Tournament ZUPL Commencement Thread

DrReuniclus

Smogon's full of bullies.
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
re: LordST vs Plas
There were allegations that Krokorok is not legal in the tier given that it shows up on some lists of legal Pokemon but not on others. Krokorok is a legal Pokemon. I wish tier lists were completely sorted out before tournaments like these but there's only so much that I can do not being involved in the tier.

Standings after Week 5 (pre-tiebreakers)

1. Fiery Flamencos / Humilau Hakamo-os | 8 | (3/0/2) | (26-14)
3. Dragon Dancing Delibirds | 4 | (2/3/0) | (18-22)
3. Seductive Spindas / Sovereign Swannas | 4 | (1/2/2) | (18-22)
6. TCB Basculins | 1 | (0/3/1) | (10-22)

A few notes on the mechanics of this 3-way tiebreaker since this is an issue that very rarely comes up: I will give it a Sunday deadline since there's more games to prep and also almost every team is involved in some tiebreaker so it's not taking away from much playtime (sorry Basculins). Players will be allowed to play in both series (i.e. Aaronboyer can play BW for the Delibirds vs the Spindas and the Swannas, or even BW in one and SM in the other) but not required to. Absolute number of wins is no longer a factor (if the Spindas win 3-0 and the Delibirds and Swannas win 2-1, the tiebreaker continues). If all 3 teams are tied on wins as well, we'll do another tiebreaker of bo1 USUM ZU between the 3 teams until one player manages to win 2 games. This is essentially following what happened in WCOP 2019 except with one less slot being fought over.
I think my team is going to forget to play on Sunday could we get an extension to Monday?
 

S1nn0hC0nfirm3d

aka Ho3nConfirm3d
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a defending SCL Champion
ZUPL Top 20 Replays: Pre-Playoffs

Ho3n here with a top 20 list of some the best matches we've seen on the road to playoffs.

ZU's first PL has been exciting, with the three way tie going underway at this very moment.

Here's a list of some of the more exciting, integral games we've seen!

#20 Heysup vs Chokepic
Screen Shot 2019-12-06 at 8.51.07 PM.png


Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4nu-963909336

Let's get this one out of the way. What became the first out of three games this ZUPL where a player brought an illegal mon and lost straight from the teampreview: Heysup with the illegal Golduck.

Admittedly, there was a lot of problems and confusion in the Old Gens Hub regarding illegal mons, as different links and resources often contradicted each other.

But what makes this DQ even more upsetting isn't that Heysup won normally, but that his manager was Durza, the self proclaimed "Old Gens Dictator," and somehow this slip went through. Sad!

Past that, CM Golduck was able to break through Choke's special tank Kec to help the late game sweeps with Walrein and Ghastly. Shame it had to end like it did!

#19 Calucha vs Pigeons
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Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-964304467

Calucha premiered on the Delibirds against Pigeons from the Basculins with a solid win!

Cal brought my week 1 team against Pidgeons HO, and was able to provide a ton of pressure.

Namely, Mare's Tspikes against a team with no absorbers and a Defoger that was locked into Choice Scarf (scarf Silvally) proved to be very fatal, with mons like Combusken racking too much Poison damage and getting in range of Shiftry's Sucker Punch.

#18 SBPC vs Heysup
Image result for mawile gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4nu-966947314-tpunw75swkqk7v8nvgz5jnuhv43dhgopw

Hax is always a bummer but to be expected when playing mons. Often a player needs to revise and find a new wincon when an untimely crit or miss occurs.

Heysup's special def Kec took a crit EP from SBPC's Probopass, which normally would have been able to Recover and wall the remaining 3 mons SBPC had, and now put Heysup in a losing position.

Yet the late-game Mawile was able to dodge a Hyrdo Pump from Lap and get a first-turn wake on the Tang for the win!

#17 Durza vs col49
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Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7zu-454017

Okay, let's get this one out of the way too.

Durza had a nasty webs weakness, so much so that with both hazards up mons like Shift or Crustle could have easily dented or swept his team once boosted. But it just so happened that Durza chose to have RNG as his Crustle check.

In this cursed game, the Egg set was Giga / Block / Sub / Flash with Harvest Starf berry. Absolutely abhorrent.

Yet T1 Egg was able to trap and get a KO on Smeargal, then Flash the revenging Shiftry. That made Shiftry's Dark Pulse and Explosion bot be at 75%, and yes, both missed on the Silvally that followed with Defog.

It was pretty much over from there, but late game Egg rolled the +2 Def, +2 Spa, and another +2 Def against the Shell Smashing Crustle. Insult to injury, and truly a cursed game.

#16 tom h0lland vs 5gen
Screen Shot 2019-09-17 at 11.54.33 AM.png

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-960796459

Part of many week 1 upsets was the PU main ton h0lland getting the win against 5gen!

