Tournament World Cup of Pokemon 2022: OU Discussion

Abhi

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art by Iyarito
OP by TPP


Hello everyone! This thread will be used to discuss the OU metagame and its games and trends from World Cup 2022. I'll leave some helpful links below and then we'll have a list of replays in the post underneath. Feel free to discuss metagame trends/predictions, as well as your own power rankings/predictions for the tournament overall.​

Useful links:

- Records/Standing Spreadsheet
- Usage Stats
- Replays thread (will also be available in the post underneath this one)
- Round 1 thread
 

Abhi

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Round 1

SS OU #1:

[IND] J0RIS vs. March Fires [OCE]
[IND] J0RIS vs. Sjneider [USW]
[IND] J0RIS vs. suapah [CAN]
[OCE] March Fires vs. Sjneider [USW]
[OCE] March Fires vs. suapah [CAN]
[USW] Sjneider vs. suapah [CAN]

SS OU #2:
[OCE] Aberforth vs. Fear [GRE]
[OCE] Aberforth vs. Lycans [LAT]
[OCE] Aberforth vs. xray [GER]
[GRE] Fear vs. Lycans [LAT]
[GRE] Fear vs. xray [GER]
[LAT] Lycans vs. Ewin [GER]

SS OU #3:
[USN] ABR vs. Alpha Rabbit [ASI]
[USN] ABR vs. Blimax [IND]
[USN] ABR vs. DonSalvatore [FRA]
[ASI] Alpha Rabbit vs. Blimax [IND]
[ASI] Alpha Rabbit vs. DonSalvatore [FRA]
[IND] Blimax vs. DonSalvatore [FRA]

SS OU #4:
[ASI] Analytic vs. dahli [LAT]
[ASI] Analytic vs. Attribute [USW]
[ASI] Analytic vs. Xrn [USS]
[LAT] dahli vs. ima [USW]
[LAT] dahli vs. Xrn [USS]
[USW] ima vs. Xrn [USS]

SS OU #5:
[GER] Gefährlicher Random vs. H.M.N.I.P [ITA]
[GER] Gefährlicher Random vs. INSULT [USN]
[GER] Gefährlicher Random vs. Jytcampbell [CAN]
[ITA] H.M.N.I.P vs. INSULT [USN]
[ITA] Decis vs. Jytcampbell [CAN]
[USN] INSULT vs. Jytcampbell [CAN]

SS OU #6:
[EUR] 1 True Lycan vs. pj [IND]
[EUR] 1 True Lycan vs. Sakis [GRE]
[EUR] 1 True Lycan vs. Storm Zone [LAT]
[IND] pj vs. Sakis [GRE]
[IND] pj vs. Storm Zone [LAT]
[GRE] Sakis vs. Storm Zone [LAT]

SS OU #7:
[USM] avarice vs. Fc [CAN]
[USM] zioziotrip vs. Regnite [SPA]
[USM] zioziotrip vs. shiloh [USW]
[CAN] Fc vs. Regnite [SPA]
[CAN] Fc vs. shiloh [USW]
[SPA] Regnite vs. shiloh [USW]

SS OU #8:
[LAT] Ayaka vs. reiku [SPA]
[LAT] Nalorium vs. robjr [USN]
[LAT] Ayaka vs. Santu [ITA]
[SPA] reiku vs. robjr [USN]
[SPA] Sagiri vs. Santu [ITA]
[USN] robjr vs. Santu [ITA]

SS OU #9:
[IND] Mario34 vs. mncmt [BRA]
[IND] Mario34 vs. Mysterious M [GRE]
[IND] Mario34 vs. TPP [USS]
[BRA] mncmt vs. Mysterious M [GRE]
[BRA] mncmt vs. TPP [USS]
[GRE] Mysterious M vs. TPP [USS]

SS OU #10:
[USW] apologies vs. Floss [IND]
[USW] apologies vs. Spl4sh [BRA]
[USW] apologies vs. Star [USN]
[IND] Floss vs. HANTSUKI [BRA]
[IND] Floss vs. Star [USN]
[BRA] Spl4sh vs. Star [USN]

