along with any notable posts from individuals/OLT participants who take the time to share their thoughts.

Cycle Overview Archive

• Cycle 1
• Cycle 2
• Cycle 3
• Cycle 4

Archive of Posts

• none yet!

 

[paoisd]

This team has been by far my favorite to use during olt. I made it myself and I think it's actually very solid. The zygarde + scizor is a tride and true core with zygarde being able to take care of things like tran and celesteela that would otherwise bother scizor. This is my favorite zygarde set right now, it has great longevity especially when paired with grassy terrain and it kind of beats a lot of balance teams by itself. If you toxic a bulu on the switch in, you can actually beat it one v one, especially if you already have a sub up. This scizor might be my favorite mega right now. Right as I thought scizor was falling out of the meta, curse scizor gets born and is absolutely amazing. Once you clear the opposing team's toxapex or celesteela or ferrothorn this scizor just goes in and can clean up games. U turn is also great because it gives you momentum and allows you to switch out of things that would threaten you. This mon also when paired with zygarde pretty much beats hyper offense by itself. Grassium z tran plus bulu is great as it helps to beat ground types and water types that this team doesn't like that much. Bulu also gives this team a good ash gren switch in and koko switch in, the two things that threaten this team the most. Gliscor and zapdos are good all utility glue mons that just help out with typing balancing and help improving the team's matchups in general against many different teams.

 

[Paycard]

Finally qualified after being cut short last olt at rank 9 by 1 point. This olt was definitely easier but that was only possible through all the support. I want to give a shoutout to Cdumas for team help and I definitely want to give A HUGE SHOUTOUT TO WG, You guys are the best! "WG WILL WIN OLT" LETS DO IT

 

[Huston]

Will be cool to see teams that qualified like some posted last year :)

 

[helpinghans]

Don't want to say too much but the battles in last several hours are really cheering lol

 

[Leo]

Cycle 1 Qualifiers

Rank: #1 | ELO: 2162 | GXE: 83.6% | Record: 157-87

Rank: #2 | ELO: 2161 | GXE: 89.3% | Record: [reset]

Rank: #3 | ELO: 2158 | GXE: 86.8% | Record: [reset]

Rank: #4 | ELO: 2157 | GXE: 88.5% | Record: 149-74

Rank: #5 | ELO: 2154 | GXE: 88.4% | Record: 83-23

Rank: #6 | ELO: 2153 | GXE: 87.2% | Record: 105-39

Rank: #7 | ELO: 2150 | GXE: 86.0% | Record: [reset]

Rank: #8 | ELO: 2146 | GXE: 84.9% | Record: [reset]

~​

- Both regular and Mega Gyarados saw a sudden surge in usage this cycle, mostly as a staple on different hyper offenses ranging from screens to webs to even veil. Its ability to surprise switchins and easily snowball boosts when holding a z-crystal makes for a terrifying late-game sweeper, while its Mega counterpart takes advantage of its bulk and typing to set up on the likes of Ash Greninja and forces mindgames vs Scarf Landorus.

- Mega Scizor was another popular pick among top players due to its recently discovered Curse set. Thanks to Curse, Scizor can effectively set up on Zygarde and Gyarados, 2 of the most common sweepers used on hyper offense, which cant deal with a Scizor boosting its Attack and Defense stats simultaneously and are eventually outlasted by Roost.

- Blacephalon was another common pick on certain hyper offenses, usually running a Speed-boosting set with Calm Mind and a Ghostium-Z to make up for the loss of power. This would allow it to set up on passive pokemon and snowball from there.

- Speaking of sticky web, a surprising pick this cycle was Ribombee, used by several players including qualifier Empo to set up sticky web for their sweepers. Despite not being able to set up Stealth Rock like Shuckle or Smeargle, Ribombee saw use due to its blistering speed, useful ability and wide movepool, which allowed it to cripple the opposing team with Stun Spore or weaken it with Moonblast after a couple Quiver Dances.

- Rain saw some usage on the higher end of the ladder as well, initially piloted by Charmflash to reach the #1 spot days before the deadline and used by other high-elo players during the later stage of the cycle in order to counter-style the hyper offenses running around. It didn't see much success in the long run, however, tho it did show the potential it has for future cycles.

Notable teams:

- Straight forward hyper offense featuring some trends of this cycle such as Gyarados and Blacephalon with Greninja and Excadrill setting up hazards (while preventing opposing hazards with Rapid Spin and Taunt) and Zygarde and Magearna running their usual sweeping sets. Not much to say here, just a standard reliable team used to climb quickly by several players and even used on the higher end of the ladder

- Another straight forward hyper offense mostly used to power through the low and mid ladder relatively fast as it didn't see as much usage in the 1900+ range. This team takes advantage of Tapu Koko's speed to set up screens and quickly pivot into the appropiate sweeper. The likes of Zygarde and Magearna become even more threatening behind screens and can even set up on its counters and sweep from there.

- This is one of the many webs variants used in this cycle, used initially by top contender Luck and spammed by several players without much success. It showcases Ribombee, a sticky webs lead tried by some players including qualifier Empo on webs hyper offense to good success on different webs variants, often featuring Excadrill to get up Stealth Rock and Blacephalon.

- This semistall was used by several top contenders throughout the whole cycle and abused the lack of preparation against Volcarona coupled with a very sturdy defensive backbone consisting of Chansey, Skarmory, Gliscor, and Toxapex to take care of threats and do what Stall does best. Tapu Lele's offensive pressure helped making up for the passive nature of the team, often picking up early KOs and weakening the opposing team for a late Volcarona sweep.

 

[Posho]

Another combinaton that has had mild success and should be worth noticing is Acid Armor

+ Toxic Spiker (

or

) + Protect user (

and

) whose function is pretty straightforward, get toxic spikes up and start annoying the hell out of your opponent as you wear down their main backbone and eventually Reuniclus will finish up the job. Other mons can take advantage of this though, within the core Grassy terrain helps heatran and pex a lot and even, although noone's used it, Grassy Seed on Reuniclus is also an option as it allows you to a fourth move but generally Acid Armor is the better option as it helps dealing with varios SD users that have Reuni as their set up fodder, Non-grassium Tapu Bulu for instance.

It is impressive how the tournament and ladder metagame can differ a lot from each other due to obvious reasons, match-up seeking, sniping, and whatnot and overall the conservation degree within each side. Megas like Pinsir, Charizard X and Gyarados have sky rocketted in usage due to this and some unpopular mons like Blacephalon and Alolan Golem have stood out as they can deal with prominent techs in the metagame pretty well.

 

[Empo]

Hey, I wanted to make a post regarding what I mainly used to ladder with.
First off I want to give a shoutout to robopoke for trying my team and adding some genius sets which I'll explain now.