Tom's bulky offense was a pleasure to watch as it stomached heavy hits and hit harder back.

SD + Synth Leafeon saw a lot of use this ZUPL, and previously had a general consensus of having too much competition with Shiftry.

This game here totally brought back Leafon into the spotlight in SM ZU, with it being a star player in this game.


#15 Quantom Tesseract vs Funbot28

Screen Shot 2019-12-06 at 8.54.11 PM.png


Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-961828508

The start of QT's perfect 5-0 win/loss ratio begins with a timely Z move from Combusken.

The match starts off with QT having a very hard time breaking past Funbot's Shii and Bronz core, with the defenses taking trades all in Funbot's favor.

QT then sacks Shiftry turn 22 to get the free switch in for his Combusk, of to which Funbot had a healthy Altaria that was presumably phys def. A critical hit here proved to be a 1HKO, although all in all Combusken still sacked itself to Flare Blitz damage and a miss later from Sky Uppercut, causing Rapi to revenge.

It's worth noting that even if Alt survived, all it was doing was going for the Toxic on Combusk, meaning that Combusk still snagged the same 2 KOs most likely. Overall, a good game that demonstrates the power of Z Combusk late game + a good start from QT.

#14 Finchinator vs Czim
Image result for wooper gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-975132178

>when ZU's unaware wall Pyuk is so good on stall that UU is considering banning it,
>but you bring Wooper instead

Essentially, Finch brought a standard stall team but decided to replace what could have been a more standard pick like Pyuk or Hippo with Wooper.

Right off the bat, Wooper took a crit from BB Touc and lost 77%, but regardless of the crit or not 2 regular BBs KO'd the Wooper anyways. It isn't too likely that it be able to recover off anything for that matter, as even a Tbolt switch in for Raichu could have been fatal as a Z Focus still would have KO'd Wooper at half.

Ultimately, czim had a nasty WB core of offensive mons with Touc + Simisear + Raichu. They all put in work and put a Wooper stall team in its place

#13 Ham vs ZAROSU
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Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6pu-976593089

Many remember ORAS ZU as ORAS FU: Forgot to Use. Having a revival this gen with the classic and ZUPL, ORAS ZU saw a decent amount of changes and bans.

Still, players like Ham were able to find a lot of cool niches and playstyles, like the use of screens in this game here.

Swoo made for a great dual screen user thanks to its speed, and eventually a Taunted Bronz became victim to Clamperl here setting up a SS and sweeping ZAROSU's slower team.

#12 LordST vs Plas
Image result for krokorok gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5nu-976754170

This is THEE game that has has a lot of talk recently, mostly because it was responsible for creating the three way tie for playoffs!

LordST was already an established BW player by winning the BW ZU classic tour, while Plas was subbed in from OminousDraco; possibly the start of this match's controversy.

Past that, after the original time for the match was missed by Plas, the match was extended by tour host Megazard. This was done instead of accepting the activity win because of how important this match was for team standings.

Lastly, Krokorok, used by Plas, was not clearly visible on the BW ZU list of legal mons, with sources again somewhat contradicting eachother.

In the end, Krok was legal and Plas played a great game to secure the win from the Delis.

This game easily earned its spot on this list for how vital it was to ZUPL as a whole!

#11 Ho3nConfirm3d vs Jarii

Link:https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-959296385

What was the first ZUPL game as well as likely last ZUPL money match, the tour started off with me and my offense versus Jari's stall!

The generous Kala awarded the winner of the first ZUPL game with a solid $10. Very cool!

Past that, this game foreshadowed how threatening stall would be in SM ZU, with it easily having the highest win rate amongst playstyles and was undefeated week 1.

It was a very close game, seeing good plays and sacrifices on both sides. In the end, stall's Dusclops rolled 2 perfect Sleep Talk moves against the Sub SD Bouf and secured the win for Jari.

Highlight bants include but are not limited to:

pitches ♪: 24k magic

snaga: no clue how we won this
snaga: but here we are

(and my favorite)
+a fruitshop owner: durza's team about to have worst record in the league

#10 Ren-chon vs cb aaron judge
Image result for leafeon gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5nu-969014707

An anticipated match up, cb aaron judge secures the win for the Basculins!

The big take away here is how deadly SD Leafon is in BW when the opp does not have a Grass/Normal resist.

All Ren-Chon could do mostly was revenge with his Emolga. Being weak to rocks and slower than the opposing Purrugly did not help though, and Leafeon continued to take more and more out of the team.

A team without something like Wormadam-Trash aught to be scared of the offensive capabilities of Leafon in BW ZU.

(and even then, Natural Gift Occa Berry exists just for that check!)

#9 Sabella vs SchwiftyShiftry
Image result for ninjask gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-968898181

One of the best late-game sweeps / comebacks we've seen all tour was Sabella's (booty92) Ninjask sweep against Shwifty.

