Well with my SPL being over I think it is fair to review my games this season. Maybe this is able to entertain a wider part of the playerbase so hopefully more people can learn and enjoy GSC in the future. GSC has underwent a lot of changes in the past couple years even though it has been considered a "dead" metagame by some. What I really intend to show to the wider audience is how GSC is NOT a bore or stall-fest for the most part and has an average pace overall. I would even argue that GSC gametimes are NOT the longest of all main gen OU's and had some of the shortest game in this and last year's SPL. Of course there will be the odd stallgame that goes on forever but that can happen in any given generation if 2 stalls face each other. GSC now more than ever is about smart positioning, getting some key predicts correct and smart innovations. This has led even newer palyers having their fair share of success because those kinda teams dont require as much forward planning as in season's past.
I believe the general playerbase is quite strong right now though mainly because the amount of nonsense-teams has gone down considerably or and even the "bad teams" are atleast competent enough unlike the past (Classic 1-3 playoffs for example had some really bad team choices). The only thing that most newer players lack is a vision for planning ahead (both in the teambuilder and even moreso in-game). Hopefully people are able to gain that skill by playing more and discovering how to navigate end-games better.
The other trend I want to atleast try to combat here is the current "lazy" teambuilding by a lot of current players. What I mean by that is just blindly copying teams without understanding their structure or blindly subscribing to famous builder's philosophies. For example a lot of people just take ABR's, TDK's, Tony's or whoever's teams/words at gospel (they are great but even great players can have misconceptions or have teambuilding misconceptions). Most of those people are part of the same "bubble" and have great public reach therefore influencing public perception in a way where GSC can seem "solved" and the best way to play is already known. I strongly disagree with that and believe there is still room for GSC to grow and prosper. A lot of their teams are quite solid but they are not the be-all end-all (example: running Resttalk-Lax for Jynx in every team is NOT needed); there are different schools of thought and one can deviate from those people's standards. I urge people to experiment, build themselves and come to their own conclusions. I'd much rather play in an active metagame where you have many differing idea's (the schools of ABR, TDK, Fear, Zokuru, Conflict, BKC, Choolio, Lavos, etc.) of the metagame coalescing.
Now onto the games and teams. :) Probably gonna split this in 2 Parts. This will be Part 1, expect Part 2 sometime soon.
Week 1 vs. Soulgazer (played by Raichy)
Now I was away for most of week 1 so this build is mostly Raichy's work. All the different mons came from him and allI did was make him change some sets. The devil is in the details after all.
*Snippet of me critiquing his build from the airport*
Raichy tried multiple builds and ended up liking this one the most. It proved very adept at beating standard GSC teams and was well-suited to take on a new comer to SPL GSC. This team has a slight Nidoking-weakness that could have been fixed with a couple different sets at the cost of making this weaker against the vast majority of other teams but Raichy decided to take that risk because he had been spamming very "anti-Nidoking"-Teams (like Resttalk-Lax+Jynx+Zapdos-Teams) so he figured Nidoking would be less likely (tournament risks!). Nontheless the Nidoking-MU is hard but playable.This squad is basically your standard Stall with strong options for Stallwars ([HP]Fire-Forry+Starmie) and multiple strong Lax-answers (Curse-Rest-Ttar+Cursestalk-Skarm+ToxicTect-Forry). Raichy wanted to use Curse-Tyranitar and at first was using Curse+Flamethrower-TTar. I made him change that to Curse-Roar-Rest which fit better on such a defensive team and also gave us the freedom to run Snorlax as a Lure. Knowing that Tony was probably going to help soulgazer in his preparation I found a Snorlax-Set with both Thunder and Surf very enticing to lure and kill some of his preferred Mons (Cloy+Golem). The entire team is made to help Tyranitar facilitate a sweep. Lax lures soft counters like Cloyster and some hard counters like Steelix and Golem to free the way for Tyranitar. Toxic-Tect-Forry spreads Toxic on those same targets and acts as a deterrent for EQ-Lax. Starmie, Raikou and Skarmory form a defensive trio to stave off any threats while securing a Spikes-advantage.
