All Gens The Top 10 SPL Teams of All Time

Nyanpasu!

A popular exercise, at least in American sports, is discussing who the best teams of all time are. Much like my last thread, which appeared to be very well-received, I will be giving my own personal ranking of these teams and then encouraging others to give their own thoughts. I'm honestly not sure how much traction this thread will have, since the subject matter might be a bit less interesting for the majority of Smogon's user-base than my prior thread. Nonetheless, as a Smogon veteran who likes writing, it's something I'm interested in exploring, and, at the very least, I hope to enlighten you all with a bit of Smogon history.

There have been 10 SPLs, and naturally, only the teams that won will be considered for this list, at least for me. You, as the reader, are obviously free to do as you wish. This ranking will obviously be based on the form that all of these players were in during and around that time, for obvious reasons. Their legacy, in some cases, will obviously be factored in a bit as well.

Unfortunately, due to one notorious German, SPL only has 9 winners. As such, the last slot can be left completely up to interpretation. Feel free to only rank teams from the years in which you were active on Smogon as well, or something of the sort. This thread has links to all past SPL spreadsheets / records, so you can look up how well people did in any given year.

Rewer has put together a list of the SPL-winning teams, which can be found in the following link: https://pastebin.com/9aipixEr
I will be drawing from this list to make my overall ranking. My first SPL was SPL 3, and I remember most pretty clearly ever since SPL 5. So, the two SPLs I did not participate in might be a bit tricky, but I will try my best. I suppose we will once again go from tenth to first.

10. The SPL X Tyrants

SM OU: Mana
SM OU: BLUNDER SANTANA
SM UU: Christo
SM RU: aim
SM NU: ict
SM DOU: emforbes
ORAS OU: Poek
BW OU: We Three Kings
DPP OU: GaryTheGengar
ADV OU: Gilbert arenas
GSC OU: sulcata
RBY OU: Heroic Troller
Managers: reyscarface / Hogg


With apologies to legendary teams such as the SPL 8 Raiders, SPL 5 Cryonicles, and the SPL 3 Bigs, my journey shall start with the most recent SPL juggernaut. The Tyrants steamrolled through the regular season, and are the only team in SPL history to have every starter finish above .500. They ran into the buzz-saw known as lax + Lavos in the finals, who managed to carry a pretty dogshit team (as far as title teams go) to the trophy. The team was the most well-rounded of any on this list, and doesn't really possess a glaring weakness. They also possess a solid amount of star power between blunder and Poek, and possess enough solid other pieces to give them a nice shot in almost every tiebreak. This team would be way higher on this list if they managed to bring home the trophy, but unfortunately, they fell short, landing them at 10th.

9th. The SPL VI Classiest

ORAS OU: CTC
ORAS OU: ben gay
ORAS Ubers: Jibaku
ORAS UU: Hikari
ORAS RU: Bad Ass
ORAS NU: FLCL
ORAS Doubles: Braverius
BW OU: papai noel
DPP OU: Asuya
ADV OU: Triangles
GSC OU: Mr.E
RBY OU: KratosMana
Managers: kokoloko / -Tsunami-


This one's very easy for me to analyze, since I was the manager of this team. The SPL VI Classiest had a lot of flaws; for one, we somehow couldn't win a single variance madhouse game to save our lives LOL We were literally 2-8 in DPP until the finals. We finally decided to throw Asuya in there and had MoP give him a team, and somehow that worked. We had to overcome a lot of terrible players letting us down, as our UU starter Lowgock and RBY starter Raish were both absolutely AWFUL, and essentially made us waste around 20k. bad ass was our original DPP starter, which failed miserably LOL We spent like 16k on him too, jesus. Luckily, he did well after we flexed him to other tiers, and proved to be an essential component of our team. A midseason trade turned the team around for the better, as we managed to snag .5k from the Wolfpack, letting us pick up papai noel (and sogeking), and The_Chaser at mids (who was unfortunately pretty bad this year). After a lot of flexing, we ended up wasting Anti in RBY (something I would NEVER consider doing today), and it miraculously work, although this clown tried giving me a heart attack by playing fucking Smogon Tour DURING his finals series. I would be remiss to end this section without mentioning chimpact, who may or may not have been ghosted on his way to a 5-1 record. We even benched ben gay for him near the end of the season LOL good lord. The new gens of the team were pretty stacked, with revolutionary mind CTC and a young ben gay providing some nice innovative touches. The lower tier core of Hikari, bad ass, and FLCL, looks daunting even to this day. The old gens, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired, but they managed to smash the Ruiners in the finals. Our players came up clutch when it mattered, and we managed to take home the trophy. All that being said, as far as SPL champions go, this one was probably one of the worst. It's a tie between this team and the next team in this ranking for the 8th spot, and the sheer star power of the latter gives it an edge.

