[Online Competition] Festive Feud

[Mijzelffan]

I managed to go 13-5, pretty good considering I only had three ev trained pokemon. I only did it for the delibird at first but it was pretty fun overall. Basically my lead and most important mons were:

Talonflame @ Focus sash
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spe / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Tailwind
- Brave Bird
- Overheat
- Quick Guard

Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: idk it was in-game
??? Nature
- Protect
- Hyper Voice
- Psychic
- Focus Blast

Medicham @ Coba Berry
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Att / 252 spe
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Protect
- Helping Hand
- Feint

Mostly I'd use tailwind / protect / protect turn 1, then turn 2 I'd helping hand + hyper voice or feint + hyper voice while talonflame could either pick off something with brave bird or block an opposing brave bird with quick guard. That would be gg to most lower ranked opponents. I don't think I ever beat anyone above the 1600's though, considering that the rest of my team was practically dead-weight. Support medicham might seem pretty weird but I didn't have anything else lmao and I think the surprise factor actually made it pretty worthwhile, alongside the coba berry which allowed to survive brave birds that made it past quick guard.

 

[Nachtlator]

Well, I think I'm going to finish my participation with a 15-5 which I'm honestly ecstatic to have achieved, because I'm a triples rookie and joined without any expectations. My losses were the terrible hax fest I spoke about in another post, a couple of solid rain teams (I used sun) and two instances of being flat out outplayed and destroyed. I did find the Gardevoirs that I didn't see the first day, three of which were scarfed with M-Gallades, is that an actual triples strat or did I find the three people that did that? Anyways, here's my team, if anyone cares:

Hide

Serperior @ Life Orb
Ability: Contrary
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Glare

Regigigas @ Leftovers
Ability: Slow Start
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Return
- Knock Off
- Thunder Wave
- Wide Guard

Charizard @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Heat Wave
- Dragon Pulse
- Solar Beam

Talonflame @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Quick Guard
- Tailwind

Latias @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Draco Meteor
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Dragon Pulse

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Moxie
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rock Slide
- Superpower

The idea was to have a sun team with ways to handle rain in Latias and Serperior, Regigigas to be the designated team player and Krookodile to spam Rock Slide against the ubiquitous Talonflame and Char-Y. I made a mistake in locking Moxie Krook instead of Intimidate Krook, but it worked fantastically, sometimes getting two boosts with Rock Slide which guaranteed some future OHKOs. I know some of you have better ideas for a team like this (I'd like to hear them, by the way, should prove enlightening), but I think I did well for a first go and I'm happy nevertheless.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Finished 24-6. Was 1749 heading into the last match but lost embarrassingly against a 1580s team with Anger Point Krookodile, so I may have finished as low as 1719. To be honest, I wasn't playing that match seriously enough, having looked at the rating and expected something silly like mega Absol. That's a huge mistake.

That's a bit rough, as I wanted to hit the 1760s, but still decent overall, and I can't really regret playing out my last match. Honestly, I think as many as three of my losses could have been completely avoided without misplays on my end (not going for reliable Wide Guards or Trick Rooms in at least two cases; and even in that last match, if I'd really thought about my opponent weighing their odds, I could have won on the final turn by choosing Flare Blitz over Brave Bird with my Talonflame). I'm not up at this point to consistent play over that many matches (I did them almost in ten-match-blocks); inevitably, I'll blow a winnable game or two due to misplays. But oh well, you just try not to repeat them. All my losses were to Japanese opponents.

Even with that frustrating last round, this was still my most successful online competition to date. Here's the team, which, honestly, could have gone higher. Still had fun running it:

Hide

Kecleon/Smeargle/Talonflame was a common lead, which allowed me to abuse the Quick Guard that would often follow and either nuke something with Feint/Brave Bird, or set up Trick Room. In general that lead was useful for either ensuring I was able to Dark Void (which I'd rarely go for as an opening move unless I had nothing better for Smeargle to do, with its shaky accuracy), take out a troublesome target, or get Trick Room up.

Trick Room was useful against faster teams, while it was easy to reverse it and spread status against hard TR teams. Even Krookodile was designed to outspeed Smeargle by just one point, giving me an effective option against opposing Smeargle leads if something went wrong, but also ensuring it outsped all but the slowest Charizards in Trick Room.