Resttalk-Skarmory with both DP and Curse is super passive and im usually not a big fan but here it acts as a soft-check to Exeggutor while also keeping Last-Mon Snorlax in Check. It very likely wont sweep but it makes a lot of situations unloseable. Drillpeck was preferred over Toxic due to its ability to actually force damage and to not let anything heal up for free on Skarmory. In addition it lowers the threat of Nidoking by DP-Stalk-Skarm acting as a hard-counter to non-FB/Thunder-Nido and soft-checking or atleast discouraging the Switch-In of those sets. Skarmory acting as the Exeggutor-Check in turn lets us use [HP]Water on Raikou without big repercussions, further improving the Ground (especially Golem; Tony+SG preferences!) Match-Up.
The game itself was going very well but went haywire when some crucial luck hit (Crits on Lax+Ttar) and Raichy didnt manage to keep a cool head after those instances of luck and threw away the game from a very advantageous position. I believe the team had an incredible Matchup and was quite happy with our call here. Snorlax with Thunder+Surf is amazing into Cloy+Steelix, Eggy is checked by Skarm+TTar+Forry and should never be able to threaten a Boom-KO. Cloyster at best trades with Starmie which is no huge Loss here because Starmie's defensive qualities are only really needed for Steelix, who is also covered by Skarm+Forry+Lax. Raikou+Lax also check Zapdos+Gengar. Tyranitar only has Steelix as a check and therefore should slowly win this game especially so if the hazard advantage is secured. Lax poses no threat seeing as how its D-Edge+EQ with Resttalk vs. Skarm+Forry with TTar acting as a backup.
Raichy just lacked a bit of that long-term-planning that the newer generation of GSC players doesnt yet seem to possess. Most and especially Raichy play more by ear (Instinct!) and that did our LA friend in in this particular game.
Week 2 vs. Jimmy Turtwig
Well Week 2 proved to be a banger of game that came down to the wire. The game itself was close and could have easily swung the other way if RNG didnt cooperate (speedties...). My team matched up quite well here especially the Jynx but the purple lady didnt even get to kiss that day.
The team itself is very standard and has been seen in other variants quite a bit over the years. This is just my take on it. The idea was that I wanted to be quite secure vs Jynx (have been neglecting it sometimes in the newer past and paid for it) and Exeggutor (something I remembered Jimmy being fond of) while also having a decent Golem-Cloy-Matchup (those teams are ez to pick up and hes returning to GSC, sooo....).
Zapdos is meant to abuse the Spikes via Whirlwind and reliable damage output that the combination of Cloy+Golem+Gengar basically guarantee. Whirlwind also acts as a Cheese- and Lax-deterrent. Thunder Wave on Zapdos was a late addition to help vs some fast threats (Espy/Gengar/Jynx/Jolt) and was changed to from Reflect after Reflect didnt perform well in tests. Snorlax here acts as my safeguard to special threats and in particular vs Jynx. Whereas Snorlax+Zapdos are fitted to deal with Offense both Gengar and Jynx are fine-tuned for more defensive matchups. Gengar uses a Mean Look-Set aimed to bluff a standard GGar with Ice Punch and hopefully being able to surprise trap key targets. It has DBond and PSong so it can always perform its duty reliably even when the opposing Mon packs the corresponding coverage. The main targets here are: Snorlax(for Jynx+Zapdos), TTar(for Jynx) and Raikou (for Zapdos+Jynx). Jynx foregoes Substitute in favour of Nightmare here to further improve my chances vs Stall. With Spikes and Nightmare Stall has no real switchins to this Jynx set long-term and I should be able to dictate momentum.
The game itself played out in an interesting way. The early game set me behind after he got the Thief on Snorlax and managed to Spike up on my Snorlax with his Cloyster. I managed to recover the momentum in Turn 7+8 by playing a bit reckless with my Snorlax and getting huge damage on Steelix. This in turn set up Gengar to force his Snorlax in and trade kill it with MLook+DBond. This boded well for my Jynx and I was poised to win this game. I believe i commited my only error here in Turn 15 by staying in with Jynx and risking it vs. Zapdos. It was way too early to do that and at this point in the game I should have deducted that he needed damage on Jynx (he was particularly weak against it with Lax gone) so he'd Thunder and that his Zapdos very likely had HP[Ice] considering he ran both Eggy+Cloy+EQ-Lax. This meant that a switch to Golem there was basically free and I wouldve been able to freely Spin/Boom on Zapdos ensuring my win. With the Spikes advantage secured or Zapdos blown up my Jynx had a clear winpath (ohkoes everything but Tenta from there which cannot 2hko/Ohko back at +0 without PSN or at +2). Due to some bad RNG I ultimately had to risk the game on some Speedties to have any chance. If only I played this sequence better this could have been all avoided. In the end I wasnt punished tho this time around.