SS OU #11:
[SPA] Doppelsoldner vs. haxrme [ASI]
[SPA] Joya vs. Leru [EUR]
[SPA] Doppelsoldner vs. MAX UND MAX [GER]
[ASI] haxrme vs. Leru [EUR]
[ASI] haxrme vs. MAX UND MAX [GER]
[EUR] Leru vs. MAX UND MAX [GER]

SS OU #12:
[CAN] Hayburner vs. Leo [LAT]
[CAN] Hayburner vs. Malekith [SPA]
[CAN] Hayburner vs. McMeghan [EUR]
[LAT] Leo vs. Malekith [SPA]
[LAT] Leo vs. McMeghan [EUR]
[SPA] Malekith vs. McMeghan [EUR]

SS OU #13:
[GRE] BluBirD vs. FMG [USS]
[GRE] BluBirD vs. Tricking [ITA]
[GRE] BluBirD vs. z0mOG [USW]
[USS] FMG vs. Tricking [ITA]
[USS] FMG vs. z0mOG [USW]
[ITA] Tricking vs. z0mOG [USW]

SS OU #14:
[FRA] Corazan vs. Eo Ut Mortus [USS]
[FRA] Corazan vs. erz [GER]
[FRA] Corazan vs. freezai [IND]
[USS] Eo Ut Mortus vs. erz [GER]
[USS] Eo Ut Mortus vs. freezai [IND]
[GER] erz vs. freezai [IND]

SS OU #15:
[CAN] Amukamara vs. Nat [USN]
[CAN] Amukamara vs. Welli0u [FRA]
[CAN] Amukamara vs. xavgb [EUR]
[USN] Nat vs. Welli0u [FRA]
[USN] Sage vs. xavgb [EUR]
[FRA] Welli0u vs. xavgb [EUR]

SS OU #16:
[BRA] elodin vs. false [OCE]
[BRA] elodin vs. IPF [ASI]
[BRA] elodin vs. M Dragon [SPA]
[OCE] false vs. IPF [ASI]
[OCE] false vs. M Dragon [SPA]
[ASI] IPF vs. M Dragon [SPA]

SS OU #17:
[USM] kythr vs. Ruft [EUR]
[USM] kythr vs. sugarhigh [ASI]
[USM] kythr vs. TDK [USS]
[EUR] Ruft vs. sugarhigh [ASI]
[EUR] Ruft vs. TDK [USS]
[ASI] sugarhigh vs. TDK [USS]

SS OU #18:
[USM] Expulso vs. Niko [ITA]
[USM] Expulso vs. So Noisy [IND]
[USM] Expulso vs. SoulWind [SPA]
[ITA] Niko vs. So Noisy [IND]
[ITA] Niko vs. SoulWind [SPA]
[IND] So Noisy vs. SoulWind [SPA]

SS OU #19:
[GRE] 2HP vs. ayk [FRA]
[GRE] 2HP vs. Garay oak [SPA]
[GRE] 2HP vs. TJ [USW]
[FRA] ayk vs. Garay oak [SPA]
[FRA] ayk vs. TJ [USW]
[SPA] Garay oak vs. TJ [USW]

SS OU #20:
[USM] Confide vs. frisoeva [EUR]
[USM] Confide vs. nikitas [GRE]
[USM] Confide vs. PedroGreg [BRA]
[EUR] frisoeva vs. nikitas [GRE]
[EUR] frisoeva vs. PedroGreg [BRA]
[GRE] nikitas vs. PedroGreg [BRA]

SS OU #21:
[OCE] byronthewellwell vs. ShinyAzelf [ASI] - 1, 2
[OCE] byronthewellwell vs. SpookyZ [CAN]
[OCE] byronthewellwell vs. the pharoah [GRE]
[ASI] ShinyAzelf vs. SpookyZ [CAN]
[ASI] ShinyAzelf vs. the pharoah [GRE]
[CAN] SpookyZ vs. the pharoah [GRE]