However, this team being semi-Trick Room did lead to some scary predictions against Pokemon like Tyranitar and Charizard, with their varying builds (and Scarf Tyranitar), meaning I couldn't be sure from team preview when or if I'd want Trick Room up. This wound up looking pretty close to my favorite normal triples team, which is a mid-speed TR set up, but one that can easily guarantee four out of five offensive members will be underspeeding non-hard TR Pokemon. Losing that certainty here hurt a bit, even if the team wound up being fairly successful.

I was concerned about Moody Octillery going in, but not only did it not negatively impact a single game, I was generally quite glad to have it. Though if I'd realized how much of a non-issue Trick Room Camerupt teams would be, I may have opted for something else.

This was a bit of a case of the Showdown ladder only taking you so far, as well. The strongest archetype of this tournament will undoubtedly be teams involving Rotom-Wash, Togekiss and Tyranitar, (with Meowstic, Charizard/Garde and Talonflame) and three of my losses came to those being run by high-ranking Japanese triples players. They didn't make quite the same impact on the Showdown ladder though, so here's a reminder that the Showdown scene, especially for a format like triples, is always going to be one step behind what serious players are developing in Japan. I think the fact that I lost to zero Western players but several Japanese ones speaks to that.

 

[Demantoid]

I ended 25-5 around 1750.

Team

Importable

Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Telepathy
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psychic
- Protect
- Imprison

Meowstic (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Light Screen
- Safeguard
- Snatch
- Thunder Wave

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Bullet Seed
- Feint
- Mach Punch

Talonflame @ Sharp Beak
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 148 Atk / 108 SpA / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Brave Bird
- Overheat
- Tailwind
- Quick Guard

Regigigas @ Leftovers
Ability: Slow Start
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 248 SpD
Careful Nature
IVs: 30 SpD
- Brick Break
- Thunder Wave
- Wide Guard
- Knock Off

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Superpower
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Ice Punch

Don't have much to say since this wasn't the team I intended to use but Feint Breloom was amazing.

 

[Blizzicane]

Ugh, I didn't have time to play any more matches... Oh well back to SRing for me. XC

Don't have much to say since this wasn't the team I intended to use but Feint Breloom was amazing.

I couldn't agree more. >:3

 

[OmegaX]

Here is my team:

Hide

Team

Talonflame @ Sharp Beak
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Tailwind
- Quick Guard

Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 108 HP / 124 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Protect

Tyrantrum @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Head Smash
- Rock Slide
- Dragon Claw
- Brick Break

Meowstic Male @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Snatch
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Safeguard

Bisharp @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
- Protect

Regigigas @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Slow Start
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Wide Guard
- Thunder Wave
- Knock Off
- Return

90% of the time I'd lead with Talonflame, Gardevoir, Meowstic (left to right). Occasionally, I faced teams that were weak to rock (any combination of Charizard, Talonflame, and Volcarona) so in that case I swapped Gardevoir for Tyrantrum.

The real MVP of the team was definitely Meowstic. Most of the time it survived long enough to set up both screens, safeguard, and snatched tailwind, quick or wide guards. Sometimes, I wished it had an attacking move, but being completely defensive saved me a lot.
Talonflame was the second most useful Pokemon, I'd change nothing about it. Tailwind was crucial for my team because Gardevoir, Tyrantrum, and Bisharp aren't that fast.
Gardevoir, Tyrantrum, and Bisharp are the heavy hitters of the team. In retrospect, I should have given Thunderbolt instead of Shadow Ball to Gardevoir. Tyrantrum was a beast killing everything in its way with Rock Slide. Head Smash was useful too, but flinch, and spread damage was more useful in this format.
Regigigas helped with long games. Unfortunately, I forgot to increase its happiness before I locked my Battle Box so I couldn't use Return. That mistake costed me at least one match.

I saved some battle videos, in case you wanna see the team in action:
T5UG-WWWW-WW38-9JYL
QN3W-WWWW-WW38-9JJK
PZNG-WWWW-WW38-9JK9
6YXG-WWWW-WW38-9JKU
XWSW-WWWW-WW38-9JLV
JDDW-WWWW-WW38-9JMN

 

[PumpedAaron]

So I went with a Sand Trick Room Team. It seems that weather setters in general were a strong choice in this competition. Kinda hearkens back to Gen 5, huh? Most of the time, I lead with Tyranitar, Amoongus, Reuniclus, in that order. I played about 22 matches and lost about 5 times. 2 of my losses were from Japanese players that aggressively attacked my Reuniclus and KO'd it early. One other time was against Dark Void Smeargle. This loss was a BIG fault on me though, because despite having Lum Berry on Golurk specifically to deal with Smeargle, I misclicked during Team Preview and accidentally lead with Tyranitar!