This is the team I came up with, which doesn't have a support from webs/veil. A simple ho. It features some cool sets: the first one is rock tomb excadrill. Ok let me explain this one briefly; since there were a lot of flying types with defog around we felt like rock tomb would have been a good addition since most of the time you could have kept rocks up vs tornadus for instance, which definitely helped seen by this torn spam that affected the ladder. LO kart is also a good pick since it lets u ko lot of stuff and do in general more damage that what a z/scarf set would do (for instance it kos medicham from full). Another big set suggested by robopoke is soft sand zygarde with an interesting move that is dragon tail, which lets you beat acid armor reuni/curse sciz.
Here's a quote from robo because he posted this set in another thread: "Soft Sand is used because at +1 it 2HKOs Clefable and it does so much damage in general. It is almost as strong as +1 Dragon Claw from Zard X. Dragon Tail is used because Curse Mega Scizor and Acid Armor Reuniclus were spammed in Cycle one of OLT. Dragon Dance on the switch, Dragon Dance as they Curse/Acid Armor and Dragon Tail 'em to win." Here is a replay, too: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-780617175.
However, in this version of the team, I usually run glare which is really good to help the sweepers in the back to set up more freely/give an advantage due to speed halved. Z-fly gyarados fits a lot in this team too being able to lure grass types for zyg, but not only that since it's also a great lategame cleaner due to z + taunt which lets it sweep most of the times, even more if the opponent does not know your set (expecting mega gyarados most likely). Robo created another version though, featuring serperior (which is the one which spams glare, and with dtail zygarde it forms a very annoying core) and cm encore clef over magearna which basically lets you beat pex or pokemon that rely on setup moves to beat you.
Haven't saved many replays, here are 4 of the saved: 1 and 2 from me and others from robopoke: 3 and 4.
As for victini and magearna, both amazing pokemon. No need to stretch this too with more comments, both extremely solid picks in this metagame, the former revenge kills most of the stuff and helps vs stall (trick, even if you can run glaciate to help the zyg matchup) and it even has decent bulk, and the latter being a solid wincon most of the end games.
As poshomilas said in the post above, heatran, tornadus, scizor, and reuniclus are all mons that are popping up, especially the latter with acid armor which is extremely annoying for teams that are not prepared against it, or lack a counterplay (because most of them are paired with tspikes). Honestly I expected to be more veils around, though I've seen some webs teams ran by like Impulse. Also, curious talonflame team from yugi low this round.
Anyway I also want to shoutout TSS, wg and people who messaged me for the support like rainy dreams or blunder. Thanks guys it means a lot.

 

[Aurella]

I tilted HARD because of the stupid clown & grass snake spam on higher ladder (always ran together on the same team btw). Can't believe I'm resorting to sap sipper drampa to wall this aids smfh.

 

[XxKidofDeathxX]

I used one team every single game. Here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...il-further-notice.3622343/page-2#post-7610505 Shoutout imsosorrylol for being one of the best usum teambuilders I've known. Hope you get freed soon. Also make Zap heat wave otherwise you lose to any variant of setup Sciz if played properly.

 

[Tace]

Yo, Just gonna make a quick post abt what i used to ladder not at all because of every pm i got on ps/disc asking what i used


s/o to ]Ske Mask The Slump God for this one. Used this to get 1900+ decently early on in the cycle. Hera looked decent enough based on what was being used since vs stall it's rly good and vs offense it can be played to trade a kill. Also bullet seed+bulu is generally nice to annoy the unaware mons on most stalls and do things like weaken clef for zygarde. Steelium tran on this helps lure and remove latios which can prove to be quite a nuisance. sd protect bulu serves as the check to mons like gren and does really well vs most rains. sp.def zygarde serves as the main check to mons like tran and can help vs zam/ scarf lando serves as speed control and removal, ash gren is ash gren that needs no explanation.



s/o to UltraBallz">UltraBallz for this and used this closer to the end of the cycle. Maw is one of the premier balance/stallbreakers in the tier while ash gren destroys offense. z fly lando is the rocker and keeps them up vs most stalls z fly lando really should be used more i get scarf is great role compression but z is so good rn Av tang serves as the main check to mons like ash gren and zy. Rotom's an interesting pick but it serves as the check to tran/torn idt it's a great check to either but it's better than nothing scarf jirachi also seems weird but it provides healing wish+speed control/ lele check which is nice for this since lele clicks buttons otherwise

Special shoutout to den for all the support, means a lot

 

[Leo]

Cycle 2 Qualifiers

Rank: #2 LT52EK Sim | ELO: 2116 | GXE: 84.4% | Record: [reset]

Rank: #3 LT52EK Kith | ELO: 2100 | GXE: 88.5% | Record: [reset]

Rank: #4 lt52ek hiye | ELO: 2100 | GXE: 88.2% | Record: 74-18

Rank: #5 LT52EK KOD | ELO: 2098 | GXE: 87.8% | Record: 124-57

Rank: #7 LT52ek Kory | ELO: 2092 | GXE: 93.3% | Record: 59-9

Rank: #8 LT52EK Tace | ELO: 2089 | GXE: 83.5% | Record: [reset]

Rank: #9 LT52EK ABR | ELO: 2088 | GXE: 88.7% | Record: 113-44

Rank: #10 lt52ek kingpin | ELO: 2087 | GXE: 86.5% | Record: [reset]

~​

- Rotom-W saw a surge in usage this cycle and was seen on several bulky offenses used by top contenders, including ABR and Tace. It servers as an answer to some of the biggest threats on the ladder such as Z-Fly Gyarados, which continues to see usage on a lot of hyper offense teams, and Mega Swampert on rain, which makes it an excellent pivot, while being a somewhat reliable Protean Greninja switch-in, something a lot of teams greatly appreciate.

- Zygarde continues to be one of the most threatening sweepers and breakers in the tier, with a plethora of sets to abuse and singlehandedly beat its own answers. With Glare picking up in usage, Choice Band sets have become even more threatening, as they can fish for paralysis against Clefable, and Substitute sets can further abuse this to set up and potentially sweep teams. Zygarde has cemented itself as one of the best Pokemon in the tier, as it can fit on nearly all archetypes, being a staple on hyper offense and a powerful offensive and defensive tool on bulky offense and balance, and has fewer reliable answers as the meta develops and new sets are discovered.

- Reuniclus was another popular pick these 2 cycles, used by several top contenders and qualifier Simia, due to its ability to combat certain ladder trends and abuse Toxic Spikes pretty effectively. Acid Armor has become a staple on Reuniclus, as it allows it to set up on the likes of Zygarde and Tyranitar after a boost and beat them in the long run with Toxic Spikes support.

- Mega Mawile saw a lot of high ladder play this cycle, with qualifiers hiye and KoD using it to great success. One of the main reasons to use Mega Mawile is its amazing stall matchup, which was very popular among top contenders. Its ability to decimate most stall teams coupled with its lack of switchins in general makes for a great pick to take on the ladder.

