AGPL II RECAP
Hi.
WEEK 1
vs Guardsweeper
BO1 Natdex
Game 1:
I toyed around with a few concepts this week, and physical set-up spam is what I ended up going with as it was the most consistent in tests. Going in, I knew I wanted to take a more offensively-oriented approach as I expected guard to bring something that aimed to exploit balance after my series vs ice in seasonal finals. The general idea of the team is to break defensive cores down with sd groundceus, with dd ray and sd zac serving as wincons that can also function as breakers if need be. Standard dm + darkceus + waterceus serves as the defensive core, with ray & zac rking the majority of breakers that threaten it. you'll probably notice nearly all of my dms are twave, it's mainly so you aren't forced into 50/50s with dmaxing vs sd zac and also proves useful vs a bunch of offensive mons that may want to switch into dm predicting morning sun/rocks.
With regards to the actual game itself, I think I played alright; I could've killed ho-oh w/ sedge on t5, but at the time I felt like removing the defensive supportceus in the back would be more valuable, and sd also could've caught guard out if he elected to defog and prematurely assumed I was refresh ground. My main mistake was after zac revealed crunch on turn 14 and I mistakenly assumed zac was adamant, and that my zac would revenge kill it easily. I should've went for sunsteel next turn instead of getting rocks up, as it would've put zacian in range of espeed from ray and judgment from darkceus while still getting off enough damage on zekrom. Luckily didn't end up hurting me that much as I won the tie vs his zac with mine, if I had lost it I still had a shot with ray since waterceus forces enough chip on zac to put it in range, but it would probably have been in guard's favour at that point.
WEEK 2
vs
Sitonai
BO3 Multigen
Game 1 (Natdex):
I didn't really know what to expect from hb here, so I wanted to have a good matchup vs offense while still being able to beat fatter teams; I decided scarf fog ray + 4 attacks zac + goth was to way to go, since a lot of webs team lack ways to revenge kill zacian if webs are removed, while goth traps nearly all of zac's switch-ins and is a good pick vs balance in general. spdef tern serves as a soft yve and ogre check that can switch into most supportceus safely, tspikes gave me extra insurance vs offense while dm and spdef dark round off the backbone. This team is definitely too weak to physical attackers, you could maybe get away with phys def darkceus but playing around yve then becomes a much harder tightrope to walk. It's probably a trade-off I would take now though looking back at it.
I did slip up a few times during the game, but I'm relatively satisfied with how I played. Letting darkceus get low was obviously not ideal since I had to rely on tern to stall groundceus out of pp, but there's not much I could've done about that once I'd entered the battle. On turn 40 I should've probably gone for the bblade roll instead of going tern unless my maths are wrong (50% roll at least to kill w/ bblade while chances of not getting frozen by any ice beams + not thawing for 2 turns is just under 44%), but I got away with it.
Game 2 (USUM):
Again, I wanted to be prepared for everything since I knew hb was adept at all playstyles. After looking at their replays from last year's agpl and seeing a lot of ho, I knew I wanted to make sure I would have a good matchup vs it, so ditto was an obvious pick. mmy was something that looked good vs the balances they built, and is a good natural partner to ditto that can switch into most cm arcs and force them out + soften common defensive cores for ditto to exploit with imposter offensive mons. the rest of the mons cover most of the weaknesses, looking back at it whirlpool fairy would probably be better to support mmy and darkceus but wisp comes in handy to deter necrozma/sd arc etc.
Not that much to say about the game, early paras were annoying but I managed to get fairly lucky vs fairyceus later on allowing cm dark to sweep. I probably could've been more proactive with mmy but it would've been pretty difficult making progress since it's realistically coming in on only 1 mon safely. Overall not unhappy with my play.