Shwifty brought a very solid double Electric balance that was making all the right trades against Sabela: his Golem snagged two KOs, scarf Silv revenged scarf Mr. Mime, and Mare even ended up keeping up Tspikes to get easier KOs against Silv-Dragon and Vire.

Yet it was that Mare that proved to be a liability late game, with Sabela only having Ninjask left gave a free switch and Swords Dance on turn 27.

Once set up and dodging the scald burn, +2 Ninjask with Z Dig easily swept the remaining 4 mons! Very cool to see, and telling on what Ninjask can be capable of in a late game scenario.

Of course, this was reliant on the 70% chance that Ninjask did not get burned, but what if Mare spammed Haze? Maybe, but if Ninjask's 4th move was Sub, the same result but worse would have followed. All in all, the burn fish was likely the best play.

#8 Xayah vs 5gen
Screen Shot 2019-09-17 at 10.38.49 AM.png

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-963786498

The battle of the tier leaders!

Xayah brought webs and had a great MU against 5gen, with only Rotom-Fan not being vulnerable to the speed lowering effects.

Z Mirror Move Swanna absolutely ate up 5gen's team even without webs. It looked dangerous when 5gen brought Sawsbuck out after losing his Silvally, but it turns out that Saws was not scarf and Xayah had the courage to stay in and get the kill!

The big lesson here for anyone who plays SM ZU is that if your team is weak to Z Mirror Swan, have at least your scarf (5gen's Simisear) not be 1HKO'd by a +2 Aqua Jet. It was an easy cleanup for Xayah once Swanna made it's huge dent.

#7 Durza vs Rawmelon
Screen Shot 2019-09-17 at 10.03.31 AM.png

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-975534602

The battle of two council members started with Durza bringing a reel fishy team.

What started as a "matchup fish" pun concluded as an unfortunate display of hubris, with the Flamencos losing there guaranteed first-seed and ended up tying the Hakamo-os.

Even with a joke team, Durza still almost got the win, with RawMelon losing his Leafeon turn 7 to make a trade off on the healthy Wishiwashi.

Yet with the Carvanha lacking Destiney Bond and with Tspikes up, Raw still secured the win (and his dignity).

The biggest takeaway here is that had Durza brought a more serious team he undoubtably would have had a better chance winning this game, and the first seed tiebreaker may have never been a thing to begin with.

#6 Yovan3321 vs Ho3nConfirm3d
Screen Shot 2019-12-06 at 8.55.01 PM.png
Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen

While that last game could be considered a failed match up fish, look no further than #7 on this list for what was and will probably still be the best fish of the entire ZUPL.

Bringing an HO screens team that I previously had success with, I must admit my offensive playstyle has been becomign predictable.

What no one saw coming was just how perfect this MU fish was! Yovan two scarves in Ditto and Touc, an unnaware Pyuk for Bib, and Shii + Silv-Fight for Shiftry.

More so, having Protect on Pyuk stalled out Reflect turns on my Swanna, meaning that a late-game sweep with Swoo behind a sub was 100% impossible.

Yovan ended with a sick 6-0 against me, and a lesson to be learned not be too predictable in teambuilding!

#5 Tack is a nerd vs LordST
Image result for emolga gif
Image result for emolga gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen5nu-964420185

Another highly anticipated old gens game was the BW MU of Tack vs LordST!

What makes this replay so good was the turn 8 play by tack; a contender for play-of-the-week no doubt.

LordST's Ghastly would have easily made a dent with a specs Shadow Ball or Sludge Bomb if played right on any of Tack's switch ins, and even if the Purr stayed in and went for Sucker Punch, there was the chance it could have Tricked.

Yet Tack is out here making the best read I've seen in a while with the U-turn straight into Emolga. The nerves on this play!

The specs Ghastly goes for Tbolt, which would have destroyed the special def Pelliper had that come out anticipating a stab attack.

Instead, Tack's own specs Emolga absorbs the tbolt and gets a free Volt Switch off, dropping the Ghastly right then and there.

Tack makes a great play and secures the win against the BW tour champ! It almost makes up for him talking shit on others bringing illegal old gen mons when he himself brought an illegal mon the following week, right?

#4 Tsareetje vs a fruitshop owner
Image result for vullaby gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-959796515

Here's a game I already praised in my week 1 roundup vid, and is totally deserving of a top 5 replay.

In many ways, fruit's failed to adequately scout that Tsar was very vocal and loved Vullaby.

This of course is evident by fruits bringing Egg, and even with Egg being Sub Seed, it still ultimately fell prey to the Vullaby check.


The highlight play was easily turn 11! Down two mons, fruits may of still had a decent wincon with Curse Likiliky, which could have walled and continued to set up on what appeared to be only physical attackers left on Tsar's team.

Yet Tsar revealed the heat with Z-Focus Blast Electivire, and dropped Liki dead in its place.

