Lower Tiers DPP Ubers Invitational - Team & Set Dump Thread

Hi everyone. For those who missed it, BKC's DPP Ubers Invitational is the biggest DPP Ubers Tournament in a long while, if not ever. With 48 top DPP Ubers players playing and a minimum of 4 rounds of 3 games along with a self-build rule, we saw (and still see) tons of DPP Ubers teams!

The Top 16 Playoffs are still going on (discord link if you still wanna follow: https://discord.gg/9f5bRZVS), but the 48 Player swiss has already left 32 players eliminated and all are very much invited to post about their teams, sets or games. Thread is already up before playoffs so these people can post their stuff while it's still fresh in their mind, if they want - top 16 players are obviously encouraged to post whenever they are eliminated and/or want to!

If you wanna discuss anything else with regards to this tournament or showcase something you didn't end up bringing, feel free to as well!
 

Jirachee

phoenix reborn
is a Forum Moderatoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Timing is poor cause I'm not out yet and I have so much to post!

I'll share one set:


Deoxys-Defense @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Thunder Wave

Deoxys-D is full of potential, I thought it was a shame we never saw it. From my experience playing BW OU I've always held it in high esteem. DPP's nature makes it so a lot of people run leads that are focused on stopping hazard setters though. After seeing BKC use Deoxys-S (my favorite pokemon) outside of the lead slot, I thought to myself "why not run Deoxys-D in that same role?

Turns out Deoxys-D absolutely PRAYS on those slow walls. It's fast enough to get a Taunt off anything, and bulky enough to shrug off any attack that's not absurd like Kyogre's Water Spout. I'll admit that one weakness that comes with it is that you'll often be at a Pokemon count disadvantage early in the game. My solution to that problem is to simply use it with a lead that aims to kill the opponent's lead and get a little extra, like Rayquaza. I think Ho-Oh also works great as a partner.

Moveset is fairly simple; if you're gonna use Deoxys-D you want it to carry all of your hazards so that Groudon can boost and Dialga can run one of its million viable sets. Taunt and Thunder Wave stop anyone from having any funny ideas about boosting on Deoxys itself. One thing to note though is that your team should be ready for Garchomp if you decide to run Deoxys, as it is faster and immune to Thunder Wave.

Lum Berry means it can paralyze a Darkrai in a pinch, when you use Deoxys-D your team will be very aggressive in nature so you don't really want to switch around Dark Void and stuff.

:toast:
 
Edgar's DPP Ubers Journey

I was invited to sub in for Staxi who was 0-2 in the aforementioned tour. While I had some experience playing the tier, before then I hadn't built a single DPP Ubers team. I gave the tour a real shot and the following teams are what came from 3 weeks of grinding the tier. As a side note, shoutouts to Donkey, 64 Squares and Jirachee for the massive support, testing and advice when preparing for my matches.

I normally prepare 3 teams for worst case scenarios.

This round is mostly me trying stuff out, I didn't follow a particular preparation process that focused on exploiting my opponent's patterns. Just used stuff I considered fun.

Game 1

1637630682591.png

This team accidentally turned out almost the same as one of Donkey's R1 teams of the same tour. The team is pretty simple. Spikes Deo-S lead and Sp,Def Dialga, I figured I could get away with a bit of a weakness to specs Kyogre since I had Spikes + Choice Scarf U-Turn Jirachi to wear down Water Spout so Dialga can sponge it better. Calm Mind Thunder Wave Kyogre to make dealing with Latis a lot easier for both Lugia and Jirachi. Outrage Giratina-O for outspeed dragons such as Palkia and Latis and revenge kill. The game went a bit smooth, Manaphy presented problems but I was able to pull off the win thanks to Healing Wish Jirachi and the fact that Finch's Blissey was Thunder Wave and not Toxic.


Game 2

1637631519848.png

This team has changed a lot ever since I made it, however, it is one of my favorite teams to date. I originally had Pursuit Tyranitar on this team but I figured I probably didn't need to KO Latis as much as I need mons like Skarm and Forry out. Ho-Oh lead to present a major problem to Sun early on in the game. In the replay you'll see Lefties Bronzong because I was dumb and I didn't realize RP Life Orb Groudon 6-0d me. This has been changed to Occa Berry in order to prevent such a catastrophe. Palkia to wallbreak in case I find a rain team and wear down stuff like Sp.Def Dialga. Dialga and Zong are very bread n butter. I went with only Thunder as coverage on Dialga because with the other mons supporting it I figured I only needed Thunder to hit mons like Lugia and Kyogre hard. Palkia, Ho-Oh and Bronzong would take of the Heatrans. Scarf Stalk Garchomp for sleep fodder and revenge kill CM Latis and Rayquaza. The game went very smoothly thanks to some Hydro Pump misses on my Tyranitar, however, I think I could have won without them since Finch had very little counterplay to Trick Room.

Game 3 (Unused)
1637632107852.png

My first attempt on Stall. Lead Tentacruel for Toxic Spikes Purposes, Toxic Protect Bronzong and Protect Wisp Calm Mind Giratina to go along with them. Sp.Def Dialga for Palkia and Kyogre (this was made around the period of time where I forgot Choice Specs Kyogre existed) and Bold CM Kyogre for mons such as Kabutops and also Groudon. Choice Scarf Mewtwo as a blanket for set up sweepers such as Dragon Dance Rayquaza, Rock Polish Groudon and Darkrai. This is not my best team, I'm glad I didn't use it.

This match was a bit different, after my R3 win I felt like I had a real shot at the play-offs. I was very focused on winning and at least getting to the 16th man bloodbath.


Game 1

1637632859295.png

I decided to use Darkrai teams since Iron Man's teams seemed a bit weak to it. I also wanted to try Rayquaza as it is actually good in this gen (unlike gen 5, sheeeesh). I was also curious on how Kingdra worked since I saw it had a lot of play in past rounds. Scarf Darkrai for Deoxys-S leads, CM Kyogre with Bulk to be able to handle an EQ from RP Groudon. Calm Mind Latios as a Kyogre switch-in and rain wallbreaker alongside Kingdra. Swords Dance Rayquaza for checking weather abusers and additional Revenge Killing power with Extremespeed. This match did not go well for me, the lead Tyranitar set caused major tilt as I felt like there was no good move against it. I had to rely on major luck to bring back an early game Darkrai donation, I got some but not all I needed.


Game 2

1637633374062.png

If you've watched BKC's coverage of the tour you know this game became quite famous. My Kyogre lead got reduced to atoms by a Choice Band Ho-Oh's Brave Bird turn 1. Ironically, Kyogre's role is to act as a suicide lead vs Ho-Ohs so the team works better vs Ho-Oh lead teams. Nevertheless, I changed the EVs so it always lives 1 CB Ho-Oh Brave Bird, before that it was a role in the Ho-Oh's favor. I wanted to try Swords Dance Leftovers Scizor as I think that mon was pretty interesting, checking rain dragons in Sun due to Thunder's shaky accuracy, it also went well with Thunder Wave Kyogre paralyzing Latis and Palkia. Latias to check Kyogre, Sp.Def Groudon to handle Palkia better and Skarmory to provide Spikes. I chose Scarf Rayquaza here because I wanted to check rain abusers and Darkrai in one go. This game was rather difficult after turn 1, I had to focus really hard in order to bring it back, thanks to the Palkia's lack of fire move this was very doable, I managed to bring it to game 3.


Game 3

1637633893347.png

This one has become one of my most reliable teams. Back then it was do or die, 1 loss and I was out. I wanted to try Screens Mewtwo as I thought it would be very interesting as a suicide support mon. Screens + mons like Groudon and Darkrai sounded very devastating. I went DD Lum Groudon because I could afford it with screens up. SD Rayquaza because it's a mon that most Hyper Offense teams need, in my opinion. Rayquaza just covers a lot of things with just SD + Extremespeed. Chople Darkrai to bypass Iron Man's Mewtwos and Lucario as a way to capitalize on -2 Draco Meteor users + Screens. Turned out to be a pretty smooth match, Iron Man's team had little to no counterplay to +2 Darkrai so naturally, it swept, winning me the series.

With a 2-2 record, we now move to the 16th slot 16 man mini-tour.

After winning vs Iron man, I was focused on beating the odds and getting that 16th play-off spot, winning vs someone who I thought (and still do) was a really good player boosted my confidence when entering the mini-tour.

Game 1

1637635541360.png

With more knowledge on my hands, I felt like my teams were getting better. So, this round I decided to build something good but also built around WreckDra's habits. He seemed particularly weak to 2 things: Dragon Dance Rayquaza and Life Orb Rock Polish Groudon. Those 2 are not hard to build around so I went for it. The blasphemous Deoxys-S set was an idea Jirachee had, it helped with the lead Darkrai matchup a lot, since it presented a problem. Covering that, the rest of the team is pretty straightforward, I decided to run Giratina-O, a mon that I dettached myself from after learning the tier more and more. I went with Draco Meteor Roar since it helped with RP Groudon, Lucario and Skarmory matchups, no need to fear for those 3 after using Draco. Bronzong for SR and pivot purposes, Latios to check Kyogre and Roar stuff and Scarf Jirachi to check Rayquaza and rain Mewtwo as well. Game was a bit hard, had to play well vs CB Ho-Oh, yet again. I managed to put myself in a position where Latios won, prediciting the Jirachi sac and bringing Latios back to health with my own Healing Wish, taking a hit from what I thought was Scarf Mewtwo and outspeeding Latias (which is uncommon with max speed).

P.S. Shoutouts 64 Squares for the Groudon spread.


Game 2

1637636552324.png
I got extremely lucky here, every bit of luck went my way. Nevertheless, I think my team had a really good matchup vs WreckDra's team. I built around Bulk Up Dialga rain to change my teams a bit since I had been running with a lot of offense. I chose lead Forry with Sash in case he brought Ho-Oh or lead Ttar and guarantee at least 1 Spike. I think this game showcases why Bronzong is such a good pokemon, misses aside, the fact that is able to pivot into dragons and explode on Kyogre is ridiculous, Scarf Palkia as a soft, early game Kyogre check and emergency Latis check (even Timid Outrage OHKOs both after rocks lol), physically defensive Calm Mind Kyogre for Groudon. My Giratina-O set is the rain version of the other game's set, I was trying out Roar on offensive Giratina, really good move, I think it should be ran more, it helps dealing the Dialga's that try to switch into it and get slapped with more hazards damage. Bulk Up Dialga is pretty cool here, I switch it into Darkrai and let it sleep and proceed to check with Kyogre, Bronzong or Palkia.


Game 3 (Unused)

1637636952785.png

I mentioned DD Rayquaza earlier, here's the team with it. Not only that, but RP Sp.Def Groudon, which feeds on teams that use a lot of Jirachi and Draco Meteor users. Memento Latios is used here to set up sweeps once there is an opportunity to close the game or as an emergency measure after using Draco Meteor and something like Lucario or Groudon is revealed. Chople Darkrai used to help with the Mewtwo matchup and Scarf Rachi as a pivotal Steel-type. Rock Slide lead Ttar for Rocks and lead Ho-Oh.

Due to scheduling mishaps, xtranshine decided to give me the win, moving me to the top 4. Having said that, I did build some teams for the occassion.

1637637506636.png

I decided to bring Lead BandTar in case he brought his usual offenses. This is a fairly standard rain build, CM bulky Kyogre in case he brought Scizor and Rayquaza, since it can handle those. Garchomp because it's a scarfer that does Ok vs Offense and Latios as a Kyogre check. Forretress as a Spiker that also lures in Rayquaza and explodes on it.


