Project Monotype Premier League IX Team Dump

[Arase]

with MPL coming to an end i'm glad to announce the Monotype Premier League IX Team Dump Thread!

this thread will serve for the people who played MPL to post the teams they used, teams that didnt see the light of day and whatnot.

Rules

• This is for teams used in, or heavily considered for use, in MPL IX ONLY.
• A Pokepaste would be preferred in terms of formatting. Sprites would also be a helpful addition.
• Descriptions/stories about the teams are allowed (encouraged, even) but consider using a spoiler tag if they end up being very long.

congrats to the Hearthome Honchkrows for winning the event !

 

[TheWyvernKing]

Figured I'd post a couple teams for Gen 6
Dragon v. Gengars
https://pokepast.es/e7c40d455a53758f
Steel seemed like an obvious Chait pick to me, I can fully imagine Dahli saying he'd prefer Ground and then Chait being like "nah this man has 1 replay with Keldeo the past 2 years and almost no ground usage". Anyhow the types I wanted to cover best this week were Flying/Psy/Steel/Elec with a playable Ground/Water. Didn't expect Fighting from them whatsoever so I changed Latios' coverage a bit. Sub hydrei + HB K-B help to cover psy, I put HP Fire on K-B since it seemed like the mon that would most likely be taken advantage of for a Scizor Sweep.

Water vs. whoever used normal
https://pokepast.es/a18bf512baea5a30
Pretty clearly made to handle Flying a bit better, I also didn't expect water whatsoever this week so I was alright with a slightly worse mirror. Power Gem Starmie leads vs. Fly, with Starmie + Scarf Cloy both checking thundurus + Zardy. Honestly am a big fan of this team, went through like 6 renditions before landing on it with some other teams testing stuff like Scarf Volcanion>Cloyster.

Tangrowth Grass
https://pokepast.es/f13ef4d43e51218f
Half the inspiration came from this.

Anyway I looked at Thunders and our usage and realized I could cross out most of Grass's bad matchups. Flying seemed completely off the table, as did bug, fire, poison. Water/Fighting/Dragon/Elec/Ground/Normal were the types I was really thinking about the most this week. Outside fighting being pretty scary with Lucha, the others were all pretty solid for Grass, plus I found the team pretty effective vs. common Psy. Tangrowth with Rocky Helm counters Mega Lade which is usually an issue for Grass, and in general being a pretty overlooked beast of a physical wall.

Kinda tired so not going super into depth on ORAS teams but figured I'd pass these 3.

We had some other cool teams in the backburner like a glare Zygarde Krook ground, and WP Metagross Psy, etc, but I figure those can come a future MPL.

 

[DugZa]

Hello, figured I'd post some SM teams. This teams weren't necessarily built during this tour and have been used in past tours by multiple people as well but they were also either used/heavily considered in this tour as well so figured I might as well post them. Since some of these were made a while ago I don't exactly remember what some EVs are for (sorry!) but they were for very specific things so you can trust them .

Grass:
Mostly standard Grass but with a few twists on certain Pokemon to improve certain MUs. First is the Scarf Whimsicott; Pixie Plate is probably the more common set on it nowadays but that makes the Kommo-o matchup significantly more complicated and if get the prediction wrong it's probably over or have to sack a few mons to deal with it. Infiltrator over Prankster is so that you can Trick vs. Muk-A and you can Trick Muk even if it has already used the berry. The other "different" set is Calm Mind over Nasty Plot on Celebi; Celebi is mostly to improve the Steel matchup and Calm Mind allows it to setup on Air Slash Celesteela which it otherwise loses the 1v1 to and is forced out and the rest in defence to take Heavy Slams better.

M-Camerupt Ground:
In my opinion Ground is extremely underrated in SM but that's mostly because people were pretending like Mega Steelix was viable for most of the gen. Wanted to try Mega Camerupt and it has not disappointed; it's great into a bunch of MUs like Grass/Fairy/Steel/Flying/Psychic and probably more I'm forgetting. Didn't really like 4 attacks or 3 attacks with rocks coz firstly, it's too slow and it'd need good pivot support for that set to work which you can't really fit on a sand team. It also provides you with a reliable way to threaten Celesteela which most Ground teams have trouble with. Don't remember what the EVs on it were for but something to do with M-Venu. Scarf Lando-I with Psychic to deal better with Kommo-o. Sub Z Mamo catches a lot of people off guard since they expect Band most of the time. As for the Seismitoad, again I don't remember what the EVs were for but something to do with the Water MU; other than that, it also owns Normal since it's free Subs against P2/Chansey and the Def/SpD gives P2 an attack boost instead of SpA. Sand core pretty self explanatory.

Mega-less Water:
This is a very weird team; dropping the mega on Water will probably irk a lot of people but I think Water can afford to do it if needed. Opting for Gastrodon makes this team a bit weak to Zeraora but Wacan on Pex is to help with that and I often switch between Toxic and Toxic Spikes depending on what MUs I want to be better against. The original team had Mantine over Tapu Fini which was better in MUs like Poison and Ground but made the team very weak to Dragonite whereas Tapu Fini solves the Dragonite issue but makes the Poison MU more complicated and if there's Toxic Spikes even worse. Golisopod is also an underrated mon imo, does great into MUs like Psychic and Dark and Spikes are super nice to have. I change the Gren set often between all of Rock Slide/Low Kick/Z-Dig/Z-GK/Z-Ice Beam depending on what MUs I want to do better against. I can see a lot of people not liking this team due to the weird approach it has but it has been successful in the few games it has been used so far.

M-Pidgeot + Bewear Normal:
The best for last, this is by far my most favourite SM team at the moment. Normal as a whole is a very underrated type, but that is almost solely coz people still use Mega Flopunny. There's a few different things that make it much different (and better) than the standard Mega Lopunny teams. First off is the lack of Mega Lopunny and instead this team has Bewear as the Fighting-type. Unlike Lopunny, Bewear can actually break past the usual defensive switch-ins that completely wall Lopunny (Mandibuzz, Toxapex, Celesteela); that alone makes Lopunny unable to make a lot of progress against Water, Flying, Steel and Dark. Bewear is also able to take advantage of stuff like M-Sab with Sub whereas Lopunny is forced into 50-50s and mindgames between Protect and HJK. Max Speed Bewear is to have an easier time vs. Adamant Bisharp and also not get Taunted by 219/220 Mandis if any. The attack/HP also allows Sub to lives a Foul Play from Mandibuzz after a Swords Dance. Thunder Punch + Z-Electric bops the three mons I named above and hits some other stuff like Pelipper and Skarmory. Using Bewear also allows the team to have Mega Pidgeot as the mega of choice; it has a bunch of stuff that makes it better than Lopunny in my opinion. Firstly, role compression with Defog and I run a bulky set so it allows me to drop Staraptor and secondly, better into matchups like Poison, Water, Psychic and even Ground. Obviously it doesn't switch-in to attacks as well as Staraptor does it does what it needs to well enough in the current meta and can also reliably threaten Mega Gallade and Keldeo among others. The Pidgeot EVs are from Mateeus and is explained below. P2 set is to improve the Flying MU and I run some Speed on P2 so it outspeeds Celesteela and can Sub on it. Scarf Diggersby is also another "different" set; I originally had Band but Scarf has been much better so far. It makes the Poison MU worse but better against almost everything else and improves the Psychic MU significantly which Normal teams tend to struggle against otherwise. Foul play is to revenge M-Gallade and Psychic has no switch-ins to Foul Play anyway. Chansey and Ditto are self-explanatory, nothing special there. This is easily my favourite SM team at the moment, it does super well into the current meta and I usually find any excuse to pass it to whoever I'm helping. The team has been pretty successful so far, winning every tour game it has been used in including in MPL finals today.

Pidgeot EVs

switches in into any keldeo after sr damage and avoids the OHKO from specs pump
also avoids the 2hko from scarf rotowash's hydro 20 spA
KOes MGallade 100% of the time
speed makes it hit 352 enough to outspeed the 110s defense allows it to switch into unboosted keldeo comfortably (mainly so specs secret sword does not ko after sr)
avoids the 2hko from band dnites espeed allowing u to roost it off also takes on some hits like scarf tini v create, scarf kbs outrage, avoids the 2hko from scarf bulu wood hammer

This is probably the last Monotype tour I manage in for a while but it was fun managing with Floss again after a long time. Grats to the Krows on their win and the Wakes for having one of the most (or the most?) dominant showing in regular season we've ever seen.

 

[Cell]

W1 Steel versus Toadow:
We didn't really do much prep this week. I just wanted to give Jojo something linear for him to get a lot of games in and learn the tier, since he was unfamiliar with ORAS prior to this tour. Triple hazard stack into SD Bisharp+M-Zor should give you enough outplay room vs almost anything and Ground + SubCM Keld were relatively uncommon at the time. Taunt Bisharp should own all potential phazers. Both it and M-Zor were ev'd to outpace -1 CB Victini.

W2 Flying versus Spitfire:
We brought this cause I was pretty obsessed with making stall work and we suspected our opponent wouldn't be very good in long games. The end result was an edited Attribute build, which turned out pretty well. I feel SubToxic Zapdos is very underrated in ORAS. It's incredibly good vs flying, water, psychic, elec, and even potentially steel if you manage to knock the Ferro.

W4 Psychic versus Star:
I was really excited to be able to play Star this week. I brought this because it's my peak comfort pick and I felt a strong desire to go for a neutral match-up cause it had been a few years since I last played ORAS and I wanted to have a nice game against someone I viewed as a very good player. Mega Gardevoir is Modest for better rolls against Mega Gyara, Gliscor, and Zapdos among other things since it gains nearly 40 points from the nature.

W6 Fairy versus Feliburn:
This was an idea I had been holding onto some time now since I always thought CM LO Clefable was broken, although I had no idea how to make the rest of the team work against stuff like Gliscor + Zard-Y Flying. The first version of it probably got made all the way back during MWCOP2 when Splash gave me the idea for Specs Gardevoir as a revenge killer / progress maker against Ground and SS Water teams. After fulfilling a few prerequisites, CM LO Clef should be an amazing wincon against almost everything with the right setup opportunity.

