Smogon Snake Draft IV - Week 8

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OU: Garay oak vs 1 True Lycan - I think Garay is really close to thriving as much in Ou as he does in lower tiers. Once he completely dials in when to be aggro and when to play a bit more passive. The baron has been electric all tour but I think garays style can give him issues here barring semi neutral mu.
OU: Eo Ut Mortus vs mncmt - Eo is generally pretty off meta in his team choices which I think could end up giving mncmt troubles in what I view as a neutral matchup from a playing standpoint.
OU: beatiful vs TPP - TPP seems to have found his footing now in bigger tours, however Bea has been very impressive the past 2months or so
OU: Jytcampbell vs HANTSUKI - Joshy generally just brings really sound teams and plays fine I think that will get the job done here.

OU: Finchinator vs Rexus - I think Rexus has been beating a lot of people by just playing safe and smart and waiting for them to beat themselves. Finch rarely ever does that however so I am pretty comfortable he will take this one.
OU: Raiza vs BK - both being italian and probably having similar helpers I imagine both will build or have supplied their own team. That makes me think BK could possible bring a Pu mon so I'm going to give Raiza the edge.
OU: BIHI vs John W - Think John is really close to being one of those guys you draft and know you are getting a net positive barring terrible luck.
OU: Tace vs ramboss - Have a feeling he will exploit something from taces style in the builder and tech his way to victory.

OU: talah vs Vaboh - have not seen a ton from talah in ss besides using the monkey not super sold on vaboh yet but ive seen more from him.
OU: lax vs Tamahome - a little bit of statistical regression for lax the past few weeks but thats bound to happen still very confident bolding him against whomever.
OU: Samqian vs Star - I think sam plays super well when he has the lead in MU some of his faults seem to be when he starts behind or gets behind early but thats the case for most anyone. I think star is generally quite good at nabbing neutral matchup or getting a bit ahead so gonna bold him off that.
OU: Kebab mlml vs watashi - Historically I think fooly has just been much more consistent and this is for sure his best Ou since probably BW

OU: ima vs dice - After this 1 more win to 8-3
OU: Sacri' vs High Impulse - sacri is about as constant as it gets and impulse is kinda the opposite of that.
OU: Regnite vs Void - not really much conviction on this one
OU: robjr vs Eeveeto - Again going with the player that seems to have fewer variables surrounding him

pretty sure I'm gonna go 16/16
 

Eo Ut Mortus

Elodin Smells
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OU: Finchinator vs Rexus

Prepmaster Finchinator has been living and dying by matchup. Against Sacri', he seemed to give up immediately in the face of a matchup disadvantage; he played fast and loose and his timer never even showed past turn 1. He's now up against Rexus, who's been well-equipped with teams from the Italian building cabal for this entire tournament. It'll be near-impossible for Finch to cater his prep towards him, so he's already losing the mental battle before the match has even begun. Rexus's last few endgames have been called into question, and while I think a few turns could've been optimized better, I don't think he's made any egregious blunders or anything. It'll be even enough if both players bring their best, but if any one thing rattles Finch, be it matchup, play, or tech, Rexus is just going to wrest control of the match and ride it to a win. And I think that'll happen more likely than not.

OU: Raiza vs BK

Highlight match. BK looked impeccable up until an unfortunate encounter with the matchup monkey last week. Like Finch, he also appeared to tilt a bit, not even trying for a Power Whip miss on Clefable. Raiza has looked less invincible when it comes to matchups but has been outplaying greater deficits throughout the course of this tournament, several of those under high time pressure to boot. As he's coming off a win to BK's visibly frustrating loss, I have to favor him here.

OU: BIHI vs John W

Clash of styles here. BIHI uses all the Pokemon I like; John W uses all the Pokemon that I don't. It's a luxury to not have to use Mandibuzz or Corviknight; to willingly use both in 2020 is obscene. That said, BIHI has been slightly more miss than hit with his experimentation, so I have to go with John's consistency here. Given what he's shown so far, though, I have high hopes for BIHI to step it up in these weeks leading up to playoffs.