Week 3 vs. Kenix
Week 3 is when I went wild. I had scheduled with Kenix for Thursday so I had to get off my lazy ass and start to build early. While brainstorming during the start of the week I somehow arrived at wanting to use Smeargle as a lead remembering Kenix using a lot of Sleeper-Leads or Snorlax during his GSC Invitational Run.
The first 5 Pokemon were assembled quite quickly just the last Slot (Jolt) ended up going through a myriad of iterations. Let's walk you all through this team:
- Smeargle was chosen as the Lead due to it's ability to force action. I wanted to use Spike-Smeargle that beat Sleep-Leads, Snorlax and Hazard-Setters (Cloy/Forry). So starting from there I ran Spore+Spikes to secure me an early advantage. Miracle Berry was the Item choice but i changed it to PRZ Berry after thinking it over once more. Most Sleep Leads (Nidoking/Jynx) would probably anticipate Miracle Berry and therefore either straight up attack or Thief. Now if those Mons Thief my Miracle Berry I would Spore into that and basically lose my entire advantage. If they steal PRZ Berry on the other hand they would gain no real Item and also get slept. PRZ Berry also acts as insurance vs pesky Electrics that can Thunder-para my dear Smeagol. Destiny Bond was chosen for it's ability to force Double-Downs. Often times it was more advantageous to set up Spikes and then DBond into an incoming killing blow instead of Sporing, permanently taking a Mon out of the equation. Super Fang was a late addition and a lot of different options were tried here (Sacred Fire, Mirror Coat, Perish Song, Glare) but in the end Super Fang was the choice because it forced damage on almost anything and made it more likely that the opposing Mon would attack therefore potentially trigger DBond.
- Zapdos acted as the Sleeptalker. It's Standard set is just darn good at keeping most weird threats at bay and it also solidifies the team defensively and opens the road to more offensive sets on the rest of the squad.
- Steelix is here to act as a road block to physical threats (hi Lax!), providing phazing support. It was chosen over Golem due to its higher defensive stats (lives 999 EQ from Lax) and its better typing (not dying to HP[Water] or Eggy right away). Boom is just additional insurance and booming priority targets like Snorlax or Exeggutor is highly valuable.
- Snorlax was meant to be the initial Send-Out after Smeargle perished. With D-Edge, EQ, Thunder and BOOM it is able to threaten almost everything and keeps the offensive pressure high. It is not as needed defensively due to Jolteon taking over some of its duties vs. the Electrics. The team appreciates Lax ability to punch holes here, hopefully opening a win path for my dangerous Electrics. EQ+Thunder are meant to pressure, weaken and potentially even kill annoying Mons like Cloy/Grounds/Gengar. There are a lot of cross-synergy-effects at work here. For example weakening Grounds lets Jolt threaten a kill on them, whereas thundering Cloy opens a path for Steelix.
- Misdreavus runs an unusual set here. I would argue that Gengar here is maybe even the better choice overall due to its higher stats (Speed) and wider movepool (Boom!) but Misdreavus was ultimately chosen mainly due to its ability to spinblock vs Golem teams. Smeargle very likely dies early and that means that my opportunity to reset Spikes are almost none once they are spun away. This meant I needed to secure them. This could either be accomplished by running a lot of otherwise suboptimal choices (HP[Water]-Zap, Surf-Lax, etc.) or by exchanging Gengar for Misdreavus. Misdreavus is still not a good Golem-Switchin but atleast it can block Spin once or twice. Furthermore I am running a very unusual Misdreavus-set meant to keep Golem at bay and acting as a pseudo-check to threats via DBond. HP[Water] lets my Missy pressure and beat Golem 1v1, while also doing respectable damage to Steelix, Tyranitar and Nidoking. Thunder is the move of choice for Starmie (Tbolt works too, but Thunder can force paras on things like Zapdos+Raikou which can be huge). DBond acts as a safety net for all kinds of scary threats. The last slot is quite flexible. In the end I went with PSong after talking it over with Fear to better contain last Mons. Toxic works just as well and might actually be even better here as I have found in further testing since.
