Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
With the regular season over and ZUPL II now in playoffs, here is a thread where players may share the teams and sets they used sometime throughout the tournament. These teams are divided into the SM, ORAS, BW, and DPP tiers that were played in ZUPL. Tour players, feel free to share your thoughts and potential match up fishing when creating the team!
Rules
All teams/sets must have seen use in an official ZUPL game. While replays are not needed, an official replay should exist here (or in the tiebreaker, playoffs, and finals threads until the replay thread is updated).
While this rule says that all teams/sets must have seen official use, I won't penalize those that post sets or teams they heavily considered bringing. After all, it is a part of preparation and may influence what you brought or built in a specific week.*
Title your post (or team if your post has multiple teams) with one of the corresponding generational tags: [DPP], [BW], [ORAS], or [SM].
Post an importable of the team/set, preferably with pokepaste.
Use sprites to have a visual of the team: try using sprites dragged from here.
Post a description inside a spoiler as to save space.
*My own change to this rule
And that's it! Thank you in advance for participating in the second ZUPL and sharing your thoughts on the teambuilding aspect of it.
I played ORAS ZU this ZUPL, a tier I ended up enjoying a lot. Although some of the games were messier than I hoped for, I am pretty happy I was able to get a few wins and show off some cool teams. I would like to say thanks to 5gen for drafting me and giving me a chance to play. You went above and beyond with helping me learnt the tier and test out my ideas and also shoutouts to 275p testing with me pretty much whenever I asked.
This is a semi-stall team built around the core of Scraggy + Swalot. Scraggy is an extremely consistent setup sweeper and Swalot provides it with a lot of support. With sticky hold and Rocky Helmet, it easily punishes Knock-Off, tanks Fighting-type attacks, beats Fairies, and acts as a great physical wall in general. Bronzor provides rocks and a ton of crucial resists, Meganium checks water-types and heals up the team with Aromatherapy, Vibrava checks Fire-types and Defogs, and Politoed is great as a reliable Scarfer that is bulky enough to tank a few attacks from the likes of Magmar and also has emergency Encore to check opposing bulky setup sweepers. I won this game due to CrazyStevy simply not being able to break through my defensive cores until his pokemon were weakened enough for Scarf Poli to sweep.
I built this team around Vanilluxe, a pokemon who I think is very underused in ORAS ZU. There are only a few pokemon in the tier that can switch in safely to Ice Beam / Freeze Dry. With Volt/Turn support from Frogadier and Electabuzz it is able to get more free turns. Evio Frogadier is also cool as it can very consistently set Tspikes while threatening all hazards removers. Scarf Krok is the revenge killer for this team. It is essential for Pursuiting pokemon like Bronzor and weakened Purugly/Simis so that they are no longer threats. Gloom might seem like an odd choice as a defensive Toxic-absorbing tank over Ivysaur, but it crucially learns Moonblast so that I can deal with Scraggy. I used this team to beat Graceclaw in a tough game where he outplayed me early on but T-spikes support came in clutch and allowed me to scrape out the win.
This team is basically just a collection of cool offensive pokemon thrown together. Taunt Emolga was chosen specially because it destroys the Dustox team that the Flamencos had been spamming earlier. Offensive Sliggoo can check the Simis/E-buzz/Magmar all in one slot while still being difficult to switch into. And Huntail is probably the most efficient setup sweeper in the tier, and it thrives when it is paired with Simisage and Emolga who threaten and wear down Grass and Water types. This team is very fun to use and my prep worked out perfectly, although I forgot how to play pokemon during the game and ended up missing a crucial move as well.
Hello, here are my 2 teams from my first ZUPL. I've added replays of the matches so you can see how they work or maybe I should say how they don't work as I misplayed in both heavily. Enjoy :).
Zweilous, Vespiquen and Hippopotas are a pretty good defensive core albeit all weak to ice but that where klang comes in acting a an ice resist and a great win con. Then I just have two ridiculously strong wallbreckers in the form of modest choice specs mime and light ball pikachu. The pikachu speed of 263 is to outspeed +speed nature base 70's with the rest being dumped into spa for a more powerfull volt switch.
