Battle Stadium Singles blog — Single Battle Cup (Special Edition) [#326; 18-5]
Announcement: https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/register-now-for-the-single-battle-cup-competition/
I am embarrassed to admit just how excited I got upon receiving the news that there was something to do in ranked singles other than subjecting oneself to the rolling disaster known as Series 12 that we are forced to endure until the end of August.
So what if it's just the reheated leftovers of Series 9, and not a more clever and unique ruleset for a weekender tournament like this? I'm desperate over here, man.
To make a mid-sized story short, my initial plan was to play a bulky offense cushion style built around Tapu Fini and Rhyperior, but having not really had the results I wanted after a few test games in friendly practice competitions, not to mention needing to land Magma Storms with Heatran (and repeatedly failing to do so), I decided to resort to the style that leaves the least to chance against players that don't necessarily frequent the ranked ladder — hyper offense.
Yes, not only are the games quick this way, but as the one with offensive momentum, you are always the haxer instead of the haxee, and, what's more, opponents need to be able to both identify your all-in, and have the tools necessary to stop it. And, if your stuff is refined enough, one does not necessarily lead into the other, either. This is not something that wins tournaments, mind you, but should assure a decent finish. That's the idea, anyway.
Unfortunately, this event was scheduled for Midsummer weekend, which is, around these parts, the biggest game in town all year when it comes to life-affirming and numinous experiences of the sublime — not to mention drunken revelry — so my time would be limited.
And that's it, that's the gimmick. ᕦ(･ㅂ･)ᕤ
Day one players bringing their most exotic stuff.
Brick Broken, Taunted, and about to be snowballed on.
Lycanroc versus G-Max Resonance.
Lycanroc versus Aurora Veil.
Surging Strikes. You can either break an assumed Focus Sash with Rock Tomb, click Stealth Rock if you think it's Choice Band, or just get outsped and oneshotted by Choice Scarf.
Not so fas...err...slow.
Dial M for Mimikyu.
We sin in envying Perish Trap Azumarill's nobility.
1) Team overview
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/584e4f367014e10a
Lycanroc-Dusk
To be clear, for what I am doing here, cripple leading, Lycanroc-Midday is, in all likelihood, strictly superior due to a higher Speed tier and Sand Rush. But the fact that Lycanroc-Dusk has access to Counter — 44% usage during Season 20, the last season of Series 9, this tournament's ruleset on the ranked ladder — is what put it over the top for me, making savvy opponents have to play around it.
Max Speed is a given, with the defensive investments here letting Lycanroc live a 252 Att Life Orb Dragapult Dragon Darts from full. It should be noted, though, that getting to click Rock Tomb against Dragapult does nothing against Clear Body variants (38.8% usage Series 9).
Dragapult is also the reason the first version of this team ran a secondary crippler, Clefable, but its pick-rate was so low in the two friendly practice competitions utilizing this ruleset I played in, I would rather rely on Mimikyu in the back, or more likely just take the loss from Clear Body Dragapult.
Taunt is also mandatory to prevent becoming set-up bait, stopping other cripplers, and avoiding Yawn loops from Hippowdon and Swampert. Brick Break is a situational tech, admittedly inferior to both Accelerock and Counter, but stops clearly telegraphed screens play from everything except, again, Dragapult (e.g. Grimmsnarl, Regieleki, Ninetales-A, Tapu Koko).
Kartana
After achieving Speed control and/or deploying Stealth Rock, Kartana is the primary Dynamax attacker here. There are two calculations in particular on which everything hinges:
With momentum versus offensive Zapdos:
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Kartana Max Strike* (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Zapdos: 243-287 (73.6 - 86.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock.
With momentum versus Cinderace (Life Orb or Focus Sash):
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Kartana Max Strike* (150 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Cinderace-Gmax: 269-317 (86.2 - 101.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock.
*Giga Impact has the same base power as Max Strike.
Now, of course, in order to all-in with Kartana like this, certain assumptions have to be made with respect to opposing Cinderace and Zapdos on opposing Cinderace-Zapdos — on top of having to successfully force the opening to go your way with Lycanroc.
