Better Battlers Project: UU

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I do have a question for Christo:
Turn 10 why did you chose to use Moonblast with Florges vs Forry instead of getting another Calm Mind ? The third Calm Mind would ensure that PhysDef Slowking is 2HKOd no matter what he tries and gives a decent chance to OHKO Mega-Aerodactyl (assuming little to no bulk investment). Unless I'm missing something the game would have been yours right after the Volt-Switch to Slowking. So yeah, I don't get the play. Did you fear speedy Machamp with Heavy Slam ?
Cool game otherwise, SpDef Mandibuzz was pretty impressive
I Moonblasted because I thought he could have had CB Heavy Slam, yes. I would have gotten no progress if I Calm Minded and he had Heavy Slam, because I would be forced to switch. My other reason was because I do not have a clear-cut way to damage a Forretress apart from widdling it down. Widdling it down would be beneficial for keeping hazards up like Toxic Spikes as well as leaving Roserade room to do some damage.

To respond to why I did not lead Aerodactyl, my mindset was that Swampert had a good matchup vs all of his pokemon(Even Machamp, as I assumed Assault Vest). If I had considered CB Machamp when thinking about a lead, Aerodactyl was the best play. Although, I do not think leading Swampert was exactly a "misplay".

Edit: I also thought that the matchup was quite even. He had answers to everyone of my pokemon.
 

Hogg

grubbing in the ashes
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Hey, all! Sorry for the hiatus. We have added IronBullet to our panel of analysts. In addition, I bring you a new featured battle! This one features our newest panel member IB.

FEATURED BATTLE: IronBullet versus radianthero156 http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-uu-33364

This SPL match features IronBullet, using a bulky offense sand team featuring Escavalier, versus rh156, who brought an interesting threat in Medicham. Although the team he used is now outdated due to the rise of Hippowdon to OU, the game is great for showing long term planning and how it can pay off in the late game.

I asked IronBullet a few questions about this match...

1. From the very beginning, at team preview, what were your thoughts on this game? Were there any particular threats on radianthero156's team you were worried about?

The first thing I noticed was that everything on radiant's team, other than Jirachi, would be 1-2HKOed by Stoutland's Return. I also kept in mind that Seismitoad was easy to wear down due to lack of reliable recovery, and Jirachi could be heavily weakened by Escavalier's Pursuit. So it was clear that a late-game Stoutland sweep was very possible, and that's what my gameplan was from the start.

I was obviously very worried about Medicham, which hits like a ton of bricks, and Seismitoad, since I had no super effective moves to hit it with. So getting Toxic Spikes up as early as possible would be vital. Jirachi is always unpredictable so I was naturally wary of it too. I wasn't too concerned about Hydrei and Crobat, considering I had Hippo, Esca, and Mega Aero (with increased Sp Def in the sand) to deal with them. Florges was just setup bait for Tentacruel really.

2. Tell me a little bit about your general game plan throughout this match. How did it change as the match progressed?

Ultimate aim was to set up Stout to clean up late-game, and it didn't change much as the game proceeded mostly according to how I hoped. I led off with Escavalier, possibly hoping to get some early damage on Toad or Jirachi, and I managed to take a good chunk out of Toad. I made a rather risky move to attack Toad with Mega Aero, but it paid off as I managed to prevent rocks from going up as well as weaken it significantly. Reuni then paralyzed Rachi and Hydrei which was huge, and I managed to get my own rocks and t spikes off. Medicham got worn down very quickly by hazards and sand, and I got in a Pursuit on Rachi with Esca which put in in range for Stout. In the end even though I was 2-5 down all I had to do was get up sand one final time to allow Stout to clean up, which it did without a hitch.

3. What were some of your thoughts while playing this game?

My thoughts were mostly concentrated on weakening everything to set up Stout. It was also probably why I played rather recklessly with Mega Aero, Tentacruel, and Reuni to get off some extra damage on radiant's walls, a rapid spin or t spikes, or a key paralysis on his sweepers. I always knew no matter what the scoreline, in the end it would come down to maintaining sand well and keeping Stout healthy, which I managed to do as well as I could've hoped.

radiant did his best to disrupt my gameplan by trying to waste sand turns and frustrate my sweepers with Toad, which he did very well, so props to him for playing a great match. He was also quite unfortunate in that he didn't get a single Scald burn which allowed Hippo and Mega Aero to say around longer, and also got a crit on Turn 29 with Medi on Esca which was actually helped me because it got me an extra turn of sand. I think the key in the end was paralyzing Rachi and Hydrei and managing to weaken Rachi and Stout heavily with Esca, which set up Stout perfectly.