S/O cash for the idea for the team.
The purpose of the team is for Bellossom to sweep. Bellossom evs are for maximising its bulk whilst outspending +speed base 70 's after a quiver dance. Safeguard is a cool tech that allows bellossom to avoid status for 5 turns so get set up freely without any worries or 50/50's that sub has to deal with. To support the bellossom sweep I have t spikes to help deal with bulky grasses like shiinotic and Gourgeist. Octolock Grapploct also helps bellossom sweep by trapping counters such and vespiquen and klang.
S/O tack for the idea.
252+ Atk Grapploct Ice Punch vs. -2 248 HP / 4 Def Vespiquen: 330-390 (96.2 - 113.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Figured I'll dump the teams I used this past ZUPL. Even though I planned to main ORAS this time around, I only ended up playing the first two weeks before switching over to SS weeks four and five.
So when I play I make a few different teams and pick the one I like best, usually without testing. Week 1 I wanted to use something fun and unorthodox, so I went with Sub CM Golduck and SpD Ivysaur. Ivysaur is currently unranked and on paper it does quite a bit, being able to check Electabuzz, Simipour, Simisage, Politoed, Gourgeist-L, Frogadier, Ground-types, Servine, and absorb Tspikes. Because of that, it pairs well with Sub CM Golduck (also has Knock Off support for Golduck's checks like Sliggoo). Needed a rocker next and I wanted to try out offensive Carbink because of how it checks opposing entry hazard leads, Defoggers, and being a nice check to Normal- and Fire-types. Added Vibrava and Klang next to complete the defensive backbone and check off some boxes (hazard removal, Volt Switch stopper, Vanilluxe/Glaceon checks, etc). Purugly rounds out the team and acts as glue.
Gorex ended up bringing Regigigas which somehow skipped my mind. While Gigas had a great matchup, the game was definitely winnable and I made some bad plays early on such as letting Golduck get hit with Toxic and not going for Ice Beam turn 5. Turn 29 my Vibrava gets crit which seals the game. Had it not gotten crit, I would still be in a very tough position but then the game comes down to me outplaying. Was a disappointing start to the season and a bad first showing on my end, so heading into week 2 I didn't want to repeat the same mistakes.
After a poor showing week 1 and bringing a bulky team that was vulnerable to a breaker like Regigigas, I knew I wanted to bring offense week 2. Also wanted to bring the sauce. Not Sawsbuck but Specs Magmar, Sawsbuck ended up being the Scarfer. This team pretty much fell together because building offense in ORAS is pretty straightforward. Felt like the team needed extra speed which is where the idea of Gluttony+Salac Berry Simipour comes from. As for the team itself, Specs Magmar+NP 3 attacks Simipour are the breakers, Vibrava+Electabuzz are the pivots and check a lot for the team, Rocky Helmet Gigalith is the Normal-type check and rocker and tank, and Choice Scarf Sawsbuck rounds out the team. Team has plenty of weaknesses defensively and that is typical of offense, so I didn't really worry about that.
As for the team game itself, early on I misplayed the sequence vs Gogoat and instead of going Gigalith earlier on, I ended up sacking Vibrava. Somehow it worked out because Gogoat used bulk up 5 times and so I guess Aaron thought he won on the spot since Gogoat tanks any attack from non-Specs Magmar. The game wasn't the cleanest from either player and it was pretty fun regardless. Specs Magmar put in work.
Going into this week I built a few teams. We noticed that Xayah likes to use bulky offense and dreamcatcher pointed out how good Ghosts would be. I messed around with Lampent and Grassy Terrain and wasn't really feeling either, so I loaded up a quick build I had. CB Stonj+Smash Wartortle looked really nice. Gloom and tank Mudbray for the defensive backbone, Emolga for pivoting and because it put in work vs Xayah in an earlier week, and then this Dusclops set was used because the team needed a check for Psychic-types and it's unexpected. Ended up getting a great matchup so the game went smoothly.
