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 weekender.
And, although the previous singles tournament was a bit of a poopy mess in terms of the format itself, I did okay, so I figured the mid-1700s in points wouldn't be beyond me autopiloting Moxie Gyarados off of a dedicated, but hopefully not completely telegraphed, hyper offense lead.
In terms of preparation, then, I admit to looking at some showdown replays to see to what extent my expectations for what was going to be good was being borne out. But as far as actually playing some practice games? Nah. Instead, I just slapped on a few options for the most obvious Gyarados answers and stall, and called it a day.
"The Kommo-o does what kommo-os can / Deeds quite impossible for Man"
"But one prize is beyond his reach: / The Kommo-o cannot master sp--HITTING A 95% ACCURACY MOVE! Sou-ouuund!"
<i>:sunglasses: :tropical drink:</i>
Announcement: https://battle.pokemon-home.com/regulation/000000104/en
Thread: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/armor-beginnings.3667440/
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/9a787dab8fafce8b
1) Team overview:
Azumarill
Right. First off, for this tournament, I decided at the outset that I was not going to lose to hard stall or dedicated Klefki-Scolipede-pass — against non-Throat Chop or Swords Dance + Poison Jab variants, at least — which seemed like an actual threat on paper, with Malamar and Drifblim not looking completely awful to me, either. Hence, Azumarill.
I've used this exact set in BSS, where it is easily inserted into Ferrothorn/Rillaboom, and while benched a great deal of the time in my games there, it absolutely farms most kinds of dedicated defensive play.
Given that stall compositions in this event might want to implement stuff like Skarmory/Mandibuzz (Whirlwind/Taunt/U-turn) and Jellicent — Strength Sap + Water Absorb, as well as being one of only a few viable Ghost-types in the entire format are things that manage to carve out a relevant niche for it in my book — aside from the eminently trappable Chansey, Toxapex, and Quagsire, I figured bringing a proper wall-breaking option would also be required.
Volcarona
With no competition from Cinderace as a Fire-type, Psychic + Giga Drain Volcarona breaks through most forms of stall, with more utility beyond its best match up than other wall-breakers like Nasty Plot Porygon-Z, thanks to Quiver Dance, which even lets it contest Thunder Wave Chansey or hard lead Quiver Dance spam against something like screens Thunder Wave Klefki.
Outside its comfort zone, however, a Volcarona that's alive (!) and sitting on Quiver Dance (!) also tends to force out opposing Dynamax (e.g Gyarados, Braviary/Flapple which don't get 1HKO'd in Dynamax form and 1HKO back with Max Airstream), which means some combination of Porygon2 (Thunder Wave) / Kommo-o (Rock Tomb or Counter) is a manadory accompaniment in the back, with actual Dynamax duty from Gyarados or Urshifu.
Volcarona is also something that is always a safe bring against Porygon2 and Magnezone, and is the only thing on this team natively faster than +252 Spd Urshifu.
Kommo-o
I went with Kommo-o as the dedicated Gyarados-mode hyper offense lead. The other option was Sandaconda (Bulldoze / Rock Tomb / Glare / Stealth Rock), but with Sand Rush being pretty underwhelming in this format (mainly Lycanroc/Stoutland), and getting counter-led by Surging Strikes on Sandaconda (Krookodile and Lycanroc suffer from the same problem) being much more of a disaster than the same thing happening to Kommo-o with opposing Azumarill (Counter), Kommo-o was the choice despite — unlike Sandaconda — having real problems with actually bruising stuff into Gyarados range from the lead. Were I playing on two accounts, though, Sandaconda-Lycanroc would have made it in for sure.
As I see it, Rock Tomb and Stealth Rock are mandatory to let Gyarados burst through immediately, with Counter providing some utility in the back if Kommo-o's Focus Sash is intact, or when counterled by the aforementioned Azumarill, for example.