4. This was a moderately long game - a little over 50 turns. Do you have any advice for how to plan for longer games?

I think the key to winning longer games is to formulate a gameplan from the start, and if it doesn't work don't panic and try to figure out other ways you can possibly win. Suppose in my game that Esca got burned/KOed early match. That would have made it very difficult to wear down Rachi and Toad, making a Stout sweep more improbable. So I would've had to maybe adjust my gameplan, perhaps by using Stout more recklessly in order to break through his walls, and as a result maybe set up Mega Aero to clean up late-game instead with its power and speed.

Another thing is to not get discouraged if the scoreline is going against you. If you have something in the back that can make or break a game in an instant, the scoreline is never something you should be worried about. By playing well and doing even small but significant things like getting some extra damage on a wall or keeping SR up, you can still get yourself into a position where your wincon, be it a setup sweeper like Gatr or Mence or something very fast and strong like Stout or Scarf Mienshao, can come through for you late-game.

So what did you think about how IronBullet played? Does any of his advice apply to the current UU metagame? How about how radianthero played?

Next week I hope to feature some more UU Open games, but for now, enjoy this fantastic match and share your thoughts below!
 
Most of IB's games that I've seen use Stoutland, and it is appropriately terrifying in this one. It was bad enough in BW when it had 100 Attack, and I'm glad it never caught on more before we lost Hippo. He really showed how (bulky) sand offense should be played: Rough up walls, get rid of hard counters to your primary sweeper, and then click Return to win. IB's line about not worrying when he was down 2-5 1) Highlights his cool head under pressure, and 2) How you need to be thinking when playing with any sort of offense. Don't panic (if you still have your primary win condition).
 

Hogg

grubbing in the ashes
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
It's time for another featured battle! This week's featured battle is one of the recent games from UU Open semi-finals. In it, teal6 faced off against TewMew to see who would advance to the finals. This was a fantastic three game series, and I'd like to feature game 1, where teal6 brought a hazard balance team against TewMew's semi-stall with some interesting choices, such as Toxic Doublade. Though the game seemed like it could go either way for its majority, in the end teal6 took the game and eventually the series.

FEATURED BATTLE: teal6 versus TewMew: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-uu-94622

I asked teal6 about some of his thoughts during the game...

1. Before I start talking about the teams, I want to talk a little bit about preparation. This was obviously a big deal - semifinals of UU Open - and so I'm sure you both prepared a lot for this battle. Can you tell me a little bit about how you prepared?

ah well, i know tewmew because both of us had been active in UU for some time. i watched all of his open replays and asked friends for times they had played him because, aside from maybe once or twice on ladder, i actually don't think i had played him myself too much. his style is well known in the UU community but i wanted to pick up on some of his idiosyncrasies to take advantage of during the match, so studying his replays was the best idea

Do you think that preparation helped you in the match?

to an extent, yeah. i was prepared for his doublade to be some ludicrous set that you'll never see anyone else use and played accordingly. additionally, tewmew has a pretty funny quirk - he will play incredibly conservatively until there is a "50/50", and then when he needs to win the 50/50 he'll almost universally make the riskier play. there wasn't a huge one in this match, but i knew for example that he would switch in his rotom-h late game when he had a wish in the air against my roserade, because that gave him a chance back in the match.

2. What were your thoughts during team preview? Any particular threats on TewMew's team that had you worried?

the rotom-H was definitely an issue, because i had no idea what set it would be. that's another thing i got from studying by the way, he likes scarf rotom-h, which we found out it wasn't during the match. otherwise, the rest of the team was pretty well accounted for with what i had, the swampert being the only variable i didn't really expect too much. the doublade was a little annoying but i had the appropriate checks to beat it if i didn't wildly misplay.