OU: Tace vs ramboss

Quality/play aside, ramboss has brought the ugliest looking teams for two of his last three matches. His last week's team was much prettier, so that's a good sign. If he brings anything like his W1/W2/W7 builds, he'll be in good shape. If it's something like W4/W6, count me out. Tace has been grabbing teams from here and there, and he's been picking the good ones, so I trust his taste more at the moment. However, to predict the Finchinators to avoid losing to a Tricking-led team seems pretty ridiculous, so I'm trusting ramboss's building coinflip to come up heads this week.


OU: talah vs Vaboh

From what I've seen, talah's had some good building highlights this tour; however, I don't necessarily get to see or know the low points. I've had qualms with some of the Rattlers' builds, and for all I know, he's played some role in their creation. That said, it's historically been his play that's come under fire, and his debut game wasn't extended enough to quell those doubts. Vaboh has been playing fine, but I haven't been won over by his builds; last week, he deviated from more standard stuff and brought a strange triple-Dark team that was a little too Kyurem-weak for my taste. I give talah an edge here on the basis of building, but it's on him to prove he can play at the level Vaboh's shown thus far.

OU: lax vs Tamahome

Last week, tama brought a team with SDef Clef as the sole Urshifu counter and justly faced an Urshifu. I don't know who was responsible for this, so I'm going to blame The Magician, because that's always fun to do. lax brought a team I liked much more, but the Trick Mew flipped a good matchup on its head. He turned it on at the end, but it was too late by then; I think he could've played a bit more sharply at the start. Despite the outcome of the match and the remarks at the end, I'm willing to bet lax will avoid slipping into perma-tilt due to how he played out the endgame. Having said that, tama's looked solid outside of glaring team issues, so I'm going to favor him slightly if he bring something more reasonable this week. Big if.

OU: Samqian vs Star

If you're wondering where Void went during Week 5, he was actually beachside with elodin, and he has a Star fish to prove it. The Serpents' R1 pick has not had the most engaging matches in the past three weeks, but his most recent spin on HO is my favorite out of all used in this tour so far; all the sweepers he used are among the most consistent in the current meta compared to things like Volcarona and Toxtricity that others have brought. After a couple of matchup weeks, Sam finally got to play the game against ZDen with an impeccable team choice, if I do say so myself. He introduced some stylistic changes of his own while preserving the key components, namely the attackless Chansey, which I think would've scared off some people. Last week, though, he fell into the do-nothing team trap and got routed by a defensive team with actual breaking options. Based on past weeks from both of these players, I feel like this is going to come down to matchup again, and Star is trending more upwards as of last week.

OU: Kebab mlml vs watashi

There has been too much meddling with perfection from the Rattlers...last week was the second time they replaced the Mantine with a Corviknight on the Kommo-Aegi-Zera team. The first time was against The Magician and his Volcaronas and Keldeos; this second time was against ramboss and his coalition of setup sweepers. In both cases could a Mantine have saved these matchups. That specific team aside, Kebab's teams have been too passive for my taste. FLCL rebounded from his losing streak last week; you'll have a tough time convincing me that his last team wasn't built Week 1 of this tournament, but he's made it work. I prefer his teams and his chances here.

OU: ima vs dice

dice tried to bring the matchup monkey vs. someone with more Cobalion/G-Weezings in his builder than some of the UU playerbase. He'll have to step it up or get talah to stop sabotaging him. ima, on the other hand, has been cruising for these past few weeks. His techs have been hitting, his plays have been unrestrained, and you can tell he's in his comfort zone. The only danger here would be running into a renewed dice, now liberated from playoffs pressure, but he might very well just take the opportunity to go camping again.

OU: Sacri' vs High Impulse

After boring even himself with Sand Team #6332, Smogon's most prolific Corviknight-leader, The Sac, decided to take the opposite approach and break out everything from Specs Toxtricity to Rillaboom + Chandelure. Now, he can lose to Kyurem in style. High Impulse is coming off a loss to the notorious JYT, and I think he kind of clicked too fast in that one. If he's still invested in this tour, he'll make this one close, but I have to favor Sacri', who is slowly making a name for himself as this community's premier defensive player with his indelible ability to reduce even the most offensive of matchups to a drawn-out stall war.