The fourth move slot is something actually worth spending a moment on. Flamethrower, Draco Meteor, and Drain Punch over Taunt were all on the table at some point. Ultimately, I convinced myself to run Taunt chiefly because 85 Base Speed makes Kommo-o natively fast enough to shut down most other dedicated cripple-leads or, indeed, opposing Speed control (Trick Room Porygon2 mode comes to mind), and Stealth Rock play (e.g. Skarmory).
Gyarados
With some of its most prominent checks like Rotom, Yawn Snorlax, and Ferrothorn gone, Max Airstream mode competition heavily culled (Dracozolt/Dragapult, Togekiss, Cinderace), Gyarados was set to rampage through the format as the premier Max Airstream sweeper.
I'm usually a strong proponent of Wacan Berry on BSS Moxie Gyarados, but have instead opted for Life Orb this time around, because the only two impactful defensive benchmarks consist of allowing Gyarados to sweep through Max Lightning Urshifu when inserted down momentum, and not die to a would-be revenge kill from fat Intimidate Luxray, which looks relatively decent in the format as far as Urshifu answers go, too — the Analytic Def-invested Porygon2 Thunderbolt/Discharge match up, on the other hand, both in and out of Dynamax, doesn't swing in any meaningful way with or without Wacan Berry, contrary to what one would perhaps expect.
As far as offensive coverage goes, if you want to have Max Guard on Gyarados, whether through Taunt or Dragon Dance, you basically choose whether you want to get walled by Toxapex or Quagsire/Jellicent (+1 Airstream 1HKOs the latter with Stealth Rock up) before the Moxie boost by going Power Whip over Earthquake. In this case, Earthquake it is, in no small part because Power Whip also makes hypothetical Luxray and Magnezone match ups worse, especially when outside Dynamax.
The Taunt redundancy with Kommo-o is geared toward shutting down status and recovery options from fat pokemon, but also Trick Room mode, whose more prominent offensive options like Rhyperior, Dragalge, Azumarill, Marowak-A, or even the mighty Choice Specs Eruption Torkoal are present in this format alongside Porygon2, the secondmost Trick Room setter after Mimikyu.
Porygon2
Physically defensive Porygon2 wants to act as a momentum-recovery tool similar to Mimikyu in BSS when Kommo-o-Gyarados is not on the table: un-1HKO-able by most things, with Recover to outlast unboosted Dynamax users, and a move to cripple a rampaging threat like Gyarados in Thunder Wave. Thunder Wave is also secondary form of Gyarados/Volcarona insertion, as well as a way of stopping random fast offensive stuff like Starmie/Alakazam/Gardevoir.
I went Trace over Download/Analytic because direct damage hardly matters when clicking a combination of offensive moves and Recover against something crippled by Thunder Wave. Trace is also marginally better at getting a Recover off after Thunder Waving a Swift Swim/Sand Rush/Chlorophyll user, switching in as a defensive pivot in general, and potentially covering Gyarados from something like Intimidate Luxray.
Urshifu-Single-Strike
My first impulse was to run fat Weakness Policy Single-Strike as a dedicated Dynamax user beacuse of the lack of Togekiss and Mimikyu and their potent Fairy-STAB to punish the quad-weakness to Fairy while attempting to Max Airstream (Azumarill being the main threat in that department). The idea was to bring it when Gyarados-mode didn't look so hot outside the hard stall match up, which this team has the tools to contest, as outlined above. What match ups are those? Well, stuff that immediately comes to mind consists of crisper Gyarados and Urshifu all ins than something based on a Kommo-o/Porygon2 set up, Sand Rush, and especially Ditto teams seeking to farm snowball momentum via reverse-sweep.
Another option I weighed was just going for a lazy +252 Spd Choice Scarf set. The major consideration here was the fact that bringing another completely dedicated Dynamax user in the Weakness Policy variant above, when Gyarados and Volcarona are on the team, feels too constraining. Although going in with the expectation of playing in an allegedly Urshifu-centric format, Choice Scarfed maximum Speed would, then, at least, guarantee valuable damage in the mirror as well as surprising opposing +1 Gyarados. But Sucker Punch is also both too valuable to pass up on, and disgusting to get locked into with Porygon2 as the only defensive pivot — making U-turn that much worse, as well.