Wanted to run NP Mime-G and Grapploct this week because the two break the meta so well together. Went with Octolock Grapploct in case tko brought a really bulky team. Added Hattrem for its offensive support and Vullaby for Defog and for its defensive utility. CB Gourgeist-L compliments the breaking core of Mime-G and Grapploct real well and those two check a lot for it in return. Scarf Stonj with SR rounds out the team with revenge killing. The game itself was very disappointing from my end as I didn't play it nearly as well as I needed to. Made too many misplays and wasn't as aggressive as I should've been which cost me. Props to the Flamenco's prep, Iron Defense Klang and that phys def Bellossom were great calls this match.
Well i'm probs done 4 the rest of this tour now, figure i may as well write up a team dump of all my stuff since ignoring finals i'm 5-1 and i'm 6-1 on a legality issue in finals gonna feel like a fucking dumbass if there's a tiebreak, go hakas!
I was in BW all tour which was a ride cus i haven't played this shit in a year and the only thing that changed in that time is that i got semi-competent at this awful game through screwing around w/ people way better than me
also the weird naming is just me noting what bands i pulled all the nicknames from lmao
Week 1- VS Sificon https://pokepast.es/542beef9874ff54e
Going into this week i knew it was sifi's 1st time touching the tier ever, which made me really gravitate towards something that most of my team called "matchup fishing at best" of course they missed that in a sleep legal world sun can basically autobeat anything other than opposing natgift SD leafeon and Munchlax together for free, it's a fairly standard sun team and basically crushed the potential opposition, while building i was kinda worried about opposing lamp because that mon is genuinely stupid in general, and especially in this matchup, so i put earthquake on onix in case i needed to click that button vs a lamp
as for the game, i was right that sifi would be poorly prepared for sun and just capitalised as hard as i could on it, with them letting me click sleep on the lampent, basically confirming the primary check to my entire team as dead, i had even prepped a fun lure for it in ground natgift leafeon too. but it didnt need to come out and i dont remotely mind that, smth cool that came up was magmar getting into a position to mach punch a mon out of existence for trying to set up on me, honestly magmar put in a ton of work that game, enough to make me a big fan :>
I pretty much built with this in mind bc SB knew i had a tendency to build offense of late, and would also prep for me to bring my old faithful team style from last PL, which this composition of 3 also happens to be incredible vs, i figured hazard stack would have a super good matchup if i brought the right setters, so i ended up on regen helmet corsola to punish purugly and no electric move emolga along with trubbish to just get up layers of spikes, i was still kinda worried about fires because they all run coverage for corsola, so i slapped sub 3 attacks lampent on as a bandage for that matchup. had 3 mons left to add and just added emolga + a direct to multiple breakers i was very worried about, with spdef trashdam for vanilluxe and physdef bellosom to both sleep mons and not instalose to kingler, i dropped hazard removal because i expected rocks at most when it came down to hazards and wasnt super worried about them
This game was pretty fun ngl lead MU i saw nothing to really prevent a tspikes autowin if they got up since the entire team bar emolga and worma was completely crippled by even one layer, and i was also very pleased to see i had the correct read on what would be brought into me, cus it gave a super good matchup, we played the matchup as if it was blitz for like 20 turns, then there was a tickle emolga and i had to do a double take because it was weird as fuck but revealed that there was no electric move on emolga letting cors pivot in reliably despite the toxic on it. i spent the enitre game unsure of what type the hidden power was on wormadam, i was kinda convinced it was fire so i never rly chanced anything and just played out the motions i needed to to get a win from the position
Week 3 vs DnB https://pokepast.es/4113dfec99029629
So i got told that Purugly got hypnosis while i was already building marowak+cat and immediately slapped it on over sucker punch because a 60% accurate fissure is better than sucker punch, and just built it into a relatively bulky offense team with helmet cors again, team was pretty fun to pilot just because it was really braindead and got a ton of benefit from every single bit of forward momentum....also sleep got banned after i brought this lmfao what a broken mon
This happened i guess, i ran into magnemite+seadra+sandshrew+ more stuff that maro bopped if it clicked the right button in front of X mon of choice, there isnt really much i can say thats super important about this game, i had a really good matchup and just played it out correctly.