- Serperior made a surprising ressurgence this cycle after a long time of not doing much in the tier. Despite the popularity of the likes of Heatran and Tornadus-T, which stop it cold on paper, Serperior has been able to adjust its moveset in order to beat said threats, with Glare neutralizing Torn and SubSeed variants slowly chipping at Heatran, which can't do much when it lacks Leftovers and has to break the subs with Magma Storm.

Notable teams:

- This HO Empo used last cycle and a few variants featuring Serperior were all over the place in the mid-ladder range and were used by several top contenders to quickly get points and make it to the top in a matter of hours. Not much of a surprise compared to last cycle but still noteworthy, as these Excadrill-Magearna-Zygarde hyper offenses continue being used as the go-to quickly laddering tool.

- Just like last cycle, rain was used by several top contenders such as Corazan due to its great matchup against hyper offense and lack of preparation for. On top of the staple Rain core of Pelipper Mega Swampert and Kingdra, Tornadus-T has been gaining usage on rain teams due to its strong and accurate Hurricanes and the offensive synergy it posseses with the rain sweepers.

- This is the team qualifier Kory2600 used to make it to the top in the last day of the cycle, featuring some interesting picks in Slowbro and Z-Move Hydreigon. Medicham hasn't seen much usage the last 2 cycles but proved to be pretty effective on this team, as it lack of switchins allowed it to pick up early KOs against HO and its strong Fake Out helped revenge killing set up sweepers.

- ABR piloted this team to the top of the ladder using some good metagame calls such as Rotom-W and Mawile, which have been performing well this cycle and allowed him to clinch his qualifying spot. Even though Protean Greninja has been stealing the show lately as the superior form, Ash Greninja proved to be pretty effective on this team due to its great synergy with Mega Mawile, setting up Spikes to pressure walls and eventually cleaning up after Mawile is done breaking.

 

[ABR]

- Import

Hey so this is the team I primarily used to qualify last cycle, and I'd like to explain my thought process behind it while analyzing some larger metagame trends.

By the time cycle 1 had ended I noticed a surge of a few particular mons - Gyarados, Swampert, and Tornadus. What's the common factor in checking all of these? Rotom. In addition to checking those aforementioned pokemon, it also helps vs stuff like Protean Greninja, Pinsir, Scizor, and even helps break stall (with pain split) if the Chansey lacks toxic. As for team structure, Rotom mostly fits on volt-turny bulky offense with, naturally, a balance of a solid backbone and powerful offensive threats.

So from that point I wanted to establish the bulkier part of the team first, looking at more logical combinations of pokemon that would get the most out of Rotom. The first step is that Rotom should not be acting as a main "water resist", as it needs physdef investment and will lose to mons like Ash Gren and Kingdra regardless. I opted to add Tangrowth because it covers the special water resist side, counters Zygarde for Rotom, but also generally has nice synergy with it. I toyed with a Ferro + Clef core alongside Rotom but Tangrowth fit the bulky offense role better and allowed me to compress the roles more easily in one slot, leaving room for pure offense.

Once I had Rotom + Tangrowth there were a few things on my mind. Namely, these two are terribly weak to other grasses, but also the fact that I wasn't using Ferrothorn meant I pretty much had to use defog. If I'm not using super hard offense that can out-pressure spikers relentlessly and also not using a hazard stack based balance team (think pex ferro), I'm going to want the consistent ability to remove hazards. Tornadus fulfills the aforementioned criteria flawlessly, while in general being an amazing pokemon + the best defogger around. It also adds to the volt-turn bulky offense vibe perfectly.

At this point I had most of my defensive bases covered, except that I still lacked a steel type and needed rocks, while I didn't see myself fitting a SR Clef or Lando with the other 3 mons. Heatran does what I need and in general and it + Tangrowth is a tried and true core so I don't need to go too much into that. They work great together, and Heatran with Z move is still one of the most potent rockers to have vs stall.

Now here it was really time to start adding the true threats, the mons I want getting free turns as a result of Rotom / Torn pivoting around. As you've probably noticed from other teams in OLT so far, Mawile is simply one of the premier offensive pokemon of the metagame, especially vs stall. While being an offensive juggernaut, it does also serve some key defensive purposes on this team. It acts as a great check vs calm mind Clefable and Reuniclus, while also checking physical setup mons like Hawlucha and Mega Gyarados thanks to intimidate.

To round it off I was still seeking more speed but I didn't really want a scarfer because I wasn't comfortable relying on Mawile and Heatran as the only means of true offense with no extra hazard support. Ash Greninja gives me: raw speed, priority to compensate for lack of scarfer, spikes, another fire/psychic check, and simply the ability to blow through hyper offense and rain.

As for specific sets, I'll go through them as the sprites are lined up in the image / pokepaste. Gren is the standard, not much to say there. Mawile traditionally uses either 4 atk or swords dance with knock off, but I decided on sd + tpunch because sd is the most consistent / least guess heavy way to use it and tpunch helps it break celes pex balances which is crucial for this type of team. Knock's only real perk is hitting ferro harder but sd tpunch destroys it with play rough still because they're all spdef and is also a harder hitting move vs sciz and skarm. The EVs creep skarm and live lucha with rocks, rest in atk. Rotom creeps banded ttar, the rest is in physdef to take on gyara pert pins sciz the best. I opted for helmet on this torn because I needed the great checking vs bulu kart type mons and it's just sturdier vs stuff like scarflando in general. I also wanted Z on tran, which leads me to the fact that this taunt zmove set is simply the best at keeping rocks vs stall and alleviates magma accuracy when trying to revenge stuff like magearna. Tang is standard.

Here are some cool replays showcasing the team in different matchups.

vs reuni pex balance
vs stall
vs rain
vs the ditto torn chansey
vs gyarados screens

Enjoy

 

[Ojama]

hey0, im gonna give you my thoughts about the first 2 cycles and the team i used to qualify. first of all, at first glance it may seem that this year's qualification phase is easier than the precedent ones but i personally disagree with this statement. it's "healthier" for sure because stall isn't as dominant and used as it was in the previous years, but it's definitely not easier. i don't remember myself struggling as much as i did in my career from 1700 to 2000 with all the HO variants, rains, the rare avalugg stalls, the reu-tspikes squads, etc... to give you an example of how much i struggled, i tilted to 1670 24 hours before the deadline and was incapable of figuring out what i should use to get to 2000+. so i decided to compile a few teams from my teambuilder specifically for the ladder, with a few twists and modified sets/spreads to make them work on the ladder. i took a reu-tspikes team, some sr clef-heatran balance with mawile/alakazam/lele or offensive threats like these, and a lopunny offense. i got back to 1900+ with the rain tornadust that i gave corazan and then started using that loppunny team because i figured it was very good against all these HO-balance. i didn't end up using the sr clef-tran teams because i was afraid clef would give free switchins to stuff like mawile-heatran and you really don't wanna give those free switchins, and since they were mainly for stallish teams and nobody was stalling, i decided not to use them. i used the reu-tspikes for a few games but with a very small success. so here is the team:

- import

pretty standard offensive balance if i may call it that way, with m-lopunny, specs ash gren, sd z landot and cb zygarde being the offensive threats and av magearna - rh tornadust forming the defensive core. im not running a scarfer on this team because i got 3 priorities and figured it was more than enough to avoid being swept by a set up sweeper, especially given the average velocity of the team with ashgren, lopp, tornat, landot. it looks like a pretty straightforward team but you actually need to know how to use it to be very efficient with it. there are a few threats that can be hard to handle or get through like tspikes + reuniclus or bold static zapdos (rh or leftovers) so you need to play very aggressively with landot + taunt ko tornadust. dont be afraid to risk your tornadust if it's to weaken zapdos with ko-taunt. that tornadust set may seem whack to you but i really love it and never really felt like i needed uturn or focusblast on it. it also gives you a very good answer to stallish teams especially that ditto zygarde team. i recommend using an offensive rocker if you dont wanna get stalled by tornadust-zapdos-rotomw who are the most common defoggers right now, or by the defoggers u can find on stall teams like gliscor-skarmory (+m-sableye). this is why i decided to go with sd sr z landot because it pressures all the defoggers while giving me a relatively ok switchin to physical threats in the early game, which is why i decided to go with a bulky spread that you're free to modify. im kinda forced to go with flyinium on that team because otherwise i feel like tangrowth-bulu are way too annoying, and it gives me an emergency button against hawlucha, but obviously if u can use rockium on your team, go for it because it beats literally all the defoggers. landorust also helps my physical core made of lopunny-zygarde, giving me a double ground core which is pretty hard to handle (zygarde being dumber than ever right now). m-lopunny is jesus right now against all these dumb webs/lead exca HO. ashgren gives me spikes and a very good answer to rain- reuniclus teams, supported by knock off taunt tornadust who is also my bulu-kartana switchin, the team being weak to both without it. av magearna here makes sense because otherwise lele-gren-lati just shit on the team and it gives me the always strong vswitch-uturn core to keep the momentum. after hitting 1950+ i rarely lost with this team and i used it for 95% of my games.

this is the second time that the mlop-ashgren core qualifies me and im not the best ladderer, by far, so this speaks for itself regarding the strength of that core on the high ladder.

 

[Finchinator]

Just a heads up -- I will be doing the post for this upcoming cycle and I will have family out most of tomorrow, so expect the post to be up either a few hours late or 12-24 hours late depending on how things pan out. Good luck laddering to everyone still going at it!

 

[Tszuki]

Alakazam-Mega @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 44 HP / 12 Def / 200 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Recover

Greninja @ Expert Belt
Ability: Protean
EVs: 172 Atk / 84 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Ice Beam
- Low Kick
- Gunk Shot
- Spikes

Magearna @ Fairium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 152 HP / 172 SpA / 184 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Calm Mind
- Fleur Cannon
- Focus Blast

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 128 SpD / 132 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Protect

Tapu Bulu @ Leftovers
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Def / 128 SpD / 76 Spe
Careful Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Superpower
- Synthesis

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 112 HP / 196 Def / 200 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Defog

This is team I use for the olt. I steal from wcop replay, but then man jytcampbell give me the actual team. I very grateful. It is very powerful, and beat many thing showing up on ladder these days. Alakazam-mega + spikes very very strong. I suggest you try it.
This was first smogon tournament for me. I just play casual with friends but then they convince me to sign up for this. I regret. I like tournament but many people attack me on olt ladder, for thing I do not even do. If i hax them, they attack. They call me dumb foreigner or other thing make me feel bad. I glad it is done, and now I play in playoff! It take me 2 cycle, but I finally finish it. Now i fight in playoff! I thank my friend they tell me to signup. Other than them, I make no friends on the smogon yet, but I hope too soon.

Enemies

Amir: You call me many thing like :dumb foreigner" after game even though I say nothing. However, I always beat you and make you feel small :D

majin89: you attack me alot too. But you very bad I crush u like small bug. You dont even play the OLT. Very Very bad

Shiloh: You help me oopponent I forget his name, but you help him many time in the chat when we play first 2 cycle. You say " doo this" or " go to the greninja"! But how come you no play the OLT? Because you scared like little girl. One day when we fight, I will make you cry very much. No one help you.

Free SAYUZE&SORRY: I play you and you also attack me. But I no say a lot because you play like woman and I throw u in garbage. Haha!

I have many enemie that attack me but these make olt for me very hard and no fun. But now in the playoff I try my best too win. Enjoy the team It is very cool! I steal from the JytCampbell he amazing player and nice too me. Have the fun!

 

[Finchinator]

Cycle 3 Qualifiers

Rank: #1 RedEmption LT53DR RedEmption | ELO: 2097 | GXE: 88.4 | Record: 85-23

Rank: #2 Lopunny Kicks LT53DR Punny | ELO: 2095 | GXE: 86.1 | Record: 67-32

Rank: #3 Mob Barley LT53DR Mob | ELO: 2089 | GXE: 87.6 | Record: 96-32

Rank: #4 Sacri' LT53DR Sacri | ELO: 2089 | GXE: 86.1 | Record: 59-39

Rank: #5 Insult LT53DR INSULT | ELO: 2088 | GXE: 87.3 | Record: 82-21

Rank: #6 Juuls LT53DR Juuls | ELO: 2088 | GXE: 86.7 | Record: 89-30

Rank: #7 Bro Kappa LT53DR Kappuccee | ELO: 2083 | GXE: 85.4 | Record: [reset]

Rank: #8 blarghlfarghl LT53DR bl | ELO: 2077 | GXE: 90.7 | Record: 69-12
~
​

Tornadus-Therian has been seeing more and more usage on balance and bulky-offensive teams throughout the past few months, including a big spike during WCOP. However, it has not been as common a ladder pick until recently. Perhaps a product of the ladder metagame "settling" (sort of) and more non-extreme playstyles being utilized consistently, Tornadus-Therian was on two teams that Sacri' used quite a bit of on the ladder to qualify, the rain team Tszuki used at some points, and on some balances that Bro Kappa and Mob Barley used earlier on as well. Overall, Tornadus-Therian is likely the best Defogger in the tier at the moment and it is approaching staple status on "standard" balance and bulky-offensive archetypes, so it being seen more on the ladder should be no surprise.

Rain has been used on the low-mid ladder as a means of getting up to the top quickly frequently. Additionally, it has been used a bit less consistently at the top of the ladder, overwhelming a number of common structures. Bro Kappa, Tszuki, and Insult all used Rain at numerous points throughout their runs and also dozens of people who fell short of qualifying also resorted to it. Rain has seen more usage each cycle, with numerous variants making appearances that make the archetype a bit less one dimensional than it was initially perceived to be. While there are still staples like Pelipper and Mega Swampert, we have seen a number of other threats thrown into the mix beyond the normal Ferrothorn defensively, Tapu Koko + Hawlucha core, Ash Greninja, and occasional Magearna or Kartana.

