Be the Very Best! Teaser/Week 1

[Cmdr_King]

So a few people who expressed interest still haven't gotten back to me with teams (*ahemgoddammitandrew*).  Rather than putting off too much longer, I figured I'd put one match out there now and work on getting the rest of round 1 together when I knew for sure who was or wasn't participating.

So if you don't see your team here, know that I do have it and if no one else submits by next week, I'll let you guys face off in your own topic before doing round two.  We definitely won't be single-elimination no matter what happens, so yeah, no worries here!

Anyway, remember that these are 2v2 match-ups.  The first two pokemon listed are the trainer's leadoffs.  Otherwise, assume in-game pokemon rules and intelligent play to the best of your ability with the skillsets and item loadouts listed.

And if you don't know what something does, be sure to check out Serebii's resources.  The Gen 4 Pokédex and the Itemdex will probably be invaluable throughout the tournament.

Chilling Ice Leader: Yoshiken!

->Abomasnow - Snow Warning (Occa Berry) (+SpA/HP)
 - Blizzard
 - Grass Knot
 - Protect
 - Focus Blast

->Weavile - Pressure (Focus Sash) (+Atk/Spe)
 - Fake Out
 - Protect
 - Ice Shard
 - Low Kick

Froslass - Snow Cloak (Choice Scarf) (+Spe/SpA)
 - Blizzard
 - Ice Beam
 - Shadow Ball
 - Trick

Glaceon - Snow Cloak (Sitrus Berry) (+HP/Def)
 - Blizzard
 - Wish
 - Protect
 - Yawn

Articuno - Pressure (Charti Berry) (+HP/Spe)
 - Sheer Cold
 - Mind Reader
 - Blizzard
 - Protect

Mamoswine - Snow Cloak (Life Orb) (+Atk/Spe)
 - Earthquake
 - Ice Shard
 - Protect
 - Rock Slide

Rain Dancing Water Leader MalcomMasher!

->Wailord | Oblivious | Wacan Berry | Adamant, EVs 252 Atk/Def, 4 SpD
Rain Dance, Earthquake, Waterfall, Selfdestruct

->Seaking | Swift Swim | Damp Rock | Adamant, EVs 252 Atk/Spe, 4 HP
Rain Dance, Waterfall, Megahorn, Protect

Slowking | Own Tempo | Expert Belt | Modest, EVs 252 HP/SpA, 4 Def
Rain Dance, Surf, Psychic, Ice Beam

Kingler | Hyper Cutter | Focus Sash | Adamant, EVs 252 HP/SpA, 4 Spe
Rain Dance, Crabhammer, X-Scissor, Protect

Kingdra | Swift Swim | King's Rock | Adamant, EVs 252 Atk/Spe, 4 HP
Rain Dance, Waterfall, Outrage, Draco Meteor

Crawdaunt | Shell Armor | Choice Scarf | Impish, EVs 252 HP/Spd, 4 Atk
Rain Dance, Crabhammer, Crunch, Guillotine



Short Form

Yoshiken vs MalcomMasher

[Yoshiken]

Since I apparently didn't specify with mine, natures are gonna be the first + (or the only valid one where HP is one of them) and the - is going to be whichever attacking stat they don't use.

Is this Lv 50 or 100? (Or something different?)



Assuming Lv 100 for now.
Abomasnow OHKOs Wailord, and they tie for speed. How awkward. Megahorn is roughly 80% damage to Abomasnow, but Weavile can safely Fake Out the Seaking in that case. However, since Wailord/Abomasnow tie for speed, there is a problem here.
 - If Abomasnow outspeeds, then Weavile uses Fake Out on the Seaking and my team has a huge advantage.
 - If Wailord outspeeds, then my team wants to Fake Out the Wailord instead so that it can't blow itself up.
 - If we don't know which will outspeed until the Pokemon move, Seaking has to make an early choice about whether to Protect or not (from the Selfdestruct).
 - - If Seaking Protects, Weavile knows to Fake Out the Wailord. If Seaking doesn't Protect, Weavile now has the question of whether Aboma/Wailord will outspeed and which one to hit with Fake Out.