After that Tsar's Rapi and Leafon cleaned up, and it proved to be a very exciting and fun match for underdog Tsar to take the win!

#3 Durza vs Rav3ndan
Screen Shot 2019-09-17 at 11.32.11 AM.png
Image result for helioptile gif

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-973045778

Spoiler alert: this is the last time I'll have Durza on this list I promise!

Anyways, Durza had brought what what have been a relatively standard Psychic-spam team, had it not been the inclusion of Helioptile.

Essentially the mon existed on the team to be an all-around Swanna check as it resisted/was immune to both its stabs.

Not only does Chinchou likely does this better (and was recently yeeted off the VR anyways for being too niche and useless), but Rav3 didn't even bring a Swanna.

And yes, it did just end up being nothing more than fodder late game lol.

Still, Durza managed to do a lot right this game. His bait Colbur Egg worked against Rav3's Shiftry for the KO, and Silv-Dark got the safe switch in against Rav3's Beh.

Rav3 did have a cool Tspikes strategy that worked well against most of Durza's team, utilizing a Sub+Protect Leftovers Combusken to stall out Poison damage.

But it was that lack of fire power on Combusken that was the undoing, with some great late game plays of sash Kadabra being revitalized by the dying Egg's Wish, being brought back to 90% of its health.

This proved to bulky for the Leftovers Combusken, which only had a Flamethrower that failed to 1HKO as it fell to Kadabra's Psychic.

Great game all around and worth the watch if you haven't seen it already!

#2 Plas vs Kushalos
Screen Shot 2019-09-17 at 12.04.53 PM.png

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6pu-960884256

The ORAS classic tour champ Kushalos has been bringing the same team for every ORAS ZU tour game he's played.

Thats no exaggeration, as far as I found he used the same team every game!

That was the understanding going into this W1 match up with Plas vs Kush, that he'd just bring the same undefeated team he's always been using.

But even why trying to fish for the C team, Kush's team was very hard to break, with Bulk Up Scraggy specifically being annoying and taking huge dents.

It looked like it was wrap when Plas only had a low health Vaniluxe that could be revenged by the faster Jumpluff, and a Klang that wasn't all too likely to sweep past the remaining of Kush's team.

Yet Kush made a fatal mistake turn 30 with the U-Turn on Vanilluxe activating its Weak Armor! At +1 speed and its Freeze Dry + HP Ground coverage, Vanilluxe was able to secure the late game sweep!

This was an exciting game nonetheless, and it proved that Kush's team could be beaten (even if that meant Kush forgetting that weak armor was a thing!).

#1 Teddeh vs TJ
Screen Shot 2019-09-17 at 12.09.31 PM.png

Link: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7zu-965504716

We all saw this coming right?

Teddeh turned a team that was obviously stall straight from the team preview into a scary bulky offense.

Besides the surprise factor alone (which was gone after realizing that the avalanche damage turn 1 had to be CB damage), the team held its own against tjay's solid balance.

Highlights include:
  • The turn 3 2hko on Golem. On turn 2, Avalanche only did 51% and Golem recovered back to 57%. Either risking the roll or still not realizing it was CB, Golem stayed in to go for rocks, only to get KO'd by the Avalanche's high roll.
  • NP Simiear would have made a huge dent on Teddeh's team had it not been for Innards Out, taking them both down!
  • Avalug lived a +2 Return from Bouf at -1 def, and got the last kill for the win.
This was a fun game to watch unfold, seeing how Teddeh was able to use traditional stall mons and transition the team into BO.

Anyone who loves ZU would be happy to see the innovation and teambuilding come through for the much deserved win!

That, or at least be happy that it didn't end up with a stall match snooze fest lol.


So thats the list! Whatya think? Anything that should be higher / lower, or any replays you think are worth being on the list?

Thanks for reading!

I do not own any pictures or gifs used in this report. This report is non-profit and for educational purposed protected by fair use. All gifs shown are owned and originate from the Pokemon anime. Other screenshots include Pokemon Showdown replays listed and original art)
 

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Kaif

tensai
is a Tiering Contributor
beep boop we are out of the tour! thanks to Ho3nConfirm3d for training me up and fuck you magma there shoutouts are done

THE TONYFLYGON COMMENTARY
week 1
aaaaaaa

thanks tony ^^

we skip 2 weeks cuz I was benchwarming and nothing entertaining happened

week 4!
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very cool tony ^^

week 5! GUEST COMMENTARY BY AARONBOYER, OMINOUSDRACO AND HO3NCONFIRM3D
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:psysad: notlikethis

yea I dont really have funny logs this is the only ok one
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the finisher
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this tour was kinda ass my go negative in all "official" team tours continues

thanks BloodAce0107 for making me and magma in the same team happen
 

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Scholar

Shinjiro's babe
is a Tiering Contributoris a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
beep boop we are out of the tour! thanks to Ho3nConfirm3d for training me up and fuck you magma there shoutouts are done

