Damn where do i even start with this. This is my first SPL in 5 years and it feels so epic to return and be able to win a trophy that I have had my eye on since SPL7 (2016). I honestly had no intention to ever return to playing this tournament because it takes so much effort and time and i'm busier now (aka not age 15-20), but after seeing my Tyrants get 10th place last year, I was not going to allow that to happen ever again so I told Rey let's fucking run it. Also i found out that Tyrants made it to finals tiebreak AGAIN in 2022 with an ABR version of the team and STILL LOST and I was like omg wtf is this curse.
This team means so much to me ever since I first played for Tyrants in SPL 9 which was our first edition. We went to semifinals and lost narrowly with a totally cracked roster featuring me, lavos, rey, dice, and more. Even though we lost, the vibe was very fun and our team was really strong too so it was chill, but we were obviously angry that we didn't win the tournament. The following year was SPL X and I knew I wanted to win the tournament more than anything after winning smogon tour that previous summer and wanted to prove that I was the best player in the game. Funny thing is, me and reyscarface were not even friends until SPL X to be honest. In fact I thought rey was a total dickhead since he had beef with CTC and HUGO and those are my big slatts. anyone who was in the old olt group knows that me and rey would beef hard LOOOL, i was not fucking with him at all. But get this, none of my friends wanted to spend the 25k on me in splX so I was like nahhh fuck yall im making my own team then. So i hit Rey up a month or two before SPL X draft and said "yo I want to play on tyrants again, none of my friends will buy me fuck them, will you buy me im gonna be a lot of money and I have like five friends I want you to buy." And he said "sure bro lets cook" and i was like "wtf this guy is chill af we about to cook." This team was born outta malice lmaoooo so just know we never saw ourselves as villains in spl 10, we were the protagonists!!! And that's when I put together my first draft ever. The SPLX tyrants featuring me joe ctc poek ict marcop christo and more man we had all my friends lmaoooo. It felt good, especially after the douchebag td team (INCLUDING REY) denied me and soulwind a manager position for SCL. So it was nice of rey to let me draft for SPL X with him. Thats why this SPL really feels like my second time managing because I was very involved SPL X with our draft and all our slots. I knew what we needed to fix and I was very ready to give it my all this season.
This is my first time winning this tournament and my third time in the finals. I've been pretty fortunate to have made playoffs 7 of the 8 times I have played this tournament, thanks to amazing managers and teammates alike. Smogon Premier League is without a doubt the hardest tournament on site to win and also the reason why it is the most prestigious.
This season was not easy at all even if we felt like we were dominating after a 4-0 regular season run and first place in standings. This was nothing new to me at all, I was apart of the Tyrants in SPL 9/10/11 where we were infamous for farming regular season and then getting slapped in the playoffs. Farming regular season in SPL is literally burned into my mind, since SPL7 where me shake and ojama took these jokers to a 7-1-1 regular season into finals. But come playoffs this tournament turns into a whole other beast and I have always struggled to be able to help my team fully when it comes to the final stretch. My greatest regret on this site is obviously losing SPL 10 for my team. To me, the splx tyrants is the greatest team of all time and us losing that tournament is beyond embarassing, but lmao karma has its way right, i talked too much shit to get away w that tournament. I am not mad about it, it served as motivation always and something that stuck with me forever about what I myself have to improve on as a player and person.
