Tournament SPL X: RU Discussion

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I honestly had a blast learning this tier for the second half. This is probably the most offensive RU has been since I joined the site and there is lot of room for creativity in building which makes prepping a lot of fun. I know the tier is pretty hectic still after all the drops and raises but tbh that kinda added to the excitement of it for me. Just wanted to drop some of the teams I built and used for whoever wants to check em out.

165311

https://pokepast.es/6f19bfacdc7b0bfe

This was the team I used vs. Pohjis. I thought Bewear and Z-Rose both looked like mons that he had a lot of trouble switching into the first few weeks so build started there and the rest was mainly trying to cover weaknesses. I also wanted to make sure it had a good shot vs fat because stalling the new guy in the tier is a pretty normal strategy and this breaking core + cleric support does pretty good vs that. Also why I used taunt on Noivern but I slashed U-turn in the paste because I think it might be better overall getting in bewear on slower walls for free. Scaldless Toad may seem weird but you really need to be able to kill zygarde with this team and being able to keep viriz/shay low can be cruical too which came up in the game so Ice Punch is preferred. Scarf Gross is like underwhelming but it revenges what the team needs it too/speed tier is nice/and gives useful resistances so it works.

165312

https://pokepast.es/22394c9e5ff008cc

Stall I used vs Welliou. I spent more time on this than any other team lol so I can say this is probably as close to perfect as it can get with this build. Only two options I would really consider are dropping rocks for gyro on Forre or going double heal bell w Umb. But yeah you def need all the other moves the way they are. Rocks are kinda irrelevant because the whole idea is you never let hazards go up so I barely ever even clicked rocks in testing but fellow MAGMA BIGS members didn't want me using a rockless team. The most important thing while building stall is stopping hazards, if you do that you will win legit like 95% of games so that is what the trio of Cuno/Mantine/Forre does. Btw Forre needs eq to spin on Gross and tox to spin on Rhyp so that is why the set is what it is. But yeah I got to number one on ladder testing this and it won in the tour so I am overall really happy how this one turned out.

165313

https://pokepast.es/83ee223c19a95cd3

Team I used vs Arifeen. I didn't really have anything in mind since he hadn't played RU in the tour up to this point so just started building random stuff and liked how this one turned out the best. I think Lazzle is incredible rn and its one of my fav gen 7 mons so glad I was able to use it once. Not too much to say about this, Escav ended up with AV so it handle stoise better. The spread lets it take 2 rocks + 3 aura/dpulses so its able to switch in multiple times. The Mandi set is something I really like that I found was really hard for teams to switch into and was the MVP in this particular game. Foul Play in theory can be swapped for knock to make it more annoying, but this team needed FP to Ohko barb if it tried to smash. +2 barb kills every mon so I had to make sure that it died to all 6 if it ever tried to click shell smash lol. The speed is for Machamp since you don't have a real fight resist and can trade with it if you get your turns right.

Tier leaders keep up the good work. Like I said this tier is super fun to play and I would love to play some meaningful RU games again in the future.
 

Ajna

i tell my ppl i don't need love but
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past SCL Champion
well the season is basically over, and i'm being forced to post my thoughts by pokeaimmedicaldoctor, so lets get into it.

personally wasn't too invested in the tour after like week 6 or 7 cuz we were insane dog dick (love u cryos), but I def had fun playing as always. i finished 5-3 in ru which obv isn't as good as i would want, but i beat diogo with mudsdale, so all is well.

getting into the final standings, aim finished in first, evi and myself 2nd/3rd, and nat and well in 4th/5th. this was my top 4 from voting for pr's (i had well lower), but i had nat > joey finishing in first, so no big surprises here for me.

ultraballz came in off the bench for the bigs providing a solid 3-1 after kw was benched, but i personally wasn't too impressed. he only played one player in the top half of the pool, and he stalled so like, lol. that aside, congrats to him for doing well, and i hope he continues playing the tier.

pohjis going 3-3 is about what i expected, i won't comment too much on his pricetag bc he's a great chat presence, and i'm sure he helped in other tiers, harris going 2-0 makes me feel p much the same as ub, and passion going 3-6/4-5 is solid for his pricetag, and he salvaged the ru spot for his team. diogo having another disappointing (in my opinion for his skill level) season in ru really sucks. i know what he's capable of, but he doesn't dedicate much time to the game anymore, and i think that has a lot to do w his recent results.