SS OU #22:
[OCE] etern vs. Fairy Peak [FRA]
[OCE] etern vs. Kyo [USM]
[OCE] etern vs. Punny [ITA]
[FRA] Fairy Peak vs. Kyo [USM]
[FRA] Fairy Peak vs. Punny [ITA]
[USM] Kyo vs. Punny [ITA]

SS OU #23:
[USN] blunder vs. dice [USM]
[USN] blunder vs. Feliburn [LAT]
[USN] blunder vs. Samqian [USS]
[USM] dice vs. Fakee [LAT]
[USM] dice vs. Samqian [USS]
[LAT] Fakee vs. Samqian [USS]

SS OU #24:
[BRA] Askov vs. Bushtush [CAN]
[BRA] Lusa vs. HSA [USS]
[BRA] Askov vs. Raiza [ITA]
[CAN] Bushtush vs. HSA [USS]
[CAN] Bushtush vs. Raiza [ITA]
[USS] HSA vs. Raiza [ITA]

SS OU #25:
[USN] Giannis Antetokommo-o vs. Lord_Enz [GER]
[USN] Giannis Antetokommo-o vs. Mimikyu Stardust [ASI]
[USN] Giannis Antetokommo-o vs. Stathakis [GRE]
[GER] Lord_Enz vs. Mimikyu Stardust [ASI]
[GER] Lord_Enz vs. Stathakis [GRE]
[ASI] Mimikyu Stardust vs. Stathakis [GRE]

SS OU #26:
[OCE] damien the genius vs. Empo [ITA]
[OCE] damien the genius vs. ez [USW]
[OCE] damien the genius vs. Pohjis [EUR]
[ITA] Empo vs. ez [USW]
[ITA] Empo vs. Pohjis [EUR]
[USW] ez vs. Pohjis [EUR]

SS OU #27:
[FRA] BIHI vs. Luthier [USM]
[FRA] BIHI vs. Posho [LAT]
[FRA] BIHI vs. Skypenguin [CAN]
[USM] Luthier vs. Posho [LAT]
[USM] Luthier vs. Skypenguin [CAN]
[LAT] Posho vs. Skypenguin [CAN]

SS OU #28:
[GER] MichaelderBeste2 vs. myjava [IND]
[GER] MichaelderBeste2 vs. ninjadog [OCE]
[GER] MichaelderBeste2 vs. Mana [EUR]
[IND] myjava vs. ninjadog [OCE]
[IND] myjava vs. Mana [EUR]
[OCE] ninjadog vs. Mana [EUR]

SS OU #29:
[FRA] Celysi vs. Gtcha [LAT]
[FRA] Celysi vs. Hyogafodex [BRA]
[FRA] Celysi vs. mind gaming [GER]
[LAT] Gtcha vs. Hyogafodex [BRA]
[LAT] Gtcha vs. mind gaming [GER]
[BRA] Hyogafodex vs. mind gaming [GER]

SS OU #30:
[USN] Finchinator vs. Luispeikou [SPA]
[USN] Finchinator vs. Ox the Fox [USS]
[USN] Finchinator vs. Snowy [OCE]
[SPA] Luispeikou vs. Ox the Fox [USS]
[SPA] Luispeikou vs. Snowy [OCE]
[USS] Ox the Fox vs. Snowy [OCE]

SS OU #31:
[ASI] Dj Breloominati♬ vs. Eternal Spirit [BRA]
[ASI] Dj Breloominati♬ vs. Pais [ITA]
[ASI] Dj Breloominati♬ vs. Pheo' [FRA]
[BRA] Eternal Spirit vs. Pais [ITA]
[BRA] Eternal Spirit vs. Pheo' [FRA]
[ITA] Pais vs. Pheo' [FRA]

SS OU #32:
[BRA] Tamahome vs. blarghlfarghl [USW]
[BRA] Ash KetchumGamer vs. LNumbers [GER]
[BRA] Ash KetchumGamer vs. Tace [USM]
[USW] blarghlfarghl vs. LNumbers [GER]
[USW] blarghlfarghl vs. Tace [USM]
[GER] LNumbers vs. Tace [USM]
 