W7 Ground versus Harpp:
My first new team in a hot minute. The idea originated from Decem vs Bush (MWP4 Finals). Protect Gliscor seemed very annoying for choice-locked Keldeo and Kingdra to break, so I decided to expand on that. Seismitoad can trap and burn bulky waters and Zapdos. We went with Lefties SD Exca so that Skarm wouldn't be a massive pain to kill. Zygarde's purpose is to switch into and force out Zard-Y and Keldeo with Glare. Mega Steelix avoids the 3HKO from CB Weavile and Mamoswine. Despite the low PP, we chose Gyro Ball as the attacking move on it because of how surprisingly strong it is, especially when boosted by Sand Force. 0 Atk Sand Force Steelix-Mega Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Latios in Sand: 304-358 (101.6 - 119.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Finals Bug versus Spitfire:
I have never been so terrified of prepping for a match in my life. These people brought Tangrowth to semifinals and used Lapras Ice against us the last time we played. I brought a somewhat similar build a few years back in MPL7 vs Taide, which was coincidentally inspired by Wyvern's Vivillon set from before he returned to the site. We went for Forretress over Armaldo as the spinner/rocker since it's bulkier and has access to Explosion, which made it better suited for offense. Yanmega was the original Tailwind user, but we opted for Scizor since it could emergency defog, act as a slow bulky pivot, and potentially set Tailwind more than once. The Mega Heracross spread is for Specs Kingdra in rain and just to ensure we don't do enough to Skarmory with CC to the point where they might consider switching out or attacking as we Focus Punch. We made Galvantula Choice Scarf TWave to catch Torn-T and Scarf Cloyster.

SV

This specific version of the Dragon went unused, but I nearly brought it in my finals game against Leaf. Shed Tail + Screens into one of 3 good setup sweepers in the meta seems incredibly broken on paper.


Also went unused, although it was a potential pick for Vod in semis and another one of my options in finals. Whole team is really just geared around bulky Wisp Volcarona taking advantage of all the special support Dnite sets floating around.

HWish Hilligant

Lilligant-Hisui (F) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Hustle
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Victory Dance
- Sleep Powder
- Healing Wish
- Leaf Blade

Ice Spinner doesn't really do anything against all the Moltres spam. I realized it learned HWish, and that support changes a lot for Fighting.

Rest Orthworm

Orthworm (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Earth Eater
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 Spe
Impish Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shed Tail
- Spikes
- Body Press
- Rest

Attribute initially wanted the Orthworm to have Leftovers for BU Lando-T, while I thought it should use Sitrus to better secure Shed Tails. Rest was just my way of compromising the two options.

 

[Mada]

Gonna dump some teams I made or tested for Semifinals and Finals


Tornadus Flying:

I will start with one of the teams I spam the most, we made this for PSPL against Shiba some weeks ago and I think the team is very very solid, being able to have a decent mu against tons of comps and types. It's pretty standard Flying with Tornadus on the last slot. SUB Bu Lando is for Poison and Steel, even tho Poison has stopped being that big of a threat in this meta and Steel started running anti-Lando techs, Corviknight is the standard wall to go and check non-band Pao and Specs Gren, whereas Moltres helps Corvi and can spread burns and Brave Bird can hit some mons like other Moltres, Spectrier, Volcarona. SpDef Zapdos is one mon I really like as you can spread para's against some types like Fairy and eventually check half of them, the only down-side is being weaker to mirror Fly w SubRoost Zapdos which is more popular, but for Flying we also got DD BoltBeam Dragonite. Tornadus is just nice to scout overall and to provide soem annoying coverage and pivoting. Originally I had Focus Blast over GK but in Semis we putted Grass Knot to help a bit with Ground, which isn't that easy but they should break very hardly and u can eventually pp-stall them if you handle Ursaluna correctly, we never really thought about using this as I sent it to some Krows during Semis and W7 but I still believe it's a solid team.


Offense Water:

I started testing this for MLT Playoffs but only revamped it in Finals against Trich as I think this team has a good mu against some of the top types like Fly, Steel and Ground and does decently against some other like Mirror, Ghost and Dark.
Sash Samu-H is very strong by being able to place Spikes and eventually get a kill or some helpful chip, whereas you could also just click SD in some matchups to guarantee a kill. Sub Rotom-W is very nice against Flying and Mirror and can also just spread Para's in other mus.
Cloyster improves the Flying matchup and Urshifu getting SD can basically annoy everything, especially Ground and Steel. Taunt is there over Aqua Jet / Trailblaze as Ground isn't as easy as you think it is. Punching Gloves is probably better item too but without a removal and Shifu needing to come in often in some games, I preferred using HDB. Pex is added mainly to help the Fairy MU, it is Safety Goggles as Lilligant-H existing made us switch type but I just slapped Goggles on Pex even tho in all other mus u feel the lack of HDB, and Gren is there to clean some types and eventually pivot. We also did not get to use the BBLO Gren Set which I still think can be amazing in the tier even tho there is Scarf FM that can revenge kill you, but for the rest that mon can probably solo many different types, especially with Samu's hazard support and eventually para's too.


Braviary Flying:

I made this team for Finals, originally it had SpDef Twave Dos but then we switched to Pressure. I still dislike Max Speed Zapdos as the only use I see on this team is hitting Hydreigon faster and being able to outspeed the mirror mu and Roost before their hits. The team is very similar to the Tornadus Fly as I think every Flying team still wants the same backbone of 3-4 mons. Landorus is Grass Knot over Bulk Up to hit Ground betterly, especially Tusk and Quag and Smack Down + Eq can still do a decent work against Steel. Dnite is Special BoltBeam as I believe it can be very annoying even tho probably going Max Spatk max HP was better, I believe the bulk is for Lilligant-H and the Spatk to OHKO the Landorus iirc. I think Braviary can be cool, here it mainly helped w Ground, Dark, Mirror, Fighting, Steel along with Moltres for Gambit. The damages it can do is crazy and it has a decent bulk that along with CM and Esper Wing can start snowballing. Hurricane over Heat Wave was an option but hitting so many Hurris with a setup sweeper isn't that easy + HW still does great job.


Thundy Flying: ///

This is what I was testing for Vodoom and I felt great for those, even tho I don't think they are as solid as other Flyings. Using GMolt is so hard but there were concerns arround Ghost and I don't know how to make a solid Flying without Moltres as u can get snowballed by physical attackers. I believe Thundurus can go crazy against Mirror, Water and Ground and even Poison as the damages this mon does are crazy, so in other bad mus it can still spread paras and get some chip. I think u really need Enamorus for Dark that's why I putted an Enamorus later on but not having Dnite is also huge as mushamu made me notice. In the end as we expected offensive types such as Fairy and Fighting we had some valid alternatives and also a Dragonite Variation which is this one: https://pokepast.es/1bda1ce785da631d and I actually really like it as I think this can cover a lot of things and I really believe Thundurus-T is interesting, as I also tried to fit Band Thundurus.

Stall Water:

I made this during Semis for I do not remember which slot but then I also proposed it to bring it in Finals as I believe Stall Water can be very decent now even tho appareantly nobody likes it. It feels pretty fishy and u have like tons of threats but I believe u can handle almost all of them, and as I avoided using Stall Water for the whole Season cause it lost to Ghost, after Ghost lost usage I really think this archetype could have been better.
Overall I think you can deal with Thundurus, Hydreigon, Gholdengo, Pao, Kingambit and other threats but you really gotta play incredibly well and it will never be easy, also Zapdos is just extremely annoying even tho you can probably pp stall it w rest ww and Gastro. I also am not sure how to feel about Rspin With 6 hdb's so probably using more Lefties is fine.


Turtle Fairy:

This was a quick draft I made I think in Leafium's slot but they probably didn't even see it cause I veto'd it right away. I don't think this gets any particular niche that beats types u can't beat already, but I think Para Spam is broken in Mons and Para Spam with Enamorus-T and CM Modest Mane looks very interesting. I think Fairy is very strong and can be built to beat any type without problems and I still think this team can be interesting and funny to use.


Stall Fly:

This team is more of a joke as I have been joking a lot on using SUB Bu Corvi w Leppa Berry. I think overall this can probably do great in a couple of matchups but I would never say this is good, I tried to use Stall Fly since MLT laddering but Stall this gen is almost impossible to use well as there are tons of threats like wow hex ghosts, random Kingambit destroying your team, Pao being absolute broken, Specs Mane snowballing you, easier pp stalling etc.


Ice HO:

I have been trying this during W6 and W7 for Poffs, I think Ice can be decent antimeta but other types are just better. Bax is crazy in this tier and can really win games by itself, and with Screens and Snow it can become unkillable. Bulky Frosmoth for Water and Ground and Crabominable helps Fly mu, Poison, Dark and Steel ones. Pao is just there cause you need Pao and that mon is just crazy. I liked this team a lot, Neko and someone else told me about Avalugg being able to basically 6-0 Fighting and they had interesting Ice teams too but I believe this comp still can do very nice against Dragon, Fly, Poison, Ground, Water, Steel, Elec, Dark.

RM Dragon:

This is another Dragon I start testing along with the Ice, not sure if this does really better than other types but yea for as much as u can try to fit FI Haxorus and Scarf Wake, I don't think you can beat Pao + Kingambit. Rest of Mus I think can be fine so overall I believe this team is still decent, sts are pretty standard besides the Goodra set which is prolly just suboptimal as u want some physdedf + chesto resto. I tried to use a Life Dew + Protect a couple of games but 25% recovery is fucking Walmart Recover so yea u can't really use that. I don't think Scarf Shed Tail is great either as the main thing it can do is pivot without taking damage on the next mons, that's why I was trying Spin + Pivot + Koff Cyclizar.


Psychic:

This is probably the last team I was testing for poffs (I made this with Mihowk) in general, I think as other types this has the main issue of hard losing to one popular type which is why people was probably scared to load those. I stole the Mew idea from Plunder as that Mew can be very strong vs Flying, which can't handle Espathra that easily unless some Discharge Para (theres hwish) so mainly Gmolt or Haze Cuno. Fairy is probably an L to if they are TWave Klefki as if u get some setup to somehow beat FM you just get para'd. Water should be pretty nice even tho u might want Sub on Espathra for that which would virtually help with Fairy too, whereas Fighting and Ground both look very fine but yea Sub / Roost is very hard to decide. Overall I think this is the most random team I made along w the Stall Flying but still wanted to share.

