Following ace, I thought I'd also post in here following my elimination. Thanks to kev for inviting me and all my opponents for the games! Happy to make this far against the heavy ubers competition. Special shoutout goes to
eden for testing a lot of ideas until our eye bleed, and whoever was in ROA rooms for testing against that random guy named addedreverb :). Also shout out to zf for helping finalize my plans in the later rounds
In DPP Ubers, playing and building felt almost always on the rails. Coming from OU, where you can always slow down the pace of the game w phys def rachi, clef, lati kinda stuff even against HO, the average match feels like you're always one crit, one dm miss, one freeze away from a loss, even when you're using defensive teams. At the same time, so is your opponent, which makes the tier fun to play. My teams all kind of follow a similar formula -- make sure you can at least switch into kyogre's water spout and Draco spam at least once, speed control at least faster than mewtwo, and then a way to not lose to lucario. Nothing too crazy is in my teams, and some of my earlier teams have critical flaws as I was relearning the tier (looking at you latios + spikes). I have some dpp ubers building hot takes (I had v little success where my only answer to latios was spdef dialga) I'll sprinkle in throughout this write up! Onto the games:
vs 64
I posted a lot of thoughts on Kev's video, but I knew 64 was an excellent player and I'd have my hands full. I took advantage of my relative lack of recent replays available for me and crafted some very different teams than what I used in dpppl.
t1:
https://pokepast.es/cacef1c9a9729bc0
Made this team when the ladder was dpp ubers. Idea here is to spam twave against the latis/lugia and win w double grounds. I've seen some cool gravity takes on this style of team, but I hadn't thought of that when I built this. This style of team is when i really didnt understand how amazing bronzong was as a dragon resist. I used this style of team a lot in future rounds, I just changed up the slots. It worked pretty well against 64's general slower style of teams he was using at the time and can always apply pressure against offense.
t2:
https://pokepast.es/7cbb9709a25a3415
After the first loss against 64, wanted to pick up the pace w another team I built during the laddering period: wobb ray. This team worked fantastic on the ladder and was extremely similar to the team strap used against me in dpppl, just w deo-a over lucario. deo-a gives you a lot of cool utility and of course is a monster w wobb. I later on perfected this team against donkey, but this was a first draft that worked pretty well. Chople Wow Darkrai is really cool, I've seen twave, but wow is really nice to cripple normal darkrai switch ins like jirachi, sciz, bronzong, groudon. Run some bulk on it! You only need about 40 evs to guaruntee the 2hko on latios/2hko on latias w sr. This was my first dpp ubers tour win, so I was happy w this one
t3:
https://pokepast.es/bdff968c05c8f5a6
This team is heavily flawed, but this was my first attempt to build w the tspikes ho-oh concept kev showed in his ho-oh video. I took his team and tried to fix the speed control/water switch ins w scarf palk and band sciz. I think sciz is pretty flawed mon in ubers w all the spikes and not having enough bulk to tank dracos, esp w band. It kinda wants to do too much w too low of bulk (look at my game2 against donkey to see why sciz + scarf rachi doesnt really work as anti dragon). I also think you need to ev your tentas so they either have a sash or live ho-oh, bc ho-oh is really annoying to this team and is becoming more common. This was an unfortunate game, as ho-oh 6-0ed, but thats the game we play and 64 played it well.
vs Staxi
I knew staxi was probably gonna use some offense, so the teams I used were all pretty good there. This also is a set where I got relatively lucky, but my teambuilding was still flawed. I started cleaning that up during r4 when I played donkey.
t1:
https://pokepast.es/b2f7fa66ad496f2a
This is the the style of team I shamelessly stole from 64 and his g1 team against me. I used this style a ton throughout the tour, cause Ho-oh is amazing and so is the combination of RP Groudon and CM Recover M2. This first draft is actually kinda bad (see the team eden used against aug in dpp ubers semis or my team against byron g2 to see the final draft) The idea here is that ho-oh weakens kyogre so that you can clean up w your m2 or groudon. Please please please run max speed on your latis, don't use that spread. Being able to at least tie w other latis is huge. I think this style of team is the best way to use ho-oh almost as an anti lead -- I think those sun stalls w it are a) too weak to opposing ho-oh and b) really weak to ogre + pursuiter or twave ogre. Shout out byron w his cool ways to build w it though. The game in particular I got lucky w the crit on bliss -- I calced the wrong spread w cm lati (i calced the ou bold rather than the ubers calm one) so I thought I'd kill it. I was wrong, but I think I still could have won this game w/o it.
