Here are the teams the tigers used in SPL that were either made by me or something I pushed our player onto using. Having two players (s1nnoh/c0mp) who were very willing to listen to team choice direction made it enjoyable for me to manage prep in this tier, while being able to lay back and watch the games unfold without myself as a pilot.
Some thoughts I have about the tier:
SM to me is the tier with just the largest amount of sheer viable pokemon to account for. It really has come around to feeling like the old gen where matchup matters the most, as there are just so so so few teams that can reliably have both defensive and offense counterplay for the unholy amount of threats in the tier. Not only that, but the spectrum of viable team archetypes is huge -- and frankly pretty balanced. I'm at a point where I consider everything from Sableye stall, to Latias spikes balance, to Celesteela sand, to Lopunny+pivot based offense, to Psyspam vanilla offense, to standard rain, to screens HO, to all be viable ways to tackle the game. It makes it really, really, really hard to go into every week with a team I felt like had no flaws. That lead me to really leaning hard on recycling this year and not even attempting to innovate original new 6s really just because... I don't think they would be worth using. It's kind of led me to being fed up with the tier, but at the same time I don't see any simple ways to ban/unban mons that would make the overall tier less abhorrently broken. There is some charm in the fact though that when creativity is seen through, it can really be seen through though. Z-moves on random sweepers used to be the "end-all be-all" for creative building in SM, but nowadays it feels to me more like its' about pulling out forgotten defensive cores or unique pivots to continue abusing the brokens. The main stand-outs to me this SPL were things like the Alo-Muk balance from charm, the bulky KyuB offense from idk who built it, and frankly the tigers' own finals team with the triple sweeper + pursuit quartet. Maybe WCOP featuring now 20 starters as opposed to 10 will lead to people trying to figure out ways to break the tier in new ways, but I think it is hard to imagine I myself will not try and stick to the classics with a twist or two, as there really is nothing better than slapping a chansey+pex+lele on a team and getting as close to neutral matchup as I can.
W1
[CRY] QWILY vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d [TIG]
https://pokepast.es/fbaaeed851910b4e
The general idea behind this team was we wanted a pretty standard offense to help S1nnoh break into SM for pretty much the first time. My read from qwily was that we would be seeing a pretty fat team, so the idea of Mega-Maw + the cool Lele set seemed like it would be a good call. Overall, I think this teams' flimsiness is a big issue and, as shown in the game, running into fat teams with the right walls can just out-last the fact that nothing here can take multiple hits and stay alive throughout a long game. The only thing I super wanna highlight here is the idea of phys def + CM Lum lele, which has the nice gimmick of being able to setup against an obvious twave or toxic from clef, toxapex, whatever, and then basically be an unstatused and un-choice locked specs lele for a few turns. I'd probably not recommend people pick this team up overall.
W2
[TIG] S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Skypenguin [RAI]
https://pokepast.es/55325d8ab3bb575b
The main thing that I liked when prepping vs Skype was Scizor-Mega + some breaker that would just naturally go forgotten about in the face of someone innovating a bulky team. I had had this 6 sitting in my builder without EVs for at least a couple of years now, and the combo of Scizor+Z Kyub+Double trapper just seemed like everything I had been looking for this week. Nothing too fancy, and this team has shown up in tournaments for a while, I believe native to star? Regardless, the playstyle was strongly in S1nnoh's wheelhouse and I feel like I called the innovative balance team Skype ended up pulling up with pretty correctly. Overall I think this team is solid and simple for anyone looking to pick-up a classic BO for this tier.
W3
[RUI] Charmflash vs S1nn0hC0nfirm3d [TIG]
https://pokepast.es/d09e8edf22dd320b
Pretty simply put, I liked rain into any sort of funky offense that we felt like was likely from Charmflash. What better way to be good into funky offense than Mega Pert/spikes Ferro rain. It also seemed *just* unpredictable enough, assuming the ruiners would be scouting my tendencies from recent SM tournaments, as I really try to avoid using rain as much as possible. Sometimes though, it just hits right. This version of the paste in my opinion is the safest way to play rain. No min-maxing with Ada swampert or mono-hydro pump Greninja, but those changes obviously have huge upside. I would recommend this team as something to throw into your SM arsenal on occasion, but spam rain and you can very easily get cteamed as its' something that really can just auto-lose to a few conscientious choices.