1637637818215.png

I wanted to try CM Earth Power Lugia since I think it's a mon that faires well vs offense, alongside something that can handle Darkrai. The positives of using Lugia here is that I am a bit safer vs Rayquaza and Garchomp, which usually have good matchups vs Offense. I thought Swords Dance Scizor would work well here since it it's a mon that U-Turns on incoming Dialgas and Heatrans, which Lugia can handle well with Earth Power. Roar Latios for CM users, Lava Plume yellow color Groudon for Skarm and invalidating Latis, making them prime U-Turn food and Choice Scarf Fire Blast Dialga to better handle Steels.

For a third option I decided to repeat my Mewtwo Screens team.

With a given win, I face Stone Cold for the mini tour semifinals. Due to irl circumstances, I couldn't prepare well for this match, but I still gave it a shot.

Game 1

1637638491917.png
Donkey had a lot of influence on this team, the idea of Tickle Wobbuffet was his. The main premise is that Wobb tickles stuff only to be Pursuit trapped by Scizor afterwards. Ho-Oh as a wallbreaker, making use of Wobb's capabilities of getting rid of some of its switchins. CM Latios to abuse the fact that Wobb Tickles and traps Blissey. As well as Physically Defensive RP Groudon to have a better matchup vs opposiing RP Don and Garchomps. I got powned this game and my only chance to win was eviscerated by a Draco Meteor crit on my Groudon.


Game 2

1637638912571.png

I wanted to bring something I considered solid for this game. Lead Scarf Deoxys for Darkrai and opposing Deoxys leads. This Darkrai set allows me to trap Latis and 2hko Blissey for Kyogre and Latios. Kingdra also for abusing Rain, forcing Dialga to come in, makes it easier for Darkrai to kill with Brick Break, Bronzong for Rocks and pivotting. I played this game extremely badly, I was super tilted from the last game that I even forgot I was Scarfed Deoxys. The Rayquaza matchup didn't help either, anyways.

Game 3 I was going to use the Mewtwo Screens team I had built in R4 of Swiss.

And thus the run ends, pretty satisfied with the results tbh, first time taking DPP seriously and I achieved the same record as a playoff qualifier (3-1)

Thanks for reading!
 

Attachments

Last edited:

Inspirited

There is usually higher ground.
is a Contributor Alumnus
Hello! First of all, this was the most fun I have had playing mons in awhile and I am grateful BKC reached out to lil' ol' me when there were so many awesome players to choose from. From what Lasen has told me, I tend to be an abusive and tricky teambuilder in low-key ways that help the team gain edges but also requires some compromise and, in the extreme cases, weakness. Due to time constraints, I did minimal opponent-specific prep in this tournament and instead focused on building with more fun stuff that I wanted to use and maybe test them if I found the time, energy, and players. There were bad calls, all sorts of fundamental errors, and a whole lot of learning to match the couple great things I built here but man did I have a good time doing it. All of these players were great and I hope they had at least as good a time as I had. I'll do my best to keep this brief* as I remember BKC wanting to do videos about the teams all the players used so you'll have to wait for those for some of the details.


Swiss R1: I tested once with Lasen but that was it.

https://pokepast.es/a790bed2b4478464
This was quickly thrown together when I realized that lead Darkrai Dark Void and CB Ho-Oh is rather extraordinarily difficult to deal with reliably and with lead Tyranitar, more specifically Lum TTar, having relatively low usage at the time due to other lead trends, I figured this first round game 1 would be the time to use it. The idea was that Darkrai's presence creates and opening for Ho-Oh to smash an opposing tier king (one of Dialga, Giratina, or Kyogre) with CB Brave Bird (yes even Dialga hates this move) and create a pretty big opportunity for the led and saved Scarf Darkrai and/or the Rock Polish Groudon to pick up the pieces. I figured Forretress would help Ho-Oh apply unwanted pressure to stall while Spikes would be helpful against certain Groudon-anchored bulky offense structures. At the time of building I also figured it would need to help punish Kyogre or Giratina-O enough to help out Groudon which is why Toxic ended up here though this really wasn't the best decision ever. I added Roar SR Dialga and physical/SpD Giratina-O in the hope that they would stop Kyogre Bulky Offense from being too out of control. I updated the team a bit since the game and while the updates improve the team, it isn't great yet so I will hold off on posting them for now.


https://pokepast.es/341b270c2579b266
This was a big compression experiment as I wanted to have lead CB Ho-Oh aid a RayChomp attack of some kind. This is by far the silliest team I made but it isn't the worst. With those three, I figured I couldn't get away with Spikes due to my lead slot being taken and Ray + Ho-Oh locking me out of a Giratina-O slot in a silly roundabout way. Latias was a pretty clear choice given that it handles Kyogre about as well as anything can and wouldn't make my team weaker to Rock Polish Groudon with Life Orb usage being incredibly low. I wanted Healing Wish on it but decided the moves it has now would suit the team better overall. I ended up assigning the Ray to break down bulkier styles of offense with Dragon Fang > Life Orb to stop cores from damaging it by switching. This thought with Ray came with U-Turn Jirachi to help get it in position to attack. The Jirachi got slammed with all sorts of roles it needed to perform due to compression issues with the team including taking on the Healing Wish idea I had for Latias. By the time I added a neat rest TTar idea to make stall cry, the ideas within the team were jumbled and incoherent. My thoughts at the time were that Ray had lost its role (hence the team name) to TTar, Ho-Oh, and Latias but I didn't know what else to put there somehow thinking the rest of the team was good (it wasn't). I asked Lasen what he thought might be a better fit but I can see why he said he didn't know as there was so many more issues with the team in other places. Luckily it won a game against Eo but boy did this team have some pretty serious flaws. I ended up fixing many of them and using it again later in the tournament. Somehow no tier kings ended up on this team... that should have been my first sign.

Swiss R2: I think I may have played a game against Donkey with the 3rd team

https://pokepast.es/c939a412eb1d89ac
I made this team years ago now (before the most recent Tspikes boom started) and always thought it was a good idea but just never wanted to update it to Tentacruel Tspikes meta and therefor I never used it anywhere before this. I didn't have much time to build and I didn't like the two I did build in a rush. All I wanted to use was Sub CM 2 attacks Giratina. As you can probably see, everything on the team can make a Forretress miserable and Giratina was designed to give me a flex Dialga slot (not support). In these ways I think this old team is alright, but Giratina becoming extremely crippled at the first sign of a Tentacruel tells me it does need an update. Lauriane also exposed the awful flaw the team has with Specs Dialga/Palkia dragon attacks that definitely needs to be fixed (Ttar can't help with these). The update will likely include changing the Giratina entirely which is why I have been hesitant to do it.


https://pokepast.es/8ad448e093a4ac09
This was the first instance I fell into a trap of just not thinking about my MU against Bronzong and stall because my dragons have fire, I have a Scarf to Trick, and Jirachi had Iron Head. The idea here was that Scarf Mewtwo is the end of the line when it comes to shutting down other HO but I left a pretty big blindspot open to Kyogre BO when thinking about how the team would be used. Spikes, Jirachi, and my two dragons would look to beat ice resists into a pulp so that Mewtwo's Ice Beam would hopefully win out. That was the whole idea and even though I didn't like it at first (I still don't like an aspect of this particular version), it continues to grow on me the more I think about it. I think it needs a status move on Jirachi over Protect or Iron Head and to get rid of the silly Latios thing I was trying to do here in favor of EQ Giratina instead of trying to be too tricky for my own good. Maybe there is a better move to use on the Mewtwo as well. I'll continue to work with it and change it accordingly and you should too!


https://pokepast.es/984062d2901fa6ee
This is easily the worst team I built and brought for the tournament. It has a pretty nasty capability to outpace other offense and even guard against them to a degree which was cool and satisfied me when I built it in a rush. In reality it is just worse than my other Kabutops team in every other way. In its current form it has no MU against stall or even fatter rain offense and balances with its only way of scaring them being Latios. The way it ended up like this was I was impressed with U-turn Jirachi into Latios and wanted to see if it could viably support a Kabutops + Garchomp attack. However, Latios has some pretty hard to break checks and doesn't really get to attack Kabutops's checks in practice. I haven't begun to update it yet but it does need attention. I think the first change should be giving SD to Kabutops and/or look for ways to take the scarf off of chomp responsibly (without creating a Ray problem).

Swiss R3: I tested with Donkey and my buddy Akil

https://pokepast.es/7a2f9f8dbef814ec
This is very similar to the other offenses I have been working with this tournament just far simpler and quite frankly more effective. I decided that I didn't want to do anything fancy with this outside of the dual lead set-up and instead just picked strong meteor that I thought best fit the team to go along with Darkrai, Deoxys-S, Jirachi, and Latios. I thought about being silly by not using Giratina-O for a Groudon but with last rounds team failures I figured I better be responsible this time. I ended up bulking out this Giratina similar to what they use in BW but this was purely because Lucario had an extraordinary easy time destroying the team otherwise. Given the lone Latios, I also compromised Dialga's spread a bit to help with Kyogre attacks and also made Giratina full physical in order to avoid dropping either of its defenses.


https://pokepast.es/249dd9569697494a
I'm not the biggest fan of this one. While I still think Wish + BU Dialga + fatter CM Mewtwo can be strong I really don't think I supported it right with one of the larger problems being just how hard Skarmory is for most of the team to remove to say nothing of Rock Polish Groudon setting up way too easy for how weak my Mewtwo is and bulkless my Giratina ended up. Speaking of Giratina it is here to do damage more than it was thought of as a defensive piece and it is pretty reliant on Dialga to pick things up against teams it has trouble hurting. I didn't like how little damage the team had at the time as well as the Spikes weakness I was starting to see so I came up with this funky Deo-A and added Latios that probably didn't need HP Ground but not having Spikes of my own made the decision for me at the time. Mewtwo seems to be the outlier and I am hesitant to change its set due to the original idea of the team. It is in need to of a way to handle Rayquaza too.... yeah while this team isn't the worst of the bunch it definitely needs lots of work.

Swiss R4: I tested with Donkey

https://pokepast.es/45a484f5534fa731
I built a team forever and a day ago and I decided to heavily update it for this tour. I think this one is up there with my favorites though it is in bad need of better moves against Wobquaza and possibly a Swift Swim structure (put Ice Beam on Kyogre at least). Wonderful things happen when you take the Scarf off of Garchomp with the darn thing being downright horrifying to most teams that plan to switch at all. It is a bit reliant on Kyogre to handle Swift Swim and many other attacks offense commonly uses but I do think this is the most solid all around team I used this tournament. Every piece just work so nicely with one other. All it needs is a few tweaks.


https://pokepast.es/a541996c8518ca28
This is the team I made that inspired me to take a look at the old "shark bell whale". I made this earlier this year and my friend herb/roopos tested it up and down the RoA ladder while it was around. I wanted to use Specs Kyogre with Qwilfish due to the Tentacruel usage going through the roof and it was sort of successful. The Kyogre being Specs and frail presents a few flaws with the team but there is little more satisfying than specs Water Spout hitting anything but Ludicolo and things immune to it. The Qwilfish was built to handle non LO Darkrai pretty handily since any one of the items you would use on the fish are pretty trivial. Ray is here to sort-of-not-really give the team some security against Swift Swim structures though identifying the structure before Ray has to fall is more of an art than a science. If you want to make it better just change the Kyogre to a fatter twave thing. The structure kinda builds itself and you may be able to spot even more issues with it when you look hard enough. I just enjoy it the way it is even if it is suboptimal.