t2:
https://pokepast.es/7f4adad143c81644
Oh man this team. I tried to build a deo-s rain w a cool tr zong + tr dialga w the normal stuff above. Shout out lasen for giving me this idea in dpppl. This is like a 1000 - 1 mu here, I really can't handle sun stall at all w this team, good team choice from staxi here to stall me. I swung for the fences on almost every read I could. Although, i built w zong for first time, so I guess that's positive? I think to rehab this team, you really should try a pursuit mon so you can at least try to break cresselia. You could def rehab the byron team he used against me g1 to include tr by subbing out the rachi for a zong and maybe try to move ogre up to lead and run a band tar or swap out palkia for the tar and give zong occa? could work, but as is, the team is fundamentally flawed.
t3:
https://pokepast.es/cec03239f2cdb5c3
My first attempt to try out the kev suggestion of leading w specs ogre -- weaken the dialga so that manaphy can clean. Also, really should be using a zong here, or at least make dialga scarf rocks so rachi has recovery for lati + spikes. But the idea of manaphy + Haban sd chomp + specs ogre I think is a really cool one. I think you can experiment w manaphy more w like cm + knock off to cripple the latis, energy ball, other things. Team also might be a little dd ray weak, but thats the nature of the threat w scarf dialga. V similar to my g1 team against 64. Also the intro to refresh lati so I'm not so weak to twave groudon or kyogre. I'm happy I managed to win this one, v close game and if kingdra crits mana I lose.
vs Eo
Eo is a great old school player, been running a lot of cool innovation. I wanted to try and build around CB Ray as I thought it could bust through the balances he was using and its a really cool mon. Other than that, the teams I used are just small alterations of what I used before. I also lost in callous invite around this time, so I started experimenting w running v similar teams or gasp reusing old stuff when I thought it could work. Luckily worked out here
t1:
https://pokepast.es/4069c1b46181a851
My first round of building w skarm as the dragon switch in as well as bulk up dialga and cb ray. This was the infamous counter + focus sash clef game haha. I also now think most tar leads should be sash w all the anti offense leads running around. The idea here is basically to spread out hazards and have all your normal offense w gira-o spikes stuff. The Thunder BU protect set is a cool one I got from zayele's spread dump -- combine dialga's normal defensive utility w the sweeping you get from bu + protect. It almost worked! Also helps palkia not be the only switch in to kyogre. CB ray also helps revenge stuff (it does soooo much damage and sneak + espeed really helps against the latis) and generally wallbreak, as w thunder, you don't have the luxury of resttalk or sub tect dialga
t2:
https://pokepast.es/b5991e2d24289429
Another version of the lead ho-oh team I stole from 64, this is when I started to realize how good hwish + ho-oh is. CB makes an appearance as a way to generally smack things around. The idea is the same, but now w a little bit different of a core w double dance, cm boom mewtwo, and cm refresh lati. I got lucky this game to win w a nice crit on kyogre from ho-oh.
t3:
https://pokepast.es/f6f4d1f402dfac5e
Basically the team I ran g1 against 64, I just slapped cb ray over the garchomp and invested in the great mon that is wacan kyogre. Great way to just bust through a lot of offense when you can water spout on dialga and then eat the thunders really easily -- I used this mon a ton in playoffs and in my set w donkey. It's really cool to see the diversification of items beyond the lum on kyogre lead -- from the claw we saw in eo on all three games this set, specs, wacan, hell scarf. This was an ugly set, but glad I could pull it out and win.
vs donkey
I knew donkey to be a really good dpp ubers player. I knew in order to win and make playoffs, was realllly gonna have to kick it up a notch to beat him. I also saw he liked to repeat teams a lot and generally used a lot of weird breakers like specs palkia and band tar. Figured my anti donkey technology needed to include anti scizor stuff as well as lo ray, as it just looked monstrous here.
t1:
https://pokepast.es/f1b3e2c71ebfc5cc
The second to last form of my wobb ray team that I first got the idea from strap and then zf. I think darkrai could prob even be bulkier, like the one m drag used. Thought donkey had a relative dearth of faster scarfers and i could take advantage of his team choices. I fucked this game up though. I stand by voiding t1, as darkrai is not essential to my long term plan while dialga is and I lose t1 if i switch it into specs spout, which was becoming more common at the time. The crit on the dialga sucked, but i really should have just encored the zong and used it as set up opportunity, as ray rips apart his team otherwise.