Week 4 vs Mael https://pokepast.es/204836fc650f91f8
I wanted to bring screens because it seemed cool. I had dual dance kingler with a weird spread to live smth hyper specific behind reflect and set up in its face>win had maro to force progress, and arbok as a secondary screens abuser, emolga is emolga, emolga is a super amazing mon here and i love it
oops i lucked not much to say abt this other than the team seemed very familiar, and i got rly fucking lucky during this game
Week 5 vs Z3ll1 https://pokepast.es/be4a6235f027cfa3
i saw multiple people bring magnemite and i saw why and really liked what i saw, especially vs stunkies since they'd used a bunch of rocker trashdam this tour along with a bunch of the other stuff mag checks defensively+forces out, so i just built with subtox and had fun with it, decided i wanted marolamp to cover a lot of stuff both offensively and defensively, then added SD lum leafeon+a scarf phione to check vanilluxe because they seemed rly good as a whole, and the team kinda just turned into voltturn cus i slapped on an emolga and just rolled with it cus it works rly well
they had no lampent matchup oops the only check to it got crit super early by tickle emolga, which kinda just ended the game for z3ll1 cus nothing else could actually take a hit from lampent, marowak was also good here, forcing up rocks and taking a ton of chip off of leafeon to force it to synth, letting lamp in for free, after lampent went in scarf phione just cleaned up and the game was over
Semis vs Ren-Chon https://pokepast.es/3fe5d4a330c15af2
I noticed all their BW teams were super familiar, realised they were recycling from last pl, and crafted a stall team that should have fairly good matchup vs most of their builds, notably including a helmet magcargo to basically autobeat every emolga variant they'd ever brought, as well as normal spam
here's the game the matchup was stall vs the same team i played vs in week 4, which was getting recycled, i had a pretty good idea of most of the sets going into the gamethen eventually ended the game in the dumpster thanks to a couple untimely crits, oh well i lucked flamencos week 4 idm getting the same treatment too much
finals vs Simbo - this game didnt happen so im not sharing the team
First of all, I'd like to thank Ho3nConfirm3d to draft me and let me be his assistant manager, as well as CashKP, z3ll1, and SpacialRendevous for helping me with the building, and overall every Stunky. The team atmosphere was great and I had a lot of fun during this tour. Even if they weren't in my team and in practice didn't help in the tour, Union Caboche, Laevin, and Marjane were amazing friends and psychological support. I'd also thank kay and uhuhuhu7, playing against you in test games was very fun and your inovative sets inspired some of my builds. Overall, I'm pretty happy with my 4-2 record, even if think I could have done better versus Somalia and pif.
I had no precise idea of what Somalia would bring, so I tried to build a team which does well against everything in the metagame including broken Musharna, Swoobat, and Grookey teams. Musharna was a broken defensive sweeper, I paired it with Lampent that could weaken their common checks such as Zweilous and Vullaby. HippoVulla was the to go defensive core back then and covered most offensive threats and hazard control, and I added Munchlax to cover the Ice-weakness and add phazing for Musharna, Gothitelle, and Swoobat. Glalie could offensively pressure Vullaby and Zweilous that pressured Lampent and Musharna, and could stallbreak since the team was overall weak to it.
Somalia ended up bringing a Grassy Terrain Hyper Offense. Taunt Persian had an insane match-up since Musharna was Stored Power and couldn't hit for big damage, Vullaby needed to stay healthy for Gourg, Grookey, and Dweeble's hazard, so SpD Hippo had to handle Persian and Pikachu for the rest of the team. I underestimate early game Persian, until Somalia revealed Taunt and was scared about it for the rest of the game. I missplayed turn 24 by clicking Earthquake when Slack Off was a better play regarding every play Somalia could have done. Tbf, this game is so old, that the ony thing I remember was that I was very stressed about playing my first team tour game on Smogon and facing a very experienced player.