The end result of all this was a four-attacks set with Chople Berry as a "second Sash" against the inevitable opposing Urshifu Close Combat/Max Knuckle scenario.
2) Tournament:
I didn't bother keeping detailed notes about my games, but because Sap Sipper Azumarill is such a neat curiosity, I figured it would be nice to at least track how often it actually got brought and how it ultimately did. Losses are also far more interesting to go over than wins, so I've done that below alongside trying to mention anything particularly memorable I came across just in general.
Day 1
Win / Loss: 13 - 2
Azumarill (W/L): 1 - 0
Loss 1: Went Kommo-o-Porygon2-Gyarados against an obvious Trick Room Porygon2 team. Turn 1 opposing Porygon2 freezes Kommo-o with Ice Beam as I click Taunt, turn 3 the now-paralyzed opposing Porygon2 freezes my Porygon2 with Tri Attack. Frozen Porygon2 dies 6 turns later after two full paras. I go for Gyarados Waterfall flinch on the paralyzed duck in order to put it into Airstream range, having to reverse sweep an entire team now and hoping it doesn't Dynamax, but get Thunderbolted. Still, credit to my opponent for giving me so many chances to click Recover instead of actually taking advantage of offensive momentum, I guess.
Loss 1: I would prefer quick and clean, but slow and obscene is fine, too.
Loss 2: Kommo-o-Porygon2-Gyarados lost to Choice Scarf Urshifu Thunder Punch. This was potentially winnable if I went for Airstream after sacrificing U-turn-Sash-broken-Kommo-o to get Stealth Rock up against Azumarill. Dropped below 1600 after this, but can't really be upset at being outplayed in a game that felt unusually high level for day 1.
As far as other memorable moments for day 1 go, there was a game I should have lost due to knowingly bringing Gyarados-mode against Ditto (with the proper precautions, mind you), only to be severely outled, which meant the only out I had in the endgame was dodging a +2 Att Ditto Bounce, which I — disgustingly — got. Gyarados also dodged a Chansey Thunder Wave in another game, but that had no impact on the outcome of the game. Perhaps the most interesting thing I saw all day was Focus Sash Counter/Memento Zoroark into Blastoise/Urshifu with Torkoal-Venusaur modular sun core as another mode.
Ended the day above 1600, hitting every Rock Tomb and 5/7 Thunder Waves so far. Given how much mileage I got out of Gyarados, I do kind of wish I had gone for the swag of shiny Cherish Ball Gyarados (Lunar Magikarp), after going through the full two minutes' worth of trouble of injecting... I mean procuring the only legal shiny Cherish Ball Volcarona released for this.
The rightmost Magnezone tried to get its Sturdy back up by double Max Guarding for Leftovers recovery.
Standing after day 1.
Day 2
Win / Loss: 7 - 2
Azumarill (W/L): 0 - 0
Loss 3: Fully offensive Air Balloon Pincurchin (!) lead traded into Kommo-o with Rising Voltage (3HKO) and double crit through +2 Volcarona with a combination of Scald and Sucker Punch to leave Gyarados with an impossible task of breaking through Toxapex + Intimidate Tauros, both of which would have been 1HKO'd by Volcarona. Down to 1636 rating from the mid 1600s. This felt far worse than the Porygon2 freeze game from day 1.
Regamed with TN "Enx" within the first four games of the day after an hour of laddering, whose Braviary-Magnezone-Scizor lost the first game against Kommo-o-Gyarados-Urshifu to Urshifu Sucker Punch against Life Orb Scizor. The second encounter was much more one sided: Kommo-o-Gyarados-Volcarona over Braviary-Magnezone-Goodra without even having to reveal Volcarona. It was still before 1 pm GMT+2, so, with 11 more games to go for the day, I decided to take a break to hopefully avoid this sort of thing, and keep things as BSS-y as possible.