- Lastly the "hidden" Star of the show: Jolteon. This slot went through numerous iterations. Aside from Jolteon I tested Jynx, Starmie, Miltank (Curse-EQ-MDrink!), and Espeon. But in the end Jolteon's high speed, letting it act as a pseudo-check to many threats like opposing fast Psychics/random mons like Charizard/Tenta, as well as its advantageous typing into the Electrics made me go with this Eeveelution. I ran Thunder for certain treshholds (2hkoes/ 3hkoes after 1-2 Growth), HP[Water] for Grounds and Rest to act as a late-game wincondition vs. stallier teams.
Overall I consider this one my favourite team of this season because it is so unique and fast paced.
The game itself was very quick. Even though I did not get the desired lead MU and had to switch around, trading Smeargle for Cloyster is a net-positive here and afterwards I am able to exert huge pressure with my offensive Lax thanks to not blowing up prematurely. My Misdreavus-set shows it worth by trashing Kenix Golem, giving me an avenue to abuse forced switches with my own Doubles to Lax. Just knowing that I have Steelix AND Jolteon in the back for the Electrics lets me play Snorlax with reckless abandon. Then we basically just trade pieces until I am able to get Jolteon in on a predicted Rest-Turn by Raikou and start boosting. The game just ends with Jolteon cleaning house.
Quick and decisive.
Week 4 vs. Garay Oak
You thought I was crazy Week 3? Well then strap yourself in because we are going the full distance now. This is the definition of a one-off tournament team where someone totally went off the proven track and ventured deep into the weirdness.
This team at first glance looks innocous enough but the hidden dangers are revealed one delves deep into it. Let me take you on a tour into the mind of Crazyflict. Well Garay's team in the first couple weeks all seemed quite weak to a speed-passed Marowak so thats the direction I took. I am however not a fan of those one-dimensional standard BP-Squads because they have 1 shot at winning usually and also rely a lot on match-up and their opponent fucking up (Lavos farmed ppl w BP, but a lot of those players just tilted when they saw BP and didnt use their brain at all anymore; rewatch those games if you want - I did too in prep for this week). ThusI wanted to use something less obvious that could also go the distance if needed.
^That was basically the whole idea. Feign a more standard team and then surprise him with Agi-Pass to a Ground. This team had multiple versions but usually the first 4 stayed the same. The only slots that I really played around with where Slots 5+6. Jolt was sometimes a Smeargle and Quag a Marowak. Ultimately I settled on this version tho because it had the best flow and it let me include 1 more tech efficiently. Lets have a deeper look:
- Snorlax acts as an Opener here that also fulfills the role of a Lure. It is supposed to Curse up T1 vs anything but Sleep Leads (LK vs those!) and then LK Turn 2/3 on the incoming Spiker/Counter(Skarm in Stalls). EQ is meant to be used afterwards to beat up the usual Rocks that switch-in after LK was revealed and boom is there to go out with a bang. This set has to be played super agressively to be worth it. It was Miracle Berry over Leftovers on Lax until like 10 mins before the game. I changed it in response to testing but those tests were probably affected a bit by my teammates knowing my set and possibly playing accordingly. In those tests Lefties proved superior but I also didnt play as agressively as I needed to with the Lax. In hindsight I would say Miracle Berry was the correct choice and should have stayed especially because it improves the Sleeper-MU significantly.
- Steelix acts as the stop gap to threats. At first I used the standard Steelix-Boom-set but in testing I played so agressively that I never used Roar and having the ability to force out Zapdos with Rock Slide is quite huge, letting me potentially get the Boom off on the real targets. Steelix was the choice because it lures in all kinds of Water types and is able to safely explode on them (lives most Water attacks) which clears the way for Quagsire. Sometimes cursing up on Zapdos and then exploding on the Cloyster spiking/surfing is the correct move here just to get it out of Quags way.