Xayah is a player I know better than Somalia, therefore I was more confident to prepare for him. I expected Xayah to either bring Swoobat or massive Swoobat counterplay, since he expressed through the forum and Discord, that Swoobat was broken. As a result, I built a Grassy Terrain counter team with Whirlwind Vullaby and defensive Gourgeist-L (at this point nobody ran Shadow Claw on Trevenant). Machoke completed the defensive core by handling Stonjourner and Silvally-Ice. Pika+Stonj was one of the best offensive core at the moment. I wanted to try Emolga because I love bobochan and was looking for a fast pivot with Electric-immunity.
Like expected, Xayah brought an anti Grassy Terrain team. In my opinion, I had an insane mu, especially with Emolga. Xayah couldn't do much against it and I don't think he prepared for Emolga, since nobody used it in week 1. Cash recorded the game if you want to watch it with his comments:
Corsola @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Power Gem
- Toxic
- Recover
I wanted to use Ice spam because most teams don't have a solid Ice-resist bar Klang. Since I already used Vullaby twice, I chose Zweilous as my Swoobat counter. Ivy and Brava covered the team weaknesses while bringing utility. Corsola was added as the Ice-resist, it originally had Chople Berry but I changed it (for the worse) for Heavy-Duty Boots, as I thought my Galarian Mr. Mime mu wasn't that bad. (It actually was atrocious)
At team preview, I was extremely scared by the opposing Galarian Mr. Mime as I knew it coud easily clean my team after a NP. Whereas my own Mime had to predict Klang and was threatened by Pikachu. I was extremely surprised by Dreamcatcher's turn 4, as they click NP in front of Corsola, when I could have killed it with Power Gem and when it had to hit a Focus Blast right after. However, Mime didn't miss and I clicked SR (idt this was a missplay as SR could have pressured the Knocked Off Galarian Mr. Mime), therefore I lost my rocker and Mime check turn 5. I immediatly went on my own Galarian Mime because everything else in my team died from +2 Mime if it doesn't miss its move. I don't know if Dreamcatcher thought I was Scarf or didn't want to risk the tie, but they switched out their Mime and I avoided the clean. Some turns later, Dreamcatcher was able to remove SR, meaning their Mime could come far more easily, but the same turn I was able to switch my own Mime and get rid off their only Ice-resist, Klang. I then traded Brava for Stonj and SR on my side, which wasn't that bad since Stonj forced me to go on my Brava, inviting the opposing Mime (a play I expected Dreamcatcher to do, but that they never did). Without any proper Ice-resist left, Dreamcatcher chose to put IceVally in Pikachu's Fake Out range and sack their Mime. I don't think this was the right play to do since Ivysaur was able to beat every Pokemon left in their team, but at this point Dreamcatcher didn't have many option to stop my IceVally.
ShiftryShwifty built this team and was supposed to play it, but due to timezone misunderstanding I ended up playing the team. Shiftry had hyped us in testing with SubCash (a set he invented) and paired it with a strong VoltTurn core, so I was pretty confident to use the team.
At team preview, I was scared by Webs+Trevenant, as I didn't have a counter to it and I only dealth with it by revenge kill it with IceVally or Scarf Stonj. I was able to take advantage of the webs with SubCash and weaken the Mime. I was able to kill Gothitelle very early (I don't know why Jon didn't go Cash) and was therefore able to trade Vesp with Toxic'd Charja and not have webs on my side of the field. Trevenant was less a threat than expected since it never used Sucker Punch which could have really destroyed my team. I had underestimate Specs Whiscash damage and it revealed to be extremely threatening once I lost Ivy and Vesp. Fortunately, Jon never used Hydro Pump which could have easily claimed a kill on my team, and I was able to burn it with my own Whiscash. This burn really saved me as I needed it to put Cash in Stonj's Superpower range. I think my opponent and I could have played this game better, but I'm pretty happy to have won with a team I didn't build nor used prior to the game.
While I didn't play SM this PL, I built Feliburn a team, I wanted him to use versus tlenit as SpD Whiwashi+Defog Chimecho is insane against his standard Special Combusken + Toxic Spikes. The team also has Specs Eggy+Dark Vally which is a broken core and loves Wishiwashi's slow U-turn as well as Chimecho's ability to Knock Off Bronzor. Rotom-Fan and Golem were added for Speed control and defensive utility. Feliburn ended up chosing this team because he was looking for a team with a strong Specs user.
