Just two games to discuss. First, we have the final game of Tigers/Scooters tiebreaks, Trosko vs hellom. hellom's record speaks for itself: he's an unbelievable 10-0 against some of SV's biggest threats in his first season, including a win over Trosko himself. Possibly the main character of this SPL. His opponent is Trosko, a veteran of the game and the centerpiece of the Tigers' stacked SV core. A cornerstone of consistency, his 7-2 record has looked very sharp throughout.
Trosko has a strong defensive core, looking to get plenty of stuff on the floor with Skarmory and Ting-Lu. Looks like Boots on Dragapult and Ogerpon-Teal for lots of fast U-Turns to the walls. Can't imagine the Gliscor has hazards here. hellom has a more offensive build, retaining the Gholdengo and Gliscor pieces but bringing along a Moltres for very potent contact punishment. This one also has a good amount of pivots, between Glowking, Moltres, and possibly Wellspring. Probably Rocks on one of Gliscor or GT.
hellom's going to have a hard time getting a Rapid Spin off here: Pult and Gholdengo are straightforward absorbers, while Skarmory is likely Rocky Helmet and will just Iron Defense or whatever and get up more. Moltres is crucial here as both a Make It Rain resist and a punisher to Ogerpon and Dragapult's U-Turning, ensuring they can't just go back and forth with impunity.
We start with the typical Gliscor handshake, both getting their orbs activated. SD immediately comes out from hellom's Gliscor as Trosko goes into Skarmory: they mutually wall each other, so Scor gets rid of the Helmet and Skarm gets up Rocks. hellom blinks first, going into Gholdengo on Skarm's Roost: this allows him to catch the incoming Ting-Lu with a Trick, blessing it with a new scarf and turning it into the world's heaviest paperweight. After chipping Moltres with Ruination on the switch, it has to Roost, allowing Trosko to go into Gliscor and reveal its own SD and Facade: it's the one physical attacker free to wail away on Moltres. He goes for Facade and tickles hellom's own Scor, who is back to full within a few turns. Skarm screws around for a couple of turns, gets ~50% chip on Tusk as it gets its own rocks up, but hellom scares it out with Gholdengo, only to double into Wellspring on the Ting-Lu. This forces in Trosko's Dragapult, who can only hit Ogerpon with a non-Specs Draco Meteor before dying to Knock Off.
Now at critical health, Trosko brings in his own Ogerpon: it comes down to a speed tie, which hellom wins, bringing in his Tusk to absorb the Knock. Moltres comes in here, and U-Turns out as Trosko goes to Gliscor, opting to bring in Wellspring: it's now critically low after coming in on rocks several times. Wellspring misses the Ivy Cudgel KO (although it was pretty damn close, suggesting SpDef Gliscor) and falls to Facade.
hellom's Gholdengo emerges and starts clicking Make It Rain: it crits Ting-Lu for 46%, then crits Gholdengo for 46%, then crits Gholdengo for 46% (holy hell), but at this point, it can't kill without another crit, and Trosko can Recover. He lures out the Moltres and immediately reveals Tera Water, getting up a Nasty Plot: now something has to die, and hellom throws his half-health Great Tusk into the Shadow Ball. hellom's got a secret weapon, though, and it's Tera Water Grass Knot Gholdengo, who does — actually, it doesn't do that much. It actually nearly loses the 1v1 to Gholdengo, but it calls a Future Sight and forces Trosko's Ting-Lu to eat a Grass Knot, which it somehow barely lives: Lu then finishes off Glowking with Rock Tomb.
Now it's time for hellom's own Gholden Joe, who executes Ting-Lu and the low-health Ogerpon. Gliscor comes in, and surely even with a double Protect, it's surely unstoppable here, right? It just Shadow Balls forever? The only out is the 1/27 triple Protect.
Welp. Now hellom has to click Make It Rain to kill, which it does, but the SpA drop allows in Trosko's Gholdengo, who sets up a Nasty Plot and wins a speed tie against Gliscor for the kill, cleaning house from there. I think both played about as well as they reasonably could (far be it from me to suggest better plays to anybody in SPL, lol) and the fact that the endgame shifted in the hands of RNG is a shame. With this win, Trosko and the Tigers advance to finals, and hellom's miracle run comes to an unfortunate end.
