Tales from Battle Stadium Singles blog — GALAR BEGINNINGS (Special Edition)
In preparing for the first official weekender competition of generation 8, my analysis of the meta was based on a shallow and, at times, alarmingly swingy experience comprised of a total of 79 games on the ranked console ladder across 4-5 different teams I managed to accrue without CFW, trying not to come to terms with the begrudging realization that 3v3 singles, so far, seems worse off now than it was at any point during generations 6 or 7.
Because the meta only differed from BSS season 1 in that Gmax-moves were allowed, the team I ended up bringing was just one of my BSS teams with Gmax-Snorlax over vanilla Snorlax, with the expectation of breaking 1700 at the very least. This team-building decision was made even easier by the recent revelation that both Grimmsnarl and Snorlax have a 50% RNG element to whether the secondary effect of their Gmax-moves even go off in the first place, not to mention the fact that excluding those two, out of every other Gmax-user, only Lapras and Copperajah objectively outclass their regular Dynamax forms. A good mechanic by a competent group of battle system designers to be sure.
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/8aadc304b062c218
Thread: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/galar-beginnings.3656359/#post-8285684
1) Team overview:
Grimmsnarl
Grimmsnarl's more consistent sets in the meta so far are based on Thunder Wave + Screens support or offensive Bulk Up. What I run is instead a dedicated Snorlax support set. Tricking a Lagging Tail onto something lets Snorlax Curse first after Grimmsnarl goes down clicking Taunt.
When presented with multiple potential counterleads to Grimmsnarl on the opposing side, Trick also helps in recovering momentum against dedicated set-up like Screens + Baton Pass (opposing Grimmsnarl is among the worst possible lead match-ups for both this Grimmsnarl and for the team as a whole), Max Airstream all-ins, and weather.
Fire Punch exists solely in order to bruise Ferrothorn and Corviknight (in conjunction with Taunt) to help Gyarados break through them when not bringing Snorlax.
The defensive EVs are geared towards leading against things like Hydreigon (100% to live 252 Specs Flash Cannon & 87% to live +252 Specs Flash Cannon), living a 252 Excadrill Iron Head 100% of the time (essentially forcing Dynamax on a Lagging Tail 252 Excadrill if it wants to 1HKO on turn 1), with the added benefit of having some marginal ranges in having a chance to avoid a Gyro Ball 2HKO from Ferrothorn after obtaining its Leftovers. Jolly Mimikyu's Life Orb Play Rough is also a coin flip to live from full.
Gmax-Snorlax
Fully offensive Curse Snorlax that relies on its bulky berry and its random Gmax-move procs to regain health seeks to follow-up on Grimmsnarl in order to get online. Outside that role, and forfeiting access to Recycle in favour of more coverage, Snorlax's formidable native bulk still means that it can somewhat backline against hyper offense just as well as Mimikyu.
Darkest Lariat lets Snorlax contest non-Taunt, Iron Defense + Body Press Corviknight if it has a Curse under its belt as Corviknight switches in. Fire Punch over Earthquake, while helpful against Ferrothorn and Corviknight, makes Snorlax a hard sell in Tyranitar match-ups, unless obviously facing a 4-attacks Weakness Policy variant, in which case Curse momentum can still eke out a win.
Mimikyu
Adamant Life Orb Mimikyu is such a centralizing team-building obstacle that even though several very nice Curse sets exist already that cripple Mimikyu's defensive checks (which competent players can easily have multiples of), and that are very much my preference in ranked ladder in general, I brought it with the expectation of benching it every game that isn't just about collecting a free win from more casual opponents.
Gyarados
Jolly Intimidate Wacan Berry Gyarados sacrifices power in order to outspeed +252 Spd Dragapult at +1 after Max Airstream or Dragon Dance, and to survive in Dynamax form being revenged by both Scarf Thunderbolt Dragapult and Timid Scarf Rotom-H/W's 252 Electric-move of choice, as well as Guts-boosted +252 Thunder Punch from a Conkeldurr seeking to rampage through Excadrill, Hydreigon, and Snorlax.
Excadrill
Although the main mode I go for with this team in ranked is Grimmsnarl-Snorlax, with Grimmsnarl as lead, in reality, Excadrill is the one that ends up leading against teams that either have obvious hard-counter options against a Grimmsnarl lead, or against which Snorlax is not consistent enough.
Not carrying Horn Drill for Corviknight on a team that risks getting walled by it is justified by the supposition that if Body Press variants ever get the momentum, they will win anyway, and can, of course, even Dynamax to immune Horn Drill, whereas against purely defensive sets, Hydreigon does a passable job at checking it.