8th. The SPL X Ruiners

SM OU: Hiye
SM OU: Empo
SM UU: Pearl
SM RU: passion
SM NU: lax
SM DOU: Croven
ORAS OU: Luigi / imsosorrylol
BW OU: Rewer
DPP OU: Jimmy Turtwig
ADV OU: Hyogafodex
GSC OU: Lavos
RBY OU: FriendOfMrGolem120
Managers: ChillShadow / snaga


This team was an early favorite for a lot of people, but they were pretty poor on paper when stacked up with the Tyrants. There are many holes here, as evidenced by the fact that they sent out imsosorrylol with MEOWSTIC in the SPL finals LOOOL jesus. Ultimately, though, they get the 8th spot due to the absolutely ridiculous duo of lax + Lavos. These guys put on the greatest dual carry performace in the history of Smogon team tours; they won tiebreak after tiebreak, and carried this outmatched roster to a trophy. Whenever you needed them to win, they were there. The weaker slots occasionally stepped up as well, and made up for occasional poor performances by star players Pearl and Empo. Once again, though it's lax and Lavos's skills that lifted this team all the way to number 8 in the rankings.

7. The SPL VII Sharks

ORAS OU: reiku
ORAS OU: Steve Angello
ORAS UU: Hikari
ORAS RU: Meru
ORAS NU: Cased
ORAS LC: blarajan
ORAS Doubles: TheFourthChaser
BW OU: GOD MARTH
DPP OU: Smurf.
ADV OU: Golden Sun
GSC OU: Conflict
RBY OU: The_Chaser
Managers: makiri / M Dragon


This team performed well in the playoffs, and knocked off the Classiest in the final. They were relatively hyped going into the season, and surpassed expectations. The team returned 3 players from the vaunted SPL V Cryonicles lineup in Hikari, Cased, and blarajan. All three won in the finals, with Case having one of the highlight games in SPL history, by crushing the soul[gazer] of the Classiest with mono-ice. Bad puns aside, this team combined a solid new gen foundation with a nice old gen core, which was buffered by M Dragon. Smurf and Golden Sun were never the same after this tournament, as ABR and blunder would sadly find out in the following year, but during the playoffs, they were beasts. This team is pretty well-rounded, but didn't have too many big performers. A lot of the players had average records in the regular season, but they stepped it up in the playoffs. At the end of the day, this was a pretty good team, but their lack of real star power knocks them down a little bit in these rankings.

6. The SPL III Ruiners
BW OU 1: xtrashine
BW OU 2: McMeghan
BW OU 3: Folgorio
BW UBER: pi face
BW UU: FlareBlitz
BW RU: Bad Romance
VGC 2012: Sapphire Birch
DPP OU: BlightBringer
ADV OU: Earthworm
GSC OU: kael
RBY OU: Crystal_
Managers: The_Chaser / Scofield / Gouki


This team managed to knock out the vaunted Bigs in the finals, who were boasting a seemingly unstoppable OU core. This Ruiners lineup is a lot like the SPL IV Wolfpack's; they clearly have some holes, but the top-end of the team is pretty stacked. They had some pretty fire performances from legends Earthworm, pi face, and Folgorio. No one in the starting lineup was particularly bad this year besides xtrashine, who redeemed himself with a nice finals win his trademark Choice Band Ferrothorn. This team's pretty close with the next team in the rankings in my mind, but they lose the tiebreak off the manager difference. I will admit, I have no idea how much of a difference any of the Ruiners' managers made in their run this year, but I find it hard to believe they did more to patch up the team's weak spots than the following team's managers.