Big Tie Break R1: If you think I tested with only a day long deadline then I have oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.

https://pokepast.es/9a04619937396dbc
This is the update for team 2 from round 1 of Swiss and boy did it need it. It went through a weird phaze with Lefties Mewtwo and Scarf TTar that was quite frankly a travesty but in the end it led to something that was pretty great imo. Once again I realized wonderful things happen when you are able to take the Scarf off of Garchomp. Now chomp can help Ho-Oh break things which is good considering it is pretty much a suicide lead especially when you Brave Bird. Many of the team's jumbled ideas are now coherent with one another with Ttar now solving more problems than just simple stall issues aided by an unchoiced chomp and Jirachi's Healing Wish is now far more useful when received by Garchomp or Mewtwo. Speaking of Mewtwo, yeah I added scarf Mewtwo here to make offense dance in certain ways and boy is it good at it. I'm really happy this team made sense in the end if you couldn't tell but that doesn't mean I haven't made changes since this round. Make Latias max speed as BKC's tour discord suggested as Scarf Mewtwo means you don't need to tank Stone Edge from Kabutops unlike the silly Scarf Tar phaze of the team. Jirachee also got me thinking about other move choices on the Mewtwo and I think he was on to something. Somehow this team made it here without any of the tier kings being added too. This is one of my favorites.


https://pokepast.es/a5a3b24df49a9222
I built this a couple years ago when Tentacruel was first starting show up more and more commonly and the whole point of it is to poison Kyogre so I don't have to feel bad about having a sub Lustrous Palkia, a Naive Giratina-O, and a Scarf Dialga. It definitely needs a safety update to help with RP Groudon, Swift Swim, and all sorts of other things this is stupidly flawed against and I think that will be my next project. This Palkia is far too fun to use to let the team die but when the game is entirely dependent on how much damage it does and even that isn't enough sometimes, you know you have a problem. At any rate the team can still win games and makes games fun pretty frequently. Before it is pointed out, I am aware the Kyogre doesn't have Hydro. Feel free to put it back but goodness Hydro sucks sometimes.

(*= I mean "brief" relative to some of the other longer posts I have written)
 
Last edited:

Fc

Waiting for something to happen?
is a Site Content Manageris a Top Team Rateris a Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributoris a defending SCL Champion
Ubers Leader
This tour was some of the most fun I've had playing and building mons in a long time, so I'd like to share all the things I built throughout the tour. A few of these teams have unnecessary speed creeps because in dpp in particular I like just grabbing the slider and moving speed up a bit for the mirror.

Round 1 Vs. Steelskitty (0-0):

:deoxys-attack: :groudon: :dialga: :giratina-origin: :shiftry: :heatran: - Replay

Shiftry was the first thing I wanted to build around, because it's a cool mon that saw almost no usage otherwise but has a strong upside. The team is fairly normal around it, support don, Scarf Dialga for Speed control (get used to seeing that), HP Fire gira, and Heatran, with the Deo-A lead. The team is fairly offensive barring Heatran but burns and toxic are still very good pressure, and overall I really liked how this turned out. In game, Shiftry lost because of the ev spread being max attack so Leaf Storm didn't kill what it needed to, so the sets can be tweaked a bit probably.

:tyranitar: :garchomp: :skarmory: :giratina-origin: :latios: :dialga: - Replay

Bulk Up Dialga was the second set I wanted to use, along with Sub Salac Veil chomp. In hindsight this team probably isn't that great, it lacks speed control and struggles against things like Mewtwo /opposing Latios due to the sp.def mon being Skarm a lot of the time against strong psychics with ttar dying on lead a lot. Wish I tried even more than this and 1 other team with bu Dialga since it's such a fun set, but this is what I went with initially and it lost. For 2 teams just starting building in DPP again since dpppl where I only made like 2 of my own teams they weren't that great but I think the Shiftry one wasn't bad, and it got me way more into building better teams and more fun ones later on.

Round 2 Vs. Finchinator (0-1):

:darkrai: :dialga: :wobbuffet: :rayquaza: :groudon: :shaymin-sky: - Replay

Ah yes, the single worst turn in this entire tour. Despite me not knowing Healing Wish mechanics, I quite like this team. Triple scarf may seem odd and it is, but it's really good against opposing offense and also at cleaning after wobb + ray do their thing removing either choice locked dragons or just denting walls. Clearly it did not turn out as planned, but regardless it was a fun team to bring out and was one of the wobb ray ones I made, and probably liked this one the most.

:machamp: :dialga: :kyogre: :qwilfish: :giratina: :shaymin-sky:- Replay

This thing was my one of my favourites to use in the tour just because of how cool it is, despite just being bad Hariyama (definitely didn't use it because I forgot Hariyama existed). Lead Machamp limits a lot of opposing leads like Darkrai if it fears Lum, Deoxys to 1 hazard, Rayquaza, etc. The team around it is a fairly standard tspikes rain core, Qwil was clutch at absorbing opposing tspikes allowing for gira to clean in the game. Skymin for Speed, Dialga for rocks, and Kyogre for breaking. Solid team I really liked making around a cool lead.

:deoxys-speed: :groudon: :infernape: :dialga: :giratina-origin: :bronzong:- Replay

Riding the Fighting-type wave, I went straight to another one that I really liked seeing in the previous round from Lasen, Infernape. The structure is similar to the team used in round 1 but I went with a different approach to the Dragon Steel core last with Gira-O + Bronzong. Gira is incredible and does so well on every kind of team imo, and Bronzong's defensive capabilities especially with Occa to catch Ray off guard was great here. Infernape was the reason the game was won, cleaning with Mach Punch when a scarf rachi coulda flinched anything else down. Standard sets, Polish don for cleaning, Scarf Dialga since Bronzong was rocks and I needed a Darkrai answer, and HP Fire Gira-O. Love this team and would definitely use it more in games.

Round 3 Vs. Zayele (1-1):

:ho-oh: :palkia: :kyogre: :giratina-origin: :bronzong: :deoxys-attack:- Replay

Not sure how I feel about this team tbh, but I think I like it. Deoxys is fittingly named "filler" because I was gonna put something else there but never thought of another mon so I just went with it. LO Deo was another mon on my list of things to use so I was fine with that. I've used Ho-Oh ogre a good bit in tours and really like it so I went with that as the starting core with Scarf Palkia which I liked for the strong dual choice core. Bronzong Gira yet again to round it out, so I think this team was solid I just didn't play great in the game and maybe could tweak it a bit.

:deoxys-speed: :groudon: :giratina-origin: :latias: :darkrai: :dialga:- Replay

This time the idea was around physical Darkrai + Groudon, something I really like on paper. While it isn't offensive Groudon which might be better I felt defensive twave rocks fit with the scarf Deo-S lead and another Scarf Dialga for Speed control. I went with Latias here as the check to Kyogre and Groudon, which fit very well as it won the mu late game. I loaded a very good stall mu with this team, using multiple tspikes immunities and physical Darkrai to clean up the team.

:deoxys-attack: :garchomp: :giratina-origin: :groudon: :dialga: :shaymin-sky: - Replay

This was the other bu Dialga team I went with, but yet again it didn't end up being clutch. I do think this one is a lot better, though, with it just having more solid speed control and cores overall. The game didn't go in my favour by any means but I could have both played it better and maybe made the team with a few more mu's in mind like scarf rai and skarm. Chomp was something I wanted to try a lot with scarf just for good Speed and power, and I followed it up with 3 more Ground / Dragon mons, Gira-O, Groudon, and Dialga. Gira-O and Groudon were good support for Dialga as they chipped things and got hazards respectively, while Dialga was made to be the star of the show. Skymin might not have been the optimal last, but it covered faster things like scarfrai and could Trick Jirachi which pp stalled Dialga a bit. Also helped vs things like weather in a pinch and Healing Wish is great support for tspikes weak breakers like Groudon and the cleaner Garchomp.

Round 4 Vs. Conflict (1-2):

:darkrai: :garchomp: :bronzong: :palkia: :giratina-origin: :groudon: - Replay

Went for another attempt at scarf chomp, and think I still missed a bit but this one might be a little better. Scarf rai lead is just good on a lot of builds imo, and this one helps limit hazards which chip Garchomp. Bronzong Groudon Gira-O which is something I've liked quite a bit, good core that allows offensive Groudon which I took advantage of again to go offensive. Palkia was the Kyogre check here, I hadn't used Lustsrous before but it's power is huge so I wanted to try it out. Just didn't play the best in the game so it didn't work out but I liked the build.

:kyogre: :ho-oh: :darkrai: :dialga: :manaphy: :giratina-origin:- Replay

This team is based on one I made for a dpppl game that I've used a lot before with lead Lum Ho-Oh and midgame scarf ogre + LO physical Darkrai. This time I just switched up the slots because I wanted to use Sub Ho-Oh. I think this version after testing is less optimal than the first with the Darkrai and ogre core being clutch with the original sets, but Manaphy is still broken and cleaned here with a few set up turns after Ho-Oh used sub to get some crucial para turns and a ton of chip spread.

:deoxys-speed: :scizor: :kyogre: :giratina-origin: :dialga: :palkia:- Replay

To end out the swiss stage, I wanted to use my first Scizor of the tour. I liked the idea of CB Pursuit assisting Kyogre and CB U-turn just being a great way to apply pressure. Deo-S is made to OHKO tenta and prevent it's shenanigans, with double choice dragons being a very strong core here. Giratina-O and Kyogre also are offensive but acted as pivots for the team. In the end this game was pretty much just as close as my first one to start it but I ended on the winning side, with a 5% Dialga to spare and push myself into the final qualifying stage. I'd have to win a no johns bracket to advance, so I just kept building and continued on.

Single Elimination Qualifier Round 1 Vs. Eo (2-2):

:deoxys-attack: :kingdra: :kyogre: :latias: :jirachi: :shaymin-sky: - Replay

Hadn't used full rain up to this point so I wanted to go for it, building around Kingdra Kyogre Deo-A lead. Potent offensive core backed by Latias and Jirachi, with Skymin in the back for Speed control out of Rain. Skymin and Latias were clutch last mons, pressuring down a Clefable and Skarmory to win here with the rain core breaking early on. I really liked this team, felt most things were covered and it felt great to play. Rain doesn't typically have that many variations but I went with a no Dialga no Gira-O version here and really liked it.

:deoxys-speed: :salamence: :rayquaza: :bronzong: :palkia: :wobbuffet: - Replay

Not sure if it was the team or the match up or both, but man I got smashed this game. Not much to say, tspikes + sub dialga went in and I couldn't do much. Cress against double dragon just for good measure, so I really had nothing here. Chilan ray was cool because I was just hoping it would load an mu where it could only be chipped into something's espeed range to be picked off only for it to just keep fighting, but it didn't work out this time, maybe another game.

:kyogre: :ho-oh: :darkrai: :dialga: :manaphy: :giratina-origin: (again) - Replay

To try and combat a bulky eo team I went back on a team I've already used for the first time this tour, returning the the Ho-Oh Kyogre one. I think I had a good match up but just played it really really poorly. Manaphy looked incredible as did Ho-Oh, but getting too into my own head I predicted a Skarm to pivot out on Gira-O clicking Thunder which ultimately lost the game since everything was too chipped. I still really like this team style, probably would be better as the original like I said with Ho-Oh lead Kyogre in the back but that happens, and so ended my run.

