Battle of the Week Vol. 3: Weeks 7-9

Introduction

The Battle of the Week is in many ways to Smogon what WWE is to modern day entertainment. For example, two renowned battlers get up on a public stage with no other goal than to beat the living pulp out of each other (be it through fighting, Pokemon, or insults). The tournament serves very little purpose to the average bystander, and although it is rather gruesome at times, you just can't help but enjoy it. Oh, and of course, it's all completely staged! How else could Eo Ut Mortus win a battle? What happens, though, when you forget to TiVo this exciting event? Fear not! Today, we shall recap battles 7, 8, and 9 in all of their original smackdown glory!

How does the Battle of the Week work?

The Battle of the Week is a tournament that consists of weekly exhibition matches where tiers and participants are decided by the Smogon community. It lasts until Earthworm gets too busy partying to run it.

Each week, Smogon users may nominate an unlimited number of metagames that they wish to see played. Practically anything can be nominated, including past generations (i.e. RBY OU), official non-OU tiers (i.e. BW Ubers), or even gimmick tiers (i.e. DPP Ubers without "Farceus"). The metagame that receives the most votes will be the one played for that week. There are no restrictions on how many times a metagame can be played, so it is possible, albeit unlikely, for a tier such as Standard BW OU to be played every week. In the same vein, a metagame does not have to be played at all if it never receives a majority vote in any week, so sorry to the five ADV Doubles players reading this.

After 24 hours, nominations will close, the most popular metagame will be selected, and battler nominations will commence. Users may nominate players they wish to see in battle. Users may nominate up to three people, none of whom can be themselves. Nominees must have shown activity on Smogon within the past week and must be willing to participate. Even if someone has played in the previous weeks, they can be nominated again. If the people demand it, who are we to deprive them?

After another 24 hours, the nominations will be tallied up, and the ten people with the most nominations will be placed into a public poll. Everyone will be able to vote for the player(s) they wish to see in the Battle of the Week. After 24 hours, the two people with the most votes will be selected as the participants in the week's battle. The battlers will then schedule a specific date and time for their match, which will be announced in the thread as soon as it is decided upon. The Battle of the Week is usually held on the Smogon University Pokemon Online Server. If the battle picked is an older generation (RBY OU, GSC OU, and sometimes ADV OU), it will be played on Netbattle Supremacy, likely on the ATQ server.

If you miss the battle or somehow cannot attend, do not worry. The log of the match will be saved and added to the first post of the "Battle of the Week" thread (with spectator comments omitted, no less). The match will also be recorded and uploaded to Smogon's YouTube account, SmogonU.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for: an in-depth look at battles 7-9!

Week 7: BW OU: Iconic vs. Eo Ut Mortus

As the battle started, Iconic quickly realized Eo Ut Mortus was not using gimmicks in the sense he had agreed upon. When Iconic came to this realization, and, well, throughout the battle, he let out strings of less-than-choice words (OMG! Did he just say poop?). Meanwhile, Eo Ut Mortus acted as Naive as his Gliscor. Iconic opened up the battle by sending out Beheeyem, which immediately frightened Eo Ut Mortus into causing a double switch on the very first turn. Iconic was then able to set up with Deoxys-S while Rotom-W whittled down its health to a very low amount. In the next few turns, Scrafty was able to set up Dragon Dance and threaten Eo's team greatly... except for one pesky Ferrothorn, which was able to hax Scrafty to death.

Eventually, Iconic was able to use some good prediction to even out the match to 4-4. Eo then faced his darkest hour, as he had no idea what Beheeyem was, and was forced to take it down. Much to Eo's happiness, what Beheeyem lacked in movepool was only rivaled by its lack of power. The teams then switched back and forth until Eo's Gliscor was able to take out two Pokemon with Earthquake. At this point, a Calm Mind battle erupted between Iconic's Virizion and Eo's Latias. Eo eventually got an untimely crit that won the match, causing Iconic to shout "das sum BS".

Week 8: BW Ubers: Jibaku vs. trickroom

Jibaku and trickroom employed strikingly similar teams for the week 8 battle; both competitors had Palkia to take advantage of their respective weather inducers, both teams relied on Ferrothorn to set up Spikes, and both teams had an Arceus locked away as a secret weapon. The battle started off in the sun, with Stealth Rock being put up on both sides. This was an important strategic move to get them up early, as overprediction and multiple switches were key to determining the victor in this battle. Early on, trickroom was able to take advantage of Jibaku's timely switches by using Dragon Tail, but Jibaku was able to catch on and bring in Ferrothorn to set up Spikes. This brought in trickroom's Ferrothorn which mimicked its foe. Soon enough, Jibaku brought in Giratina-O to spam more Dragon Tails than PBS.

The game remained at a relative stalemate, with good predictions from both sides (trickroom predicting Jibaku to switch out Reshiram, Jibaku switching to Ferrothorn to negate Leech Seed). This continued until trickroom was able to bring out the secret weapon: Ground Arceus. Between residual damage from entry hazards and the brutal combination of Edgequake, Jibaku simply had nothing that could stand its ground against Arceus.

Week 9: DPP UU: Eo Ut Mortus vs. Bluewind

Remember DPP UU? Yeah, me neither.

Apparently, Eo Ut Mortus and Bluewind both remember it! Between Bluewind's level-head and Eo's inspirational nicknames (that's right, GROWTH the Tangrowth), it looked to be a very even match. From the start, both players tossed up Stealth Rock, but only Bluewind had any method of removing them. Eo made an interesting prediction early and was able to use Roar and Whirlwind from Steelix and Hariyama respectively to scout Bluewind's team. At this point, Eo revealed his star player... the almighty Cacturne! In a crazy moment of déjà vu, both leads (Eo's Steelix and Bluewind's Mesprit) met again on the battlefield, which led to a 6-5 Eo Ut Mortus lead.

Bluewind, identifying Eo had no spinner, made a good move and sacrificed Cloyster to use Rapid Spin and get another layer of Spikes down. Eo Ut Mortus was up to a 6-4 lead, but sadly, this was all the headway he was to make. Bluewind brought out the diverse Sceptile, forcing a lot of switches and thus, a ton of residual damage. Bluewind then brought out his own Hariyama, which faced little opposition (as Eo's Hariyama had been severely crippled by being poisoned earlier). In the end, the words of Bluewind rang true: "be original not dumb".

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