On the other side of the bracket, we've got myjava vs xavgb, the first game of the Tyrants-Ruiners tiebreak series. myjava is one of the biggest breakouts of this SPL, picked up for the minimum price and slotted in halfway through the season while CTC took a week off. His debut game saw him hand the ultra-consistent oldspicemike a loss, and from then he's been on a roll, 6-1 and now the Tyrants' lead SV ever since CTC's extended vacation. His opponent is xavgb, an OU Council member who made Gen 9 his playground in 2023, posting an outstanding 78% winrate in the generation. His teambuilding has rewritten the metagame several times, and although he only played a partial campaign and was 3-4 coming into this match, he's still never to be underestimated.
Dear god, we've got another Ogerpon-Teal. It seems to me as if a fast, strong U-Turn that can carry boots is good! java's team looks well-crafted to deal with offense, with Skeledirge to stop setup and Zamazenta + Clefable as robust "no-stop-that-you're-not-sweeping" mons. Alomomola provides an extra round for Dirge and Zama as well, as they're probably gonna have to come hard into a move at some point.
On xavgb's side, we have Ogerpon-Cornerstone in the first slot. It has an interesting toolkit, possessing a 100% accurate physical Rock STAB and being one of the few fast offensive mons with Sturdy. Other than that, it's a very Scarlet and Violet Offense™ team: Deoxys-S is Schrödinger's lead/LO cleanup crew/fast utility (it's probably the lead here,) Gouging Fire wants to DD and win on the spot, Hatterene provides hazard control and a bit of yellow magic, you get the idea.
Team preview shows that myjava's team has no Rock Ivy Cudgel resists (although Zamazenta is basically one the first time) which means clicking it is probably a good choice most of the time. A different problem presents itself for xavgb, in that he has potentially one move to hit Gliscor super effectively with, Deoxys' Ice Beam which it might not even have. Even assuming no Protect it can get active against almost anything on the enemy team. Zamazenta also stops four mons, and Gouging Fire will be hard-pressed to set up against an Unaware and an Alomomola.
It's Clef and Deoxys in the lead, and Deo-S opens with Psycho Boost, which absolutely tickles Clef, but that's not the point: it's Eject Pack, and xavgb pivots into Hatterene as Clef Knocks its Rocky Helmet. java's Alomomola comes in on a Nuzzle and then a Draining Kiss, but it fights through to click Mirror Coat, which does an insane amount to Hatterene thanks to Alo's gargantuan HP stat. java spends a couple of turns flipping back and forth between Clef and Alo to get health back, during which xavgb gets rocks up, knocks Alo's boots, and switches into Cornerstone. Now it's Power Whip time, which will surely do a ton of damage — oh, it missed, and now rocks are up on both sides. java takes this as initiative to go into his own Ogerpon as Power Whip does only 47%, and hits a smooth U-Turn as xavgb goes into Zamazenta, activating Gliscor. At this point, Deoxys has done its job of removing boots from Alomomola (who should not be able to wear boots, it has no feet) and getting rocks up, and it's sacrificed to an Earthquake.
In comes xavgb's Gouging Fire, and like six lines of text pop up, which means it's +Attack Booster and something's gonna die to Heat Crash, that someone being Ogerpon. myjava goes directly into Clefable from this, and it Moonblasts for a cool 33% as Gouging Fire goes for a Dragon Dance. It's looking scary for java, and his switch to Alomomola being punished with Dragon Tail was very slick from xavgb (even though he just pulled Clefable and ended up in the same position), but he figures out the line and sacrifices Alomomola once it's clear that Gouging Fire can't recover, terminating it with Skeledirge.
xavgb brings in Cornerstone, which brings in java's Zamazenta, and xavgb opts for his own Zamazenta as the switch-in, and it takes a massive 49% from CC, forcing it to be sacrificed. Now it's Gambit Time — myjava senses the Fighting-resistant Tera coming out and throws Clefable into a +2 Iron Head, then pulls out Skeledirge to get off a fast Wisp to cripple the Tera Flying Gambit. It turns out to be Lum Berry, though, making it all for nothing. Kingambit is +2, a bird, has 3 fallen, and is in prime position to just win from here. If Zamazenta has something like Stone Edge it can pull it out and clean the rest of xavgb's team, I guess, but even something like Ice Fang won't two-shot Kingambit and will probably just result in Zama being put down by Iron Head...
oh.