THE TONYFLYGON COMMENTARY
week 1
View attachment 195840
thanks tony ^^

we skip 2 weeks cuz I was benchwarming and nothing entertaining happened

week 4!
View attachment 195844
very cool tony ^^

week 5! GUEST COMMENTARY BY AARONBOYER, OMINOUSDRACO AND HO3NCONFIRM3D
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:psysad: notlikethis

yea I dont really have funny logs this is the only ok one
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this tour was kinda ass my go negative in all "official" team tours continues

thanks BloodAce0107 for making me and magma in the same team happen
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For real, what a way to never get drafted outside 1v1 for smogon team tours. That "exposing of me" means jackshit and just makes you look like a cancerous piece of trash. There was no reason to attack Eien for doing his job as a mod to ban your friends for doing things that broke the rules and hating someone over a stupid ass act win (in 1v1 i might add, like dude dunno why you out to get my head) like bro, what the fuck is wrong with you? There is nothing in your post is even worth reporting, the post itself just makes you look like a clown with the full circus. Anyways...thanks for everyone involved in zupl to not start any drama involving me, made it a lot more enjoyable to be apart of than the previous team tour I was on (1v1wc) and a lot less of a stress factor when playing my games. It was fun to play in zupl, wished I did better but I took one for the team to learn ORAS ZU in two weeks which was kinda hard to grasp for me. However, it was fun to learn how to build in different ways in SM ZU and how everyone was giving it their all. I will be tryna to get better since this community is pretty nice and I want to be able to help more in future ZU team tours. Hope to see my teammates around and help them more next time Aaronboyer thanks for drafting me, wish I could have helped more, but I hope you draft me again for next zupl if there is one and nab you more wins.
 
Okay, since some people seem to be interested in more detailed usage stats:

Pastebin with all the SM replays so far: https://pastebin.com/RUnSeSAs
Tool to analyze them: http://replaystats-eo.herokuapp.com/

Just click on "From links" and copy the list of replay URLs into "Replay URLs". Then click "Submit". Can't guarantee that I didn't miss any replays, but there are so many that one would barely change the stats. Sadly this tool doesn't distinguish between different Silvally forms.

(Also: Silvally / Komala / Golem, Silvally / Shiftry / Swanna / Electivire, Electivire / Silvally / Swanna / Shiftry / Golem all have an 85% win rate.)

Have fun!
 

Specs

Getting in your own way
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
UUPL Champion
Just wanted to say thanks to LPY for drafting me, great manager and always stayed on top of things. Was very happy with how our team did and our energy during the tour. Lots of friends on the team and made some new ones aswell. Good job Swannas, couldn't have asked for a better team
 

Greybaum

GENTLEMAN, THIS IS DEMOCRACY MANIFEST
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
Yo ZUPL is over so it's time for sappy shoutouts because I've seen people in every other PL do it and I want to be like them when I grow up.

First off, the obligatary thanks to the manager.
I came into this tour with only a single SSNL placement and a Pohjis win under my belt and being not only picked up at a pretty decent price but also being trusted to start every available week gave me some early confidence that had a lot of my nerves gone by week 2. With that said, thanks a ton for picking me up a fruitshop owner and I'd love to be on your team in any future PL, especially if you draft a team as cool to play with as this lot. Also anti-shoutout to LPY for being the only manager not to bid on me, AMQ me nerd.

sketchy ecchi Rav3ndan My two USUM boys. As a trio we built pretty much every USUM team, and your support & advice was vital for my own builds' success.
First, sketchy ecchi your help was invaluable especially in the stall department. You're probably the most knowledgable player in the tier when it comes to stall and not only did that provide us with some solid stall teams but also gave some great insight on how to go about building to break stall, what cores it had problems with and pretty much anything else I bothered you about.
You also gave me a solid one to one session the night before the tiebreaker, where I used stall for the first time in my life and I'm not sure I would've got the win without that talk. You also introduced me to the incredible core that is Vibrava & Mawile and I can't thank you enough for that.

Rav3ndan I know you won't be happy with your results but I also know for a fact it's not representative of your skill whatsoever and I hope you realise that too. I genuinely believe you're one of the most overlooked players in the tier and during my ZU SSNL run you were one of the key players who pushed me to improve, and I'm really glad I got to play alongside you in this tour. I hope you have a killer run in the losers bracket of Fall SSNL because you deserve to finally get a break in these tours. At least until we have to face each other. ;)

In short, you two were both great teammates and I'm glad I get to call you friends now that the tour is over. You guys were absolute steals behind the scenes as building support.