As I said before, this is the hardest tournament on the site. It has become very clear to me that the superteams that used to exist in previous iterations of this tournament, simply do not exist anymore. Teams are extremely close in skill level nowadays and they will continue to get closer to where this tournament truly can be won by any team. I mean look at these finals, it was going to be history making with Tyrants or Tigers taking home the first time franchise win. Getting into our own draft, this season was difficult no doubt about it. Power rankings put us right in the middle which pleased me, because we usually get last. We spent big money on 3 of our guys and I knew we needed them to put in work every week or this would be very difficult. I also had high hopes for many of our 3-5k players to where I did not want them to feel like "this is my first spl i'll take it easy." I wanted to draft only players who I knew were ready to play this tournament for a full 11 weeks and give it their all. So we start the tour off, and we narrowly win the first four weeks 7-5, with some legendary moments like mister fucking sauce defeating GSC legend Fear, to win us week 1 and set the tone for what we were gonna do this season. I remember week 1 I woke up to Damien beating Mdb2 and in my head, I was like yhhhhhh blunde mourinho does it again pussies. Anyways by week 4, we basically all knew we were making it to playoffs, but me and Troller were so fucking careful of not getting overconfident. We had learned our lesson from SPL X and knew that this tour is not over until it is literally fucking over and you win. Despite our enthusiasm to fix mistakes from our previous Tyrants runs, we were met with tough roadblocks this season! We lost a player before the tournament even began and had to move slots around to fill a GSC slot, shoutouts my goat BD for being ready to play on such short notice, truly the definiton of a team player and a guy that you just wanna see win when he plays. And then came the true disaster event... THEY BANNED CTC!!!! Oh man I was so fucking mad that day u shuda seen me on discord sending out ultimatums that were all met with, "tuff bro, he still gets the trophy if u win tho." All good tho, as a wise man said, "If they gon hate, let em hate." I was really looking forward to seeing CTC finish this tournament with 10 wins and a trophy after he has supported me in so many of my deep tournament runs and some of my most epic displays. I wanted to give my full support to my bro and help him have his GOAT comeback season so this ban truly left a sour taste in my mouth, especially seeing the reason he was banned, and how much he has given to the competitive growth of this game and the community, but no matter we still won with fantastic displays in SV and a great mastery of teambuilding and teampicking throughout the entire tournament in the tier.
Man it was not easy to find the optimal lineup for this team. If you look at the spreadsheet you will see that every player on our team played at least 4 games. That's because im really blunde mourinho in this bitch trying to figure out week after week what our strongest lineup is going into playoffs (spoiler, we still don't know what it is LOL!!!). I am so fucking proud of my guys for clinching the first four weeks with narrow 7-5 victories, because it gave us the ability to switch our lineup up a lot during the following weeks and find what variation was best. As playoffs came around, I was confident we would win this tournament as long as we kept up our same level of efforts and continued to test with each other and be open to criticism and learning. In semifinals, even when we were down 2-5 to I did not lose hope for even one minute as I knew we were getting a bit unluckier and that our guys have the fucking winners mentality when it matters and we can do this. I knew as long as we get to 6-6, our tiebreaker core is going to win against anyone. I mean fuck dude I spent like 100k on troller/soulwind/cbb/ctc/poek, they better have been ready for whatever tier we needed to play in tiebreak. Seeing us come back from 2-5 to 5-5 to 5-6 to 6-6 was just so insane for my heart lmaoooo what an epic day especially when luis clinched vs fucking xavgb with tinkaton moltres offense so that troller soulwind and java could alleyoop it in tiebreak. However, i will say that in finals we did not play as well as we should have and this is a core Tyrants issue that we still have not fixed and one that I will continue to iron out and hopefully eliminate by next year. We were up 5-2 and then let it slip to 5-5 before winning 7-5 and avoiding tiebreak. I commend our team for breaking the tiebreak tradition, but slipping from 5-2 is unacceptable. I'd say in general we pulled decent matchups in finals and had a couple moments of good fortune so there is no excuse. Finals is finals though, I know firsthand how demanding and intimidating it can be, so if i sound like a stickler forgive me, I just want you all to be great always, I know you guys all are. To the Circus Maximus Tigers, i want to say ggz, you guys had a very strong team and did well to cleanse the reputation the tigers previously had of being a meme team. You guys came in with a very strong team and I can say I was impressed and inspired by your SV multiple times. Take this loss as motivation for the future, even if right now it feels like the last few months were all for nothing. That's why SPL is the hardest and most rewarding tournament on this site. 11-13 weeks can all feel like a waste after one Sunday. Anyways yeah swag we won spl lets do some shoutouts, no particular order except my goat troller is gonna be first sorry kiddos u already know
sike first lemme shoutout the guys that helped us out despite not being on the team.
