Tournament SPL XV OU Discussion Thread

1LDK · Jan 7, 2024

Hello and welcome to SPL XV's discussion thread for SV OU!

It's the SPL season again and ten teams will be battling it out for the trophy! Every team has to play 4 games of SV OU every week, so there will be plenty of games played and to discuss! In this thread you can expect to see interesting discussions, constructive analyses on metagame trends, and analyses of games. The schedule can be found here

The SV OU players of each team, including support slots and substitutes, looks as follows (expected starters will be bolded)

:marowak-alola:

Team Raiders: Punny, Gondra, TPP, DAHLI, procorphish, Sylveon used calm mind, entrocefalo
:garchomp:

Stark Sharks: lax, TDK, shafofficiel, GeniusX, tko, Mimikyu Stardust, Carkoala
:gardevoir-mega:

Congregation of the Classiest: mncmt, pdt, Beraldo, Isza, HANTSUKI, Thiago Nunes, devin
:entei:

Alpha Ruiners: Raptor, xavgb, oldspicemike, Fc, JustFranco
:lycanroc:

Wi-Fi Wolfpack: Fogbound Lake, zioziotrip, TDNT, shiloh, freezai, Piyush25, Taka
:snorlax:

Ever Grande BIGs: crying, Gilbert Arenas, Laroxyl, 3d, MAVERICK SHOOTERS, Savouras
:raikou:

Circus Maximus Tigers: Storm Zone, Eternal Spirit, Trosko, Garay Oak, JJ09LIE, S1nnohConfirmed, Baloor
:alakazam-mega:

Indie Scooters: Welli0u, Xrn, elodin, hellom, Akalli, Kushalos, Dasmer
:suicune:

Cryonicles: Mind Gaming, Finchinator, Separation, Floss, Srn,
:tyrantrum:

Dragonspiral Tyrants: CTC, DonSalvatore, Ash KetchumGamer, RubyBlood, damien the genius, myjava, Luispeikou, mister sauce, Mada

Other Links

Commencement thread
Replays
Season Schedule
SPL XV spreadsheet
Usage stats
Official Power Rankings

Duck Chris · Jan 8, 2024

Should be a good year! Not too much to comment on the lineups but hope to see some nasty HO from baloor for the Tigers and some funky cores from Maverick and crying on the bigs. Agency up tho, go tyrants

ninth · Jan 8, 2024

I like the look of this SV pool a lot - think this is a really interesting pool where your 3k picks are going to be super valuable. I will say that choosing 4 SV and then none of Vert/mind gaming/Nat signing up for SV is kind of ironic, but it means a lot of people are gonna have breakout tours here.

Raiders: really well-rounded SV overall, better than I thought they could do considering their budget. I have a premonition that DAHLI will explode and post like 8 wins, they've been super solid in the last year. Sylveon used calm mind is going to post a random upset over a 25k player at some point.

Sharks: no explanation needed for lax, he's in great form. The 3k buys will be crucial to success here, especially if TDK doesn't start SV. I'm looking for Carkoala to rebound from SCL.

Classiest: low investment in SV here, clearly hoping mncmt puts up numbers like last SPL. I think their faith in pdt will be rewarded. 3k Thiago Nunes is great value.

Alpha Ruiners: not sure if xavgb is starting every week but this is just a super solid core overall. Two OLT high rollers in oldspicemike and JustFranco should be great value.

Wolfpack: Fogbound Lake was practically unstoppable in the second half of 2023, he'll almost certainly perform. I see zioziotrip going at least 5-4 here. freezai is a steal considering his sheet record, and will provide an intangible content buff to the Wolfpack.

BIGs: crying went for ridiculously cheap considering her record last year. Mav and Sav in the kitchen will make this a very interesting SV core to watch. My agenda of upbidding Mav in every mock paid off!

Tigers: Storm Zone is always fun to watch and I will be haphazardly stealing teams from his replays. JJ09LIE for 4.5 is one of the biggest steals of the auction, they've been at the sharp end of the OU circuit all year. If S1nn0h tries as hard as he did in SCL then we should be scared.

Scooters: think Welli0u is starting SM but can be a great flex option. My guess is hellom starts SV. How the hell was Kushalos this cheap? Akalli is great, glad to see the Packing Heat agenda make its way to SPL.

Cryonicles: at this point we know what Finchinator does, he's on fire in SV and is good for at minimum six wins. Anticipating a bounce-back from Separation after a dubious OU record in SCL - he's certainly better than that showing. I fully believe in Srn as a fellow TrainerAid regular.

Tyrants: I'm still slightly stumped on who's starting here. My guess was AKG/myjava/Rubyblood/Mister Sauce but there's honestly a chance CTC ends up in the week 1 lineup. Their total SV investment looks like it's less than SoulWind's pricetag so if this tier averages 3.5 wins they're already getting their money's worth.

WinstonRed · Jan 9, 2024

Raiders looking really good again, probably my pick as fav. Also gotta root for my boy Hantsuki though :x

1LDK · Jan 9, 2024

Personal power rankings

Warning: these are not only highly subjective, but there are some of these players that I'm not too familiar with. And I will be a bit mean, but I'm gonna try to be as soft as possible. And as always, I hope everyone here has a great season filled with fun

10) Team Raiders: Punny, Gondra, TPP, DAHLI, procorphish, Sylveon used calm mind, entrocefalo
Managers: Raiza + Tricking

It is weird to have the team that won last season on last, but with that said, I'm not feeling like I should put my trust here, Punny and DAHLI are both great players that have momentum going, DAHLI in particular having a famous moment in packing Nat, and had an overall good year. As for the rest, TPP had a bad season, and I hope he recovers and goes 6-1, that would be sweet. Gondra I think it's gonna go more into the masters gens, SUCM had an incredible OST a good world cup, and only had a bad SCL, the name value and the overall consistency is appreciated. And I'm not familiar with entrocefalo's and procorphish's game in the slightest, but for the latter I only saw him losing vs Blunder, still, even the team I trust the least has some good things going for them and they can do surprises

9) Stark Sharks: lax, TDK, shafofficiel, GeniusX, tko, Mimikyu Stardust, Carkoala
Managers: Snaga + Suapah

What separates the stark sharks and the raiders IMO is the presence of 2 players, lax and newcomer mimikyu stardust. Lax is one of the top sv players, winning OLT which is the tournament for the most mentally insane people, and went positive in both scl and OUPL, he has a good amount of momentum coming from him. Mimikyu Stardust on the other hand lives in the top of the ladder, had a really nice OUPL run (meaning if it comes down to a fist fight he can very well defend himself) and his best attribute is his cooking skills, he is very creative when it comes to making teams, and this kind of support could very well help the rest of the team. As for the rest, TDK is a legend but outside of him playing stall I'm not familiar with his game, nor im familiar with shafofficiel, geniusX and tko, but my sources tell me shafo could be going to gen 8, geniusx is a draft league master but his oupl record is negative. And carkoala had a good world cup but bad SCL. Still, we have some good promises and support going on

8) Dragonspiral Tyrants: CTC, DonSalvatore, Ash KetchumGamer, RubyBlood, damien the genius, myjava, Luispeikou, mister sauce, Mada
Managers: Reyscarface + Blunder

The Tyrants have a good SV OU core, but not the best overall core, the reason why I'm putting them above stark sharks are Blunder, CTC and Rubyblood, the former 2 are goated players and part of the agency, which means the kitchen will be running hot and filled with amazing meals, and Rubyblood defied expectations with his SCL run even tho he burned himself out at the end. As for the rest, DonSalvatore can play SV, but I'm guessing he will be more useful on the masters section, same with Ash KetchumGamer and damien the genius, although I have seen all of them running around in multiple tiers, Luispeikou won world cup with his spain team and I hope he can keep some of that momentum, but tusk balance is not that good anymore, and I'm not familiar with mister sauce game, but everyone tells me exactly the same thing "wait this guy is blazing dark, yeah that's heat". EDIT: ImperfectLuck was banned, so instead they got Mada, which is a good sv player with monster prep and good team work, lets hope he performs as good as always

7) Wi-Fi Wolfpack: Fogbound Lake, zioziotrip, TDNT, shiloh, freezai, Piyush25, Taka
Managers: Star + D4 Repertoire

The pack of players in the wolfpack promised, putting the rest of these people into the pack watch. Fogbound Lake being the main wolf leader, the guy is just fucking amazing, I don't think anyone will debute that, and zioziotrip had a neutral run in scl as well as being not his first spl. Freezai has the premium YT boost and a clean win over great players like SW and Finch. With that said, im not familiar on TDNT and shiloh as far as sv ou goes, and both piyush and taka had rough scls, but on piyush case, he has his former teammate fog, so I'm thinking communication can run smooth

6) Congregation of the Classiest: mncmt, pdt, Beraldo, Isza, HANTSUKI, Thiago Nunes, devin
Managers: Luthier and d0nut

the congregation of Brazilian players, with the core of mncmt, beraldo, hantsuki and thiago nunes, when your teammates can understand you in your official language, communication becomes much easier, and good communication is always a key factor in great teams, and these 4 players are superb, all of them have a good amount of wins under their belt, especially mncmt who almost won Grand Slam and had a great scl. The non-Brazilian are not behind either, with Isza having good runs in smog tour and scl, devin being solid and pdt being a positive presence too, so why is this team so low even tho all their players are solid at worst? The reason is the lack of a real support chef, they all seem like main cast players, so I'm not really sure who is gonna go to the kitchen. With that said, many people have said that Luthier is smart when it comes to managing, so I'm guessing they will sort something out

5) Ever Grande BIGs: crying, Gilbert Arenas, Laroxyl, 3d, MAVERICK SHOOTERS, Savouras
Managers: Vulpix03 + DeepBlueC

This team has crying, and crying does heat, which I always like, I like his teams, and on the heat team, both Mav and Savouras are new in the SPL scenario and they will ensure the kitchen is constantly producing heat. As for the strong power houses, 3d is your average DBZ fan, he constantly fights to increase his power level, Marcop is always solid overall, and the hidden gem of the team, an LC player, by the name of Laroxyl, who while he was mainly playing LC in SCL, he had 2 matches in SV OU and those were good enough for him to get drafted into OUPL, and then he went 4-1, so he has the potential to claim some big dubs, I'm personally hyped on him

4) Cryonicles: Mind Gaming, Finchinator, Separation, Floss, Srn
Managers: NJNP + Booty

This one feels the hardest to rank to me, 2 reasons, 1 being Mind Gaming is not playing SV, he is playing DPP, how good is he gonna be? Leave it to the DPP mainers, and Separation had a bad SCL showing, but support from both Mind Gaming and NJNP means I can smell offensive oriented heat. Floss had a good RU run, and he is good in Monotype, but as far as OU goes I have no idea. The real meat comes from tier leader Finchinator, who wants to mainly focus on SV OU, with an 8-3 under his belt from SCL he is ready to keep marching on, and new up and comer Srn is having a good OUPL, and he has a cold head in his shoulder

3) Circus Maximus Tigers: Storm Zone, Eternal Spirit, Trosko, Garay Oak, JJ09LIE, S1nnohConfirmed, Baloor
Managers: genesis7 + z0mOG

the tigers have a good variety of talent and from different countries too, Storm Zone is overall solid always. Eternal spirit is always an enjoyable presence to have in chat, the spanish duo of Garay Oak + Trosko are solid too, JJ09LIE kill it during smogon tour tournament so there's a good amount of expectation on him, S1nnohConfirmed had an almost Lavos-esque run in SCL in PU, and while the power levels are different, and he is 2-3 in OUPL, if he can tap into that power again this could be hype, and Baloor won last spl, and while he had an unlucky run in SCL, he is a good chef and will support the team, and if things get messy, he can very well fight

2) Indie Scooters: Welli0u, Xrn, elodin, hellom, Akalli, Kushalos, Dasmer
Managers: Stone Cold + Leru

Name a more iconic duo than Stone Cold + Leru, come on, ill wait. Welli0u had a great SCL ou, being the xavgb killer and playing out of his mind, but there's some speculation he is going to play gen 7, but it's not a problem, because Xrn also had a good SCL run in doubles, but people tell me he is really fucking good in ou. Elodin can play SV OU, but I have never seen this guy and his profile overall screams "old tiers" player, hellom and akalli are new players on the block and both have shown a great amount of skill and team build, in OLT and OUPL. Dasmer, while having a bad world cup, that was via hax, and I will defend it, he can play trust. And lastly, Kushalos is called CLUTCHshalos for a fucking reason, he will find a way people. Overall, all solid players that show promise

1) Alpha Ruiners: Raptor, xavgb, oldspicemike, Fc, JustFranco
Managers: MANNAT + FlamingVictini

I'll be honest people, I'm going to simp, and I don't care for a single complaint you people might have, Raptor is just that guy, good builder, good player, xavgb is a good builder and a good battler, I don't know how good mike or franco are as builders, but they are good players, Fc is a solid player that uses basic stuff, good thing he has 2 good builders for support. I don't have anything else to say, only good wishes

And before I go, I decided to ask the streets of smogon discords to see what do they think, of course I'll have these comments in private

"tigers have a good line up"
"Finch,Sz,JJ, Crying would be my top"
"rooting for finch"
"welliou better on sm"
"power rankings are memes"
"storm zone has a better grasp on ss than sv"
"dont think finch is in top 3"
"cryos line up is not that good"
"why would they have punny in sv"
"I forgot lax won OLT lol"
"is TPP sv only? he should do SS too"
"storm zone has a much better sv record than ss"
"no one knows how good TDK is at sv ou"
"you never know with sv ou"

And that's it, it's all just personal opinion, what's your opinion?, I hope everyone does great and has a lot of fun, this new season of SPL is coming and i hope everyone is ready

jackuzzler · Jan 9, 2024

i hope everyone has fun, no power rankings, because the real power rankings are the friends we made along the way

lax · Jan 11, 2024

putting some of my thoughts on the SV pool for the draft

people can hate on how there aren't "40 viable players" or whatever, but I'm pretty pleased with the SV starters this SPL. I think quite literally every core is composed of players that have proven themselves in some way and have shown they deserve to play an official tour like this

during the draft, when I was asked which sv players I'd like to work with, there was an insanely long list of players I think would be motivated and would work well as a SV group. obviously, the sharks draft was kinda funny and we ended up having a 3k max bid for about 8 slots LMAO and I think there were a lot of steals for SV2-4s. I'm happy to get the shaf, MMQSD, and carkoala as my group even if we were limited by our budget goobage

in particular from the other teams, I was high on pdt, Beraldo, Akalli, JJ09LIE (who I think would have been 13k if not for goobage timezone), Laroxyl, and Rubyblood for the "unlikely to be expensive but still very solid" picks.

for cores I'd most like to play, it's gotta be cryos if they make playoffs. mind (with a SV sign up) + finch + separation is a SV core worth about 80K for 3 players and they are guys I respect a lot. separation in particular is someone whose builds I really enjoy and stole often from early SV days, so I'm expecting him to bounce back

hoping for a fun season and personally to do better than in SCL haha..

ninth · Jan 14, 2024

week 1 predicts

SV OU: oldspicemike vs Kushalos - this is the year of mike I think
SV OU: Raptor vs Dasmer
SV OU: Fc vs Xrn
SV OU: JustFranco vs hellom - swordstrike was a better name imo

SV OU: pdt vs Ash KetchumGamer - I respect dude for sticking with this name
SV OU: Beraldo vs DonSalvatore - not super familiar with donsalvatore's SV work but he's in top form right now
SV OU: Isza vs CTC
SV OU: mncmt vs Rubyblood - my understanding is that if mncmt goes positive again this tour he becomes the real mencemeat and jamvad becomes the fake one

SV OU: Srn vs Garay oak - I fully support a fellow discussion mainer but this is an uphill battle
SV OU: Separation vs Storm Zone - while I don't think Separation's 0-4 OU run in SCL is representative of his true form I also think SZ probably takes this on current form
SV OU: Finchinator vs JJ09LIE - finch was hyping JJ up in stours discord and I have to agree — that said, this is the hardest first sheet game they could have pulled lol
SV OU: Floss vs Trosko

SV OU: DAHLI vs Shafofficiel - DAHLI quietly had a very consistent SV run last year, went something like 11-6 on the sheet with a clutch finals win.
SV OU: entrocefalo vs Mimikyu Stardust
SV OU: Sylveon used calm mind vs lax - on paper this is 65/35 but in reality I just feel like sylveon is going to debut a new and never before seen HO and it's gonna end in 14 turns one way or the other
SV OU: Punny vs kumiko - not sure how practiced kumiko is with SV

SV OU: shiloh vs Gilbert arenas
SV OU: Fogbound Lake vs Laroxyl
SV OU: freezai vs Savouras - sub to both of them
SV OU: zioziotrip vs crying - we haven't seen any crying gaming in the last half year so I'm curious if she's gonna be using the same, uh, nonstandard builds as last SPL

Duck Chris · Jan 22, 2024

Week 1 is in the books!
A great week of matches with a lot of fun new and returning faces.