3. Tell me a little bit about your gameplan this match. What were your goals (other than winning)? How did your plan evolve as the game progress?

long term, i knew i had to kill or knock off that rotom at some point, because that meant that my florges was going to pressure him non-stop because doublade can't really switch in comfortably on it. i tried early-to-mid game pressuring his umbreon a lot as that was the way he was planning on outliving most of my mons, but it was a bit harder to break than i thought because of its set and the fact that i misplayed blastoise a little bit, where an aura sphere would have savaged him. i'd say the late game was won when it actually looked like he was in a good position, when he caught my kyurem with his doublade, because then every time i got mandibuzz in he didn't have anything he could do comfortably and taking out my kyurem started that process

4. Looking back on this game, any final thoughts? How do you think you played? How about how TewMew played?

i think if he played a little more aggressively early on i would have lost. for example if he made a turn 1 play of tricking my florges the match instantly becomes far more difficult for me, but i was reasonably confident he wasn't going to do that because of the way he had played in all the matches i've seen. for my part, if i had been a bit more proactive with blastoise, it would've been a simpler match than it was. i kept playing around his whimsicott having a grass move even though, logically, i knew that was incredibly unlikely and blastoise getting in put him on the back foot every time. so if i were to play the same matchup again i would make sure to do that, definitely. i dont think there were any "chokes" during the game, just some better overall plays that could've been made on both sides, but understanding how he was going to approach the match from even before i clicked "accept" gave me the upper hand i think.

actually, thinking about it, if he had wished up his doublade in the last few turns of the game and still gotten that same crit on mandibuzz, he basically won. so that was a misplay on his part, but like i said i was pretty confident of the rotom switch in.
What did you all think of the match? Do you have any questions for the players? Ask away in this week's edition of the Better Battlers Project!
 
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It's time for another featured battle! This week's featured battle is one of the recent games from UU Open semi-finals. In it, teal6 faced off against TewMew to see who would advance to the finals. This was a fantastic three game series, and I'd like to feature game 1, where teal6 brought a hazard balance team against TewMew's semi-stall with some interesting choices, such as Toxic Doublade. Though the game seemed like it could go either way for its majority, in the end teal6 took the game and eventually the series.

What did you all think of the match? Do you have any questions for the players? Ask away in this week's edition of the Better Battlers Project!
Just curious - do you think you would have won if TewMew had Liquid Ooze Tentacruel? I was really surprised when I saw that, and there were more than a couple times where your Roselia got ~30% off of the Giga Drain against it instead of practically dying.
 
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-286349672

I think this thread is gonna be perfect for me: I feel like I have a very good knowledge of the meta and stuff, but when it comes to "practice" I'm rarely in control of the match and when I win is mostly 'cause of hax or misplays/overpredictions by my opponent.

In this replay up here I'm "JMLadder". I won, but the main issue I have is that I barely won 1-0 vs an opponent that clearly doesn't even know what he's doing (his team was half RU/NU, he had an offensive Arcanine, etc...).

What I would really love to know is if I played the match good and it was only a question of poor matchup/poor team, or if I made some bad plays that prevented me from being more in control of the match. Particularly, I would like to know if the Drill Run with Escavalier on turn 10 could be considered a good play - same for the sack of Florges vs Exploud on turns 24-25

Btw pls forgive the mean language I'm using vs my opponent: I know it's not an explanation, but I had previously lost vs a NU Sun team with a random Aqua Jet Kabutops that destroyed my Infernape thanks to a lack of attention, so I was amazingly pissed off :(

Tyrantrum @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Head Smash
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Crunch

Escavalier @ Choice Band
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 160 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 92 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
- Drill Run

Florges @ Leftovers
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 248 HP / 232 Def / 28 SpD
Bold Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Moonblast
- Psychic

Swampert-Mega @ Swampertite
Ability: Damp
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
- Scald
- Earthquake

Shaymin @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rest
- Seed Flare
- Earth Power
- Dazzling Gleam

Infernape @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- U-turn
 
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Just curious - do you think you would have won if TewMew had Liquid Ooze Tentacruel? I was really surprised when I saw that, and there were more than a couple times where your Roselia got ~30% off of the Giga Drain against it instead of practically dying.
Yeah, I think I would have still won. Frankly I can't think of a single reason why he didn't have it. Typically the only hazards I ever run are SR, it was rare to even be running a hazard stack team for me, so I don't see why he'd use Clear Body or whatever (which I think can help against Webs?). But I think that, by the time it really mattered when I was Giga Draining him, I had really put myself in good enough of a position to see the game out so I don't think it had a huge effect overall. Still a silly choice all things considered, but then again I brought Sharp Beak Sharpedo to my R6 match so what do I know.
 