movin on down the sheet, much love to loaf and the raiders, but like, do ppl see what happens when you don't draft an ru slot? 3-6 overall while having to shuffle their lineup, and only one win against the top half of the pool... there were a bunch of solid 3ks (roman, averado, fagtron, pepeduce, banks, ll, durza, etc.) that would have put up the same, if not better, results, and no other tiers would have been effected, but once again ppl don't wanna do their research and would rather overpay on non ruers to play the tier.

wrapping up the sheet, if you told me before the tour that kw would go 1-4 into bench i would doubt you, but wouldn't call you insane. many ppl have critiqued his play, and while i'm not really the most qualified to do so, it's not impossible to see how this could happen. in his defense he did play 3 of the top 4 ruers in his games, so i think he could have salvaged his record if his team let him stay in. best of luck to him in the future.

all that aside, i had a lot of teams i was super proud of this season, and i'll be sure to post a dump after seasonal ends and the dump thread goes up. idk why im so nice and helped nat and joey the whole tour, but what can i say i like buildin pokemon teams.

thanks to everyone who played and watched the games this season, the support for the tier is always appreciated.


real quick points
-stoise is overrated
-lazzle is the best mon in the tier
-shaymin is bad
-dropping leaf blade is better than dropping edge on synth viriz
-mismagius is an a rank mon
-zong is p bad
-specs whimsi with switcheroo and defog is good
-xatu is super good
-pod is one of the best mons
-tangela is a legit option
-scarf doom is the best scarfer next to lazzle
 

aim

pokeaimMD
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past WCoP Champion
Just wanted to write some thoughts on RU as a whole from my SPL experience. I'm very happy to have finished 1st overall, 7-3 is really cool coming into a tier that "i didn't know." Obviously I could not have done this alone. I had a lot of great teammates/friends working with me whom i'll shout out when SPL is officially over.

When I started week 1 vs Pohjis and ended up losing, blunder hit me up with a pm that definitely changed my mindset a bit. "Make the play that doesn't require you to think, but makes your opponent have too." Basically, to give some context; in the game vs Pohjis I opted to revenge his Raikou with my Choice Scarf Tyrantrum over going into my AV Pangoro. Now, Choice Scarf Tyrantrum wasn't a bad play, but between M-Steelix & Noivern, Pohjis not only had pivots but I was in the position where "ok, do I click EQ or do I Raw Head Smash on the predict" where I could have just gone AV Pangoro and clicked Knock Off for free and literally dealt with all other switch-ins. So I had a play that didn't make me think, but would put Pohjis in that position. This really changed my perspective going forward.

Echoing Ajna a bit, I think Bronzong is really bad. The 3 games that I lost, 2 were to being down 5-6 early with both my Bronzongs pursuit trapped, the other was Slowking. I'm not a huge fan of slow Pokemon that are easily pursuited with little ways to punish your opponent. Pokemon like Xatu/Mismagius I don't feel fit that as they either punish with Rocky Helmet, great abilities or Powerful Z moves and don't allow free switch-ins. Golisopod is also pretty incredible, and you can see I believed that with my insane amount of Golisopod usage. It can tech a lot to deal with answers too like Dual Chop for Noivern or Drill Run for Toxicroak. I currently believe that Sitrus Berry is easily its best set, but I also think that Choice Band can still be incredibly annoying, especially with the rise of Tangela + Florges. Doing 80% to Florges upon switch-in, oh man. Necrozma is absolutely incredible and under-explored imo. I used Protect 3 attacks to deal with Golisopod and also weaken steels for Fairy types, 4 attacks colbur to deal/lure Blastoise/Houndoom and also believe CM/SD are amazing. Hope to see more of it going forward.

I think it's so awesome how solid offense is in RU atm. Really love seeing different Pokemon put in work, and techs hitting. Overall it was a pleasant experience playing and I'm glad I was able to pull off the win. I know I'm no RU main, but it was a pleasure battling with all of you. thank you for having me.
 
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EviGaro

is a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
RU Leader
And with SPL done, might as well wrap some things up lol. Grats to aim for getting the best RU record, and grats to passion and RedEmption for getting the trophy as the RU players! Some thoughts on my experience as a whole I guess, it's very me so uh not sure who is gonna be interested but heck I am:

I think going into SPL that was the first official tour I was... good confident of getting picked? Really started when for some reason I decided to go all out and bring Sawsbuck but eh, whatever works. I was really upset at missing Snake cause, well, I definitely felt like I belonged when I saw the teams but there was dumb arrogance on my part somewhere I think, which I really took away before SPL began. Didn't really expect to land where I did and especially not for that kind of money, but despite our shaky season I don't really regret it, I got to team up with greats of the game, people who were there years before me and that was fun and different. Big thanks to Conflict in particular since he did a ton to help me prep and build, which I didn't quite expect but he has a great mind for the tier and honestly man I'd love to see more of it, it was really refreshing to see an attitude that wasn't reluctant about the tier from someone like that and he's goat so.