Like I said to start this was such a fun tour, huge thanks to BKC for hosting and Tomahawk for setting up this thread. I probably won't play DPP in any big ubers team tours since other gens are still where I'm best, but I'll definitely try and partake in dpppl 2 if that happens and any other tours where this is a format, since I really enjoyed building and playing.
 
hey this is AM! I forgot my Smogon pass lol
Screenshot 2021-11-28 at 17.32.09.png

Ubers dual weather offense with TR Zong

i'd probably put CM on Lugia and consider Lum or Expert Belt on Ttar. idea is to to have a fluid team that can switch with a few different win plans that support eachother, ie. ts + Lugia/Sub Garchomp, or early Trick Rooms to Ttar on Thunders/Fire moves to shuffle. not having a Tina-O is surprisingly not that detrimental as people seem to expect it & rarely bother to spin, but the Fblast Ttar does a good job of dealing with skarm and I usually try to preserve tenta too ( )

Ubers TS rain
Screenshot 2021-11-28 at 17.32.17.png

Nothing new here, Latios shuffles whilst Kyogre is set up for a late game sweep. Would consider trick Jirachi here

Screenshot 2021-11-28 at 17.40.27.png

Sand offense

One of my favourite teams from the tournament. Basic spike shuffle set up, played with an aggressive Latias & early game Kyogre to disable water switch ins for Kabutops. I would probably change the Tina-O set and increase speed, pack Thunder too

Sun offense

Screenshot 2021-11-28 at 17.32.56.png

I hate EVing things. Ended up playing around with Ho-Oh's EVs a lot, my favourite set is still max speed Jolly, and usually max attack or some spread between that and HP. Ho-Oh shuffles the team well and Lati strikes when a rain set comes in. Need to be cautious of rain teams with this! The original team featured Thunder Wave Groudon, but I found I'd leave him in too often

Lazarus - DPP Ubers Sun bulky offense

Screenshot 2021-11-28 at 17.48.12.png


My favourite team of the tournament. I used this too much, and sadly not enough too. It's pretty bog standard but I love how effective Ho Oh is on this build, it can play fast and slow games equally well. Also featured a T-Wave Groudon to support forret set ups. Jibaku and I worked on a few sun stalls, the most famous was posted.. was kind of bummed I couldn't bring my Deo-S sun stall from back then, which was nearly identical. Although I'm unsure how it would have faired against all of the Kabutops teams, it's certainly still one of the strongest builds for the tournament despite people anticipating Ho-Oh more now, compared to when I played.

Speaking of the past it has been a really, really long time since I played, and it has been lovely to hang around in what has become an even friendlier community full of great sportsmen. I'd like to thank BKC for organising something we'd always dream about as kids in this big ca$h mon£y tour. It certainly brought back a lot of players from the grave, which speaks to how many possibilities there are to expand the reach and appeal of Pokémon tournaments. A big thanks to Garay Oak, M Dragon and Jirachee too for patiently indulging me in an obscene amount of spammy test games.

Alas, 13 years is far too short a time to play among such excellent and admirable battlers. don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. I, uh, have things to do.. I regret to announce — this is The End. I am going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell
 
Following ace, I thought I'd also post in here following my elimination. Thanks to kev for inviting me and all my opponents for the games! Happy to make this far against the heavy ubers competition. Special shoutout goes to eden for testing a lot of ideas until our eye bleed, and whoever was in ROA rooms for testing against that random guy named addedreverb :). Also shout out to zf for helping finalize my plans in the later rounds

In DPP Ubers, playing and building felt almost always on the rails. Coming from OU, where you can always slow down the pace of the game w phys def rachi, clef, lati kinda stuff even against HO, the average match feels like you're always one crit, one dm miss, one freeze away from a loss, even when you're using defensive teams. At the same time, so is your opponent, which makes the tier fun to play. My teams all kind of follow a similar formula -- make sure you can at least switch into kyogre's water spout and Draco spam at least once, speed control at least faster than mewtwo, and then a way to not lose to lucario. Nothing too crazy is in my teams, and some of my earlier teams have critical flaws as I was relearning the tier (looking at you latios + spikes). I have some dpp ubers building hot takes (I had v little success where my only answer to latios was spdef dialga) I'll sprinkle in throughout this write up! Onto the games:

vs 64

I posted a lot of thoughts on Kev's video, but I knew 64 was an excellent player and I'd have my hands full. I took advantage of my relative lack of recent replays available for me and crafted some very different teams than what I used in dpppl.

t1: https://pokepast.es/cacef1c9a9729bc0

Made this team when the ladder was dpp ubers. Idea here is to spam twave against the latis/lugia and win w double grounds. I've seen some cool gravity takes on this style of team, but I hadn't thought of that when I built this. This style of team is when i really didnt understand how amazing bronzong was as a dragon resist. I used this style of team a lot in future rounds, I just changed up the slots. It worked pretty well against 64's general slower style of teams he was using at the time and can always apply pressure against offense.

t2: https://pokepast.es/7cbb9709a25a3415

After the first loss against 64, wanted to pick up the pace w another team I built during the laddering period: wobb ray. This team worked fantastic on the ladder and was extremely similar to the team strap used against me in dpppl, just w deo-a over lucario. deo-a gives you a lot of cool utility and of course is a monster w wobb. I later on perfected this team against donkey, but this was a first draft that worked pretty well. Chople Wow Darkrai is really cool, I've seen twave, but wow is really nice to cripple normal darkrai switch ins like jirachi, sciz, bronzong, groudon. Run some bulk on it! You only need about 40 evs to guaruntee the 2hko on latios/2hko on latias w sr. This was my first dpp ubers tour win, so I was happy w this one

t3: https://pokepast.es/bdff968c05c8f5a6

This team is heavily flawed, but this was my first attempt to build w the tspikes ho-oh concept kev showed in his ho-oh video. I took his team and tried to fix the speed control/water switch ins w scarf palk and band sciz. I think sciz is pretty flawed mon in ubers w all the spikes and not having enough bulk to tank dracos, esp w band. It kinda wants to do too much w too low of bulk (look at my game2 against donkey to see why sciz + scarf rachi doesnt really work as anti dragon). I also think you need to ev your tentas so they either have a sash or live ho-oh, bc ho-oh is really annoying to this team and is becoming more common. This was an unfortunate game, as ho-oh 6-0ed, but thats the game we play and 64 played it well.

vs Staxi

I knew staxi was probably gonna use some offense, so the teams I used were all pretty good there. This also is a set where I got relatively lucky, but my teambuilding was still flawed. I started cleaning that up during r4 when I played donkey.

t1: https://pokepast.es/b2f7fa66ad496f2a

This is the the style of team I shamelessly stole from 64 and his g1 team against me. I used this style a ton throughout the tour, cause Ho-oh is amazing and so is the combination of RP Groudon and CM Recover M2. This first draft is actually kinda bad (see the team eden used against aug in dpp ubers semis or my team against byron g2 to see the final draft) The idea here is that ho-oh weakens kyogre so that you can clean up w your m2 or groudon. Please please please run max speed on your latis, don't use that spread. Being able to at least tie w other latis is huge. I think this style of team is the best way to use ho-oh almost as an anti lead -- I think those sun stalls w it are a) too weak to opposing ho-oh and b) really weak to ogre + pursuiter or twave ogre. Shout out byron w his cool ways to build w it though. The game in particular I got lucky w the crit on bliss -- I calced the wrong spread w cm lati (i calced the ou bold rather than the ubers calm one) so I thought I'd kill it. I was wrong, but I think I still could have won this game w/o it.

t2: https://pokepast.es/7f4adad143c81644

Oh man this team. I tried to build a deo-s rain w a cool tr zong + tr dialga w the normal stuff above. Shout out lasen for giving me this idea in dpppl. This is like a 1000 - 1 mu here, I really can't handle sun stall at all w this team, good team choice from staxi here to stall me. I swung for the fences on almost every read I could. Although, i built w zong for first time, so I guess that's positive? I think to rehab this team, you really should try a pursuit mon so you can at least try to break cresselia. You could def rehab the byron team he used against me g1 to include tr by subbing out the rachi for a zong and maybe try to move ogre up to lead and run a band tar or swap out palkia for the tar and give zong occa? could work, but as is, the team is fundamentally flawed.

t3: https://pokepast.es/cec03239f2cdb5c3

My first attempt to try out the kev suggestion of leading w specs ogre -- weaken the dialga so that manaphy can clean. Also, really should be using a zong here, or at least make dialga scarf rocks so rachi has recovery for lati + spikes. But the idea of manaphy + Haban sd chomp + specs ogre I think is a really cool one. I think you can experiment w manaphy more w like cm + knock off to cripple the latis, energy ball, other things. Team also might be a little dd ray weak, but thats the nature of the threat w scarf dialga. V similar to my g1 team against 64. Also the intro to refresh lati so I'm not so weak to twave groudon or kyogre. I'm happy I managed to win this one, v close game and if kingdra crits mana I lose.


vs Eo

Eo is a great old school player, been running a lot of cool innovation. I wanted to try and build around CB Ray as I thought it could bust through the balances he was using and its a really cool mon. Other than that, the teams I used are just small alterations of what I used before. I also lost in callous invite around this time, so I started experimenting w running v similar teams or gasp reusing old stuff when I thought it could work. Luckily worked out here

t1: https://pokepast.es/4069c1b46181a851

My first round of building w skarm as the dragon switch in as well as bulk up dialga and cb ray. This was the infamous counter + focus sash clef game haha. I also now think most tar leads should be sash w all the anti offense leads running around. The idea here is basically to spread out hazards and have all your normal offense w gira-o spikes stuff. The Thunder BU protect set is a cool one I got from zayele's spread dump -- combine dialga's normal defensive utility w the sweeping you get from bu + protect. It almost worked! Also helps palkia not be the only switch in to kyogre. CB ray also helps revenge stuff (it does soooo much damage and sneak + espeed really helps against the latis) and generally wallbreak, as w thunder, you don't have the luxury of resttalk or sub tect dialga

t2: https://pokepast.es/b5991e2d24289429

Another version of the lead ho-oh team I stole from 64, this is when I started to realize how good hwish + ho-oh is. CB makes an appearance as a way to generally smack things around. The idea is the same, but now w a little bit different of a core w double dance, cm boom mewtwo, and cm refresh lati. I got lucky this game to win w a nice crit on kyogre from ho-oh.

t3: https://pokepast.es/f6f4d1f402dfac5e

Basically the team I ran g1 against 64, I just slapped cb ray over the garchomp and invested in the great mon that is wacan kyogre. Great way to just bust through a lot of offense when you can water spout on dialga and then eat the thunders really easily -- I used this mon a ton in playoffs and in my set w donkey. It's really cool to see the diversification of items beyond the lum on kyogre lead -- from the claw we saw in eo on all three games this set, specs, wacan, hell scarf. This was an ugly set, but glad I could pull it out and win.

vs donkey

I knew donkey to be a really good dpp ubers player. I knew in order to win and make playoffs, was realllly gonna have to kick it up a notch to beat him. I also saw he liked to repeat teams a lot and generally used a lot of weird breakers like specs palkia and band tar. Figured my anti donkey technology needed to include anti scizor stuff as well as lo ray, as it just looked monstrous here.

t1: https://pokepast.es/f1b3e2c71ebfc5cc

The second to last form of my wobb ray team that I first got the idea from strap and then zf. I think darkrai could prob even be bulkier, like the one m drag used. Thought donkey had a relative dearth of faster scarfers and i could take advantage of his team choices. I fucked this game up though. I stand by voiding t1, as darkrai is not essential to my long term plan while dialga is and I lose t1 if i switch it into specs spout, which was becoming more common at the time. The crit on the dialga sucked, but i really should have just encored the zong and used it as set up opportunity, as ray rips apart his team otherwise.

t2: https://pokepast.es/24821579feec7f60

This was another attempt to build deo-s std rain w some cool choices. Latios w roar isnt unheard of, but it already has so few answers in rain, so being able to see what your opp will switch in and take hazard damage while also being a good emergency phazer and water answer is very nice. It also plays on donkey's relatively weak dragon answers and w gira-o and hazards, nails scizor. I got lucky this game w the t3 edge miss and the draco crit, but his team is pretty weak to latios spikes in general and especially endsalac garchomp w just a bit of chip. End Salac is nice speed control here, as more aggressive team/w/o sand can get away w just the final endeavor rather than subbing down. The opp has no idea its not scarf anyway, so rays mostly like will switch or espeed unless they are desperate. You can play the gambit w the latis too if youre feeling risky.