W4
[TIG] S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Welli0u [SCO]
https://pokepast.es/e4fa26cf13fe7704
Week 4 is when I feel we hit our first impasse in SM. I reaaaally felt the call this week was a team based around SD Gliscor / SD Bulu + Pursuit (
https://pokepast.es/917d8ec61b6446f6), as I really like the way it lasts over a long game which is something I subconsciously associated as a weakness of Welli0u's (no disrespect brother <3). The style just did not really click for ho3n though, and he told me "I'm not using Toxapex." which was gonna be a big problem trying to last 5+ more weeks only comfortable on offense in a tier where counter-teaming is beyond easy. I ended up searching through SPL 14 replays to try and find us a panic button team, stumbled on
this replay, and I took the 6 from Noisy and changed the sets more to my liking. The dd tar + zone idea seemed like it would do well into most balances, especially something like a Latias-Ferro type structure, and honestly imo the matchup was not too bad minus a Kyurem that was hard to dance around. Overall regarding the team though, I think it would be okay for most people to pick up. Not one of our best brings this season but it should be solid into most balances/vanilla offenses.
W5/W6
I was pretty hands-off these 2 weeks as Garay has his style+old comfort teams that I was content to let him put faith in, so I won't comment anything more really. We switched S1nnoh and Garay as I felt like last week was indicative that S1nnoh's lack of meta knowledge compared to SV would make it tough, whereas Garay had been around the tier a lot more.
W7
[TIG] c0mp vs Poek [TYR]
https://pokepast.es/783ac8089f156927
Week 7 I wanted to give false a shot at a non-sub in game, but there was a bit of an activity fiasco. The end result was c0mp subbing in with only a few hours for us to all collab on a team. Thus proceeded team dumps from me and Trosko, which led to us noticing how much we liked grass spam + Magma Nature power tran from an old Trosko paste into the Tyrants' sm scout. I polished the team up in DMs with c0mp a bit and walked him through the basic lines of how to play it. We ran into a team that just got obliterated by Magma+Grass tran, as it relied on Gliscor as really the only way to take tran on defensively, and Zam as the only way to shoot for offensive punishes. Poek ended up switching zam in to a magma crit and the game was just pretty much over from there. Overall I'd highly condone this team to anyone with a decent bit of SM experience. Trap+Sweeper based teams are so consistent if you are good with assessing when trapping is the right option and have huge upside to stuffing out fat teams.
W8
[BIG] Zaza vs c0mp [TIG]
https://pokepast.es/5bd09719a20c50a1
After 7 weeks it was time for the classic. I noticed Zaza's only wins were on fat teams, so I was certain it was time to bust out the ultimate anti-fat... frankly it's the ultimate SM team. Nothing plays as reliable as Lele Chansey Pex and I won't relent on that. C0mp instantly clicked with the team too, so it was pretty much a lock from day 1 that we would use this. It made it really easy for c0mp to practice on just this team as there was no disagreement about what would be a good matchup call. Overall, I recommend this team to anyone regardless of level of SM experience.
W9
[TIG] c0mp vs Lusa [CLA]
https://pokepast.es/b32d3f467349b1f1
Our actual strategy when prepping for this game was 2 things. #1) we wanted to keep c0mp on offense for the sake of misleading the scout going in to playoffs. #2) Vanilla offense with a trick room Magearna just seemed like it would do well into Lusa. The team was, I believe, an old Trosko paste. Most interesting thing here would probably be the AV Lele. It doesn't quite have the obvious breaking power of an offensive item but it's really good into vanilla offenses, which were what Lusa tended to lean on in SM when he wasn't feeling something fat like Maw/Chansey. The call ended up being pretty much exactly the vanilla offense we saw coming from Lusa, and the game ended in a surprise trick room Magearna sweep. Overall, I prooobably wouldn't super recommend this team, as it can struggle into super-fat or super-offense. Shuca Magearna being the only real steel type means it gets worn down fast in the face of something as simple as a Lele Zam or Ash Gren offense.