Stall teams have been used a lot on the ladder. Chansey is on every Stall team known to man nowadays, but there have been some newer Pokemon making their way on to builds effectively, including trendy Moltres (most notably on the ABR team Bro Fist used in WCOP and the Ultraballz team with Mega-Sableye, Avalugg, Moltres, Chansey, Ferrothorn, and Clefable). There really is not a ton of introduction or analysis needed when it comes to the domain of Stall, but it is an effective ladder pick, even if there are some inherent risks in utilizing it consistently no matter what variant you elect to run. Use with caution and pilot wisely and you should be able to make progress over time!

Magearna has dropped in usage a bit since it was a dominant force during the middle of last year, but it is now picking up a bit, especially on the ladder. While the AV set is the single most common set and it has been seeing fair amount of usage on bulky-offensive teams, most notably by Mob Barley, the various Shift Gear sets have been surfacing more and more as of late. Mostly, they have been finding their way on to "cheese" hyper offensive builds, but some people have been using the Shift Gear + Calm Mind variants on normal builds, too, which is an interesting development. All things considered, Magearna is still not exactly a top tier Pokemon like it once was, but it is starting to pop up more and more as time elapses.

Reuniclus is another Pokemon who is not exactly the most common in the tier outright, but has been surging in usage and effectiveness on various builds higher on the ladder. Lopunny Kicks used Reuniclus on one team that he used higher up on the ladder, but none of the other qualifiers did this time around. However, it has been seen on a plethora of other competitors teams both this cycle and last, especially the Acid Armor variant in conjunction with Toxic Spikes from Greninja or Toxapex. All things considered, Reuniclus is a very potent win condition with a lot of upside that more people are trying out as time elapses.

Notable teams:

- See this magnificent and insightful post that tells it how it is about the team and more!

- This is the team Mob Barley piloted, mostly on the higher part of the ladder, throughout multiple OLT cycles. He has found lots of success with it and it is able to manage the extremes of the metagame while still being a cohesive overall structure. Mob utilized Mega Lopunny, much like Ojama did last cycle, in order to have a fast attacker that does well against more offensive builds and also can force out special walls such as Chansey. He also uses Z Magma Storm Heatran and Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound in order to break opposing bulkier teams. How do all of these fit together on the same team you might ask? The answer would be initiative provided by the combination of Landorus-T and AV Magearna, who glue the team together quite well, especially with Tangrowth as a defensive sponge in the back for some other threats such as Zygarde and Kartana that are otherwise very scary to face. All things considered, this is a great example of a team that is more balanced/bulky-offensive seeing success on the ladder, where the metagame is full of extremes, now that the new wave OLT trends and whatnot have settled a bit and given openings to builders who are trying to get ahead of the curve.

- While pretty much another variant of the Rain team included last cycle and overall a very similar team, the fact of the matter is that Rain is too common and almost prominent to not include in the mix now. While many do prefer the Tornadus-T version to the Mimikyu version, including myself, it is true that the Mimikyu variant has seen a TON of use, especially higher up on the ladder. Regardless, Rain is a potent archetype and strong, boosted Water moves, especially on Swift Swim abusers, as well as 100% accurate Hurricanes are very easy to abuse and make progress with on a fairly volatile ladder.

- The aformentioned Stall team that Ultraballz crafted in order to combat the teams often used on the ladder. While there are a number of stall teams seeing usage, this is one of the more common specific structures at the moment. It functions similarly to other stalls, but there are some noteworthy things to point out:

• Clefable is the Unaware Pokemon, which means the team does handle things that Pyukumuku traps and PP stalls out to beat a bit less effectively. However, there are many ways to not "lose" to these Pokemon anyway, especially with smart play, making Clefable a valid pick, especially given its complimentary defensive presence.
• Avalugg is present to check the big hard physical hitters that are seen a lot on offensive teams on the ladder such as Mega Pinsir, non-Iron Head Mega Mawile, Zygarde, some Gyarados, and Tapu Bulu. It also can Rapid Spin, but the big selling point is the ridiculous amount of physical bulk it has and how that helps the stall team check many threats it otherwise would struggle with.
• Moltres is a new common addition to stallish teams and it works wonders with good Speed and Pressure working in conjunction with Substitute, Roost, and Defog. It works wonders in the match-up against Heatran while also tilting the game in your favor in drawn-out games thanks to Pressure among other things.

GMars will work his magic with the lovely image graphics later -- thanks for all of your help thus far man! (GMars Edit: done) I implore everyone who qualified or participated to post their teams and share their thoughts.

 

[curiosity]

Approved by Finchinator i've always wanted to do that lol


So I wanted to basically give a brief analysis on a few builds that are incredibly effective in the current meta and how they fare against common builds that are currently being spammed on the ladder. Do note that this is coming from the perspective of someone who has not participated in the OLT, so I won't mention much about where in the ladder to use it or anything like that.

Ghost Town by p2

Why it's effective:

This balance build by p2 is honestly one of the easiest teams to currently ladder with, thanks to its excellent matchup versus the large majority of the tier. Thanks to the excellent defensive synergy that the Chasney + Toxapex + Scizor core has, you are able to effectively wall the large majority of the metagame. Possessing multiple and reliable methods to effectively (in no other terms to put it) "check" a multitude of commonly spammed playstyles (which by extension includes the tier's most dominant mons) including Hyper Offence, which is an incredibly difficult matchup to lose, simply because you have mixed defensive pex + curse Scizor to invalidate mons including Zygarde, Kartana, Heracross, Tapu Bulu and Tornadus with absolute ease and to almost always gain momentum versus these mons, as well as Chansey + pex to effectively wall everything else that remotely threatens that core, namely Magearna, Alakazam and Greninja as turn them into fodder for rocks, which are almost always guaranteed thank's to Chansey's ability to just sap momentum from just about everything. Anything that remotely threatens this core - namely Kartana, Tangrowth and Heatran is easily checked by Tornadus and Zygarde respectively.

Ditto is also quite unique, in the sense that it forces your opponent to play safer because of Imposter and its ability to copy any stat boost that the breaker has manage to accumulate and simply outspeed and threaten it out, often resulting in a free pick. It also serves as one of your best wincons versus stall, given that you have access to unlimited PP and HP recovery, meaning that you outlast everything as long as you don't play stupidly and somehow manage to cripple it by attracting a toxic or anything. Speaking of the stall matchup, this team has an excellent matchup versus stall. The combination of banded Zygarde, knock superpower Tornadus and 3 different sources of unlimited HP recovery in the form of Ditto and the double regenerator core of Tornadus and Toxapex means that you honestly have a matchup versus stall which is just about impossible to lose to, granted you do manage to get rocks onto the field. By extension, you also have an incredible matchup versus balance, considering that the combination of the near unbreakable defensive core in conjunction with 2 solid breakers and a potential third that can also serve as an excellent cleaner, it's generally not that difficult of a matchup.

What are some downsides?