Sunless Fire:

I wanted to share this Fire too, this was one of the 2 teams I used to qualify for MLT and I think Sunless Fire can be very solid this gen. As people knows Volcarona can carry mu's by itself, whereas Tauros can annoy Dark, Ghost and eventually Poison if Guss is dead, which isn't easy for them to keep. Ace just helps with hazards, Heatran is a good wall that can trap and annoy some mons, and that u can play aggressively vs FM to avoid losing mons. Volcanion can help forcing out Water mons such as Azumarill and Fairy has overall hard times breaking Fire. Skele + Volcanion + Tran + Burns are quite solid defensive backbone against most of the types and probably the hardest mu's are Water and Ghost, which I don't think you can really beat. I wanted to revamp this team a couple of times but there were some disagreements and we never got to use it.

Post season thoughts

This was my first MPL and I didn't even got to play but overall I had a lot of fun building, I believe this gen is good and can award building and niches a lot, and it feels very very unexplored as people kept using the same 5 types with the same 7 comps or so. I think that a lot of types can be built to do incredibly well against the other top types, but u autolose to another one and I got this feeling for almost everything I built. I had a lot of fun in SV and I think that some ideas are cool and definetely can be worked on but well DLC is being released soon. Overall I still had fun and think we had an amazing season, it always feels bad to lose in Finals but can't say I honestly didn't expect it but I am happy some friends were able to win and Krows definetely deserved it. I hope Wakes had fun as they were very motivated and great players and thanks to plunder for being nice and asking me to manage with him, I would have probable have signed up as a player otherwise, as he knows.


Vodoom Dorron Mihowk SetsuSetsuna diegoblu -Howkings fran17 Tricking Pais thanks for either helping me every time I ask you to on a daily basis or either being the guys I enjoy talking the most to

 

[Trichotomy]

Here are three of my favorite SV teams that were used this tour:

Ground

Week 3 vs. lax | Week 6 vs. Tack | Jojo8868 Week 4 vs. Sae

Ground has been my favorite type in SV since pre-HOME, and when I was first slotted there after getting beat down in SM I wanted to use something that had a shot against almost everything in the meta. The team is centered around defensive Taunt Great Tusk, which alleviates weaknesses to a lot of common threats, namely Flying teams and Corviknight. The set allows you to keep rocks up against the former and surprisingly acts as a solid breaker against both, as shown in the W3, W7, and Semifinals replays. The Clodsire set ensures that you don't get 2HKOed by Flower Trick, and even though hazards will be up for most of the game against Dark, it's more of a preventative measure in the early game. Ursaluna is a catch-all pick, as it has a lot of utility against many different types (see replays) and packs Ice Punch to check Landorus, which would otherwise be a massive threat.


Week 7 vs. rs | Semifinals vs. Toadow

This Ting-Lu set comes courtesy of yedla who was helping me test some teams in the latter weeks of the tournament. In comparison to Ursaluna, Ting-Lu fares a lot better against Dark and rogue Espathras, but is overall more of a "fish" per se. The spread outspeeds Sableye while maximizing defense, allowing you to Substitute on Sab / Ting / Muk or just claim kills with Body Press. Taunt is used to prevent being phazed out by opposing Ting-Lu and stop Sableye from recovering. I used this twice as I thought that Dark was coming in both weeks, but you can see that replacing Ursaluna with Ting-Lu doesn't diminish your chances against Flying too much. This variant has Ice Punch on Quagsire to not lose to BU Lando-T and full SpDef Clodsire since Ting-Lu is the carry against Dark.

Dark

Vodoom W5 vs. XSTATIC COLD | Scarfire Semifinals vs. Masskeau

Despite being widely considered a top 3 type in the tier, Dark had an abysmal winrate and was really struggling against the other top types, so I wanted to make my own variant that covered those types better. The biggest problem I saw was that Chien-Pao just didn't have the necessary damage to break past Corviknight and Moltres without flinching, and I thought Greninja on Dark was super overrated. As such, the team is built around Eject Button Ting-Lu and Band Chien-Pao, the former of which gives you great momentum into the latter (and also into Hoopa against Fighting) while still being able to get up hazards in the mid-game. Muk is a great check to many Fairy and Fighting type threats while still maintaining a considerable offensive presence due to its solid Attack stat and Poison Touch ability. Kingambit is a necessity on Dark and was my coping mechanism for the mirror, since a +4 Kingambit can OHKO Chien-Pao with a couple of fallen teammates. Unfortunately Vodoom ran into the only Low Kick Sableye in existence, but with most opposing Kingambits being Iron Head, it gives you a shot despite not having a Chien-Pao that can switch moves. I think Hoopa is the premier scarfer on Dark with its excellent coverage and insane Atk and SpA stats, as well as being naturally bulky on the special side.

This tour put me through the five stages of grief more than one time but I'd still like to give some shoutouts to my team and others for making this an enjoyable experience:

Vodoom you already know that I think you're one of the most underrated players in mono, you were the only player that I adamantly demanded to be drafted to our team because I know what you are capable of. Please stop leaking our DMs though or I might be perma-banned from this site and laid off from my job

Scarfire I didn't know much about you before this tour but I'm glad we got you, I definitely didn't expect a 6.5k player who has minimal building experience to step up in the later weeks (especially finals) and deliver multiple solid teams that I really liked, along with an excellent 6-3 record. I hope the depression we shared throughout this tour doesn't deter you from playing more monotype as I'd love to team with you again

Cell the mastermind behind it all, I've never seen someone more dedicated to their craft than you and even though you're known more for building, I was very impressed by your in-game play. Thank you for helping me cope with my losses and carrying our ORAS slot every week, I was able to mute that channel because of you

Attribute I'm happy we finally got to team together as I consider you one of the GOATs, you're clearly a lot better than your record suggests but your support to the team is invaluable. Thanks for carrying the BW slot and also helping to carry Jojo in PL because god knows I could not have done it alone

Jojo8868 the most confusing bs player I've ever seen, how do you go from 13-1 SP to 0-7 and feeding the other teams' supers in back-to-back games? I also think you're better than your record this tour suggests but maybe if we didn't spend all of our prep time brawling it would be better. Hope we can team again in MWP or other future tours

fade you may not have won much this tour but you won when it mattered the most. I don't regret spending 25k on you despite your record as I knew I could count on you in the playoffs. I know you hate monotype LMAO but maybe you'll change your mind and play another tour to just have fun, we're back-to-back champs and you have nothing left to prove

Leo I didn't know you at all before this tour but despite my malding over some of your games you were a reason we won this tournament. Thanks for coming through in finals and being a more bearable bs teammate than Jojo

RoyalReloaded diegoblu avarice thank you guys for helping support and build teams, I wish I could have slotted you in more but we were barely making playoffs :sob:. You are all starter-level players and I hope to see you in future tours

Isza yedla Azick Leru DugZa Prosaic we probably don't win this tour without your help, thanks for joining and contributing even if it was just the smallest change or detail

 

[mushamu]

Hi guys, I played sv and ss this tournament so i will be dropping some teams here. I'm overall happy with my season since going undefeated in an MPL is something I've always wanted to do after going 6-1 in the last iteration. The teams are linked in the pokemon sprites and click them to access them! Feel free to ask me anything as well regarding my teams/playing, since I like dissecting things a lot and reflecting on mistakes to be better.

Regular season:
Week 1 vs Leo (SV Monotype)

I wanted to use flying here because it's broken in monotype and always a good go-to especially when the meta is still getting figured out. I wanted to prep against flutter mane against their team since fairy was expected. Scarf Landorus-T is really good for covering that and reversing momentum in general, and the thing I've noticed is that a lot of types don't have great ground switchins and it can click pretty effortlessly against something like ghost. Defensive gyarados is a favorite and blanket checks stuff like specs greninja, chien-pao, and baxcalibur in one. Enamrous is excellent in general and I decided to use substitute + 3 attacks to beat stuff like poison steel and flying. Moltres flying beats this team but it wasn't that common yet. Bombirdier is like dark type skarmory and should be used more; it's very underrated since landorus-t/landorus can be doing a lot of other things that isn't clicking rocks. Special dragonite is good against rain with thunderbolt to hit pelipper and fairy as well to beat azumarill. Generally scarf lando t is super strong when paired with rocks support and gyarados is highkey a breaker with rocks even though it's defensive. Twave + taunt is annoying as shit and dtail phases everything. I loaded into dark and I think I played fairly well. I think my opponent had some turns he could have done better in but I'm happy with how I played; hoopa-unbound was super scary at team preview but I managed to reverse momentum against it in the game. The hoopa u vs corviknight and bombirdier was weird by him but I think it was because he didn't realize corviknight sometimes doesn't carry u-turn and bombirdier is usually slower and parting shot so it's probably just lack of metagame knowledge.

Week 2 vs Dieu Amphibien (SV Monotype)

After switching between some things I decided on steel vs dieu. I decided it was the play because dieu is the type of person to run something suboptimal or niche to try and counterteam me, and this team is basically barricaded vs that type of stuff. Protect goodra-h answers weather, trick gholdengo answers random setup. CB iron treads + Scarf gholdengo is a pretty tried and true core and covers a lot offensively generally. I think defog corviknight is needed even on steel so you don't lose to spikes ting-lu; generally iron treads doesn't remove because of sableye and running it basically means dark is a lot harder as a result. Kingambit is jolly with 188 speed because I got trauma after my dragonite was outsped by a kingambit vs leo and decided to make it a point faster than opposing adamant kingambit (I didn't think they would ever bring jolly max kingambit). While you sacrifice a lot of breaking power, kingambit's bulk makes it worth it when you can set up randomly at different points in the game, or just break without setting up. This team is also kinda bad right now because landorus-t with smack down is everywhere but yeah I still really like it. I ended up loading into normal and won with some aggressive plays in game, like doubling the iron treads in against meloetta and dragon pulsing the ursaluna turn 1 since I didn't think he would ever click earthquake.

Week 3 vs TheWyvernKing (SV Monotype)

I'm a huge fan of poison in monotype so I decided to use it here. Pretty much picked a type/team that I liked and went in. There wasn't really any specific reasoning besides gut feeling (which turned out to be wrong LOL shoutouts baxcalibur) and I was going out in the nighttime so I wanted to get the game done with early on in the week. Gengar poison is favorite and the cool thing is that it gets icy wind to beat Landorus, which no other mon can claim to do. Ghost resists in monotype are generally rare and the ones that do answer it (kingambit, alolan muk, ting-lu) all get crippled by trick. I'm super high on protect + toxic alolan muk and I think it makes a lot of matchups doable. The toxapex should be spdef and muk should be physdef but it worked out okay here I guess. Salazzle is excellent and encore + double corrosion is really strong. The game itself was weirdly played on both sides, I did some bad mortal spinning on goodra-hisui early game to try and catch the chomp and I feel like the baxcalibur could have been piloted better.

