Pokemon Randbat Tournament Concludes with Final Showdown

Posted on January 30, 2021 by CSY

BLIZZARD, Shamrock Bulletin Headquarters – After a series of intense battles, one winner comes out on top in our first ever Pokemon Showdown Elimination Tournament.

On January 19, 2021, leader CSY announced the first ever Pokemon Showdown Tournament to be held as part of the week’s Alpha vs Echo theme. The bracket would later on be announced on the 22nd, with 8 Echos and 9 Alphas vying to prove themselves worthy of the title of being a Pokemon Master.

With the first round underway, Echo would find quickly find themselves in a sticky situation, as the brackets guaranteed 2 Alphas in the Semis. As CSY faced off against Nacho, forcibly taking down one of his own, and Mow desperately tried to make it past AustinFraud, we would see Alpha pull out ahead, with Koloway, AustinFraud, and Wyperr representing the team in the semi-finals.

Semifinals: Koloway vs. AustinFraud

Full battle can be viewed here.

Koloway would begin the fight with Exeggutor – which classically would be at a disadvantgae to Austin’s fire type Victini, but with the debut of Alolan forms, his Exeggutor would have no weaknesses to Victini. Perhaps wanting to play it safe, however, Koloway would switch to Jellicent, a water/ghost type that would be dually effective against the fire/psychic Victini. Austin, perhaps anticipating this move, would use Bolt Strike, a move that would have initially been 1/4x effective against Exeggutor but would be a sure fire for any water pokemon that came his way. It seemed Austin did not have luck on his side – despite the calculated play, Victini would miss, leaving both Jellicent and Victini on the battlefield untouched.

Austin would then send out Heracross, whilst Koloway would use his Dynamax on Jellicent. Max Geyser, the dynamax water move, would do a mere 42% damage on Austin’s Heracross, however. Heracross would hold the item Flame Orb, which would normally reduce the power of physical attack by half – this would point towards Heracross’ ability being Guts to synchronize with the item.

Koloway’s Jellicent would continue with Max Phantasm, and a Max Guard, whilst Heracross would be finished off with burn residual damage. This meant that Koloway was officially ahead with 6 pokemon vs. Austin’s 5 – with Koloway down a Dynamax.

Austin would bring out his Calyrex – a Psychic/Grass type – meaning the Grass would have an advantage against Jellicent, but Jellicent’s ghost would be advantageous too. It would likely be down to speed – and Calyrex came out on top, using Giga Drain but only barely not taking Jellicent down. Jellicent would counter with a super effective Shadow Ball – but this would do a bit less than half of Calyrex’s HP.

Predicting the Giga Drain once more, Koloway would switch back into Exeggutor-Alolan, resisting the grass attack. Austin would retaliate by switching to Aerodactyl – who’s flying type would be an advantage against Exeggutor.

Koloway would use Flamethrower, anticipating to be against Calyrex, which would not be very affective considering the foe’s rock typing. Going into the next turn, Aerodactyl would set up a Hone Claws, raising attack and accuracy, as Exeggutor continued with the not very effective Flamethrower. Aerodactyl would roost up to full health, putting Koloway in a bad spot with the set up pokemon.

Austin would then proceed to turn the tides – taking Exeggutor out in 3 rounds with a super-effective flying type move. Koloway would send out Poison/Dragon beast Naganadel, whilst Austin’s Aerodactyl would Dynamax here. One max Rockfall would take out Naganadel despite no particular type advantage. Koloway would send out his 4th pokemon, Darmanitan-Galar, would would once again be taken out with the super effective max Rockfall. Sirfetch’d would be Kolo’s 5th contendender, which unfortunately would fall once again to Aerodactyl with the super effective max Airstream. OHKO-ing 3 of Koloway’s team, Kolo would be forced to reveal his last pokemon Heracross – who died to the 4x super effective Dual Wingbeat. Koloway would send out his final pokemon, the Jellicent with 4% HP, which would promptly meet it’s demise once more.

In just 17 turns, Austin would show that, albeit its comeback as a mega, Aerodactyl was still extremely strong and potent if used correctly.

Analysis

Especially in a format like Random Battle, type effectiveness is of utmost importance – and whilst a lot of this goes down to luck sometimes, such as 4 of Kolo’s team being outwardly weak towards the rock/flying type of Aerodactyl, every move matters. One is forced to wonder – what if Jellicent was kept – this would have been a perfect counter towards Aerodactyl, if at high health – however, taking a look at the rest of the team would still reveal glaring weaknesses towards Victini with no really safe switch – Naganadel being weak to the psychic typing from Victini, Darmanitan-Galar being an ice type, weak to fire, Heracross of course being weak to both fire and pyschic, Sirfetch’d being weak to psychic. Ultimately, there was no good switch to Victini, and perhaps Jellicent would have been the best option either way.

The second point of contention would be the value in Dynamaxing Jellicent – considering the type advantage against Victini, and Jellicent itself being rather low in SpA stats, his role is generally more support than anything else in the competitive meta. As we saw a Dynamaxed Jellicent fail to take out Calyrex with a super-effective Max Phantasm, perhaps delegating Jellicent’s role to remain support is, to a great extent, beneficial.

Finally, one wonders if Exeggutor staying in using flamethrower was the best choice in retrospect – as this really gave Aerodactyl the chance to set up and Roost with no repercussions – of course, seeing Koloway’s entire team, it would have been hard to find a solid switch in for the fast Rock/Flying mon; perhaps a neutrally effective grass move would have been a better choice, but of course, we don’t know its moveset.