Baloor

Tigers Management
is a Community Contributoris a Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a defending SPL Champion
PUPL Champion
upsetting loss but fuck it we ball. built a little bit but we only used a few things I made since we didnt really need a ton of super new teams. just gonna share my favorite team (undefeated in world cup) and hopefully give this thread some life (why has this been dead asf since pools). might post some of the other stuff in the bazaar after some optimizing at some point though.

download.png


i forgot the exact reason but i wanted to build a bo with ada shifu + lele, mostly cause I hadn't actually used a taunt shifu before up till this point. fc wanted to use shifu and fs so it worked out timing wise. i went pult as the speed control cause it pairs well with shifu/lele and the scout was a bit weak to ghosts. av torn is so i dont automatically fold to ghosts and gives us some pivot options around special attackers. icy wind in particular is there to slow down dnite and chomp. ferro is the steel of choice to not lose to weavile and water types. I have gyro on the ferro to try and maximize damage vs lele and fini but I am not sure of this move choice looking at how the meta has evolved during the tour. landorus-therian.

i am a man of options so i will present you with a couple. on our paste, we used aqua jet as my teams without tran tend to have a habit of losing to volcarona and I had quite a few friends on midwest who I thought might fish for that. you can use taunt if youre not scared of rona. if you want you can change the shifu to jolly as well. additionally if you are a menace you can use bandshifu as that will probably work just as fine, if you go this route you have wiggle room to change the pult set to some nonsense like ebelt but thats solely if you actually want to use that set. ferro is pretty customizable in general, only important thing is to not auto lose to weavile and lele. idpress could be viable as the team might struggle vs certain nite spreads. theres some fucking around you can do with the torn set (swapping moves / going some boots set) to have a more "positive" mu vs ferro teams but I feel this torn is the most optimal one for what im going for here and you still have pressure on those types of teams regardless.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-631837 fc won with the team epicly in pools, didnt really expect the rain matchup but worked out just fine
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-634635 hervalt shamelessly STOLE the team and won with it in quarters in a well played game

being my first official tournament, supporting and playing (mostly supporting) was a amazing learning experience for me and I'm beyond grateful for getting this opportunity. despite not winning, I'm incredibly proud of my Canadian teammates as this is the best the team has done in WCOP history.

that is all, heres the og import
 
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MANNAT

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Since the tour's over now, I might as well share some teams that I made during World Cup as well as my thought process coming up with them during prep. I had a blast prepping and playing this tournament and look forward to participating in SCL. I'm hoping to see tons of metagame innovation in the closing months of the metagame between OLT and SCL before we have the first Gen 9 SPL!


This was more of a for fun team that I used against blunder in pools because, but the team does have some elements I wanted to talk about. Ghost spam is really potent right now, with weav being the only ghost resist that sees consistent competitive play, but I personally find Aegi to be a better pult counter than clown, with has various issues with entry hazards and consistent entry into the field. Aegi is actually pretty legit rn, it absolutely demolishes the scarf fs lele structures with specs sball. It's even potent against the gastro clef balances that are plaguing the metagame right now, as gastro fails to switch into sball after minimal chip damage. Its defensive typing allows you to enable very offensive teams without folding to threats like scarf lele like other heavy offenses can, really cool mon. Admittedly this team is a little silly, but it's super fun to pilot and can wreak havoc opon your enemies with powerful offensive play.


This was a much more serious team that I made for my playoffs game against Raiza. At a glance it just looks like a typical glowking weavile offense, but there were some specific choices that I made on this team that I wanted to highlight. I'm of the opinion that every good team wants a way to generate an early advantage (sticky barb clef, trick users, futureport, etc), and was struggling to consistently win games with this team in tests just having a typical utility rotom. Then, I decided to address my struggles vs urshifu as well as the lack of early advantage generation on the team by going with trick scarf rotom. I was pretty sure that raiza would bring storm drain if he brought gastro into me, and that coupled with italy's propensity to only use one type of clef meant that rotom was always going to be able to cripple something. CB Buzzwole is an absolute menace, let alone with FS support from Slowking and that combination is really what makes this team as potent as it is. I'm sad that I choked away such a well-played game with that terrible endgame, but I was really happy with this build regardless.