Since we're assuming Pokemon rules, I'll assume all decisions are made at the start of a round. The most 'fair' decision here (given how coinflippy this is already) seems to be the one that negates the question of speed. That means Abomasnow is losing 314/384 HP (or rain could be set up!) and Wailord is down.

Let's assume rain came in, because that means Kingdra can come in now and wreak havoc. Abomasnow's Grass Knot does 222/302 HP on average to Seaking while Seaking can either do huge damage to Abomasnow or activate Weavile's Sash. Weavile's Ice Shard isn't enough to finish Seaking after Grass Knot, so it's gotta be Protect or Low Kick. Kingdra+Seaking can finish either Abomasnow or Weavile, but that runs the risk of Protect shutting down that turn. (Abomasnow is the more likely target, thanks to Grass Knot, so is more likely to Protect this turn.) Of course, Kingdra can also potentially flinch a target it hits, so spreading the damage is less problematic for them, but that's.. roughly 35-40% chance, I think? Haven't checked that one so not certain. Grass Knot 2HKOs Kingdra, which is almost certainly the biggest threat at this stage.

...Too many coinflips at this point. I'll come back to this later, but general kneejerk is:
 - Abomasnow/Weavile -v- Seaking/Wailord
 -> Wailord dies, Kingdra comes in
 -> Abomasnow dies, Glaceon comes in
 -> Kingdra dies, Kingler comes in (Rain runs out around here)
 -> Weavile dies, if rain: Articuno, if not: Mamoswine (Assuming rain)
 -> Seaking dies, Crawdaunt in
 -> Kingler asleep, Crawdaunt dies to Sheer Cold.

I think my team takes it by merit of Articuno being an almost-unanswerable threat to the whole of Malcolm's team bar Kingdra, and the team can handle Kingdra and still be in relatively good shape.

[MalcolmMasher]

Kingler's main EV'd stats should be HP and Attack, not HP and Sp.A. Which is a typo in my submission, and if it stands it stands. In fairness, I did submit stats as part of my submission, and Kingler's had the EVs placed properly (for a total of 394 Atk, 122 Sp.A).

So. I'm feeling good about the types here, since Water resists Ice and the reverse is not true. The fact that every single one of my Pokemon can dispel Hail, also nice. Self-Destruct is less than ideal against an enemy with five Protects and a Ghost, though, and as Yoshiken's math notes, Wailord hates Grass Knot.

Broadly speaking, I think my plan should be to set up Rain, eliminate Abamasnow at all costs, and then outslug the rest of the team. The only other enemy Pokemon with non-Ice STAB moves are Froslass and Mamoswine; Froslass is frail by nature, and Mamoswine is here due to its water weakness. Articuno and Glaceon are bulky, and the latter also has Wish, but in the rain my weakest attacker against Yoshiken's strongest defender (Crawdaunt vs Glaceon) still scrapes up a predicted 34%-40% damage with Crabhammer. (Rain isn't trivial, but everyone on the team can reapply it and wants it up. Nice way to 'punish' a predicted Protect if the timing works out perfectly, too.) However, I definitely would want to have a still-existing bench by the time Articuno and Glaceon come out, so that I have the option of switching if hit by Yawn or Mind Reader.

For the record, my rainless plan against Articuno would be to spam Crawdaunt's Guillotine. The odds favor Guillotine connecting at least one of two attempts before Mind Reader + Sheer Cold can resolve, albeit barely, and Crawdaunt is faster due to its Scarf. That said, I can't disagree with anyone who favors a two-turn 100% over two tries at 30%, odds be damned.

Speaking of 30% (37% for Kingdra) a Waterfall flinch could really help out. That said, both Crabhammer/Megahorn have 85% accuracy, and Crabhammer's marginal crit rate boost doesn't really compensate for that. Luck is a two-way street.

[Ranmilia]

Yoshiken vs MalcomMasher

So... none of these matches are ever going to be "straightforward", there's always some variance involved as well as the possibility of play interactions and clever switching and blah blah.