Generally speaking, you're going to have to be ready to play some long games with this, meaning that you're not only going to have to dedicate a bit of time (depending on how bad the matchup is) but you're also going to have to think in the long term. From recent experience, I was playing Fantastic Fuego on the ladder, and I not only allowed Tornadus take a scald from Pex, but it also burnt me, and I was careless enough to only switch it out when it was around ~10% with Rocks on the field, meaning that it could never come in and defog for the team. Perhaps bringing it back with a Healing Wish would have helped, but I was also not prepared to play a 40 minute long game to gain 30 points on the ladder.

Greninja + Mawile Balance by ABR
(Linked to the much better post above)

Why it's effective:

This balance build by ABR has been one of my favourite builds to use in the last couple of days, and it's not hard to see why. Much like the team above, you have a fantastic matchup versus the large majority of the tier. Thanks to the excellent offensive core of Greninja, Mawile and Heatran, you have an incredibly advantageous matchup versus any reasonably bulky build that you're going to face, especially balance. The team's balance matchup is generally going to be easy, as you the three easily wear down (and in the case of Heatran, trap) each other's checks, including Toxapex, Lati@s and Alakazam to ensure that at least one breaker will always end up breaking through a team. I won't go into much detail about the advantages, as ABR himself has made a much better post above where he explains everything in much greater detail, but I'd like to touch on a few aspects of this team that I believe aren't really touched on in his post, with that being the incredible amounts of momentum that this team generates. Generally speaking, the offensive core of Greninja, Mawile and Heatran has the ability to force a considerable amount of switches. As such, hazards are incredibly easy to get up with this core and make breaking that much easier to achieve. This is only further highlighted by the fact that the defensive core of Rotom, Tangrowth and Tornadus have the ability to easily sap and in the case of rotom and tornadus gain momentum with their respective pivoting moves, which further assists breaking.

Now why am I making such a huge fuss about momentum? From experience, the current OLT meta heavily revolves around offence. As such, players will try to gain momentum to seize the opportunity and try to win. The ability to strip said momentum is huge, as it gives you more chances to freely play around, which in turn lets you take advantage of said situation and give yourself the upper hand, or simply put, just makes winning a whole lot more easier. I'd like to apologise to any competent player who read this and rolled their eyes in disgust.

What are some downsides?

Your matchup versus Hyper Offence, particularly Screens ho is incredibly annoying, as you're basically forced to conserve Tangrowth and to either get greninja to transfer or just to wear down Hawlucha down enough to the point where Water Shuriken can reliably pick it off. Opposing Z Heatran, particularly Grassium variants can be annoying to deal with, but fortunately both are given limited opportunities to actually switch in for free.

Sample Stall by Trosko

Dual Pressure Stall by August, popularised by bro fist

Avalugg + Moltres Stall by UltraBallz


Why it's effective:

I'll assume why you know it works, but basically it does really well against HO, rain and balance, so i'll leave it at the fact its effectiveness comes at the sheer variety that it encompasses. If we take a look at the examples listed above, you can see that each different build has varied levels of preparation for different common stallbreakers. Trsoko's for example is much more prepared for the likes of Psychics such as Tapu Lele and Tornadus, while making his Heatran, Mawile and Reuniclus matchup quite difficult, wheras both john and UltraBallz are arguably much more prepared for these mons in their variations.

What are some downsides?

Your games are going to get really long, so you'll have to be prepared to deal with players that won't stop persisting, although you will experience some auto forfeits, which is nice. You're also going to come across some incredibly tough matchups, particularly from breakers that you didn't prep for, with examples such as Hoopa-U for example 3. and Kyurem-B for the bro fist variations.

 

[Punny]

hi all, making this post to say what i think about cycles and to talk about the teams i used. First of all I wanna say that this cycle was a lot easier than the first (idk about second bc i was on holiday and couldnt play it) and a lot less cancerous in my opinion. After the 1st cycle and during the second one I started thinking about whats more safer to play with in ladder, of course HO came to my mind because they're faster than balanced in general so you can climb faster. But I still didnt know what to use after 1800s, so when i started building i thought about reuni+tspikes, a type of team that was used a lot in cycle 1 but that imo is still good right now. So after deciding what to build on, I built lots of teams and then picked which ones i liked more.




This is the team I used till 1900s the first time and I used it today till 2070 too. Its pretty fun and easy to play in my opinion, you have 2 sash leads: Ribombee and Excadrill. Personally I think exca is a more consistent lead vs tran users because they lead w it expecting Ribombee and then u can set rocks up easily, standard set with rock tomb over toxic to be able to beat defog torn and to drop speeds to some mons like scarf lando, dd gyara or even scarf kartana if necessary. Zard x and Serperior are the ones that break teams of their own, Mega char-x is very very good atm because it 6-0es most of the bulu-tran-torn balances that are runned a lot. Mimikyu is the revenge killer of the team when u dont have webs up and gives the time a priority. Last is kommo-o which is a very good mon to use in ladder, is able to win in late game if you weaken your opponent's team enough and it acts like an ash gren check too sometimes. Unfort I dont have too much replays of me using this team but i have some of my friends that used it to ladder too.

Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-788039374 - vs mawile zap balance
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-787899430 - vs medi pex balance
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-787745961 - vs mawile chansey offense
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-787515397 - vs HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-786976156 - vs lele diggersby offense




So, after getting into 1900s I started using this team featuring toxic spikes+reuni. I wanted a solid tspiker so I opted for toxapex which has toxic+tspikes to toxic torn-t and then bulu puts in work because most of the people rn are only running torn as a bulu check. After putting bulu which helps the team vs stuff like koko and ash gren, i decided that i wanted a safe way to deal w stall. At that time ttar and heatran came to my mind because mega ttar can get up rocks easily vs stall and tran with nature power is able to deal with gliscors that otherwise wouldve been problematic. Heatran is has Firium z to deal with sableye better in the long run. As a last slot I wanted a ground immunity, a kartana check and something that gave me speed, so I opted for scarf lando-t with hp fire, which deals with all of these things I mentioned.

Replays:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-789137507 - vs reuni balance
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-787935125 - vs stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-787271513 - vs rain
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-788704519 - vs mega lopunny BO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-789093440 - vs HO

i'd like to thank den and people ( you know who you are) to the support, means a lot for me.

 

[INSULT]

Heya, just gonna make a post about the team I used from 1950+ by some request.

- click for paste

This team was built by my good friend sorry, who also supplied the team my mans kid qualed with last cycle :eyes:. Psyspam was a team structure that I think has fallen off a bit since around mid sm, but imo can still find success. Lele and zam make up the offensive core, supporting eachother very nicely with psychic terrain; not just for the power boost, but blocking prio from maw/gren which piped up last cycle. Garchomp serves as a nice breaker that has the ability to more or less keep up rocks vs stall and being a fire resist is a nice bonus. Zone to support the psychic types in trapping sciz/steela/kart. Torn serves as a nice pivot that provides reliable hazard control. And finally bulu as a necessary water resist/semi zyg check (zyg is mostly checked offensively).

