I was watching eternally vs hantsuki today and it came to a point in the game that I thought was really interesting and complex. Eternally ended up catching a lucky break and winning, but I felt like even after an unfortunate HJK miss there was definitely a missed chance for Hantsuki to win. With haters Finchinator and Hootie (telling me the game was always eternally's) and my own disappointment at my choke vs kush driving me forward, I set out soul searching.
And thus, my adventure to find the choke began
FIND THAT CHOKE: ETERNALLY VS HANTSUKI
I should mention that I am using average rolls for everything, and I take into account rocks damage and black sludge without mentioning it in the text. We will
begin our journey on turn 26, when Hantsuki read Eternally's defog with Whimsicott and switched in his Incineroar to block. The turn that followed is what I believe was the mistake. Here's the general situation:
TEAM ETERNALLY
: 27%
: 42%
: 76%
: 74%
: 72%
TEAM HANTSUKI
: 57%
: 83%
: 100%
Things of note that are known at this point:
Specs Heliolisk, CB Sneasel, SD Samurott, Moonlight SDef Vileplume, also rocks are down
Pivot Incineroar, Taunt Toxic Golbat, ZFighting Heliolisk
What ended up happening in the game was Incineroar clicked U-turn to finish off Whimsicott and ended up with the matchup of Golbat vs Heliolisk. In this situation, knock off was actually the best play. Both scenarios for clicking u-turn end up with a loss. The path with going into Golbat was already explored so let's look at going Heliolisk instead briefly (I won't go all the way). Eternally could go into either Sneasel or Vileplume. Vileplume gets volt switched on into Golbat, and after a sludge bomb exchange (where Eternally sacks plume), Golbat ends up at low enough health for Heliolisk to clean the game with Hyper Voice paired with Sneasel. Sneasel also wins the game by clicking knocking off the berry on Incineroar (and a similar match to the one that played out in the game happens).
So lets click Knock Off. Now,
turn 27 looks something like this:
: 62% vs
: 57%
This is the pivotal turn. In every line of plays, Hantsuki will lose guaranteed if he loses a 50/50 or some other unfortunate thing occurs (rolls, effect spore, etc). Eternally's options are: Liquidation to kill the Incineroar, zmegahorn to hit the predicted Heliolisk, or doubling to Vileplume on the u-turn.
Doubling to Vileplume actually wins if you catch it u-turning as the situation ends up as 50% Vileplume vs 83% Golbat, and no matter how it plays out Golbat will end up at ~66% and a dead Vileplume (a losing scenario for Hantsuki). That is, unless you
PP stall the Vileplume! PP stalling Vileplume optimally ends up with a 94% Golbat and a dead flower (but in general playing it like this is a slightly eternally-favored game as it involves guessing when stuff is coming in when you are at high health)! This scenario is playable for Hantsuki as Golbat can survive a volt switch from Heliolisk at this health, and think Hantsuki could pilot this to a victory.
The former two options, on the other hand, require Hantsuki to guess the 50/50 correctly. Since Eternally has used his built up karma already, we shall assume Hantsuki guess right. If Hantsuki reads the water move correctly, this is yet again an even game, with either the 83% Golbat coming in and playing a similar line as above or 57% Incineroar coming in. Incineroar coming in would be a choke though, as a weakened Incineroar leaves you little hope of beating a crash happy Sneasel.
Reading the zmegahorn properly is my favorite line to analyze as it leads to a fun line to find. If Hantsuki reads the zmegahorn correctly and stays in to u-turn on the Samurott, Incineroar's berry ends up popping and Heliolisk comes in, and then Eternally must switch into Vileplume on the Volt Switch.
TEAM ETERNALLY
: 52%
: 41%
: 42%
: 76%
TEAM HANTSUKI
: 100%
: 58%
: 83%
In this scenario, there are 2 options for Hantsuki: Golbat or Incineroar. Going into Golbat ends up the same way as the other Golbat vs Plume set ups go with an eternally-favored endgame. The play to find is the Incineroar play, which leads to 2 possible lines:
: 52% vs
: 58%
Line 1: Foddering Vileplume to Incineroar. This line ends up being decided by a Heliolisk speed tie. The situation goes into 30% Heliolisk vs 43% Incineroar, and hard switching Hantsuki's Heliolisk onto the specs hyper voice (surf loses always, volt switch is a complicated line that ends up with a lot of Sneasel 50/50s on Golbat and Heliolisk). If Eternally decides to not try to win the tie, the game ends up with Hantsuki winning. He would have to sack his Samurott, and go into Sneasel. Clicking Pursuit loses to Golbat coming and in and spamming toxic into roost to get up to full health, and knock off loses by bringing Incineroar in on the Sneasel down and KOing it with flare blitz. Eternally is left with specs Heliolisk with no thunderbolt after he kills the Incineroar with volt switch, who fails to beat 83% Golbat most of the time. If the tie is accepted, Eternally easily wins with Heliolisk if he wins, and Hantsuki wins with Golbat + Heliolisk if he wins.
50/50 or Hantsuki wins usually.
Line 2: Switching into Samurott on the flare blitz. In this line Samurott lives with about 3% and torrent is activated while Incineroar ends up at about 50%. Another 50/50 ensues involving Incineroar vs Samurott. If Hantsuki guesses the water move right, Heliolisk has a few options. It can kill Samurott with volt switch and the matchup will end as Heliolisk vs Incineroar (a win for eternally as he volt switches -> sacks Samurott -> volt switches again into Sneasel ->Icicle Crashes to win), or hyper voices and plays a
50/50 game with Sneasel pursuit. The player who misses this 50/50 will lose to the other players Heliolisk (+ Golbat in Eternally's case). If Hantsuki guesses the water move wrong, Heliolisk eats a megahorn and ends up at 25%. From here, sacking Samurott and trapping with Sneasel is a guaranteed victory for Eternally.