Hydreigon
This team has a strong physical bent, often forcing in modes including Corsola, Toxapex, Ferrothorn, and Corviknight, based on my dozen or so games on ranked. This not only adds value to Excadrill's Stealth Rock, but also means that, so as not to get walled by the aforementioned, some form of wall breaking is called for. To this end, I have opted for Substitute + Nasty Plot Hydreigon:
Substitute stops completely passive things from doing anything, allowing for a free set-up (Toxapex, Gastrodon), with the added benefit of also playing around Dynamaxed Weakness Policy fishing from Tyranitar and Togekiss, in particular.
2) Tournament:
I figured I'd keep a tally of how Snorlax performed for me throughout this thing, but other than that, I only really bothered to make note of my losses.
2.1 — Day 1
> Win / Loss: 10 - 5
> Snorlax brought: 6 / 15
> Snorlax win rate: 5 / 6
Loss breakdown:
Loss 1: Lost to a 2 turn sleep against sand. Hitting one flinch on two tries of Waterfall against Hippowdon would have also won.
Loss 2: Lost after Gyarados' +1 Max Airstream failed to 2HKO Dynamaxed Conkeldurr. Punished for bringing Jolly instead of Adamant.
Loss 3: Threw badly and erased two wins worth of points to a 1400s Defiant Sitrus Berry Braviary Max Airstream all in after which I needed an Iron Head flinch to win, which deservedly did not materialize.
Loss 4: Lost to a Bounce miss against a 1400s player's +2 Mimikyu, which was also Jolly so it needed to whiff the Play Rough against my Hydreigon in the back for me to recover. No such luck, alas.
Loss 5: Got straight up 3-0'd by Iron Defense + Body Press Corviknight getting momentum on Snorlax because I did not lead Grimmsnarl or Hydreigon. Lessons drawn from this: be way greedier at the start against Corviknight, and just assume it being a Body Press set right from the select screen.
The highlight of the day was definitely almost losing to HP + SpDef invested Iron Head / Bulk Up / Iron Defense / Roost Corviknight, only for +3 Gyarados to finally hit a crit (a flinch would have sufficed) on the last rain turn. Overall, my play was sloppier than usual, producing a day one result worse than most I think I've had so far in these weekenders going back to late-ORAS.
Still, I found that the team overall did function as intended and saw no reason it couldn't go deep in the hands of a better pilot. A pleasant thought to mull over while waiting for the real grind of days two and three.
What was anything but pleasant, however, was the painfully slow match-making process familiar from ranked queue: I estimate that my queue timed out a minimum of three times per found game. And just to be clear, this is not just a problem on my end. Now, while I realize there might not be that many people searching given that the game has only been out for less than a month, this was NEVER a problem in USUM and I even made sure to search during peak Japanese hours. This is an unacceptable state of affairs, and does not bode well for the future of ranked, especially if we're dealing with something more than a mere population issue. Anyway, on to day two.
2.2 — Day 2
> Win / Loss: 4 - 1
> Snorlax brought: 2 / 5
> Snorlax win rate: 2 / 2
Loss breakdown:
Loss 6: Lost to a Sashed Stored Power Polteageist in the back behind Rotom and Excadrill after not clicking Stealth Rock to break its Sash in the Excadrill mirror. Opponent even set sand to kill himself on a friendly Sash proc with his Excadrill on my Dragon Dance turn, but I was so oblivious to the possibility of Sash Polteageist in the back that I opted to Max Geyser KO it to reduce the chip on my side because of an assumed Dragapult (Sucker Punch) from my opponent in the back when Max Airstream was at least a 60% to KO a 40% HP Excadrill. He bad. Me bad. We bad.
> Decided to save the rest of my games for the final day.
The highlight of the day was Iron Heading an Aegislash in a 1v1 to decide the game to break its Sash with a flinch to recover a win after Snorlax got too chipped to sweep by Dragapult because of two consecutive Atk drops from a Lagging Tail Mimikyu's Play Rough earlier:
Iron Head haxing an assumed Focus Sash Aegislash in the 1v1 for the game.
The main takeaway in terms of performance up to this point was the inescapable conclusion that only after a disappointing 20 games total did I break 1600. Nevertheless, a net gain of 100+ pts. over the remaining 25 games should be a walk in the park, right? Think again: reading beyond this point requires you to play Suicide is Painless on repeat:
2.3 — Day 3
> Win / Loss: 13 - 12
> Snorlax brought: 6 / 25
> Snorlax win rate: 2 / 6
Loss breakdown:
Loss 7: Got 3-0'd by non-Body Press Iron Defense Rocky Helmet Corviknight after Snorlax only got back one berry with three rolls of its Gmax-move (+6 Lariat was doing 70-ish% by the end and I sacrificed Grimmsnarl setting up Trick + Taunt against the opposing Scarf Gardevoir lead). Another tasty -19 points.
Loss 8: Lost Snorlax vs Glalie after it (mis?)clicked Double Team for the first time on a +1 Fire Punch in the sun without any Def boosts and with its Substitute down while at 60% health and naturally dodged the hit. I was subsequently forced to reveal Darkest Lariat, but barely could not survive two consecutive uses of +6 Freeze Dry.