OU: Regnite vs Void

After his first OU game, I honestly thought Void was going to continuously roll up with HO over and over again; turns out he was just delaying it for a week. I'm once again not convinced this game is getting done, though. Regnite has looked decent; I think he could've played a bit more proactively vs. Raiza, but his showings have not been bad at all.

OU: robjr vs Eeveeto

After I unfairly misattributed The Magician as his builder, rob rolled up with an actual Gama team and won off the back of the matchup-fish moth. Since then, he's kind of been out-offensed with a bit of bad luck. I'm looking for the return of CB Rhyp rob, even if it means using Keldeo again. Eeveeto, on the other hand, has been living and dying by his techs, and for the past two weeks, it's mostly been dying. And now that his team is all-but-out, we'll probably be seeing more of them, oh boy. Favoring robjr here unless Eeveeto brings a certain Pokemon.

OU: Bobby Dagen vs Leo

Leo has looked fine, but I must root for my Lindworms teammate.

OU: xray vs Santu

xray's looked way more in-tune with the metagame these days, while last we saw of SantOU was him seeing Fire move Tyranitar and closing his browser.

OU: LittleBigPlanet2 vs soulgazer

soulgazer was pretty good in post-Home meta, but he'll have no time to ramp up here. LBP2 has looked good even in his loss.

OU: Gefährlicher Random vs qsns

Can the dangerous Doubles player spoiler ability come into effect before Week 9? We'll find out.
 

IPF

sundown
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Glad to see more people doing predicts this week! Always interesting to read no matter who writes them. 10/19 last week, 75/128 overall (58.5%), let's get right into it

OU: Garay oak vs 1 True Lycan - Baron's been putting in one strong performance after another and I don't see him stopping this week, he's been the more dominant player of the two and I expect him to pull through again
OU: Eo Ut Mortus vs mncmt - Great matchup, difficult to call but I would rate Eo as the best player in the OU pool at the moment, so even though mncmt has had a brilliant season, I can't bold him here. Could easily go either way however
OU: beatiful vs TPP - Seen much more from bea in recent times, including OLT, Stour, and a respectable 2-1 in Snake. More proven so have to go with him
OU: Jytcampbell vs HANTSUKI - Haven't seen HANTSUKI play much while Jyt has been solid for the Lindworms, will go with the more known entity

OU: Finchinator vs Rexus - Time to put respect on Rexus' name, he's taken down Sacri' and lax in back to back weeks, 2 players who I also rate near the top of the pool, and has been very impressive in his games, his sole loss against fellow Italian Santu being the only outlier, although I'd chalk that up to him not having the Little Pigg essence. Finch has been pretty average and I'm sure he isn't content with his play right now, however this week is a huge task for him
Screenshot 2020-10-21 at 10.37.22 AM.png
OU: Raiza vs BK - Highlight game, both 5-2 players, both have been might impressive. Really enjoy both of their approaches to the game so I'm excited for this one. Gonna go with BK since I believe he's had a more difficult schedule en route to his 5-2 than Raiza
OU: BIHI vs John W - Feel slightly bad since I think I've predicted against BIHI every week, I've found his team choices refreshing and don't think he's played poorly or anything, but this is another matchup where I just rate his opponent more highly
OU: Tace vs ramboss - Tace's team choices have been what one would call 'safe', and ramboss' have been what one would call 'mental'. I am very interested to see how this one plays out but I think Tace can navigate cheese matchups pretty well

OU: talah vs Vaboh - talah played well last week, and I do think this game could go either way, but I don't want to put too much stock into one game. Gut says Vaboh wins
OU: lax vs Tamahome - Awesome matchup, lax has lost 3 in a row after starting the season on fire while Tama has been consistently good all season. Reasoning for this predict is simply the fact that I can't see lax losing 4 in a row, but definitely a must watch game
OU: Samqian vs Star - Been a pretty wild Snake for Samqian, he'll feel hard done by in some losses but also blessed in a few of his wins, overall he's shown more this tour than Star has, who hasn't been able to translate his SPL success to Snake at all
OU: Kebab mlml vs watashi - Kebab's been having a pretty torrid time as of late, and has seemed a bit passive in his losses, something that I expect FLCL to take full advantage of