That's also unfortunate. Flying Lum Kingambit was a great set into myjava's team that in most timelines just won there. 10% happened, followed by (80%)^3 happening, and there wasn't much anyone could do about it. With this win, the Tyrants moved to 1-0 in the tiebreak, and following an eventful DPP match and the RBY set of all time, they won the tiebreak to advance to finals against the Tigers. I'm not gonna wax poetic about how both matches being decided by improbable luck is indicative of some kind of greater phenomenon — these are the shitty things that happen in this game. It's a shame that it came in the most important games yet, but we signed up for this when we opened Showdown. Junichi decided it wasn't hellom or xavgb's time.
Trosko has a strong defensive core, looking to get plenty of stuff on the floor with Skarmory and Ting-Lu. Looks like Boots on Dragapult and Ogerpon-Teal for lots of fast U-Turns to the walls. Can't imagine the Gliscor has hazards here. hellom has a more offensive build, retaining the Gholdengo and Gliscor pieces but bringing along a Moltres for very potent contact punishment. This one also has a good amount of pivots, between Glowking, Moltres, and possibly Wellspring. Probably Rocks on one of Gliscor or GT.
hellom's going to have a hard time getting a Rapid Spin off here: Pult and Gholdengo are straightforward absorbers, while Skarmory is likely Rocky Helmet and will just Iron Defense or whatever and get up more. Moltres is crucial here as both a Make It Rain resist and a punisher to Ogerpon and Dragapult's U-Turning, ensuring they can't just go back and forth with impunity.
We start with the typical Gliscor handshake, both getting their orbs activated. SD immediately comes out from hellom's Gliscor as Trosko goes into Skarmory: they mutually wall each other, so Scor gets rid of the Helmet and Skarm gets up Rocks. hellom blinks first, going into Gholdengo on Skarm's Roost: this allows him to catch the incoming Ting-Lu with a Trick, blessing it with a new scarf and turning it into the world's heaviest paperweight. After chipping Moltres with Ruination on the switch, it has to Roost, allowing Trosko to go into Gliscor and reveal its own SD and Facade: it's the one physical attacker free to wail away on Moltres. He goes for Facade and tickles hellom's own Scor, who is back to full within a few turns. Skarm screws around for a couple of turns, gets ~50% chip on Tusk as it gets its own rocks up, but hellom scares it out with Gholdengo, only to double into Wellspring on the Ting-Lu. This forces in Trosko's Dragapult, who can only hit Ogerpon with a non-Specs Draco Meteor before dying to Knock Off.
Now at critical health, Trosko brings in his own Ogerpon: it comes down to a speed tie, which hellom wins, bringing in his Tusk to absorb the Knock. Moltres comes in here, and U-Turns out as Trosko goes to Gliscor, opting to bring in Wellspring: it's now critically low after coming in on rocks several times. Wellspring misses the Ivy Cudgel KO (although it was pretty damn close, suggesting SpDef Gliscor) and falls to Facade.
hellom's Gholdengo emerges and starts clicking Make It Rain: it crits Ting-Lu for 46%, then crits Gholdengo for 46%, then crits Gholdengo for 46% (holy hell), but at this point, it can't kill without another crit, and Trosko can Recover. He lures out the Moltres and immediately reveals Tera Water, getting up a Nasty Plot: now something has to die, and hellom throws his half-health Great Tusk into the Shadow Ball. hellom's got a secret weapon, though, and it's Tera Water Grass Knot Gholdengo, who does — actually, it doesn't do that much. It actually nearly loses the 1v1 to Gholdengo, but it calls a Future Sight and forces Trosko's Ting-Lu to eat a Grass Knot, which it somehow barely lives: Lu then finishes off Glowking with Rock Tomb.
Now it's time for hellom's own Gholden Joe, who executes Ting-Lu and the low-health Ogerpon. Gliscor comes in, and surely even with a double Protect, it's surely unstoppable here, right? It just Shadow Balls forever? The only out is the 1/27 triple Protect.
Welp. Now hellom has to click Make It Rain to kill, which it does, but the SpA drop allows in Trosko's Gholdengo, who sets up a Nasty Plot and wins a speed tie against Gliscor for the kill, cleaning house from there. I think both played about as well as they reasonably could (far be it from me to suggest better plays to anybody in SPL, lol) and the fact that the endgame shifted in the hands of RNG is a shame. With this win, Trosko and the Tigers advance to finals, and hellom's miracle run comes to an unfortunate end.