> Sent right back down into the 1500s dumpster after these two losses. Finding the next game took almost 10 minutes of queues timing out.
Loss 9: Lost to a Hydreigon Max Steelspike crit on full HP Grimmsnarl (so much for all those calcs), after which Snorax's Gmax-move managed to go 1 for 3 again.
> Snorlax dropped three games in a row now, so I decided to bench it going forward if at all possible, and try all-in people with Gyarados instead.
Loss 10: Lost to a Thunder Wave Togekiss because Gyarados was fully paralyzed 2/3 of its Dynamax turns. Would have only needed to overcome a bruised, Lagging Tail Rotom-W in the back.
> Down over 30 points from the start of day 3.
Loss 11: Came down to a Mimikyu Speed tie (based on how much Gyarados subsequently had to take from the resulting -1 Life Orb Play Rough) which I lost, after which I needed a Waterfall flinch, which I did not get.
Loss 12: Revese swept by Cloyster after Snorlax 0/3'd its berry heal, which meant I eventually needed Hydreigon to flinch Cloyster—no such luck.
Loss 13: Got so bruised by a lead Lapras that by the time Aurora Veil was down, I needed to dodge one of two Tyranitar Stone Edges on a +2 Def Hydreigon—no luck here either.
Loss 14: Lost to a Scarf Sylveon on a hard stall team with Toxapex, Corviknight and Quagsire after getting set up on Substitute +2 Hydreigon. Well played.
> At this point it was clear I wasn't going to get anywhere near 1700, and had to adjust my expectations to try and at least settle somewhere around 1630.
Loss 15: Lost to Umbreon in the back as Gyarados. Another loss that undid at least two wins in points.
Loss 16: Lost to Choice Band Ferrothorn in the back after Dynamax Gengar lived a +1 Max Airstream (roll in his favor), meaning Excadrill needed to dodge one out of two Power Whips.
Loss 17: Lost to Weakness Policy Togekiss in the back because I completely and utterly misplayed thinking I had brought Excadrill in the back instead of Gyarados, so I clicked +2 Flash Cannon against it instead of Dark Pulse.
Loss 18: Gave too much respect to the opponent's defensive options in the back (Milotic, Rotom-H) and brought the wrong sweeper to finish off the opponent's lead Lagging Tailed Darmanitan, resulting in a reverse-sweep by Moxie Gyarados (Max Steelspike Hydreigon would just have won on the spot). This is the kind of coin-flip I would find exceedingly exasperating...were it not for every other game that came down to similar stuff.
Splash screen before game #45. Me on the right...in more ways than one.
2.4 — Final Result
Win / Loss: 27-18
Rating: 1604
Snorlax brought: 14 / 45
Snorlax win rate: 9 / 14
3) Post-mortem:
This was by far my worst result in 2+ years of playing in these competitions, especially after I half-assed my way into the global top 100 again last time around. At the end of the day, I accept that team-building and play—which included two straight up throws—are ultimately to blame for my poor performance, but it is hard not to conclude that there is something funny going on with the format, as well. Snowballing team compositions are nothing new to BSS, but to the extent that generation 8 currently seems to disproportionally reward such an approach, it makes me concerned there will never again be the kind of team-building complexity we've enjoyed for the past two generations of 3v3.
Just to do a quick run-through of how the individual team members performed in a vacuum outside my sub-par play, Gyarados would definitely have been better off running Adamant, since the lack of damage at +1 directly contributed to three losses. Wacan Berry saved two games at the cost of a loss to Thunder Wave, so no complaints there:
YES. WA. CAN. Surviving a crit Thunderbolt.
As for Mimikyu, a zero attacks-set would have been most welcome, since its deterrent effect forced literally every single Corviknight I encountered in the select screen. Surprisingly, I only played against 3-4 clearly non-competitive teams, so standard offensive Mimikyu didn't get enough bang for its buck even in the team-building check role.
Grimmsnarl bamboozled enough people that it definitely receives a passing grade, and will continue to feature prominently in my BSS teams in the triple digit ranks. Excadrill, too, did more than its fair share of carrying.
Although Snorlax won its share of games, it just felt too inconsistent with its recovery since I dropped Recycle in favour of Fire Punch. Worse yet, even when winning and sitting at +2/+2 slightly above berry range, for example, I did not really feel in control of the game because of the game-warping impact of the Dynamax-snowball mechanics, the worst offenders being Max Knuckle and Max Airstream. As a result, I think bulky offense, in my hands at least, will have to be shelved for the time being.
Alright, with this tournament out of the way, I will turn my efforts into finishing in the triple-digits by season's (and year's) end, after which I will deliver a write-up of my experiences of said season some time in early January. Have a good one and see you in 2020!
- Tox