t3: https://pokepast.es/c4bab014e4e72f15

Another fun idea I took from a replay, this team's goal is to be a more aggressive sun stall, w aggressive choices like spikes deo-a and specs dialga and latios alongside spdef groudon and heatran and lugia. This team tries to get around using a scarfer w lugia and groudon handling ray, luke, and garchomp. Darkrai is a threat, but it will typically either get its sleep t1 if its scarfed, or try to sleep dialga and switch out thinking it is scarfed. This game was wild, def coulda gone either way despite neither or us being able to hit a move in the end. Was very happy to win this one and make it into play offs.

vs Strap
I figured I'd be the 15th seed w my record and have the fortunate of matching up w strap. A fantastic player with a distinct style, I knew it was going to be a difficult match up. From their replays, saw that the teams they used were very aggressive, typically weather sweepers or other more volatile forms of speed control and lots of strong sweepers. RP Groudon seemed like a great choice, as did LO Ray. I prepped a lot for this mu in particular. Overall, despite how it ended, prob one of the closest sets I have ever played, came down to a speed tie (assuming darkrai hits the void to give me better odds to hit one blast to win the game).

t1: https://pokepast.es/ec01a594cf3e58a1

This team is almost literally the same team as 64 used against me r1, I just subbed out the ho-oh for a sash tar, a mon I felt matched up quite well in the meta as well as against his common lead (he used a ton of deo-a and if I can weaken kyogre, I'll be very happy w this team). Double rocks is here bc sash tar sometimes just wants to keep the pressure on and attack rather than set up rocks and dialga can fit it just fine. The same old cm M2 + RP groudon returns as an excellent offensive core once ogre is down, and ray gives me weather control and a nice way to bust down defensive cores. Spdef dialga and scarf rachi round out the team for dragon + water coverage. About the game: the edge missed sucked hard, as it forced me to take some weird lines throughout, like rock polishing so early so I don't let ho-oh back in for free and lose another mon and then roaring the latios and garchomp out continuously so I don't let the potentially haban chomp set up on me. I got pretty fortunate w the cb roll that I did not activate the sash, as I think that gave me a chance to get rocks and weaken ho-oh rather than potentially go to something faster.

t2: https://pokepast.es/ce4a6cb08b69b7f6

Another fun team, this team is an edit on my g2 team against donkey, I moved my spiker to qwilfish in the back to give me a more aggressive team overall and swapped out the gira-o w an lo ray. I feel w the garchomp, I can still handle lucario (the source of me losing when we played for dpppl) and I can keep enough offensive pressure to not let it set up. This game was a crazy back and forth -- wacan ogre does its thing and get 1.5 kills but gives up hazards, I miss the hypno on the gira-o, but I get it on zong so I can potentially weaken it for a chomp sweep, strap plays perfectly around my qwilfish, the crazy ray fake out that potentially cost me the game. I thought about this endgame a while afterwards -- the only thing I'd really change is sacking kyogre on the sd rather than let ray take another round of lo damage. I don't have max speed, so I thought maybe he'd be mixed and faster than me or was dd and would set up. The crit on sneak sucked, as it gave strap the information needed to safely go w surf in the endgame and I wasn't sure outrage would kill the gira-o w/o a boosting item. Fun game and cool team from strap

t3: https://pokepast.es/0e2420a0d3ac4be8

Another crazy game, I thought since my g2 team was so close to pulling it out, I'd basically use it again, just shuffling around the mons and sets. Zong and Ogre return, but this time its darkrai + lati + RP Groudon as the sweepers. Ogre + Groudon + Darkrai is great for taking advantage of latias, at least weakening it to be in range of no lo groudon dclaw. I made the game losing mistake of leaving my lati in and dpulsing on the roaring dialga. Huge mistake on a misread roar that cost me the set. I also thought about this endgame for a long time -- I think I needed to keep my dialga more healthy once the lati was gone, as it can live the ice shard and sneak combo. I think the dpulse to kill ogre was a speed tie, and if i keep it healthy, it cleans once the sun is set, so keeping zong alive and letting ogre get dialga low could be a choke considering strap reused this team (didn't know this at the time). Despite that, still came down to the darkrai vs weavile speed tie, v cool set

vs ace

I knew ace was great to make it this far, remember seeing his stuff as a top player back in the day. My anti-ace tech was to use tspikes and a ton of ho-oh. Ho-oh looked really painful for his teams from above, he also liked to reuse a lot.

t1: https://pokepast.es/542dcc6563093315

This is the final form of the wobb-ray team I used against donkey. I got the idea to suicide lead ho-oh from conflict, who used a custap ho-oh lead, a really cool innovation. In tests, I never really used the custap, so I swapped it over to passho to weaken kyogre and I'm really glad I did, single handedly won me the early game. The rest of the team is pretty standard sun wobb ray. Ho-oh did what it was supposed to do and I was able to clean w groudon w some fortunate breaks early in the game on zong.

t2: https://pokepast.es/5cd292d36c79b793

Another fun team, I got this idea from 64's replay when he beat ace earlier (stealing a lot of his ideas). I changed up the mon choices (basically made kyogre and m2 more aggressive w specs and cm respectively). The tenta spread tries to live everything w/o the sash, as payapa and the def evs live deo-a psycho boost and non cb ho-oh eq respectively so you don't quite feel like a suicide lead. Rest of the team is pretty standard tspikes rain offense w scarf rachi, spdef dialga, and gira-o. This endgame was tight as hell to win here, as I really need to maneuver around the lugia and get that quick para to win the game. Really cool game and glad I could be the last to play you, ace. I loved ace's team, and it was one of the main influences to the team I ultimately used against byron g1.

t3: bonus team (the team I used g3 against byron) https://pokepast.es/ad5434aa5e540fb5

This team. It's basically v similar to the types of team byron has used throughout the tour and the team I used against donkey g3, but the specs dialga lead was an idea i got from aiko in their set against sw. It had performed very well, and I thought I could stall ace pretty well. I'm not a big fan of forre + tran on defensive teams, feels too risky against offensive pressure. I didn't overly need the spin, so I thought I'd replace it w skarmory. The team also is basically latias > latios, skarm > deo-a and dialga in the lead

vs byron

Byron told me he needed to play early, so I obliged and got ready to play byron on the next day. From his replays, I knew he liked to stall a lot and reused teams a lot (I made some hard reads in g1/g2 bc I knew his teams t1). He also was a main source of inspiration throughout the tour for me teambuilding wise, so I knew I had to be good to win here

t1: https://pokepast.es/70f7a116cc0e2b69

I kinda expected him to stall me g1, but he brought the offense. This team was very inspired by ace's g2 team against me and the manaphy team I used earlier, just w building around the sub salac garchomp this time. Kyogre + Pursuiter is almost impossible to counter w stall and the rest of the team covers the holes you get from that strategy. This was a crazy game, w all kinds of hax and strong maneuvering throughout from byron. I can't really switch into the lustrous palkia at all, and he can't really take on my dialga very well. I think I have it should I not get crit w eq by the tina-o, but garay made a good pt that I had a very slim chance to pull it out if use the hazards to get into salac range, have a very small chance to live the sneak, and then crit the outrage on jirachi. Well played to byron

t2: https://pokepast.es/1686dce8c28a77b8

This is the final form of the double hwish + cb ho-oh sun offense I described earlier. I thought Ho-oh would be an excellent choice into those sun stalls byron loves and this team really tries to get the most out of it w hwish on both rachi and latias. I really took advantage of knowing his team by hard switching out on the tar t1 and then just using ho-oh to get as much damage as possible. I teched taunt > recover to try to handle his stalls, but i got bailed out by the crit aura sphere after I set up one too many cms. Overall an ugly game, but glad I could tie up the series.

t3: https://pokepast.es/ad5434aa5e540fb5

The sun stall from earlier. I think this team is flawed, as I really struggled w the hwish ogre + pursuit (I think if I didn't get frozen, byron would have doubled to the tar and removed my latias). I thought his ogre was surf when it actually was pump, which ruined my specs dialga and really ended the game. I tried to comeback, but just couldnt make it happen. ggs to byron and good luck in the rest!

Thanks for getting all the way through this! Hope it was insightful!
 
Last edited:

Jirachee

phoenix reborn
is a Forum Moderatoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Groudon @ Leftovers
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 136 SpD / 120 Spe
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Roar
- Protect
Bro that Groudon set is from 20021 LOL you gotta give us some context, you can't just drop that weapon in here and expect us to accept it the way it is

Venomoth @ Focus Sash
Ability: Shield Dust
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Sleep Powder
- Toxic Spikes
- Sleep Talk
Would love to know about him too, he seems like a solid lead but what made you use him over Tentacruel or another more standard lead?

Love those teams, they make me VERY curious and I'd like to have your thoughts on them!
 

Jirachee

phoenix reborn
is a Forum Moderatoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Well, I'm out of the tournament! Disappointed to be eliminated this late but this was a fun experience. Here are my teams, and my VR, alongside a few thoughts and comments.

Here are all the teams I used in the tournament:


Requiem
Record: 1 W (reyscarface)
This is the first team I used in the tournament. Coming back from a long absence from the game itself and an even longer leave from DPP Ubers, I wanted to use some of the guys I was comfortable with. SD Chomp, Kyogre, and LO NP Darkrai were those dudes. I had the idea to lead with DD Rayquaza because not one person would Taunt it with Deoxys-S so you have a pretty good chance of accumulating dances in exchange for hazards which I think is a win. It's an even better deal if you face Scarf or Colbur Deoxys-S who will only ever get Spikes. Bronzong and Dialga round out the team rather nicely by providing Steel typing and a bunch of defensive utility.

Of course, the first time I tested this out against Jester, his first move was to use Trick with Deoxys-S turn 1 as I used DD. :P


High alert
Record: 2 W (reyscarface, Lauriane)
Following the same principle as the first team, I was just getting back into Pokemon so I wanted to use my dudes. Had the idea to pair them with a CB Rayquaza which hits like an atom bomb. I used this team twice and both time Rayquaza ended up being an instrumental factor in my victory. The HP investment on Jirachi also proved to be a game changer as it had to tank Outrage from reyscarface's Garchomp and did it like a champ. While it does open me up to DD Rayquaza, I thought the risk was mitigated by the low probability it could find an opportunity to set up on my team.


Grand opening
Record: 1 W (Manaphy)
Feeling a little more confident, I wanted to explore new types of Pokemon, which is why I decided to try Deoxys-D out. I found that it always did its job but made teambuilding difficult. Having Rayquaza as a lead solved some of the issues because it made it very likely that you'd at least kill the opponent's lead early on so you wouldn't be at a mon count disadvantage. Rest of the team is pretty much what you'd expect from me, all of #myguys with the added bonus of Heal Block Latios which helps corner stall a little bit.


Charybdis
Record: 1 W (Manaphy)
This one keeps the almighty bulldozing power which I love and pairs it with the threat of Toxic Spikes. I find that they go pretty well with Kingdra since it very much appreciates wearing down Groudon so it can't infinitely reset the weather. Offensive lard with Protect also makes a lot of sense here because some people get funny ideas about Scarf Palkia checking lard and that's just not happening with Protect. CB Garchomp and SD Lucario can put pressure on Dialga and Giratina which are big threats to TSpikes Rain IMO. Lastly Protect Roar Dialga is simply there to provide much needed longevity and try to handle the very many ultra-powerful Special threats. Worked out nicely against Manaphy with his rain stall that couldn't touch it and had a hard time wearing it down too.


