Week 4
Siatam vs BlazingDark
Since Siatams team was too dependant on having a good spikewar to win, this game was technically over at Turn 5 when Forretress died vs Snorlax. After that Siatam wincon was a crit on Miltank and then idk playing the Snorlax mirror so i think its more interesting to talk about the teams rather than the game.
So yea if you wanna use Rhydon and you also want it to be threatening then you need some kind of paralysis support and we had it so thats good, the problem here is that you are using a Miltank and also a Quagsire when you bring these two pokemon you really want Pursuit support ideally from Tyranitar or if you wanna go with something funny then Houndoom because otherwise pokemon like Gengar or Exeggutor may be really annoying (specially when switching for free cause BlazingDark didnt had spikes) not having pursuit could had been a huge mistake on the teambuilding phase. If you dont want to use Pursuit support and feel "innovative" then you probably need to have someshit like EQ Miltank to try to cover the Gengar weakness and also maybe consider using Sludge Bomb Quagsire for Exeggutor. And then we had Siatam using a known team (that if im not wrong was made popular by Sulcata on one of his GSC Cup runs) the issue here is that Gengar was changed for a Present Blissey that may had worked on other situation but the reality is that without Gengar this team just sucks against other defensive teams and thats what happened to be facing. Im a fan of Present Blissey the only issue with it is that you cant use Present to reliably handle stuff like Vaporeon and if your going for it id say that the optimal combination is Flamethrower + Present so Forretress or Cloyster cant switch on Blissey, i think its obvious that Siatam was specting to face generic offense so bringing this was a double-edged sword and i dont think i can blame Siatam for not scouting Flamethrower as this moveset is almost never used
vani vs Jester
Another game where one player had a big advantage on early game this time Jester was kinda unlucky since first and second sleeptalks from the opposing Snorlax end on Double-Edge and this is extremely bad for him since Jester team relies a lot on Snorlax to handle Zapdos and by Turn 10 hes already fucked. However lets pretend vani didnt achieved this huge advantage on the early game then what could had happened? Id say that vani was probably still having the advantage assuming an unrevealed Giga Drain Forretress combined with DPunch Gengar, Giga Drain Forretress is underated and is quite good when combined with Tyranitar the logic behind its Giga Drain being able to hit both Cloyster and Golem so your Forretress can: Spike, Spin, Hit something and then explode trading itself for something that has more value, the thing is that vani may have not had Giga Drain on its moveset cause i dont see any reason to not use it on Turn 26 unless he didnt wanted to risk losing Explosion from Forretress. In theory Jester had the resources to be able to win this game by traping Gengar with Houndoom and then winning with Snorlax (thing that may have not worked since Gengar featured DynamicPunch) this scenario where Houndoom traps Gengar was possible at Turn 17 but i guess that at this point it was extremely obvious the Houndoom switch, another possible scenario was Jester being able to safely threaten a Curse Sweep with Machamp and then vani being forced to risk Zapdos or Explode with Forretress on Machamp but theory is not what always happens in the practice. Turn 30 is interesting i get why Explosion was an option as a play for vani but assuming your having an unrevealed Tyranitar combined with an LK Nidoking + 2 Explosions then when why did he rushed to end the game? It may had been the kind of moment where you just trust your instincts and i like that
zilo vs ALLCE
zilo was again not focused after losing Cloyster for free on the early game and then hes opponent was also able to use rapid spin very quickly, he spiked and intoxicated the opposing Snorlax and this is fine what i dont get is why are we using explosion Turn 4. Snorlax is at 60% HP with Toxic and attacking with Double-Edge zilo could had taken the boosted Double-Edge with for example Moltres and then could had clicked rest with Moltres, after this sequence Snorlax would had been most likely forced to rest and most importantly Cloyster would had been preserved. zilo needed to either remove Vaporeon so Moltres could be threatening or remove Zapdos so Heracross can do something, using BD Snorlax on offensive teams may be an underexplored idea like you just click Body Slam the entire game till using BD its safe and theres also the obscure possibility of using Belly Drum + Protect. Takin in count this game ended only 1-0 for Alice its a shame for zilo to not have taken more value from his Snorlax or his Cloyster, also idk what the fuck its going on with this trend to use Heracross
Zokuru vs Chiles