Week 1 really was an experience, but I was super proud of that team. I threw a ton of different builds that week, changed the final team a lot before deciding on that, so big thanks to everyone who helped me test and talked to me then, I really wanted to go off to a strong start. Also it's really interesting to see just... How much the shifts changed the tier lol. I wanted to use Doublade one last time, and honestly looking at that team I don't think it's anywhere near as possible to engineer such a reliable offence with any of the remaining steels. Metagross is good and all, but it's just not on the same level as a glue, especially since its multiple sets can't reliably guarantee the same thing. Doublade had to pick its last move, sure, but you really only needed SD and Sneak to be a threat, and everything else could flow naturally with your build. Also shoutout to being French Canadian and going all in on the Youtube scouting that week ROFL

Week 2... Well I think most of you know that team by now tbh. I'll say this about KW, he honestly came closer to breaking me there than about any time I have used that team, and while it was the second time I kinda went hard at him with a bunch of non RU mons, it's still as a sign that I know who he is and I truly do respect his approach, so at times I have to stretch my definition of what is acceptable in terms of creativity. Still, the feedback that week was lowkey funny, as I used to have Sigilyph over Golbat but Teddeh, instead of yelling at me for proposing one RU mon on a RU team, suggested the switch to Golbat and yeah it pretty much makes that team so good. It sort of fits my idea of how you have to go when you are using a fatter build, as you still require a decent amount of offensive presence in this metagame. Only wish I could fit a cleric somewhere but never happened really. It was cool to see more attempts at building sand though, as I do share with col49 the idea that this weather is extremely unexplored by most players in this tier, as from the get go you start with one of the best fire counters available in a tier where there aren't many, and you can abuse dynamics speed tiers with a cleaner. The rest is also very malleable, so hopefully more people try that. Also Tangela is really amazing lol, Golbat is a lot more niche, and I see teams with it that kinda just falter really easily, but Tangela went beyond the "zydog counter" to a legitimately good pick for this tier.

Honestly those two teams are probably my favourite from SPL, and I do kinda see the week 2 as definitive of my overall building experience... But still, global thoughts on the remaining weeks: I badly miss Staka lmfao, the z set was stupid but as support it was so dope. Also wanted to dabble with Ninetales + Roserade instead of Venu sun, as I felt that the more offensive output of Roserade while still keeping a good speed tier - especially against Nat teams - was kinda clutch in a more reliable way, but it's still very difficult to build a team that will keep most meta threats at bay with this. Against well I learned a lot from that game honestly, I got annoyed by some things but I'm pretty sure I had it if my mindset was to keep the aggression instead of being inconsistent there, but oh well. It's also where I realized that Salazzle was back to being stupid good, which matters in the future lol. Week 5 I won if I was Magnet Rise but I wasn't ROFL oops, got a bit lucky against my good friend Diogo but, again, Salazzle is insanely dumb, and Specs Goodra is really a cool mon conceptually. Also Pod being a binch for Mandibuzz was really clutch, something I didn't fully appreciate beforehand. Sadly the Iapapa Donphan didn't work out, but I kept going on with that set and I do think it's legit better than lefties expect in some very specific situations where you keep the sturdy after switching on rocks. Week 7 I... kinda blew the matchup but I honestly never expected that build, and while that team is mega wild, the slow volt from Vikavolt into the breakers is actually a good concept, and if you saw the video Joey made after, you can definitely see where I was going for with that matchup, just didn't work out and I made some doozies but like that matchup was hilariously discouraging. I FINALLY got to play Dad for week 8, and while it's a shame both our teams were out and that killed the hype a bit, I was proud of how I played and of clutching the week for the Sharks still. Week 9 I played NU yikes.

I have some thoughts on the meta in general but honestly SPL already feels so long ago with consideration of how the meta is right now, and most of the hard matchup issues I had are kinda gone. The tier really stabilized at the mid level I feel, the best mons aren't as good and there's enough in the mid Bs to even Cs that you can use to cover threats that you can be creative and still end up with something reliable. Cookie cutter teams still suck though, that's been a constant in RU for years now and it was very much on display this SPL, which might make it harder to pick up the tier but as Joey and even Ultraballz showed, you can definitely find stuff you like and not be afraid to use it, even without knowing all the intricacies of the playerbase.

edit: Also free roman lol
 
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