Thank you to those who wished myself, Aiyaru and the rest of LAPRAS well and sent congratulations. It's really meaningful to me because to be honest, there's always a part of me that seeks recognition from my peers. Thank you especially to members of the Volcanions who demonstrated their sportsmanship despite their loss coming from unfortunate circumstances like the timer.
Aiyaru and I would like to shoutout those in our team's discord server as a small thank you.
First, our biggest helpers - who truly get no reward at all.
Camarade Papadov - I first got to know you as you were a friend of Ramolost. We had some cordial but largely superficial interactions until this year. We talk a lot more because of laddering and mutual enjoyment of UU and other things and yes it's true we really trust you. One highlight from you was this team you built for FC - a great innovation to use Slack Off Future Sight Glowbro which helped secure an important victory in week 5, when we were still finding ourselves.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-641220 I loved your funny jokes like when you made one at viv's expense and when you fooled Aiyaru into thinking a game was ongoing, you're very funny and I like your kind personality. You many so many teams for us that we had to make you a new channel for teams. You never complain about anything and I'm surprised you don't like playing in these tours yourself. I am very grateful for you pitfall, thank you.
Really funny and I know you didn't mean it meanly - sorry viv if you see this, I told him to post it.
May - I knew you when were helping lead a RBY UU test and I had concerns it wasn't following Smogon policy so I tried to tell you how to follow Smogon policy so nobody could question the test legitimacy, as people wrongly tried to do that for Quagsire in gen7uu test. I think that gave you the wrong impression I was questioning you. I got to know more about you by following some of your RBY content on YouTube and you kindly offered your services to help UD. The amount and consistency of help by providing teams and analysis of replays is truly remarkable, every week you would offer an essay and some teams and reasoning. I'm sure you tested as well with UD. I have very fond memories of all the support but also in the general chat where you offered advice/served as a discussant in many conversations about non Pokemon topics. I was amused by your May-speak and references to things like Douglas McTrio (although we lost this game, we won this series vs Shellnuts)
Nalorium - I first got to know you when you kindly drafted me for UUPL which we just fell short of winning in. I'm very grateful that you were basically the BW May, not for UD but instead for Fakee who I believe you kept motivated to enjoy the team enviorment. It's particularly good because I think that generation is awful so having you manage that worked out favorably. I wish I could say more but I didn't really follow most of the Spanish in the chatroom, but again I'm going on a limb to say you made the environment much more enjoyable for Fakee and therefore the rest of our team, so thank you. I understand a lot of your support was through DMs as well - thank you for your invisible support.
Next our players, in alphabetical order:
Amane Misa - It's been a while being adjacent to you in many UU projects about 7 or 8 years ago in ORAS. We've never been extremely close but always I think on good terms because you seem to treat people with respect and fairness and you've been a relevant part of the UU community. Which made it very surprising when you were ranked in the bottom 20% of players in the official PR - that of course did not deter you into getting like a +6 record and leading our SS to be the best performing SS out of all eight teams. Of course you clinched the tournament for us but to be honest your standout victory to me was your very first game against TJ, where you managed to play like a 100+ turn game using a Sun
hyper offense https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-635611. That was the first game I remember watching for our team and I remember constantly asking our teammates how you were doing. I hope this tournament reaffirms that you are not washed at all and I'm glad you were able to outperform against expectations and make many people who predicted against you incorrect.
Ayaka - I first got to know you by observing your UU subforum tournament games over the past several years, although I don't recall which was the first game. Pak was the key reason you were drafted into our team and he essentially took it on himself to manage your slot for the season and made the apparently correct choice of slotting you into ORAS (apart from the week where I accidentally sent the wrong lineup). There are several places I could point to as highlights from you, like your critical and very smooth victory against Chait in semis to pave our way forward for a very strong finish. I do think in terms of players you beat though, it was fantastic that you beat PDT in SM early on in this game without really any bullshit: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-635753 There is no doubt in my mind you are the true winner of UUSD given your financial profit from this, being paid to play your game at night. I am so grateful for your efforts every week and to get to know you, if only a little, better now. You are much less a faceless tour jerk player to me and I enjoy your personality.