OU: ima vs dice - While I wouldn't expect dice to drop a donut this tour, he's up against another contender for strongest player in the OU pool this week and I just can't see him winning this one
OU: Sacri' vs High Impulse - Sacri' has been brilliant all tour, with wins against Tama, lax and Finch, he's easily the favourite in this matchup
OU: Regnite vs Void - Void doesn't seem to have adjusted to SS at all, and from what I've seen Regnite has played a fair amount
OU: robjr vs Eeveeto - Think Eeveeto will bounce back this week, but that depends on how seriously he takes this week considering Taipans are definitely out

OU: Bobby Dagen vs Leo - Leo has been solid in his 4 games so far, with his only loss coming at the hands of Finch's broken bear, expect him to beat Rodri who hasn't played a game all tour despite being pick 45? Have to question his commitment here
OU: xray vs Santu - Santu looked fed up with OU in his last outing, and while he showed he wasn't on tilt after a strong win vs Xiri in PU last week, I do think xray will be more motivated to win this one
OU: LittleBigPlanet2 vs soulgazer - LBP2 has looked good, haven't seen soulgazer play SS at all
OU: Gefährlicher Random vs qsns - TDR has been solid and there's no chance I bold a non-mainer against him

Somewhat unfortunate that we won't be seeing DLC mons in Snake, but I can understand the reasoning behind the decision. Definitely kills off some of the hype going into playoffs can't lie, but it is what it is. Good luck to everyone!
 
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freezai

Live for the Applause
is a Tiering Contributor
Hi!
Is it possible for LC to be played in post-DLC for the remaining weeks? (Week 9 + Playoffs)
The reasoning is:

1. LC is not affected much by DLC, there's just the introduction of a few utility pokemon and B tier sweepers
2. Playing in a dead meta sucks and should be avoided
3. LC is not tied to OU or any other tier

It's a general consensus amongst the LC community that playing in post-DLC would be far better than playing in a dead meta, while also having 0 collateral damage

kjdaas MajorBowman Merritt
 
Playing my last game of this awful meta on Saturday 21:00 gmt+2.


Top 3 reason why I disagree on locking the meta.

1- I play current gen Ou.

2- I test my teams on ladder. This means that if I want to test I will have to rely on my snake teammates. Unfortunately, I am surrounded with Italians. NO ONE should ever be forced to test with them. (specially tricking)

3- This is the most boring meta I have ever seen. Come on, I would rather watch trainercharizard123 playing current gen Ou ladder than this meta snake playoffs.


Save snake
 

WhiteQueen

the queen bee
is a Tiering Contributorwon the 11th Official Smogon Tournamentis a Past SPL Champion
Why did you click on this knowing that there’s no real prediction here?

You clicked on this one too didn’t you?

And another one.

SMH.

:psywoke:
 
Playing my last game of this awful meta on Saturday 21:00 gmt+2.


Top 3 reason why I disagree on locking the meta.

1- I play current gen Ou.

2- I test my teams on ladder. This means that if I want to test I will have to rely on my snake teammates. Unfortunately, I am surrounded with Italians. NO ONE should ever be forced to test with them. (specially tricking)

3- This is the most boring meta I have ever seen. Come on, I would rather watch trainercharizard123 playing current gen Ou ladder than this meta snake playoffs.


Save snake
Somewhat disagree on the point 3, but fully agree with the points 1 and 2, except for the fact that its even worse for me, I have to test with No Fun Allower Jordy, Toxic spammer on a certain Mon Analytic and Alice, who is always in another tour game and rejects my challenges :(

We already have like 0,01% of making it to playoffs, but knowing the meta will be locked desmotivates us even more, right now I am even thinking about using a Monofire vs Robjr...
 
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