Week 4 vs Tack (SV Monotype)

Overqwil is so fucking good and completely flips the script against pokemon like kingambit, dragonite, and baxcalibur. 4 defensive mons + double corrosion just slams a lot of stuff at preview and the stuff that it doesn't slam I can try to outplay. This team is stall-ish and I felt like the main thing that was bad for it was ground and landorus, but both didn't have amazing usage at that point so I was like it's okay. It's pretty similar to the team I used last week, with main difference being overqwil and the spreads on pex/muk; muk is spdef for psychic, spectrier, and enamorus while toxapex is physdef for chien pao, kingambit, and baxcalibur. The battle itself was pretty straightforward, fat poison kinda just consumed and they couldn't break. Pretty strong archetype if used in the right time.

Week 5 vs Azick (SV Monotype)

I was excited to play azick since he's a bro and has been doing well in the tournament. With chien-pao and kingambit, I realized how good dark is, especially with hydreigon since I feel like it solves a lot of issues. Hydreigon pretty much beats every type or does a fuck to anything not named fairy and provides you with a solid electric/water/fire resist that isn't just being like "I will send greninja/meowscarada into the attack and hope it doesn't die" which means hydreigon is much better against stuff like fire/rain water. Draco+flamethrower is so good, it nukes a lot off stuff and especially since water doesn't carry a switchin it makes hydreigon super good in that matchup too. It's also the only dark pokemon that can really run leftovers without getting smacked by spikes/rocks and has a pretty unique defensive presence bc of this alongside typing. From playing him beforehand as his friend I felt that azick is the type of dude to get caught off guard by thunder wave sableye and I thought it was really nice into him, like for example sending enamorus into it and then I can just win with hydreigon against flying. Ting-lu is really good glue; my ideology is that whirlwind ting-lu beats the setup pokemon that sableye can't break anymore since I dropped encore for thunder wave and is generally just kinda a unit.Double hazards meowscarada is really good and protean allows it to ignore toxapex's toxic to click spikes freely. Kingambit is kingambit and I ran enough speed for paralyzed iron valiant since its a pretty realistic scenario considering the sableye set. 4 attacks chien pao is the best set to me, since you need all 4 moveslots. Psychic fangs is a lot more useful than what people make it out to be I feel, and I wanted ice shard on it for choice scarf enamorus but I felt like in practice sableye's twave was beating it. In the game itself, I loaded into the mirror. Zarude was super scary and claimed meowscarada for free early game but his chien-pao being banded helped a lot. I ended up winning with kingambit after knocking out the zarude after the meowscarada died. I think azick had better odds if he kept his zarude alive and it would have resulted in a closer game with maybe a chien-pao tie.

Week 6 vs AA (SS Monotype)

Tried to throw a curveball here by using something "suboptimal" in ghost, which does have a lot of holes because no hazard control but is a strong type nonetheless. Spectrier is generally really good and beats a lot and I felt it was a strong pick going into AA especially given how I tend to use "safe" types like flying, water, ground, and poison. I was also super afraid of getting stalled this week so spectrier eats that. Dual status dragapult is something I'm high on in monotype, and covers a lot since u have role compression in being a speed control and dual status means u can cripple a fuckton of stuff. Generally i feel like dragapult is the best scarfer in the tier so I was happy to put it here over the standard dragon dance. The rest of the team is pretty standard. It was funny because going into this game I was like "yea this should be a good game unless I load into ghost mirror" and got exactly that. I played a bit poorly against the dd dragapult but ended up winning.

Week 7 vs luisin (SS Monotype)

I ended up reusing the same team because I didn't think they'd expect me to repeat (I'm known for innovating new stuff) and ghost is super free into chaitanya's usage. Loves psychic, hates galarian moltres, thinks dark is trash, does not carry roar tran on steel (spectrier wins), all stuff that pointed into me repeating the team. I felt bad about using it again because it's a pretty cheap type because spectrier but I felt it was the play here. Loaded into psychic and won.

Playoffs:
Semifinals vs Jojo8868 (SS Monotype)

I loved making and using this team especially since water is my favorite type to use in monotype. Suicune seemed strong against their usage, and since a lot of suicune teams come out to be super passive I figured tentacruel would be nice so you can fit 2 roles (toxapex and removal) into one slot, giving room for more offensive options. I came up with it at like 2 am then I was like "yooo this is it" and toyed around with the movesets a lot (scald on swampert for geezing, crunch on daunt for quagsire, pjab or iron head on urshifu-r for bulu or ninetales, tentacruel's speed evs). After a while it felt like the team to use here, since I got to build something cool and new against a bro while deviating from the boring slowking water teams that are common in the tier. It's kinda offensive, with tentacruel for fast t spikes and knock and I felt suicune was pretty strong against their usage becausei it wins against fairy, they dont carry encore sableye on dark, beats psychic, owns steel and annoys flying, electric, and ground. I also love cloyster in monotype since it beats the types water struggles against in flying grass and dragon and goes with the offensive nature of this team. Subsd crawdaunt is nice against poison since I feel like a lot of the times they're scouting with pex by clicking toxic and that gives you a free sub + you can start owning. Tentacruel is max speed to outspeed urshifu-r, kyurem, tapu lele, and hydreigon while tying with tini, zapdos, and mew. Water teams don't normally carry toxic spikes but I feel like they're super underrated because you basically claim two hard matchups in fairy and ice with them (a lot of people don't use boots kyurem on ice since chople is also super useful for breaking sequences against fighting pokemon) and compliments suicune very well. Even if i lost the game, I felt still cool since i got to use something I was really hyped to bring.

The game itself is something I really liked dissecting post-match, since there were like 8 outcomes endgame depending on what my opponent and I clicked. In the mid-game, there were small stuff like how I handled the swampert vs hydreigon sequence. I lead from tentacruel since I saw scarf zarude at preview even though it turned out to be choice band and a scarfless dark team so I could click t spikes from the get-go, putting a lot of pressure. No toxapex unfortunately means I'm basically mainly banking on residual damage to beat zarude as one turn wrong and I can lose the sack game, but it's realistic since I have priority, toxic spikes put immense pressure, and cloyster or tentacruel can trade. He leads mandibuzz since he was cb zarude and probably assumed I'd lead scarf shifu? Anyways tentacruel does tentacruel things and I get the t spike off while he goes ttar, I go swampert since I need the health on tentacruel for zarude and can't afford getting paralyzed or taking a rock move. He doubles into hydreigon, and I felt like since he was doubling to hydreigon he was probably trying to setup using nasty plot with dark pulse or draco meteor but he ends up being steelkiller with flame + earth power.

I thought toxic was the play here since I was like "ok if he goes hydreigon into my swampert he's probably gonna be dark pulse/draco; he's probably either gonna set up, attack, or go mandi for the t spikes" and wanted to get off toxic since it was a good progress maker. I didn't think he'd click substitute because of the presence of roar, but I maybe feel like he didn't realize I was roar (flip turn/eq/toxic/rocks)? and clicked sub. I was caught off guard and clicked roar since I didn't want to get np into draco'd and it drags bisharp out. While i wanted to eq to chip bisharp in the range of cloyster, I needed hp on swampert so I went crawdaunt after taking a knock which then forces damage on the hydreigon. I should have calced +2 ajet into hydreigon but I couldn't do so since I was on the phone so I went for it, and it somehow lived. Knock into aqua jet was way better. Not being able to calc is also why I thought zarude was still scarf after ohkoing tentacruel.

After some aggressive stuff (going cune on ttar's rock slide when he had twave and going urshifu on the weavile when one taxel would have ended the game) the game pans out to be this:

A lot of people were asking why I protected since scald was free but I felt that protect was the play since it's 1. safe, 2. I was pretty confident in winning the next turn even if he sd'd, and 3. I felt like I needed hp on suicune for the weavile into mandibuzz. Here is the screenshot of me talking about it in my team cord. After he sd'ds, it was a 5050 and I went for scald since I felt like protect was the aggressive play and scalding right after it catches him off guard.

The game also heavily depended on the rolls on weavile with suicune, as well as scald burns alongside the plays, since it boils down to me winning if I:

1. getting a burn on weavile early game (30% chance for turn 1, or 51% chance with both turns)
2. getting the protect turn wrong, suicune gets suckered into around 30% ish, I manage to protect against weavile while he knocks (if he sd's I lose), winning the roll on weavile, and getting an early burn turn 1 on mandibuzz (burned foul play does 7% ish, and burning it should ensure I can cm again and threaten it with scald twice
3. clicking protect while he sd's, then scalding the bisharp while he knocks and getting the roll/burn on weavile, then I have a lot more room to burn the mandibuzz. If i burn within the first three scalds on mandibuzz, then I should win. (This is the path I took.)
4. clicking substitute while he suckers, then protecting and then scalding as he suckers and breaks the sub, leaving me with 6% less HP than the above route since substitute into 3 turns of lefties is 18%
5. clicking substitute while he suckers, then protecting, cming again, so I have a +1 suicune vs bisharp under substitute. This route should win regardless of the weavile stuff, but it's a huge risk since I basically need to play my mind out.

I took path #4, got the scald turn right, got the roll on weavile, and won against mandibuzz. It was a really fun game to play against a friend. In retrospect I should have calced more and played a safer game with swampert vs the hydreigon since getting up rocks would have been really nice, especially since he turned out to be helmet mandi instead of boots and maybe playing safe with the cloyster, but I felt like clicking toxic + roar + eq was better at the time I played.

Closing thoughts:
This MPL was really fun, thanks to Cielau and Toadow for drafting me and the rest of my teammates CrossHeart Hurtadoo Baloor kythr Trouser Snakes Gelbel3c Ryuji Mateeus for being a blast to hang out with. Going from sv -> ss was a cool change since I initially didn't like ss that much, but innovating was really fun and I think the generation is cool now. I didn't get to play the sv meta where moltres and co were running around which is why a lot of my picks lost to it due to me playing it earlier in the tour. Sv monotype is kinda weird rn but I think it's good and I think the DLC will be nice for it (water gets empoleon back!). That's all I wanted to say and cheers to another nice MPL

 

[Attribute]

hi everyone, i am going to go over teams i brought this mpl, maybe go over teams i made in other gens, we'll see. my type selection tendencies... may have gotten exposed to hell and back (i was being called out for this in prediction posts bro what the hell) so imma just post everything ive used and try to explain what i can, if i can, so that in the future if i ever play a full season of bw ill actually (hopefully) attempt to try some new stuff. maybe some thoughts on the meta to give me more reason to try something new next time. we'll see. i don't know. this post is already starting to be all over the place anyway. im not gonna be going over games (if i do it will be very brief) cause... 9 weeks is too much nor do i think there's a lot to go over but if you have questions you can pm me or something. due to the lack of me going over games ill try to go over teams more. maybe the process in which lead me to bring it. we'll see. lets get to it!