Cubic Skunk - I did not know you before this tournament but am glad you were a consistent presence supporting Jester in DPP as well as offering input in ADV. I'm sorry that you didn't get to play more but we explained in depth to you our decision on lineups already. I'm glad you found it on your own to keep staying active in the final week even though the lineup didn't have you and your scout was important for our ADV victory as well. I felt a lot of your enthusiasm and hope you can always channel that into good support or plays yourself in future tournaments. Clearly the highlight from you was your win during our Semis - it was a funny game as we were playing GSC at the same time and our team thought we'd lose DPP but win GSC halfway into the match but the opposite happened. You took the opportunity when it was presented (won with Venu after Weezing died) and that's a requirement for any great player: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4uu-644718 Thank you for trusting your managers to put the team first
Fakee - I know about you from observing some UU subforum team tours including in UUFPL where you played well for us to just fall short of winning the tournament. We were obviously really happy with how well you did then and wanted to get you again for this tournament. I generally left your channel alone our of laziness and because you had extremely amazing support from LNumbers and Nalo. I do believe one of your most solid victories came early in the season here versus Lily, it was a crucial victory in one of our close wins (most of our wins were blowouts, this was our only 6-4 win I believe):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5uu-636736
fatty - I feel as if I have known about you longer than nearly any other player and yet have not had more than cordial interactions with you until we teamed for UUPL this year where I found it amusing (and fitting) you were our highest priced player in a bidding war. I'm glad I got to know you a little bit more and that you were able to support not just in ADV but also in DPP which was extremely valuable for us. Of course to me the biggest highlight you had was in your absolutely critical victory in week 7 - we were down 2-5 and needed 3 wins to stay in the tournament, your win was the first of those crucial 3. I nearly crashed the vehicle I was driving when trying to observe your game - I wasn't even observing it actually, just talking to our team's discussion channel. It was particularly impressive as your opponent had one of the best if not the best ADV record in this tour and UUFPL:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-643890 Such a smooth way to win with Gligar after the Lunatone hiccup. I'm so glad you were able to prove once again no matter how many years pass, you're considered the very elite in old gen UUs.
Fc - I know you through Aiyaru who always speaks extremely highly of you from his experience in a World Cup and I was always impressed myself about how chill and "sigma" you seem. I was happy to work with you in UUFPL and am happy we won this one together now. To be honest, even though you didn't talk much in terms of building, your slot was probably the most important slot in terms of our SS working together since you didn't build yourself, basically every single supporter and SS player at some point gave valuable input to teams you'd bring. Thank you for giving us that opportunity and for getting a strong score this tournament, again providing those who ranked you lowly wrong. Of course, my favorite game from you was when you stalled Micciu at my insistence (to be honest, I was worried then that our SS slot was having "too many cooks in the kitchen"). It's always a pain for me to see my stall make mistakes in some play (should have listened to Accel's advice on practice stall first) but ultimately you clinched the match point for us to secure our spot in the finals:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-644733
Inder - I know we didn't have much GSC support for you but I am glad to have gotten to get to know you a little bit better in this tournament. I do admire that you value your teammates so much and want to be fair to them, such as when you believed ML should have a chance to play after he supported us the entire season. You did a fine job for us throughout the tournament given the dice rolls that determine this format and once of your more solid victories was fantastic to see since it came against UUSD villain vani:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2uu-642369
Mystras Leoxses - I've known you for a while through laddering things and I was always impressed by games you played versus me in various tryouts I believe. I've gotten to know a little more about you through increased analysis involvement as well and I see you have a great contributor heart and brain their too. I'm sorry that you still didn't get a chance to play in this tournament yet but you know Inder was and we were all grateful for your support in GSC and various tiers, considering our team didn't have much GSC knowledge outside of this. Hope college is going well.
Pak - I believe I've known you for a similar amount of time as fatty and donphantastic, at least I've been aware of you despite nothing but minimal cordial interactions until recently when UU discord starting growing more, giving more opportunities for interactions. You of course were our first pick - for many reasons, but I think largely because having you in ORAS is such a big difference compared to any other ORAS player - well that didn't really bear out but it worked out nonetheless, with your godly SM score.
Clearly no player was as influential as you in our run, as you helped determine our draft - unlikely we would get Gondra for example without your consultation - while you basically managed both your slot and ORAS slot without input from me the entire tournament.
You have such a great goal of trying to be the BOAT UU player, I really admire competitive spirit in people and when people freely acknowledge it, there's nothing wrong with that and I don't think you're particularly far off from your goal, you could say you're closer to it than anyone else.
Of course my favorite game from you is when you gave Udon a chance to save our season by winning such a clean and dominant game week 7 vs Etern:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-643962
I am so happy to know more about you now.
pannuracotta - You're a lot of fun to be around and that great personality shouldn't hide the fact that you did contribute decent amounts. I'm sorry we convinced you to not run Fire Spin Hydreigon week 1 when it would have won you the game and you didn't get many playing opportunities after that. But I'm happy you still stuck around. I know you're part of Aiyaru's friend group which is how I know you but I really enjoy your presence now anyways. You had a lot of great lines that I find funny:
RealJester - Not sure how much I knew about you prior to this tournament but I'm very happy you were on the team. You did what you had to do every week - prep, build, test, and play your best in DPP for us and we're very grateful that you did so. You have a very good attitude on the game I sense, not letting it disturb you or take over your life. I do think one of your most important games for us was your win vs Seldanna in week 7, without your earlier win we wouldn't have had enough of a cushion to come back from:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4uu-642986
Totomon - Honestly I don't recall how I first got to know you but I assume it was either through friendly ladder chats or us being adjacent on many Smogon activities because we both play UU. You've always been very kind and hardworking, in this and UUFPL, even though you didn't always get a chance to play. Like I said with FC - the most painful thing for me is to see when stalls I provide have mistakes creep into them so I'm sorry that after we lost week 3 because we had to sub in, I was upset. But that didn't deter you from constantly providing support to builders after that. I hope you know I have high expectations from my players because I believe you guys can play at basically top levels in the right circumstances, and because I took managing seriously out of respect to all the undrafted players.