That said, I think the water team is clearly favored here.  Ice team doesn't actually have any type coverage or ways to kill things other than Obamasnow's Grass Knot.  It's too heavy on tricks, while the water team just needs one turn of setup and then everything smashes...

Yeah, water team's damage output is just so much higher, and they never have to go for anything other than Rain Dance or attacks.  I can't see how ice team lives against "just swing until they die" with Surf/Crabhammer/Waterfalls.  After the Fake Out and the possibility of switching Frosslass into Selfdestruct are gone (this is why Wailord doesn't blow up, by the way - first turn is absolutely just double Rain Dance) what does ice do?  IF ice wins the speed tie AND Fake Outs Seaking instead of getting mind gamed, then they pick up Wailord for free... and then the turn repeats with Seaking and probably Slowking, double Rain Dance again, maybe pick up the KO on Seaking, and then ice gets swept.

There are some possibilities where it goes in ice's favor, but just too few IMO.   Water doesn't even care about losing a couple of pokes, because Mamoswine is a nonentity and Fros/Arti are so weak here.

[VySaika]

Team MalcomMasher wins this.

Ice team just does not have enough non-ice offense to win this. Alex is exactly right, first turn is double raindance just in case, take out abamasnow, and easy if slowish sweep from there.

[Yoshiken]

Hmm. Can the rain team really manage enough offence to take out Abomasnow and Glaceon before they start causing problems? Seaking/Kingler are the only things that are able to really hurt Abomasnow, and it's going to be switching in and out in order to try and save the Hail for as long as possible (and so that Kingler can't cause trouble later - it's the only threatening physical attacker on the team, so breaking the Sash is /good/). Glaceon takes roughly 80% from the two biggest damage dealers combined, and that gives it enough time (with the Sitrus Berry added in) to take three attacks - that means something is either staying asleep or Glaceon is sticking around. Froslass is still very capable of doing some solid damage - for reference, it currently outspeeds everything except Kingdra in rain, including the double-speed Seaking. A quick calc tells me that it does around 40% to Seaking with Shadow Ball, and everything else except Kingdra has worse Special durabiliity than Seaking.
Not only that, but with 5/6 of my team having Protect (and only 2/6 on Malcolm's), there's a very good chance of getting an essential Protect off at the right time.

Admittedly, it's close either way. Shock and/or horror, Pokemon teams turn into weather wars very quickly. I just think that Abomasnow switching a lot (and ending the rain at inconvenient moments) pushes the match out of Malcolm's reach, especially if he goes for double Dance on T1. If he needs to do that to bring in the rain each time, then that's a lot of free attacks for my team.

[Cmdr_King]

Mm.  I'm counting this so far as 2-1 in Malcom's favor (Malcom's post seems to be arguing in his favor but not really voting for himself).  Gonna give this another day juuuust in case someone new wanted to vote then closing it.

[MalcolmMasher]

I was indeed arguing rather than voting. I still am!

Yoshiken: Technically, either Crawdaunt or Slowking has good special durability, depending on whether we're talking about versus Shadow Ball or in general. (Crawdaunt also OHKOs Froslass with Crunch more often than not.)

I definitely have the offense to take out Abomasnow before it becomes troublesome; Rain Waterfall + Megahorn is a KO on Abomasnow, so that forces it to switch out, and then destroys a switched-in Mamoswine, Froslass, or Weavile. Even Articuno and Glaceon get hit down to ~35% or ~45% (after Sitrus) respectively. If it's a predicted switch-in and thus bringing its own Hail, substitute Draco Meteor for Rain Waterfall. (Outrage also packs all the power of Rain Waterfall in a more convenient package, although at 50% to target the right Pokemon, it's definitely Plan C material.) 

Froslass will get off an attack or two, sure. I'm not expecting Seaking and Kingdra to survive the match. I am, however, expecting them to do enough damage that my backliners can finish the job.

[Cmdr_King]

MalcomMasher wins this one.  His next match is already up, but see Yoshiken in match 4!