5. The SPL IV Wolfpack

BW OU 1: AkhiMarth
BW OU 2: taxi driver
BW OU 3: HellPowna
BW Ubers: Furai
BW UU: PK Gaming
BW RU: SilentVerse
BW NU: FLCL
VGC 2013: kingofkongs
DPP OU: DracoMalfoy
ADV OU: DarkLoic
GSC OU: Jorgen
RBY OU: Tiba
Managers: Limitless / Kevin_Garrett / gr8astard / DittoCrow


This team probably had the most roller-coaster season of all time. Limitless orchestrated some of the craziest trades ever, trading well over 30k in order to acquire the retains he wanted. One of them, Poppy, quit early on, and the team looked like they were absolutely done. One of their players, Farmer, even allegedly threw some of his games. They were left for dead by midseason, and their head manager was forcibly removed after jasonpwn reported him for ghosting. They used mids to revitalize their roster, picking up future legend Marth, who would prove to be a key cog in their future success. The team managed to eke in to the playoffs over the Cryonicles off of BD, and beat the Sharks and Tigers to take the trophy. This team's seventh because it clearly has some flaws. taxi driver, HellPowna, Furai, and PK Gaming were all pretty sketchy slots, although they did pull out some key wins this year. The rest of the star-studded team was phenomenal, though, and the old gen core is perhaps the best ever. Tamahome, Jorgen, and Tiba were the best players in their respective tiers, and with the building prowess of Hugo, the new gens managed to remain competitive as well. FLCL and SilentVerse were titans of their metagames too. They get the tiebreak over the Ruiners to me by virtue of the aformentioned Hugo support, which was integral in patching up some of their weak spots.

4. The SPL V Sharks
XY OU 1: -Tsunami-
XY OU 2: LUST
XY Ubers: Edgar
XY LC: Al_Alchemist
XY Doubles: Arcticblast
BW OU: Kevin Garrett
BW UU: Stellar
BW RU: Heist
BW NU: Malekith
DPP OU: Atticus
ADV OU: make
GSC OU: Conflict
Managers: MoP / makiri / Phillip7086 / panamaxis


Ah...my favorite SPL. The Sharks were beasts this year, and after figuring out our optimal lineup, we defeated two of the best on-paper teams of all time in the Wolfpack and Cryonicles. The team didn't really have a weak point, except for maybe mostwanted I suppose LOL This team managed to survive SoulWind, one of the team's most expensive players, having the worst season of his life; MoP decided to bench him for Kevin Garrett in the playoffs, who proved his mettle by securing two big twins over two of the best BW OUers of all time in Marth and Aqualouis. The old gens of the team were amazing, especially after we acquired Atticus at mids after that infamous Oglemi decision. The margins between this team and the two below it are honestly pretty razor thin; personally, I think this team was a hair better than those, though. This team also featured nearly unrivaled flexibility, with the ability to switch multiple tiers each week and give our opponents a different look if we deemed it necessary. The managers of the team were critical to our success, especially MoP, who ensured that no one choked on balls unless they wanted to die LOLO Everyone worked perfectly as a team, and the teambuilding for KG in the playoffs was absolutely remarkable. This team was definitely one of the least liked in SPL history; the teams facing us had such a ridiculous amount of helpers, while we hardly had any. At the end of the day, though, we took home the trophy in the greatest tour in Smogon history; can't ask for much more than that.

3. The SPL I Scooters

DPP OU 1: Atticus
DPP OU 2: Gouki
DPP OU 3: apologies
DPP UBER: Jibaku
DPP UU: Folgorio
ADV OU: g80
GSC OU: Mr.E
RBY OU: husk
Managers: Synre / Carl / alex


I have absolutely no idea if I ranked this team too highly or not LOL This seems pretty high to me, but on paper, they seemed really good. There were only 9 slots in this tournament, which obviously makes it far easier to build a complete team. Looking at this squad in 2020, it boasts a swarm of legends, with nearly all of their players being renowned in some capacity. I'm no expert on how good these individuals were in DPP, but from what I know, most of these people were pretty amazing. There isn't really a weak spot on this team as far as I can tell, with its worst player at the time probably being MrE, who actually went 7-4 in SPL I. I can't really say much about this team for obvious reasons, but they are definitely a complete team on-paper; however, at the end of the day, the team still only has 9 players, and that's enough to keep it from the top spot.