Preseason thoughts:
before the tour started, i wanted to try and build a little bit to see what a meta without latios is like, as this is really the only tour people are going to actually (probably) try new things as opposed to just using latios meta teams or slapping on a latias on teams that had latios, as seen in mono blt and mono cup. just a side note: specs latios -> specs latias swap is shameless and boring as hell. i tried to look into every type to see if there's anything worth trying out (even the unviables cause who knows maybe dark is the best type now or somethnig), so i ended up making a tier list of types to summarize my thoughts (note, i made this a few weeks before mpl started):

S: Psychic / Flying / Ground / Steel
A: Water / Poison / Fire / Ice
B: Dragon / Fighting
C: Electric / Bug / Rock
D: Dark / Ghost
Unviable: Grass / Normal

as you can see, this preseason tier list probably has a lot of hot takes. despite the latios ban, i still feel like psychic was unarguably the best type in the tier. what the latios ban did however was increase the viability of everything else, which kind of explains why i have flying so high. flying not having to worry about getting specs draco'd is super convenient, and flying is pretty good vs things that really appreciate latios being gone. ground and steel are just always solid, not much to comment on there. in reality, i felt like i can just bring the 4 types at S and be able to play through most match ups due to them having very little flaws. due to this, i kinda wanted to avoid types under S this season cause those 4 are just too reliable in my eyes. as for the stuff in A rank, water being in the same rank as poison/fire/ice is probably the most controversial thing here, but i really don't think its that great of a type. even with the latias ban, its still shaky vs a good psychic team, shaky vs ground and steel, can kind of lose to poison, and a lot of other things. just felt like an unnecessary type to bring due to the amount of risks it possess when psychic/flying/ground/steel are right there. poison/fire/ice are probably not A but they do feel better than the types below them so lol. maybe water deserves its own rank idk. poison definitely has merit, though i didn't really make one i liked at this point in the season. seemed good on paper though. i made a fire around this time that i was really high on, as i think it can beat everything near it aside from flying (which i feel like im the only person who entertains that type) and ground. ice is just a sleeper type and it should probably be B, i don't know what i was thinking there LOL, i do think its underrated though. fighting definitely still feels like ass, you should beat most psychics now but i genuinely think you lose to everything else. awful type imo, id avoid using it. dark and ghost are realistically ass and should probably be categorized as unviable so you can pretend it is if you want. electric / bug / rock have some merit, though i personally wouldn't use them, just not bad enough to be labeled as unviable. overall, i was pretty confident id be able to just use the 4 types in S this season and get away with it, using whichever makes the most sense that week.

W1: vs. Gelbel3c
Team: https://pokepast.es/dba10ac5ebc6365b - nicks are songs from an album by Ravyn Lenae
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-698708

i thought i was facing coo before the week was posted then i saw my opponent was gelbel and was pretty lost cause i knew nothing about them. i searched up Gelbel3c in the replays site and saw like 90% draft replays so i was tilted cause i didn't know what to do even more. in the end, 3 hours the game, i ego picked psy (this is not the first time i will be doing this this tour) cause its the best type in the tier and thought it could cover most things well enough. at the very least i wanted to use a psy ive never used before, so i made a new one at the time and ended up with this. cm rocks celebi does a pretty great job at handling most waters, don't really need the other attacking move to beat them), could put rocks on it, freeing up a slot on jirachi. i went with fire punch for the freed up moveslot on jirachi it checks scizor extremely well, giving me a chance vs bug combined w scarf tini + scarf latias. fire punch jirachi also does a great job at checking cm jirachi on steel, something that can be extremely annoying vs any psy. as stated before, i had no idea what i was supposed to expect, so i tried to check most reasonable things; i thought bug was in the realm of reasonable/possible things that can be brought. this jirachi + scarf tini (with bulk) + scarf latias with hwish should help. bug aside, i do think double scarf is cool cause you don't really need the breaking power of band tini or specs latias, also u can gambit someone with tini while still having a scarfer or you can trick something with lati while still having a scarfer. starmie has thunder cause lol 30% para and it checks stuff like gyara when rains up. fast forward to the game itself, i get water. i was pretty confident then a whole lot of sets were thrown at me that i weren't expecting. i definitely did fuck up though, rainless water is a thing and i never really considered liquid ooze tenta when making this team, which made the cm celebi with giga only as the only attacking move relatively useless. i learned some lessons from this game; don't make that type of celebi the sole progress maker vs water and probably consider foul play on slowbro cause, like i said earlier, rainless water is possible, making thunder starmie not a real gyarados check.

W2: vs. Booty
Team: https://pokepast.es/cf746911c016d490
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-700141

got booty this week, i had a few things lined up for this week i think? i don't quite remember. maybe it was multiple psy teams... who knows. i ended up with this though. oh yeah i ego picked psy again. starting to see a trend yeah? anyway, this psy is pretty different from the last, also a bit more ratchet. i was expecting fighting pretty hard, so i had tanga reun which was specifically for scarf hera cause that mon can get out of control really fast, band gallade with drain for even more reliability vs fighting, and sash zam, one of the few things that can 2hko scrafty after a bulk up. as for the reun, i really hate focus blast (i already have it on zam too) and maybe it would have been smart to have it over grass knot but i didn't do it cause grass knot was, in my eyes, needed on this team. my water mu can go south if jirachi gets owned somehow, i need it to do immediate things vs ground, and who df expects grass knot. i opted for this jirachi on psy cause he has ran jellicent in the past and if i were to play jellicent + tspikes + other malarkey on water id be a pretty sad person so this should shut it down completely. this team gave up rocks but i didn't think i really need them for booty. with that being said, i made this team was solely for booty so... yeah. anyway, i just put a scarf latias cause hwish = good and it would be appreciated when i don't have wish on jirachi. i put foul play on my slowbro this time cause the week prior kinda traumatized me. band gallade, aside from being good vs fighting, 2hkos all of steel and is still a threat vs things like water and ground. helps nicely vs other psys too, though my main progress maker vs other psys was the cm jirachi + hwish support. overall, i was pretty confident that this team can beat mostly any bs booty can come up with so i was pretty happy with this one. this team does lack hazard removal, though i didn't think i needed it vs him since i had like 4 things immune to tspikes and 2 magic guard users. as far as what i was trying to cover, i wanted to try and beat everything except steel cause i didn't think that was coming. the game wasn't real so... not talking about it. next!

W3: vs. juleocesar
Team: https://pokepast.es/eede99e1443b01b3
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-702314

i did not want to ego pick psy anymore due to the 2 weeks previous to this one so i made the effort to actually do some homework. i know juleo actually tries to build a new team (or at least edit some old one) for every important game so i didn't really know what to expect. i scouted him and saw a million waters so i wanted to beat that at least. i don't quite remember what else i saw but i do remember a ghost and a fighting. basically, just beat whatever was on the scout cause i really had nothing to go off of. i had this fighting i made 2ish years ago for seeded, i only changed the toxicroak set which went from sucker -> tpunch. this type of toxicroak usually runs sucker but i dropped it for tpunch so im favored in toxicroak wars should be bring fighting, and so i can just get rid of gyarados immediately without having to deal with earthquake stuff. i really really really like ada scarf heracross and i think its the only good heracross. ada scarf heracross has a good shot (idr the calc off the top of my head) of deleting gallade from the face of the earth, something that can be very annoying since scrafty technically invites it in and has no switch ins otherwise. you don't really need the extra speed, you miss out on the scarf 284 mons maybe but revenging those aren't really important in my eyes cause the types those mons are on can switch in pretty easily. there is +1 gyara of course but i have a scarf terrak anyway. speaking of terrak, i have one cause i think brelooms so fucking bad dude. poison heal stuff is dealt with pretty easily by a good ground/water team and just gets sacked vs other types. good vs other fightings maybe but lol. offensive technician variants is probably okay, though im not a fan cause subtox gliscor can boarderline own + sand kind of owns it. idk its just very awkward without spore. due to lack of breloom, i use this keldeo to make up for it. no one expects hp grass when they see sub so i liked it for that + it own water/ground, still has the annoying elements of a sub cm keldeo, and was my main way of dealing with his ghost team on the scout. scarf terrak is my rocker cause i thought it was a good enough rocker + i wanted an extra move slot on cob, which ended up being this. no fighting move on can keldeo suck vs steel so this cob kind of makes up for it, i just lead it and click moves and its guaranteed progress tbh. i ended up playing a ghost which i was pretty happy with cause my call was actually right but he had a bit more things for fighting than anticipated, such as the dusclops and the low kick sableye which made things a bit scarier. keldeo did what it was meant to do though which i was happy with.

W4: vs. Wait2Seconds
Team: https://pokepast.es/008c5cba566c5c51
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-703014

i don't think i had a real reason for bringing ground other than it being a good type (2nd best type in my eyes at this point in the tour) so i wanted to try and make it work. i think ~15 hours before the game i came to the conclusion that this gliscor is really fucking good on ground cause it means you don't have to use up a slot on nidoking to try and beat steel, meaning you can use whatever you want on the garchomp slot. this gliscor shits on steel, still neutralizes subtox gliscor bs from happening, decent vs poison heal breloom, and can come in on scarf latias draco, as well as check scizor pretty well along with excadrill. its a nice way to deal with bug too since i noticed people can use bug vs me cause im a shameless psy spammer. since this gliscor allows me to not use nido, i used this garchomp which is pretty nice vs water/ground, ground gem eq after a swords dance can blow something up which was pretty appealing. hippo is just standard hippo, i needed a scarfer and exca is the best job for that (x-scissor is for celebi), band mamo is fantastic on ground. this gastrodon allows you to not get owned by dd gyara, sub cm keldeo (sort of), and can be a way of winning vs a decent amount of types such as psychic, water, and flying. i was really happy with this team, so bringing this was really a no brainer.