bruno AKA AICORDER: tbh I wanted you to join our server just for the good vibes and because you are literally my oldest friend on this online shit besides ctc, cbb, etc. But when I remembered you were the fucking dpp super goat, I was like ohhhh shit this is going to be a nasty chefjob when I mix the dridri plays w the bruno teams = ZERO DARK THIRTY. Thank you for helping my boy with prep and just all around being a dope guy. You are one of my best friends and our friendship goes far past this game.
august : another one of my oldest friends, thank you my og for helping out in DPP, you actually wrote quite a bit I realized in terms of explaining teams and how to play vs certain styles. I know you are busier these days so I really appreciate you still taking time out of your days to help out when you could. You've always been really good to me and ctc and we will be ready to draft on you when your inevitable comeback tour happens. Thank you for always keeping it chill and being a funny motherfucker.
Jayde: i cannot believe soulwind legitimately asked you for help with his teams. That's called clout fr. Also lmao we won spl in weak era i know, please spare me the jokes. Thanks for always being a loyal supporter and a bro. Similar to august, when you make your inevitable comeback tour, I will be here to buy you.
Tobes : Another one of my OGs. Thank you as always for your help in RBY and always just being a pleasant presence to be around. This shoutout dates back to even SPL X when you were helping Troller. He is very picky about RBY everything so knowing that working with you alleviates any of his workload is such a relieving feeling for me since I can't help in RBY at all and I'm focused on helping in team preview.
ABR one of my best friends on the site, cant believe we have been tight since we were literally 15 years old, shit is so crazy man. thank you for the help with gen6/7 in the finals. you have always been ready to drop everything and help me and the guys out on a whim and have carried me so much in the past years especially my prime lmaoooo. cant wait to win wcop with you and see you reclaim OUR tier.
special shoutout to
Giannis Antetokommo-o ima lax Vert CTC for always keeping me up to date with SV and being there to bounce ideas off of. We literally own gen9 bros. Shoguns taking everything. shoutouts my goat
Storm Zone for the OST ring too. also shoutouts to my boy
Blimax who is one of the smartest minds in SV OU period. Genius tinglu/dozo/cinderace/specs kyurem team which ctc brought week4 and shaped a lot of metagame teams
Heroic Troller :
I probably can never thank you enough for the carry job you have done for me on multiple occasions in this tournament. You are one of my best friends I have met on this site and your truthful and genuine personality is something that is so rare in general that I am truly honored to call you my bro and my teammate. You are also one of the funniest guys I've ever met. You were absolutely the third manager of the team, and honestly did more than both me and Rey. You tested with every single player in generations 1-8 and gave advice on every team as well as answering to all pings. I know before this season you did not expect anything like that, and just expected to play some RBY games for fun. You took the team on your fucking back and told me that if we are returning for the chip that we need to give it our all, and it really motivated me and CTC to not slack for even one minute in SV. Seeing you meticulously prepare with all of our guys, while also giving real life advice on how to calm nerves and emotions, was nothing short of inspiring. And this doesn't even touch on the fact that you are an autowin slot and went 9-3 for us. You also talk the most shit ever but back it up every single time, real thug shit, who the hell is competing with you? Still makes me laugh that a certain mosquito I made quit in 2019 tried to step to youand got spanked in tiebreak, thats how it goes though. There is never going to be another Heroic Troller. No one has established dominance in a tier the way you have doneso in RBY. There is Heroic Troller, and then the rest in this tier. That's how it's going to end too. Thank you for winning me this chip brother, I am so fucking happy to share this moment with you, and I know we will share some more when we feel like returning for more action.