Employee of the Week :Archaludon:

Rain was brought 7 times and won 5 of them, with Archaludon taking names every match. Often using tera, this guy is bulky and strong and can take down teams singlehandedly. Definitely something people will have to prepare for in the coming weeks. :Raging Bolt:

and

also showed up here and won most of the time as well. With the ability to speed check the whole meta and offer useful priority as well as bulk and power rain has never been better. It also matches really well into stuff like Gouging Fire and Iron Boulder, which were on the lower end of the usage this week.

I'm Still Here :Dragapult:

These familiar faces were everywhere this week with Dragapult gaining the number one usage spot. Status, utility, hazards, and especially soaking attacks make these pokemon extremely useful. These are doing basically exactly what they did in DLC1, and I have to wonder if players might have just adjusted some reliable DLC1 teams for the new meta just to be on the safe side for the first week. Mostly, it worked, except for Gliscor which only had one win in its 9 appearances.

Did Not Show Up For Work: :Darkrai:

The scourge of the meta hypnosis darkrai showed up twice and missed all 3 times it clicked. The other two pokemon in this section, A+ and A on the viability ranking, did not show up at all. Are these guys overrated? Are they just under explored? Did they just sleep in and will show up in week 2?

Coolest set: :Tornadus-Therian:

Tera: Flying from Mimikyu Stardust https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-740693
Most fun game: [CLA] Isza vs CTC [TYR]

ninth · Jan 22, 2024

I would like to highlight hellom's Grassy Seed Comfey which they brought against JustFranco and proceeded to get four kills with. Granted, JustFranco's Fairy resist was (checks notes) Iron Treads, so it had a quite good matchup, but this was pretty cool.

SV OU: Savouras vs mncmt
SV OU: crying vs pdt - pdt claimed a pretty clean offense win last week and is in great form. hoping for crying to bring something a little weirder, they're both on south so there may be more familiarity for prep there
SV OU: Laroxyl vs Beraldo - full respect to Beraldo's attempt at bringing sand last week but I've been on the Laroxyl train for a while now. think the guys gonna put up a quiet 7-2
SV OU: Gilbert arenas vs Isza

SV OU: lax vs Fc - we know lax's power in SV but last week he lost to bulk up tusk so I have to bold Fc. will return to bolding lax next week
SV OU: Shafofficiel vs Raptor
SV OU: kumiko vs JustFranco
SV OU: Mimikyu Stardust vs oldspicemike - oldspicemike is super solid but we are in a rain meta so Mimikyu Stardust cannot be counted out under any circumstances

SV OU: Garay oak vs DAHLI
SV OU: Trosko vs entrocefalo
SV OU: Storm Zone vs Punny - did quite like punny's team and how they played despite the loss last week
SV OU: JJ09LIE vs Sylveon used calm mind - cool matchup, both of them are fresh off of upsets against top-ranked players in Finchinator and lax respectively. think JJ is on for a breakout this year

SV OU: Rubyblood vs Srn
SV OU: DonSalvatore vs Separation
SV OU: CTC vs Finchinator - fun matchup. don't imagine Finchinator is going to try and reinvent the wheel here, while CTC is a very crafty builder in what is presumably an underdog matchup - thinking we'll see a "what the hell did he just click" moment here, and it'll either result in finch getting stuffed in a locker or the basedlord getting put in a gif on finch's twitter
SV OU: Ash KetchumGamer vs Floss

SV OU: Xrn vs zioziotrip
SV OU: Kushalos vs shiloh
SV OU: Akalli vs freezai - freezai got Supercell Slammed and proceeded to perform the Tera of all time last week. truly cannot imagine he super tilts like that twice in a row
SV OU: hellom vs Fogbound Lake - I knew Fogbound Lake's perpetually low timer was gonna screw him over at some point. swear every game it's down to 5 seconds. anyways he's the favorite here but hellom brought some really great heat last week and I hope they keep it up

kd458 · Jan 24, 2024

Threat of the Week: Week 1

And we are back for round two of TotW! If you didn't see my last series of posts, this is a project that I ran during SCL where I added up the kills and deaths each Pokemon got over every game across the week, giving not only a K/D ratio for every mon but also a differential - this is the number of kills they claimed minus the number of deaths they had! We'll be talking about not only the most impressive showings of the week but also the worst, along with an overall summary and some honourable mentions at the end. I wasn't sure on whether this project would be returning or not, but I figured why not add a little overview of how the meta's looking for SPL? I tried to include more replays this time, so this should be a fun way of looking at mons, seeing how they did and checking out their noteworthy performances over the week - I hope you enjoy!

First, we will be looking at the strongest showings from Pokemon with 12.5% or more usage - This means that they were brought by 5 or more players, showing a consistent performance across the board:

#1: Archaludon

Differential: +9, K:D: 3.2, Uses: 7

You merely adopted the rain. I was born in the rain, molded by it... Archaludon won 5 out of 7 of its games this week, finishing off a game with a Tera Fairy from CTC and picking up 4 kills for both oldspicemike vs Joya and for Xrn vs Fc. This mon is incredibly tough to take off the field and almost always finds an opportunity to pick up at least a 1 for 1 trade, with its only negative performance coming from an insane Tera Ghost Mirror Coat Alomomola that was forced to Tera to trade it off the field which later led to Barraskewda breaking through. Arch had a pretty dominating performance in week 1 of SCL and unless rain as a playstyle falls off I don't see it going anywhere any time soon.

#2: Raging Bolt

Differential: +8, K:D: 2.3, Uses: 9

Raging Bolt joins Archaludon in being one of the best traders of the week with the potential to stick around and even sweep, fitting not only on rain but also on general offense as a powerful wallbreaker which can also set up and game-ended 3 times. Fc used it to beat Xrn in a match where it picked up 4 kills and closed out the game, while Storm Zone vs Separation had a Raging Bolt as the kill leader for both sides, where Separation's Tera Grass Booster Energy Bolt took out a Great Tusk and a Slowking-G before Storm Zone's Tera Dragon Bolt cleaned up the game. This is another great showing from one of OU's newest Dragons, working well both off and on rain.

#3: Weavile

Differential: +6, K:D: 3, Uses: 8

Weavile is back, and while maybe not as omnipresent as it once was it's shown up to SPL week 1 back in its SwSh form. This mon thrives both on and against balance, cleaning up an endgame for Trosko vs Floss while dominating with 4 kills in mncmt vs Rubyblood, where it came in early game to leverage its capabilities as a fast revenge killer while later denying Roaring Moon an opportunity to set up and cleaning through a weakened Skarmory and Ghold. A great form of speed control that spreads Knock Offs and threatens out Gliscor is clearly going to be good, but especially with its direct competition in Meowscarada getting 0 usage last week was a Weavile showcase.

In the next section of this project, we take a look at some of the lower usage mons that put up a strong showing this week - what niche mons made an impact in the games they came to?

#7: Comfey

Differential: +4, K:D: 4, Uses: 1

With 485 BST and a dream, hellom's Grassy Seed Comfey brought it all home by setting up a single Calm Mind and shredding through an opposing Grassy Terrain team lacking any real counterplay past a lead Treads that died turn 2. Actually insane to see this mon put in the amount of work that it did and it genuinely felt like there was no way to stop it from sweeping, don't think this is going to be an OU staple any time soon but it actually farmed hard in this game and felt like a real Pokemon for once, cool set.

#8: Volcanion

Differential: +2, K:D: 2, Uses: 2

Volcanion had a solid week in SPL, winning in both games it was brought to. All 4 of its kills came from shiloh vs Gilbert arenas though, as a Heavy-Duty Boots set found entry points throughout the game to score kills into Gliscor, Iron Moth, Samu-H and even a Zamazenta before preventing Hatterene from getting out of hand with Calm Minds and putting it in range of a paralysed Kingambit's Sucker Punch. As usual, this mon sees a strong tour performance - maybe coupled with a recent ladder renaissance we could even hope to see a second Volc in OU? Doubtful, but we can always dream.

#8: Tornadus-T

Differential: +2, K:D: 2, Uses:1

Torn-T only showed up once, but it made an impact when it did - Tera Flying Hurricane in the rain was enough to clean up an endgame for Mimikyu Stardust vs entrocefalo, blasting through a Kyurem and outdamaging a Tera Water'd Garg to finish off a team weakened by Barra and Arch. Very solid way to spam Hurricane for rain teams right now, many opt to drop this option but both this Torn and TDK's Moltres picked up two kills apiece on rain with neither dropping by the end of the game.

Now, let's have a look at the worst showings of the week - I'll exclude most of the hazard setters like Glimmora and Ting-Lu, as those only really claim kills from mons being sac'd to hazards, although we'll be looking at one in particular and whether its performance was actually good or bad:

#52: Gliscor

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.5, Uses: 9

Although Gliscor is a hazard setter by itself, it's also a defensive check that tries to wall out and beat physical attackers in a meta that needs status and knock absorbers. Why so low scoring? Maybe a Weavile / Meowscarada / Kyurem meta is not great for Gliscor, or maybe it just goes down way too often trying to act as a solid check to the high-powered threats both on weather and on HO in general, in most cases getting a trade at best with only one positive performance in a losing game for Fogbound Lake vs Laroxyl. Still a really good mon, but not a great showing for the first week of SPL.

#54: Cinderace

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.2, Uses: 5

Cinderace only got one kill this week and it was in a game where it went down, and although it did often accomplish its job of spreading Will-O-Wisps and managing hazards it never really flexed its muscles offensively. Its single kill came from Sylveon used calm mind vs lax, where it only managed to get it by sacrificing itself to burn a Skarmory and the Skarm later dying to burn damage before it could lose 1v1 to a BU Great Tusk. It's had a pretty solid showing in terms of the work its put in, but never actually did anything on the offensive over all 5 games that it came.

#56: Iron Treads

Differential: -6, K:D: 0.14, Uses: 7

On paper, Treads had a horrible week - though it did usually lead off, throw up hazards and die, particularly on rain it serves a defensive purpose while having solid offensive stats. How did it actually do though? It had a 57% winrate and an 80% winrate on rain, usually coming in early to control hazards on the field and often sacrificing itself for momentum later on to give a free entry point to the rain powerhouses that are Barraskewda and Archaludon. Treads is still a solid mon with a niche on rain, but didn't claim kills like some other defensive mons - even Skarmory went even with 7 and 7 this week.

Code:

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1     Archaludon     7     13       4   3.2             9
2    Raging Bolt     9     14       6   2.3             8
3        Weavile     8      9       3   3.0             6
4         Kyurem     8     13       7   1.9             6
5      Dragapult    13     15       9   1.7             6
6      Kingambit    10     10       5   2.0             5
7         Comfey     1      4       0   4.0             4
8      Volcanion     2      4       2   2.0             2
8     Tornadus-T     1      2       0   2.0             2
8        Moltres     1      2       0   2.0             2
11     Hatterene     4      5       3   1.7             2
12  Iron Valiant     4      2       1   2.0             1
12      Enamorus     3      2       1   2.0             1
12      Blaziken     1      2       1   2.0             1
12     Alomomola     1      2       1   2.0             1
12     Iron Moth     1      2       1   2.0             1
17     Gholdengo     4      3       2   1.5             1
18     Dragonite     4      4       3   1.3             1
19     Rillaboom     7      6       5   1.2             1
20      Skarmory     8      7       7   1.0             0
20   Barraskewda     6      3       3   1.0             0
20  Iron Boulder     2      1       1   1.0             0
20    Iron Crown     2      1       1   1.0             0
20   Basculegion     1      1       1   1.0             0
20       Heatran     1      1       1   1.0             0
26  Roaring Moon     9      6       7  0.86            -1
27      Pelipper     7      4       5   0.8            -1
28     Volcarona     5      3       4  0.75            -1
29     Ogerpon-W     3      2       3  0.67            -1
29    Samurott-H     3      2       3  0.67            -1
31      Clodsire     2      1       2   0.5            -1
31       Darkrai     2      1       2   0.5            -1
33       Toxapex     2      0       1   0.0            -1
33   Corviknight     2      0       1   0.0            -1
33     Tyranitar     1      0       1   0.0            -1
33       Torkoal     1      0       1   0.0            -1
33       Rotom-W     1      0       1   0.0            -1
33     Magnezone     1      0       1   0.0            -1
33      Ursaluna     1      0       1   0.0            -1
33     Serperior     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41    Great Tusk    10      6       8  0.75            -2
42    Slowking-G    10      5       7  0.71            -2
43    Landorus-T     6      2       4   0.5            -2
43     Primarina     6      2       4   0.5            -2
43      Hawlucha     4      2       4   0.5            -2
43  Gouging Fire     4      2       4   0.5            -2
47     Excadrill     2      0       2   0.0            -2
47  Walking Wake     2      0       2   0.0            -2
47     Garganacl     2      0       2   0.0            -2
50     Zamazenta     9      4       7  0.57            -3
51      Clefable     3      0       3   0.0            -3
52       Gliscor     9      4       8   0.5            -4
53       Ting-Lu     7      2       6  0.33            -4
54     Cinderace     5      1       5   0.2            -4
55      Glimmora     4      0       4   0.0            -4
56   Iron Treads     7      1       7  0.14            -6

Thank you for reading! Shoutouts go to Hatterene with a solid +2 performance, sweeping for zioziotrip vs crying after earlier coming in to 1v1 a Samurott-H, along with Iron Valiant, who should have gone +4 with an insane K:D of 5 had it not been denied 3 kills in Laroxyl vs Fogbound Lake by Fogbound running out of time in a lost position - normally these shoutouts would go to individual Pokemon that performed better than expected, but the only real example of this was Comfey who made it all the way to #7 on the list. See you next week!

reyscarface · Jan 25, 2024

kd458 said:
Threat of the Week: Week 1

And we are back for round two of TotW! If you didn't see my last series of posts, this is a project that I ran during SCL where I added up the kills and deaths each Pokemon got over every game across the week, giving not only a K/D ratio for every mon but also a differential - this is the number of kills they claimed minus the number of deaths they had! We'll be talking about not only the most impressive showings of the week but also the worst, along with an overall summary and some honourable mentions at the end. I wasn't sure on whether this project would be returning or not, but I figured why not add a little overview of how the meta's looking for SPL? I tried to include more replays this time, so this should be a fun way of looking at mons, seeing how they did and checking out their noteworthy performances over the week - I hope you enjoy!

First, we will be looking at the strongest showings from Pokemon with 15% or more usage - This means that they were brought by 6 or more players, showing a consistent performance across the board:

#1: Archaludon
View attachment 596417
Differential: +9, K:D: 3.2, Uses: 7

You merely adopted the rain. I was born in the rain, molded by it... Archaludon won 5 out of 7 of its games this week, finishing off a game with a Tera Fairy from CTC and picking up 4 kills for both oldspicemike vs Joya and for Xrn vs Fc. This mon is incredibly tough to take off the field and almost always finds an opportunity to pick up at least a 1 for 1 trade, with its only negative performance coming from an insane Tera Ghost Mirror Coat Alomomola that was forced to Tera to trade it off the field which later led to Barraskewda breaking through. Arch had a pretty dominating performance in week 1 of SCL and unless rain as a playstyle falls off I don't see it going anywhere any time soon.

#2: Raging Bolt
View attachment 596518
Differential: +8, K:D: 2.3, Uses: 9

Raging Bolt joins Archaludon in being one of the best traders of the week with the potential to stick around and even sweep, fitting not only on rain but also on general offense as a powerful wallbreaker which can also set up and game-ended 3 times. Fc used it to beat Xrn in a match where it picked up 4 kills and closed out the game, while Storm Zone vs Separation had a Raging Bolt as the kill leader for both sides, where Separation's Tera Grass Booster Energy Bolt took out a Great Tusk and a Slowking-G before Storm Zone's Tera Dragon Bolt cleaned up the game. This is another great showing from one of OU's newest Dragons, working well both off and on rain.