Another time was against another Trick Room team, but using Hail, not Sand. He managed to freeze my Amoongus and Throh! Throh stayed frozen for like 5 turns. And I seemed to have forgotten that between Reuniclus, Mega Abomasnow, and Pory 2, Reuniclus was clearly slowest, and I should've tried to set up Trick Room again when I lost it!

So... despite these really infuriating aspects, this is technically my best performance in an online comp.

 

[cant say]

I don't know how you guys are getting those cool images of your team... I want to show it like that.

http://hastebin.com/operoricoq.md


So I went with a Sand Trick Room Team. It seems that weather setters in general were a strong choice in this competition. Kinda hearkens back to Gen 5, huh? Most of the time, I lead with Tyranitar, Amoongus, Reuniclus, in that order. I played about 22 matches and lost about 5 times. 2 of my losses were from Japanese players that aggressively attacked my Reuniclus and KO'd it early. One other time was against Dark Void Smeargle. This loss was a BIG fault on me though, because despite having Lum Berry on Golurk specifically to deal with Smeargle, I misclicked during Team Preview and accidentally lead with Tyranitar!

Another time was against another Trick Room team, but using Hail, not Sand. He managed to freeze my Amoongus and Throh! Throh stayed frozen for like 5 turns. And I seemed to have forgotten that between Reuniclus, Mega Abomasnow, and Pory 2, Reuniclus was clearly slowest, and I should've tried to set up Trick Room again when I lost it!

So... despite these really infuriating aspects, this is technically my best performance in an online comp.

Taken from my Helpful Links thread (does no one read this?):

Also, what's with all the wasted EVs on your mons? So many 248's and 8's on stuff with (presumably) 31 IVs. Remember that your EVs for a 31 IV stat should be divisible by 4 but not 8. Only when using a 30 (or even value) IV should they be divisible by 8...

---

I didn't end up playing, I had a crazy busy week and spent all weekend sleeping it off. Hope the next competition is announced soon so I can actually prepare for it properly now that I have more time on my hands over summer. Just no VGC please TPCi....

 

[PumpedAaron]

Haha, sorry Can't Say, I really had to whip myself to get my team ready and do all the battles, all within about 15 hours or something... my mind was just in a bit of a whirl. Thanks for the help.

By the way! I feel my team can do some helpful things even against typical BS Triple mons! Like, Golurk + Amoongus can be pretty helpful against Kangaskhan and Aegislash. Doesn't Phantom Force hit through King's Shield?

 

[keroblade]

How many other people lead with Dark Void Smeargle in the middle spot? That combined with Tailwind and Mega Gardevoir seemed to win me most of my matches, haha. :)

 

[PavlosMD]

1st ever post for my 1st ever PGL Competition. Finished 26-4 with a rating of ~1800 (I was 1783 before my 30th battle). I went 9-1 the 1st Day, 8-2 the 2nd Day and 9-1 the 3rd Day. I lost all 3 first Battles of each Day (I started 0-1 each day), because I can never win the 1st match. The team I used is shown at the end of this post.

It's a simple Anger Point + Tailwind Team with the Trick Room option (with Swagger Reuniclus and Lum Berry Pangoro for a useful +2 Attack boost), as well. Honestly, I initially thought that Festive Feud was a Double Battle Competition and that's why I picked this team. But it worked for the Triple Battle Format just as fine. If I knew it before, I would have replaced Gardevoir's Ability with Telepathy and Icy Wind with Disable or Imprison.

The only problem that I faced with this team were Rain Team with Ludicolo and Politoed. The problem was that 3 out 4 Rain Teams that I battled against, featured Rain Dish Ludicolo and not Swift Swim, as I expected them to be. I lost 2 out 4 battles against them, since it was too late for a comeback when I discovered they were not Swift Swim.

I kept notes of the 27 teams I battled against. PGL will have their statistics soon, so I won't go deep into that now. Overall, I faced 4 Rain Teams (all with the core of Ludicolo/Politoed/Scizor/M-Gardevoir/Scrafty or Kecleon), 1 full Sun team (6 Heat Wave Pokemon), 1 Hail Team and a team with Natu.