Mada:
U already know im posting this gif LMAOOOOOOO real video footage of Mada putting together scout logs every week in 5 minutes. I don't even know where to begin with you dude. So we find out our GSC player is banned right after the draft and we're like yeah ok whatever classic nerf tyrants smogon hates us so much bs blahblahblah so after i took off my tinfoil hat i started scanning through the signups. Someone brings your name up to me and goes "he went 5-0 in wcop but went undrafted" I immediately knew that was impossible bc who the fuck wouldnt draft someone who went 5-0 LMAOOO i'd know for sure. But I saw your profile you had nice badges and everyone we asked about you gave a good review. So we were like fuck it lets send our nicest ambassador (CBB) to hit him up and see if he's down to play with us or if he thinks we're weird. And thankfully you were down to join us! You are truly a star Mada, I have not see a new player put in effort the way you have in a very very long time. This is your first time in a big tour and we got you on a whim and you gave full 100% every single week, not only for yourself when you were thrown into the lineup, but for every other starter every single week. You even stepped it up in playoffs by making the scouts even more precise and helping us notice trends of how our opponents were counterteaming their own opponents each week. But back to you as a player. You knew fully well from the beginning where your limitations as a player were and what you needed to improve on and where to learn. And that's why I loved teaming with you, because you never whined, you never complained, you just kept practicing and took all your losses in stride. You always worked with CTC and stayed the course. I have never cared much for records, but I am certainly proud of your 4-1 and you should be as well, because your hard work earned these wins and no one works as hard as you. During this season when we would play test games, I would feel you starting to get stronger as we kept playing more games, until you started predicting and owning me lmaoooo. You are cognizant of your own abilites and where to improve and that's why I know with more practice and fine tuning you will be a total threat in this tier. Cheers buddy, I can't wait to root for you in the future.
myjava:
magic javanson in the flesh. I think this gif should suffice. As ctc said, you are simply a young prodigy. CBB has been gassing you up for 2 years, so it goes without saying that we always had an eye on you, albeit nothing too close. The last time CBB shilled a player this hard to me, it was marcop in SPL X, who ended up being one of the greatest teammates I've ever had to this day, so I knew better than to ignore. And thank god I didn't. Week 4 CTC was feeling exhausted, I guess baby's first time starting since week 1 took too much energy, and so we decided to start you just to test the waters and see what lineup flexibility we had. You set the tone strong with a big win over oldspicemike, one of the premier players in OU. I remember I dmed you during the first few weeks that I need you to stay on top of the ladder as you had been doing and stay knowledgable about SV so that if we need you to start you are ready, and you said say no more and literally stayed fucking top 10 on the SV OU ladder for the last 90 days. I have literally seen myjava farm every single one of you tour players on the same alt of his with zama boots spam. There's so much I can say about you, but like Mada, my favorite part is that you are willing to work hard and listen to criticism always. CTC and myself can sometimes be overly blunt but you never get offended or complain, you are always ready to sharpen your game. I had so much fun testing with you, for my own gain too, I remember I played games with you before my ost series vs welli0u, and i felt mad good afterwards because you gave me such close and quality matches. I know you are not satisfied with your performance in the playoffs, but cut yourself a break, it's still your first tournament and playoffs and you stepped up for us in a way that cannot be matched. And your finals game is much more team sabotage, than anything you did wrong in the battle. Be proud of yourself buddy, you are an incredible player and will be one of the leaders of this generation, it's no doubt in my mind at all. Also your scout log from this year is literally insane, how do you even prepare for someone like this. This type of versatility in ur debut? GOAT. Retain next year and run it back with CTC? Also peep this log, cbb is literally clairvoyant lmaooo