#3: Weavile
View attachment 596535
Differential: +6, K:D: 3, Uses: 8

Weavile is back, and while maybe not as omnipresent as it once was it's shown up to SPL week 1 back in its SwSh form. This mon thrives both on and against balance, cleaning up an endgame for Trosko vs Floss while dominating with 4 kills in mncmt vs Rubyblood, where it came in early game to leverage its capabilities as a fast revenge killer while later denying Roaring Moon an opportunity to set up and cleaning through a weakened Skarmory and Ghold. A great form of speed control that spreads Knock Offs and threatens out Gliscor is clearly going to be good, but especially with its direct competition in Meowscarada getting 0 usage last week was a Weavile showcase.

In the next section of this project, we take a look at some of the lower usage mons that put up a strong showing this week - what niche mons made an impact in the games they came to?

#7: Comfey
View attachment 596541
Differential: +4, K:D: 4, Uses: 1

With 485 BST and a dream, hellom's Grassy Seed Comfey brought it all home by setting up a single Calm Mind and shredding through an opposing Grassy Terrain team lacking any real counterplay past a lead Treads that died turn 2. Actually insane to see this mon put in the amount of work that it did and it genuinely felt like there was no way to stop it from sweeping, don't think this is going to be an OU staple any time soon but it actually farmed hard in this game and felt like a real Pokemon for once, cool set.

#8: Volcanion
View attachment 596561
Differential: +2, K:D: 2, Uses: 2

Volcanion had a solid week in SPL, winning in both games it was brought to. All 4 of its kills came from shiloh vs Gilbert arenas though, as a Heavy-Duty Boots set found entry points throughout the game to score kills into Gliscor, Iron Moth, Samu-H and even a Zamazenta before preventing Hatterene from getting out of hand with Calm Minds and putting it in range of a paralysed Kingambit's Sucker Punch. As usual, this mon sees a strong tour performance - maybe coupled with a recent ladder renaissance we could even hope to see a second Volc in OU? Doubtful, but we can always dream.

#8: Tornadus-T
View attachment 596577
Differential: +2, K:D: 2, Uses:1

Torn-T only showed up once, but it made an impact when it did - Tera Flying Hurricane in the rain was enough to clean up an endgame for Mimikyu Stardust vs entrocefalo, blasting through a Kyurem and outdamaging a Tera Water'd Garg to finish off a team weakened by Barra and Arch. Very solid way to spam Hurricane for rain teams right now, many opt to drop this option but both this Torn and TDK's Moltres picked up two kills apiece on rain with neither dropping by the end of the game.

Now, let's have a look at the worst showings of the week - I'll exclude most of the hazard setters like Glimmora and Ting-Lu, as those only really claim kills from mons being sac'd to hazards, although we'll be looking at one in particular and whether its performance was actually good or bad:

#52: Gliscor
View attachment 596612
Differential: -4, K:D: 0.5, Uses: 9

Although Gliscor is a hazard setter by itself, it's also a defensive check that tries to wall out and beat physical attackers in a meta that needs status and knock absorbers. Why so low scoring? Maybe a Weavile / Meowscarada / Kyurem meta is not great for Gliscor, or maybe it just goes down way too often trying to act as a solid check to the high-powered threats both on weather and on HO in general, in most cases getting a trade at best with only one positive performance in a losing game for Fogbound Lake vs Laroxyl. Still a really good mon, but not a great showing for the first week of SPL.

#54: Cinderace
View attachment 596613
Differential: -4, K:D: 0.2, Uses: 5

Cinderace only got one kill this week and it was in a game where it went down, and although it did often accomplish its job of spreading Will-O-Wisps and managing hazards it never really flexed its muscles offensively. Its single kill came from Sylveon used calm mind vs lax, where it only managed to get it by sacrificing itself to burn a Skarmory and the Skarm later dying to burn damage before it could lose 1v1 to a BU Great Tusk. It's had a pretty solid showing in terms of the work its put in, but never actually did anything on the offensive over all 5 games that it came.

#56: Iron Treads
View attachment 596616
Differential: -6, K:D: 0.14, Uses: 7

On paper, Treads had a horrible week - though it did usually lead off, throw up hazards and die, particularly on rain it serves a defensive purpose while having solid offensive stats. How did it actually do though? It had a 57% winrate and an 80% winrate on rain, usually coming in early to control hazards on the field and often sacrificing itself for momentum later on to give a free entry point to the rain powerhouses that are Barraskewda and Archaludon. Treads is still a solid mon with a niche on rain, but didn't claim kills like some other defensive mons - even Skarmory went even with 7 and 7 this week.

Code:

Name Uses Kills Deaths K:D Differential 1 Archaludon 7 13 4 3.2 9 2 Raging Bolt 9 14 6 2.3 8 3 Weavile 8 9 3 3.0 6 4 Kyurem 8 13 7 1.9 6 5 Dragapult 13 15 9 1.7 6 6 Kingambit 10 10 5 2.0 5 7 Comfey 1 4 0 4.0 4 8 Volcanion 2 4 2 2.0 2 8 Tornadus-T 1 2 0 2.0 2 8 Moltres 1 2 0 2.0 2 11 Hatterene 4 5 3 1.7 2 12 Iron Valiant 4 2 1 2.0 1 12 Enamorus 3 2 1 2.0 1 12 Blaziken 1 2 1 2.0 1 12 Alomomola 1 2 1 2.0 1 12 Iron Moth 1 2 1 2.0 1 17 Gholdengo 4 3 2 1.5 1 18 Dragonite 4 4 3 1.3 1 19 Rillaboom 7 6 5 1.2 1 20 Skarmory 8 7 7 1.0 0 20 Barraskewda 6 3 3 1.0 0 20 Iron Boulder 2 1 1 1.0 0 20 Iron Crown 2 1 1 1.0 0 20 Basculegion 1 1 1 1.0 0 20 Heatran 1 1 1 1.0 0 26 Roaring Moon 9 6 7 0.86 -1 27 Pelipper 7 4 5 0.8 -1 28 Volcarona 5 3 4 0.75 -1 29 Ogerpon-W 3 2 3 0.67 -1 29 Samurott-H 3 2 3 0.67 -1 31 Clodsire 2 1 2 0.5 -1 31 Darkrai 2 1 2 0.5 -1 33 Toxapex 2 0 1 0.0 -1 33 Corviknight 2 0 1 0.0 -1 33 Tyranitar 1 0 1 0.0 -1 33 Torkoal 1 0 1 0.0 -1 33 Rotom-W 1 0 1 0.0 -1 33 Magnezone 1 0 1 0.0 -1 33 Ursaluna 1 0 1 0.0 -1 33 Serperior 1 0 1 0.0 -1 41 Great Tusk 10 6 8 0.75 -2 42 Slowking-G 10 5 7 0.71 -2 43 Landorus-T 6 2 4 0.5 -2 43 Primarina 6 2 4 0.5 -2 43 Hawlucha 4 2 4 0.5 -2 43 Gouging Fire 4 2 4 0.5 -2 47 Excadrill 2 0 2 0.0 -2 47 Walking Wake 2 0 2 0.0 -2 47 Garganacl 2 0 2 0.0 -2 50 Zamazenta 9 4 7 0.57 -3 51 Clefable 3 0 3 0.0 -3 52 Gliscor 9 4 8 0.5 -4 53 Ting-Lu 7 2 6 0.33 -4 54 Cinderace 5 1 5 0.2 -4 55 Glimmora 4 0 4 0.0 -4 56 Iron Treads 7 1 7 0.14 -6

Thank you for reading! Shoutouts go to Hatterene with a solid +2 performance, sweeping for zioziotrip vs crying after earlier coming in to 1v1 a Samurott-H, along with Iron Valiant, who should have gone +4 with an insane K:D of 5 had it not been denied 3 kills in Laroxyl vs Fogbound Lake by Fogbound running out of time in a lost position - normally these shoutouts would go to individual Pokemon that performed better than expected, but the only real example of this was Comfey who made it all the way to #7 on the list. See you next week!

Hey, im not the most well versed in SV but I just wanted to say I found this post very interesting and appreciate the effort. Looking forward to the analysis each week, props.

1LDK · Jan 25, 2024

1LDK report: Week 1, from Monday 15 to Sunday 21

Hello, and welcome to the first 1LDK report of SPL XV, where I try to fish for likes, also people apparently actually read this, but we have a problem, and that is 20 matches, and having to analyze 20 fucking matches (most of them in sunday btw) means I don't have the time to put a reasonably good product in line, which means I will have to lower the quality of the posts, because I'm just 1 guy and even tho im in summer vacation, theres too much work, anyway disclaimers

1) I won't get into the Evs side of things because I'm bad at math
2) I won't get too much into the statistics and meta and shit, that's for the people with the badge and social authority.
3) This is all personal opinion, so if something is wrong here, please be kind when pointing it out
4) Sorry for all the botched names and things I missed. I'm just one guy, I have no team (if you wanna help me out, you know where to find me)

Let's fucking go

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Alpha Ruiners (9) vs (2) Indie Scooters

[January 21]
:pelipper:

oldspicemike vs Joya :cinderace:

Rain vs glowking makes it hard for mike to find a good spot to start breaking havoc. So Mike has to spam flip turn until he finally gets it. Kyurem gets iron treads and a good predict from mike finally puts barra in that position to flip turn and get arch to work, kills lando, does over 50% to glowking with electro shot, eats kyurem's earth power and kills it with flash cannon, boulder tries to tera ground earthquake + mighty cleave but tera fairy saves arch and sends it packing with 2 flash cannons. Finally, a Pyro Ball miss from ace allows arch to get ANOTHER kill with draco. Pelipper, barra and raging bolt get the rest of Joya's team

[January 21]
:volcarona:

Raptor vs Dasmer :iron crown:

Great tusk touches clef which prompts sticky barb, raptor goes for the sd on oger as dasmer tries to counter with kyurem, but Play Rough puts him on the fraud list. oger tanks a dnite hit as he tries to revenge kill with Espeed, which lets tusk get in to sack itself for spin, dnite roost but lefts it at 99% which means no multiscale, which means enamorus can come in to attack, but iron crown takes the hit and volt switches into gliscor. Raptor predicts the protect and quiver dance forces gliscor into clod, but balloon kingambit comes in to get a free sd, gliscor pokes at gambit with protect + knock off + eq mind games but +3 kowtow one-shots him regardless, and a low roll from clodsire's eq means kingambit also kills him with iron head. Dnite comes in to finish a sacked volc in an attempt to get burned, enam tries to moonblast again but crown tanks it and 1v1s Moon, but oger dispatches it. Dnite tries to set up on enam, but tera ghost blocks him from espeed, and after 10 billion moonblasts, enam wins

[January 21]
:Raging bolt:

Fc vs Xrn

Rain vs glowking which means positioning games and shit, arch teras to roll over zama. With offensive pressure drill dies to hazards + pult. gliscor fucking dies to wave crash, and then bascu gets rkd by Fc's raging bolt, who also wins speed war vs Xrn's bolt and kills it with draco. pult gets a hex before dying to arch but gets forced out by glowking and hazards means he is dead, glowking puts an fs and self hits so gambit has to come in and enams is cornered, but surprise, she healing wishes and arch is back in the game, who proceedes to brute force trough glowking and kingambit, but raging bolt saves the game by thunderclap

[January 21]
:rillaboom:

JustFranco vs hellom :hawlucha:

Treads starts the match by suiciding for rocks, glimm tanks franco's roaring moon and dies but gets toxic spikes. hellom's lucha gets the encore and free sd as tusk gets in and loses the 1v1, franco's rilla comes back to revenge, hellom's moon comes in and hits the acro on lucha, but he counters by clicking cc. then fucking comfey comes up with grassy seed, and does 1 cm, then lucha dies, then eats rilla's grassy glide and keeps kissing, and then he literally wins his spl debut match with a fucking comfey bro this shit had me in tears when I saw this happening

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Congregation of the Classiest (5) vs (7) Dragonspiral Tyrants

[January 20]
:dragapult:

pdt vs Ash KetchumGamer :rillaboom:

pdt leads pult and spams shadowball, both glimm and rilla take a lot before switching out to moon, to which sets up but lando-t hits him with the intimidate, eats the knock off and rocky helmet + U-turn + raging bolt deals with moon. Ash's volc tries to set up but taunt gets him to +1 max, bolt sacks itself for damage and primarina drowns him with hydro pump. Rilla knocks on the door with grassy, but dragapult is the one who answers, shadow ball gets both rilla and glimm before zama finally killing. Zama and pdt's moon set up at the same time, but pdt out damages ID and wins

[January 19]
:toxapex:

Beraldo vs DonSalvatore :gholdengo:

The first match of the SV OU season, Dragapult burns ting Lu as he sets rocks, and tries to U-turn but gets countered by red card into excadrill so ting lu sets spikes. The mole's balloon gets popped by ruination and then touches volc to proc flame body, volc kills drill for spinning the hazards away and rolls lucky SpA boost, to which he uses to deal +50% to Ttar with Bug Buzz as he tries to Knock Off volc, Pex comes in and tanks the bug buzz, flies out with eject button and pult U-turns to finish the job, but not before getting burned. Weavile and Kyurem hit the field, the former hits the latter with a massive knock off, which means the latter cannot OHKO with draco meteor, this gives free ghold switch in to double into ting lu. who gets rocks one last time before dying. Ghold activates para spam and twaves pex, 1v1s ttar with MiR, weavile gets killed by kyurem, but zama forces him out and with rocks up kyurem is effectively dead. Pex walls zama so Ghold has to come back to finish the job. 1 Tera fairy, 1 recover, and he instantly puts gliscor through labor, and eventually, gliscor gets outpressured. Pex tries to hold, but 1 unlucky para spells the end of the match

[January 21]
:Torkoal:

Isza vs CTC :pelipper:

rain vs sun, arch drops the draco but isza's treats eats it, but CTC's treats blocks the volt switch. Gouging fire does very little to pelipper so torkoal comes with the sun, but peli U-turns into raging bolt, so he gets the natural boost without wasting booster, and he instantly puts it into work, by melting treads with weather ball. pult forces it out into treads who tanks the draco and sets rocks, wake comes to force it out and bolt comes in and stands his ground to CM as pult does a double switch, bolt dies but gets much appreciated damage on pult. Valiant uses this to kill pult, get an SD while taking on a flare blitz from gouging fire and killing torkoal, winning the weather war. Blaziken uses tera to get a sd + enough speed boost to win, treats gets sacked, pelipper comes in to change the weather and force blaziken out. With a low hydro steam roll, peli gets the kill on gouging fire, and with rain + tera fairy up, arch has no problem cleaning the game

[January 21]
:zamazenta:

mncmt vs Rubyblood :ting lu:

in this pivot heavy game, both of them battle for high ground, gholdengo almost kills volcanion with specs, volcanion seems to be a trapping set which lefts it being walled by ting lu instead of scaring it. chip damage flies and eventually clef falls to dengo, also volcanion dies offscreen. zama forces tera on ting lu which means free almost free weavile, zama has to clear the field as much as he can so he kills oger, kills tusk and gets a defense drop on skarm, which means weavile wins

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Cryonicles (4) vs (8) Circus Maximus Tigers

[January 21]
:kyurem:

Srn vs Garay oak :weavile:

turn one rotom and glowking change status, hazards and chip damage start to fly, rotom dies offscreen aswell, also ting lu dies to burns + chips, more chip happens, kingambit dies by skarm in the head. Srn proved to be using substitue + protect + freeze dry + earth power kyurem with tera steel, but does not do a lot, srn's glowking dies to unlucky spedef drop, and then srn´s kyurem loses the 1v1 vs garay's kyurem, and tusk dies with hazards

[January 21]
:zamazenta:

Separation vs Storm Zone :raging bolt:

2 hypnosis fails in a row lets glowking 1v1 darkrai, tusk wastes its booster in trying to hit skarm, who gets a layer and glimm comes in to get the rocks. glim tries to get some damage, but psyshock + thunderclap kills it. Great tusk comes but cm + tera grass means tusk gets packed by dragon pulse, glowking hits him with the sludge bomb + poison rate and dies too. Weavile finally finishes the job with ice shard, and gets forced out by primarina. Primarina dittos start and separation's prima cms at red and counters sz's prima with custap berry moonblast. Storm Zone's Raging bolt comes in to finish prima and 1v1s zama to win the game

[January 21]
:gliscor:

Finchinator vs JJ09LIE :slowking galar:

Finch i know your reading this, theres not going to be anymore mon-inator or mentally insane final boss finch writings like i did in scl because im low on budget. Anyway finch's ting lu gets badly poison and finch's gliscor misses toxic on tusk which almost kills it but at least gets it second time, hazards pile up, slowking and pult also trade status. volc tries to set up and both tera to try to take on each other, but glowking lives and with toxic + good pivoting from JJ, volc trades itself just for skarm. weavile gets burned and her drip stolen, more chip damage flies, particulary with JJ's pult. finch's skarm dies offscreen, and so does pult, but weavile gets burned stalled to death. pult and gliscor trade for each other. JJ's gambit is scared untill it remember its kingambit endgame sv and just wins

[January 20]
:kyurem:

Floss vs Trosko :kyurem:

In this game, we see kyurem + glowking dittos, and also we see trosko using tera fairy wake for i dont know exactly the reason. hazards get stacked, damage via knock off gets done, and eventually kingambit dies, trosko's glowking gets unlucky spedef drop which means sack wake time, homeboy trosko gets his kyurem almost killed because none of his fucking dragons can land a meteor but its fine since floss gets reasonably scared and switches out. ting lu gets killed by floss's kyurem and trosko's kyurem finally gets the revenge kill. pult uses tera steel as a way of saying "fuck glowking and weavile, me and my homies hate glowking and weavile" but gets an fsight off which combined with skarmory's bp, actually kills gliscor, glowking hits him with the piss status and finally fucking dies, but kyurem and weavile dont care, did not ask and L + Ratio

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Team Raiders (7) vs (5) Stark Sharks

[January 21]
:dragapult:

DAHLI vs Shafofficiel :dragonite:

Clodsire gets ear raped by primarina, but he fucks off with the eject button, barraskewda pivots back into clodsire to get the same thing, lando comes in as clod sets rocks, lando also gets its rocks, and peli U-turns on the incoming zone. CM boosted weather ball transforms magnezone into scrap metal, with tera fairy roaring moon gets washed away, and does good damage to dnite before finally collapsing. pult burns primarina and clodsire eats the moonblast to punch primarina in her tits until death. Lando T tries to kill with U-turn, but peli comes in and gets dnite in, who gets u-turned and burried under pult´s draco. Ace misses gunk shot so he gets burried too, lando FINALLY kills the clodsire and barra just laughs at it

[January 21]
:Corviknight:

entrocefalo vs Mimikyu Stardust :archaludon:

the debut of mimikyu stardust starts with Barra spams flip turn vs anything that moves, which helps iron treads in killing gliscor (the treads was eject button but got knocked off). arch fucks corv and lets treads take the L against kyurem. with this momentum, barra desintegrates ace and does 50% to kyurem before dying. Garg uses tera water but its too late for that, zama kills bolt, but gets forced out by peli, garg tries to salt cure peli but arc catches the free defense boost and zaps zama, kyurem cracks peli and torn-t uses tera flying to clean

[January 21]
:Landorus-Therian:

Sylveon used calm mind vs lax :Ting-Lu:

Early game revolves around hazards, getting positioning, and doing general scouting, untill Weavile lowkicks gambit but he survives and OHKOs weavile with iron head, dnite tries to revenge kill but lando weaves, lando also tries to hit the stone edge but skarm weaves. Garg uses tera fairy and sets curse up but glowking can tank and force garg out, skarm and enam go to war and the former whips out iron head to make enam shit her pants, skarm gets to +4 but cinderace sacks itself for the burns, which means sturdy is always off, glowking forces it out and lando kills ting lu with stone edge. garg tries to set up again, gets denied again, dnite weaves more stone edges by lando and glowking keep inserting pressure into lax's team. Skarm and tusk get into a boosting war, andd while it seemed like rocky helmet skarm would win, crit ice spinner + burn damage breaks past skarm and with max out tera poison tusk in the field, its game over

[January 21]
:Kingambit:

Punny vs kumiko :Moltres:

Everyone was waiting what was going to be kumiko's (FKA TDK) way of adapting to the ever changing hostile envireoment of sv ou, the answer is moltres, samu-h gets spikes, arch tries to zap mola but uses tera ghost to tank the hit and mirror coats the damage back, OHKOing arch, mola gets burned and ursa tries to break but eject button treads pivots out into samu who one shots it with crit, gets killed by gambit but not before getting another layer of cocaine, moltres surprises ace with scorching sands. treads die by gambit, peli predicts the gliscor protects and uses them to heal and kill gambit with surf. moltres uses tera dragon to tank the crit ivy cudgel from oger and kill her with hurricane, and after 4000 pivots of roosting stalling and gliscor getting 3 fucking protects in a row, barra brute forces through gliscor and peli cleans

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Wi-Fi Wolfpack (7) vs (5) Ever Grande BIGS

[January 20]
:Volcanion:

shiloh vs Gilbert arenas :Gliscor:

2 heavy offense teams vs each other in a battle of who gets better positioning early game, samu-h gets a spike, rilla knocks moth's specs, gliscor gets rocks and knocks pult's sash, samu gets burned by pult but still gets the kill, lando pivots into volcanion who blocks samu's pivot, and gets killed, moth comes to melt rilla in poisons and make lando explode with overheat. volcanion comes back and steams gliscor. hat tries to nuzzle gambit but lum berry cures it and gets chip on zama, who then does 2% to volcanion with heavy slam and now volcanion drowns moth, zama also falls to volcanion. hat sets up and gets volcanion but kingambit tera dark black glasses sucker punch deals with it and gholdengo

[January 21]
:Weavile:

Fogbound Lake vs Laroxyl :Iron Valiant:

Lastly on the list of debuts, its Laroxyl's turn, where he starts sacking glim for hazards, balloon gouging fire stays in gliscor and gets badly poison but when fogbound lake tries to stall laroxyl reads that shit and says no free eats, and gets another one, so now primarina fucking dies. gliscor tries to stall again and laro gets the read again and trows out a morning sun, and then fogbound lake gets another protect on gliscor and laro READS IT AGAIN, bro knows his ABCs, and S, stands for standing on bussisness, gouging fire finally dies of food poisoning and moon comes in, ready to spam knock off, which gets skarm's helmet and decides to change plans and let pult OHKO glowking with crit status boosted hex. fog's pult tera ghots and kills moon, and laro tera fairys his pult to kill skarm, gets killed by fog's pult, but valiant comes out and fog loses by time out

[January 21]
:Barraskewda:

freezai vs Savouras :Roaring Moon:

We start the match by peli getting blown the fuck up by tusk, rilla is not scared of rain liquidation, freezai decides to use tera and gets blown the fuck up by rilla. lucha + tusk jump arch and moon just wins

[January 21]
:Iron Boulder:

zioziotrip vs crying :Samurott-Hisui:

zioziotrip uses serp to set up screens vs hat, which lets gouging fire spank her. lando-t denies zama, hat does the charlie vs verbalase chase against samu and wins the 1v1. rilla scares hat away with talks about korn and here comes gouging fire but balloon heatran weaves, so dragon claw + earthquake leaves heatran barely alive as he killes gouging, darkrai sweeps the remains, fails hypnosis on rilla and has to ask for help, lando taunts zama so no ID boosts, which allows iron boulder to kill it, rilla kills lando and darkrai, zio's hat and crying's rilla prepare for the final 1v1 but crit boosted draining kiss seals the deal

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usage stats

Code:

Code:
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Dragapult          |   13 |  32.50% |  53.85% |
| 2    | Kingambit          |   10 |  25.00% |  60.00% |
| 2    | Slowking-Galar     |   10 |  25.00% |  60.00% |
| 2    | Great Tusk         |   10 |  25.00% |  50.00% |
| 5    | Raging Bolt        |    9 |  22.50% |  77.78% |
| 5    | Roaring Moon       |    9 |  22.50% |  55.56% |
| 5    | Zamazenta-*        |    9 |  22.50% |  44.44% |
| 5    | Gliscor            |    9 |  22.50% |  11.11% |
| 9    | Weavile            |    8 |  20.00% |  75.00% |
| 9    | Skarmory           |    8 |  20.00% |  50.00% |
| 9    | Kyurem             |    8 |  20.00% |  25.00% |

Surprinsingly, pult was the most used mon, i guess because it deals in some form with literally everyone on the list, could he be the new glue?

These are the 4 last neurons in my brain trying to keep this project alive, god this shit IS NOT SUSTAINABLE people, please give me likes or im going to cry

ninth · Jan 29, 2024

Week 2 just finished up and we had some bangers. Here's some highlights.

[BIG] Laroxyl vs Beraldo [CLA] - seemingly following in hellom's footsteps, we see a Comfey from Laroxyl. It doesn't quite get 4 kills, but it does outduel a Heatran and force Tera out of Beraldo's Great Tusk. Then Beraldo's Zamazenta cleans up the endgame as it so often does.

[SHA] Shafofficiel vs Raptor [RUI] - sir, a third Comfey has struck SPL. Raptor's Comfey cleans up five kills. It's like a second Volcarona.

[BIG] crying vs pdt [CLA] - turn 19, crying's Meowscarada comes in and by all means should clean up with Low Kick against pdt's Kingambit and Iron Treads. Instead, the Meowscarada brings (checks notes) Brick Break? It kills Kingambit, but does only 57% to Iron Treads, who subsequently clicks Rapid Spin into EQ to finish it off. Now, Low Kick is 120 BP against Iron Treads, and it's a roll to kill Treads when it's anything less than 132 HP EVs. I'm pretty sure Treads had some defensive investment as the Brick Break only did 57%, but having Brick Break instead of Low Kick was like the only way to 100% lose this endgame. In any case it seemed like sacrificing power in order to fish for screens, and it didn't work out.

[TYR] CTC vs Finchinator [CRY] - CTC's run of form continues with a clean victory over top SV pick Finchinator. Primarina living EQ turn 11 can only be the result of lord EVs, and the Taunt on the attempted DD turn 17 was game-saving. Both of his games so far have been must-wins to secure the tie/win for the team - the clutch factor is real.

[TIG] JJ09LIE vs Sylveon used calm mind [RAI] - a showdown of two up-and-coming SV threats. Sylveon used calm mind seems to have taken blunder's advice and just loaded up a German team, and it seemed to have mostly gone well with their usual Tera Poison Bulk Up Tusk in a great position to clean house. However, JJ09LIE then reveals that the last move on their Dragonite is Encore, making their only attacking move Tera Flying Tera Blast. I'm told this is not a particularly new set, but it's still incredible, especially considering there's a Kingambit/Raging Bolt/Wellspring also on the team, all of whom quite like to use Tera - if you burn it elsewhere that Dragonite's a glorified Whimsicott! In any case it works and JJ09LIE grabs the win.

[SHA] lax vs Fc [RUI] - look at the second mon in lax's team. I can't believe they let him load up Meloetta. Somehow this must be a protest of the Sleep moves ban. I mean, it gets some good chip on Gholdengo, and lax does end up winning (via Zamazenta), but I cannot in good faith recommend bringing Meloetta to your tournament games.

SV OU: Raptor vs Garay oak
SV OU: oldspicemike vs JJ09LIE - both of these players are putting up a quiet 6+ wins this tour. Highlight matchup for sure.
SV OU: Fc vs Storm Zone
SV OU: xavgb vs Trosko - MANNAT has broken the glass and hit the stresh button. It's time.

SV OU: Floss vs crying
SV OU: Separation vs Laroxyl
SV OU: Dj Breloominati♬ vs Savouras - after what he did to Eternal Spirit I can't not bold Spitfire, seriously, go watch his week 1 game.
SV OU: Finchinator vs Gilbert arenas - Finch is permanently hexed to go positive at worst but not win the tour, and he's going to pick up some wins sooner or later.

SV OU: procorphish vs DonSalvatore
SV OU: Punny vs Rubyblood - cool matchup. Two very solid players, think this is gonna be a long but high-quality game.
SV OU: Sylveon used calm mind vs CTC - I can't bold against the basedlord in this form, and I also trust his cooking more. Last time they played SUCM loaded up some nonsense and got 6-0ed, and while I don't think they're gonna load up Bisharp this time, I also feel like the cheese is gonna be talking to them like the Green Goblin mask this week.
SV OU: DAHLI vs Ash KetchumGamer

SV OU: zioziotrip vs Isza
SV OU: shiloh vs Beraldo
SV OU: Fogbound Lake vs mncmt - Fogbound Lake's timer has been his biggest opp this tour, last week he didn't even time out but I felt like the wheels started to come off the lower it got. Last week mncmt never went below the 270 second warning.
SV OU: freezai vs pdt - it turns out when freezai isn't on tilt from getting Supercell Slammed he's pretty good, cleanly dispatching Akalli's HO last week. 3.5 is still insane btw. pdt is probably his toughest opponent to date - which sheet lord will come out on top?

SV OU: hellom vs lax - I'm on the hellom train. Goobed W1 in style with Comfey and just dispatched a top SV threat in Fogbound Lake.
SV OU: Akalli vs Mimikyu Stardust - this is fun. Prediction: game is functionally over in under 8 turns.
SV OU: Kushalos vs Carkoala
SV OU: Xrn vs kumiko

Duck Chris · Jan 29, 2024

It's time for the usage report of week 2!

This week we had another wide pool of teams, with 40 pokemon getting at least 2 uses and 54 different pokemon used overall.

Employee of the week: :Dragonite:

The flying bros trended up this week, both landing in the top 10 usage with 5 wins in their 7 appearances. JJ09LIE's mono attacking tera flying Dragonite was definitely the standout set, but it's clear that there's a lot to like here between the always valuable extremespeed, emergency multiscale to check runaway threats, and a wealth of attacking options. Enamorus ran a tighter spread of options, mostly being scarf and clicking moonblast most of the time, but wins are wins and a fast fairy move is extremely useful with all the dragons running around.

I Refuse to Retire: :Rillaboom:

Old favorites stuck around week 2 with the return of several DLC1 favourites. Grassy terrain structures remain effective and popular, with great support for things like Comfey, Kyurem, and bulky Gholdengo. Ogerpon returned from the dead probably due to the appeal of Water Absorb after a rain infested week one. Turns out nothing really likes taking the combination of play rough and ivy cudgel still. Landorus also hit top 10 usage, doing the standard intimidating rocks roles while also making Raging Bolt think twice before thunderbolting. Honorable mention here to rain: while everyone got tired of it and it only showed up twice, it won both times.

Fraud Watch: :Hawlucha:

With a combined 9 uses and 0* wins, these three pokemon are not it right now. Iron crown in particular has been used three times through two weeks, none of which was on psychic terrain. While there must be something there for team builders to gravitate towards, when it did less than half to Heatran with Focus Blast I definitely started thinking his time was up. Hawlucha also seems to be falling behind with things like Thunderclap seriously limiting it's threat level. Grassy terrain structures have a lot of other options as well so this guy is probably best left behind. Finally Hatterene lost three times, seemingly unable to withstand the offensive breaking by most of the top threats right now. This one I'm not too clear on as it's still seeing good success on the ladder, maybe it's just a bit linear and easy to work around? Draining kiss as it's main stab certainly doesn't offer that much in the way of power.
(* one of these hawlucha teams did win... not sure whats up with the stats)

Coolest set: :Gouging Fire:

@ Choice Band? with Heat Crash in Sun and Speed Proto by mncmt
Least fun match: [SHA] kumiko vs JustFranco [RUI] (there is no way we got a garg vs garg standoff in the year of our lord 2024)

kd458 · Jan 30, 2024

Threat of the Week: Week 2

Welcome to week 2 of Threat of the Week! Once again, we'll be looking at the best and the worst performances of the week according to differential along with K/D ratio, reporting on their stand-out games and commenting on how they actually did and whether this means all that much as to how good they really are. Enjoy another week's summary - I'm glad that people liked the last week's report and I hope that this continues to provide some insight into the meta along with a fun way to check out some of the best showings of the week from each mon!

We will again first take a look at the highest performing Pokemon with 12.5% or more usage, meaning that they were brought by 5 or more players - this indicates a strong presence in the tier and a consistent showing during the week 2 meta:

#1: Ogerpon-Wellspring

Differential: +7, K:D: 2.2, Uses: 7

Who would have thought that a Pokemon that showed up 3 times last week for a -1 differential would have such a dominating performance during week 2? I definitely wouldn't have bet on this - Waterpon came back in force this week, returning to a form last seen in DLC1 with an MVP outing for Separation vs DonSalvatore in an Ogerpon-W mirror match. However, its greatest game by far was in Gilbert arenas vs Thiago Nunes, where an SD Trailblaze set forced a Rillaboom sacrifice early on before later taking advantage of that by setting up and sweeping for a grand total of 5 kills. Wellspring didn't have a single negative differential game this week, picking up at least one kill before going down, and made it back to the top of the meta for the first time in a long while.