Loss 4: Teams were Kommo-o-Gyarados-Urshifu and Marowak-Magnezone-Venusaur. I straight up threw the game (right after the opponent tried to throw it) assuming the opponent brought Urshifu in the back instead of Venusaur against a team with Gyarados and Volcarona on it, and went for a high roll Max Airstream that fell short against an offensively-invested Air Balloon Magnezone at sub-20% that hard switched into Stealth Rock + Max Geyser (to give me the likely damage range calcs).
Clicking Counter instead of Stealth Rock on turn 1 Bonemerang would have also likely led to a winning sequence, because Marowak would then have been in Max Airsteam range, forcing non-Def invested Air Balloon Magnezone to trade with its Dynamax, after which Venusaur in the back wouldn't have been able to Sleep Powder Urshifu in the 1v1 due to Electric Terrain, assuming some kind of defensive set (purely offensive ones get 1HKO'd by Wicked Blow after Stealth Rock damage).
Instead, I figured a Stealth Rock opener from the opponent was as likely as anything, even from an offensive set; didn't Taunt because I didn't bring Volcarona, didn't respect a possible Swords Dance, and tunnel visioned into breaking the opposing Urshifu's likely Focus Sash and Magnezone's Sturdy to remove them as Gyarados answers. Misplaying on turn 1 deserves to get punished, and I'd already been rewarded for much worse this tournament thus far, so it is what it is.
To be clear, my idea of 3v3 singles is not playing team-locked best-ofs, yet that's what happened again, with the day's 6th and 7th games being against the same opponent. No, if anything, it should be a best-of-one against someone you'll probably never meet again, and even if you do, you wouldn't be able to tell, because their TN is in an East Asian language, just like in the higher ranks of BSS.
The reason this series of games is worth relating, though, is because the opponent was at a relatively decent rating (mid-1600s) early on day 2, and was piloting Toxapex + Mandibuzz + Marowak-A stall with Urshifu, Magnezone, and Ditto.
Game 1 was a meeting of Kommo-o-Volcarona-Urshifu, and Urshifu-Toxapex-Ditto. Sniffing out Urshifu's Focus Sash, I actually clicked Counter on turn 1 for once, and got the Fiery Dance boost on Toxapex switching in, with the opponent preserving 1 HP Urshifu after finishing off Kommo-o, which immediately told me that it's Ditto in the back (as one does against Gyarados).
Toxapex got promptly bopped by +1 Max Mindstorm, with Ditto trading 70% of its HP to kill Volcarona with enough Max Guards sprinkled in to exhaust Psychic Terrain, after which it it reset its Imposter by going Urshifu on my Sucker Punch. I decided to take the Wicked Blow Speed tie against a possible Close Clombat from the opponent rather than play Sucker Punch games (which the opponent went for). After this, it actually happened: Chople Berry let Urshifu tank Choice Scarf Ditto's Close Combat for the game.
The most satisfying win of the entire tournament: Game 1/2 against early day two mid-1600s opponent with stall + Ditto (pictured getting CHOPLE'D).
Breathing a sigh of relief after navigating through that endgame, I hit the same opponent the very next game after languishing in queue for another 10-ish minutes. I thought about going Azumarill, but respected Mandibuzz (Taunt/U-turn) too much to pick up the free win. In the end, the teams looked as follows: Kommo-o-Volcarona-Urshifu against Marowak-A-Toxapex-Ditto.
Kommo-o lived turn 1 Poltergeist with 4 HP (the absolute max damage roll of 147, of course), getting Stealth Rock up for the opponent's possible Sturdy and Focus Sash in the back. Wicked Blow gets the KO on Marowak-A after an inconsequential Rock Tomb as Kommo's parting gift, with Toxapex coming in as the follow-up. I go to Volcarona on an assumed Toxic, but this Pex was an absolutely degenerate Substitute set, likely dropping Baneful Bunker/Haze, and even possibly running some Speed creep for stall mirrors. I go for Psychic and get hit by Scald as the Substitute goes down, after which Volcarona tanks Dynamax Toxapex's (!) Max Geyser to get two more Psychics off.