Hey everyone, this is a very helpful resource and the featured battles are always fun to watch. I'm hoping you can help me out as well. Heres a game I had vs Daspoofy testing out a team I built:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-279996345

I feel like teambuilding error (I should have drill run over tspikes on bee) did play a role in this but I also couldve played better to win the match.

Also, teal6 what does sharp beak sharpedo do? Or was it a mistake?
 
Hey everyone, this is a very helpful resource and the featured battles are always fun to watch. I'm hoping you can help me out as well. Heres a game I had vs Daspoofy testing out a team I built:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-279996345

I feel like teambuilding error (I should have drill run over tspikes on bee) did play a role in this but I also couldve played better to win the match.

Also, teal6 what does sharp beak sharpedo do? Or was it a mistake?
haha. He meant to use "Sharpedonite" but he typed in "Sharp" in the item section, clicked enter, and it gave him Sharp Beak.
 

Hogg

grubbing in the ashes
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Hogg, do you plan on reviving this thread with some SPL/ULT content ? I'd enjoy that a lot and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. On another note: Merry Christmas :]
Yes, I plan to revive this once we get some good battles to talk about. Things kind of died down after UU Open ended.

And Merry Christmas to you too!
 

Hogg

grubbing in the ashes
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Sorry for the delay, folks, but thanks for being patient. As I said, I wanted to revive this with some SPL battles, so here we go.

This week's feature was in my opinion one of the best SPL UU battles we've had thus far - week 2's match between kokoloko and Hikari. Hikari brought a strong team featuring the always terrifying Heracross as a wallbreaker and Taunt Mega-Aerodactyl to punish more passive teams and discourage setup, while kokoloko brought a bulky offense featuring CB Snorlax and a triple-Intimidate core of Krookodile, Salamence and the recently-dropped Gyarados. There was a lot of back and forth in the match, and Hikari seemed to have control toward the end, but some excellent playing by koko kept him in the game and brought home a W.

[replay]smogtours-uu-114503[/replay]

I asked kokoloko for some of his thoughts during the game...

1a. You've played Hikari many, many times over the years. How did your previous experience help you?

knowing hikari likes weird sets made me want to use a team that was hard to take advantage of with random shit, and a good way to do that is to incorporate your defense into your offense. triple intimidate + cb lax seemed like a good way to do this, since mence / krook / gyara leave little breathing room for random offense to take over but still pack a punch offensively. cb lax was an idea that sam had before i even started building and it just so happened to fit in with the triple intimidate theme i went for. scarf whims is something pretty random i thought of because dd mence was a huge threat and i know he likes to use mence a lot, and it actually fit pretty nicely with the team because it gave me the option of tricking a stall-mon (something i would not have been surprised if he decided to bring) and gave me trick + memento to make setting up dragon dances very easy. lastly i knew i wanted a spinner so i could spam intimidate freely and since i had not picked a mega yet, blastoise seemed like a good choice, given how reliable it is.

1b. Did you do anything special to prepare for this match?

nothing outside of the ordinary. i study all my opponents for spl pretty thoroughly and try to build a team that will match up well vs them. this was a bit hard to do because hikari is easily the least predictable uu player this season, but the team i decided to bring would have matched up well vs anything. luckily, it ended up being a good matchup for me since he decided to bring infernape as his rocker and cb heracross as his breaker.

2. What were your thoughts during team preview? Was there anything on Hikari's team that had you particularly worried?

the first thing that stood out to me was “cool no lax switchins” because even though he had two resists, neither one of them actually beats cb lax. i also had facade so if he decided to burn it, i would have been in even better position. in fact, the turn i switched it into rotom i was almost sure he was going to wisp, but he made the better play and went for storm, which unlucky for him, missed—although i doubt it affected the outcome of the game in the end. the biggest threat from his side was obviously his aerodactyl, which i legitimately had no real answer to aside from intimidating it and getting rocks up. the fact that it had taunt made it even more of a threat since i couldn’t set up on it with my intimidators.