I could have gone over 1810 Rating but my 4th battle was against a guy with ~1300 Rating who instantly forfeited and I got only 7 points for that win and I made a major mistake against a (then) 1702 Japanese player in the last turn. I could have clicked Earthquake with +6 Atk, +2 Speed Krookodile against his last 3 non-flying/non-sashed/non-Sturdy Pokemon and get the win but for an unexplained reason, I protected with Krookodile and Icy Winded with M-Gardevoir. And then, he Trick Roomed... The rest is history. That was the only time in Festive Feud that I used Icy Wind. I just let that win slip out of my hands.

That was my experience from my first PGL Competion ever. Sorry for any mistakes in this post, it's my first time here. Until next time, later.

Also, even though the tour is now over, I want to ask this: Did all participants from Smogon choose Brick Break over Drain Punch for Regigigas so they could break the screens? All Regigigas that I battled on Battle Spot had Drain Punch as their fighting type move.

cant say says: Welcome! Try not to double-post, you can edit your post if you'd like to add something :)

 

[TheGaryOakofORAS]

Honestly i used knock off and return combined with widescreen and twave.
Not gonna take credit for the moveset as i got it from a giveaway here but i was gonna go for a
supportive Regigigas in the first place. It just seemed more consistent to go for a set that does not
rely on Regigigas to sweep and it also made people focus it quite a lot because they wanted
to take it off the field before it could out for 5 turns. Then again my success was limited
with me only going 15-8 (tho i guess i lost 4 of those due to poor decisions).

 

[a0161613]

I got the same Regi and regret not giving it drain punch. Not that it would have got any KO's but I believe it would have got more damage to allow for KO's to come from elsewhere.

Wide Guard was possibly the best move for the whole tour.

 

[TheGaryOakofORAS]

Wide Guard was possibly the best move for the whole tour.

Gotta agree on that and i also learned that the worst thing you can do in a pinch is trying to sucker punch a talonflame. :/
And the best move of the tournament for me:not increasing the friendliness of Regigigas before the tournament while running Return.
Some realy basic mistakes on my side that could have been prevented if i had locked my battlebox in the morning instead of 2am.
Nevertheless i had a ton of fun.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Well, I think I'm going to finish my participation with a 15-5 which I'm honestly ecstatic to have achieved, because I'm a triples rookie and joined without any expectations. My losses were the terrible hax fest I spoke about in another post, a couple of solid rain teams (I used sun) and two instances of being flat out outplayed and destroyed. I did find the Gardevoirs that I didn't see the first day, three of which were scarfed with M-Gallades, is that an actual triples strat or did I find the three people that did that? Anyways, here's my team, if anyone cares:

Sh*t, that's a cool team. It actually seems better in Triples than it would be in Doubles, with the extra support the third partner can provide during and after setup. (Also the Tailwind/Trick Room modes, which is very much a Triples thing.)

Basically an adaptation of Triples Terrakion-Beat Up strats, but with quite a bit less to get in the way. Also, much better looking than the Anger Point Krookodile team I lost to (which I'm still salty about).

Congrats on the placement; wouldn't be surprised if you're among the highest ranking players outside Japan. You likely cinched #1 in the U.S. if that's your location. I can't imagine there are too many other English-speaking players who finished above 1700 and haven't yet posted here or on Nugget Bridge, and yours is the highest finish I've seen reported at either.

 

[PavlosMD]

Actually, I will be classified in the Japanese Rankings because I participated in the tour with a Japanese Cart & 3DS Console and I am registered in the Japanese PGL. My country (Greece) has no competition when it comes to PGL tours and competitive Pokemon, in general. Greek players barely go over 1700 in PGL Tours, from what I've seen so far.

My sister, who will be classified in the Greek Rankings, might have clinched #1 in Greece with a respectable 23-7 finish and a Rating of ~1720, using Relaxed Trick Room Mega Gardevoir paired with a Lv. 31 (!) Swagger + Gravity Smeargle and Lum Berry Brave Tyrantrum. Her Smeargle was 1 point faster than Tyrantrum under Trick Room, so she could Swagger Tyrantrum with Smeargle, get the +2 boost and basically kill everything with Head Smash + Gravity. Sadly, she couldn't do much against Sun teams (I think she lost 5 out 6 matches against Mega Charizard - Y) but she had no problem with Rain Teams, because she used Sunny Day Amoongus to change the weather. From what you can see, her team looks more interesting than mine.