Poek : My twin. I was shocked when you dmed me asking to draft you for SPL and that you wanted to play if I was managing. I thought you had long quit and after I had dragged you into SCL 2022 which you did not want to even play, I did not wanna ever force you to play against your will again. But when you told me you wanted to be a Tyrant again, I needed 0 explanation, we were getting you and that was final. As always, you let me throw you wherever we needed and despite hating SM, you still played it and practiced. It's a shame that it didn't pan out well but whatever we enjoyed SV 10x more and played it way more than SM this season, so I was so happy when you finally got a chance to start in playoffs in SV after begging me all season to be put in SV, but I literally could not put u there buddy. BUT I SHOULD HAVE BECAUSE HOLY SHITTTT U WENT LEPOEK JAMES IN THE SEMIFINALS AND FINALS AND I ALREADY KNOW IF WE WENT TO TIEBREAK THAT YOU WOULD HAVE WON THAT TOO JUST LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE IN SPL X BUT I LOST. Man it brings me so much joy that you got to win us the final game and win us the trophy, because thats exactly how SPL X should have ended. All good though, we won it 5 years later. Your finals game is a great reflection of you as a player. Cool, Calm, and Collected in the clutch and ready to lock it down for the rest of the team. It's such a good feeling to have a teammate that can tell everyone "I fucking got this don't worry," and he really got it. You played an amazing game and somehow ogerpon didn't 6-0, in fact it got 0 kills so actually ill blame ur fraud opponent more than praise you, NAHHH im joking ur sheist. I love you dude, winning this with you is the best feeling ever, and I feel like I can finally pay you back for SPL X. You are always going to be the greatest team preview player of all time to me, haters can say whatever they want. (or its 2017 posho)
Luispeikou : mr briney, we have been acquaintances for a very long time. Borja is one of my closest friends for damn near a decade and he has always talked very highly of you as a team player and as a person, and he's a great judge of character so I've always had respect for you. tbh when he told us to get you during the draft it came as a big surprise to literally no one, but I knew your potential and ability from sharks the previous year so I knew you would pull your weight. And you really did man, learning SV on the fly this season and putting in the work after realizing what an intensive tier this is. As I have stated so many times in this post already, SV is a tough tier and takes a lot of practice to stay up to date. You realized this and didn't leave things up to chance. I am proud of you stepping up to the plate and winning some extremely important games, especially vs xavgb in one of the most insane games I've ever witnessed. You are a good presence always and a witty guy, take care Luis I look forward to facing off in WCOP.
damien the genius : YOU CAN'T KILL A GENIUS!!! God I am so proud of you. You are so fucking good at Pokemon dude. There are a few players when I watch their games, you see lord plays and you're like aww yeah this guy is so fun to watch. That's you. I saw all of your masters games when scouting for potential players to get for gen 6-8, and I remember you had a blacephalon team with tapu fini and landorus-t, and you wen to blacephalon on urshifu CC on like turn 5. and then DID IT AGAIN ON LIKE TURN 10. AND IT WORKED BOTH TIMES. I saw that and I immediately wrote you down as someone I wanted because I knew you had superpowers immediately after that. Even though you were on AUS timing, it was never too hard to communicate with you and we were always able to converse about team options and play test games, which btw I enjoyed a lot. You never brought boring ass do nothing teams vs me in our tests and I really quite enjoy SS these days and I credit our testing and talking about the metagame for that. You have a very bright future in this game because you are always willing to look at your games and see where you messed up, even when haxed. You also always bring teams with win conditions that you confidently pilot every time. I cannot be prouder of your finals game, you played vs an incredible player who is known for his clutch factor, and you called like 5 double switches in a row at the end to win. I was legit yelling when I saw you poison jab the weavile switch, you are such a beast!!! Enjoy this cup Damien, we were never winning this tournament without you.
DonSalvatore : A man of few words, but we know how much you care about winning for the team. A lot of things didn't go your way this tournament and I know you are a bit disappointed with how your playoffs games went, but do not let it get to you. You had one hell of a 2023 on this site, and 2024 is shaping up nicely too with this SPL win. You put in the effort this tournament, and sometimes the game doesn't reward us for it. But you are a fantastic player and kept a positive vibe always. You were always open to criticism and I know it can be hard when there is so many of us giving opinions. You had many clutch wins for us this tournament. Never forget that we never won a week better than 7-5 this tournament, meaning that every single win is the reason we won this tournament. If I can be so humble as to offer you some advice going forward, stay calm always and trust in yourself. You have a very high potential, I know because from our tests you have totally outplayed me and beaten me many times, you just need to trust yourself more in tournament. But you will get there soon. Cheers!