Theres the team, thought this would be a good pick as most balance/bulky offense teams rely on bulu to check zam, which can be easily overwhelmed with a partner like lele. Rain was also fairly common last cycle which this team crushes very nicely.

Shoutouts to the den, ayevon empo btb, the canada quartet, dokk UB LL eclipse tace ske, ray for the team and anyone else who supported me in my run.

Go check out skes rmt, this dudes a beast: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ygarde-bulutran-bulky-offense-by-ske.3640404/

 

[Mob Barley]

This team wasn't only great in practice, but also really fun on top of it and that felt like a win-win for me.

Lopunny-Mega (F) @ Lopunnite
Ability: Scrappy
Shiny: Yes
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Frustration
- Copycat
- Fake Out

Hoopa-Unbound @ Choice Band
Ability: Magician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Hyperspace Fury
- Gunk Shot
- Ice Punch
- Fire Punch

Tangrowth @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 30 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Earthquake
- Sleep Powder

Heatran @ Firium Z
Ability: Flash Fire
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock

Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Fleur Cannon
- Iron Head
- Ice Beam
- Volt Switch

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- U-turn
- Explosion


The lop set is fun, but also much needed when this team unfort has no defog, i'll explain why in the lando set. copy cat though is a convenient move that lops speed is able to utilize and makes opposing strats like webs worthless. Webs HO leads are thrown off balance very quickly. Instead of trying to defend ur turf, just send them back where they came, making their strat useless. Copycat will return hazards, use recovery and random moves that may work to ur benefit, its a situational move and when u have something like lop forcing as many switches as it does, you will usually find an easy moment. The rest is just stabs and fake out

Landorus serves as a revenger but an emergency blanket check to some things that may threaten this a bit. Seeing as HO is popular at the moment, explosion can help in a few situations that would doom me otherwise. Explosion picks off potential flynium gyarados which is no doubt popular, and set up sweepers in general that does a fat chunk for revenge killing at worst. Lando as well comes nice in Web wars since its able to generally become the fastest mon in the game with webs+ur scarf. This set needs to be offensive, bulky scarf isnt recommended and every slot is needed unfortunately, u can try and force defog but the slot u forfeit is going to be missed. Better off using Lop for forcing all out hazard wars

Hoopa is a mon everyone sleeps on since the start of SM. It has coverage, the stats and a workable speed to break every slow fat team in the meta. Hoopa does not judge, it wrecks it all and you'll find it true with this set. You dont need shitty zen headbutt, seriously doesn't beat anything hoopas hyper space fury wont. The last three slots are dedicated to removing fairies like the tapus in one clean shot with gunk shot, reliably taking out ferrothorn and scizor whom both can pressure harder without and win a 1v1, and ice punch for taking out landos. nothing worth putting over ice punch imo, not a fan of drain punch.

I run adamant even though jolly is on paper more useful due to it creeping tran but alas, i give no fucks. Im greedy thats why, end of story. Adamant all the way for hitting things as hard as I can and guess what i bluff every single tran i do end up in a mu with anyway haha. Everyone pops it out and rightfully so, since it does have a decent mu vs my team so ur opponent is probably foolish to leave it in on a 1v1 tbh. Learn how to mind fuck people and you'll become a better player. Same logic with using modest mega alakazam for example. Certain tiers are more flexible than others, it wouldnt be ideal to use Modest latios because theres so much more you miss out on. its acceptable when theres a small margin of mons (hoopa, mega zam) that their +speed natures arent as missed

Moving on~

helmet tangrowth is a fat and eases a lot of pressure for this team that would normally cause it far more grief had it been AV. Getting valuable chip on things like medicham mawile lopunny mega gyarados kartana is very appreciated. Some of these mons like mawile and medicham tend to challenge tangs to 1v1s and sleep powder will quickly steal u momentum in the process. sleep powder is unexpected overall and granted if ur hitting the move, puts common pivots like tornadus quickly down under. giga/ice/eq pressure the meta overall the hardest and should remain so.

AV mag is too good of glue to pass up, it simply loves popping in on everything i don't want to deal with. Mag is def my go to for all the top tier special attackers in the tier. Try and use it sparingly and retain momentum when u do, AV doesn't last forever at least on mag. Greninja, opposing magearnas, psychics like lele and mega zam is what mag is meant to stop especially.

heatran is the last slot. he serves as more reinforcement to hoopa as a stall remover, and for taking out a lot of annoying steels and grass mons like scizor ferrothorn skarmory celestella tangrowth tapu bulu. Z firium does so well at luring in sableye on the ladder

Threats

Physical flying types: Pinsir, Lando, Gyarados. if they spam fly moves and can break steels with eq were not gonna have good time. Pinsir tbh i didn't see too often but getting rocks up and keeping an eye on it whenever it'd pop in. i mentioned gyarados flynium, super gay bubba shrimp really annoying tf out of me which is half the reason i use explosion lando as mentioned, blow it tf up thanks. Also same story with lando t, i try to bait a z move, and from there tang will beat it at least.

Fire types: Heatran and volcarona. Heatran is also a bit annoying but it cant really pivot into anything without being punished. 4 mons have ground moves, lop kicks it, and magearna volt switches but in terms of a concrete counter, no not really. still don't care, not running jolly. Volc also can be annoying if its some hp ground set or something, try to get those rocks up with lop or tran fast

I guess screens can be annoying but a lot of abusers like zyg, m gyara, magearna get beaten by my tang and mag.

Also just wanted to say, I see a lot of people trying to shit on this tour all the time even though more than half of those people arent good enough to even qualify. With things like unpredictability and hax, even if ur considered some og you can find yourself still being unable to make the cut. Not to mention the last half hour is hella fun and i bet any person who's made it can attest to that. It gets super intense the last 30 mins and was pretty fun.

GL to the last cycle and all who've made it up to this point, looking forward to my first tour in almost a year.

 

[RedEmption]

I got so many messages asking me what i used to qualify, i'm just gonna drop this here
https://pokepast.es/e381246732be28c9

Ratio : 86/23

this team is slow, you'll probably think it's bad after 5/6 games, but i made it to get through most of overplayed styles (veil, sticky, stall, rain) seen on the ladder nowadays. you will need to glare bulu, torna, heatran with zyg and serp, and mawile will do everything else. Tang can be rly annoying, otherwise i didn't face something rly impossible to beat. Toxic lando helps against zapdos/lando/tang.
About chansey, you can change for heal bell if you think toxic is better (i don't), same goes for serperior, synthesis is often way better than substitute.

i honestly think this cycle was a lot better compared to the others, maybe easier idk (mawile is broken as always)
Anyway gl to the 4th cycle and all who've made it :)
(sry for bad english)

 

[LOOR]

Sup all, I've been playing every cycle under the alias bal or balo, hitting 1800-1900 ish every cycle. Unfortunately, I've tilted quite hard (which happened like every cycle) and it seems my run is over so I figured I'd make something useful of my experience and comment on it. For a player who's generally exclusive friendly tours and ladder only, this was a real eye opener. The skill gap as soon as I entered the 1600's each cycle was really evident, which was something quite new for me which caused me to adapt. This is something that most players are upset over during OLT season, however, I found it quite helpful to improve how I play and found myself getting better each cycle.