#4: Kyurem

Differential: +5, K:D: 3.5, Uses: 5

Kyurem takes the second spot this week with a powerful K:D of 3.5. In Kyurem's 5 appearances, it only went down once after having picked up two kills for Sylveon used calm mind and once in a game we'll talk about a little later; its best game came from a weird non-Leftovers Protect set in DAHLI vs Garay oak where it dodged a Play Rough early on to later clean up against a weakened Gholdengo along with taking down a Raging Bolt from full. A quietly strong performance last week that barely didn't make the top cut continues into another 4th placement this week, but this time the two Pokemon with a higher differential between it and #1 only came to two games and so Kyurem makes it onto the podium just in time for its suspect test.

#5: Gouging Fire

Differential: +3, K:D: 1.8, Uses: 5

Gouging Fire joins the ranks of OU's top tier Dragon-types, appearing both on and off sun teams and picking up 2 kills to close out a game for Separation with Tera Fairy used to resist Kingambit's Sucker Punch. By far Gouging Fire's greatest game however came from mncmt's Booster Speed, Tera Fire Choice Band set that OHKOd a Gliscor, a Dragapult and a Primarina under sun with Heat Crash before finishing off a half health Cinderace and forcing a Kingambit to Terastallize, still chunking it for 71% outside sun. It's hard to emphasise enough the raw power of this thing and although the setup variants only went 3 and 3 this week, CB Gouging carried this to a clean top 3 place among the higher used.

Now, we will have a look at the Pokemon with lower usage that still pulled through for a great differential this week - who made an impact in the few games they came?

#2: Comfey

Differential: +5, K:D: 6, Uses: 2

I said that Comfey isn't going to be an OU staple any time soon, and that might still be true, but what??? With Grassy Seed, CM and Draining Kiss, Comfey came twice more this week, with a safe 1-1 performance for Laroxyl vs Beraldo where it Tera Poison'd and forced an opposing Tusk to Tera to revenge it, but its star show was in the form of an insane 5-0 sweep by Raptor vs Shafofficiel where a Rillaboom and a Volcarona knocked and forced Tera on an AV Slowking-G, leading to Comfey cleaning through the entire team. This Pokemon has an overall K:D of 10 in SPL, maybe even beating the featured shitmon allegations, and has actually at least proven itself as a somewhat reasonable option on Grassy Terrain.

#2: Barraskewda

Differential: +5, K:D: 6, Uses: 2

Coming in tied with Comfey is rain's strongest soldier - another thing I said that week is that Archaludon would not fall off unless rain did, but only two appearances of rain led to it picking up one kill and two deaths for a very mediocre showing. This is the Barraskewda show though, and it carried rain to a 100% winrate this week with 3 kills in both games it came to. For oldspicemike vs Mimikyu Stardust, Skewda picked up kills throughout the game before using Aqua Jet to clean up and prevent a Kingambit from getting an opportunity to set up while putting it in range of Rillaboom, while a late-game Barra in Kushalos vs shiloh clutched up with Tera Water Aqua Jet to finish off an Ogerpon-C from 80%, a low health Rilla and a Hatt as the last mon standing. Rain may have dropped in usage, but Barra's definitely here to hold the archetype together.

#7: Ogerpon-Cornerstone

Differential: +2, K:D: 3, Uses:1

Though nowhere near as prominent as its Water-type counterpart, Ogerpon-C was the MVP for shiloh against Kushalos' rain, being used on a Grassy Terrain team that not only powered up its Grass-type attacks (which it never got a chance to click) but also brought it back to Sturdy after two turns of Terrain recovery with 12 EVs invested in HP or with HP IVs dropped to 18, which is a really cool choice in the builder. It stopped Archa from getting up to its usual business with a Low Kick crit, picked off Samurott-H and Pelipper in the lategame and was an overall great pick for the team - she might not be as high usage as her sister, but Ogerpon-C did a great job putting in work and almost clutched a win.

Finally, we'll be taking a look at the worst mons of the week! Again, Pokemon that primarily set hazards like Samu-H (who went 2 and 5) will be excluded, although one in particular will be looked at again as our worst mon of the week:

#52: Weavile

Differential: -4, K:D: 0, Uses: 6

Where did it all go wrong? From a #3 performance and a +6 differential last week to 3rd last this week, Weavile had a massive fall from grace, not picking up a single kill and going down 4 times. It didn't leave the Pokeball in one of the two games that it won, while in the other for freezai it forced out a Roaring Moon and got Flame Body burned by a Volcarona into not doing anything for the rest of the game. This could be because Weavile tends to feed on boots-spam, Gliscor - Skarmory styles of balance and did not load into a single one of those teams this week, but this is a huge fall-off from an all star showing in week 1.

#53: Dragapult

Differential: -5, K:D: 0.29, Uses: 7

Another massive fall-off comes from OU's fastest Dragon, at least picking up a kill in hellom vs Fogbound Lake (and a second if it didn't miss a Draco Meteor) and in Mimikyu Stardust vs oldspicemike but going down in every single game it was brought to with a 29% win rate. One thing to note is that every single Dragapult brought this week was a utility set, which could be similar to Weavile in that there were less of the same boots-spam structures it enjoys facing. A 70% increase in Kingambit usage definitely didn't help though, along with both Primarina and Enamorus picking up in use as solid options for the tier.

#54: Landorus-Therian

Differential: -7, K:D: 0, Uses: 7

I know I said that we'd be omitting most of the tier's hazard setters who didn't pick up many kills as a result, but like... damn. 7 brings, 7 deaths and no kills to show for it? A 43% winrate isn't the worst thing in the world, but this is a far cry from Lando-T's glory days with offensive sets basically nonexistent in favour of defensive Stealth Rock variants, even Scarf being completely phased out. The rise of Grassy Terrain makes EQ sets even worse, while defensive EP Lando-T does not hit hard off that uninvested base 105 SpAtk stat. Is this the end for offensive Landorus-T? Hoping that somebody proves me wrong next week with some cool tech like a setup Lando or even a Bandorus, much respect to Sylveon used calm mind for bringing this vs lax in week 1.

Code:

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1      Ogerpon-W     7     13       6   2.2             7
2         Comfey     2      6       1   6.0             5
2    Barraskewda     2      6       1   6.0             5
4         Kyurem     5      7       2   3.5             5
5   Gouging Fire     5      7       4   1.8             3
6      Kingambit    17     14      11   1.3             3
7      Ogerpon-C     1      3       1   3.0             2
8        Gliscor     6      5       3   1.7             2
9      Zamazenta     6      6       4   1.5             2
10     Gholdengo     7      7       5   1.4             2
11   Raging Bolt     9     10       8   1.2             2
12       Manaphy     1      2       1   2.0             1
13      Enamorus     7      3       2   1.5             1
13  Iron Valiant     3      3       2   1.5             1
13    Iron Crown     2      3       2   1.5             1
16  Walking Wake     5      5       4   1.2             1
17     Primarina     9     10       9   1.1             1
18     Serperior     1      1       0   1.0             1
19    Great Tusk    17     13      13   1.0             0
19     Rillaboom     9      6       6   1.0             0
19       Heatran     7      5       5   1.0             0
19    Slowking-G     6      5       5   1.0             0
19     Volcarona     6      4       4   1.0             0
19       Ting-Lu     5      4       4   1.0             0
19     Garganacl     3      2       2   1.0             0
19   Meowscarada     2      1       1   1.0             0
19      Pelipper     2      1       1   1.0             0
19     Iron Moth     1      1       1   1.0             0
19      Clefable     1      1       1   1.0             0
30   Lilligant-H     1      0       0   0.0             0
30      Meloetta     1      0       0   0.0             0
30        Latias     1      0       0   0.0             0
33     Dragonite     7      4       5   0.8            -1
34   Iron Treads     5      2       3  0.67            -1
35       Torkoal     4      2       3  0.67            -1
36   Corviknight     2      1       2   0.5            -1
36    Archaludon     2      1       2   0.5            -1
38      Skarmory     2      0       1   0.0            -1
38      Deoxys-S     1      0       1   0.0            -1
38      Clodsire     1      0       1   0.0            -1
38      Ribombee     1      0       1   0.0            -1
38    Skeledirge     1      0       1   0.0            -1
38       Dondozo     1      0       1   0.0            -1
38        Scizor     1      0       1   0.0            -1
45      Hawlucha     4      2       4   0.5            -2
46      Glimmora     3      1       3  0.33            -2
46     Hatterene     3      1       3  0.33            -2
48     Alomomola     4      0       2   0.0            -2
49  Roaring Moon    10      7      10   0.7            -3
50    Samurott-H     5      2       5   0.4            -3
51     Cinderace     6      1       5   0.2            -4
52       Weavile     6      0       4   0.0            -4
53     Dragapult     7      2       7  0.29            -5
54    Landorus-T     7      0       7   0.0            -7

Thank you for reading this week's Threat of the Week! Giving a shoutout this week to kumiko's AV Great Tusk, who carried Tusk to a respectable neutral differential by picking up 4 kills in a 120 turn grind for the first 6-0 of this SPL season, Freezai's mono-Hex Gholdengo with the most defensive EV spread of all time that went 5 and 0 to save Ghold from an overall -2 performance, and both lax's and Trosko's SD Gliscors that went 2-0 each and were denied a total of 3 more kills by early forfeits to more than redeem Scor's bad showing last week. Hope you enjoyed this quick analysis and the games I featured here, will see you next week for more!

1LDK · Feb 2, 2024

1LDK report: Week 2, from Monday 22 to Sunday 28

Hey everyone, it's the second week of SPL, I'm way out of schedule and with barely enough energy in me to keep this project alive, so I hope things somehow go well in the end

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Ever Grande BIGS (2) vs (10) Congregation of the Classiest

:Dragapult:

Savouras vs mncmt :Raging Bolt:

Gouging Fire with speed boosting protosynthesis and sun and tera fire heat crash bonks 4/6 members one after the other, and torkoal gets the final kill on gambit, yaaaaay

:Meowscarada:

crying vs pdt :Deoxys-Speed:

Fucking AV wake eats a LO Psycho Boost from Deo and kill it, but roaring moon rks, meowscarada comes in and tricks kingambit her scarf. Tusk gets hit by roaring moon's crit acro which means tusk can only kill moon and dnite forces him out. Another fucking scarf user in heatran lmaoooo bro tries to burn dnite with flamethrower this is not terraria calamity there's no fucking buffs to this ass weapon. Crying's dnite successfully rks. Raging bolt comes and 1v1s glowking and tusk with spa boost + tera flying. dnite kills again, gambit kills dnite and meow uses brick break, which does enough damage to gambit, but not treads

:Comfey:

Laroxyl vs Beraldo :Rillaboom:

Beraldihnoooo's moon gets a good lead by clapping laro's moon in the cheeks, beraldo rilla comes to tank and U-turns into moon for another shot and does good damage vs tusk. Comfey comes on zama and now she and heatran have a 20-minute fight where heatran tries to trow everything he has at the wall and hoping something hits and comfey was in low enough health to be picked by tusk. He gets picked off by primarina and beraldo's rilla endeavors heatran and kicks him in the balls, prima gets lucha and zama wins after

:Primarina:

Gilbert arenas vs Thiago Nunes :Hawlucha:

Tnunes uses rilla to get chip on anything that moves, which pults his volc in a good position to kill prima and lando and get a +1. Oger gets a quick hit on moon as he pops kingambit´s balloon, and tusk gets scared of enam, rilla gets sacked so lucha can get going but only kills bolt before getting washed by prima. Tusk eats prima and tries to outrun oger, but low roll from supercell slam shamones the whole team

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Stark Sharks (6) vs (6) Alpha Ruiners

:Zamazenta:

lax vs Fc :Ogerpon-Wellspring:

Lax brings meloetta and almost 1v1s gholdengo with that shit, but twave gets him in trouble, gliscor sds and weavile thinks "no way he stays" and stays and weavile is gone. Oger sds + tera water to go for the gambit kill and gets it, and later gets burned by mola because she lost water absorb for embody aspect and with wish zama literally takes 0% even with rocks lmaaaooooo. Lax has roar zama so that he can shuffle a bit and mauls pult with crunch, zama trows hands with the entire enemy team and gets oger and tusk, gliscor wins

:Great Tusk:

Shafofficiel vs Raptor :Volcarona:

After usual Glim activities, Moon and Rilla uses knock off on skarmory, kyurem and glowking to soft them up for later, kyurem kills roaring moon and gives volc the chance to set up, with good prediction from Raptor's part he gets to +3 and fucks prima and almost gets glowking, but rilla u-turns into C O M F E Y, she gets to +3 and glowking cannot put the numbers in time, winning the game on the spot

:Heatran:

kumiko vs JustFranco :Clodsire:

Mimikyu Stardust vs oldspicemike :Pelipper:

Mike dances around Iron crown at the cost of treads, but barra gets a massive crit on pult, and then he gets killed, lando gets chipped by crit grassy glide while taking damage from Primarina. Lando gets killed, both Samus trade but a crit guarantees mike's samu go over, gets killed by a volt switch. Primarina tries to CM but C R I T E L E C T R O S H O T fucks her over, arch and crown 1v1 each other but crown wins, and barra + rilla clean

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Circus Maximus Tigers (8) vs (4) Team Raiders

:Ribombee:

Garay oak vs DAHLI :Cinderace:

Garay rolls a terrible matchup for webs, as the bee gets twaved and ace sends back the webs + burns gambit. Tusk uses tera fire to eat the burn and delete both ace and webs, dnite almost kills it with eq which means tusk has to run to dengo, who sets up on glowking, king tanks the MiR and pivots to ting lu, and then enam who melts gambit. Ogerpon seems to be able to reverse sweep but misses play rough and freeze dry ohkos, ting lu + kyurem deal with the rest of the weakened team

:Great Tusk:

Trosko vs entrocefalo :Zamazenta:

In this game we see Trosko trying to use SD on gliscor each opportunity he has, but for good reason, with spikes + rocks + dragapult forcing tera fire zama to kill it, chip damage started to fly on entrocefalo's team with ace as "remover". We see another Iron Crown with its supporting capabilitys, but the pep team master stalls cleverly to kill it via burn. Eventually, rocky helmet mola gets out pressured and with enough sds, gliscor wins

:Enamorus:

Storm Zone vs Punny :Latias:

enam gets chip on garga as he sets rocks, gliscor comes to catch glimmora. Booster energy special attack boosting valiant comes in and spams moonblast untill gliscor is gone. Serperior gets a boost after killing valiant and uses synthesis to see what enam does, enam gets crit moonblast vs dirge and a spedef boost after taking shadow ball, not like it matters since he is switching out, oger almost kills serp and enam gets a lucky SpA drop on dirge. Dirge misses the burn and gets killed, oger pivots out into enam to sack but gets read and kingambit uses sd, garg gets just enough chip on gouging fire for gambit to use +2 tera dark to clean the game

:Raging Bolt:

JJ09LIE vs Sylveon used calm mind :Kyurem:

Apparently Blunder told Sylveon to pack the German 6 and deadass said "aight bet" so that's how we ended in this position. So anyway, JJ lets ghold do some slight chip early game and both trade lando for ace to save themselves from oger and kyurem then another kyurem picks oger but at the price of getting picked off by gambit. Dnite turns out to be mono tera flying tera blast + 3 support moves, gholdengo tricks its scarf twice to glowking and enam kills it. Bolt claps her and kingambit and dnite slowly but surely encores tusk until he can no more

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dragonspiral Tyrants (7) vs (5) Cryonicles

:Kyurem:

Rubyblood vs Srn :Torkoal:

Manaphy gets 1 tailglow, next turn uses tera fairy alluring voice to OHKO wake, 2 shots torkoal and stalls sun as much as she can to avoid more goungin fire spam. Moth cleans gouging and enam tries to set up on corv and fails, corv gets a crit one shot on moth (the most a corv has done in gen 9) Kyurem stops tusk before it gets going and kingambit receives jujutsu kaisen jumpings

:Volcarona:

DonSalvatore vs Separation :Great Tusk:

Separation gets a layer of spikes thanks to prima letting her come in for free, enam gets multiple SpA drops on volc, with forces don to swap out, this lets oger come in again to kill pult and almost killing lando, but gets rocks and let's don's oger come in for free, goes all in for the sweep, gholdengo goes down, loses the speed tie to opposing oger and dies to power whip. Salvatore tries to pivot in and out of Tusk's rage, but with rocks up, he fails and gets ohkoed by prima. Separation's oger collides with volc but does not get burned. Kingambit tries to end it all her but gets forced out by gougin fire, he wrecks both prima and gambit with tera fairy heat crash

:Roaring Moon:

CTC vs Finchinator :Torkoal:

Samu trades itself for 2 layers of spikes + damage on bolt, CTC gets rocks with lando and both pivot to treads and primarina respectively, treads sacks itself for hazard removal, bolt tries to zap prima but lando blocks it and tries to fry bolt but finch's lando weaves. unboosted weather ball is a joke, so prima gets the chance to rolls over bolt, lando and torkoal with surf. Wake rks and gets 1v1 by the based lord's moon, he also denies finch's moon of sweeping with taunt and even tho gets killed by tera fairy tera blast, lando + gambit get the job done

:Great Tusk:

Ash KetchumGamer vs Floss :Gouging Fire:

Turn 1 Glowking gets Tspikes which Floss could not deflect and will cause problems for him in the long run, most of floss's team gets poisoned, which lets ash overwhelm it easily. THE FUCKING TING LU'S NAME IS ADAM SANDLER AND I'M THIS FUCKING CLOSE TO RAGE QUITTING, FUCK ADAM SANDLER kills raging bolt with help of tusk. Valiant sends gambit flying with moonblasts and glowking gets a lucky crit on gouging fire. In the end, torkoal finally spun the spikes and hat sacked itself for wake to be at full power, but sadly, ash is running fsightless glowking and trows toxic waste at it. Adam Sandler gets brutally murdered (thank god) and wake gets stalled

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indie Scooters (7) vs (5) Wi-Fi Wolfpack

:Weavile:

Xrn vs zioziotrip :Dragonite:

Taunt Lando blocks ting lu from hazards but he justs spams ruinations in everything he sees, weavile crashes into volc and gets burned, and later gets shit on by gholdengo, and spams MiR on primarina untill single digit hp, but oh oh, custap berry and tusk explodes. Lando EPs zio's bolt but eats and kills it with dragon pulse. Primarina misses Hydro Pump again and ting lu kills it. Scizor tries to punch volc but is unsuccefull, roaring moon tries to set up at the same time as volc, but volc uses tera steel and burns roaring moon who gets whirlwinded away by ting lu. Dnite claws most of bolt's hp away before getting killed and bulky volc endures the hits and heals untill he outlasts them all

:Pelipper:

Kushalos vs shiloh :Ogerpon-Cornerstone:

A miss from Samu lets tran burn him so now edge does laughable damage, oger gets an sd as peli pivots into arch and she deals a fucking crit million percent one shotting it and man I got so fucking hard watching that shit it was unreal. barra scares her out and heatran comes in to tank the u-turn but high horse power makes him explode. The combined efforts of rilla and barra is barely enough to take lucha out, peli almosts kills tusk and puts the nail on lucha's coffin, oger low kicks treads then runs away to hat to deflect the incoming rocks, but samu is still alive so he nails the necessary line that gets oger off sturdy, and with rain on, barra 1v3s

:Kingambit:

Akalli vs freezai :Gholdengo:

Glimmora poisons tusk as he shoos the boulder out and zama tries to set up, but ghold weaves at him and paralizes volcarona, red card ting lu forces volc out and kills glim but moon brute forces its way through him. Weavile tries to crash its way in but Volc flame body activates, but volc gets paralized, which means dnite gets free real state and dds, but gambit says nah id tera ghost + ballon, and blocks everything, but dnite encores him on his lasts breath, allowing dengo to force gambit out, use tera water and NP, he paras moon and recover stalls untill 1 leg cramp later he gets the clear kill on the entire akalli's team

:Cinderace:

hellom vs Fogbound Lake :Rillaboom:

Gliscor gets quickly overwhelmed by Heatran and then paralizys starts flying around from clef to rilla and then from hat to clef, clef is sticky barb so she caughts the virus at the nuzzle, and now hat gets overpowered by clef, and then she gets her ass clapped sideways by tusk. Zamazenta sets up and 1v1s lucha with tera steel, then uses substitute to scout for heatran's intentions, and decides that fuck it we ball into his death. An Unlucky magma storm miss gets kingambit damage for free which lets ace come in on a double, that burns and deals good damage to tusk before dying. Pult kills tusk and tries to kill moon but draco misses and moon is at +1 and looking like a win, but kingambit activates domain expansion, bulky set with 5 allies fainted endgame with full health + you have the wrong moveset

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys enjoy the stats part because this is the last time I'm putting these in, because others are doing that job and I won't even bother to try to learn the new usage chart, looks cool tho

Code:

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Kingambit          |   17 |  42.50% |  47.06% |
| 1    | Great Tusk         |   17 |  42.50% |  41.18% |
| 3    | Roaring Moon       |   10 |  25.00% |  40.00% |
| 4    | Raging Bolt        |    9 |  22.50% |  55.56% |
| 4    | Rillaboom          |    9 |  22.50% |  44.44% |
| 4    | Primarina          |    9 |  22.50% |  33.33% |
| 7    | Dragonite          |    7 |  17.50% |  71.43% |
| 7    | Enamorus           |    7 |  17.50% |  71.43% |
| 7    | Gholdengo          |    7 |  17.50% |  71.43% |
| 7    | Heatran            |    7 |  17.50% |  42.86% |
| 7    | Ogerpon-Wellspring |    7 |  17.50% |  42.86% |
| 7    | Landorus-Therian   |    7 |  17.50% |  42.86% |
| 7    | Dragapult          |    7 |  17.50% |  28.57% |

Anyway, there is not much time left. It is not confirmed that your death will be quick and painless. It is recommended to end yourself before he...toys...

Duck Chris · Feb 5, 2024

Week 3 is in the books and what a week it was

Employee of the week: :Clodsire:

The boys are back in town!! Garg returned this week for 4 wins in 7 uses, and Clodsire posted 5 wins in 8 uses. Stall and counter stall was a distinct flavour in the week 3 salad, with the trendy Hydrapple Clodsire stall team showing up three times and winning twice. It makes sense to me as Clodsire seems to be one of the more decent answers to some of the strong special attackers running around, and the benefit of poison or even toxic spikes is very strong versus a lot of grounded threats. Garg resumed his regular role of sponging hits, salt curing, and generally being annoying. Maybe a response to high Dragapult usage? Pult still managed 6 wins in 8 uses this week so he's feeling fine about it.

Up for Promotion: :Volcarona:

Don't look now but these pokemon have been rising up the usage stats. Both landing in the top 10 for the first time this week and posting solid win percentages, these pokemon are known entities with consistent performance. Volc has remained a top threat, though doesn't seem to be outright sweeping as much as causing enough damage and forcing the opponent to exhaust tera so the win becomes a lot easier. While previously banned for similar activities, I'm not sure if the impact is as crazy here yet. Clef found a home on balance and stall, soaking hits and answering back with Moonblast. In a strong hazard meta magic guard is the best ability there is, and status absorption is similarly valuable.

Diversity Corner: 61, 38
61: The number of different pokemon that appeared in an SV OU battle this week. While there were some questionable slots like Haxorus and the continued persistence of the doomed Iron Crown, this is an extremely wide variety of pokemon that were deemed a viable option and allowed by managers to appear in competitive play. This is one of the reasons I always get hyped for SPL when it happens right at the start of a new metagame, because there is still so much to figure out and so many options to try. I feel the metagame to be very open right now, with stuff that might seem outlandish at first ending up being great, like Comfey for example.
38: The number of pokemon in "OU" usage range through three weeks of tournament play. While tightened up a little more than the ladder's 45, 38 is a larger range than any other generation this tournament except for SM which also has 38.

Most fun battle: [RAI] Punny vs Rubyblood [TYR]
Coolest set: :Zamazenta:

@ Mirror Herb from hellom

Code:

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Great Tusk         |   16 |  40.00% |  56.25% |
| 2    | Gholdengo          |   15 |  37.50% |  60.00% |
| 3    | Gliscor            |   12 |  30.00% |  33.33% |
| 4    | Kingambit          |   10 |  25.00% |  80.00% |
| 5    | Volcarona          |    9 |  22.50% |  44.44% |
| 6    | Dragapult          |    8 |  20.00% |  75.00% |
| 6    | Clodsire           |    8 |  20.00% |  62.50% |
| 6    | Roaring Moon       |    8 |  20.00% |  37.50% |
| 6    | Slowking-Galar     |    8 |  20.00% |  37.50% |
| 10   | Clefable           |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 10   | Garganacl          |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 10   | Ogerpon-Wellspring |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 10   | Dragonite          |    7 |  17.50% |  42.86% |
| 10   | Dondozo            |    7 |  17.50% |  42.86% |
| 15   | Landorus-Therian   |    6 |  15.00% |  50.00% |
| 15   | Zamazenta-*        |    6 |  15.00% |  50.00% |
| 17   | Kyurem             |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 17   | Alomomola          |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 17   | Samurott-Hisui     |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 17   | Glimmora           |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 17   | Rillaboom          |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 17   | Weavile            |    5 |  12.50% |  20.00% |
| 17   | Iron Valiant       |    5 |  12.50% |  20.00% |
| 24   | Skarmory           |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Deoxys-Speed       |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Blissey            |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Primarina          |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Heatran            |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 24   | Raging Bolt        |    4 |  10.00% |  25.00% |
| 30   | Hydrapple          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 30   | Archaludon         |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 32   | Iron Moth          |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 32   | Toxapex            |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Gouging Fire       |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Hawlucha           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 32   | Ninetales-Alola    |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Tornadus-Therian   |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Venusaur           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Walking Wake       |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Ninetales          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Meowscarada        |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Enamorus           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Mandibuzz          |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Latias             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Garchomp           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Hoopa-Unbound      |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Comfey             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Ursaluna           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 37   | Iron Boulder       |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Ting-Lu            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Corviknight        |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Scizor             |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Cinderace          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Haxorus            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Iron Crown         |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Greninja-*         |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Pelipper           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Manaphy            |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Serperior          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 37   | Keldeo             |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |

ninth · Feb 5, 2024

Week 3 is in the books, and there's...a lot of fat mons. quacc's Hydrapple stall has popped up a few times, while Garganacl also experienced something of a resurgence as people forgot to run Covert Cloak again. Some highlights:

[CRY] Floss vs crying [BIG] - crying appears this week with what looks like a mixture of her FRLG ingame team and then three guys from the opposite end of the Pokedex. The Specs (?) Ninetales sun is one thing, deleting what looks like a defensive Tusk from basically full, but the real blockbuster is the Dragonite's moveset, which starts with Draco Meteor/Flamethrower but suddenly transitions into something far more sinister. Try and guess what the third move is before playing the replay. You can't.

[RAI] Punny vs Rubyblood [TYR] - surely Punny can't win from this position, right?????

[RAI] Sylveon used calm mind vs CTC [TYR] - this was, strictly speaking, not a great battle, but it was extremely funny. Sylveon decided this was the week to abandon the German team and bring Haxorus, which reads as an attempt to fish for Unaware from CTC. This did not work, as instead, the basedlord brought Hoopa-U, which immediately kills Sylveon's Iron Valiant on the first turn. The stage is set for an ID/Press Zamazenta sweep, but Sylveon pulls out their ol' reliable Tera Poison Tusk and for a moment it looks like they can pull it out...then Zamazenta clicks Roar and the game is over. Clean win bringing CTC to 3 wins in 3 games - he's gonna run out of MUSIC drops to post if he keeps this form up.

[SCO] hellom vs lax [SHA] - you know how blunder sometimes posts games where the featured shitter doesn't even come out and he wins?

[SCO] Xrn vs kumiko [SHA] - kumiko reads the stall from Xrn and brings Substitute Ursaluna + Wish support from Alomomola, which completely rips through Xrn's team and pulls out a forfeit in twelve turns. Very cathartic game.

SV OU: Rubyblood vs xavgb - I think this is gonna be a well played game from both ends - that said, if stresh decides he wants to solve DLC2 fat like he did with that Milotic team, it's gonna get real interesting.
SV OU: DonSalvatore vs Fc
SV OU: myjava vs oldspicemike - woulda loved to see CTC vs mike but also excited to see myjava in what I believe is their SPL debut
SV OU: Ash KetchumGamer vs Raptor

SV OU: JJ09LIE vs Kushalos
SV OU: Trosko vs hellom - this guy is legit unstoppable. 3-0, taking down lax and Fogbound Lake in the process. And he's swaggy with it too, loading Comfey twice and breaking out a Mirror Herb Zamazenta.
SV OU: Garay oak vs Xrn
SV OU: Storm Zone vs Akalli - OLT type beat. This game will last 20 or 200 turns, no in between.

SV OU: lax vs shiloh - besides kumiko it kinda feels like sharks SV are button mashing. they needed lax to pull a lot of weight to justify the underinvestment in SV3/4, and while there's still plenty of time for a rebound, shiloh has played well
SV OU: tko vs Fogbound Lake
SV OU: Carkoala vs freezai
SV OU: kumiko vs zioziotrip - zioziotrip is a good 3-0 right now but kumiko is on fire, super precise play and coming off of two dominant wins.

SV OU: crying vs Punny - I certainly don't think crying can only win with weird cheese (you don't make Grand Slam finals and ST playoffs by not having good fundamentals) but it seems to be working better for her. Punny has shown great team choices (thinking of the Alo/Wellspring into rain W1) and is also very capable of cooking new structures, which makes this a super interesting stylistic matchup. We aren't gonna recognize what meta their game is played in. Switch the bold if crying's team looks sane.
SV OU: Laroxyl vs Sylveon used calm mind - I have the opposite set of concerns with Sylveon that I have with crying, they're clearly a capable player with standard structures but it seems like the intrusive thoughts win a lot of the time. There's no way they were allowed to load up Veil Haxorus last week. Laroxyl 50/50, but he gains +5% for every non-OU mon on the opposing team.
SV OU: Savouras vs DAHLI
SV OU: Gilbert arenas vs ACR1

SV OU: Beraldo vs Separation
SV OU: Thiago Nunes vs Srn
SV OU: pdt vs Dj Breloominati♬ - so glad to see the faith in pdt rewarded, man knows how to win.
SV OU: mncmt vs Finchinator - major blockbuster. mncmt's record in SV is ridiculous and Finchinator seems to have regained his swag last week. Bolding Finch as I really don't think he's gonna start 1-3.

kd458 · Feb 5, 2024

Threat of the Week: Week 3

And we are back for week 3 of Threat of the Week! You know the drill by now - we will be taking a look at the best and the worst Pokemon of the week according to both their differential and their overall K:D ratio, linking their stand-out games, commenting on any heat sets that put up numbers and having a little bit of a deeper look as to what this means for the meta. Without any further ado, enjoy another week of TotW!

First, we will be looking at the best performances from Pokemon with 12.5% or higher usage, showing up for 5 or more players with a strong presence in the meta and overall consistency across the board:

#1: Zamazenta

Differential: +11, K:D: 4.7, Uses: 6

The Falcons' Number 7 is back for the first double digit differential of the tour, a feat only made more impressive by accomplishing this in only 6 games; Zamazenta went 14 and 3 this week, sweeping twice with a third near-victory in a game where it went 4-1 before something unexpected happened that we'll revisit a little later. Iron Defense Zamazenta showed up in force this week, going 5 and 0 for CTC vs Sylveon used calm mind and 3 - 0 in hellom vs lax with some fire techs on both - CTC used a Roar variant that first saw usage in this fire RMT by Quizzy, while hellom's Mirror Herb Zama got a speed boost from Great Tusk's Rapid Spin and was denied another kill by a forfeit. IronPress Zama clearly loads well into this meta, and this was a great meta call by the players that brought it for week 3 after a pretty mediocre first couple weeks of SPL.

#3: Garganacl

Differential: +5, K:D: 2.2, Uses: 7

We're in a Garg renaissance it seems, with Garganacl going from a combined 5 uses in the first two weeks of SPL to 7 this week. Garganacl did nothing much in three games, broke even in one and pulled more than its weight in three; Separation's Curse Garg tore a stall team to shreds with Salt Cure despite Laroxyl packing both a Clefable and a Gliscor, while Trosko's Tera Water Garganacl walled half of xavgb's team without a setup move to pick up 3 kills in both games. Garg also game-ended in mncmt vs Fogbound Lake, as another setup-less Water Garg shredded a terrain offense build that had no real way to break it. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Garganacl and many paid the price this week with not a Covert Cloak in sight - expect to see more of this guy soon and prepare accordingly.