Dridri457 : BEING A BASTARD WORKS!!! Man you are so fun to talk with bro, you always have some funny stuff to say and you just breathe this game and always talk about how you wanna win for the Tyrants and smash the opponent and it hypes everyone up so fucking much lmaooo. @kratosmana told me very early on in the tournament that you are a great player but you love crazy team choices and I was very pleased to hear that because I have always been of the opinion that unpredictable sets are needed to win in playoffs. You were truly a hidden gem that I would not have found without @TonyFlygon so thank you very much to him for recommending you as I asked him for some suggestions pre-season. So make no mistake, we always wanted to get Dridri457 as our DPP player because we knew he was a gem. Dude you are so confident in yourself and so many times you told us you made a play because you just knew what the other guy would do. I'll never forget how much I laughed when you predicted Le Don's Latias to switch out of your Breloom and you superpowered his switchin and then said "sorry, i dont like to win by predicting." You are seriously too good man, and all of this after playing for such a short time is nothing short of incredible. You are on your way to becoming a household name in this tier and I cannot wait to see your performance in the future. I will be cheering for you always buddy. Personal highlight moment of yours for me is your game vs malekith week 4. We were up 6-5 and they were talking so much shit to us and we werent saying shit. And then you outplayed every fucking turn with a scarf swampert and clinched the week for us. Man, I was literally jumping up and down after seeing that game you legitimately got every single turn right on a DPP legend and won us the week as a SPL newcomer. Ice Cold.
CrashinBoomBang : Mannnnnnnn it's too many things I could say here. Not much I can say that you don't already know but you are one of my best friends since the day I started this game and one of the dozen or so people I even met IRL from online because you are that much of a real brother to me. When you told us you wanted to play for us pre-season it was non negotiable for us to get you, fully well knowing that we needed to get Troller and that you were gonna eclipse 20k. But you told me you wanted to win with the guys and that was enough for me. I know this season's results is not your ideal performance but in the end you won in the finals in a huge game. Honestly though, fuck the game. You are the greatest ORAS OU builder of all time and one of the big reasons the tier has continued to evolve and has such an active and engaged playerbase, SHOUTOUTS TO JONAS TOO
xray (MY GOAT AKA THE SAVIOUR OF ORAS). And as a person marco, you are just too epic, thanks for always being a big bro to me and giving me irl advice and just being there for me in some tough times. You are also the funniest person I have ever met tied with CTC. It is epic that 10 years later we can still laugh for an hour straight about the stupidest shit ever. looking forward to our next meetup with roro and jayde. shoutouts pfefferminz. Zur mitte, zur titte, zum sack zack zack. Love you buddy, we finally fucking did it. YOU DID IT MOTHERFUCKER.
SoulWind : HAHAHAHAHAH HOLY SHIT BRO WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED IN PLAYOFFS EXACTLY??? HOLY FRAUD WATCH WEE WOO WEE WOO.