This game was the most entertaining game of the week since Zokuru and Chiles had the advantage for different moments of the game, Zokuru has the worst start possible after Chiles succesfully kills his Snorlax on Turn 11 with PerishTrap Gengar the good thing for Zokuru is that when your using this kind of stall teams sometimes you dont really need Snorlax to win and at Turn 36 after a good use of HP Ghost Forretress Zokuru seems to have an even position. Assuming Zokuru had Roar in Raikou (which is unlikely since he dislikes the moveset) then losing Umbreon may had been prevented but his position was still fine anyways, an alternative for Zokuru from mid to the endgame could had been just clicking Rapid Spin on the opposing Forretress, assuming every Forretress around has HP Fire can be a mistake in the practice. Chiles then trades his useless Forretress for Venusaur, in this case it was a forced explosion from Chiles but i would say Explosion is one of the best moves for Forretress since it usually lands on Pokemon that are way more valuable than Forretress, after this Chiles is able to win by slowly making progress with Double Switches + Spikes
Fear vs Vileman
Fear was using some kind of very agresive boomer offense with Dragonite that is the kind of thing that can be really annoying if your not having the right Pokemons on your team and extremely dangerous when Dynamic Punch hits. I dont like Vileman team selection but it wasnt bad for this game, in fact i would say that on an scenario where he doesnt loses Zapdos so fast Vileman could had a considerable advantage, i can see him removing Fear's Raikou somehow (maybe with Exeggutor) and then Zapdos + Raikou would had been really hard to deal with. The fact that Fear spent like 20 turns playing the Raikou mirror showcases how important this pokemon was for defensive duties and again Vileman probably hesitated too much to use Explosion (Turn 9 was a good moment to do it) but im not going to blame him for that since its way easier to see this options when you just skip to end and see full team + movesets. At the end of the game we have this agresive switch from Fear with Cloyster on Raikou threatening to end the game with Explosion which is what actually happens and this is where we ask ourselves if this was the right play for Fear, i mean it was a close endgame both Raikous having low pps and if any of them attacked each other then the opposing Raikou would rest giving the opponent 2 free turns to not waste pps, the difference is that Fear was only having 5 rest pps while Vileman one had 10 so Vilemans Raikou was probably outlasting Fears one and thats why he went for this Cloyster play? but yea im not going to overthink this right now
Week 5
Chiles vs Fear
I just skipped to end and my first thoughts are that Chiles should had won this like you just spike and then between WW Zap + Explosions you should be winning against this kind of teams but after all Chiles is playing vs Fear so he probably got outplayed in some turn, the main argument against this theorical win from Chiles is that Fear is having Blissey + Restalk Snorlax which means he needs to get a lot of turns right with WW in order to win. Chiles seems to be in a good position by turn 15 the only bad thing is that hes Exeggutor is intoxicated and then Fear also reveals that his Skarmory has Toxic which means Zapdos cant really switch on it. Fear just straight attacks Gengar on Turn 30-33 cause he understand that its one of the most if not the most dangerous pokemon stall can face and got rewarded with a Thunderbolt para + crit that wraped the game on Fears favor id say that his moveset on Zapdos was most likely WW+Rest but i guess well never know. After this the game just goes on autopilot mode with both players doing the obvious moves, on the kind of team that Chiles is using my Forretress moveset is frequently running Toxic/Tect/Spikes/Explosion so i can stall a lot of stuff and i also dont need to risk anything else against Snorlax another reason i like this moveset is that players usually dont spect you to Explode so you can actually boom on stuff like Zapdos or Raikou, another benefit Forretress provides when paired with WW Zap is that it makes you stronger against Exeggutor and Jynx in case they are not running HP Fire
zilo vs Vileman
So on this game Vileman stopped hesitating with Explosions and just boomed at turn 1, this explosion landed on Zapdos which is what you actually want when doing this kind of moves trading an Exeggutor for a Zapdos is like trading a knight for a rook so if this where a chess game Vileman would be already up +2 on material and then after zilo loses Cloyster the game seems to be quite over at Turn 4?!?! but it wasnt over and the vileman surprises the audience again at Turn 14 with another Explosion. This felt like wow a radical change on Vilemans gameplay that turned out to be destroying since the game ended in 21 turns, on the other hand and sadly for zilo despite of having what its probably the best support you could have in the second generation on this SPL he loses again marking a tragic end of season sometimes things just doesnt work out...