Shoutout also to the backup lads we drafted from the other tiers, especially pokeisfun and tom holland; I'm unsure how much of the ZU meta you knew coming into this tour but it was great having you take part in the conversation and you really put in some work when it came to game time, with pif using stall almost as well as he does in UU and tom rocking trick room like he was born with it.

Similarly, and not just because I feel obligated to shout out the entire team at this point, but shoutout to the oldgens guys. I don't know what it was like for you guys but from the outside it looked like you were building up the meta from scratch, with unranked mons suddenly being mutually agreed to be as high as A+ on the VR. neomon especially absolutely crushed his tier and ended up with the most consistent record of anyone on the team so big props there, it can't have been easy even if your skill made it look like it sometimes. Sub Octillery was heat btw.

Also, thanks to the unsung heroes of this PL, the testers. Especially early on when you couldn't trust anyone from any other team and your teammates weren't online it was great to have solid backup in rhydonphilip, dwib, and probably many others that I can't remember off the top of my head but you know who you are.

Lastly thanks to all the managers as well as Megazard (who I won't tag out of respect for him probably wanting to forget this tour ever happened at this point) for setting this up in the first place. I had a great time and assuming we have ZU in Gen 8 I'd love to take part in this again next year.

See y'all in the team dump thread.
 
this tour was fun, I do feel bad for missing my game 2 weeks but neither of those would have actually helped w playoff chances so :blobshrug: a fruitshop owner thanks for the trust, in hindsight we probably could have planned the tiebreakers more efficiently but at the end of the day I think motivation on the team was at an all time low on our team right after that goofy act decision drama and a few of the teams main anchors were in bad form the whole season anyway. I'll be back for the next zu tours cause even SM is decently enjoyable from what I've experienced

feels great to have over performed for my price tag just please don't overpay next zupl LMAO

s/o durza for winning this tour literally right after the draft I think u guys not winning would've been ultra mega choke
s/o spindas for always gassing each other up and being a nice bunch
 
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Dollainthewoods

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner’s for Beginners
Even though I didn’t participate in zupl I’d just like to say good job to everyone involved, especially durza and his team for winning. Watching the replays was a fun way to kill some spare time when I had it and it’s nice to see such skilled players participating in zu.
 
I am disappointed by the lack of posts/shoutouts, but I can't really talk, since I'm posting this a week but here we go:

As someone who's been around the tier for a bit over a year now, it was awesome to see and be a part of the first ever ZUPL. The community has grown a lot since the days when we didn't have an official chatroom or ladder, and it's cool to see it getting some attention from "actual-good players".

My personal experience was a positive one, despite my horrific record and slight amount of drama. BloodAce0107 did a great job drafting, managing to build an army of washed-up ZU mains (notably, RawMelon, czim, Tack :], and myself, though I am definitely the worst player out of the bunch), and it gave us a really strong teambuilding/tweaking/testing core to support the young blood yovan33321 and Quantum Tesseract (how the heck did he manage to get them for 15K total? Unreal). I'd never been part of a large teamtour like this before, and this was an excellent introduction. There was very little internal strife within the team, and everyone showed up and did their part; when our undefeated ZU core faltered mid-late tournament, Raw and oldgens players picked up and performed well (Ninjadog13 - it's insane that we drafted you for 3K; it was an honor building teams for you that you could win with). I know I'm not alone when I say that the atmosphere of the team was fun and enjoyable and we all would do it again if we could.

Now the elephant in the room - my performance. At the beginning of the tournament, I was excited to learn ORAS ZU (f*** Z-moves imo), and I saw (and still see) immense potential in its development/mon choice. My one teambuilding regret is I never managed to fit Ivysaur into a team, but I promise you, her time will come. Week 1 was dramatic, with a misunderstanding causing me to be extremely late to hang out with a friend, so I was really pissed when my opponent joined an OU tournament in the tournaments room and refused to leave it once I managed to get into contact with him. It was rude, inconsiderate, and disrespectful, and I refuse to feel bad for freezing his Gogoat - karma's a bitch. I'm fairly confident I had the tools to win without the freeze, but we'll never know. I wish that this had not been my one victory for the tournament.

I was feeling pretty good going into Week 2, and I knew that webs would have a good matchup vs the fast-offense my opponent had been bringing, so I brought a team pinktidal helped me build and tweak. Unfortunately for me, he brought freaking Klang, Servine, AND Swoobat, and my matchup was poor. I managed to bring it back, but my inexperience in bo1s and in team tournament settings (And just general inconsistency as a player) caused me to choke it away in the last 4 turns; all I had to do to secure my team the win for the week was click Frustration, and I'll never mentally live down this mistake. I wouldn't say it crushed my confidence, but I was happy to let Ninja play the next week.

Here's a fun screenshot from my prep for this match with The Good Doctor; I'd just played BloodAce on an alt I wasn't familiar with:
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\

He gave me a heart attack, and I'll never forgive him for that.