First, that you avoid hitting Choice Scarf Cinderace, and, second, and far more relevant, that the opposing Zapdos is not a defensive variant. Choice Scarf Cinderace is should basically always be a total loss because they will still have Dynamax up, but, mercifully, in case of hitting a defensive Zapdos, having Mimikyu or Darmanitan as the third can clean up most opponents in a final mon 1v1 with Stealth Rock.
What makes defensive Zapdos especially threatening to Lycanroc openers is the fact that they can slow pivot out into Cinderace while breaking Lycanroc's Focus Sash, rendering everything that likes to be a part of the hyper offense mode here fodder for the bunny (Lycanroc-Kartana-Mimikyu/Darmanitan).
The same applies to Swampert's Flip Turn, both cases necessitating a Max Guard-Max Phantasm-Max Guard Mimikyu response to Cinderace. A Cinderace switching in on Lycanroc's Taunt or Stealth Rock turn is also more or less game-ending when Lycanroc's Focus Sash is no longer up.
Celesteela
Celesteela is an alternate Max Airstream attacker with Beast Boost snowball potential. Because 252 Speed only nets a real Speed stat of 169 at +1 (and +252 Speed merely 186), slower than standard Jolly Cinderace (188), but still faster than +252 Speed Zapdos (167), the idea was to use it only against that which walls Kartana the hardest — opposing Celesteela. This translates to Celesteela being mostly benched barring such an eventuality.
The defensive investment is more or less standard from the time of Series 9, geared toward avoiding awarding Download Porygon2 a SpAtt-boost. To be clear, Celesteela can certainly afford to invest in EV-spreads that can live a hit from Gigantamax Cinderace in a Dynamax duel, even outside Weakness Policy sets, but that is not what I set out to do here.
Mimikyu
Without actual defensive play on the table, Mimikyu's ability to win 1v1s mandates a slot on hyper offense.
Drain Punch sets like the one on this team offer an out against a Dynamaxed Porygon2, which both Kartana and Celesteela have massive problems trying to brute-force through. Kee Berry is also a big help in Dynamax duels against Landorus and Cinderace.
Azumarill
As bad for the team as Cinderace is, Blaziken is even worse. Both offensive and defensive variants — most probably Baton Pass into Clefable or Cresselia — are an existential threat. Perish Song from something that resists Fire, Fighting, and immunes Max Overgrowth solves both problems, and is pickable into most variants of hard stall, although having to avoid Taunt (Corviknight/Skarmory) and Slowking-G.
In past experimentation, I have used both ChestoRest and Sing in the fourth move slot, but went with Draining Kiss this time around. Overall, Sing is probably the most clickable of the three.
Darmanitan
Darmanitan is here to either try to get a positive trade in the lead (Darmanitan-Lycanroc-Kartana/Celesteela/Mimikyu), or to win a 1v1 in the back.
To give an example: offensive Zapdos will die to the Kartana calculation above, but defensive ones live it. These defensive sets can't be invested in Speed, which means Darmanitan will still outspeed them after they KO Kartana with Max Airstream.
Superpower over Flare Blitz is another change targeting opposing Porygon2. This is also the idea behind investing 4 SpDef to avoid SpAtt as the Download-boost.
2) Tournament
As always, losses are tallied below with accompanying self-reflection, no doubt painful. In addition, I figured I would also pay attention to how often I felt like I was forced into Celesteela mode. To avoid charges of negligence, Azumarill use is also tracked, its set being what it is.
Day 1
Win - Loss: 13 - 2
Celesteela brought (game / win): 2 / 1
Azumarill brought (game / win): 1 / 1
Loss 1: Lycanroc-Kartana-Mimikyu vs. Sableye-Goodra-Tangela
+2 Mimikyu lost the final mon 1v1 against Substitute/Sleep Powder/Giga Drain Tangela after getting max sleep turns into a Play Rough miss. This was my first game, too. 0-1 it is, then.
Loss 1.