W5: vs. Monai
Team: https://pokepast.es/af66a036ca85976c
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-704665

i usually troll vs crashy prep so i wanted to try and, well, not troll vs crashy prep. i may have trolled a little bit though... as you can see, i used psy this week and i know i said i wouldn't ego pick psy anymore but fuck dude it looked so good into them... it was hard not to do it. i wasn't expecting steel and fighting this week for reasons so i tried to just cover everything else as best as i could and i think this team did that. this starmie had psychic over the usual thunder to check keldeo better, nor do i need thunder with foul play slowbro. i really liked zong as a mon, its a rocker that's immune to eq, makes u do whatever you want with jirachi, and can check sub cm jirachi stuff. steel as a typing is just super good so... why not have two? speaking of mons i like, i think reun is really good, ive been really high on this mon since mpl6. you can do a lot of things with it, like what i did week 2 and like what i did here. this set cooks water/ground very hard, and potentially flying depending on the team. colbur reun was also my way of dealing with sharpedo stuff. im high on sub cm jirachi on psy so i put it here, don't remember why i had hp fire but i didn't need tbolt + eball to beat water when i had this reun so i had this. maybe it was for scizor on bug? i don't remember. scarf tini for speed control + i like gambit. i ran into fighting so... i trolled vs crashy prep.

W6: vs. North
Team: https://pokepast.es/dd92dacc9c529bfe
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-706861

im ngl i kind of lost motivation at this point in the tour for bw so i just wanted to bring fire for a few reasons: i chickened out of using fire w1 and w5 + i really like fire as a type this gen + it beat everything i ran into thus far + who df expects me to fire. i made this a little bit before mpl, and i really liked how it came out. just had to refine it a little more since i really only made it as a concept and didn't fully think through sets and stuff. as for the team itself, i started off with ninetales and volcarona. i wanted to at least beat water with this, and i think this core of eject sunny day / safeguard ninetales + ebelt giga/hpele volc does just that. tspikes can be very hard to remove vs water at times and safeguard just solves that problem completely, as you can now set up vs a large variety of things when sun is up. i had lo volc at one point but i realized ebelt does the same thing minus the lo recoil, though it misses out on killing offensive empo at +1 (i think). i didn't want to be one of those people who makes a fire team that loses to steel (ive seen it happen a lot, even in this gen) so i opted for this infernape. i don't like the idea of no hazard removal, so i went with torkoal cause defog moltres would be silly, and i can slap a balloon on it, fulfilling a ground "immune" role. torkoal has eq to help with heatran if i mess around too much or something bad happens with nape. i filled out the team with scarf tran and scarf tini. scarf tran cause i didn't like the other tran sets aside from maybe some set with sub and scarf tini cause i don't wanna get owned by scarf hera. also... final gambit!!

W7: vs. Gondra
Team: https://pokepast.es/76270c052552dd52
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-707597

i wasn't really sure what i was supposed to use so as opposed to ego picking psy, i ego picked ground. this is really just the same team from W4 but with a different garchomp cause they entertained balloon tran. other than that, not much to add about the team. ego picking ground got exposed by hp grass + ice beam lo starmie. next

SEMIS: vs. Gelbel3c
Team: https://pokepast.es/5b99270f2123f15a
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-709013

chait said "attribute's tendencies to stick to the best few types is nearly unmatched" in a predictions post and it kinda influenced my team choice here LOL cause he was lowkey right. i had 3 options this week cause i was pretty indecisive, those options being fire/steel/fly. in the end, i brought fly cause a poll was put up in my channel asking what i should use between the 3 types and everyone voted flying so.. yeah! as far as why flying was an option, its a type people rarely use or disregard completely due to it being risky or just being flat out shit. i think its super good though, i considered it as an s rank type before this tour. i had concerns about it though since i have used it before... a lot... which is why the poll happened. as for the team, scarf xatu catches a lot of people off guard and can potentially twave things super threatening such as: keldeo, politoed, latias, starmie, alakazam, and probably more if im forgetting. its also really nice to trick random threats too. this dragonite set is amazing, i use it on every flying team. i can afford spikes on skarmory since i have a scarf landot with rocks, hazard stack is just really nice. aforementioned scarf lando for speed control, though i have used scarf torn in the past to make fighting + water a lot less complicated. gliscor = steel killer + electric immune + scarf latias check. dd gyarados ice beam mons from (occasionally) embarrassing you, such as scarf politoed. very threatening mon vs water/ground as well. i don't quite remember why i had moxie > intimidate but it went somethnig along the lines of moxie = taunt, intimidate = sub.

FINALS: vs. Booty
Team: https://pokepast.es/4d4982020ca94efd - nicks are songs from an album by Ambré
Game: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5monotype-710815

i kinda just brought fire cause 1. he is not going to expect this surely 2. it won the poll (i was indecisive again) and 3. it beat 7 or 8/10 of the expected types. same team as W6 pretty much, just changed the volcarona a little bit.

Postseason thoughts:
as for the postseason type tier list, i have yet to make one nor do i think im making one anytime soon but i do think most of the same things i did before the season started; psychic is the best, water is very average, fighting is ass etc. i would probably drop ice and maybe flying, but that's it really. maybe electric can be B. maybe water and flying should be the only types in A, making psychic/ground/steel the only types in S. while i do think flying is better than water, it felt hard to bring sometimes even though it would have worked out for a lot of these weeks. water is probably not as bad as i make it out to be but... yeah nah i still think its worse than flying lol... but i do think its better than i thought it was before mpl started. bw aside, my team/type selection tendencies got exposed so hard this season LOL it was a pretty crazy thing to experience. i guess i need a new approach or something idk it made sense to me at the time.

Other gens:
i didn't really make anything new in sm/oras aside from attempting to build a new team a couple times, same thing with ss but to a lesser extent (i think i built like 4 new things!), though im lazy to cover those anyway. i probably spent most of my time in sv (shocker, right?) this tour, and i am a firm believer that constantly building cg (the slot that takes up half the tour) will give you a massive advantage over the other teams. this can be seen every year, you don't really win the whole tour while having an atrocious cg record. there were a lot of ideas/teams i had that i really liked that i will be covering here.

Sets:

Ghost: https://pokepast.es/520b730fd91ef481
i don't think we ever got to use it but it was inspired by some set diegoblu posted, i believe he had flash cannon + psyshock with an item i don't remember. i ended up changing to this, since it does a lot of work vs other fairy teams, shits on poison entirely, and can potentially annoy flying teams since you have tbolt. tbolt is also slightly better into azu

Dark: https://pokepast.es/81c1d0d9a248214f
trich touched upon this above. there were so many dark teams losing to flying teams LOL it was pretty ridiculous. there are probably more things you can do to alleviate this problem, but i had this idea of just using band pao so you 2hko everything and using eject tinglu to bring it in more. i saw people dropping tinglu on dark and it was like... it can't be that bad right? i think this is a cool way of bringing band pao in (or eventually doing so), it can shift momentum in your favor, and makes tinglu not feel like a do nothing mon. you can do a lot of things with the tinglu moves, i personally run a lot of speed + taunt + ruination for corviknight and other tinglus, as well as heavy slam to threaten all the fairies, namely enamorus. ultimately, you can mess around with the tinglu a lot and do whatever you want with it, that's just the set i had for a team i made. flying aside, eject is still really nice vs other types to bring in ur danger mons, nor do you really need leftovers

Ground: https://pokepast.es/d61ba3031a4f5c3b
the first ursa is what we had for all of our ground games (we had a different ev spread in the beginning, but something similar), while the second ursa is what i think is the most optimal ursa set right now cause i think everyone adapted to bulk up 3 attacks. we're the only team that really used ground and lots of success with it, and it really all starts with the ursa set. flame orb guts shit feels really bad and dies way too easily imo, this is a nice alternative that still accomplishes the same thing, if not better. https://pokepast.es/7d2b0a5bf1580b44 is the first team i made with it but trich improved it a lot by making tusk phys def / scarf landoi / spdef treads so use his version instead if anything. the first ursa is pretty owned by moltres which is why i like rest bu 2 atk, as nothing on flying can really hit it hard enough so it can get pretty dangerous if it gets going. great way of dealing with dark/steel as well. i haven't really figured out an optimal spread for it yet so if you don't figure out one either you can probably get away with the ev spread on ursa #1. team with ursa #2: https://pokepast.es/af305ccda9ab9749 cba going over it though... pm me if u have questions/comments

Fairy: https://pokepast.es/a9645ac03dcb23d7
we didn't get to use this but i think this is an excellent way of dealing with all the moltres flyings going around. i really don't think you need shadow ball nowadays, its just neutral coverage and defeats the purpose of the set, which is to just shit on flying/water no matter what

Steel: https://pokepast.es/43626ba095f50773
the 6th mon on steel. there were a lot of hoodras running around doing dif things but we used this one. it still has the traits of a spdef tank but it still has a decent amount of spa to make it a threat vs azu (feel free to run more speed if you're that scared of nascar azu i guess) and potentially flying. great tran answer too

Teams:
Steel: https://pokepast.es/2697d552037f3695
we brought a lot of steels this season and they're more or less this one, maybe a set or two changed. we didn't bring this exact paste but since we brought way too many different ones, for the sake of simplicity, this is probably the steel id bring today. i really don't think you need speed control when your defensive core is super super solid, so fastest mon treads shall suffice since you're at least faster than lando. orthworm is a great way of dealing with all that smack down landot stuff, you can outstall it pretty easily. if they're that ep/smack/focus shit though it was never meant to be. iron head cause this team has no steel moves. jolly gambit with low kick gambit to own those other dudes using gambit. physdef ghold is just way too good, it can shit on fighting pretty hard if they're av hands, as well as be a decent urshifu check. twave and helmet can be changed for sure, i just have it here for the sake of having something listed. pgem tran is a great answer for all those moltres flyings going around, this one has sub to be even more annoying to flying and to have something for the mirror. a lot of sets are interchangeable, so be creative and things. the 3 attacks on tran, fast treads with ice spinner, maybe fast low kick gambit, and phys def ghold are the only locks on this team really