Sorry bro I had to, as your biggest supporter you know I gotta absolutely fry you when you deserve it. Nah, im fucking w you, im so glad you got to win this spl after last years bullshit robbery fest. You have been one of my closest friends for damn near a decade and i have so much fun trolling with you 24/7 i mean shit we barely even talk about pokemon lmaooo. Tbh you were always an option in our draft but we never were like "Yeah we need to get soulwind," because we expected to spend like 50k on troller + cbb. Then the draft happened and we were like fuck it lets just spend 80k on all 3. And then we did LMFAO. I knew when we bought you that even if you performed poorly in regular season, that in tiebreak you would be ready to destroy anybody. You are literally lebron james dude, good in every tier, good forever, haters can tag you and talk in as many of your stours matches as they want, the goat is now #1 in trophies yeah yeah yeah keep hating. However! I must say that you exhibited extreme LOW T BEHAVIOR with your team choices this SPL. Next time I pay 30k for you which I definitely will do again next year you better be ready to bring that fuggin offense. Nah but on the real, every time you win it brings me so much joy seeing one of my boys continue to further his legacy. You've always been genuinely on my side and your fiery personality and willingness to go kamikaze is something that I value a lot. You are real as fuck and not gonna shut up if you think something is bullshit, and that's why we get along so fucking well to this day. People are actually afraid of you on this site lmaooo but to me you are just a big teddy bear that trolls all day. Can't wait to hang out with you and Poek in the future. OH ALSO NO WAY THIS GUY DOES THIS FRAUD PLAYOFFS PERFORMANCE AND THEN MAKES A POST SAYING "UH YEAH UNBAN LUGIA" HAHAHAHHA WTF? INFRACT TBH
pkThunderbolt : You were a very fun guy to have on the team, I remember the day I found out you were Italian and living in Italy I was certain people were fucking with me, because I remember you described one of our players as "Ice Cold" and I was like what kinda italian from italy talks like that LMAOOOO. That day was so funny when you started talking with troller in Italian and he was like WTF Leech is Italian??? Your performance may have been rocky this season but as I said already, we never won a week better than 7-5 which means every damn win mattered and you definitely did contribute to this win. You were always willing to prep with the team and explore some crazy options in the builder as well as in battle and I value that a lot. ADV is a very demanding tier with one of the most intimidating playerbases and you were able to hold you own well. You meshed well with our team environment as well and were very supportive of everyone, win or lose and I really value you making everyone feel good.
Rubyblood : Oh man where to start with this guy. What a fucking boss personality LOOOL. I remember we talked last summer for the first time and you told me you were on the Tyrants before and would love to be on the team again. So when I decided to manage I already had you in mind, especially because I was always a fan of your gameplay, especially in SV seeing you cook everybody in SCL. I was really happy when we got you in SPL since I had you in basically every draftplan, either for SV or GSC. I know you are not totally satisfied with your SV run this SPL, but you got quite unlucky early on and had some things gone your way you would have ended overwhelmingly positive I think. But that being said, you never let things deter you. I specifically remember the week that you were on the bench, you went out of your way to help all of our SV slots and you made teams for both java and mada. It took a real boss to step up to the plate like that and put his ego aside and continue to help the team. You are the fucking man Rubyblood, and I am so happy you were able to put on the display you did in finals. It's a perfect representation of you as a player, similar to how I felt about damien's final games. You live and breathe this shit and your heart is always in the right place. Trust yourself, and you have what it takes to defeat anybody in this game.
BlazingDark : man this guy never fails to crack me up ever. Just like Rubyblood, you live and breathe this game man, you are always willing to test and give advices and in general be a positive presence. You are always smiling and being a voice of reason after a loss telling the team to not panic or think about it and continue to move forward. It is very important to have this mentality in any team tour and you were perfect in that regard, always telling us to focus on the big picture and win. Your week 1 win will always be one of the craziest things I saw this season when you clinched us the win. Mister Fucking Sauce man. And that wasn't even your only clinch LMAOOO you clinched us the week not once, not twice, but THREE FUCKING TIMES!!! You are an animal BD, I can't wait to see more from you in tournaments.
Ash KetchumGamer : You're a guy that I've known for quite a while and someone I was excited to team with this year. You always kept a positive attitude and even when you got hit with computer trouble, you still were active af and willing to test with us on phone. You even learned SV on the fly in the beginning even though we knew you preferred gens 6-8, and you got us some very important wins in the first four weeks. We definitely could not have won this tournament without your carry in weeks 1-4 Ash so you should really feel proud of yourself for the efforts you gave this team. I am happy to have won this trophy with you and look forward to cheering for you down the line in OLT and what not.