2. The SPL II Sharks
BW OU 1: Philip7086
BW OU 2: Eternal
BW OU 3: Lady Bug
BW UBER: DarkLucario
VGC 2011: Sixonesix
DPP OU: panamaxis
DPP UU: Smurf
ADV OU: husk
GSC OU: Conflict
RBY OU: Carl
Managers: makiri / MoP


I'm almost positive almost every old player will put this team number one. I remember them being endlessly gassed when I joined the site, and for good reason. The old gens looks absolutely ridiculous; panamaxis is one of the best DPP players ever, Smurf was known for being a DPP UU beast, husk was a God at the time, Conflict's been one of the best GSCers for a decade now, and Carl was a pretty good RBYer back in the day. The OU core was also phenomenal, with all 3 players known for being pretty good at the time. DarkLucario is a legend in his own right, while 616 is probably the best Smogon VGC player ever. Not all of these guys had great seasons this year, but they were all pretty amazing players around the time from what I know. I obviously wasn't around then, so it's hard to know for sure, but this team looks absolutely amazing on paper. I know first-hand how much the Sharks managers elevate the team as well, and that assistance could only lift the team to higher levels. As well-rounded as this team is, this SPL only featured 10 slots, naturally making it easier to draft a complete team. The next team on our list pulled off the impossible with 12 slots.

1. The SPL IX Wolfpack

SM OU: ABR
SM OU: Trosko
SM UU: PokeTCG gamer1288
SM RU: soulgazer
SM NU: Rodriblutar
SM DOU: marilli
ORAS OU: Updated Kanto
BW OU: SoulWind
DPP OU: Void
ADV OU: Astamatitos
GSC OU: Fear
RBY OU: The Idiot Ninja
Managers: Tony / Anti / rozes


This team is, without question, the best of all time. If the Tyrants took home the trophy last year, maybe they would have a case, but they would still lose via the ABR tiebreak. This team did not have a single weak spot, and managed to pull it off without sacrificing an ounce of star power. ABR, SoulWind, and Asta are all amazing. The lower tiers were pretty good as well, and the old gens only made the team even stronger. Kanto had the season of his life, and was so impressive that the Wolfpack even put him in a tiebreak against BKC. Void had a great season in DPP, while Fear farmed a lot of wins as he tends to do in GSC. The worst player on the lineup is probably TIN, but he's a capable RBY player, so it's hard to ask for much more than that. In addition to all of this, they had Tony as a manager, a man whose known for elevating the talent on his team. If that wasn't enough, they also had fucking ABR, who is probably the best team support anyone could ever ask for. Honestly, the craziest thing about this team is that they were somehow one game away from losing SPL LOOOL That shouldn't even be possible with a squad this loaded. They managed to pull out the win, though, and that secures their spot as the greatest team of all time.

So, that's my ranking. Feel free to post your own thoughts; I'm pretty interested to see what people have to say, especially with all the crust hating that goes on nowadays, kind of spear-headed by me LOL If you were around for some of the older SPLs, it would be cool to see what you have to say about those, since I wasn't really that in-tune with tournament culture until SPL 5. If you are a newer player, maybe you think there are some teams that deserve a mention on this list. Or, if you don't value trophies, maybe you think half the teams on this list are garbage and want to add your own. Anything is fine. Anyway, hope you enjoyed; I like talking about Smogon history, so this was a fun thing to write.
 
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M Dragon

The north wind
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 17 Championis a defending World Cup of Pokemon Championis a Past SPL Champion
World Defender
Interesting thread.
Since I have played in every SPL so far, I will comment a bit in every SPL and about the team that won.
I think that it is very hard to compare teams of different SPLs, so I will compare them based on how dominant they were in their SPLs.