3. What was your general gameplay going into this match? How did it evolve as the game progressed?

i was sure lax could put in work, given that it comes in for basically free against florges, rotom, and empoleon. i figured that’d be my main way of killing stuff, and depending on what he sac’d to it, either mence or gyara could break through. i also kinda figured he might be forced into a position where he’d have to sac florges to gyara in order to avoid being swept, which changed when he stayed in to take whim’s switcheroo with rotom, and then went back to being the case when he was forced to sac the rotom. i was a bit scared of that being subpetaya emp, because hikari is insane and would bring a dpp set against me, and it would have wrecked me since i was subbounce gyara. i was also a bit worried that infernape might be 4 attacks with hp ice, which is the real reason behind my turn 1 switch. i figured he’d either hp ice thinking i wouldn't expect it, stealth rock being a lead set, and in either case blastoise was a good move, OR he’d go to florges and allow snorlax to come in and start plowing shit.

another cool set of plays were turns 10-13, which probably just look like me trying to intimidate aero, when in reality it was a fantastic triple switch with little-to-no drawbacks. gyara into aero on the revenge meant rotom was coming out 100% since he had scarf now, so i predict that and go to krook (risk free since aero can’t touch krook at all at -2) trying to bait the non-volt switch (wisp / storm were both fine) as i go to lax in order to start wailing on shit. that was easily my favorite set of plays in the game—moreso than the late-game intimidate spam, as funny as that was.

turn 18 is another worthy of note because some people think that was a 50-50 that i just “got lucky and won” when in fact going to whims was 100% safe because memento meant he, at worst, would be in the exact same position vs gyara (assuming he CMd twice as i switched in and memento’d). gyara then comes out and does what it did, regardless of what hikari did. a lot of people think gyara was poised to sweep once it came in on florg, but that simply isnt the case. it cannot beat florges AND set up to +2 in order to beat aero as well, so the best play was to just DD once and 2HKO the florges. i subbed once in case he got ballsy and went straight to aero, which would have been disastrous, but he decided to play it safe.


4. In particular, following turns 25 or so you did an excellent job cycling through your Intimidate 'mons to ensure a tight win. Can you give some of your thoughts on how the end-game played out?

yeah that end-game was interesting. tbh all i needed was for him to kill something with heracross, so i got tunnel vision. there was one turn in particular where i think attacking would have been better than switching, but at that point my brain went into auto-pilot. i knew i could kill both mons with a +1 outrage and i knew i could set up on heracross 100% of the time so i thought “ok just force aero out every time and try to sac something that isn’t mence vs hera, then set up and win”. i could have set up on aero as well but alas, he had taunt.

5. Anything else to add?

yeah i’d like to give a special shoutout to king uu, who didnt get bought and has a negative-all time record in spl, and christo, who would be 0-3 if it wasn’t for a massive choke on bugzi’s part—both of whom said i shouldn’t have been bought right after the auction. r0ady too for predicting against me every week bar vs xmarth. also to teal6 who will be getting the donking of his life, ending his undefeated streak, at wednesday 11:15ish PM EST (although i actually like teal :]). be there or be somewhere else!
What did everyone think about this match? How did you think kokoloko and Hikari played? Do you have any questions for kokoloko? Any thoughts on other matches to feature?
 
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time to revive this dead thread!!

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-363928386

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Doublade @ Eviolite
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Iron Head
- Shadow Sneak
- Sacred Sword

Roserade @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Spikes
- Giga Drain

Krookodile @ Black Glasses
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Pursuit

Heracross @ Leftovers
Ability: Guts
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Megahorn
- Stone Edge

Florges @ Leftovers
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Synthesis
- Aromatherapy


From the start i knew that suicune could easily win me the match since all of his pokes are hit super effectively by its coverage.I did make some misplays in the mid game,but i could not understand where.Ultimately it boiled down to a roll where i luckily hit hydro but still got a low roll.

plz respond if possible dodmen hogg
 
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Kink

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If someone wants to take over this project for SuMo (must have extensive UU experience both as a contributor and a battler), please send myself and Hogg a pm/vm
 
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