- Forretress acts as a role compressor here that is also a pseudo-check to many scary mons thanks to its typing and ability to stomach any non fire-hit. Forry also lets me disguise this as a normal team and not BP if I reveal it early enough. I run Spikes/BOOM/Spin for utility and HP[Ghost] to pressure the shadowy phantoms and also soft-check the psychics (Starmie/Jynx). Spin was actually up to debate and I tested both Giga Drain (fk Golom!) and Sleep Talk (Fk Jynx!) but ultimately decided on Spin for a better grind game.
- Gengar is the 2nd part of the Spikes-Engine and hugely important here for multiple reasons. First it shores up the teams weakness to HP[Fire]-Forry by being able to spinblock it and potentially surprise kill it with Fire Punch. Fire Punch also hits Jynx and Steelix reasonably hard who are 2 other Pokemon that can be annoying for this team (Jynx in general, Steelix cuz of Jolt-pass). It also has DBond+Boom so it can pressure as well as act as a check to any possible threat and just double down something. Ice Punch completes the set and is Gengars most spammable move (freeze baby freeze) that hits the majority of dangerous Mons (Grounds/Zapdos).
- Next up is part 1 of the Jolt-Wak engine in Agility-Pass-Jolt. There is nothing fancy about this set this is just plain standard. But well if it works why change it. This slot has also been occupied by Smeargle who probably is a better pure passer but loses out to Jolteon in other areas mainly typing and general utility. So is Jolteon able to check the Elecs and also provides a decent switchin to Skarmory with its Flying-resist and strong Thunders. Also its speed came in handy quite a few times during testing to revenge annoying shit (Starmie/Espeon for example).
-Last but not least we have the Abuser. No i dont mean Chris Brown but the Mudman: Quagsire. I have constantly flip-flopped between Marowak and Quagsire here and in the end only decided on the Axolotl due to its ability to run a certain tech choice way better. Marowak has more immediate power but Quagsire has the more advantageous typing that lets it set up easier.
Just standard Belly Drum-Quag here with the last Move being Protect. Now I tested many choices here like Sludge Bomb or Sub. Sludge Bomb only really hits Grasses (basically Eggy in OU) but most of those are coming out earlier and are sufficiently weakened or defeated already. Sub was too inconsistent. Protect on the other hand proved downright amazing, blanking Explosions meant to end Quags rule and letting Quagsire recover valuable HP without having to be put to sleep and slowing down the pace of the team. Protect lets you for example Lefties-heal out of D-Edge-Range(50%) after Spikes vs. Snorlax, therefore letting Quag safely Belly Drum in Lax' face.
Let's have a look at the game itself: Things started out badly this time due to my last minute change of Miracle Berry to Leftovers on Lax. With Miracle Berry I would have been able to just sleep the Jynx and then probably blow up on the Cloyster setting the pace early. Sadly that wasnt the case and i had to make due. I recovered momentum via my nimble Forry dodging a Thief and got my Steelix in and started boosting. I Rockslid Garay's Zapdos once and boomed the turn after because I assumed he would conclude I did not have Boom (unusual set) and go to his Cloyster to take advantage of that. Sadly it didnt work out and he called it correctly, making me blow up my Steelix on Zapdos which is a bad trade here considering how Zap-proof this team is (no elec-weakness, quag+jolt....). I was only able to get back in the game by correctly predicting his Golem's Explosion giving up Spikes in the process. Afterwards Lax got me another 2 kills by forcing Explosions due to its threat level when boosted by curse. The game was ended by Quagsire drummin it up and goin to town on Lax. This game really showcased how big of difference 1 slight change can make (Miracle Berry vs. Lefties) and how important certain turns are (boom prediction by Garay and me). In the end I luckily walked away the winner here.
And well thats it. That is the first half of the season. Part 2 will follow hopefully soon. I hope I can inspire some of you to give this tier a whirl - it is great fun once immersed and understood.
- Kenix / M Dragon
- Zokuru / Teclis
- Conflict / Raichy
- Garay oak / ziloXX
- TC / ABR / Rubyblood
- lax / Vileman
- Fear
- choolio
- Jimmy Turtwig / Aliss
- soulgazer / Star / eden