t2:
https://pokepast.es/24821579feec7f60
This was another attempt to build deo-s std rain w some cool choices. Latios w roar isnt unheard of, but it already has so few answers in rain, so being able to see what your opp will switch in and take hazard damage while also being a good emergency phazer and water answer is very nice. It also plays on donkey's relatively weak dragon answers and w gira-o and hazards, nails scizor. I got lucky this game w the t3 edge miss and the draco crit, but his team is pretty weak to latios spikes in general and especially endsalac garchomp w just a bit of chip. End Salac is nice speed control here, as more aggressive team/w/o sand can get away w just the final endeavor rather than subbing down. The opp has no idea its not scarf anyway, so rays mostly like will switch or espeed unless they are desperate. You can play the gambit w the latis too if youre feeling risky.
t3:
https://pokepast.es/c4bab014e4e72f15
Another fun idea I took from a replay, this team's goal is to be a more aggressive sun stall, w aggressive choices like spikes deo-a and specs dialga and latios alongside spdef groudon and heatran and lugia. This team tries to get around using a scarfer w lugia and groudon handling ray, luke, and garchomp. Darkrai is a threat, but it will typically either get its sleep t1 if its scarfed, or try to sleep dialga and switch out thinking it is scarfed. This game was wild, def coulda gone either way despite neither or us being able to hit a move in the end. Was very happy to win this one and make it into play offs.
vs Strap
I figured I'd be the 15th seed w my record and have the fortunate of matching up w strap. A fantastic player with a distinct style, I knew it was going to be a difficult match up. From their replays, saw that the teams they used were very aggressive, typically weather sweepers or other more volatile forms of speed control and lots of strong sweepers. RP Groudon seemed like a great choice, as did LO Ray. I prepped a lot for this mu in particular. Overall, despite how it ended, prob one of the closest sets I have ever played, came down to a speed tie (assuming darkrai hits the void to give me better odds to hit one blast to win the game).
t1:
https://pokepast.es/ec01a594cf3e58a1
This team is almost literally the same team as 64 used against me r1, I just subbed out the ho-oh for a sash tar, a mon I felt matched up quite well in the meta as well as against his common lead (he used a ton of deo-a and if I can weaken kyogre, I'll be very happy w this team). Double rocks is here bc sash tar sometimes just wants to keep the pressure on and attack rather than set up rocks and dialga can fit it just fine. The same old cm M2 + RP groudon returns as an excellent offensive core once ogre is down, and ray gives me weather control and a nice way to bust down defensive cores. Spdef dialga and scarf rachi round out the team for dragon + water coverage. About the game: the edge missed sucked hard, as it forced me to take some weird lines throughout, like rock polishing so early so I don't let ho-oh back in for free and lose another mon and then roaring the latios and garchomp out continuously so I don't let the potentially haban chomp set up on me. I got pretty fortunate w the cb roll that I did not activate the sash, as I think that gave me a chance to get rocks and weaken ho-oh rather than potentially go to something faster.
t2:
https://pokepast.es/ce4a6cb08b69b7f6
Another fun team, this team is an edit on my g2 team against donkey, I moved my spiker to qwilfish in the back to give me a more aggressive team overall and swapped out the gira-o w an lo ray. I feel w the garchomp, I can still handle lucario (the source of me losing when we played for dpppl) and I can keep enough offensive pressure to not let it set up. This game was a crazy back and forth -- wacan ogre does its thing and get 1.5 kills but gives up hazards, I miss the hypno on the gira-o, but I get it on zong so I can potentially weaken it for a chomp sweep, strap plays perfectly around my qwilfish, the crazy ray fake out that potentially cost me the game. I thought about this endgame a while afterwards -- the only thing I'd really change is sacking kyogre on the sd rather than let ray take another round of lo damage. I don't have max speed, so I thought maybe he'd be mixed and faster than me or was dd and would set up. The crit on sneak sucked, as it gave strap the information needed to safely go w surf in the endgame and I wasn't sure outrage would kill the gira-o w/o a boosting item. Fun game and cool team from strap
t3:
https://pokepast.es/0e2420a0d3ac4be8
Another crazy game, I thought since my g2 team was so close to pulling it out, I'd basically use it again, just shuffling around the mons and sets. Zong and Ogre return, but this time its darkrai + lati + RP Groudon as the sweepers. Ogre + Groudon + Darkrai is great for taking advantage of latias, at least weakening it to be in range of no lo groudon dclaw. I made the game losing mistake of leaving my lati in and dpulsing on the roaring dialga. Huge mistake on a misread roar that cost me the set. I also thought about this endgame for a long time -- I think I needed to keep my dialga more healthy once the lati was gone, as it can live the ice shard and sneak combo. I think the dpulse to kill ogre was a speed tie, and if i keep it healthy, it cleans once the sun is set, so keeping zong alive and letting ogre get dialga low could be a choke considering strap reused this team (didn't know this at the time). Despite that, still came down to the darkrai vs weavile speed tie, v cool set
vs ace
I knew ace was great to make it this far, remember seeing his stuff as a top player back in the day. My anti-ace tech was to use tspikes and a ton of ho-oh. Ho-oh looked really painful for his teams from above, he also liked to reuse a lot.