Ditto is what's in the back again, switching in on Gmax-Urshifu's Max Lightning and going back to Toxapex, almost certainly trying to fish for a Max Knuckle boost to steal in order to have an anwser to Chople Berry. What ends up happening is that I just click Max Lightning a second time, and the opponent resigns as a 50% Toxapex goes down on the switch-in, with not even a crit Close Combat being an out anymore now against the last turn of Gmax bulk. Although Azumarill got benched once again, I can't help but think that it had no small part in Toxapex being brought again despite Psychic Volcarona being revealed in the first game.
Game 2/2: "Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now?"
Decided to save the rest of my games for the final day after breaking 1700 with a score of 20-4.
Some notes notes and observations about a truncated outing on day 2, and I guess about this whole experience so far: I had to actually look up what Gmax-Venusaur's gimmick is because I'm bad, but it didn't end up mattering, because Taunt on turn 1 Torkoal's Stealth Rock, and Rock Tomb to trigger Eject Pack on turn 2 was enough for the opponent to be unable to recover; surprising lack of Quagsire/Toxapex stall from people in the top 100 rating-wise to Azumarill (granted, I played early in the day EU time); two repeat opponents is two too many; almost lost to a 1400s opponent with special attacker Gyarados, and whose Slowbro-G Quick Draw triggered both turns it mattered — those 8 pts. were not worth the mental anguish; literally 0 Jellicent so far, boy was I wrong about that; Baton Pass nowhere to be seen, either; people relying on Sturdy Magnezone to revenge Gyarados instead of bringing their Porygon2; Gyarados's Life Orb actually mattered in a game for the first time (Wacan would still have been overall better thus far), when it turned a guaranteed 2HKO into a 87.5% roll to 1HKO (+1 Max Geyser in rain vs fat Porygon2 after Stealth Rock); and, finally, Gyarados-mode being worse overall speaks to better opposing team building as the ratings get higher.
Despite what HOME still kept saying hours after finishing for the day, I sure as hell did not hallucinate that 4th loss, and was, in fact, 20-4.
Day 3
Win / Loss: 14 - 7
Azumarill (W/L): 2 - 0
Total: 34 - 11
After checking the rankings in the morning, it was pretty clear that the top 10 would probably be in the mid-1800s, if not higher. As a reminder, going into this, my goal was a conservative mid-1700s, but with a decent enough win rate thus far, I figured 1800 was reachable with the 21 games I had banked up. This was, however, not in the cards, as the unfolding disaster outlined below serves to demonstrate.
Loss 5: Kommo-o-Gyarados-Porygon2 vs Gyarados-Porygon2-Marowak-A. Suicide lead Gyarados (Thunder Wave + Taunt) managed to Thunder Wave both Kommo-o and Porygon2. Porygon2 got paralyzed on the crucial Recover turn against Marowak-A. Eventually lost to fat Porygon2 in the back (fake Trick Room team) after Dynamax + Bounce dueling it with Gyarados, and needing to get a flinch on one of four boosted Waterfall turns to win. Of course, the opponent could have just clicked Thunderbolt/Discharge on the +1 SpDef Gyarados at sub-40% health instead of Recover on any of those turns and won, instead of trying to Life Orb attrition Gyarados like they ended up doing.
Looking back, I'm not sure it was even possible for me to read the Gyarados set despite of Intimidate and actually click Taunt on Kommo-o, because there was a Gigalith in back, which I assumed was a suicide lead for Gyarados mode outside what I assumed was a Trick Room team. Hats off to the opponent's bamboozling team preview game.