Feliburn actually had the right call as Rawmelon didn't bring any Psychic-resist and revealed turn 1 that his Vally wasn't Dark. Wishiwashi was traded for Chatot, which was a good trade imo since Wishiwashi didn't wall anything else and Chatot was a massive threat once it weakened Golem. Rawmelon brought ToxicTect Golem so Chimecho didn't beat it 1v1 but it was still able to Knock Off Komala's and Golem's Leftovers. In late game, Feliburn switched in Exeggutor and claimed 2 kills (it would have been 3 w/o the triple protect) and easily cleaned with DarkVally.
Scraggy @ Eviolite
Ability: Shed Skin
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Knock Off
- Drain Punch
- Rest
Emolga
Ability: Motor Drive
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Acrobatics
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Defog
My last teams were all extremely weak to Galarian Mr. Mime and UC was aware of it, so I overprepared for it with Double Steel. Scraggy+Grapploct is a powerful double Fighting-core able to pressure Fairy-types so one of them can clean. Hattrem was here for broken Grapploct and hazard control. I originally had Ivysaur in the last slot for T-Spikes and stallbreaking purpose. However, the team ended up being to weak to Krokorok and VoltTurn, as well as being to slow. Then I remembered Acro Emolga is broken in BW, has an Electric immunity, deals 1v1 with Stone Edge less Krok, and can safely Defog on Vespiquen.
Pif ended up bringing up the same team as last week (I didn't even realised it during the game). I don't think I played very well with Grapploct and Scraggy, as I should have calced Sucker Punch damages against Mime and even if I got lucked with Scraggy since it needed 6 turns to activate Shed Skin, I don't think I clicked the right move to beat Klang. Emolga was able to Knock Off the opposing Klang, and it ended up in a Klang war which I lost due to an unlucky miss on turn 38 and a bad Sleep Talk roll on turn 45 as pif never missed a Gear Grind versus my Klang.
Since I only brought balanced teams (except when I used Shiftry's team), I expected yovan to counter team me. That's why I tried several team archetypes such as Greedent screen and Grassy Terrain. I was super bad at piloting the former and found the second to be to mu reliant. At the same time, ShuckleDeath introduced me to Slowpoke that I already saw uhu test and that czim and I used a bit in June. I originally didn't want to bring the only Pokemon I nommed up in the Viability Ranking, but it was just to good in a Grapploct invested metagame. Emolga+Slowpoke was a core I theorized with ShuckleDeath. Vespiquen gave the team a second slow pivot and hazard control. Stoutland, Grapploct, and Stonjourner formed with Emolga a physical spam core. I'm very grateful to Ho3n, as while I created the basis of the team, he ended up chosing the right mon and sets to use in the team.
yovan brought the same team as pif just played 20 minutes earlier, so I had the advantage to know his sets. After the game, I was told, yovan explicitly asked for a stall team. I don't believe my teams to usually be stall weak, and this game showed that my team was definitely not stall weak. While I didn't have a Toxic immunity and 3 of my Pokémon had no option to heal, the slow pivoting was just to good. Stonjourner was able to threaten yovan's sole form of hazard control, and slow pivots into wallbreakers was just to good. I don't know why yovan never tried to abuse Slowpoke's passivity by predicting its switch-ins, because this would have really messed me up. Mudbray and Dusclops were a pain to deal with, but I eventually ended up breaking throught them.
So rather then dump everything I used/ built that got used I'll just highlight my favorites because I pretty much loved everything I built this tour. Paste's to the teams can be found by clicking the sprites if you want a full team preview!
So while the match up was hyped up, that isn't the reason this is my favorite moment of the tournament. For me it was the pay off from all the prep work because right when match ups got posted I knew exactly what I wanted to bring with yovan generally being weak to hat, feeling like sp.d ivy was a good call, and after losing horribly to dusclops leading up to the tie breakers I knew they'd probably try to bring it again so I went to work on a hat, ivy, and zweious team knowing they'd bring something like this and it really paid off. At one point I had 7 different versions of this team built that I was testing around with before it finally clicked with healing wish hat + AV beh which really showed up big in the actual match. Super proud of myself for this one.