If Hantsuki guesses the megahorn correctly, then he leaves in Incineroar and u-turns into Heliolisk. At this point, Incineroar is at 30%, and Samurott is dead. Eternally has a few options here. He can go into Vileplume, Sneasel, or Heliolisk. Heliolisk vs Heliolisk is still a speed tie, and the winner likely wins. Sneasel is a little more intricate as while Pursuit can end the game if he guess right, Icicle Crash also leads into a possible victory. Incineroar would come in on the Icicle Crash and take ~14%. From here, Eternally can switch out into whatever he wants to sack, and
spam Icicle Crash to win. If Hantsuki guessed wrong and Incineroar ate a water move, he still loses to Sneasel.
A possible path to Hantsuki's victory lies in Golbat. Golbat is safe into both liquidation and megahorn, as is faster than Samurott always. First, the best case: Hantsuki brings Golbat in on megahorn and ends up with 3% Samurott vs 77% Golbat. From here, brave bird is a safe click vs everything and Eternally must sack Samurott. Assuming he aqua jets, this ends with 58% Golbat. Bringing it in on liquidation is worse, but it is still mostly okay as Eternally really does not want to click aqua jet and allow roost, so worst case it is a 44% Golbat after recoil.
However,
neither of these plays win for Hantsuki, as a Golbat below 81% will die to volt switch from Heliolisk. And thus we have a few conditions to meet. We need to either a. have Golbat above 80% in on a down (which is pretty much impossible here), or b. keep Golbat alive and get in Heliolisk. The safest way to do this is to spam roost and get Heliolisk in on a water move or SD. If Eternally ever guesses wrong and megahorns, Hantsuki is favored as Golbat is now above volt switch range, so Hantsuki is probably favored in this guessing game despite the possibility of liquidation defense drops. So the 2 possibilities are 3% Samurott vs Heliolisk or >80% Golbat on a down.
TEAM ETERNALLY
: 52%
: 3%
: 42%
: 76%
TEAM HANTSUKI
: 100%
: 58%
: 83%
: 3% vs
: 100%
We know condition b works, but is meeting condition a enough? If Heliolisk gets in without a >80% Golbat in the back, the possible lines are foddering Samurott or switching in Vileplume. Sneasel will have enough sacks to try and wear Incineroar down (sack Sam to volt switch -> go Sneasel on the Golbat -> crash on the Incin -> try to fodder Vileplume -> eventually bring back in Sneasel on down -> crash Incin -> repeat as you have 3 switchins max with Sneasel because of rocks). This line is actually a loss for Eternally given average rolls, as Incineroar will be living with 1% after 4 icicle crashes. Eternally can try to play this differently; A series like Plume on volt into Golbat -> sack Samurott will lead 2 other lines of either trying to guess pursuit vs icicle crash correctly with Sneasel vs Golbat, or Heliolisk coming in. Heliolisk coming in vs Hantsuki's Golbat is an always losing scenario for Hantsuki. What this means is that in order to try to grab a win in this line, Hantsuki must predict this Samurott sack and double into his own Heliolisk. At this point, Eternally can go into Vileplume, Heliolisk, or Sneasel. Sneasel leads to a series of 50/50s (crashing on a switch leads to flare blitz claiming a kill on Plume -> Heliolisk coming in to volt -> sacking Golbat -> Incin u-turn to kill Sneasel -> a final Heliolisk speed tie), and Heliolisk leads to a worse than 50/50 outcome for Eternally as specs hyper voice fails to kill 100% Heliolisk. So what about Vileplume? Since Eternally would be bringing a mon in on a down, there would be no leftovers recovery, meaning Vileplume would be in at 40%. This is not enough health to survive Hyper Voice on average. Now it would be Sneasel + Helio vs Helio + Incin + Golbat, and the scenario is a single 50/50 on pursuit vs crash or a speed tie, as there are no sacks avaliable to try trapping again. So the most optimally played line for Eternally is bringing in Sneasel, as he has 2 chances to win the 50/50 (though if he loses the first one clicking pursuit, he will lose), so
this is somewhat eternally favored.
We have reached a conclusion. For Hantsuki to have a >50% chance to win, Golbat must be at >80%, and this scenario is only really possible if Eternally stops clicking Liquidation. The verdict? Played optimally, this is a very slightly Eternally favored endgame taking into account icicle crash accuracy, while it is a true 50/50 or win for Hantsuki if played less that optimally (though there are WAY more opportunities for Hantsuki to choke this than Eternally as 1 wrong turn is a loss).
So yes, Hantsuki did indeed have a (kinda obscure) path to victory.
It's very possible I missed some lines or screwed up some ideas, I have been looking at this end game for about 5 hours now and I might be going crazy. If you think I missed something, hit me up. Also, this really shouldn't be viewed as an attack on either player; I simply did this analysis because I think this endgame was much more subtle than a lot of people thought it was, and I think it could help players who aren't at the top level get an idea on how to analyze games.
***I found a boo boo, 14% * 4 is less that 58%, so crashing the Incineroar over and over is actually NOT a winning play for Eternally most of the time (especially taking into account accuracy).
vs 
vs 