CyberOdin✝ : When you dmed me to buy you I was like "how has no one bought cyberodin?" And I thought to myself, "Cyberodin is a fucking OG of the game, how tf can this man be in my dms begging to be bought, NAHHHH I'm buying him you noobs bout to see what old guard looks like." Lmaooo I am proud of you Odin, you kept up team morale always and played some important games for us, especially your massive win week 4 which helped us to win the week. You are a guy that I have known since 2012 back when we were battling on BW OU ladder and you were beating my ass with tentacruel bronzong mienshao sand. Im happy to win with you my hermano
CTC : Had to save the best for last. You are the greatest player and builder of all time it's not much else to say bro. You were there w me on my competitive Pokemon journey since day 1 and I couldn't have had a better friend to be there along the way w me. You have taught me so much about this game over the years and have helped me perfect my craft to becoming one of the best. I could never have had the success I had in tournaments back in 2016-19 without your help and my SPL X run was fully credited to you making me teams that were so ahead of everyone else in the metagame back then during Gen 7 OU. When you got banned I was so fucking angry at you, especially because me troller and cbb all told you that you were going to get banned for it and you still did not listen. You are the most adamant person I have ever encountered, it's actually annoying sometimes, but that same +atk -spatk nature is why we fucking won this tournament because after your ban you made sure that not one thing in SV OU would happen without you signing off. You were prepping for four slots every week since week 1, this has not been fucking seen since ABR back in 2017-18. The carry job you did on this team will be studied for generations. Outside the game you already know how much you mean to me as a bro. I can't thank you enough for how much work you put in this season. I knew you were the best SV OU player going into the tour but I still did not expect this level of work ethic, no one could. GOAT. OH ALSO LMAO 0 GOUGING FIRE USED IN FINALS. YEAH REALLY BROKEN MON. THANKS FOR BANNING CTC THO. GOOD GUYS WIN STILL
reyscarface : We have come a long way bro. Many different versions of the Tyrants, and I'm gonna be honest it is incredible that this is the version we won with lmaoooo. I'm proud of you for sticking with this team always and always trying to finetune the draft and managing strategy to win. You are the greatest drafter in SPL history to me and I knew that if you were returning to SPL to manage that I wanted to mangage or play always because we will always have a real shot at the trophy with you at the helm. I could not have asked for a better partner in this shit and I look forward to us steering this ship to more rings in the future. I know you said you are quitting but yeah i'm sure your fatass is going to retire when you have 10k ctc/java retain. yeah fucking right LOL. You never fail to make me laugh or just be a bro when I need you to, and even if you are busy 24/7 with being a doctor you still made time for the team always. I miss the days in 2018-19-20 when we would all just chill on discord, me u lavos obii abr lasse etc and just talk about bullshit for hours. man we've grown up a lot hahaha. i'm really happy for you brother, you have deserved this ring for a while and i am happy i got to spin back from spl X and get it right for you. Like I said though, 0% chance you don't return for next year.
Gilbert arenas : You are the goat bro and the heart and soul of the Tyrants franchise. It's a damn shame that we couldn't get you on the team the time we fucking win it, but you can blame pix for that. Either way, you have carried my fatass many times in 3 different tournaments and I swear im gonna go lebrofist james in world cup and win you this trophy man. Thank you for all you've done for the Tyrants over the years and being my bro. buy you a beer soon when we link up.
I wanna give a quick shoutouts to my SPL 10 team one more time. I know I have referenced SPL X like fifty times in this post, but it was the greatest experience of my pokemon career and the most fun I have ever had playing this game. It brings some emotions to me that I could write about for hours, and I truly hope all of you can have a similar experience.
aim Gilbert arenas Heroic Troller Christo Poek emforbes We Three Kings ict GaryTheGengar Mana sulcata Accel CTC Rodriblutar Sam I Yam Hogg Jarii It woulda felt great to win it for you all but ill settle for this one!
I'll be back to take Tyrants next year for the repeat. Til next time Smogon.
THE CURSE IS FINALLY OVER. DRAGONSPIRAL TYRANTS 2024 SPL CHAMPIONS WOOHOO!!!!
also lifetime 1-0 manager 2ez