Almost got 3-0'd by mid-1600s Skarmory-Gardevoir-Drednaw right after starting out day 3 with that previous loss, because Leftovers Gardevoir (!) whipped out Trick Room against Kommo-o-Urshifu-Gyarados. Fortunately, instead of clicking either Psychic or Moonblast on its last Trick Room turn, it tried to Destiny Bond Dynamax Gyarados.
After this, the opponent went AFK and still almost managed to win, because I clicked Taunt on Skarmory and the move the oppnent had in their autoselect slot was Brave Bird, so I needed to hit something like a 57.5 – 68.6% chance roll for +2 Waterfall to KO after Stealth Rock damage and Brave Bird recoil from the previous turn. The Waterfall was a crit. It was hard to queue up again after that game, not going to lie.
I am sorry, you beautiful, AFK, bird. And, for the record, I've lost to an opponent who went AFK before in gen 7 BSS (Scarf Tapu Lele + Landorus).
Loss 6: Played my first Klefki lead all tournament against someone at 1470 (Kommo-o-Gyarados-Urshifu against Klefki-Urshifu-???), and lost instantly because Kommo-o was fully paralyzed for four straight turns after getting Prankster Thunder Waved on turn 1, which meant I never got Stealth Rock or Speed control on Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, which just went through everything. It should be noted that this player also spent a turn using Thunder Wave against Urshifu. That was a 25+ pts. loss, putting me at 1687 from around 1712, I think.
Obviously, I should have just led Volcarona (Volcarona-Kommo-o-) at the risk of hitting Focus Sash Urshifu in the lead, and tried to Quiver Dance out of range of the paralysis Speed penalty, but I figured I could just outplay someone at this rating this late into the event, instead of being at the mercy of a paralyzed Volcarona getting its damage off on whatever would end up being the opposing win condition (Urshifu or Volcarona, the latter being the reason I benched the safety-Porygon2). So, despite everything, I think this qualifies as a team select screen throw on my part.
Loss 6: This is Kommo-o on only its third straight turn of full paralysis. Mental state at this point: "Tie me to a rocket and fire it at the sun; I am ready." Also pictured: Prankster Thunder Wave against a Dark-type from later on in the game.
Loss 7: Kommo-o-Gyarados-Porygon2 against Kingdra-Braviary-Venusaur (Pelipper rain with Magnezone). Lost a free win to the second Kommo-o Rock Tomb miss of the tournament — pictured as the third picture from the top of this page — which meant that Gyarados had to waste an extra Dynamax turn killing Kingdra, which, in turn, prevented it from Max Airstream 1HKOing Dynamax Braviary due to Max Guard [+1 252 Atk Life Orb Gyarados Max Airstream (130 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Braviary: 265-313 (75.2 - 88.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock] — the strong possibility of opposing Magnezone (the inevitable at this point Substitute Body Press set) in the back prevented me from going Porygon2 after Kommo-o was down, which turned out to be a mistake, as both Magnezone and Urshifu were benched.
The result of this led to Porygon2 having to solo Braviary and defensive Toxic Black Sludge Venusaur, which was never going to happen without a Tri Attack freeze. Another -20 pts. loss, putting me down to 1677 after this game, with 15 more to go. After this game, the mid-1700s started to sound like a more realistic goal again.
Loss 8: Kommo-o-Gyarados-Volcarona against Lycanroc-Gyarados-Toxapex. Lost after missing two coin flip calls on the Toxapex + Intimidate Gyarados switch roundabout. Strangely enough, a possibly winning play would have been to Dynamax a 2% health Volcarona to KO Toxapex.
As luck would have it, I got rematched with this opponent again a few hours later, with Azumarill hitting the Whirlpool on Toxapex, and collecting the free win against against same team composition from the opponent.
Struggled back up to about where I began on day 3, at 1716, and with only 9 games to go, 1800 was starting to feel well and truly beyond my reach with how the games were going.
1754 with four more games left.