#5: Galarian Slowking

Differential: +3, K:D: 4, Uses: 8

Slowking-Galar had a great week to continue its climb of the SPL rankings, only getting taken out once while collecting 4 kills - it technically should have gone down 4 more times though due to early forfeits. This wasn't a super fraudulent week though for Glowking, as it did win the game for Trosko vs xavgb by Toxic'ing, Future Sighting and stalling out a Dragonite and a Gouging Fire in the endgame. Just take this performance with a little grain of salt as in 3 out of 4 of its forfeits it would have immediately went down to an opposing sweeper without picking up any more kills.

We will next take a look at Pokemon with 4 or fewer uses that did well in week 3, linking the best games that they came to; which lower usage mons did the best this week?

#2: Blissey

Differential: +6, K:D: 6, Uses: 4

6 kills and 0 deaths in 4 games? This is SPL's first perfect score for anything that got over 1 kill, although a 50% win rate reveals that both Laroxyl's and Isza's Blisseys were saved by a forfeit - in DonSalvatore vs procorphish however, Blissey took down a rare CM Stored Power Deoxys-S, while Akalli's Bliss felt unbreakable into Mimikyu Stardust's team in a match where it picked up 4 kills, shrugging off hits from a Tail Glow Manaphy and a Tera Fighting Gholdengo while taking advantage of a special Lando-T to beat it 1v1 even while Taunted. Stall was completely absent for the first two weeks of SPL, but Blissey had a great time this week.

#4: Gouging Fire

Differential: +4, K:D: 5, Uses: 2

Though it had a lower usage this week than last, Gouging Fire proved that it's here to stay as a metagame powerhouse, with 5 kills across 2 games. It was unable to save the day in xavgb vs Trosko despite being the MVP of the game with two kills, but it took down a Tera'd Weavile and a Gholdengo before revealing Dragon Dance and Morning Sun to 1v1 a last mon Slowking-G for Carkoala vs Kushalos. Gouging had another good performance despite a complete lack of Torkoal this week, with a deserved placing in the top 5 overall.

#7: Garchomp

Differential: +3, K:D: 3, Uses: 1

Yo................... All I'm saying? Without a forfeit from the opponent before it could get any more kills, Garchomp would have gone 6 and 0 in one usage in maybe the most clutch last mon 1v6 of all time against a +3 Tera Fire Zamazenta. Punny's Tera Ghost Leftovers Garchomp with Substitute, SD and Scale Shot earlier came in to do 10% after Leftovers to the Za, but more than redeemed itself by Tera'ing, dodging the 2HKO from Crunch and getting to +4 before hitting some clutch Scale Shot numbers to reverse sweep from what should have been a completely lost position. Please just watch the game, this needs to be seen to be believed.

Lastly, we are going to take a look at the worst performances of the week!

#58: Heatran

Differential: -3, K:D: 0, Uses: 4

Heatran didn't have a great week in SPL, not doing much aside from setting up Stealth Rock up and not even getting to do that in half of the games it was brought to. I tend to leave off dedicated hazard setters from the bottom 3 of the week, but Heatran can be so much more than a rocker and yet even into stall it accomplished basically nothing with Alomomola able to pivot on Magma Storm for free. Rough week for Heatran, perhaps reflecting its place in the SV OU meta as a whole, but it's still a solid pick on bulky offense; maybe bulky offense just isn't in the greatest spot right now.

#59: Iron Valiant

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.2, Uses: 5

Val came 5 times, died 5 times and got 1 kill to show for it in a losing game for Fc vs Storm Zone, where it killed a Great Tusk before doing 25% to a Primarina and dropping immediately. A 20% winrate is especially terrible, doing pretty much nothing in its winning game where it knocked off a Boots Zamazenta for pdt vs Freezai in a hazardless game, although it did force Za to Tera Steel for a BU Tusk to later exploit. Maybe Iron Valiant actually did fall off, accomplishing little in any game this week and ending with a terrible winrate? Or maybe it's just been an unlucky week for Val and it'll bounce back next week, only time will tell.

#60: Gliscor

Differential: -6, K:D: 0.45, Uses: 12

Another low winrate of 33% reflects our worst performer of this week's -6 differential, as Gliscor really didn't do much in most of its games aside from be a defensive check that forces things out and gets worn down over time. Two of its kills came from stall games, while Carkoala's Gliscor managed to barely 1v1 a Raging Bolt. Scor picked up its only other two kills in a losing battle for Gilbert arenas vs Finchinator; this was notably a Swords Dance Gliscor, a much rarer sight these days in comparison to purely hazard-setting defensive sets. As with Lando-T last week, this low differential more than anything indicates that Gliscor really doesn't take on an offensive role right now, though losing 2/3 of its games isn't exactly a good sign.

Code:

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1      Zamazenta     6     14       3   4.7            11
2        Blissey     4      6       0   6.0             6
3      Garganacl     7      9       4   2.2             5
4   Gouging Fire     2      5       1   5.0             4
5     Slowking-G     8      4       1   4.0             3
6       Garchomp     1      3       0   3.0             3
6       Ursaluna     1      3       0   3.0             3
8    Raging Bolt     4      5       2   2.5             3
9      Ogerpon-W     7      7       4   1.8             3
10      Clodsire     8      5       3   1.7             2
10     Primarina     4      5       3   1.7             2
12     Dragonite     7      6       4   1.5             2
13     Ninetales     1      2       1   2.0             1
13    Iron Crown     1      2       1   2.0             1
15    Archaludon     3      3       2   1.5             1
16     Kingambit    10      4       3   1.3             1
17     Iron Moth     2      1       0   1.0             1
17      Venusaur     1      1       0   1.0             1
17   Meowscarada     1      1       0   1.0             1
17       Hoopa-U     1      1       0   1.0             1
21    Great Tusk    16     11      11   1.0             0
21     Gholdengo    15     12      12   1.0             0
21       Dondozo     7      2       2   1.0             0
21        Kyurem     5      3       3   1.0             0
21  Iron Boulder     1      1       1   1.0             0
21      Pelipper     1      1       1   1.0             0
27  Walking Wake     1      0       0   0.0             0
27     Mandibuzz     1      0       0   0.0             0
27     Cinderace     1      0       0   0.0             0
27        Comfey     1      0       0   0.0             0
31     Volcarona     9      5       6  0.83            -1
32     Hydrapple     3      0       1   0.0            -1
32       Toxapex     2      0       1   0.0            -1
32       Ting-Lu     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32    Tornadus-T     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32      Enamorus     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32   Corviknight     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32        Scizor     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32        Latias     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32       Haxorus     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32      Greninja     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32       Manaphy     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32     Serperior     1      0       1   0.0            -1
32        Keldeo     1      0       1   0.0            -1
45     Dragapult     8      3       5   0.6            -2
46       Weavile     5      2       4   0.5            -2
46      Deoxys-S     4      2       4   0.5            -2
48      Clefable     7      1       3  0.33            -2
48    Landorus-T     6      1       3  0.33            -2
48     Alomomola     5      1       3  0.33            -2
48     Rillaboom     5      1       3  0.33            -2
52      Skarmory     4      0       2   0.0            -2
52      Hawlucha     2      0       2   0.0            -2
52   Ninetales-A     2      0       2   0.0            -2
55  Roaring Moon     8      4       7  0.57            -3
56    Samurott-H     5      2       5   0.4            -3
56      Glimmora     5      2       5   0.4            -3
58       Heatran     4      0       3   0.0            -3
59  Iron Valiant     5      1       5   0.2            -4
60       Gliscor    12      5      11  0.45            -6

I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading another Threat of the Week and I hope this provided some fun insight into the meta and what's good right now! My shoutouts this week go to Raptor's Raging Bolt, which came out for the first time on turn 106 of a balance vs balance game still at 6v6 and immediately swept (only being denied a +6 game by a forfeit with one mon left), to the Substitute Ursaluna with Wish pass support that came for kumiko vs Xrn in maybe the hardest cteam of the season so far, tying Garchomp for +3 overall and getting a 12 turn forfeit vs stall, and to the Choice Specs Ninetales and Eject Pack Draco Meteor + Flamethrower + Focus Punch Dragonite that picked up two kills apiece for crying vs Floss in a game that I'd really recommend you take the time to enjoy watching. Enjoy the rest of your week, and as always, see you next time for more TotW!

1LDK · Feb 6, 2024

RE: SPL Reports

I'll go straight to the point, I'm cancelling the project, because they take way too much from me, and I also wanna have a break from the game, I'm fine I just need to rest a bit. If somebody else wants to take the project for the rest of the season, be my guest, but yeah, see ya

ninth · Feb 12, 2024

Week 4 is done and dusted, and there's quite a few great games as well as several criminal games. Let's take a look.

[TIG] Trosko vs hellom [SCO] - Iron Treads out of rain is always neat, and hellom brought a Latias too! Poison-type Rotom-W from Trosko is a great way to screw with Zamazenta, and things are looking dire for hellom, down 2-4. Then the Latias clicks Tera Poison, gets +2/+2, and absolutely nothing on Trosko's team can kill it as they all get Stored Powered to death. hellom moves to an impressive 4-0, scratching off threat after threat. Super impressive stuff.

CONTENT WARNING, INAPPROPRIATE TEAM: [TIG] Garay oak vs Xrn [SCO] - okay, there's a lot to unpack here. First of all, Garay oak is using a really cool HO, it's Screens Pult, Meteor Beam/Power Herb Necrozma, DD Tyranitar, and CM/Stored Power Latias. Gambit and Bolt are there too. However, Xrn loaded up what has to be the nastiest stall team I've ever seen. I think this one debuted in the finals of a $3000 off-site tour (?) and now it's everyone's problem. It notably features Leppa Berry Pawmot to revive one of the walls, mandating that you essentially kill the Dondozo/Clodsire core twice, as well as a Thunder Wave/Lunar Dance Cresselia and a Flame Body support Talonflame for maximum obnoxiousness. There's also a goddamn Sub/Protect/Lefties Kyurem there for good measure.
I'm not going to go into the minutiae of this 132-turn slowburn, but just know that Dondozo died, was revived by Pawmot, and then got its HP and PP back via Lunar Dance, ending the game at 75%. It was on 2/8 Rests and 4/16 Sleep Talks before receiving the dance. This is absolutely a criminal stall build and whoever made this should probably be infracted.

[TIG] Storm Zone vs Akalli [SCO] - very OLT-coded matchup here. Two opposing teams with average offensive stats of 150 was always going to make for a quick game. Wanted to specifically highlight an interesting endgame, as Akalli has to go out of his way to *not* kill Iron Moth and let the Greninja transform.

[SHA] tko vs Fogbound Lake [WOL] - as a Hoopa soldier I'm going to push more propaganda here. Watch it turn into a Fairy, get paralyzed, take quite little from a Zamazenta Stone Edge (when the hell does that move do 36%??? it's usually miss, 10, 90, or KO, no in between), and unleash a mixed Psychic Noise/Drain Punch/Knock Off set on Fogbound Lake, finishing the game at full health. He's the hydrogen baby spoken of in legend. Also, I think this is tko's SPL debut? Always nice to see wins on debut.

[SHA] kumiko vs zioziotrip [WOL] - very neat looking team from kumiko is immediately and violently brought back to earth. First of all, Quaquaval can't break Kyurem's Substitute with Aqua Step and is promptly lyophilized. kumiko then sends out Tera Fighting Low Kick Rillaboom, which is a slick tech that guarantees the OHKO - unfortunately, it also leaves a big Great Tusk-sized vulnerability, as it rapidly becomes unbreakable after a few Bulks Up. You can guess what happens next. zioziotrip also moves to 4-0, continuing what's been a proper breakout year.

CONTENT WARNING, MALARKEY: [BIG] crying vs Punny [RAI]

nines! said:
We aren't gonna recognize what meta their game is played in.

Despite some fun weird sets brought by crying I cannot advise watching this game. It starts off innocuously, with Tera Normal SD Double-Edge Cinderace punching a hole in Alomomola and itself at the same time and Heavy Slam Ting-Lu assassinating Clefable. Then the game keeps going, and you slowly make the horrifying realization that despite having three other mons with an average attack stat of 600, the remainer of crying's team has absolutely zero offensive presence and is going to PP stall Punny to death.
Likewise, Punny's team has most of its damage delegated to SD Tera Water Gliscor, which is completely walled by (checks notes) Haze Dragonite? Sure. Also, crying's Alomomola is Chilling Water instead of Scald, which is literally only better here due to being able to slow down Gliscor. With crying's two Resters and two Regenerators to Punny's zero, the outcome of this game is inevitable but painfully long, as it takes another 100 turns for the next death, and until turn 250 for Punny to realize crying isn't going to misclick and forfeit. This is like the opposite of the Wo-Chien team from last year, it's crouching bulky offense/hidden stall.

SV OU: ACR1 vs pdt
SV OU: Punny vs mncmt - great matchup, both strong players coming off of losses. I anticipate mncmt will bring something more standard and reliable.
SV OU: DAHLI vs Beraldo - both of these players will be looking to bounce back from 0-2 slides after sorta discombobulated games last week.
SV OU: Sylveon used calm mind vs Thiago Nunes

SV OU: zioziotrip vs Separation - I'd look silly bolding against zioziotrip at this point.
SV OU: shiloh vs Srn - you know what, why not get another sheet win? TrainerAid provides.
SV OU: Piyush25 vs Dj Breloominati♬
SV OU: Fogbound Lake vs Finchinator - it's been a difficult few weeks for Fogbound Lake, going 0-4 after a killer WCOP and SCL. I imagine he will regain his mojo at some point but I don't think the comeback starts here.

SV OU: Buhrito vs MAVERICK SHOOTERS - this game's going on Youtube no matter what.
SV OU: Fc vs Gilbert arenas
SV OU: Raptor vs crying - Raptor is a known entity, definitely good for 6 wins on the year, but crying is on a streak of extra-good brings and I get the idea that Raptor will get outscouted.
SV OU: oldspicemike vs Savouras - both of these players are quiet 3-1s which should make for a fun duel. oldspicemike is definitely more proven at the moment, though.

SV OU: Akalli vs CTC - the basedlord has returned! Akalli is good but his team choice has frequently felt like a predictable point which a builder like CTC can exploit.
SV OU: hellom vs DonSalvatore
SV OU: Kushalos vs myjava
SV OU: Xrn vs Ash KetchumGamer - I am morally obliged to bold against Xrn after bringing Pawmot stall.