Semifinals
[TIG] c0mp vs Welli0u [SCO]
https://pokepast.es/358bd62c1590d93e
This was the week I went the absolute hardest into making sure we would have a team with a perfect matchup. I knew it would be possible to bait the scooters into full confidence we would be sticking c0mp on something offensive again thanks to our scout from the weeks c0mp was in SM. I respect Welli0u a lot as a battler and I knew our best shot into him was putting c0mp onto a stall team that could time out any sort of balance or vanilla offense. The biggest obstacle here was genuinely just getting c0mp into the mindset of a stall player. It really was not in his wheelhouse coming into the week. He had to get owned in test games vs Garay, emforbes, PZZ, before I forced him into a screenshare call where I showed him exactly how I felt it had to be played, when to get aggressive with Sableye, how to scout out Magearna sets etc etc. Everyone on the team was trying to tell me putting c0mp on an uncomfortable playstyle wasn't worth "fishing" the matchup, including Garay even accusing me of trying to throw a semis game out of stubborn-ness (<3 to garay), but nonetheless I put my foot down and told c0mp this was the only team I approved of. As for the paste itself, what I really wanted for the matchup was a Celesteela+Sableye stall team. Celesteela was just the simplest way of having a tool that keeps you pretty safe vs teams that solely count on a specs Lele to win the game should they face a rare stall team. Sableye was a mandatory addition to any team I was considering too as it's a mon that lets you aggressively make progress when leveraged correctly, and I knew that would at least help c0mp stick to finding lines that he was more known for. I took Charmflash's sableye stall and (imo) fixed the sets up a lot from the original replay. Z-bug volc was a super important addition to managing pursuit M-Ttar teams, the soak/gastro acid Pyuku was my way of trying to keep all Gliscor/CM Clef/mons like that countered very simply, and the Defog+Uturn gliscor felt like a good way to let the team play volcarona and sableye more aggressively to be able to force switches to heal up the real fat mons, or just actually go for progress with qd / knock offs. The matchup was pretty much what we wanted, and c0mp did very well at managing to outlast the Regen torn+Pain split magearna combo that nearly PP stalled his Chansey. I think the game probably could've been won smoother with more turns of Celesteela to force progress / saving the z-bug on volc for a breakaway on Zard-X, but we got there and that's what matters. Overall, I recommend this team if you like playing stall (which I do, but I know its not everyone's cup of tea).
Finals
[TIG] c0mp vs DonSalvatore [TYR]
https://pokepast.es/763e174c1dd9948f
One look at Don's replays from SPL and Masters made me feel really confident that any game lasting more than about 50 turns would go c0mps way. What's the best way to do that? Setup sweepers + Pursuit. I found a team from Empo in master's that I really liked with the exception of trash-ass tangrowth
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-735768 so I got to talking with him about it. I immediately replaced the trangrowth with bulu, as it fulfilled basically the same role while also being perfect support for Ttar+Reun with Grassy Terrain, and having great synergy with Pursuit ttar. I also changed the Reun set to z-fight from empo's z-thunder, as z fight just felt like it gave c0mp more potential to catch a possible Ttar/Tran on the switch and never let any sort of enemy trapper balance get leverage in the game. Empo generally agreed with all the changes, and c0mp got to practicing. He wasn't super sold on it frankly, and actually started to really like using a Zard-X grass spam offense I posted as a backup idea. For about 2 days I was okay with him sticking to what he found comfortable and strong in testing, but then it was suddenly 4-5 on Sunday night and some feeling just came to me that the zard-x team was going to lose horribly. I hopped on discord from some pub WiFi in London and told c0mp "I changed my mind. We are using the Reun team and I will take full responsibility if we lose." which was met with an "alright fine." The matchup to me was about 45-55 in Don's favor. C0mp's tspikes+ttar combo looked reallyyy good, whereas Don's kyub+weavile double CB core looked extremely hard to stay alive into over a super long game. c0mp noticed how good the tspikes were fortunately and managed to get an early poison on the slowbro: Gliscor check 1 neutralized... until c0mp switches Ttar into an ice beam freeze and never tries to unthaw. I really thought this game was fucked from this point forward, as Bulu/Glis both just had insanely good counterplay into them between Scizor/Kyub/Z-ice Slowbro. Nonetheless, c0mp found the angle to catch the weavile with a z-fight from reun, and he proceeded to bait Slowbro's z-ice before PP stalling future sight and ice beam to completely 0. The KyuB being choice band ice-less from Don made it so, somehow, Gliscor was the wincon, and c0mp managed to get there with great pivoting and tspikes pressure. The experience of watching this game in a chinese restaurant in downtown London with 4-5 other Smogon guys also watching on their phones, and just seeing
shiloh go crazy when Don uturned the Kyub into a tspike at the end was just beautiful. Hands down my favorite spectator experience of the tournament. Overall I have typed too much but I do highly recommend this team to experienced SM players, same idea as the other Ttar + SDers team above.
Thanks for reading, hope you feel you learned something about the tier or can grab some Smogtour wins with these pastes!
Alpha Ruiners: Jytcampbell, FlamingVictini, Charmflash, Raptor
Congregation of the Classiest: Devin, Luthier, mncmt, Lusa
Dragonspiral Tyrants: Poek, CTC, Soulwind, blunder
Cryonicles: QWILY, booty, njnp, Finchinator
Wi-Fi Wolfpack: TDNT, ABR, robjr, Star
Team Raiders: Skypenguin, Punny, Tricking, Gondra
Sharks: geniusX, suapah, TDK
Ever Grande BIGs: zaza, xray, savouras
Indie Scooters: Welli0u, Hayburner, Niko
Circus Maximus Tigers: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d, z0mOG, Trosko, Eternal Spirit
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