Loss 2: Lycanroc-Celesteela-Mimikyu vs. Urshifu-SS-Celesteela-Electivire
Endgame was +2 Mimikyu against 60% HP PhysDef Celesteela (Leech Seed/Protect/Substitute/Flamethrower). I went to +4 on the Leech Seed opener, then lost the game going for +6 after they clicked Substitute instead of Protect. Greedy, bad, and counts as a choke in my book. Let's not do that again.
Loss 2.
The one Azumarill game of day one. None of the usual Baton Pass recipients are present, but Lopunny could have concieveably been some kind of cripple lead with Klutz Switcheroo, Thunder Wave, and Healing Wish/U-Turn.
(Lycanroc-Celesteela-Azumarill vs. Celesteela-Zapdos-Mimikyu).
Highlight of the day was losing the lead to Hypnosis/Substitute/Hex CasinoGengar (Gengar-Mimikyu-Ditto) after losing all five Speed ties and having Hypnosis hit both times. I had to go into the status screen to manually check that Lycanroc's Speed stat was indeed 178 after this. Note the "fainted" at the top of the screen.
After earning the privilege of sampling the 1400s because of that glorious game one loss, it took a total of 12 games to break 1600 this time around.
Rating after the first day of play, screenshot taken around 09:00 GMT.
Day 2
Win / Loss: 5 - 3
Celesteela brought (game / win): 3 / 2
Azumarill brought (game / win): 2 / 2
Loss 3: Lycanroc-Kartana-Mimikyu vs. Urshifu-RS-Zapdos-?
Died to Choice Scarf Urshifu-RS + defensive Zapdos effectively on turn one. That Urshifu is on a team with Garchomp always increases the odds that it's not Focus Sash Urshifu, but Choice Scarf or Choice Band; I went for it anyway, because I felt the only way I had of playing around it this game was bringing Celesteela mode into a possible Heatran.
In any event, I got stomped and stomped hard. GG!
Loss 3.
Loss 4: Lycanroc-Celesteela-Darmanitan vs. Nihilego-Dragonite-?
Got the perfect opener, Taunting crippler lead Nihilego, but missed Icicle Crash on Dynamax Dragonite.
Loss 4. Even if it hit, it's unclear whether Dynamax Celesteela would have been able to go through a possible Lanturn (assuming an anti-Zapdos set).
Loss 5: Lycanroc-Kartana-Mimikyu vs. Zapdos-G-Torkoal-?
1478 rated player brought Quick Claw Torkoal that proced against Dynamax Kartana and also got the Flamethrower burn on Mimikyu to close it out — after trading in their Dynamax Zapdos-G on turn one.
It's ok, though, the game has been like this for two decades and yet we still keep coming back for more! And because Torkoal has been my favorite pokemon ever since one fateful turn 16 on NetBattle in 2007. How about that bit of backstory for a silver lining, huh.
Loss 5.
After losses four and five, I had to string together a number of wins to at least get back to where I started the day with. Not ideal, but manageable before I called it quits.
Hey, would you look at that, someone actually playing hard stall.
Highest rated opponent of the tournament.
Ranking at the time of retirement.
Result
Win / Loss: 18 - 5
Celesteela brought (game / win): 5 / 3
Azumarill brought (game / win): 3 / 3
Final ranking: #326 / 27602; 1644 pts.
3) In Conclusion
Despite having to call it short, my only real regret is not getting to play more Azumarill games. Moreover, I feel like I got extremely lucky with opponents, but that's just because I never got even close to the top of the ladder (1700+ Elo), where people would come prepared for hyper offense. For the record, this is something regarding my games in these tournaments I have come to refer to — and only partly affectionally so — as the "day three collapse".
Going forward, I can't say I relish the idea of putting that much more time into Series 12, but I think I can manage one or two more interesting write-ups, ideally featuring Groudon or physical Reshiram, before September comes around. Indeed, the big question for me before Gen 9 hits is what a possible Series 13, the last few months of this game's life cycle, is going to look like.
Anyway, as always, if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
- Tox
SW-0021-9848-8999