SV OU: lax vs Trosko - I don't know what to make of this. Feels like lax can beat anyone but also lose to anyone. Let's say he keeps up the LWLW trend.
SV OU: kumiko vs JJ09LIE - banger alert! Two of my favorite players to watch this year going at it, a stalwart of the scene battling an up-and-coming prodigy.
SV OU: Carkoala vs Storm Zone
SV OU: tko vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d

Duck Chris · Feb 12, 2024

Code:

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Kingambit          |   15 |  37.50% |  53.33% |
| 1    | Great Tusk         |   15 |  37.50% |  40.00% |
| 3    | Slowking-Galar     |   12 |  30.00% |  50.00% |
| 4    | Zamazenta-*        |   11 |  27.50% |  72.73% |
| 5    | Raging Bolt        |    9 |  22.50% |  44.44% |
| 5    | Iron Valiant       |    9 |  22.50% |  33.33% |
| 5    | Gholdengo          |    9 |  22.50% |  33.33% |
| 8    | Kyurem             |    8 |  20.00% |  75.00% |
| 8    | Ogerpon-Wellspring |    8 |  20.00% |  37.50% |
| 10   | Dragonite          |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 10   | Landorus-Therian   |    7 |  17.50% |  57.14% |
| 10   | Roaring Moon       |    7 |  17.50% |  28.57% |
| 13   | Cinderace          |    6 |  15.00% |  83.33% |
| 13   | Alomomola          |    6 |  15.00% |  66.67% |
| 13   | Iron Treads        |    6 |  15.00% |  50.00% |
| 13   | Gouging Fire       |    6 |  15.00% |  50.00% |
| 13   | Gliscor            |    6 |  15.00% |  50.00% |
| 18   | Glimmora           |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 18   | Volcarona          |    5 |  12.50% |  60.00% |
| 18   | Dragapult          |    5 |  12.50% |  40.00% |
| 21   | Garganacl          |    4 |  10.00% |  50.00% |
| 22   | Ting-Lu            |    3 |   7.50% | 100.00% |
| 22   | Weavile            |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 22   | Hatterene          |    3 |   7.50% |  66.67% |
| 22   | Iron Moth          |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 22   | Archaludon         |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 22   | Skarmory           |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 22   | Enamorus           |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 22   | Darkrai            |    3 |   7.50% |  33.33% |
| 30   | Deoxys-Speed       |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 30   | Cresselia          |    2 |   5.00% | 100.00% |
| 30   | Pelipper           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Barraskewda        |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Tornadus-Therian   |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Torkoal            |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Walking Wake       |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Clefable           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Latias             |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Ursaluna           |    2 |   5.00% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Samurott-Hisui     |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 30   | Heatran            |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 30   | Meowscarada        |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 30   | Rillaboom          |    2 |   5.00% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Pawmot             |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Clodsire           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Dondozo            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Talonflame         |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Garchomp           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Hoopa-Unbound      |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Skeledirge         |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Ribombee           |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Manaphy            |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Corviknight        |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Sinistcha-Masterpiece |    1 |   2.50% | 100.00% |
| 44   | Serperior          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Rotom-Wash         |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Tyranitar          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Necrozma           |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Greninja-*         |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Scizor             |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Quaquaval          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Ceruledge          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Primarina          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Volcanion          |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |
| 44   | Enamorus-Therian   |    1 |   2.50% |   0.00% |

Employee of the Week: :Kyurem:

With the Kyurem suspect test wrapping up with a no-ban verdict, it seems players were more inclined to build Kyurem teams knowing they wouldn't immediately be invalidated. Jumping into the top 10 in usage for the first time, Kyurem posted 6 wins in 8 appearances. Sets included pp stalling with sub protect, and one appearance of scale shot, in addition to the more common special attacker. Zamazenta doubled in usage from last week, posting 8 wins in 11 appearances. Through the first 4 weeks Zamazenta has landed 8th in total usage with an impressive 60% win rate, and it's not hard to see why. Box legendary defenses help check basically the whole meta and its limited offensive options match up really well into the top threats of the OU meta.

Leveling up: :Landorus-Therian:

One of the qualities of top meta pokemon is the ability to customize their sets to match the meta, and these two are no different. Dragonite has branched out from the classic Tera-Normal Extremespeed sets for more custom options such as Scale Shot, Encore, and even Haze. Spikes immunity means boots are not always required, and some chose to use rocky helmet or leftovers this week instead. Part of the cycle of experimentation is that the threat of the original set is always still there, which makes it feel like preparing for 6 moves instead of 4. Landorus is also very customizable these days, sporting both a physical and special attacking set, with possible bulk on either side. Items can include the traditional rocky helmet or leftovers, but the added bulk makes it a great user of red card as well. Finally we also saw a focus sash set which fits nicely on HO.

Suspicious suspects: :Archaludon:

So what is it really guys. Is it embarassing to use something deemed "broken" or "cheese" in order to win? Is rain too linear of a style to bring to a tournament where every win counts and it's best of 1? Is it like the kyurem situation where only once we know it's not getting banned is it then allowed to be slotted on teams without grumbling? Or is rain just not as strong as it was week 1? Either way, Archaludon is not the scourge of the metagame in SPL that it is on the ladder. 3 appearances this week, two of which were in a mirror match and one of which was off rain and did nothing. Someone gotta explain what's going on.

Best game not highlight above: [CLA] mncmt vs Finchinator [CRY] very strong and non-cheesy team from finch piloted well
Coolest set: :Dragonite:

@ Rocky Helmet with Haze, Roost, Eq + 1 (leak pls) from crying

waffle04 · Feb 12, 2024

Idk if this is the right place to ask but does anyone have the paste to the stall squad xrn used? I can't find it elsewhere and I figure the team should be public if it's been used before this game.

kd458 · Feb 14, 2024

Threat of the Week: Week 4

As we close in on the midway point of SPL's regular season, the meta is looking very different to week 1; welcome back to week 4 of Threat of the Week! Here, we'll be taking a look at what did well and what had a rough week based on differential and K:D ratio, with links to some of their best games and shoutouts to some of the sets that put in the most work. Just as an aside, certain games involved multiple self-inflicted deaths and some Revival Blessing weirdness, so I figured I'd clarify this for this week onwards - if a Pokemon faints due to recoil, the opposing Pokemon out at the time will get the kill, including from Healing Wish or Lunar Blessing, while any Pokemon revived by Revival Blessing can have multiple deaths counted. Hope you enjoy TotW: Week 4!

We'll first take a look at the strongest performances this week, taking a look at the Pokemon with 12.5% or more usage:

#1: Iron Valiant

Differential: +5, K:D: 1.8, Uses: 9

After two weeks of mediocrity and a bottom two performance last week, Iron Valiant is back to confirm that yes, it managed to bounce back with the biggest rise in differential between weeks of the tour so far. Despite only picking up a 33% win rate, Val more than pulled its own weight in the games it came to, only not managing to pick up at least one kill in two games while being a game-winner for Akalli vs Storm Zone in a Val vs Val game where Storm Zone's Iron Valiant came in early to trade itself for a Darkrai while Akalli's Mixed Val later cleaned up in the endgame for a 2-0 game. Its MVP performance though was for Separation vs Beraldo, where a hard read on a Kingambit switching out let Separation's Iron Valiant get an SD and beat down a Roaring Moon, 1v1 a Volcarona from full and finally pick off the Gambit. All kinds of Booster Val came this week, with Encore locking in a victory for Finchinator by shutting down a CM Raging Bolt - great set of games to prove all the haters wrong.

#2: Great Tusk

Differential: +5, K:D: 1.5, Uses: 15

Although Great Tusk maintained a generally neutral performance across SPL so far with -2, +0 and +0 differentials in the first few weeks, week 4 had Great Tusk show off why it got 37.5% usage this week; a +5 performance came off the back of two massive sweeps where it took 5 kills and ended the game in each. In xavgb vs Rubyblood, Tusk came in to revenge a low health Raging Bolt before later being given a free Rapid Spin to Bulk Up and clean house into a weakened team for a clutch reverse sweep. Its other +5 sweep came far more swiftly for zioziotrip vs kumiko, as a Choice-locked Rillaboom gave a Booster Speed Tusk two free Bulk Ups that let it sweep through the entire rest of the team after a Heatran failed to get a Flame Body proc on it despite baiting two Ice Spinners. Offensive Tusk had a great week, although 10 of its 15 kills came from those two games and it didn't sweep in any other games.

#3: Kyurem

Differential: +4, K:D: 2, Uses: 8

Kyurem cements itself as an integral part of the meta with another great performance, managing to break into the top three for its first ever week after placing #4 twice. Kyurem's versatility was on full show here, with a Specs Kyurem picking up value for ggggd by leveraging its bulk to tank an Acrobatics and revenge kill a Roaring Moon before finishing off the game, and a Tera Ground Mixed set being a problem in myjava vs oldspicemike where it dealt huge damage across the board and forced a Tera in return that paved the way for a Boots Zama to sweep. Kyurem didn't have any standout performances and never took more than two kills in a single game, but picked up a ton of value while proving hard to remove from the field.

Next, we'll take a look at the more niche picks in week 4; what came 4 times or less but put up numbers when it did?

#4: Ting-Lu

Differential: +3, K:D: 4, Uses: 3

From an overall -5 differential during the previous few weeks of SPL, Ting-Lu did a fantastic job of pulling itself back up the rankings with 4 kills and 1 death across all three of its appearances. Although in one game it simply acted in its usual role as a defensive entry hazard setter, for crying vs Punny a surprise Heavy Slam caught a Clefable off guard turn 7 for a free kill, before the true nature of this Lu was revealed as it later clicked Rest and then Sleep Talk in a classic crying set for the ages that I'm told was Stealth Rock last. Lu's greatest game though was in Finchinator vs mncmt, where a pretty standard defensive Ting-Lu got up a Spike early on and had a Tera Fire Rillaboom sacrificed to it, letting Lu later come in and 2HKO a Garg after the Spike to then finish the game by 1v1ing a Raging Bolt. No shame in a weakened team going out to a Lu like this, but this gives Ting-Lu its best week by far and an impressive showing for a hazard setter.

#5: Iron Moth

Differential: +3, K:D: 2.5, Uses: 3

Volcarona who? Iron Moth's first few weeks of SPL were promising with stronger performances than its present-day cousin, but it really came into its own in week 4 with a strong K:D of 2.5 backed up by two particular games where it put in work. In Storm Zone vs Akalli, SZ's Iron Moth dealt with an Iron Defense Zamazenta before later taking out a Gouging Fire and finally going down to AK's Iron Val, while Moth's star game came from JJ09LIE vs Kushalos. Here, a Nasty Plot Deo-S took out a Samurott-H early and weakened both a Glowking and a Landorus before being bounced out into Moth via Red Card; with this chip, Iron Moth killed the Lando-T, Tera Grounded to live a hit from a Kyurem and proceeded to boost its SpAtk and pick up a sweep that should have netted it 5 kills and a +5 differential overall if not for an early forfeit. Stand-out week for Moth, proving itself worthy of a spot in the meta past being a setup-less Volcarona.

#5: Enamorus

Differential: +3, K:D: 2.5, Uses: 3

Tying for 5th with Iron Moth, Enamorus also had a good SPL week. The only non-Scarf Enam was immediately sniped by ACR1's Gunk Shot Cinderace, but a Scarf Enam from Raptor tried its hardest to claw back a lost game and in Sylveon used calm mind vs Laroxyl, Choice Scarf Enamorus was able to clean up and sweep after an Iron Valiant's Booster Energy was burned and nothing was left faster than it. Still a great cleaner with a really solid speed tier and much appreciated power, notably no Tera Blast Stellar sweeps this week (or during SPL in general really) but it still does a great job of what it did in DLC1.

To finish the week off, we will take a look at the worst differentials of the week; I'll exclude Glimmora since its whole job is throwing up 500 layers then going down, but we'll take a look at the other not-so-stellar performances and whether they mean anything about the mon:

#62: Landorus-T

Differential: -3, K:D: 0.5, Uses: 7

There isn't really much to say about Lando-T past what I said about it when it came last in week 2, offensive Landorus-Therian is dead and formerly OU's finest is now condemned to a life of throwing away its entire health bar to stop offense team froms being rolled over by Gouging / Bolt / Zama. It clearly does a good job of this though with a really solid 57% winrate, but in the single match it didn't go down it only left the Pokeball to get up Stealth Rock and force out a Zamazenta, while the losing side packed a Red Card set to bounce out a Plot Deo-S before it died to a Moth. Really want to emphasise that Lando-T is far from a bad Pokemon, but not even Sub 3A survived the shift into DLC2 and only Rocks Lando-T seems to remain, usually packing Helmet but also occasionally bringing Red Card and even a Focus Sash.

#64: Gholdengo

Differential: -4, K:D: 0.43, Uses: 9

Gholdengo's generally had pretty consistent showings throughout SPL, going +1, +2 and +0 in the first few weeks, but its overall differential dipped into the negative with a particularly bad week 4 that gave it 3 kills, 7 deaths and only a 33% winrate. xavgb's Custap Ghold managed to trade 1 for 1 into an Iron Moth, while in tko vs Fogbound Lake a Trick Scarf Ghold weakened a Gambit and took down a Gliscor to leave a team to be swept by an AV Hoopa-Unbound. Gholdengo never got any sweeps itself though, finding itself revenge killed by Kingambit and Great Tusk alike while being pressured heavily by an uptick in Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, and Kyurem usage, and this was its worst week of SPL so far.

#65: Iron Treads

Differential: -5, K:D: 0.17, Uses: 6

Gonna have to link back to another week of SPL for this one; Iron Treads had a pretty similar showing to its week 1 performance by taking one kill total and going down in every single game. While it did appear on both of the rain teams this week (note that rain only came twice!) it did make appearances on other forms of offense, its one kill being picked up with a self-KO from Steel Beam in Laroxyl vs Sylveon used calm mind. A winrate of 50% is pretty solid for Treads and it's clearly still a good pick in OU right now for both offense and rain looking for hazard control and a Steel, but this is an unfortunate mirror of Tusk's +5 differential this week.

Code:

            Name  Uses  Kills  Deaths   K:D  Differential
1   Iron Valiant     9     11       6   1.8             5
2     Great Tusk    15     15      10   1.5             5
3         Kyurem     8      8       4   2.0             4
4        Ting-Lu     3      4       1   4.0             3
5      Iron Moth     3      5       2   2.5             3
5       Enamorus     3      5       2   2.5             3
7      Dragapult     5      6       3   2.0             3
8      Alomomola     6      3       1   3.0             2
8     Tornadus-T     2      3       1   3.0             2
8       Clodsire     1      3       1   3.0             2
8        Dondozo     1      3       1   3.0             2
12       Hoopa-U     1      2       0   2.0             2
13   Raging Bolt     9      9       7   1.3             2
14      Skarmory     3      2       1   2.0             1
14      Deoxys-S     2      2       1   2.0             1
14        Latias     2      2       1   2.0             1
14     Tyranitar     1      2       1   2.0             1
18       Gliscor     6      3       2   1.5             1
18  Walking Wake     2      3       2   1.5             1
20     Zamazenta    11      6       5   1.2             1
21  Roaring Moon     7      8       7   1.1             1
22      Garchomp     1      1       0   1.0             1
22       Manaphy     1      1       0   1.0             1
24     Cinderace     6      3       3   1.0             0
24     Garganacl     4      3       3   1.0             0
24       Weavile     3      2       2   1.0             0
24   Meowscarada     2      1       1   1.0             0
24     Rillaboom     2      2       2   1.0             0
24    Skeledirge     1      1       1   1.0             0
24   Corviknight     1      1       1   1.0             0
24     Volcanion     1      1       1   1.0             0
32      Pelipper     2      0       0   0.0             0
32        Pawmot     1      0       0   0.0             0
32     Sinistcha     1      0       0   0.0             0
35    Slowking-G    12      7       8  0.88            -1
36     Dragonite     7      4       5   0.8            -1
36  Gouging Fire     6      4       5   0.8            -1
38     Hatterene     3      2       3  0.67            -1
38       Darkrai     3      2       3  0.67            -1
40    Archaludon     3      1       2   0.5            -1
41   Barraskewda     2      0       1   0.0            -1
41       Torkoal     2      0       1   0.0            -1
41     Cresselia     2      0       1   0.0            -1
41      Ursaluna     2      0       1   0.0            -1
41     Serperior     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41       Rotom-W     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41      Necrozma     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41    Talonflame     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41      Greninja     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41        Scizor     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41     Quaquaval     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41      Ribombee     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41     Ceruledge     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41     Primarina     1      0       1   0.0            -1
41    Enamorus-T     1      0       1   0.0            -1
56     Kingambit    15      7       9  0.78            -2
57     Ogerpon-W     8      4       6  0.67            -2
58     Volcarona     5      2       4   0.5            -2
59    Samurott-H     2      0       2   0.0            -2
59       Heatran     2      0       2   0.0            -2
59      Clefable     2      0       2   0.0            -2
62    Landorus-T     7      3       6   0.5            -3
63      Glimmora     5      1       4  0.25            -3
64     Gholdengo     9      3       7  0.43            -4
65   Iron Treads     6      1       6  0.17            -5

Next week marks the midpoint of the SPL regular season, I hope you've enjoyed the project so far and this data-driven approach to tournament analysis! This week, I'm giving a shoutout to tko's AV Hoopa-Unbound; this Pokemon absolutely decimated an opposing team with Tera Fairy and Wish support from an Alo, only being denied a +4 differential for a #3 placement by a forfeit. Similar shoutouts go to hellom's CM Latias, who clutched up a game with another two kills denied by an early forfeit, while lax's SD Leftovers Garchomp missed out on yet another two kills from a ff in a tag-team with an AV Slowking-G that picked up a triple kill. Dragapult was also taken from -1 to +3 this week by pdt vs Dj Breloominati♬, where a Boots Pult found value over the course of the game then later came in to clean house in the endgame.

Also, I briefly mentioned these games earlier but I'd definitely recommend watching crying vs Punny for anyone who missed SPL this week but has some time on their hands to strap in for the long haul with some heat, while Xrn vs Garay oak had some cool brings by both sides in what was certainly a game for the ages. Have a nice week, hope you've had a great one so far and I'll see you next time for more Threat of the Week!

Tournament SPL XV OU Discussion Thread

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