I wouldn't play again until our first matchup against the Flamencos, where I misplayed and generally got outplayed by Kushalos because he's the superior player and was using his most comfortable team. I missed a couple of rolls that I ended up playing for (if I got either of them, the game didn't end up as poorly, but I ended up on the wrong side of 68% chance, which is fine). I was pretty sad about this, because it was my chance to outprep and prove myself, but I failed. At that point, I just wanted to hand the reigns to Ninja and just build.

...except that there were scheduling conflicts in the final week because Kushalos ignored Ninja's post until THURSDAY NIGHT and they missed each other, so I was forced to sub in at short notice and after a stressful/emotional/dramatic personal week. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, or just "don't understand big tournaments and should just stick with lower tiers", but it seems extremely rude to me that Ninja's post was straight-up ignored for so long. I understand that the entirety of the Flamencos thought they were too good for this tier/tournament, but that's just asking for issues/problems and is disrespectful to the opponents and tournament. But whatever, I still played and forgot the #1 rule of playing people who don't know your tier: they won't guess your sets. I missed two opportunities to completely win the game, and lost my team the tournament as a result.

Sorry about this one mates, I know I contributed a lot to building, tweaking, and testing USUM and ORAS, and I don't think BACE made a mistake drafting me, but I know that I let the team down when they needed me to be consistent.

I know I've thrown a fair bit of shade in this post, because I really don't understand why this tournament became a bunch of trash-talking on the tier and its players by "better" tournament players. I guess I'm naieve and expected that, overall, the atmosphere would be respectful and fun, rather than a constant "us vs them" and bashing on players/teams/the tier. I'm glad that the Hakamos got at least second, to show that ZU Mains aren't complete trash as players. I just wish the big tournament players on the Flamencos weren't kinda jerkish about the fact that they won, that's all.

Ok now that's out of the way, here are some of my favorite humorous moments from the tournament:

Hakamo council decision after Leaf Storm lost us our third match:
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LEAFSTORM.PNG


By far the funniest match of the tournament; I was in stitches laughing the whole time and loved the banter

overheat.PNG

blamedurz.PNG


For the record, that was not a matchup fish, just common sense. You'd have to be an idiot to not bring a stallbreaker vs Finch.

I think you're awesome QT, but that Seaking/Mare team really should have been run by us :) We're not your enemies!

72242816_1220422331500364_9206293833841639424_n.jpg


And finally, Drunkza is always fun to watch. I wish Raw had been able to drink with him!

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So yeah. Tl;dr, draft me as a support player and don't diss on my teammates or be disrespectful or I will chew you out. Also, as someone who was in conversations regarding every team used in the tournament, the ONLY time we explicitly matchup-fished was Yovan being a beast and completely CTing Ho3n. Otherwise, the teams we brought were versatile enough to handle most matchups and had generally positive MUs vs the metagame. Y'all just bitter bitches!

Shoutouts

I've already shouted out the individual competence of our USUM ZU players; it was really a great experience getting to work closely with you tweaking teams and testing. The teams we created for this tournament are really solid, and I especially appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with czim and RawMelon. Additional shoutouts go to love chants for being a much better player than he gives himself credit for and for being able to run with what we handed him, Oathkeepre for providing a great sounding-board for ideas/tests and being a great positive influence on the team, Ampha for being generally badass and not whining about being benched in favor of our stacked USUM lineup, Cigtar for being a great trade and DPP backbone, and Toy Time King for being a great bloke who I knew would be a certified badass at DPP. Also Hys for appreciating the beauty that is the new Slipknot album.

For non team-related shoutouts, thanks to all the managers who participated and made this happen - LPY's team made an incredible comeback after crappy luck in the first few weeks. Additional shoutout to my fiancee, who did not break off the engagement despite "wanting to murder every Pokemon and stick their heads on a spike in front of the computer". Little does she know, but we just started the fall seasonal.....also Descending is going to win; he's already slain two Hakamos and is coming for BAce next.

I'm glad I can play without /ionext, not gonna lie. The game's too fun to keep to yourself.

I love this tier and I'm looking forward to seeing it continue to grow. BuilderClaw out!

Edit: I might be way off-base. I'm just vomiting my feelings/thoughts from what I observed, because I feel like the tournament could have been a better experience for people.
 
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...except that there were scheduling conflicts in the final week because Kushalos ignored Ninja's post until THURSDAY NIGHT and they missed each other, so I was forced to sub in at short notice and after a stressful/emotional/dramatic personal week. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, or just "don't understand big tournaments and should just stick with lower tiers", but it seems extremely rude to me that Ninja's post was straight-up ignored for so long. I understand that the entirety of the Flamencos thought they were too good for this tier/tournament, but that's just asking for issues/problems and is disrespectful to the opponents and tournament. But whatever, I still played and forgot the #1 rule of playing people who don't know your tier: they won't guess your sets. I missed two opportunities to completely win the game, and lost my team the tournament as a result. I really hate that this reinforced the Flamencos' thoughts that they're superior to everyone and everything else, and I will always be sorry to my teammates that I let them down on three occasions, especially this one. I know I contributed a lot to building, tweaking, and testing USUM and ORAS, and I don't think BACE made a mistake drafting me, but I know that I let the team down when they needed me to be consistent.