Zokuru vs Siatam
Ok so this guys actually wanted me to watch this game turn per turn to see what the fuck its going on. Siatam was like yea im not using spikes cause who needs them and Zokuru brought the most unexpected team you could spect from him (a cool team btw) So if your not running spikes when using offense then you need a lot of firepower and that seemed to be the case for Siatams team, using stun spore without spikes is actually a cool idea (generally used in stall) since stuff isnt able to freely rest with spikes damage and that made this Raikou way less dangerous on the early game. Zokuru should probably consider to stop switching his Electric legendaries on Exeggutor since Fears and Siatam initial gameplan against him on this SPL have had similar intentions with Stun Spore. After losing Raikou, Zapdos seems to be quite threatening for Zokuru however he seems to be doing some nice maneuvering in order to ppstall Thunder pps. Golem's Zokuru finally wakes up after 5 turns and has to play a forced explosion against Espeon to prevent a sweep but Siatam's Vaporeon is still on a winning position that its eventually going to reach, it was a funny game with a funny aproach by both players
btw i looked in to some statistics and:
Heracross has 50% win ratio after 12 games which is not bad
Cloyster has 43% win ratio after 30 games
Forretress has 58% win ratio after 17 games being also more used than Gengar
vani vs BlazingDark
Unlike the rest of the games i actually watched this one live, vani literally won on a doomed position by just clicking rest and sleep talk? LOL idk what to say but when you have the advantage and lose like this there are definetely some missplays here and there. BlazingDark has an beautiful start by killing Cloyster with his own Snorlax at Turn 12, Surfs on the Gengar switch and then EQ crits Golem after this everyone would had said that BD was hard winning but then shit happens. Since Snorlax is clearly Sleep Talk the mistake was probably not just using Zapdos vs it like you can ppstall it till reflect is gone and then you could use or threaten to use explosion in an emergency, theres also the fact that if vani uses Sleep Talk vs Zapdos then Flamethrower may be revealed which means he can also use Raikou to ppstall Snorlax and then losing Steelix and Snorlax may had been prevented. BD's Snorlax may have had a funny moveset (most likely selfdestruct) since hes using double electric restalk, i dont like vani's flamethrower on Snorlax as it makes the team extremely weak against Tyranitar but im also the kind of player that just randomly picks firelax cause i hate certain stuff like Forretress
Alice vs Jester
So we are seeing another skarmless stall direct consequence of Earthworm influence in GSC after making popular Dcurl Forretress, Alice's team is kinda do-nothing like you just spike and then sit there specting your opponent to lose. This team has some problems under my teambuilding rules (no roar or sleep talk) this team also can win the spike-war but mostly against offensive teams, against defensive ones its most likely losing it and the team also kinda really wants spikes to make progress. Its a cool looking team regardless Alice may have had good chances to win the spike-war by just running one of the Legendary Electrics with Roar, Jester brought a classic 6 so theres not much to talk about it without looking at the replay id say his Forretress was forced to be HP Fire. Jester was able to recover his Snorlax and to also unthaw it which means he probably outplayed Alice, the Curse Skarmory sweep reminded me of a game i had with d4 years ago but yea im not watching this 500 turns game lmao
Disclaimer: Some conclusions/arguments may be wrong since im using very limited time to write this, also sorry if theres a mistake with gramar or something is not undestandable since im just copypasting what i writed