"UC hasn't given pif stall to use this entire tournament. I'll be fine to not prep for it and replace this fraxure for mime-g"
These were the thoughts I had the day before the match and they're the thoughts I regret the most because I really wanted this team in particular to win. I knew pif was probably going to bring something fat so I decided to bust out the Greedent screens team I had been theorizing over the entire tournament and risk it all on the team. Sadly there was a Pyukumuku that stopped my dreams but greedy screens remains in my opinion a really slept on and under utilized option for instantly winning all the fat and slow match ups that seem to be popular right now. Greedy screens are sick.
Aka the week that killed my spirit. I was so excited to show off this team because it was quite the passion project for me as it was the first time screens had been used this entire tour (not counting aveil) and I had some really cool tech options that zugubu also had like Charge Beam Goth. Sadly none of that mattered and it came down to a klang pp stalling war that I ultimately won and from this point on my spirit was broken and I hated klang for making me do this in a match I was so excited to play. (I had foul play on morg in my game but it should've been dgleam.)
So this ones going to need some back story because its honestly such a funny story. So I had actually built Grassy Terrain for tko for this week and I was planning to use Sand for my match. Well the day of my game PS was down and I needed some more test games for warm ups so hoen agreed to get on and play some vs me on smogtours. Well I had forgotten that smogtours not only doesn't let you hide games but also instantly saves the replays so I accidently leaked my own team I was planning to use right before the game. Thankfully uhuhuhu7 was a bro and was willing to reschedule to accommodate my fuck up while I built a new team.
So that night I made this stall team and sent it to tko for him to look at and he really liked it. All set I went into the next day and found TKO was playing right before I played so I hopped on and see him loaded up with not the terrain team but the stall team I had built for my own game. He won like the beast he is but that left me in a funny spot of wtf do I play my match is now. So I decided to play the team that I accidently leaked over the terrain team and still won despite the extremely confusing situation that led to this whole thing. Really fun week and this stall team was beast.
So while not my team playing in the finals, I did make this team and pokemonisfun absolutely crushed it using it. I had planned to use something like this in my own game if I had made finals so it was nice to see this idea carried out in the finals even if I couldn't be the one to pilot it, but pif did a fantastic job so I couldn't be happier. This is probably the best team I've made this entire tournament and even works post shifts so if you want a free team to grab go ahead and pick this up.
Now on to the stuff I didn't get to use but really wanted to:
More Greedy screens. UC wanted to use it in the finals so we built this together but sadly it never got used. But it was nice to know more people then just me see the potential in it. The Klang EVs actually beats Whiscash and Grap under screens if they switch into a shift gear which is actually super cool.
Oranguru @ Leftovers
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Psychic
- Knock Off
- Toxic
- Protect
This was something I only found during semi finals when I had already built what I wanted to bring for all of us, but if I had tested this mon earlier in the tour then I'd have 100% brought it as one of the best balance breakers in the tier right now. Sp.D sets also tested really well as just blanket mime/ beh answers too
uhuhuhu7 came up with this bat shit crazy idea to try on screens and I legitimately almost brought it but ultimately without eviolite it was kinda sketchy but dear god this thing was scary. Sadly Politoed kinda invalidates this set so I can't run it anymore but I can't stress how close I was to actually bringing this. Once its set up you literally just win.
I tried for so many weeks to bring this but I always pulled back last second. CB has virtually no switch ins but with how common the mimes are I was basically praying for 2 turn out rages to kill the walls and get out alive but hitting those 3 turn out rages proved to be a little inconsistent for how heavily I was respecting the mimes in the tournament. Really cool set tho and 2 turn outrage pulls really can win you games.
Lastly I wanted to give a MASSIVE shout out to 4 people in particular.
tko you're a beast and it was an amazing pleasure to meet you and work with you this tournament. You really kept me sane through this entire thing
uhuhuhu7 knocking you guys out and getting you as a helper was probably the biggest blessing I could've asked for. You were an amazing help and an unsung hero this entire tournament.
