Smogon Tour DPP OU Week 2 Coverage

Vinc2612 has been playing competitively since the release of Platinum in 2009, but he hasn't gotten fully involved into Smogon until 2011. In time, his devotion to hosting tournaments—and taking part in them—has earned him a Tournament Director status, making him well-known in the tournaments community. Vinc's battle style has mostly been offensive based since BW2. Anywho, Vinc had made it to the finals in the Smogon Tour last Friday, September 13; his opponents were Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása and DestinyUnknown. In the first match against the former opponent, Vinc had used a Trick Room team, which relies on his bulky sweepers, Dragonite and Rhyperior, to clean up the opposition. It is no overstatement to say that Rhyperior was the MVP of that match, as it used the additional bulk from Tyranitar's sandstorm to remain in the match and defeat Viðrar's final Pokemon, Heatran. Vinc used a team that could counter stall and offensive teams for the second match against DestinyUnknown. With Blissey being a major pain, Vinc's plan was to get rid of it, which would make it easy for his special attackers to sweep. In the end, Raikou was definitely the star player of the team, defeating Skarmory in the final round. Congratulations to Vinc2612 for the well-deserved victory!

Majoring in the Ubers metagame, Furai has decided to participate in the Smogon Tour last Saturday, September 14. He has joined Smogon in 2010 and since then has made a name for himself, which shows through his trophy engraved in his badge list. Furai played Ojama in the finals this week; both players were matched well, but a much-needed freeze to Ojama's Metagross by Jirachi's Ice Punch was all Furai needed to seal the deal, as it gave him the chance to switch into Heatran and deliver the finishing blow in Fire Blast. Congrats to both of the finalists for a well-fought match!

CrashinBoomBang has started playing tournaments ever since he has migrated to Smogon from PO in May 2012. Directly expressing his displeasure in using stall teams due to not wanting to land in a stall war, CBB usually uses offensive and balanced teams. That said, CBB has used a team loaned to him by badabing, which basically was a balanced team that revolves around sweeping with SubSD Gliscor by setting up Toxic Spikes with Roserade, getting up sandstorm with Tyranitar, and Tricking Iron Ball onto Pokemon that could stop Gliscor (such as Bronzong or Skarmory) with Metagross. On Sunday, September 15, CBB ended up in the finals of the last DPP OU Smogon Tour match of that week against Leftiez. Using Trick against Heatran on round four of the match was rather huge, as Leftiez's Heatran was very threatening to CBB's team. Gliscor was the team's MVP, as once it could get a Substitute in, it had few difficulties wrecking havoc, which was shown when an Earthquake from Glisor KOed Leftiez's final Pokemon, Suicune. It was a challenging match at hand, and both players did an excellent job holding their end. That concludes week 2 of the Smogon Tour, and week 3 is just around the corner!