Felt like commentating on my two last games and on a few others from last week as well.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-353449 vs PokeTGCgamer1288
Turn 4: I go Scizor immediately after sporing the Empoleon, it was overall my best play because it pressured more or less everything as his only steel resist was asleep.
Turn 5: I scout for the HP Fire by going hard Hydreigon, given his Scizor match up I knew he wouldnt miss on an opportunity to at least heavily damage it early on or outright KO-ing it.
Turn 6: I knew this Latias wasn't likely to be scarfed but I figured he wouldn't risk it immediately as it had a fairly decent match up. If he did go for the Draco Meteor, it would have at least allowed Scizor to come back it to potentially trap it and I gained a lot by removing rocks as I knew he would probably not be able to get them back up given that Empoleon was asleep.
Turn 9-
10: I decide to get rocks up with my Swampert, I knew that he could potentially Close Combat but getting rocks up was still my top priority on that turn. The massive CC damage did reveal that my Swampert wasn't max defense but I knew for a fact that he would try to double on that turn as I had too many things that could take advantage of CC to come in. I catch the Latias on the switch with the Z Ice punch, this was a fairly agressive play on my end but it put me in a fantastic position early on.
Turn 14: This was definitely a mistake on my end. I had realized that Gengar would put in a lot of work once Altaria went down but I accidentaly went hard into it on the turn it died to poison which allowed Krook to trap it. Sub Hex + Focus Blast Gengar would have pretty much swept the 4 'mons left so I knew I would have to keep on playing agressively after losing that massive advantage.
Turn 19: This turn sealed the game. Terrakion still seemed too important for him to let it go down so I took advantage of that and clicked U-Turn which allowed me to get the KO on the Krook. From there Banded Scizor + Scarf Hydreigon were always going to clean up the rest of his team.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-355127 vs a Hero's Destiny
Nothing too surprising happened early on, I took advantage of Curse Aggron's good match up to damage Gliscor and his own Aggron. I found out that his Snorlax was an Earthquake Leftovers match up which seemed to indicate that it was a Rest + 2 Attacks variants.
Turn 15: He makes a smart play here: he immediately Sludge Waved my Azumarill as I expected him to just spin on that turn. Health on Azumarill would have helped me to pressure his team a bit more but I was still able to take the Tentacruel down on the following turn as I was certain he would spin this time.
Turn 19-20: I let Crobat go down at the cost of a Taunt on his own Taunt Gliscor. I wanted rocks to go back up to pressure Chandelure and Togekiss that both still had the potential to be threatening.
Turn 22: I go hard Chandelure against his own Chandelure as he couldnt lock itself into Shadow Ball without letting Krook pursuit it. He doubled to Gliscor and I stayed in, hoping to just kill it on that turn with a Specs HP Ice but it turned out to be faster. This was slightly annoying but Chandelure wasn't too necessary anymore.
Turn 24: He went for Trick to later allow his Snorlax to beat my Latias but I go hard Krook on that turn. I was completely free to Pursuit on that turn as I knew it would put it in range of rocks and he couldn't KO my Krook without letting my Latias win. I assume he didn't expect my Latias to be a LO Psyshock variant but it basically cleaned up the whole team as Snorlax was still asleep and it couldn't take CM boosted hits.
Bushtush vs Lycans:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-354992
Turn 13: After a fairly straight forward game of not letting the opposing Amoonguss get a Spore Off, Bushtush makes the first agressive play of the game and gets his Chandelure in on Bronzong. This seemed to indicate that it was Scarf as it revealed Fire Blast and damaged the Moltres which puts it in Ice Shard range from Mamoswine after rocks.
Turn 22: Bushtush's physically defensive Empoleon beats Krookodile which is rather crucial as it was Lycans Chandelure and his main form of speed control. This is even more important knowing as Bushtushs Chandelure was CM Z Trick (no I didnt guess it, I just happened to be the one that made Bushs team) and this gave it a lot more potential to sweep later on.
Turn 23: Bushtush makes a very agressive play there and goes hard Krook on the Tbolt. Starmie being Z-Move, it was able to tank the Knock off and KO the Krook in return. This seemed like a decent turn for Lycans but in indsight Bushtush gained a lot more from this as it put Starmie in range of Ice Shard after rocks thus meaning that rocks would stay up the entire game.
Turn 33: I believe that Lycans hadnt noticed that Mamoswines Icicle Crashes were doing more to Bronzong turn after turn thus meaning that it was metronome. By that point Icicle Crash was strong enough to OHKO Amoonguss thus making it able to clean up the team thanks to Ice Shard.
HT vs Christo
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-355025
Turn 1-3: Christo makes the good call of leading banded Scizor, it allowed him to trap Bronzong early on at the cost of rocks being up. This made Latias' match up a lot better even though the potential threat of a Pursuit for Scarf krook still had the potential to annoy it.
Turn 7: HT makes a smart play there, noticing Christo's lack of ground type, he decided to take advantage of it by getting a volt switch off vs Suicune.
Turn 13: That play was absolutely crucial there, Christo made a very smart double and managed to heal his Sylveon up vs Manectric. Had he gotten that wrong, Manectric + Krook would have very likely been able to clean his team up. It worked out and managed to put him back in a decent position.
Turn 19: Christo reveals that Nihilego is scarf and decide to HP Ice the krook to prevent it from potentially trapping it for free. This was quite important as it allowed Christo to put Krookodile in range of Latias hits which came into play a few turns later.
Turns 20-22: A very interesting series of plays happen here. HT makes a smart play and stays in with Mantine to take the Draco, knowing that even if Latias happened to have something to hit Mantine it wouldn't risk going for the electric move with Krook still around. Thinking that Azu was safe to take the next Draco, HT let it take a Z Thunder which weakened it a lot. This ended up helping Christo a ton as Azumarill was definitely HT's biggest threat left.
From there the combination of Scizor + Latias + Suicune was enough to allow Christo to win in a rather interesting game.
Week 9 MUs & Predictions:
A Hero's Destiny vs
Lycans: Fairly interesting one, AHD definitely has a lot more pressure on his shoulders as his team isn't guaranteed to get in playoffs but I definitely think that Lycans will take the game seriously regardless of the fact that his team can't make playoffs. While Lycans had a rather rough end of season, I still feel like he brings better teams and plays a bit better than AHD so favoring him here.
Bushtush
vs dodmen: I genuinely don't know that to expect from this game. Bushtush has definitely been playing very well lately but I expect dodmen to be extra motivated considering that sharks need to get as many wins as they can. I don't think I can predict the outcome of this but it should be a very fun game to watch regardless.
Cynde vs
Christo: I don't know how seriously Cynde is going to take this game as Wolfpacks are going to playoffs regardless of the outcome of the week. While Christo is in the same spot, I expect him to care enough about his record to still bring his A game and thus should be able to beat Cynde.
SM UU:
Manipulative vs Tman: I obviously expect the UU player to beat someone playing their first SPL game. Don't have any data of Tman in UU and I wouldn't be too surprised if he was given some memes to use given that Cryos cant make playoffs either way.
As for myself, I'll play Pak at the end of the week (either Friday, or Saturday, time tbd), looking forward to a fun one! Gl to everyone as always.