I made this team for kythr to use against empo in playoffs and was happy to see it accomplish what it set out to do. The idea was to use specs pult for the typical empo offenses while having sd pads kart + futureport to smoke the more typically italian defensive teams that their whole team was spamming. This team has slowking, which can be a bit of a momentum sink sometimes in spite of having port and kartana, which can kill your pace a bit when it needs to throw out a knock to remove a zap or torn's boots. Because of the potential spots where I can lose momentum compared to the more offensive concept that I posted later, the Buzzwole ended up having to be Rocky Helmet rather than CB, which is unfortunate. This team has a ton of cool stuff that I like using and think are really good right now, and it's pretty easy to pilot, so I'd recommend trying it out if you've been wanting to use any of the mons on the team.


I originally made this team for luthier to use in tiebreak against punny to combat the absolute swarm of skarm gastro clef teams that italy was spamming, but it ended up not getting used because we lost before that game. However, Canada used this team to great effect, and I was happy to see it function as well in practice against Italy as I thought it would on paper. The idea behind the team is that most of those balances use clefable to check sd chomp with their steel/flying removed by zone, but by giving it adamant soft sand, you just blow through clefable with +2 earthquake. This did get tweaked a bit with each iteration, but the button sludge torn was the "original" version, meant to snipe more specific matchups at the cost of being less consistent overall. Sludge is a cool tech on torn that lets you pick off weakened lele and push pressure against ninetales/koko early on but missing out on uturn really sucks in some matchups, and not having boots can be shitty into stuff like sr clef that lando can't consistently remove on. CM Fini is also extremely potent with ferrothorn removed and scarf lele gives you a hedge against more offensive teams, particularly veil, and can even trash bulkier teams if they have a steel that gets trapped by zone. Really fun, albeit fishy team, that I was happy to see get some run this wcop.


This is the final team I wanted to share today and another team that I originally made for midwest's tiebreak that ended up getting used by Canada. I originally made this team for dice to use against empo because specs dragapult is incredible against empo's teams, and I wanted to support it with a more offensive structure than the team I made for kythr. As should be obvious from this post so far, I love cbbuzzwole right now, especially against someone like empo that spams kartana, as it gets plenty of spots where you can leverage it for offensive pressure, particularly paired with fs lele. Rotom provides a faster pace to the team and can bait in gastro for double switches into cb buzz to break as well as being able to temporarily stave off heatran before offensively checking it w buzz and cleaving away its HP with lele and pult. This is a really sick offensive team that's a ton of fun to use and encapsulates my favorite style of heavy offense to use in SS right now.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! I enjoyed sharing some of the builds that I made this wcop and hope to see more traffic in this thread now that the tour is over. SS OU is sick and doesn't deserve most of the hate it gets!
 

Corazan

Crystal
is a Tiering Contributoris a Past SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
As always, I can't sleep so I figured I would waste my night writing stuff here. I will present the team Ive built for the finals and talk in depth about the game.

1658367833671.png

As we've reached finals, I was arriving at a point where I had no more ideas to explore, Ive been building all my teams for this wcop (bar the one vs germany) since the tiebreak game against separation so I was just feeling exhausted as fuck. Earlier in the tour I tried to make a glowking team two times, but I ended up being not satisfied with the result so I went with something else. I felt like the final week would be the one to finally try to make it work. The team was built around the Nasty plot set with psyshock as the only stab and flamethrower-scald for the coverage. This set has already been brought by Italy and I thought it would be a good idea as people completely stopped playing slowbro/slowking. The idea of the team is to have a good matchup against most offenses thanks to the solid defensive core while also being good against fat stuff with this glowking set. To be honest It's probably the team Ive tested the least in the tournament so maybe it has it issues but all my tests games went pretty well and it seemed good when I was theorizing so yea. Now moving into the game :