Groovy group
Record: 2 W (Lauriane, M Dragon)
I prepared this team all the way back in week 1 for reyscarface, also had it ready week 2 against Manaphy, but won in 2 both times so I decided I'd lead off with it against Lauriane. Deoxys-A (or S) and SR Jirachi have excellent synergy, as you can attack Tyranitar turn 1 and then send Jirachi to chase it out and deny its rocks while you get your own up. As you can notice from the important the SD Rayquaza lacks a move to hit Jirachi with, which I corrected the second time I used it. Another cool trait of this team is that everything is immune to Toxic Spikes so you don't need to worry about Tentacruel at all, and to a lesser extent Forretress although the Spikes themselves can prove to be annoying.


Sweet & sour
Record: 1 L (Lauriane)
Lost my first game in the tournament with this one. It's almost a mirror image of Grand Opening but with Ho-Oh over Rayquaza, following a similar principle. Sitrus Berry Ho-Oh is pretty sweet alongside Healing Wish; it makes it easier that you stay at the critical 50%+1 HP level so you can live SR and get back to full. Not much else to say about this team, I think a different Kyogre set might make it better.


The Hustle
Record: 1 L (byronthewellwell)
Decided to load up on experiments with this one. Lead Jirachi is pretty dangerous if it gets the right matchup; you can either threat to 2HKO Tyranitar without it having the chance to get SR up, or paralyze a Darkrai which will make your own and Latios much more threatening. There are a few matchups where the best move is simply to SR and die, like against Ho-Oh for example. To make this a little easier to play around, you can employ dangerous wallbreakers like Specs Kyogre that will take advantage of that. Scarf Latios is another gem which I think is underutilized. It might seem silly to pass up on the opportunity to use Soul Dew, but with a Scarf you're going to get so many late game cleans. Revenging RP Groudon is another important thing it can do which not many things can.

Double SR because it's important to keep them up against Forry teams and Jirachi isn't sticking around for a long time.


Corrosion
Record: 1 L (byronthewellwell)
This team takes advantage of the chemistry between Tentacruel and Specs Kyogre. Kyogre really appreciates minimal hazards so it can fire off strong Water Spouts. Rest of the team is typical Rain/TSpikes mons, with U-Turn Jirachi helping get Kyogre in unscathed. Not a big fan of Giratina-O but it seemed like a natural fit on this team.


All Drag No Mag
Record: 1 L (M Dragon)
I had originally built this to face byron but he slapped me in 2 so I had to delay using it until the next round. Unfortunately it did not win against M Dragon. The goal is fairly self-explanatory; you want to slap Steels so hard they fold before late game and Garchomp becomes an unstoppable threat. Latios and Rayquaza do the bulldozing while Dialga takes advantage of the more stubborn ones. The Deoxys-S + Jirachi duo works wonders here; you can pretty much guarantee you're getting both hazards up while also keeping the upside of getting both of them up with your lead. If someone gets any funny ideas about spinning you can still get the Rock up.


The Dragonest
Record: 2 W (M Dragon, The Strap)
This is my favorite team of the tournament! So much bulldozing power. Lead MixQuaza can catch people who think you're a sitting duck after the DM drop off guard. CB Garchomp, Specs Dialga, and Latios offer so much power and win a lot of 1v1s, forcing the opponent into a bad situation. Bronzong and Scarf Ice Beam Darkrai and honorary dragons; offering much needed defensive synergy and a solid cleaner. Overall the team is very simple but so damn effective.


Trident
Record: 1 L (The Strap)
Realizing I had not used much of anything except for all out offense, I opted for a more balanced team to keep my opponents honest. Forretress is a very capable and dangerous Pokemon in this current environment so I wanted to put forward its best traits. Being able to game the weather a little bit makes it a lot better IMO; you can either live HP Fire in rain or face 50% accurate Thunder. RP Groudon is something I had meant to use for a long time given that it cleans a bunch of my teams! But I thought it'd fit better on a setting like this one where chip damage can be patiently dealt out.


Everlasting
Record: 1 W (The Strap) 1 L (Pohjis)
Following on the same Deoxys-S + Jirachi strategy I used before. This team utilises Sub NP Darkrai with Lucario as a partner which takes advantage of a bunch of the things Darkrai hates (Dialga, Blissey, most Steels.) Latios with early hazards is as ridiculous as ever. Scarf Dialga completes the team by handling some of the most threatening things an offense can face, like SD Rayquaza. The Toxic Spikes immunity is also huge! The match against Skysolo where I used this team was one of the most exciting I played in this tournament. It's unfortunate my final loss was with this team, because I think it's quite good.


Black & White
Record: 1 W (Pohjis)
Another team with a rather balanced approach. Skarmory is a fantastic Pokemon that I wish I had used more; there are many teams that simply can't touch it at all. While I'm not a big fan of Giratina-O, I think it fits in rather nicely here; blocking Rapid Spin and spreading Wisp to make physicals easier to handle. The priority also offers a lot of flexibility. Scarf Garchomp is an incredible threat with a bunch of Roarers to spread chip damage IMO.


Healing wishers
Record: 1 L (Pohjis)
While building the other team, I noticed that while Tyranitar loses pretty convincingly to the very common Kyogre lead, you reset its weather making it easier to switch into. That made me think that an offensive SR Dialga could be used in conjunction with it to get some early offense going. Draco Meteor + Outrage backed by LO makes it so much harder to play around. Rayquaza and Groudon are just first class offensive dudes that will do something every game. Latias and Jirachi can both Healing Wish to Groudon (or even Dialga!) giving you extreme flexibility.

S rank
1.
Latios
2.
Dialga

If you've paid attention to my teams, it's probably no surprise to see these two at the top of my VR. I think Latios is the best Pokemon in the tier, honestly. The list of things that can handle it is extremely small. It's also super resilient to chip damage, and fast as hell. Dialga is super versatile and has the best typing in the game, most teams get better by adding it.

A+ rank
3.
Deoxys (Speed)
4.
Kyogre
5.
Rayquaza

I hesitated to rank Rayquaza maybe a bit higher. It's so damn unstoppable, always gets a KO. It's pretty hard to switch around though because of its reliance on LO and SR weakness. SD ESpeed really is the main selling point. Deoxys-S defines the lead metagame, and by extent the early game so I couldn't rank it any lower. Kyogre's best sets are not at their best right now IMO, if they were it'd be my #1 mon I think.

A rank
6.
Groudon
7.
Darkrai

Great mons, but slightly flawed so you can't have them alongside the guys above. SpDef Groudon is a ridiculous Pokemon that always does its job and I think that has insane value.

A- rank
8.
Jirachi
9.
Forretress
10.
Bronzong

The best Steels (that resist Dragon.) Scarf Jirachi is a swiss army knife that can get you out of bad situations. Forretress is at its best right now, with HP Fire Giratina being almost never used. You can get as many hazards as you want, the spin is not important at all unless you're on a very specific team. Bronzong meanwhile is nearly immune to chip damage and Explosion means it's hard to take advantage of it, provided you're gutsy enough.

B+ rank
11.
Ho-Oh
12.
Tyranitar
13.
Giratina (Origin)

Ho-Oh and Tyranitar also define the lead metagame, but they're not as good as Deoxys-S so I can't place them much higher than B+. Giratina is a very overrated Pokemon in my opinion; it doesn't provide many special traits other than spinblocking. If you don't carry HP Fire, Forretress will be more than happy to get all of its hazards against you so it's kind of pointless either way.

B rank

14.
Garchomp
15.
Latias
16.
Tentacruel
17.
Skarmory

Garchomp, Tentacruel, and Skarmory are very reliable Pokemon but can be taken advantage of by a smart player or a good team. Latias would be placed a lot higher if Latios didn't exist obviously, but the very dangerous CM sets alone justify the high ranking IMO.

B- rank
18.
Mewtwo
19.
Lucario
20.
Deoxys (Attack)
21.
Lugia
22.
Blissey

A hodge podge of super threatening dudes that any good player need to be ready for. Taunt Wisp makes Mewtwo that good, I think the offensive sets are horrible. Lucario is a unique dude that offers a lot of desirable traits for an offense. Deo-A is often an afterthought in the lead metagame but if you're not ready for it you could find yourself in a bad spot (ie SR Tyranitar.) Lugia's CM sets are extremely dangerous. Blissey obviously threatens to wall special offense which is not fun at all.

C+ rank
23.
Heatran
24.
Kingdra
25.
Wobbuffet
26.
Cresselia

Great pokes but very team specific. Not much else to say about these guys, they're good but you can't use them willy nilly.

C rank
27.
Palkia
28.
Giratina

I don't get the hype for either of these guys. It looks to me like Giratina's CM sets are outclassed by Dialga... Big D is immune to TSpikes and neutral to Dragon moves which are both gigantic. I kept Giratina in this tier for the utility on Stall teams alone, otherwise it'd be sitting in E tier or something. Palkia... I don't like it at all. Scarf is massively flawed, it's like trying to put a band aid on an open fracture. The other sets trade in a best case scenario and don't offer much else over an actual metagame threat like Latios. Maybe someone could change my mind about it but I haven't seen anything in this tour to prove the contrary.

C- rank

29.
Scizor
30.
Deoxys (Defense)

Scizor's a cool mon that would be a lot better with 20 more base SpDef. Deoxys-D is my creature so I rate it higher than most :3

D+ rank

31.
Clefable
32.
Shaymin (Sky)
33.
Manaphy

Cool mons to explore, they'll be the star of the game once in a while but there isn't much there to justify a higher rank.

D rank

34.
Kabutops
35.
Dugtrio

Not sure I'd ever use Tops over Kingdra, but it is pretty threatening regardless. Dugtrio is a dumb pokemon but it's better than Magnezone at least

D- rank
36.
Quagsire
37.
Ludicolo
38.
Infernape
39.
Magnezone
40.
Qwilfish

Team specific mons that struggle a lot more than the C+ guys. Infernape might justify itself a higher rank though.

E+ rank
41.
Weavile
42.
Hariyama
43.
Mew
44.
Abomasnow
45.
Steelix

This is the limit of usability I think. Steelix is the last truly viable dude in the tier. It's starting to be hard to justify using any of these guys on a serious team.

E rank
46.
Hippowdon
47.
Cloyster
48.
Froslass
49.
Deoxys
50.
Salamence
51.
Venomoth

Cloyster and Froslass are interesting... but not good. Don't use Salamence please, keep it for OU, where it is viable.

E- rank
52.
Metagross
53.
Gliscor
54.
Heracross
55.
Shiftry

Starting to run out of things to say. Do not use

F rank
56.
Ariados
57.
Primeape
58.
Wynaut
59.
Parasect

Truly unviables that were explored in the past.


:toast:
 
Time for me to write my post. I am a bit disappointed at going out with two straight losses after being one game away from winner's finals, but is what it is - and still happy with my run overall. Also don't mind at all losing to Garay oak and Pohjis as two players who have really impressed me this tournament with how creative and effective their teams have been, especially from two players not too experienced with DPP building (afaik?). I have to give huge shoutouts to Lauriane and Zayele, they helped me out with testings / feedback TONS during the entire tour, thanks again! Also thanks to BKC of course, for putting in the effort to set everything up and invite me to play.