There was a couple mons that I found particularly effective during these qualifying phases, so im going to give a brief comment on some of them.

This thing spiked in usage and is actually ridiculous to face. Glare spam is incredibly annoying for a lot of the ho teams to face atm and is a very solid wall breaker with the addition sub seed with contrary leaf storm which makes it hard for a mon to switch into it. The spike of webs as a playstyle also helped gave this mon some traction, since it gets a speed boost with contrary. I hope this mon actually sees more usage after this tour.

This thing absolutely dominated the ladder. I saw this thing like every other game. Its just stupid versatile and can fit on every almost every play style. There is so many sets its hard to comment on all of them. Techs such as Dragon Tail ended up coming about due to the rise in usage with acid armour reuni and curse scizor. Again, hard to comment on it because of all its sets and its versatility. Just send it to S.

Mawile has been a fair pick in the tour scene for a while now, and with more competitive teams coming over to ladder, it was bound to become a common pick. Its wall breaking prowess almost goes untouched as this thing is incredibly hard to switch into and can almost 6-0 balance with the SD Set. Stall was quite common and this ended up becoming a lot of teams main measure of beating stall.

This mon has been dead for quite a while before OLT came around. The rise in its viability came with the spam of HO which is just a given when OLT comes around. Its a fairly nice mon vs HO and Offense builds with moves in its movepool like fake out which can stop teams from getting up their rocks or w.e tf they want to set up. Power Up Punch sets came around with encore/copycat and are really scary for offense to face. However, when the ladder settles back in after OLT Qualifers as BO & Balance become more dominant, I don't see this been a common pick in a couple months due to how it struggles vs those playstyles.

This mons always been a popular pick and its a fairly solid mon. It had shined during this phase in its ability to really put the pressure on offense and rain. Having one of the best priority moves in the game, water shuriken, lets it be one of the best revenge killers in the tier. Slapping this shit on a team is also nice as it gives you spikes for pre much free. Its natural speed also had allowed builds to branch out from using scarfers for speed control.

I personally really dislike rain as a playstyle since I find it more of a hit or miss and a lot less consistent than HO. However, forcing fast games & beating cheese is almost a staple of OLT at this point so this was bound to rise in usage. Jaina 's variant of rain was probably the most used and the best, with variants with Torn-T > Mimikyu showing up in later cycles.

Despite not having any teams I can tag with "I used this to qualify" I can share a couple teams that I used and found success with during these cycles. Honorable mention to Xtra's Blacephalon HO and Ske Mask The Slump God 's Heracross team that I used a shit ton, would comment on them but they've already been posted about in this thread. (Fr these two teams are easy 1900s)

This is a "original" build by me, original is in air quotes as this can be compared to some common BO builds atm as Bulu Tran is just fairly solid for the archetype atm but leads to very similar builds. I saw Kory had used Z Hydreigon in cycle 3 and wanted to test it out myself. I found Tran and Bulu paired well with this mon as they can either come in on the few mons that pressure hydrei or break through what it cannot. Gren + Maw is here for the offense and bulkier mus. Mawile + Heatran can fuck up stall so thats another reason I decided on Mawile. Lastly, I threw on scarf lando for defog and something I can use to pivot into hydrei if needed. I have explosion just to nuke anything that I could get out of hand. This is kart weak so like you can try tang > bulu ig.

Me & Ske Mask The Slump God built this shit way before Lopunny Kicks had posted about Kommo-o. I hit 1856 with this squad in Cycle 3. I saw people using teams such as ABR's team that he used to qualify and shit similar to it so I found a mon that really puts the pressure on shit like it, that being Kommo-o. This is kinda a cookie cutter screens ho, however, its incredibly fun and has pretty good matchups vs almost everything but rain. Mawile and Manaphy nuke stall and Lucha does Lucha shit. But yeah I highly recommend trying out Kommo-o, the mon is actually quite impressive.

This was built by one of my friends Anish and had circulated around my friend groups a bit. I used this to cheese my way out of the 1500-1700 range in both cycle 2&4 and vso had carried this to the 1900s in cycle 3. As I said above in my comments on Serp, its a really solid pick right now. Lopunny and Gren have really good matchups offense and ho which is really common. Fly Z lando provides rocks and helps stall mu a tad, however, its still kind of weak. Scarf bulu was a neat pick and is effective just because people don't expect it and thats really it. Celesteela just helps vs zam and lele. No defog is a real pain in the ass to not have but its not stupid weak to hazards so its not horrible.

THE OG TEAM FOR VSO

vsoToday at 9:45 AM

@Balo fuck you for tagging me with the wrong version of that team

you should have

max spd celes
jolly landot


and CB VICTINI > SERP


anish cant rate his own squads

There was some other stuff, however, they weren't amazing and am still doing edits on them. Shoutouts to everyone that supported me this during this and im sorry I let you guys down. Shoutout to my niggas who helped me TPP Qplaz Ske Mask The Slump God curiosity So Noisy patlop2307 Jytcampbell Indigo Plateau and everyone from crew. Goodluck to everyone who qualified, I'll get em next year bois

.

Randbats Ladder tour when

 

["fire dragon" LENNY]

: https://pokepast.es/08fc30dc9bdea884 :
​

:thumbsup:

Hello there, enjoy this super hot Talonflame team that peaked #2009 during OLT Cycle 4.

It's been the first time i laddered since ORAS and it was extremely fun. Not only were there few stalls but i also didnt meet anyone who was super-scumbagish. Winning oftenly and not having tilted even once till shortly before the end of the cycle surely contributed to it being fun as well.

The building process was more or less that i tried to build an effective Team, remembered Cosine180s MegaDia Offense in OrAs and replaced the unplayable mons with SM ones. Worked out better than expected, because my highest peak during ORAS was 1900ish so i topped that.


HAZARD REMOVAL IS NOT A THING BECAUSE IF YOU WONT BE ABLE TO HANDLE HAZARDS YOU CANT PIVOT THIS LEGENDSQUAD ANYWAY

:thumbsup2:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-792051447
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-792028914
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-791935567
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-791908097
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-791104915

 

[Kickasser]

Laddering was fun but exhausting, glad I could make it, s/o CCLM and especially to Corazan Welliou and Redmaxx (vs êtes les frr)

Team i mainly used to qualify, based around knock off+serperior, which is more than a viable mon in this metagame I feel. Hydreigon is interesting to check tran or zapdos that could annoy serp, the rest is pretty standard
https://pokepast.es/42a4d365f04bb470
Let's have fun in playoffs :D