SPL 1
Winner: Scooters
DPP OU 1: Atticus
DPP OU 2: Gouki
DPP OU 3: apologies
DPP UBER: Jibaku
DPP UU: Folgorio
ADV OU: g80
GSC OU: Mr.E
RBY OU: husk
Managers: Synre / Carl / alex


Regular season: 4-4-1 (4th, 9 points, BD: +7)
POs: vs Cryos (6-2) and vs Ruiners (5-2)

This tournament was very important back then for many reasons, such as being the first official tournament that featured old gens OU in official tournaments again, thanks to Netbattle being able to simulate them or being the first tournament that unbanned HP legends in GSC OU, creating the "modern" GSC OU we all know.
SPL 1 was one of the closest SPLs, with many teams having chances to qualify in the last week: there was no team guranteed in POs before the last, and there were 6 teams with real chances of getting into POs.

Scooters is a team that really struggled in the regular season. In fact, in order to qualify they needed to win AND other 3 teams to either tie or lose, and they were so close to being eliminated. The elegants needed 1 win in 3 games in order to qualify in scooters place, but one of the most tragic stories in SPL history happened: makiri's Tauros was in a sweeping position, but... body slam missed and a Snorlax managed to kill it, and the elegants got unlucky in the other 2 games as well, allowing the Scooters, the team with the least chances to qualify to get into POs, where they would dominate Cryos and Ruiners to win the first SPL.

Scooters is a very hard team to rank, because they would probably get first in power rankings if they were a think back then: they had 3 of the best DPP OU players, top Ubers and UU, as well as 2 of the NB era greatest in RBY and ADV, with MrE ending with a great record. However they struggled a lot in the regular season and were always behind.

Lineup: 9/10
Regular Season: 5/10
Playoffs: 10/10


SPL 2
Winner: Sharks

BW OU 1: Philip7086
BW OU 2: Eternal
BW OU 3: Lady Bug
BW UBER: DarkLucario
VGC 2011: Sixonesix
DPP OU: panamaxis
DPP UU: Smurf
ADV OU: husk
GSC OU: Conflict
RBY OU: Carl
Managers: makiri / MoP


Regular Season: 6-2-1 (1st, 13 points, BD: +15)
POs: vs Wolfpack (6-2) and vs Ruiners (6-3)

SPL 2 was the first SPL that included the new generation (BW) and the official Smogon format (VGC), as well as the relevant lower tiers (Ubers and UU at that time) and the old gens OUs.
This SPL was the season that started the greatest SPL rivalry: Sharks vs Ruiners. In fact, it started and ended with this same MU: sharks vs ruiners, ending with sharks victory in both weeks.
This SPL was completely dominated by Sharks from start to end, finishing first in the regular season and dominating in both POs games, in what is until today the most dominating performance of a team in this tournament.
SPL 2 sharks on paper is amazing, with dominating players at that time and no weak slot.

Lineup: 10/10
Regular Season: 9/10
Playoffs: 10/10


SPL 3
Winner: Ruiners

BW OU 1: xtrashine
BW OU 2: McMeghan
BW OU 3: Folgorio
BW UBER: pi face
BW UU: FlareBlitz
BW RU: Bad Romance
VGC 2012: Sapphire Birch
DPP OU: BlightBringer
ADV OU: kael
GSC OU: Earthworm
RBY OU: Crystal_
Managers: The_Chaser / Scofield / Gouki


Regular Season: 6-3 (2nd, 12 points, BD: +17)
POs: vs Scooters (6-5) and vs Bigs (8-3)

This season was a very weird one, because as an experiment, it had 11 slots, so ties were not possible. Unfortunately we already knew what teams were going to POs and what teams were eliminated very early because of that.

Ruiners deserved winning SPL after getting to finals in both SPL and 1 and 2, and they finally managed to win in SPL 3, destroying the team that had dominated the regular season (Bigs with a 8-1 record), although it is true that Ruiners only lost in regular season when they had already guranteed a POs position.
Ruiners was a great team, featuring the GOAT back then (worms), and having one of the best player at their tier in several slots.

