Hey. I'm gonna bring you
this replay which is about 10 months old. I like it quite a lot because it was the final of a huge room tour which was pretty stocked in terms of participants, and had had quite a bit of exposure at the time, for some reason. For that reason, I tried to pull out my A-game and go with as much thought process as I could about this game. Anyway, I was running a team that my former tutor,
Bluwing, had passed me. It was, if I recall correctly, something along the lines of: Defensive Landt / Sub + Fake out Lopunny / Ice + Grass coverage Manaphy / Standard HW Latias / SDef Rachi / HP Fire Kyube. With that in mind, I'm going to try and go through the different steps of the thought process that I had, or at least should have had, for this game.
Matchup, sets guessing.
-Kyurem-B, if used well, is the key for capitalizing on momentum for me. My opponent has no safe switchin.
-Jirachi is a pretty decent way to check two of his mons, and pivoting with U-Turn to regain momentum.
-Lopunny, once Garchomp weakened, can really do an amazing job at cleaning, especially if the opposing Keldeo isn't scarfed.
-Although Jirachi keeps Gardevoir in check, it can still come in against Latias, Kyurem-B, unboosted Manaphy, and non-full Lando-T, and mindlessly spam Hyper Voice about 2-3 times, and then mindlessly pivot to Garchomp after the -more or less- forced Jirachi switchin and end up wearing it down.
-Bisharp is also looking like an issue ; especially since there are things that, if it is SD, it can setup on. Lopunny keeps it in check, albeit only for a limited amount of time, and sure as hell isn't a switchin.
-Gengar can take advantage of outspeeding two thirds of my team and me needing to sac a mon to it almost every time.
-The way I see it now, my opponent's team can be either SD Bisharp / Specs Keldeo / LO Gengar / Standard Latias, RH Garchomp and Gardevoir or a variant with Scarf Keldeo and Pursuit Bisharp (kind of leaning towards this option as Gardevoir is already a really potent breaker, and opposing Lati@s are actually pretty annoying to the build he was running.
Gameplan
Trying to get Kyurem-B in as much as possible, getting the most value out of it, which could include netting KOs on Garchomp on a sac or on Bisharp on a potential trade. Cleaning with Lopunny late-game is also something I should have been looking to do.
On the other hand, limiting the damage Gardevoir, Bisharp and Gengar can do to my team. While nearly impossible to do, I do have ways of
applying pressure to him as well, and that's probably where the game is gonna be won or lost for me.
The game
Probably trying to get the most out of Manaphy as soon as possible, I lead off with it. This would allow me to likely get one-two scalds which goes with the obvious burn chance on Gardevoir which I anticipated him to lead off with since, as I previously explained, it was pretty mindless for him to make good use of, here. He ends up leading off with Gengar, to which i just sac my Manaphy for some damage, not seeing much use in it and also thinking that Gengar is one of the ways he has to take care of my Kyurem-Black one on one, so getting damage on it would be good. On turn 3, I decide to take advantage of the "robot mode" Garchomp offense is played and get my Kyurem-B in on it on a double. I don't end up getting much mileage out of that play, which in retrospect given the amount of pressure I had to apply to his team was potentially bad for the rest of the game, especially if he did turn out to be Scarfed Keldeo (which gives my Lopunny a harder time), which is kind of confirmed seeing the switch he makes to Latias, as that would hint that his Keldeo wouldn't OHKO my Kyurem-B. My switch to Lopunny on turn 7 was to cover him going to Bisharp which seemed like a really nice midground for him on that turn (covered me agressively staying in against Latias with my own, or me safely going into Rachi). The matchup on this turn ends up being Lopunny v. Gardevoir, and the game is then played in a relatively normal way with no crazy plays on my end nor on his, up to the point where I create a double down situation after sacrificing my Lando-T which I had gotten up rocks with to his Gengar with two Life Orb hits left. Now on the double down it is really a pretty interesting sequence. Basically, after a little bit of damage on my Lopunny, his Bisharp almost definitely will clean up. That damage on Lopunny is extremely easy to get by just going to Garchomp on my Lopunny attacking (note. If his Bisharp is SD: even if I manage to HW my Lopunny back up, he can repeat this process of getting residual damage with Garchomp, force Lopunny out with Keldeo, set up Bisharp on Jirachi, and still potentially win or at least deal major damage with his Bisharp). What he doesn't know, however, is that my Lopunny has Sub to dodge Sucker Punch later on. I recognize all of these facts and throw off the one free hit I'm allowed to at this point. On turn 16 I have Kyurem-B in which shifts momentum in my favor, allowing me to both kill his Garchomp (he probably didn't want to risk me predicting him switching to Keldeo, as that would have hindered his chances of beating Lopunny severely) and nullify his plan of wearing down Lopunny => winning with Bisharp. Turn 21 is absolutely key for me ; the reveal of Sub allows me to get two kills off of him having to a) sac latias to my Lopunny behind a sub and b) trade his Keldeo for my Lopunny's Sub. On turn 25, I make what, looking back at it, is quite the fucking
choke. If he attacked my Lopunny here, I would have had nearly no way of beating his Bisharp. My plan was to Healing Wish it back up with Latias, after having gone Kyurem-B on a sac (it was the only sac which, in case he was SD, prevented him from going +4), and my fear was that he would SD on a switchout, recognizing my plan - that doesn't justify the use of Substitute on turns 25 and 26, that really was just an awful series of plays - even if he did, I had a 100% win by defogging with Latias, Faking out his Bisharp once and then going Jirachi to absorb it's last Life Orb hit. I end up recognizing this, thank god, and netting the win in what was really quite a crazy game.