Tournament Coverage
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Introduction
Welcome to the future of tournament coverage in The Smog. For our first issue, we'll be covering one of the most popular Pokémon tournaments, the Wyoming Tournament. It is one of the longest running tournaments on Smogon. This is the fourth run in the same number of years. Part of this tournament's success is its simplicity. Anyone in the community can play since the Challenge Cup rules don't require any team building. This is one of the reasons why the Wyoming Tournament has been a huge hit with the Smogon community. For the latest addition, 256 were signed up to compete for the chance to be named King of Wyoming. To make things more interesting, the tournament was slated to be a double elimination tournament.
The first round saw a few unexpected twists that would give the tournament a few bumps in the road. Due to the large amount of participants, substitute spots were on high demand. To make matters more confusing, the long time host of the Wyoming Tournament, Sonuis, developed computer difficulties and was unable to host. To take his place, Jimbo did his best to sort out the confusion from round one. He picked up the pieces and got the tournament back on schedule by hosting rounds two, three, and four. Since then, Sonuis has returned to finish off the tournament and has the competition down to a single bracket in the seventh round.
Tournament Strategy
The Wyoming Tournament has no strategies a competitor can formulate prior to the battle; however, based on the clauses, a player can still have some control in the game. The following clauses must be on during a battle: Random Battle, Level Balance, Species Clause, Sleep Clause, Self-KO Clause, and Timed Battle. The two biggest things one can use to their advantage is the lack of Evasion Clause and Level Balance. Since every Pokémon has access to Double Team, it means that any Pokémon can potentially threaten to pull off a win by dodging the opponent's moves.
Level Balance is a must for this style of tournament because it makes a Pokémon like Groudon comparable to Donphan. In light of this, there are no useless Pokémon when a player first looks at their team. Weak Pokémon with large movepools can be just as effective, if not more so, than a Pokémon from the Uber tier. For example, Piplup's stats wouldn't allow it to be effective in any metagame. But in the Wyoming Tournament, a Piplup can easily pull off a nice sweep with its Water-type coverage and access to strong moves like Surf, Ice Beam, and Grass Knot.
The best way to approach a Wyoming Tournament battle is to make safe plays based on the opponent's movepool and the type resistance a player's team offers. Once a player can determine which Pokémon have more potential than others, they can make an effective game plan by deciding what to sacrifice and when to use their best Pokémon. Playing in a conservative style alone won't win the Wyoming Tournament since there is nothing you can do if your opponent gets an excellent team, but it maximises a player's chances of winning a game. Every round of the Wyoming Tournament is best of three so having a method for approaching these games is key.
Spotlight Matches
This is a section that will be standard for the future of tournament coverage in The Smog. Depending upon the round a tournament being covered is in, matches will either be handpicked or all remaining battles in a tournament will be explored. For this issue, we selected five games from round seven of the Wyoming Tournament. Each of the players in the match will receive a short description with some of the highlights from their Pokémon playing career to help educate the reader.
Tab vs. Stellar
The likelihood of this game being played are low due to personal circumstances between the participants. However, in the case that it is played, this game deserves a spot alongside the other spotlight matches. When both players were in their prime, they contributed to Smogon in different ways. Tab was fixing the teams of users seeking to improve their performance and Stellar was engineering move sets in Contributions & Corrections. Which one offers better experience for this tournament or are they similar enough to give them the same edge in battle?
Elevator Music vs. JabbaTheGriffin
This match would be an excellent game with standard rules. Both Elevator Music and JabbaTheGriffin are high profile players in DPP. Elevator Music is well known in the Create-A-Pokémon community and has made strong leaderboard runs on Shoddy Battle. His competition is JabbaTheGriffin, who is outstanding in every tier. JabbaTheGriffin has a lot more tournament experience coming into this match. He made a good showing in the last Smogon Tournament. Will that success translate to these random battles or can Elevator Music squeak out a win against a big fish?
Jackal vs. batpig
Jackal and batpig come from the same era of Smogon. Both of them date back to the competitive RBY days. Jackal has a lot more tournament experience in general. To add to that advantage, he knows what it takes to make a deep run in the Wyoming Tournament. Jackal advanced all the way to round 10 in the previous installment. That doesn't eliminate the chance of batpig winning, though. While he hasn't entered as many tournaments on Smogon as Jackal has, batpig does have experience playing in Nintendo's VGC. This should be an exciting set of games to watch for tournament veterans.
Loki vs. CrabNebula
These two players are on opposite spectrums of the competitive Pokémon world. Loki is a decorated champion of both the Smogon Tournament and Smogon Tour. His countless tournament wins and playing ability are ranked at the top. On the other hand, CrabNebula is not an active tournament player. He spends a good portion of his time on Smogon playing mafia. Will the likely winner get an easy victory or will CrabNebula lynch Loki the way he does in mafia?
Giant Enemy Crab vs. Shiv
Like most of the other games, this one contrasts two different players. Giant Enemy Crab has made a name for himself in DPP. He may not be well known to the community at large, but he has done some impressive things that avid players respect him for. One of those accomplishments being his Battling 101 Tournament win. Now he is a tutor in that program. His opponent is a veteran of Smogon. Shiv has been around for years and is most known in Tournaments for World Cup, which he co-hosts with Jackal. Will Smogon's new blood show up one of its veterans? Your guess is as good as mine.
Expert Predictions
The expert predictions will be in tandem with the spotlight matches. Smogon's Tournament Director group will examine each of the games in the spotlight matches and predict the winners of each game. Each of them will submit their picks prior to the games being played. For each correct pick, they will be awarded with a point. At the end of the year, the expert with the most points will be the winner of the predictions tournament. If you want to test your tournament knowledge with the experts, send your own predictions into the The Smog via PM. If you pick all of the winners correctly before the battles are played, your name will be featured in the next issue.
Kevin Garrett's Picks |
| Name |
|---|
| Tab |
| JabbaTheGriffin |
| Jackal |
| Loki |
| Giant Enemy Crab |
Jackal's Picks |
| Name |
|---|
| Stellar |
| JabbaTheGriffin |
| Jackal |
| Loki |
| Shiv |
Earthworm's Picks |
| Name |
|---|
| Stellar |
| JabbaTheGriffin |
| Jackal |
| CrabNebula |
| Shiv |
Sonuis's Picks |
| Name |
|---|
| Stellar |
| Elevator Music |
| batpig |
| Loki |
| Shiv |
matty's Picks |
| Name |
|---|
| Tab |
| JabbaTheGriffin |
| Jackal |
| Loki |
| Shiv |
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