udongirl - It's probably not right to have favorites, but it doesn't take away anything from anyone else, for some reason, you have become my favorite player on the team. I am so happy you decided to join more forum things instead of just frequently destroying me on the ladder. You even agreed to be one of the first moderators to my discord server to help people get into UU and you're so active in helping people. When I mentioned some of your ladder thrashings of me early on in the viability ranking team chat, people were like "why are you bring up random ladder player". I am so happy you are more recognized now.
Udon your independence in your slot gave us more freedom to focus on FC and your wins, all of your many, were just so critical for our success and making our SS the best SS record. There's definitely something special in having the best current gen when we were ranked the last and so much of it was because your creativity.
Of course, you know my favorite game from you (but really, I respect you so much I'll have two favorite games) - your week 7 win where you clinched the 5-5 to get us into playoffs and your semis win where you stayed in turn 23 with Togekiss against the Diggersby which helped win us that game and start huge momentum in our favor. There is no doubt in my mind the 2-5 to 5-5 comeback was the best point of the tournament for me, even better than winning it and our team was so proud of you then. I cannot wait to see what else you do in UU and I am grateful you are part of our community.
Unowndragon - You are one of the sweetest players I've known in UU which is ever more remarkable considering the format you play leaves you at the mercy of your emotions too often. What I admire most in players is their tenacity and respect for the game - and that is most revealed when you lose. People like you and Adaam don't disengage after losing, they still stay in it and you always kept at it and even kept posting predictions after some losses. Of course you had more wins - to me your most important win was in the crucial 5-5 week, your win came early on in the week and gave us a chance to absorb early losses and later come back:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1uu-643578
I cannot forget: we had other helpers, in alphabetical order -
Accel - thank you for support throughout in old gens
Clefable - thank you for keeping the atmosphere pleasant
Donphantastic - thank you for support in gen4uu in particular and insulting me and reminding me you are very very boomer
hariyana grande - thank you for support in gen4uu and giving your teams when requested
LNumbers - thank you for support in most slots and gen5uu, hope you are happy our team last year has improved this much now
NoahDeKnight - thank you for some comments in gen8uu
Venuesaur - thank you for some comments in gen8uu
vivalospride - thank you for helping Pak stay dominant in gen7uu and keeping the atmosphere
Thank you to
Accel (again) and
Estarossa for hosting. Thank you to
Lily for informally hosting as well and leading power rankings project.
Other significant contributors: thank you
BigFatMantis for your weekly power rankings and your PO scenario at the start of week 7. Thank you
Monky25 for compiling usage stats and replays in a timely manner.
The biggest thank you and acknowledgement for my co-manager, Aiyaru
I am so happy we won! You know how disappointed we both were after we came up just short in UUFPL. I've known you for over a year now, when you first started in UU you got more and more involved and somehow I ended up tutoring you. But you were always independent and involved in the community through your own contributions which I respect. Still, for whatever reason, I never though you were treated particularly fairly by UU players so I'm happy we got this win, something we can be satisfied with ourselves instead of a product of someone else. It's unfortunate I think that you aren't particularly thrilled with UU things anymore including the discord pia we made together, but oh well. Growing to new opportunities isn't bad.
We absolutely got we wanted from the draft this time (no more forgetting klam) and after you told me to stop being lazy week 1, I think it worked out okay. I am worried you never got the credit you deserved as my equal co-manager, but as you should know you were my first and only pick to comanage with someone, you just have a very good attitude on letting people do their own thing when playing and being a fair manager. I like the minimalist approach and I think I have it too, which works well when we draft a bunch of goats.
So many Inteleons, Eiscues, and Swoobats were suggested by you and I'm not sure any of them found their way into an actual game (although really I have nothing against Inteleon ideas). For all the comments on how your builds were sus, you still tested probably more than anyone and I enjoyed working through your building process logic, especially at the end on Misa's team vs Adaam, it was just a great process by you I thought, even if we didn't end up building it.
It's just such a nice way to end things on, if we do end managing or if you do end UU things for now. I hope regardless of what other people think, you know in yourself you deserve credit for this win and it's good you always try to be fair. Thank you for managing with me my friend! Go LAPRAS!