 

[mdchan]

I'm currently a little annoyed. After checking my battle history for the tourny, the person who DCed on me in the middle of the first match didn't even show up on the page. The jerk got absolutely no penalty for DCing...and I didn't get points for a match I was winning. I find that more annoying than seeing the same mons on almost every team (no offense to anyone who used them).

 

[Moody Magikarp]

I'm currently a little annoyed. After checking my battle history for the tourny, the person who DCed on me in the middle of the first match didn't even show up on the page. The jerk got absolutely no penalty for DCing...and I didn't get points for a match I was winning. I find that more annoying than seeing the same mons on almost every team (no offense to anyone who used them).

I'm not sure what it was, but this tournament seemed to bring out the bad sportsmanship in a lot of players, even I got in on it once or twice as I said. It felt like every other player I matched DC'ed once they started losing. I assume maybe it was because of the new format, but they should really make a "3 intentional DC's and you won't rank" rule. Maybe that would cut down on it a bit.

Anyway, I managed to finish 23-7 which might have been even better without a few misplays and my team not being prepared for trick room. I started out 4-1, lost 2 out of 3 to TR and only lost 4 games from there on out . The only thing I 100% couldn't beat was a water spout rain team who kept spamming Feint to bypass Wide Guard. But other than that most of my losses were close. I didn't catch my rating, but I lost to every player in the 1700 's, so I assume low 1600's if that.

I'll post my team and analysis when i have more time this weekend. This is the first time I feel I've played well enough to warrant it.

 

[Most]

The competition was fun.
I got rank 1 in Austria and rank 113 all around.
I got 24 wins and 7 losses.


I wrote down to what combinations of pokemon I lost to since I learn the most from that:
1: LS Latias + Reflect Rotom + Garde
2: sub-protect-garde + amoonguss
3: Ttar + rotom
4: Venu Sludgebomb crit through LS on my garde
5: Ttar + rotom + meow
6: waterfall politoad + rockslide kecleon + p2
7: DC

Shoutouts:
Whiskey Tango for giving me feedback on the team (although I didn't implement everything)
Theorymon for the regi

Team:

Hide

Meowstic @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Snatch
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Safeguard

Talonflame @ Lum Berry
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Quick Guard
- Tailwind

Amoonguss @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Protect
- Spore
- Rage Powder

Regigigas @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Slow Start
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 248 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 30 SpD
- Return
- Thunder Wave
- Wide Guard
- Knock Off

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Superpower

Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Synchronize
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Trick Room
- Imprison

Rank:

Hide

 

[Ursarox]

Wow, they posted the rankings quickly for this one. I finished 288th. I'm kind of surprised Talonflame was most used, but I guess it fits in on almost every team and gale wings brave bird is really useful for hitting anything in any position. Congrats to PavlosMD and Theorymon for top 30 finishes

 

[DragonWhale]

Grats to Theorymon for getting #1 US. Looks like all that practice on PS and Regigigas paid off.

 

[PavlosMD]

Okay, I finished 6th in the Japanese Rankings and 6th in the world overall (IGN: elqqAm) with a total rating of 1802, while my sister finished 1st in Greece and 127th in the world with a rating of 1712 (IGN: Pavlos). Not bad for first time. Congrats to all the participants!

Most, how did you battle 31 times? I thought that the battle limit was 30 battles.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Congrats to Theorymon and PavlosMD for such high finishes!

I finished #9 in the U.S. and #96 overall. Not bad, but really regretting that last game now, though even with a win there, I'd only have been #4 nationally. Go big or go home, I guess.

 

[Most]

Most, how did you battle 31 times? I thought that the battle limit was 30 battles.

No idea :/
I got disconnected in the team preview menu and it probably glitched to count it towards my W/L but not towards the # of total matches.

 

[Theorymon]

Alright just got my computer fixed, and wow I did not expect to finish #1 in the US, and 24 overall! I actually might have been able to snag #1 if it weren't for some mess ups, but oh well, hindsight is 20/20!~

I'll probably make an RMT with this team later. Partly because this is probably the best I've ever done in a tournament, partly because Im sure that team could have been improved, and partly because I wanna see if any advice I give can help people get into these wacky tournament metagames more easily.