t1:
https://pokepast.es/542dcc6563093315
This is the final form of the wobb-ray team I used against donkey. I got the idea to suicide lead ho-oh from conflict, who used a custap ho-oh lead, a really cool innovation. In tests, I never really used the custap, so I swapped it over to passho to weaken kyogre and I'm really glad I did, single handedly won me the early game. The rest of the team is pretty standard sun wobb ray. Ho-oh did what it was supposed to do and I was able to clean w groudon w some fortunate breaks early in the game on zong.
t2:
https://pokepast.es/5cd292d36c79b793
Another fun team, I got this idea from 64's replay when he beat ace earlier (stealing a lot of his ideas). I changed up the mon choices (basically made kyogre and m2 more aggressive w specs and cm respectively). The tenta spread tries to live everything w/o the sash, as payapa and the def evs live deo-a psycho boost and non cb ho-oh eq respectively so you don't quite feel like a suicide lead. Rest of the team is pretty standard tspikes rain offense w scarf rachi, spdef dialga, and gira-o. This endgame was tight as hell to win here, as I really need to maneuver around the lugia and get that quick para to win the game. Really cool game and glad I could be the last to play you, ace. I loved ace's team, and it was one of the main influences to the team I ultimately used against byron g1.
t3: bonus team (the team I used g3 against byron)
https://pokepast.es/ad5434aa5e540fb5
This team. It's basically v similar to the types of team byron has used throughout the tour and the team I used against donkey g3, but the specs dialga lead was an idea i got from aiko in their set against sw. It had performed very well, and I thought I could stall ace pretty well. I'm not a big fan of forre + tran on defensive teams, feels too risky against offensive pressure. I didn't overly need the spin, so I thought I'd replace it w skarmory. The team also is basically latias > latios, skarm > deo-a and dialga in the lead
vs byron
Byron told me he needed to play early, so I obliged and got ready to play byron on the next day. From his replays, I knew he liked to stall a lot and reused teams a lot (I made some hard reads in g1/g2 bc I knew his teams t1). He also was a main source of inspiration throughout the tour for me teambuilding wise, so I knew I had to be good to win here
t1:
https://pokepast.es/70f7a116cc0e2b69
I kinda expected him to stall me g1, but he brought the offense. This team was very inspired by ace's g2 team against me and the manaphy team I used earlier, just w building around the sub salac garchomp this time. Kyogre + Pursuiter is almost impossible to counter w stall and the rest of the team covers the holes you get from that strategy. This was a crazy game, w all kinds of hax and strong maneuvering throughout from byron. I can't really switch into the lustrous palkia at all, and he can't really take on my dialga very well. I think I have it should I not get crit w eq by the tina-o, but garay made a good pt that I had a very slim chance to pull it out if use the hazards to get into salac range, have a very small chance to live the sneak, and then crit the outrage on jirachi. Well played to byron
t2:
https://pokepast.es/1686dce8c28a77b8
This is the final form of the double hwish + cb ho-oh sun offense I described earlier. I thought Ho-oh would be an excellent choice into those sun stalls byron loves and this team really tries to get the most out of it w hwish on both rachi and latias. I really took advantage of knowing his team by hard switching out on the tar t1 and then just using ho-oh to get as much damage as possible. I teched taunt > recover to try to handle his stalls, but i got bailed out by the crit aura sphere after I set up one too many cms. Overall an ugly game, but glad I could tie up the series.
t3:
https://pokepast.es/ad5434aa5e540fb5
The sun stall from earlier. I think this team is flawed, as I really struggled w the hwish ogre + pursuit (I think if I didn't get frozen, byron would have doubled to the tar and removed my latias). I thought his ogre was surf when it actually was pump, which ruined my specs dialga and really ended the game. I tried to comeback, but just couldnt make it happen. ggs to byron and good luck in the rest!
Thanks for getting all the way through this! Hope it was insightful!