On the other side of the bracket, we've got myjava vs xavgb, the first game of the Tyrants-Ruiners tiebreak series. myjava is one of the biggest breakouts of this SPL, picked up for the minimum price and slotted in halfway through the season while CTC took a week off. His debut game saw him hand the ultra-consistent oldspicemike a loss, and from then he's been on a roll, 6-1 and now the Tyrants' lead SV ever since CTC's extended vacation. His opponent is xavgb, an OU Council member who made Gen 9 his playground in 2023, posting an outstanding 78% winrate in the generation. His teambuilding has rewritten the metagame several times, and although he only played a partial campaign and was 3-4 coming into this match, he's still never to be underestimated.
Dear god, we've got another Ogerpon-Teal. It seems to me as if a fast, strong U-Turn that can carry boots is good! java's team looks well-crafted to deal with offense, with Skeledirge to stop setup and Zamazenta + Clefable as robust "no-stop-that-you're-not-sweeping" mons. Alomomola provides an extra round for Dirge and Zama as well, as they're probably gonna have to come hard into a move at some point.
On xavgb's side, we have Ogerpon-Cornerstone in the first slot. It has an interesting toolkit, possessing a 100% accurate physical Rock STAB and being one of the few fast offensive mons with Sturdy. Other than that, it's a very Scarlet and Violet Offense™ team: Deoxys-S is Schrödinger's lead/LO cleanup crew/fast utility (it's probably the lead here,) Gouging Fire wants to DD and win on the spot, Hatterene provides hazard control and a bit of yellow magic, you get the idea.
Team preview shows that myjava's team has no Rock Ivy Cudgel resists (although Zamazenta is basically one the first time) which means clicking it is probably a good choice most of the time. A different problem presents itself for xavgb, in that he has potentially one move to hit Gliscor super effectively with, Deoxys' Ice Beam which it might not even have. Even assuming no Protect it can get active against almost anything on the enemy team. Zamazenta also stops four mons, and Gouging Fire will be hard-pressed to set up against an Unaware and an Alomomola.
It's Clef and Deoxys in the lead, and Deo-S opens with Psycho Boost, which absolutely tickles Clef, but that's not the point: it's Eject Pack, and xavgb pivots into Hatterene as Clef Knocks its Rocky Helmet. java's Alomomola comes in on a Nuzzle and then a Draining Kiss, but it fights through to click Mirror Coat, which does an insane amount to Hatterene thanks to Alo's gargantuan HP stat. java spends a couple of turns flipping back and forth between Clef and Alo to get health back, during which xavgb gets rocks up, knocks Alo's boots, and switches into Cornerstone. Now it's Power Whip time, which will surely do a ton of damage — oh, it missed, and now rocks are up on both sides. java takes this as initiative to go into his own Ogerpon as Power Whip does only 47%, and hits a smooth U-Turn as xavgb goes into Zamazenta, activating Gliscor. At this point, Deoxys has done its job of removing boots from Alomomola (who should not be able to wear boots, it has no feet) and getting rocks up, and it's sacrificed to an Earthquake.
In comes xavgb's Gouging Fire, and like six lines of text pop up, which means it's +Attack Booster and something's gonna die to Heat Crash, that someone being Ogerpon. myjava goes directly into Clefable from this, and it Moonblasts for a cool 33% as Gouging Fire goes for a Dragon Dance. It's looking scary for java, and his switch to Alomomola being punished with Dragon Tail was very slick from xavgb (even though he just pulled Clefable and ended up in the same position), but he figures out the line and sacrifices Alomomola once it's clear that Gouging Fire can't recover, terminating it with Skeledirge.
xavgb brings in Cornerstone, which brings in java's Zamazenta, and xavgb opts for his own Zamazenta as the switch-in, and it takes a massive 49% from CC, forcing it to be sacrificed. Now it's Gambit Time — myjava senses the Fighting-resistant Tera coming out and throws Clefable into a +2 Iron Head, then pulls out Skeledirge to get off a fast Wisp to cripple the Tera Flying Gambit. It turns out to be Lum Berry, though, making it all for nothing. Kingambit is +2, a bird, has 3 fallen, and is in prime position to just win from here. If Zamazenta has something like Stone Edge it can pull it out and clean the rest of xavgb's team, I guess, but even something like Ice Fang won't two-shot Kingambit and will probably just result in Zama being put down by Iron Head...
oh.