Alright, so I built a new team for every game for every round this tournament (which in hindsight I probably will not do again), so I've got a ton of teams to go over. That's why I will kind of divide them into groups, obviously I didn't really start from scratch for every single team cause that's undoable, but they are often with similar cores or structures, and talking about each team individually will be waaaay too long (cause it's gonna be like 30 teams). I thought my teambuilding went pretty well, although at the latter weeks I definitely got in a bit of a rut with it; all the ideas I had just didn't really work out and I had to build two teams within the last hour before the game, maybe giving me some exploitable tendencies - which is apparently Lugia! Oh and I will exclude the teams for last round of Swiss, cause those games didn't really matter and those teams were more for fun - also I didn't include imports yet, might edit them in later but most of the sets aren't out of the ordinary unless I mentioned them so should be easy to recreate (check out Zayele & Lauriane's set dump here).

Sun #1
vs Malekith (W)

vs xtrashine (W)

vs M Dragon (L)

vs Garay Oak (L)

First used a structure like this in last Most Wanted, where I built the team Deoxys-A / Groudon / Heatran / Latios / Lugia / Dialga, which was really fun to play with. I will be the first to admit this structure has some flaws, but it is nice to play with and generally allows you both initiative and you can switch around most stuff - also the original team just kept doing well for me and some others. There are definitely some things you will have a very hard time vs though or just lose to if you don't have the right techs, I didn't wanna use this structure every round for that reason. The last team is especially a bit mediocre, like I said I built this very last minute and I think this team would have been better off with Giratina-O, Forretress or Magnezone or something like that.

Used it in the first two weeks cause it seemed safe then; vs M Dragon I brought it with Rock Slide Rayquaza to deal with Ho-Oh (assuming it to be brought as lead if it does); vs Garay I had some ideas for Bulk Up Dialga + Calm Mind Lugia + Mag + Toxic Spikes and that's how I ended up like this, rather weak to Forre which was kinda my downfall there I think.

Specially defensive Groudon + Heatran + Lugia allows you to check a ton of things, but do not give up on offensive possibilities as some other mons. Groudon and Heatran can be really annoying to deal with for some teams and are important for chipping Kyogre vs rain teams, as Latios + Dialga are decent checks but can't deal with it forever. Lugia I don't like to bring out early as it gives setup opportunities early vs fatter teams, but it is a great win con vs offense.

Sun #2
vs byronthewellwell (L)

vs Pohjis (W)

Forretress + Ho-Oh is a more classic way of doing sun I think, I used this when based on the scout I was confident that midgame Ho-Oh would be a solid wincon, otherwise I find the urge to spin quite annoying when sequencing things or checking stuff like Gira-O and some other Dragons that you want Ho-Oh to switch in on. Tyranitar helps a lot with that on the first build, guaranteeing a spin more easily but also checking Gira-O and the Lati's.

I used dual Lati for the second team cause well, it's cool, but also because I wanted to have initiative vs Kyogre lead and I did not really expect either a Gira-O or a Lati, so it did not feel as necessary. I also half expected some Pursuit stuff but did not want to drop Latias as I feel it's close to undroppable on this structure, so Latios forces in the Tyranitar for example and Draco puts it in Grass Knot range. Scarf is of course a bit more annoying, but also a Latios being trapped still will probably chip them and make an opponent more likely to sac it with its job of trapping Lati being done. Latios is Icy Wind / Draco Meteor / Thunder / Hidden Power Fire by the way, but had some other options like Grass Knot for Tyranitar, Substitute for Thunder Wave Kyogre and being the menace that Pohjis showed in the game before, etc.

Rain #1
vs xtrashine (W)

vs M Dragon (W)

vs byronthewellwell (W)

vs Garay Oak (L)

vs Pohjis (L)

This is like the simplest structure ever, but I really started liking this. vs xtrashine I felt Froslass rain would be a good fit, and I wasn't really sure on how to approach it so I just slapped on Bronzong as a sole pivot, and filled the remaining slot with rain threats, and it worked pretty well. Latios is definitely mandatory for being busted, and then you can pick two of Kingdra, Palkia, Dialga. Kingdra got quite some hate during the tour, but it brings some very useful speed control; if not using it, consider keeping something like Scarf Darkrai. I switched out both on the team vs Garay kind of last minute, and now I had nothing to deal with Deoxys-A except my lead Deoxys-S and my overloaded Bronzong. Palkia is a bit hazard weak but a really scary threat (it not dealing amazingly with Kyogre is not that big of a deal on this team, this team is relatively fine vs Kyogre), the exact set you can tune with depending on the team, but along this tour I used: Lefties + Protect, Lustrous + Draco (Lustrous Rend + Draco 2HKOes Calm Dialga after Spikes!), Haban, etc. Finally, Dialga is really great cause you have Stealth Rock on Bronzong and it does not have too many defensive responsibilities, and a lot of teams have a hard time dealing with offensive or fat Dialga that just exists to attack and 1v1 stuff. I used Draco / Pulse / Thunder / Roar vs byron for example, also had something like Pulse / Earth Power / Thunder / Protect in other drafts, etc. A problem which can occur with build like this is breaking through really fat stuff like Blissey, Lugia; keep Focus Punch on Palkia, Waterfall on Kingdra, or even Outrage on Dialga for the former, the latter I like Toxic (or Hypnosis) on Bronzong for, but keep in mind it can be overloaded.

The last team I am not sure if it really fits in the structure, and I was considering making a separate Zone category instead, but it seems to sort of fit in here structure wise as well. Principally, it does something similar, keep Bronzong as pivot, and have three big threats + Kyogre to overwhelm, but you add Magnezone as trapper (instead of Tyranitar). So you adjust the threats a bit, Garchomp and Bulk Up Dialga here kind of abuse Magnezone a little better. Again, this team lost to Lugia after losing Bronzong though, vs Pohjis it was because of Magnet Rise Magnezone, vs Garay it was because of wearing it down with Dialga + Deo-A.

Rain #2
vs Malekith (W)

vs Garay Oak (W)

vs Pohjis (L)

vs M Dragon (W)

This is the "standard" team structure from before the tour started, just slap on Kyogre + Giratina-O + Dialga and add whatever you want and you will probably be fine. I did not use it as much this tour as I expected other people to prep for it, but I did fall back on it a bit for easy builds later on the tour when I was a bit stuck. The first team I used Lustrous Rend + Draco Palkia + Scarf Rachi, I love that Palkia set here cause it has no Kyogre responsibilities but it also messes up anything that tries to switch in: specially defensive Dialga as mentioned above and Blissey with Focus Punch. The second team I added Calm Mind Mewtwo with Thunder > Aura Sphere (and Ice Beam), as I really liked that idea to beat Kyogre and Skarmory as ordinary Calm Mind Mewtwo checks. Garchomp also appreciates a potential Skarmory KO, of course. Skarmory here instead of Deo-S lead to compensate for no Steel in the two additional threats, and to punish Bronzong switching in on Mewtwo or Garchomp. The third team I liked Spikes + Thunder Wave Ogre + Lucario, with Kingdra as kind of an inbetween of a Scarfer and Palkia. Of course, Lucario as steel is a bit iffy, as shown in the game just losing to Sub Latios.

Again, the last team feels a bit differently set up cause of Zone, but it also follows a similar structure. I have the same Mewtwo + Garchomp core, but here instead of putting Thunder on Mewtwo I just trap Skarmory straight up, but also trap Bronzong, Forretress and Jirachi. It makes Calm Mind Mewtwo honestly very scary, as a good amount of checks are Steels that I just mentioned, and obviously the same is true for Garchomp and even the two other Dragons.

HO
vs steelskitty (W)

vs byronthewellwell (W)

These teams are a little different in setup, but both are based on Rock Polish Groudon + Dragon Dance Rayquaza being pretty much the two scariest sweepers in this tier, especially when combined (kind of like Groudon + Arceus from the Farceus days). The first team approaches it by keeping up momentum the entire time and just 1v1ing and killing everything, starting with my favorite Hariyama which I think honestly is one of the best leads at grabbing momentum from turn 1. Dialga, Palkia and Mewtwo being all-out-attackers that are hard to check should continue this. The second team focuses more on a single sweep, adding Wobb for setting up the setup, Deoxys-S + Gira-O for double hazards to put everything in range, and Scarf Rachi as a failsafe.

Other
vs xtrashine (L)

vs steelskitty (W)

Couldn't properly categorize these teams with another team I used: the first is paraspam + Lucario that I reused from UPL, the standard Luke approach is Spikes + Jolly Luke, but I find paraspam + Adamant Luke works well too. Every other mon on this team can learn Thunder Wave or Body Slam, so you can tune the sets a bit depending on who you face. I usually don't like defensive Rachi structures, but I think with specially defensive Groudon, Latias and fat Kyogre it does fine. This team is missing a Scarfer, but that's what all the paralysis is for.

The second team is a Toxic Spikes team, not too out of the ordinary, but I don't really like Tentacruel so I preferred lead Kyogre + Qwilfish. This also absorbs Toxic Spikes for SubCM Giratina, and it is actually dual Spikes in case Spikes is a better matchup. SubRoost + Whirlwind Lugia really abuses both versions of Spikes, whichever is needed depending on the matchup. Dialga is standard Stealth Rock, and Jirachi is Scarf. I think there is some experimenting possible, I was trying to fit some cool Palkia sets but did not really work; Leech Seed Shaymin-Sky is also definitely a cool option instead of Lugia.
 
I had a huge draft written a few weeks ago but apparently it got deleted so I'll try to make this one short, I'd like thank BKC for hosting this tour and gathering all the players who are active/was once active in this tier to play in this huge tournament. I wasn't expecting to make it as far as I did into the tour and ultimately lacked time to make new teams due to irl commitments but regardless of that, I had a great time playing in this tour and I'll be rooting one of Pohjis Garay oak or aiko to take it home.
https://pokepast.es/91e8c6fb08f6d09e Qwilfish Rain with Spikes
https://pokepast.es/e1a6e1076731cd5b Ho-oh lum lead with Victreebel
https://pokepast.es/45e1b75f3ac7c99d Offense with Double SD users
https://pokepast.es/86b79a8fb6e644e1 Ogre Lead with Scarf Skymin
https://pokepast.es/08d88d2494563bf9 KabuRain with Weavile
https://pokepast.es/b7238893cfe6e104 Rai lead with LO Ray
https://pokepast.es/7ee06057b90a23bb Mew Lead
https://pokepast.es/32446ef5d7db2574 CB Ho-oh lead
https://pokepast.es/b34b5bcf1763cfc4 Kingdra Offense
https://pokepast.es/e42eb669a5762be8 Victreebel team but with a Scarf Dialga over it
 
posting for aiko who finished third

Swiss Round 1 vs Highlord (L) - 2014 shit

had to recreate these because i dont really think they are amazing so i deleted them :skull: but going into my series with highlord i just wanted to make stuff i liked and see how it went. mostly saw r1 as a test run for the future. tsr with the magnificent lugia that ended up appearing a couple more times which is really cool! im not fond of the game 2 or game 3 team especially and think they need to be reworked a little. i dont actually remember if i had spikes game 3 (think i had thunder), but if i did, definitely should have clicked them. fuck you highlord i won with swift swim qwilfish :madge:

https://pokepast.es/9b99e52ca297c00f
https://pokepast.es/89600cf1099ecc97
https://pokepast.es/9074d03ca6f5e411

Swiss Round 2 vs Benbe (W) - Forever

getting paired with benbe was kind of demoralizing for me as he is a friend of mine and i didnt really want one of us to be (presumably at the time) eliminated so early. however, i knew frank is a very aggressive player who tends to stack offensive threats and will try to outplay other threats rather than having sturdy checks to much of anything, so i figured stuff like kabutops and mewtwo could take advantage of some of those tendencies. game 2 team is basically a reprisal of sun stall with scarf dialga because i wanted to use it but its not really the best version (way too flimsy vs garchomp and ray for my liking).

https://pokepast.es/750220263dd1e87f
https://pokepast.es/7019299c9cc4f124
https://pokepast.es/73e09c555442c6b4

