Tox’s BSS blog

Beclowning myself in ranked singles since 2018.

Entries from 2020-01-01 to 1 year

Battle Stadium Singles blog — Dragon King Cup (Special Edition)

Another singles weekender to play in, this time with the twist of BSS + 1 uber per team. For this one, I even took the nigh unprecedented step of doing some legwork in the form of almost 20 practice games on Showdown, as well as consulting…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #14 — "LegoSteela" with semi-Trick Room (S12)

The past month saw the unveiling of what I think we can assume will be the final state of generation 8 BSS in the release of the Crown Tundra. I think I managed to play something like 60+ games within the first two days of the season with …

Battle Stadium Singles blog — Tundra Tourney (Special Edition)

Another weekender with a 3v3 singles ruleset to put myself through. Allow me to begin by meticulously detailing the entirety of my team-building process for this: When the announcement was put up, I made a Notepad list of what I thought wa…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #13 — Terrakion (S11; Series 6)

As mentioned in the previous entry, the idea here was to run a base 60 Speed creeping Choice Band Rhyperior to surprise wall-break through teams that play towards reactive Dynamaxing with slower, bulkier stuff like Primarina and Azumarill,…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #12 — Heliolisk w/ Thwackey & Mudsdale (S10; Series 6)

Alright, I couldn't quite break into triple digits with this on the final day's run and ended up bombing out really hard on the last grind of the day, going 6-14 in the last 20 games, but I thought I'd share this anyway now that I know th…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #11 — "Blast Bun" (S9)

After having a rotten go of it with Kingdra, the would-be subject of this entry, I landed on mixed Blast Burn Cinderace hyper offense as this month's triple-digits reaching team showcase. I realize almost everything below is going to be ob…

Battle Stadium Singles blog — Armor Beginnings (Special Edition)

It took three months, and I honestly didn't think it would even happen thanks to the pandemic and its resultant unfulfilled VGC-circuit obligations taking priority over online events, but here we are again, an honest-to-goodness singles we…

Battle Stadium Singles blog — Tools for Laddering (Special *gen 8* Edition)

1) Overview 2) Notes on tools & their usefulness 2.1 Damage Calculator 2.2 Usage Stats & Trends 2.3 Smogon Resources 3) Deeper metagame-knowledge 3.1 Nouthuca 3.2 Pokesol (youtube) 3.3 Pokedb 4) Player streams 5) In Conclusion Season 8, Ju…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #10 — Coba Volcarona (S8)

Here is my first post-Libero, post-DLC foray into ranked after grinding out a relatively decent finish last season. Given that it's still quite early in the new metagame, I don't expect this team to really have much long term viability, bu…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #9 — Pelipper-Drednaw rain mode (S6)

The last season before the first set of DLC drops is upon us. As it has become painfully clear by now, generation 8 BSS is sadly no longer so much about identifying and playing around good cores on the opposing side like the venerable Hipp…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #8 — Memento Gastrodon-Gothitelle (S6)

Memento slug into Gothitelle? Check. Pre-Libero Gunk Shot Cinderace? Aye. Fire Blast Gyarados? Hot. The best questionable decisions are the ones with some thought behind them: before arriving at the final line up below, know that all of th…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #7 — Primarina-Dracozolt with triple Steel (S5-6)

After not managing to get a finish above the low triple digit ranks for Season 5 (April) despite actually pushing on the final day for once (and meeting more disconnect abusers on that final day of the season than over the course of the re…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #6 — Double Trick fat Toad (S5)

This April's entry covers another original work of left-handed imbecility; a real knee-slapper; a rib-tickler, if you will. Ok, not really. Here's the gist of it though: two Trick users and an unorthodox Seismitoad spread come together to …

Tales from Battle Stadium Singles blog — Extreme Speed! Single Battles!! (Special Edition)

"How about another weekender singles tournament?" "Sure." "It's 1v1 though. Without a team preview screen. And 10 second turn timers." "..." 1) Team overview: 2) Tournament: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Final Result 3) Post-mortem: Rules/Announcement…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #5 — Sand + Gyarados mode revisited, feat. Gloom (S4)

Don't be fooled by the rock that she's got — she's still Jenny from the block. For March, the format got its first taste of the shake-ups coming later in the year in the form of DLC with the inclusion of things like G-Max Lapras, Blastoise…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #4 — Hot Goth jank with TR Dracovish mode (S3)

Generation 8 in a nutshell: When every attack bar Aerial Ace has the accuracy of Stone Edge. This is a team I used not only to get triple digits in season 3 of ranked play, but doing so earlier in the season than my previous two efforts, i…

Battle Stadium Singles blog #3 — Sash Tyranitar sand with Gyarados mode (@soromon7777 S1)

The occasional turn 2. For January's post, I thought I'd to a quick run-through of an aggressive team whose author used it to come 1st in an early friendly tournament and which I ended up piloting to get triple digits during season 2. This…