Loss 9: Got disconnected from the team select screen while in the process of locking in Kommo-o-Urshifu-Gyarados against a mid-1600s team with either Torkoal-Venusaur or Lycanroc-Gyarados as its offensive modes and a Magnezone for a Gyarados check. And no, my internet did not go down at any point during the day. Down to 1733 from 1754.
Loss 10: Immediately following that last game, I somehow Dynamaxed with Volcarona on a low-1600s Blissey that wanted a Calm Mind war, when all I had to do was go Urshifu after the first Calm Mind in order to force out the Dynamax or go Jellicent — in the back alongside Jellicent were probably either Marowak-A, Venusaur, or Magnezone, and Stealth Rock was on the field. Not the first time this gen I've fat-fingered into the loss screen; first time in a tournament setting, though, yes.
Loss 11: Game #45, 1743 pts. opponent. Went Kommo-o-Gyarados-Urhisfu against Azumarill-Lycanroc-Porygon2 with Gyarados and Magnezone on the team. Loss was a result of actually clicking Counter on Azumarill's Play Rough on turn 1 instead of clicking Stealth Rock, which meant the one thing I now needed for the opponent not to have in the back — Sash Lycanroc — traded into Urshifu and chipped Gyarados to where a heavily SpAtt-invested Dynamax Porygon2 was able to Max Lightning 1HKO +1 SpDef Dynamax Gyarados from 60%+ health. I assume it was a standalone win condition TR Porygon2 based on how much it took from Max Quake. Nice to at least end on a competitive match.
Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?
Final rating. *sound of balloon deflating*
So, yes, got some pretty rotten luck mixed in with some admittedly questionable decisions on my part on day 3. This meant that, not only could I not even manage to hit my original goal of 1750, I actually ended at a lower rating than I started the final day with. Oh well, that's one way to spend 7.5 hours on a Sunday.
3) In Conclusion:
Before closing out this piece, I should, as is customary, perhaps say something about how each team member performed, and what could have been done differently with the benefit of hindsight.
First of all, Tri Attack did absolutely nothing for Porygon2, and would have been better off as Icy Wind or even something like Psychic. Moreover, not having enough SpAtt investment for Shadow Ball to break stall-breaker Magnezone's Substitute — 4 SpA Porygon2 Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Magnezone: 34-41 (19.2 - 23.1%) — meant that losing was still an option even with Magnezone's Sturdy broken.
Kommo-o aquitted itself well, being brought almost every game. While it did feel weird not being able to click Counter on an obvious turn 1 Max Airstream from opposing Braviary/Gyarados and get the kill due to Kommo-o's lousy 75 Base HP, Rock Tomb did not disappoint the 3-4 times getting snowballed from turn 1 was a real possibility had it missed.
Azumarill did its thing every time I brought it, but I just could not hit enough of those juicy hard stall players, despite that particular archetype being the most viable it has arguably been all generation in this event.
Likewise, Volcarona and Urshifu did not leave anything on the table, and worked as intended, although I do wish I went full Urshifu a bit more, and just took those Speed ties with Gmax bulk + Chople Berry — this is something I will try to fix for the future.
As for the centerpiece of the team, Gyarados, I honestly don't think I would have gotten away with running Adamant over Jolly thanks to all the potential mirrors and Braviarys I had to go through. Because most games ended up being just two hyper offense players smashing their heads together, Taunt did not get the value I expected it would, meaning Dragon Dance as the Max Guard option would have outperformed it in my games without question.
And now, at last, the final paragraph. If I wasn't a busted old man of 34, I might be tempted to vent and say something full of self-pity or express undue frustration at the game, but instead I'll just say this: the game doesn't change; it's been like this for 20 years — and that's in no small part why we, a group of gluttons for punishment masquerading as competitive players of a children's game, still choose to play it, whether we like to admit it or not. Anyway, hopefully we don't have to wait for another 3-4 months for the next one of these to roll around. GGs all around.
- Tox
SW-0021-9848-8999