Swiss Round 3 vs Jabba (W) - Now Playing:

jabba was my next opponent, a quite avid player with plenty of experience under his belt spanning many generations. i scouted him and brought 1 of my 2(wtf??) deo-s of the tour lol. similar principles to playing vs benbe he is someone who likes to spam offense so i tried to navigate that with my teams. oh and lots of bulky dialgas so i wanted to use specs kyogre (who funnily enough ohkod an offensive dialga)

https://pokepast.es/1632d63d59c16a48
https://pokepast.es/72dc94c4454f75ef
https://pokepast.es/a1488a0184cd6d35

Swiss Round 4 vs Jackie (W) - Snowbringer Cult

another friend, but this time to determine who made top 15 and who had to endure the grueling tiebreaker to come. i knew jackie is very avant garde in her approach to almost every tier and could see something as absurd as hariyama scarf cresselia team or a really sturdy sand team which gave me a lot of pause in terms of building (which becomes a very common theme later on). I remember there wasnt much darkrai in her scout i believe? so i picked my first ho oh of the tour to start off the series which was a game i played piss poor in but i think i mostly like the team in its current iteration regardless.

https://pokepast.es/70dc9c8b12683073
https://pokepast.es/7372397b98cfe1f1
https://pokepast.es/fd55735d5fe7e702

Top 16 (R1 Playoffs) vs Soulwind (W) - 3 Houses

obviously, borja is a very difficult opponent but i always enjoy playing the best players. however, getting to the playoffs, i was simultaneously beyond excited and excruciatingly nervous, realizing that winning the tour was actually within reach. so this round i recognized several lead patterns he had, specifically a ubiquity of sash tar, deo s and kyogre which i aimed to perhaps get an advantage with specs dialga and lead dd ray, since I could immediately get advantage with Dialga vs 2 of them, while also limiting Deo S to 1 layer if not sashed. meanwhile, dd ray punishes Deo S clicking Spikes on it and can trade with either ttar or ogre, which i found advantageous given the rest of my team. at this point, i started developing an affinity towards mixed four atk dialga, which appears on many of my teams in the future. i still think hes very very good, especially vs bulkier teams.

https://pokepast.es/d07f7a8ab11da0ac
https://pokepast.es/8d839300a312a5d3

Top 8 (R2 Playoffs) vs Pohjis (W) - Reprise

coming off the high of beating one of the best players i know, i faced the prospect of playing yet another very accomplished player, pohjis. pohjis is known for using very unorthodox team structures and sets, and also for housing the archive of every magnezone set known to man. i genuinely had no clue what to use vs pohjis, and so my prep vs him was genuinely quite simple: i changed the lead on the dd ray team to something i thought had better matchups vs his usual leads and i used the team i had in mind for borja if a game 3 had occurred.

https://pokepast.es/a86118d9c0894cb3
https://pokepast.es/165d7e67268d3f07

Top 4 (R3 Playoffs) vs 64 Squares (W) - Black Dresses

squares had quite a run to get to this point, besting quite a slew of renowned players, so even if he is not quite as accomplished, i knew he was not someone i could slouch versus. in terms of prep, i had previously played around with the prospect of roserade earlier in the tournament and august ended up using it a couple times to decent effect. and since i usually have quite the paranoia of toxic spikes, i featured her on my sun team as a way to get toxic spikes for my sub ho-oh and to absorb the opponents. lead sash rai had many tangible benefits such as being able to navigate all of scarf kyogre, lum kyogre, lum ho oh, band ho oh, and deo a all in one, which gave a lot of clarity in terms of gameplan with the rest of my team (hypothetically [dumb shit darkrai missed both his moves]). game 2 team is a take on standard forre sand and i got washed because i usually dont play those kinds of teams, and game 3 i wanted to use a mid-late game deo a and ended up finding a spot for it on a cool rain team where it gives not only pursuit support vs lati twins but also the ability to ohko both with ice punch while still possessing quite the powerful psycho boost as normal.

https://pokepast.es/428f62df33072873
https://pokepast.es/ca7c92de33c7fc7a
https://pokepast.es/c75697f58ee32623

Winner's Final (R4 Playoffs) vs Garay Oak (L) - mariko goto

reaching this point meant i secured some of the prize fund, which brought me a lot of relief. i had gotten to at least the podium. but now i faced my arguably toughest opponent, garay. garay up to this point dropped a total of 3(?) games across the span of 7 series, which is an insane stat. not only that, but garay and i had prepared quite extensively together in almost every round, bouncing ideas off each other and playing games, which brought a sense of dread but cautious optimism. i knew garay is a very strong builder but i probably knew him just as well as anyone else in the tournament in terms of play style. unfortunately, my two "regrets" of the tournament came this late in the tournament, the first of which was my indecision in terms of team order within the series. i ultimately ended up flipping my decided team order and ended up running into two pretty bad matchups. g1 team i still really like and i think it is a very good team and would recommend it. g2 willingly neglects toxic spikes due to my tendency to overprep for toxic spikes, and his knowing so, so it may not be the best team to use for casual play.

https://pokepast.es/b7752e56c6181fe8
https://pokepast.es/862f9cec19b186ce

Loser's Final (R5 Playoffs) vs Highlord (L) - thank u.

do or die vs my round 1 adversary, my archnemesis highlord. he was able to climb through the entirety of loser's bracket to finals, going through soulwind and pohjis himself. i was on holiday the entirety of the period from after i played garay until i played highlord, which meant i had to build my teams on a plane with no scout. regardless, i was able to put together three teams i thought were really cool and took into account what i had seen from highlord before (from my memory) while also making sure not to lose to sub cm roar gira a, which he had used quite a lot previously. but, i once again doubted my previous decisions and used my game 3 game 2 and got a really piss poor matchup with a team i would deem pretty fishy.

this round, i named my pokemon after the pets of many of my friends who encouraged me, supported me, and are great friends. i want to thank them for everything they do for me: specifically tmbj, ff, oh, and rurk. thanks a lot!

https://pokepast.es/2412631165b5e6ae
https://pokepast.es/67421b5c6d89903b

bonus: https://pokepast.es/53c1ce8b273a6074 the other team i had prepared for the series.

in the future, i may write something discussing my thoughts on how the meta has changed, specifically within the confines of the tournament, and my own thoughts on a dpp ubers vr; however, im kind of burnt out right now. so thanks for reading and thanks for watching me play!
 
Last edited:
First of all, huge thanks to BKC for digging up a few graves and putting together this massive, almost four month long tour with players from across eras. As you can imagine, I'm extremely happy about winning the tour, but I'm even happier that I did it by tearing through the entirety of the losers bracket in the playoffs after a first round loss. Now it's time for a celebratory Bronzong appreciation post.

Why Is Bronzong the Greatest Pokemon of All Time?
What's the only Pokemon in the game capable of simultaneously checking Garchomp, Rayquaza, and Latios? Bronzong. What about a Pokemon that could stop our banned friend, Ekiller, right in its tracks? Bronzong. There's nothing this bell can't do. However, the quality that truly separates Bronzong from the rest of the dragon checks in the tier is its ability to suppress support Dialga while ignoring Spikes. On top of that, it's never a liability momentum-wise thanks to Explosion. I'd go as far as to say the Bronzong archetype is one of the most consistent ways to win right now, right next to that ghostless glass cannon-esque HO and sun stall; not that Heatran or Lugia crap though, that shit is trash.

The Sets
Bronzong's versatility is ridiculous considering its item variability, random coverage options, and expansive support move pool, so I'm just going to cover some of the sets I've personally had success or fun with. I removed the speed creep since it varies too much.

:dp/Bronzong::leftovers::occa berry::custap berry:
Bronzong @ Leftovers / Occa Berry / Custap Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Trick Room / Hypnosis / Payback / Gyro Ball / Toxic / Grass Knot / HP Fire / HP Ice

TR is a tech I enjoy a lot because it unleashes the full potential of Giratina-O. Just wait till the endgame, click TR, explode, and Giratina-O annihilates everything with Draco Meteor and Outrage. It also happens to be an excellent way to combat Mewpass even though it was banned for this tour. Meanwhile, Hypnosis, my second favorite option gives Bronzong a 60% chance to incapacitate a switch-in. You can technically invest in speed to put Forretress asleep before it can spin, but it's a losing arms race since Forretress would be sacrificing far less when creeping its own speed. The other options are coverage moves, which are just as important. For example, Payback or Gyro Ball might prove more valuable than TR or Hypnosis if the main problems are Sub users. I will say though, that the old Toxic / Protect set has fallen off.

:dp/bronzong::light clay:
Bronzong @ Light Clay
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Explosion
- Stealth Rock

Bronzong is the second most popular Screens option behind Mewtwo, but even the lesser used options like Jirachi and Latios have their niches. Bronzong is probably the simplest of these options because its natural bulk and typing makes it easy to set up both Screens, and a slow Explosion immediately sets up the sweepers.

The Teams
Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to go over all of the Bronzong teams I made during the tour simply because I built too many, but I figured it would be nice to go over some of the ones I particularly liked.

:dp/kyogre::dp/darkrai::dp/giratina-origin::dp/palkia::dp/bronzong::dp/dialga:

I brought this team against Donkey during the Swiss rounds when I was initially experimenting with Bronzong. Lead Kyogre fits nicely on this team by immediately setting up rain for Bronzong and spreading paralysis to make Palkia's life easier. The goal of this team is very simple: Darkrai (broken) and Palkia (also broken) wreck everything while Bronzong switches into the incoming Scarfers/Latios looking to revenge kill. Funnily enough, in the actual game, Bronzong ended up winning by poisoning a Stalltwo with Toxic.

:dp/deoxys-attack::dp/dialga::dp/giratina-origin::dp/kyogre::dp/bronzong::dp/Kabutops:

This team that I brought against SoulWind and Pohjis in the losers bracket features the unconventional pairing of SpDef Dialga + Bronzong reminiscent of the typical HO structure consisting of a hazard lead, SR Dialga, Giratina-O, a couple of sweepers, and speed control. While that structure is as potent as ever, I prefer the Bronzong variation because it alleviates some of the pressure applied by opposing Dialga and other dragons. Also, transferring SR from Dialga to Bronzong allows Dialga to run Dpulse / Thunder / Epower / Roar or even more niche options like Psych Up. The rest of the team is pretty straightforward with Deo-A setting up Spikes, Giratina-O sweeping with TR up, Twave CM Kyogre being omnipresent at this point, and CB Kabutops cleaning late game. I actually brought the same team against Garay in our second set except the speed control was LO Mewtwo instead of Kabutops.

:dp/deoxys-attack::dp/kyogre::dp/giratina-origin::dp/darkrai::dp/bronzong::dp/dialga:

We didn't get to see a lot of Screens HOs this tour, but it's incredibly dangerous and earned me a win against Garay in our first set. Bronzong reliably sets up screens while performing its usual duties of absorbing dragon attacks and setting up SR. Deo-A sets up Spikes, and Scarf Dialga keeps faster threats like Darkrai at bay. Offensive CM Kyogre, Sub CM Giratina-O, and Lum NP Darkrai are already a nuisance to deal with without factoring Screens, so you can imagine the nightmare of a time the opponent will have when Screens are up. Note that in the last two teams I used Deo-A rather than Deo-S because I was prepping for lead CM Kyogre. In most scenarios, a Trick Scarf or Colbur Deo-S would be more suitable.

~~~

Finally, while Bronzong has been instrumental to my run, having the best support in the world helps quite a bit. Big thank you to Zayele for demolishing me in tests every week and helping me with my team ideas, and another big thank you to Aishia for essentially cheerleading (lmao) and looking at my teams even when you were hella busy. Love you both!
 
Last edited:

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top