Fighting: https://pokepast.es/f829c7a13ae453a9
this team was brought in the finals vs wyvern. fighting fell off pretty damn hard around w4, we wanted to bring it back, this was the result. big shoutout to cell for finding out hilligant learns hwish, that makes a huge difference. big shoutout to trich as well for the urshifu set, it pretty much saved the game and it makes flying fairly doable. imo, sneasler is kind of shit vs fairy cause all it really does is invite klefki so you end up uturning anyway to... zama? hands? tusk? not really sure. outside of fairy, its still pretty damn useless so yeah. shit mon. the solution to this is scarf zama, which really accomplishes the same thing as sneasler but better, since steel covg is better vs every mon on fairy aside from azu, but azu really is the least of your worries when flutter/enam/valiant/hatt are right there. in regards to other zama sets, idef bpress stuff got adapted to pretty quickly, namely with moltres flying being everywhere and phys def ghold shutting it down, and it feels really awful to be locked into a move with band. scarf zama using hslam vs fairy is more effective than sneasler's dire claw so you have to have that, stone edge to surprise molt, play rough for dark. the spread lives scarf enam moonblast, so you can potentially switch in your zama into it and straight up kill the enam since scarf zama isn't really ran. oh yeah, scarf zama being able to play rough a sableye switch in is super convenient as well. fighting typically has a tough time vs poison, so the solution to that is this tusk set, which poison can't switch into it at all. headlong pp may be a concern, so eq may be worth trying out since you have hwish support. nothing has been running tspikes,spikes recently, so spin didn't really feel needed. taunt is to keep up the rocks vs fly, which compliments this urshifu quite well, as its very capable of shitting on flying if its not handled carefully. the dbond slot on val can just kill a random threat if needed, icepunch / knock can be ran in that slot though i don't think they're that needed. any move can be ran in this slot probably but dbond was just appealing. no1 expects it too.

thank you for reading. i think (hope) i didn't forget anything. feel free to pm me if you have questions/comments and stuff, discussing pokemon can be fun. and for one last time (unless i do shoutouts), go krows :)

 

[Scarfire]

My managers seem to have posted a good bit of SV stuff, but there is still more things I'd like to share in terms of teams, some thoughts and techs for some types, and maybe a type VR at the end idk. If there is tons of typos I'm sorry, I'm caffeine crashing rn and I cannot be asked to proof-read.

Fairy

Week 5 vs Dieu: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9monotype-704891


Honestly, up until I wanna say week 6 or 7 I was trying too hard to build in a catch-all sense, and that was really impacting the quality of should be good matchups in favour of making shitty ones slightly less shitty. This team is a good example of what not to do. I was trying too hard to cover the poison matchup and even then only won due to some questionable sacks from my opponent, moreso than Tinkaton actually easing the matchup. In turn, I had a pretty botched water matchup, which is the one thing imo Fairy should never be losing to. This team I am moreso posting to say, don't bother much with Tinka. Its there for two matchups, poison and mirror, and its impact in both is very dubious. Being unable to giga a second time in mirror can easily lead to a follow up azumarill belly drum into a lost game. Fraud pokemon, put it away.

After this I kept playing with what I liked about Fairy, the main things being Specs Flutter and Scarf Enam. Fairy really does like having a scarfer, but running it on Flutter or Valiant always felt like a waste. Scarf Enam also helped pray on thee Zamas outspeeding and heavy slamming a bunch of fairies, so that was nice. No one else hit our scarf zama wave..

Semifinals Cell vs Kythr: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9monotype-709555
Semifinals Vodoom vs Baloor: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9monotype-709659


I was noticing that barely anyone was using tspikes especially on their pexes on water, which makes sense as almost very type has ways around tspikes. With that being regarded, covert cloak hatterene was my Tech of the Week, as it sits on the usual pexes, and also had other random benefits such as not being flinched down by ihead corv. Unfortunately in the water matchup we did get, the Hatt got instantly knocked. Maybe next time! I wanted to keep it to mystical fire to avoid having it bee a sole water killer and nothing else; this set still busts down water regardless of no giga drain, while also being able to put dents into ground (you can force it to weaken 1 of treads, clod, or quag at minimum, each opening up a victory with spikes stacking, valiants stabs. or azumarill respectively), flying (you dont exactly beat flyings with this hatt its just a matter of bothering them), and mirror. Valiants set is very catch-all, I opted for knock over ice punch. By this point, many flyings were moltres ones, so ice punchiing from lando into a burn just sounded like garbage, and knock+cc+bolt valiant beats down steel into a late safe azumarill win. The Azumarill set is just to fuck up water, ground, mirror, and steel with screens up. Despite me not prepping this for poison at all, there is an available yet annoying winpath of forcing knock on amoongus with Valiant since muk and glimmora dont wanna take cc's and pex doesn't wanna take tbolts, and then spiking up and trying to win with +6 bulldoze + ajet. Unrealistic but yeah, enjoy all the other W matchups for the most part.

We discussed heavily on what to do with the Flutter, Attribute posted one of the renditions in his post as well. I was adamant on keeping Flutter as specs as I truly believe that mon absolute breaks this tier, and its well rounded power vs quite literally every single type makes it super worth. Dspite the poison win, I learned from my mistake of fake-teching for it, and we agreed to drop psyshock for power gem to explode articuno flyiings by surprise.

Rant

Anyone who has interacted with me knows how I feel about Flutter Manes existence in this tier. I'm not gonna sit around and post damage calcs showing how hard it his, but my exact problem with it is Its sheer ability to get away with high value in like ALL matchups, and more importantly, it gets so many opportunities to get it in despite its "frailty". Is a slower pokemon in? (90% of the tier) send in Flutter and claim one. Is a special attacker in? Fuck it, go Flutter, take 40, claim one. Is the mono water teams stupid surf quaquaval trying to remove your triple layers? Deny and claim one. Also doesn't help that the short list of revenge killers for it only shorten down to like 2 when you factor in a singular reflect. Can argue using screens as a metric here is cheap but, its the fairy matchup, they are going to be up way more than not.

TL:DR speed lets it force too much out, power lets too much not come in, special bulk lets it switch into too much. Switch in > Force Out > Kill/Dent rotations happen to easy with this mon. Skilless and broken.

Water

My opinion on water from week 1 to finals switched up quite hard. Admittedly though, the wakes had a bunch of poison usage which made me further hesitate with prepping any waters, so that definitely added to the problem.

Week 1 vs Hurtadoo: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-1891833019


Articuno flying was kind of only becoming a thing as MPL opened, so I didn't really consider it. I did consider flying as a whole and the potential of ghost (lol), and mirror, so I wanted to start with a Fascu Rain. If you're wondering why I said mirror in regards to bascu, ceaseless edge + double knock for boots let you get up hazards and then not only spinblock Quaq, but now something has to take the shadow ball with all the bitches up on the floor. If they have a gastro be a man and click that hydro in rain, hes not storm drain. The rest is pretty basic, opted for Shifu over Quaq because I'm a firm believer quaq is the most terrible, do nothing, abusable mon water runs. Just play with hazards up and win quicker. Its rain, click buttons.

https://pokepast.es/7674e6d1f188f3a6
I built and brought this team in week 6 and got owned by a giga draining hatterene. Thats how it seemingly goes with balance water. I kind of just coped about this L and moved on, but kept this matchup in the back of my mind.

In finals, while we never got to load a water due to both high expectations of poison and dark, I did come to a few conclusions. I truly believe balance type waters are truly dire and this rainless slow shit w/assbad quaquaval is the worst way to go with water. Having rain and clicking your buttons make even the most foul matchup like fairy suddenly ease out more, having stuff like banded strikes in rain just ohkoing hatterene flips the script greatly. Run it with samu and out-stack, usually works out.

That being said, while I don't have a team with this to share, I did try out a few variants of Volcanion for finals.

Volcanion @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steam Eruption
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power
- Taunt

Wakes had no glowkings on their poisons, so I thought this could break poison pretty well. You do ideally need to get a burn on Muk. Even vs Gking teams, stack up enough ceasless spikes and you might get somewhere. Most importantly, it does do an okay job of preventing hatterene from just healing through your team. Room to explore this funny guy.

Only theorized it in my head, but a more offence based rainless water can definitely be made with this mon to better the fighting and poison matchups (dd bounce eq sub/taunt lefties and intim). Can pair with safety goggles pex to really make sure fighting has no chance.

Edit: Just realized this dick doesn't even have Bounce. You can probably still tech some weird stuff to beat poison, but it doesn't seem worth it...stacking ceaseless spikes and clicking specs extrasensories still seems to be the way to cope I guess.

I do think this pokemon is a bit over the top in this tier, any type not named poison or the mirror get clicked vs, but there has been some solid adapting to water so a lot of Urshifus strength is masked. Fine mon for now, with high potential to look further into.

Flying

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9monotype-701253
In my week 3 game vs Azick I tried to build a specs zapdos flying and made quite an ugly build and then proceeded to follow it up with ugly plays and ended with probably my worst L of this tour. But my testing made me still really believe in specs zapdos, so I just stashed it away in my mind for later.

Fast forward to finals, and after many failed experiments with a specs jugulis, I decided to slot in specs zapdos again. I was struggling to decide what to bring vs these guys, so I decided to load safe. That being said, standard flyings are very..lacking in breakers. And I am much of a clciker noob, if it doesn't fire off instant 2000 bp attacks, I can't use it.

Finals vs Shaneghoul: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9monotype-711349
Persona Nicknames.

Dishonest wallbreaker with boosted pivoting move and stab cane along with just a general fat uturn core. Loved it in tests, loved it during the game. I opted for taunt > smack down on Landorus since I felt my mirror and steel matchups were fine, and having taunt let me prevent hazards from tinglu and opposing lando since mine was fast as shit, making things easier.

Not much more to say, do wanna share a goofy tech we never got to use, should be self-explanitory:

Celestine (Moltres) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 244 Def / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
- Flamethrower
- Ancient Power
- Will-O-Wisp
- Roost

Thoughts on "brokens"

Brokens
Just 2 brokens imo, I already ranted about in the fairy segment of my post so I won't go over that again.

is the other broken for me, and while moltres flying did seem to adapt the matchup to it for some time, I think band paos will make it hard again. Speed and power wise its the same deal as flutter, but while it has less opportunities to come in hard than Flutter does, its range of forcing out offensive mons is far bigger due to shard/sucker.

Frauds (for now)

This mons bulk and reverse sweep potential is definitely suspicious but I do think majority of types right now have natural checks to it. Flyings builds tend to have a lot to deter it between moltres (non moltres teams have bpress corv usually), lando-t intimidate, and enamorus' superpower. Water has quaq, shifu, quag and samurott. Wisp Tran/Bpress Corv/Low kick mirror for steel, sneaslr for poison (shakey), tusk/quag on ground. Fighting dark and fairy all beat it.