That's also unfortunate. Flying Lum Kingambit was a great set into myjava's team that in most timelines just won there. 10% happened, followed by (80%)^3 happening, and there wasn't much anyone could do about it. With this win, the Tyrants moved to 1-0 in the tiebreak, and following an eventful DPP match and the RBY set of all time, they won the tiebreak to advance to finals against the Tigers. I'm not gonna wax poetic about how both matches being decided by improbable luck is indicative of some kind of greater phenomenon — these are the shitty things that happen in this game. It's a shame that it came in the most important games yet, but we signed up for this when we opened Showdown. Junichi decided it wasn't hellom or xavgb's time.
SV OU: JJ09LIE vs Mada - whenever there's a Kingambit on either side of the field in a JJ09LIE game I get nervous. JJ's status as a rising star is solidified after their regular season but there have been a few high-pressure moments now where a couple of cracks have shown. They got goobed by Steam Eruption so last week isn't really representative, but my thinking is that if Mada gets an above-average matchup, which seems likely based on the thorough read the Tyrants had last week, it's going to be difficult to claw back.
SV OU: Storm Zone vs myjava - Storm Zone has the chance to win a red and yellow trophy in the same week. He's clearly one of the best in SV, and based on his voting history seems to be happy with the tier as is, but his SPL campaign hasn't been as spectacular thus far. In any case I don't think I can bold against myjava's plot armor, he's been on point ever since stepping into the spotlight and even when things looked dire the universe conspired to handle it. The Tigers are cursed and java might be the true protagonist of SPL.
SV OU: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Poek - I gotta say I'm not entirely sure what to think with either of these players. Sinnoh is 4-2 and has a relatively small sample size for prep, and Poek is a transplant from SM with an even smaller sample size for prep. I'll give the edge here to Sinnoh because we've seen his recent ability with a trophy on the line in SCL, but this one could go either way.
SV OU: Trosko vs Luispeikou - Trosko holds the best SV record of everyone left standing, and it'd be an uphill battle for basically any Tyrant. Luis moves to 2-2 here, Trosko's just too consistent.
SS OU: Garay oak vs damien the genius
SM OU: c0mp vs DonSalvatore
ORAS OU: London Beats vs CrashinBoomBang
BW OU: sensei axew vs SoulWind
DPP OU: Le Don vs Dridri457
ADV OU: M Dragon vs pkThunderbolt
GSC OU: RealJester vs Rubyblood
RBY OU: Green on fire vs Heroic Troller
I have no idea what Tigers pick for tiebreak. Tyrants are just gonna do the usual and pick RBY for Troller, freeing SoulWind to play literally anything necessary, and then SV will be Trosko vs myjava. Hoping for some banger games throughout and a little less luck.
SV OU: Storm Zone vs myjava - Storm Zone has the chance to win a red and yellow trophy in the same week. He's clearly one of the best in SV, and based on his voting history seems to be happy with the tier as is, but his SPL campaign hasn't been as spectacular thus far. In any case I don't think I can bold against myjava's plot armor, he's been on point ever since stepping into the spotlight and even when things looked dire the universe conspired to handle it. The Tigers are cursed and java might be the true protagonist of SPL.
SV OU: S1nn0hC0nfirm3d vs Poek - I gotta say I'm not entirely sure what to think with either of these players. Sinnoh is 4-2 and has a relatively small sample size for prep, and Poek is a transplant from SM with an even smaller sample size for prep. I'll give the edge here to Sinnoh because we've seen his recent ability with a trophy on the line in SCL, but this one could go either way.
SV OU: Trosko vs Luispeikou - Trosko holds the best SV record of everyone left standing, and it'd be an uphill battle for basically any Tyrant. Luis moves to 2-2 here, Trosko's just too consistent.
SS OU: Garay oak vs damien the genius
SM OU: c0mp vs DonSalvatore
ORAS OU: London Beats vs CrashinBoomBang
BW OU: sensei axew vs SoulWind
DPP OU: Le Don vs Dridri457
ADV OU: M Dragon vs pkThunderbolt
GSC OU: RealJester vs Rubyblood
RBY OU: Green on fire vs Heroic Troller
I have no idea what Tigers pick for tiebreak. Tyrants are just gonna do the usual and pick RBY for Troller, freeing SoulWind to play literally anything necessary, and then SV will be Trosko vs myjava. Hoping for some banger games throughout and a little less luck.
)