Lineup: 8/10
Regular Season: 9/10
Playoffs: 9/10


SPL 4
Winners: Wolfpack

BW OU 1: AkhiMarth
BW OU 2: taxi driver
BW OU 3: HellPowna
BW Ubers: Furai
BW UU: PK Gaming
BW RU: SilentVerse
BW NU: FLCL
VGC 2013: kingofkongs
DPP OU: DracoMalfoy
ADV OU: DarkLoic
GSC OU: Jorgen
RBY OU: Tiba
Managers: Limitless / Kevin_Garrett / gr8astard / DittoCrow


Regular Season: 4-3-2 (4th, 10 points, BD: +8)
POs: vs Sharks (7-4) and vs Tigers (7-3)

With the introduction of NU, this was the first SPL with the modern format of 12 slots.
Wolfpack was a very bad team at the start of this SPL, and started very badly, losing nearly every week until midseason. But then everything changed after midseason, and they made one of the greatest comebacks in team tournaments, managing to qualify to POs in the last week, and defeating the 2 teams that had dominated the regular season in POs: Sharks and Tigers.
The team had some great names such as Marth, SV, FLCL, Tama, Jorgen and Tiba, and they were the key in their comeback.

Lineup: 7/10
Regular Season: 6/10
Playoffs: 9/10


SPL 5
Winners: Sharks

XY OU 1: -Tsunami-
XY OU 2: LUST
XY Ubers: Edgar
XY LC: Al_Alchemist
XY Doubles: Arcticblast
BW OU: Kevin Garrett
BW UU: Stellar
BW RU: Heist
BW NU: Malekith
DPP OU: Atticus
ADV OU: make
GSC OU: Conflict
Managers: MoP / makiri / Phillip7086 / panamaxis


Regular Season: 5-2-2 (2nd, 12 points, BD: +16)
POs: vs Wolfpack (7-5) and vs Cryos (7-5)

SPL 5 featured a new gen: XY, with the older gen lower tiers.
SPL 5 was dominated by 2 teams: Sharks and Cryos, in both regular season in POs, especially after they both got a key player in midseason: Cryos got Majin and Sharks got Atticus, in what is probably the most controversial decision ever done in a SPL, because Atticus was the manager of the team that was in the last place, and the SPL host allowed him to join in midseason as a player. Wolfpack was also a very strong team in SPL 5, ending 3rd with a very similar performance than Sharks in regular season, and losing to them in Semifinals.
Sharks LU was very interesting, with great OU players such as Heist and Malekith dominating lower tiers, with amazing old gens players, really good LC and Dubs and solid XY OU. Sharks also had Soulwind in BW, who is currently considered the best BW player.
Make was one of the greatest ADV players ever, a NB mexican legend who came back after being retired for years and dominated a stacked ADV. It is especially famous his game in week 1 vs Bloo where he was telling Bloo his moves and Bloo only managed to win because of luck.

While in my opinion Cryos was the better team on paper in this SPL (and in fact defeated Sharks in regular season), Sharks managed to win in a very close finals to be the first franchise that manages to win 2 SPLs.

Lineup: 8/10
Regular Season: 9/10
Playoffs: 10/10


SPL 6
Winners: Classiest

ORAS OU: CTC
ORAS OU: ben gay
ORAS Ubers: Jibaku
ORAS UU: Hikari
ORAS RU: Bad Ass
ORAS NU: FLCL
ORAS Doubles: Braverius
BW OU: papai noel
DPP OU: Asuya
ADV OU: Triangles
GSC OU: Mr.E
RBY OU: KratosMana
Managers: kokoloko / -Tsunami-


Regular Season: 4-2-3 (4th, 11 points, BD: +4)
POs: vs Bigs (7-4) and vs Ruiners (9-3)

SPL 6 had one of the biggest changes in SPL, and that was the limitation of retains. Before SPL 6, there were no limits in how many players a team could retain, and that ended with some teams having more than half of its starters before draft in SPL 5.
Classiest, while not being a bad team at all, is probably the least strong looking of the team that have won SPL. It has some great players, such as CTC, Hikari, etc but both Bigs and especially Ruiners had stronger teams in my opinion. However, in spite of ending in the 4th seed, Classiest didn't have problems to qualify to POs and managed to defeat the 2 teams that were theorically better and had dominated the regular season: Bigs and Ruiners. Therefore, it was a well deserved victory.