Fighting did indeed kind of fall off, and in later weeks Zama really felt like nothing more than a heavy slam bot into fairy. It has high room to grow though, as does the type. Choice sets, bulkier setup sets, setup sets with 3rd attack > sub, etc. I wouldn't count it out yet.

Ghost just kinda sucks fucking ass, atleast so far. Innovation is on the table for it, for sure. Still, spectrier is likely here to stay.

Type VR

Only gonna explain what I feel like needs explaining.

Fairy in S because i truly think it can beat everything with the right 6 and each of the 6 can swap around and tailor their movesets to diff matchups. Only poison really brings worry.

Ground at top of A is hard not to after our teams performance with it. Strong, reliable, and its "bad" matchups on paper like fly and water aren't as they seem in game.

Fighting at top of B because the right 6 just smoke all of A rank and techs like headlong soft sand tusk can solo poison too. Valiant and Zama sets decide the matchups vs thee S ranks; harder, but still techable.

Poison in B is generosity from me i think this type sucks and all it does is abuse some unprepped waters + fairy. I'm p sure its MPL winrate is sort of fraudulent I saw tons of mirror matchups and fairy matchups, and only I was treated to...sd landoi + band gzap flying. Fuck this type.

Dragon can beat literally everything but dark, but it has an awkward flow to it and often when I used it, it felt like a shittier fairy. Its difficulty with fitting garchomp and also spinning vs a lot with cyc, making it poor in this hazard war heavy metagame, makes me leave it in bottom of B.

Thank you to Cell for pushing to pick me up, and for Attribute and Trichotomy for letting me start. I know I rambled and definitely talked too much in the SV channels lol but hopefully it was mostly helpful input. Decent record aside, I was feeling pretty meh about all my games; majority of them felt off or unearned, but the teams win in the end makes itt worth it for me. GGs to all the other teams as well. I look forward to playing again and teaming with any one of you.

 

[North]

I ended up joining MPL after watching some random replays from BW Mono Cup. I saw a few different people using this team. I built this team like 3-4 years ago, and it sucks. I had no idea how this team was either leaked or copied, but it made me watch a bunch more replays from the tournament. As I kept going through the replays I kept saying to myself "this team looks like shit" after seeing what people were bringing. Whether or not that's actually the case, it got me wanting to play again.

I want to talk about the teams I built this tournament, and a bit of thoughts about my play.

Week 1 vs Soulwind:
This idea for this team came from watching a Booty (I think) replay somewhere. He had a Magnezone on it with no Jirachi. It looked like it got absolutely destroyed by water since Mag usually just gets walled by Swampert leaving you with no way of making progress. So what if I just put HP Grass on Magnezone? Turns out the water matchup is still terrible, but winnable with the added bonus of not having the dead weight of Sub CM Jirachi on your team. When I first started the tournament I was under the impression people still used Xatu psychic teams, so putting rocks on Excadrill allows you to pretty much instantly win that matchup. This also allowed me to experiment with Scarf Heatran, giving me a winnable matchup vs. the more standard Nidoking grounds and a way to kill Celebi.

Week 2 vs Wait2Seconds:
Before I talk about the team I need to mention the game. I hadn't played singles seriously in like 3 years since this tournament, and the crust really fucking showed in this game. Losing Gastrodon after at the start of the game after I checked to see if Gengar got Energy Ball, and then immediately going into Gliscor after was so egregiously bad. That's not even mentioning the missclick at the end of the match after the stress of losing this game started to hit me. What hurt even more was feeling like I wasted what I thought was a really cool team that I built.

Getting to the team, the idea came from testing the previous week. When playing a steel vs ground game it occurred to me that if Gliscor can get through Skarmory I literally just lose immediately. So this team was built around Taunt Gliscor. I had Ice Fang on the 4th slot for awhile, but felt there was no way of me ever making progress through leftovers Reuniclus without Knock Off. Knock Off also has the added benefit of getting rid of rocky helmets from Slowbro and Skarmory, making Landorus' U-turns consequence free most of the time. This Gliscor is either really good or just straight up useless in most matches. Nothing on psychic can really switch into Knock Off + sand chip besides Slowbro, which is completely fine as long as they can't get through Gastrodon. It also gets to switch into non HP-Ice Reuniclus for free and threaten it out. Along with sand it can chip down Poison Heal Breloom and 1v1 Scrafty. And it just straight up 6-0s steel. Unfortunately when there are ground immunes that also don't care about Knock Off, it tends to not be able to do anything useful.

The other funky thing about this team is the Garchomp set. It has enough special defense to guarantee substitute survives Slowbro's Scald. It can completely blow up psychic if it's allowed to set up. Turns out bulky Garchomp is generally useful vs most types. I think I would probably change the speed tier this hits, but otherwise it's really strong and worth exploring more.

Week 3 vs Monai:
Water was always my favorite type in BW, but I felt my old builds could not deal with the wave of water resists with Thunder that had become so popular in more recent times. I built this team with something that could specifically deal with bulky Thunder Starmie on psychic, and so I landed on Lanturn as it was the least passive out of all the options. Other than that it is mostly just standardish water stuff. Toxic on Politoed so I don't lose to Gastrodon, Signal Beam on Empoleon for Celebi, and Earthquake on Gyarados for Toxicroak. This team definitely wins all of the matchups that rain boosted Keldeo was going to win beforehand with the added benefit of being playable vs most psychics.

Week 4 vs Gelbel3c:
I was running out of ideas at this point of the tournament, but I wanted to try making some psychic. Turns out I still have no idea how to build psychic, so I ended up just stealing what I think is an old Attribute team and making like 2 changes (that may or may not make the team better).

At this point in the tour I felt the crust wearing off a little, but it was definitely still there. I felt I played the early game here really well, finding ways into Alakazam to make progress. Then I decided that I should try to catch an Excadrill switch and lost my Gastrodon switch in, turning the game from super winning to incredibly losable instantly. I would have been completely tilted and demotivated for like 2 weeks had I choked this game. Thankfully I found the end game, but this was way too close for comfort.

Week 5 vs Gondra:
I was still definitely still out of ideas at this point, and really wanted to retry this ground. I think I played like 6 or 7 test games with this team and won every single one of them, so I was convinced this was the call. Only change was making Excadrill Scarfed to make the dragon matchup slightly better, but everything else is the same.

I never tested vs the mirror! And holy shit is it bad. I have a bad habit of ignoring the mirror when building teams (see steel above), and I really have no plan on taking on Nidoking or Mamoswine. It really hurts having Garchomp slower than both of those pokemon, and a Gliscor that underspeeds opposing Gliscors. I can't say I played this game great, but I'm not sure how much chance I had. It really sucks the team that I was so hyped on ended up 0-2 this tour, but I guess there's always next year. This team definitely needs Mamoswine to make the mirror playable, but I have no idea where to slot it. Something for future me to figure out if I ever get to it.

Week 6 vs Attribute:
I'm pretty sure I was like 1-6 with fighting in recent MPLs. It's one of my favorite types, but when prepped for it feels so awful a lot of the time. The motivation to try it again came from seeing Attribute's game vs Juleo. Sub CM Keldeo was something that I had in mind for a long time, but not water move + what I thought was HP Ghost. So I decided I would give it a try, but ended not liking outside of very specific matchups. The biggest issue for me was not being able to hit Ferrothorn on steel. If they know they set then allowing Ferro to get in and spike for free, while all the answers to Ferro can't break Skarm felt really bad. So I definitely wanted fighting coverage, but then what do I drop? I think sub + 3 attacks Keldeo is a really neat idea for fighting. Being able to sub on Slowbro and Jirachi and fire off either Scald burns or HP Ghosts for free is incredibly difficult for psychic. The only switch in being Reuniclus, but you get so many opportunities to crit it with HP Ghost as they spam recover that it felt fine to have no boosting move. Not having any way to break through Gastrodon also felt completely fine with CB Breloom that can come in as you force the recover. Nothing on ground can switch into Bullet Seed cleanly, and you should get plenty of switch ins. Everything else is mostly standard. Shuca HP Cobalion is definitely better than the Expert Belt I was running for years. Very glad it caught on. I opted for Thunder Punch on Toxicroak since I wasn't using poison heal Breloom.

When I loaded into this match I feared I was about to make it 0-7 with fighting. From preview the matchup felt absolutely awful. Nothing to stop a potential Willo from Ninetales, and no Volcarona counter in sight. It really hurt loading into fire after taking Terrakion of fighting for the first time in like 5 years. I ended up getting really lucky towards the end after playing the early game relatively well (I think), but again not sure what more I can do in this matchup without playing like a mad man.

Week 7 vs Booty:
I had made a comment to Booty the previous week that made me worried I was going to end up facing dragons (I was right, but he ended up saving it for playoffs). Why that led me to building this water? I don't know, but I like this team so it's ok. I saw a water team a long time ago with Scarf Rotom that I really liked for some reason, but I could not for the life of me find the replay. The appeal of Rotom is that it can give momentum into the offensive pieces without having to risk switching into something like Scald burn or Toxic. It also provides another electric neutral that is greatly appreciate for water. I played with this team in the builder for like a week before I came to what I had now. CM gem Keldeo provides strong offensive pressure into most types. I found that water gem was only really better vs psychic, so I went with fighting gem. Gives me a way off breaking through Gastrodon, and overall just generally good. HP Flying pretty much auto wins fighting, which otherwise was just completely lost in testing. The other important piece is the Life Orb Signal Beam Starmie which gives me a way of breaking through psychic. It should probably be Analytic, but eh. Honestly I'm not sure if this team is very good into psychic in the first place. Energy Ball Alakazam can absolutely rip through the team if it gets in, which can be expedited by Victini U-Turning off of Swampert.

Going into the match I load into Booty's 3rd week of Electric. I had workshopped the team with him before he first ended up bringing it, so I figured he would never bring it vs me. The matchup was definitely playable however. Getting rocks early and making progress with Keldeo lets me get in a winnable position, but I make a huge missplay sacking Keldeo vs the Rotom and not going to Swampert. Switching to Swampert there pretty much guaranteed me a speed tie for game. Instead I went for a line that required a roll on Zapdos (that was in my favor), but ended up with absolute min. Absolutely my fault I got myself into a position where I needed that roll, but it hurt so much to lose this game with playoffs on the line.



Shoutouts to Dugza and Floss for believing in me enough to draft after I hadn't played pokemon for so long, or I guess sorry if you didn't know I was as rusty as I actually was. I had a lot of fun building and playing this tour, more than I've had in a lot of MPLs past.