WEEK 3
vs
pichus
BO3 Multigen
Game 1 (Natdex):
This team started off with sub sd dtail don, something I had toyed around with in usum. It's really threatening especially vs fatter balances that lack groundceus, which is what pichus brought a lot in tests/games, and with the latter's usage decreasing over the past 2 weeks, the meta seemed more favourable for it. I knew I wanted some form of offense counterplay since I felt it was very possible that she would change things up after her previous losses, so my mind went straight to ditto again. ho-oh next is an obvious natural partner to ditto and dm as a defogging yve check, arc check, good general pivot w/ regen, et cetera. protect with whirlwind is pretty unconventional, but wasting an extra dmax turn can be crucial a lot of the time plus it also prevents mbeam tern from forcing you out. evs allow it to live a dascent from ada lo ray. don is pretty matchup reliant so I wanted another more reliable breaker; I eventually settled on mixed ray, toxic > espeed was in case I faced lugia since my ray usage was really high (I had brought it in 5 of my previous 7 natdex tour games). waterceus gave me a wincon, status absorber, general physical wall, etc. but tox ib is probably better to patch defensive holes.
I ended up calling the offense matchup right and won w/ ditto + ray. I don't think there was a way I could've lost this apart from doing something stupid like sacking ditto/don/ray and then getting outplayed by ogre/don/arc.
Game 2 (USUM):
This was intended as a cteam to pichus usual stuff. I wanted to bring gear since I knew she loved using darkceus and I was pretty paranoid of bp vs the pichus since all my usual stuff would get 6-0d. rest ogre does pretty well vs a lot of her balances, wisp gar is nice partner to trap band/mixed ray, ferro, poisonceus and necro, all mons she likes using a lot. the rest of the members fill defensive roles, a lot of pressure is placed on groundceus to check marsh/ray though but alleviating that would probably require replacing gear.
She ended up bringing a screens ho, to me it looked like an old webs team she had but w/ deo > shuckle but it ended up being sub ray and I lost turn 4. If it was standard lo dd then I think I had a decent shot (depends on the arc ig), but I got outprepped hard.
Game 3 (ORAS):
I have no clue what I'm doing in oras tbh, I just built a bunch of teams and eventually decided on this one before the game with the help of adf. This team started with id ferro to 1v1 sd arcs easily and just be a nuisance to offense in general, groudon provides xern check + rocks while yveltal gives a proper switchin to sd arc (and darkrai to an extent). groundceus provides defog and don/ray check, scarf uproar ray gave speed control and an additional rai/xern check. specs ogre last because I needed an actual breaker and didn't want to lose to stall, and it ended up winning this game easily w/ a 6-0 matchup. all 3 games being decided on preview made this series pretty eh tbh, happy I won though.
WEEK 4
vs
Pigeons
BO3 Multigen
Game 1 (Natdex):
Having to play games for ladder tour + seasonal + this agpl was taking its toll on me, and I was starting to feel pretty burnt out this week so I was pretty lazy with prep. erupt don looked good vs a lot of the teams pigeons built so I wanted to build with it + dd zygarde to exploit supportceus being weakened/removed. My yve prep last week was pretty underwhelming so I wanted to be safe vs it, hence fairy + dark. I can't remember for the life of me why scarf ray was on this, anything would've been better.
I definitely could've handled this game better; I should've gotten don in more times earlier, ray being the initial switch-in to it was pretty obvious and I should've called it with sedge to limit the damage it did. I could've gone for the crit more times vs goth with fairy, while I didn't know it was darkceus at the time I still should've kept it just in case and had to end up sacking zyg, my primary wincon, to scout its set. I gave myself an opportunity later on but got the dmax turns incorrect, in hindsight I definitely should've switched to back to my own darkceus on turn x. scarf ray was useless this game, big surprise there, so my laziness alongside sloppy play ended up costing me.
Game 2 (USUM):
This was just a relatively standard arcspam skarph built that I thought looked nice vs the balance pigeons likes to bring, I won't share the paste since it's not my team.