Lineup: 6/10
Regular Season: 7/10
Playoffs: 10/10


SPL 7
Winners: Sharks

ORAS OU: reiku
ORAS OU: Steve Angello
ORAS UU: Hikari
ORAS RU: Meru
ORAS NU: Cased
ORAS LC: blarajan
ORAS Doubles: TheFourthChaser
BW OU: GOD MARTH
DPP OU: Smurf.
ADV OU: Golden Sun
GSC OU: Conflict
RBY OU: The_Chaser
Managers: makiri / M Dragon


Regular Season: 4-2-3 (3rd, 11 points, BD: +10)
POs: vs Wolfpack (7-5) and vs Classiest (7-5)

Classiest had a very strong performance in regular season and defeated every other team... but the other 2 top teams of this SPL: Sharks and Wolfpack. This is a good example of how having a great regular season means nothing if you cannot beat the other top teams, because SPL is not about being the most regular team.

Sharks was managed by me, and it featured a great core of the legendary SPL 5 Cryos team (that was also managed by me), consisting on the LC GOAT Blarajan, the best UU player at the time Hikari, and Cased, a great NU player (although he had a terrible season). The team also featured really strong old gens with players such as Chaser (10-1 RBY record in SPL 3), Conflict (considered one of the best GSC players), Golden Sun (top ADV) or Marth (top BW player at the time), together with very strong players such as KG, Smurf, TFC in dubs or Meru in RU (who had a very dominating performance). reiku was the best ORAS player at that time, with crazy record in both Wcop and SPL, and Steve Angello who had a great performance in that SPL, with CTC in the back, who was key in the ORAS success of the team .

Sharks was all the regular season in the top 3 and didn't have any problem in qualifying to POs, where we managed to beat the other 2 top teams of the SPL: Wolfpack and Classiest, being ahead nearly all the time in both series.

Lineup: 8/10
Regular Season: 8/10
Playoffs: 10/10


SPL 8
Winners: Nobody

Regular season completely dominated by Raiders, with a 8-0-1 record, nearly managing to win all 9 weeks, only to lose in semifinals to the eventual winners Tigers... until TDs found out that Mazar had cheated and the tournament ended with no winner.
If this hadnt happened, Tigers run would have been very similar to Scooters in SPL 1, because they managed to qualify in the last week with a bit of luck because another team (Sharks in this case) got unlucky in their last games when they needed to win 1 more game to qualify. After qualifying to POs, Tigers defeated the team that had completely dominated the regular season (Raiders) and another great team in that SPL: Scooters in a very suspicious series (it was later proofed that Mazar had cheated).


SPL 9
Winners: Wolfpack

SM OU: ABR
SM OU: Trosko
SM UU: PokeTCG gamer1288
SM RU: soulgazer
SM NU: Rodriblutar
SM DOU: marilli
ORAS OU: Updated Kanto
BW OU: SoulWind
DPP OU: Void
ADV OU: Astamatitos
GSC OU: Fear
RBY OU: The Idiot Ninja
Managers: Tony / Anti / rozes


Regular Season: 6-1-2 (1st, 14 points, BD: +18)
POs: vs Ruiners (6-6) and vs Raiders (6-6)

SPL 9 was very similar to SPL 2, with Wolfpack taking Sharks role: an extremely strong team on paper that completely dominated all the SPL, ending first in the regular season and defeating 2 other strong teams in tiebreakers in POs.
This was however a SPL with a lot of strong teams, where 7 teams had real chances of qualifying to POs in the last week. That adds value to Wolfpacl's win, because they managed to dominate with a lot of strong competition, unlike other past SPLs where there were 2/3 top teams and the other teams just couldn't really compete.
The team is extremely strong, with players such as Fear, Astamatitos, Soulwind, Trosko or ABR being probably the best at their tiers at that time, and with other very strong players in other slots, with no real weak slot except probably UU.