I know I've thrown a fair bit of shade in this post, because I really don't understand why this tournament became a bunch of trash-talking on the tier and its players by "better" tournament players. I guess I'm naieve and expected that, overall, the atmosphere would be respectful and fun, rather than a constant "us vs them" and bashing on players/teams/the tier. I'm glad that the Hakamos got at least second, to show that ZU Mains aren't complete trash as players. I just wish the big tournament players on the Flamencos weren't condescending douchebags about the fact that they won, that's all.
overall an enjoyable read/post but I do want to address these two paragraphs which are outrageous

First of all, not really a huge fan of the blatant "I lost because my opponent didn't play the way I wanted him to" or the “I thought my opponent would actually make good plays so I lost”. People say that thing all the time when they lose and its quite frowned upon for good reason. Even more so in this case, as I don't know why you brought "ORAS ZU Techs" versus an opponent who has never played ORAS ZU in their life and then expected them to know them.

the only people making this tour seem like a a "us (the zu mains) vs. them (the tour players)" scenario were the zu mains who took it personally that I didn't draft any of them.

I was the only person on the fiery flamencos who talked any sort of loud talk, but this doesn't make any sense. If we really thought we were too good for ZU and ZUPL why would we waste our time signing up or even more so taking the time to "be condescending douchebags" to people who you say we thought we were too good for? We were happy that we won, but you and your team took away from that and the entire tour as a whole with incessant bitching and whining about a stupid double sub call where our best player was subbed out. I mean, come on dude. Bloodace (the manager who tried to quit on his team pre season) even brought up week 5 "hax" as an attempt to try to take away from our win. Your team was the single most unbearable and bitchy team I have ever seen in my relatively short history of playing subforum premier leagues.

I'd like to reiterate again that I was the only player on my team to talk any resemblance of trash talk or bm or whatever you want to call it unless it was a response to some idiotic statement made purely out of salt by another player (see: yovan, possibly the worst offender of the tour, being a common instigator for ridiculous anger posts/quotes that were begging to be mocked (as a result of their laughable content, not the english grammar, for the record)). a teammate of yours described love chants as "perhaps the most arrogant person i have ever met", a sentiment that I would consider on the kind side given the way he tends to act. Every time something didn't go the hakamo's way, a tantrum was thrown, be it by the players or even the manager. Don't say that the negativity is a reflection of the players on my team or of the larger tournament community as a whole, because its completely false, and all your impressions of this are solely coming from me as a less-than admirable person. I'm the worst player on the Flamencos and the tournament community sure doesn't claim me as one of theirs, so don't blame them for me running my mouth in banter.

On the topic of the manager, the entire frustrations of the hakamo-o's is completely misplaced. The fact that Ninja got subbed had VERY little to do with the outcome of the tour, as much as you guys wanted to whine about it to try to take away from the fact that the flamencos won the tour. You were the more experienced player compared to Snaga (and I would argue better at oras zu than ninja) but it really just looked like you were looking for something to be mad about after you all lost. However, your managers did nearly nothing to defend their side. I argued very hard to try to get a winnable outcome for my team (being the double sub though I wouldn't have bothered if I realized you were on the bench to sub in), and neither Bloodace nor Tack had anything of substance to say and I am fully convinced that if they even tried a little bit to argue that they could have gotten the call in their favor. As much as they might claim that "they weren't around", they could have attempted a response (thats all it would have taken, most likely) or at the very least asked for MZ to wait until they got home to force a double sub to actually take place. If you want to be upset, don't be mad at me or megazard or the flamencos, be upset with your managers who I have heard have been incompetent all tour according to multiple people on the team.

Overall, this section of your post just looks like an angry post made in spite of a lot of things that actually happened during the season. Reevaluate what you saw and don't toss blame around for imaginary negativity and toxicity as a tried and true zu main. Your team was the most toxic and negative aspect of the entire tour, and I feel like some self reflection might be in order here.
 
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry I ruffled your feathers there. I don't want to draw out the discussion more; I just found "thank god I'm done with this fucking tier" and making fun of Yovan for tilting in broken English to be overtly negative actions that detracted from the experience of the tour. I don't have beef with you, just bad attitudes.

And I fully acknowledge my fault in my loss, for the record. I had opportunities to set up/win, and I didn't take them. End of story. My frustration with the double sub comes from the entirely preventable squished timeline for the scheduling of the original match, but no attempt was made until Thursday evening, which to me is BM as fuck.
 

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