season 1

i had very little idea of what to expect in season 1, so i relied on some very safe methods: weather control, redirection, and bulk. for the most part, this worked out well, but i had a lot of trouble with move coverage and consistently outspeeding opponents. also, i had a lot of issues getting value out of the raichu slot. i tried golduck, gastrodon, and murkrow in that slot as well throughout the season, but none were really able to provide the utility i was looking for.

things that impressed me were pelipper's damage output in the rain. i was able to drop annihilapes and meowscaradas with strong hurricanes, and chilling water in the rain still does quite significant damage. when properly protected, skeledirge can very quickly snowball a game out of control. baxcalibur took a lot of meaty hits while still being able to dish damage back the other way, but i felt like it needed a swords dance to really shine. oh! and maushold players fell for rocky helmet indeedee every single time. no joke. i had a 100.0% maushold ko rate. the psa here is that if you want to sweep with maushold, bring them in as a late-game cleanup sweeper!

season 2

after season 1, i had a pretty good idea of where the meta was and decided to stop fucking around and actually use some powerful pokemon. it was enough to get me to the actual ladder, and i enjoyed a winning record with this team (though i'm not sure season 2 was a winning record overall for me). i also messed around with a dondozo rental, which was fine, but not really for me.

the benefit of this team is that it can be played with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. rarely did i have to think too hard about the matchup or positioning or anything like that. something i really liked was wide lens hydreigon, which no longer missed attacks like draco meteor or heat wave. after rebuilding it, raichu found a lot of use as well, which i'm very happy with. i think it's going to be an important piece in future formats against things like iron hands and miraidon. what i didn't like all that much was the lack of cohesion in the team members, who are powerful individually, but don't necessarily sum to a whole greater than the parts. it worked fine on the ladder, but it would fold like paper in an open team sheet format.

season 3

season 3 brought with it paradox pokemon, completely fucking my shit. paradox pokemon are weird, but they're strong, and i had to try out a lot of stuff before i found something that i was able to play comfortably, even if it is a travesty.

this team is centered around committing too hard to a bit, which i'm starting to realize is kind of the secret to teambuilding anyway. the central core revolves around a sandaconda that becomes impossible to hit in a sandstorm. i spent a lot of time optimizing this one piece, then kind of sight-measured the rest. the scream tail and arcanine duo has insane bulk, and the iron bundle and tyranitar hit hard enough to deal with any roadblocks to a sandaconda endgame. that being said, this team can't keep up in a slug-fest, and i need to pay close attention to make sure the pace doesn't get away from me. in that sense, it's a bit of a departure from last season's team, where i just clicked the super-effective button until the match was over. i don't mind it, though. it's a fun team, and different. we'll see how it does next season (and next series, woof).

paldea prologue

the first online tournament for scarlet and violet. i only did a few battles to earn the participation prize, which was a measly 10,000lp. worked for me, though. i had this team built while i was messing around on the ladder anyway, so i figured i'd give it a go.

it's a poison gym team, with the goodra running poison tera. the point of the team is very straightforward: poison everything and then try to outlast the opponent. of particular note, i think, is muk, which gets access to a wide variety of physical coverage and boost moves. paired with stench and a ghost tera, shadow sneak can do meaningful damage with a 10% chance to flinch - all at a +1 priority. anyway, i got my ass kicked a few times and collected my lp.

season 4

in season 4, i was still on my bullshit of evasion sandaconda, with some minor adjustments to the team to better handle move coverage and developing matchups. i didn't spend a lot of time laddering this month, as i was spending a lot of time preparing for fort wayne, and trying to play both those teams at the same time was maddening.

the most obvious change from the previous month is the replacement of grimmsnarl for tsareena. tsareena has a lot of really interesting utility, but seems to lack the oomph to have a huge impact, not to mention the restricting of her movepool in gen ix. that being said, she's an insane counter to a lot of the physical threats in the current meta, including dondozo, palafin, and iron hands. stopping priority moves while also lowering attack stats makes her a great partner for arcanine, and sticking an ice tera on is a decent counter into grass teras and flying threats (to be honest, it's me coping for the loss of triple axel from the last generation). finally, to make up for tsareena's b-tier offensive stats, i threw a life orb on, which seemed to do the trick.

fort wayne regional championships

this team is meant to be very bulky, with a perish trap core to cripple or finish off opponents. my main concerns were twofold: one, that fairy and fighting pokemon were going to pick up in usage to counter the inclusion of the dark-type ruin pokemon, and second, that the ruin abilities were going to set the middle ground ablaze, only leaving room at the edges for stall or hyper-offense cores. i started on the stall end of the spectrum with the adorable wo-chien and walked into the flames as far as i dared, ultimately partnering it with a very offensive triangle in flutter mane, gholdengo, and chi-yu. without much in the way of speed control, double fake out is a godsend, and the disruption of shadow tag, perish song, and leech seed is very helpful.

i went 4-5 at fort wayne. i really wasn't ready for the prevalence of ting-lu, which rendered my mostly specially-offensive team inert. a couple crucial fissure kos and the ubiquity of flutter mane were really hard to play around. that being said, many of these games were quite close, and i'm very happy with the result overall. it was a really fun event, and i'm looking forward to attending more!

global challenge i

these online tournaments are now giving championship points, so i feel like i should be taking them seriously, but i think they're also qualifiers for the japanese national championships? not totally sure, but they always have participation rewards, so i might as well build a halfway decent team (and i mean that relatively literally) and play a few matches.

here's the deal. shelgon is stout and round and so cute. with eviolite, it becomes bulky enough to set up a few dragon dances and start going to town. the rest of the team is more or less built around empowering the orb, whether to lower opponent's defenses (chien-pao, grafaiai) or disrupt team formations (gothitelle, flutter mane).

anyway, i think i lost every match i played with this team, but getting to see shelgon on the field was more than enough of a reward for me. wow! what a fun little guy.

global challenge ii

after my frolicking with shelgon in the last online tourney, i decided to buckle down and take these global challenges seriously. these tournaments will probably be my best chance to try out a couple different teams ahead of the hartford regionals in the middle of may.

this team is adapted from meaghan rattle's team from the sydney regionals in australia, where it had a good result. it lets me hang on to my favorite detrital snail, while supporting its playstyle a little better than the team i brought to fort wayne. that team forced me to choose between keeping it on the field or perish-songing my opponents, which was a bit of a catch-22. this team has a lot of synergy both vertically and horizontally, and works a lot better as a cohesive unit.

tacked on is a dachsbun core, which is an interesting anti-meta play at the moment, given all the physical attackers. it requires careful play, especially given the zacian-level presence of flutter mane, but when put into a good position, it becomes very difficult to remove. the sneaky best part of the dachsbun core is that chi-yu is able to spam a spread move with a 30% chance to burn, offering a fissure's chance to completely shut down my opponent's physical damage output.