Lineup: 10/10
Regular Season: 10/10
Playoffs: 9/10


SPL 10
Winners: Ruiners

SM OU: Hiye
SM OU: Empo
SM UU: Pearl
SM RU: passion
SM NU: lax
SM DOU: Croven
ORAS OU: Luigi / imsosorrylol
BW OU: Rewer
DPP OU: Jimmy Turtwig
ADV OU: Hyogafodex
GSC OU: Lavos
RBY OU: FriendOfMrGolem120
Managers: ChillShadow / snaga


Regular Season: 4-1-4 (2nd, 12 points, BD: +10)
POs: vs Scooters (6-6) and vs Tyrants (6-6)

SPL 10 was very similar to SPL 9 with Tyrants taking the Wolfpack place. It was a SPL with a lot of solid teams: in fact, 6 teams ended with 10 or more points, when in the past a lot of teams had qualified with less points.
This means that the general level of teams of both SPL 9 and SPL 10 were higher than in the past, with a much bigger competition between good teams.
The main difference between SPL 9 Wolfpack and SPL 10 Tyrants was that while SPL 9 Wolfpack managed to win the finals tiebreaker, Tyrants couldn't beat Ruiners in the tiebreaker, and that was because Ruiners tiebreaker was amazing, with Lax and Lavos completely dominating their games in this SPL, a core that would later be key in Wcop, giving Us West the win.
Ruiners was definitely not the strongest team, but it was solid and their tiebreaking potential gave them the edge over the favourites Tyrants.

Lineup: 7/10
Regular Season: 8/10
Playoffs: 9/10




--

So in conclusion, based on the performance in their SPL, winning teams could be qualified in 3 groups (I will use chronological order)

Group A: Dominated both regular season and playoffs
  • SPL 2 Sharks
  • SPL 9 Wolfpack
Group B: Teams that didn't have problems to qualify to POs and defeated the other top teams of that SPL
  • SPL 3 Ruiners
  • SPL 5 Sharks
  • SPL 6 Classiest
  • SPL 7 Sharks
  • SPL 10 Ruiners
Group C: Barely made POs but defeated the top teams of that SPL in POs
  • SPL 1 Scooters
  • SPL 4 Wolfpack

Interesting fact: every SPL winner defeated the team that had performed the best in the regular season.


And finally, if I had to rank the teams in each group (and this is very subjective), then probably:

Group A:
SPL 2 Sharks = SPL 9 Wolfpack
I can't say a team was better than the other. Both teams are amazing.

Group B:
SPL 5 Sharks > SPL 3 Ruiners > SPL 7 Sharks > SPL 10 Ruiners > SPL 6 Classiest

Group C:
SPL 1 Scooters > SPL 4 Wolfpack



I might make another post about the non winning teams that I think that were great, such as SPL 2 Ruiners, SPL 5 Cryos or SPL 8 Raiders
 
Last edited:

EB0LA

Banned deucer.
I looked at it a little differently, and wanted to see which franchise has been the most dominant and which has yet to clinch the cup. So I went ahead and mapped out SPL I-X, included XI, but it is still tbd.

Overall the Stark Sharks franchise has been the most dominant. Winning 3 times in 9 appearances. ____/\_____
Alpha Ruiners & Wi-fi Wolfpack come in tied for second. Winning 2 times in 10 appearances each.
Followed by Congregation of the Classiest & Indie Scooters. Winning 1 time in 10 appearances each.
Circus Maximus Tigers, Cryonicles, & Ever Grande Bigs have had a showing in all 10 SPLs, and are still yet to win the trophy...


[#] = Season, [!] / [!!] = Wining that particular edition, ** # of times won / # of times participated **, Team Name
spl.png
 

Oglemi

Borf
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Of all the drama from SPL 5 I honestly recollect zero drama from Atticus dropping assman and joining the player pool lol. Like, none. But like, I understood the implications hence the administrative post about it and it is one of the things that led to getting rid of mid-season signups, so like I get people might have felt it was controversial I guess but reading here that it was "oh very controversial" I'm just sitting here like "? It was?" lol
 
good list but i think it sort of works backward from performance in the season and whether they won as opposed to the consensus. it'd be useful to give some generalized metrics for others making their lists, so there's a common basis to go off of. i'd definitely put the spl 8 raiders (scooters if you're wrong) up there, if you're looking for a team outperforming expectations i would probably put the spl 9 raiders (going to game 3 of tiebreak vs one of the best rosters in all of spl).
 
-Tsunami-

now that its over, i think the community generally would agree that the CPL I Corono Raichus or whatever are one of the best all time teams in any Smogon Team Tour. While this thread focused specifically on SPL teams, I'd be interested in hearing your take on how some of the best SPL teams would match up to other legendary squads, like the old East dynasty or the aforementioned C=holera Raichus
 

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