Relatively satisfied with how I played this one. Letting fairy take multiple moongeists was perhaps a bit reckless in hindsight as dd ray could've swept later on if it got the opportunity and I ended up having to risk marsh vs it later on, but I don't think I made many other big mistakes
Game 3 (ORAS):
Same thing as last week, I just built a bunch of teams around whatever I wanted to and picked one. cm id steel was something I had flirted around with previously in week 2 and that grnbln brought to week 3, but it ultimately didn't end up being revealed so I still felt like using it. skarm gave spikes, sd arc check and can tox switchins like ho-oh and don for id steel. diancie gave rai check & rocks, roar resttalk don gave xern and ogre check, additional soft rai check and abuses spikes pretty well, waterceus gave a don and extra ray check + defog, rai was because I didn't really know what else I wanted and it's the team mascot.
This game was really poor, idk why I didn't lead diancie and it nearly ended up losing me the game if it wasn't for triple first turn wake into dark void dodge with steelceus. cm + id did end up carrying me in this one and I ended up winning a 50/50 vs mcoat arc that allowed skarm to win, this was a highway robbery and I didn't deserve it at all.
WEEK 5
vs
aesf
BO3 Natdex
Game 1:
I had a bunch of cteams for the sabs I had built in previous weeks that I decided to edit and choose from. lo bu marsh was something I felt looked good in the meta with the high darkceus usage, and would do well vs the random offensive arcs I knew fardin liked to use. band ray breaks fatter cores that marsh might struggle to get past, dm + ho-oh is pretty self-explanatory, evs on ho-oh allow it to live wild charge from ada zac. I have groundceus instead of the other typings I'd usually use because the sabs like using don so much, and it could catch them off guard since I had only brought it once previously (and that one was sd). I was initially wisp darkceus over waterceus to lure zacs to help marsh but decided that having another reliable wincon was more worthwhile, and felt it was likely that some other form of darkceus counterplay was coming anyways.
I got pretty hard done by with the crit on groundceus, and everything sort of fell apart afterwards; I thought I played pretty well up until that point. Perhaps I could've dynamaxed, but I didn't know if he was going to switch or not and wanted to save it in case things got out of hand later on. Going for the sneak roll should have been my play afterward but I'd still have to get nearly everything correct, so it likely wouldn't have mattered much.
Game 2:
This wasn't as much of a cteam but moreso just something I felt was solid in most matchups. The support spdef tern provides to these kinds of ditto teams is extremely useful, as tspikes give it the ability to win drawn-out games much more easily and being able to pressure-stall moves is just really nice, especially in conjunction with ditto and ho-oh. Once more, I was originally darkceus on this but felt too don weak so I changed it to groundceus; earth power waterceus can be used if you want to check erupt don better. erupt rest don is the team's sole breaker that takes advantage of tspikes reasonably well and prevents ogre/waterceus from spamming water moves, but it's also replaceable for smth like ray.
sd groundceus is really scary for this team and it showed in this game. Removing the ground immunity in ray early proved vital as I was able to kill off 3 mons with impostered groundceus, which prevented me from sitting around just waiting to lose. I had to bank on a sedge miss into burning groundceus in the end, but aesf went for the last mon cm poison route instead and I had to play out of my ass and give myself as many opportunities for a crit as possible. I did eventually get it, which was pretty lucky but made up for game 1 I guess.
Game 3:
I don't really know how but I ended up bringing the wrong team. I'm still pretty upset at myself for making such a stupid and silly mistake but there's nothing I can do to change the past, so I'll talk about
the team I intended to bring instead. coil dtail zyg + tern seemed cool because of fardin's tendency to stray away from traditional refresh arcs, and also formed a nice defensive backbone for the team. defensive zyg opened up the door for me to use cm waterceus without fear of don, and tect zac last gave a reliable revenge killer that exploits a lot of the sab's teams that rely on ditto + don as zac counterplay.
This game was pretty hard on preview already, and getting the early turns wrong dug me into a really deep hole. I also kind of messed up the endgame; I expected him to stay in with zac since necro + water was all he needed in my opinion, but I had to go off him misplaying in order to have a chance to win and should've sd'd.
Shoutouts to everyone on the Darkrais; this season was a blast, and I really enjoyed teaming & talking with all of you. While it was disappointing to go out in such a fashion, I still think we all did a good job overall and can be proud of our efforts. Good luck to the remaining teams and thanks for reading (if you did)!