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-637962

So I obviously wanted to slap my head as I saw the Slowking at the team preview but It's funny how I had to face the team Ive always considered as one of the most brokens in the meta since the very beginning of the tour. In fact I peaked top 5 on the ladder many times with it and managed to push my mates to play it for 1 or 2 games in the tour (think they both won too), I think BluBird made it so all credits goes to him. Good thing is I knew most of the sets but I still had to be carefull incase some of them got changed.
Turn 4 : I had no others choices than risking the burn on buzzwole, I had to toxic Slowking as it would open the gate for glowking, Heatran and dragonite too. Getting Buzz burnt is super annoying but not the end of the world as I still had dnite to check shifu.
Turn 7 : I stayed with Glowking fishing for the scald burn figuring it would've been very good for my Koko and It's the best thing my glowking set could've done in this game.
Turn 10 : Now that Slowking is toxiced, my gameplan against fsight port was to go Dnite and dragon dance to force him to go Zapdos, which then allows heatran to come in, absorb the fsight and rocks up.
Turn 19 : I figured it would've been a good time for him to taunt and kill my Buzzwole so I tried to damage the Shifu as much as possible, then I had no others choices than sacking it to pult and this when I started worrying about how I would win this.
Turn 33 : With Lando being this low with rocks up, I figured I had to do something with Koko in order to win, thankfully I brought it against Zapdos on a hurricane miss and not on volt switch/toxic. Basically from here I knew I had to get every plays right, one single play wrong would've been more than bad, and I did by toxicing the Heatran, looking back at it hard Landorus into dgleam would've been omega bad for him so Heatran was a good play. I went for toxic bc I thought it would cover the zapdos staying trying to toxic me and the Lando switch but it didnt work.
Turn 36 : I made another bad play here, I switched Dnite into Lando because I thought it would've been a good play trying to cover wisp/toxic/Zapdos switch, but like why not sending in Lando directly instead of Dnite at the end of turn 35. At the end of the day it did not really matter thankfully.
Turn 40 : Koko got toxiced but at this point I had to let it take it so I was fine with that.
Turn 44 : Probably the most important turn in the game as this double into Koko allows me a sequence that leads me to make a kill, so Im up 4 mons against 3 now, which is huge.
Turn 50 : This is the famous turn that changed everything. My opponent, unfortunately for him, missclicked. Im not going to lie I was very happy to see lando coming in instead of Pult as It's a final game, every win is more than important and the game was very difficult to play for me. So I thought I was just going to win from here as Pult had to click Draco to kill Dnite. But it ended up being Hex. I knew it was modest Pult but now that I saw hex I had doubts, whatever, It was no use to calc I had to go koko and pray for it and thanks god it was not Timid so I won.
But the analysis doesn't stop here, after the game ended I tried to recreate it imagining what would happen as my opponent didnt missclick.
If we had the ideal scenario of Pult vs Dnite turn 51 and he would just kill me with hex, I would went koko next still praying that It's not timid and kill the Pult. Then his Lando was coming in to kill my koko as I dazzling geam it to put it at the knock off range from my Lando. So I think at the end, the game would've been decided on a Landorus speed tie ? Not completely sure, I had speed on mine and I dont know about his so I guess we'll never know, but yea I just thought it was great to analyse it with the non missclick scenario as it would've been a very very good game either way.



I'll also quickly talk about one of my favorites teams :

1658374140863.png

It's a revamp of the team I've made against Eo in R1 with Victini > Volcanion, it worked pretty well against him so I figured it would work against South again in semis against samqian. The idea of the team was to spam hazards and make sure to keep them up thanks to the double taunt on Victini & Tornadus. 4 mons are not affected by hazards and one of Clef's role is to absorb knock off so that you'll never lose your boots with the others 3. This team can be very difficult to use in some matchups but I do think that most of them are manageable.
Also wanted to talk about what is in my opinion one of the most broken set of the SS metagame :

1658374711551.png


This is what we called "demon clef" in the France server. The set is self explanatory, It's just a machine at making progress. At worse you're gonna thunder wave something which is already big. Fun fact : You can also 1v1 Heatran with that set (if he doesn't have taunt). If he magmas trying to trap Clef you can just twave it and spam soft boiled fishing for a para as he is heavy slamming into your rocky helmet taking 17% damages each times.

Feeling tired now so I'll eventually go to sleep, thanks for reading.
 

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