All in all, an amazing play by Austin, coupled with some unlucky type disadvantages would secure AustinFraud a spot in the finals.

Third Place Match: Koloway vs. Wyperr

Koloway would face Wyperr in the 3rd place match. However, no saved game was available so here’s my reenactment of the battle:

Koloway sends out pokemon 1 and Wyperr battles with Pokemon 2 and they battle with some moves, some status effects, and after an epic anime betrayal, Koloway came up on top, winning the 3rd place match.

Finals: CSY vs. Austin

CSY and Austin would face off in the finals – both with the glory of their entire division riding on their backs. Austin would begin with Qwilfish, whilst CSY would begin with Abomasnow – with Qwilfish’s intimidate immediately reducing Abomasnow’s attack. Qwilfish’s posion type as well as the reduced attack would scare CSY into a switch into Copperajah, anticipating a poison type attack to deal no damage to the steel type pokemon. However, Austin used this as a free turn to set up Toxic Spikes, which would poison all of CSY’s pokemon switching in.

Going into round 2, Qwilfish would, surprisingly, not use another round of toxic spikes, instead opting to paralyze the opponent whilst Copperajah got an earthquake off. This would be supereffective, killing off the Qwilfish.

Austin’s 2nd pokemon would be Alakazam, in which CSY would predict a Focus Blast from, switching into the Water/Fairy Primarina to take it – however, Alakazam would miss. Alakazam would pull off a Nasty Plot whilst Primarina would deal 3/4s of his health with a Moonblast. Alakazam would deal a little more than half health with a +2 shadow ball, and Primarina would finish him off with yet another Moonblast. Unfortunately, Primarina would then fall to poison.

Austin would then send out a Magnezone whilst CSY would send out Zapdos-Galar. With the fighting effective against Magnezone’s steel, and lightning being effective against Zapdos’ flying, it would be an interesting match-up to see. Austin would take no chances though, Dynamaxing Magnezone, which would eat up the Zapdos’ Close Combat with 42% health remaining, proceeding to OHKO Zapdow with a Max Lightning.

CSY would send out the paralyzed Copperajah next, hoping to stall whilst Magnezone was dynamaxed. Copperajah would eat up a max lightning, failing a Heat Crash due to Magnezone being Dynamaxed (Yea I don’t know my Gen 8 😞 ). Magnezone would once again use Max lightning, taking out copperajah but also losing its Dynamax.

CSY would then send out Torkoal, an interesting choice considering the choice of Copperajah just before. Magnezone would switch out with Volt Switch, sending out Persian to take a Lava Plume under sunlight. Persian would take out Torkoal with a Power Gem, leaving CSY with 2 Pokemon vs Austin’s 4.

CSY would send out his final pokemon, Zygarde against Persian, with no apparent type advantage or disadvantage. Albeit having less pokemon, we saw in the Semis how a match could be turned around simply by a good Dynamaxed mon – and CSY’s only advantage would be the Dynamax he still had.

Zygarde launched into an Extreme Speed, which Persian would tank and attempt to retaliate with a Hypnosis – which would fail as the Zygarde had already been poisoned from the Toxic Spikes. Zygarde would coil, whilst Persian would take out 40% damage with a Dark Pulse.

With 1.5x attack, 1.5x defense and 1.33x accuracy but only 25% health, Zygarde would Dynamax, taking out Austin’s Weezing with a Max Quake. Taking both life orb and poison damage, things would look bad for CSY’s side as Zygarde faced Magnezone with 14% health. Another max quake would take Magnezone out, leaving Zygarde at a mere 3% HP after life orb and poison damage.

With just a Dynamax and a bit of set up, the tables had now turned, with CSY having 2 pokemon vs Austin’s 1. With one turn of Dynamax left, this would be the critical matchup between Austin and CSY.

Austin would send out his final pokemon Chandelure, in which Zygarde would outspeed, OHKO-ing once more with a max Quake, leaving CSY the final victor of the Pokemon Showdown tournament in 15 turns.

Analysis

We would see once again here the power of a well set up mon with Dynamax – with Zygarde completely turning the tables in a 4 v 2 situation. However, there are many points in this battle that could have completely redefined the outcome.

Firstly, knowing there was no way to remove field ailments, CSY should probably have stayed in with Abomasnow and braved an Earthquake – a switch to a slower pokemon would allow Qwilfish free reign to set up double toxic spikes. Indeed, Austin may have considered toxic spikes instead of paralyze against the Copperajah, which would have badly poisoned all incoming pokemon.

The obvious mistake on both sides, CSY’s heat crash on a dynamaxed pokemon, and Austin’s hypnosis on a poisoned pokemon, would punish both of them – with the latter being a far more game defining moment. Copperajah had already shown Earthquake as a potential move – using it on a 4x effective magnezone would have been a far better choice and prevented losing the entire mon; also preventing the huge damage dealt to Torkoal. On Austin’s end, without the hypnosis mistake, Persian may have well taken out Zygarde, making a victory for CSY hard considering the Chandulre Abomasnow matchup.

Finally, Zygarde surviving on 3 HP against the Chandulure would be down to pure luck – a min-max shadow ball from the Persian may have allowed the Chandelure Abomasnow pair-up, turning the battle around.

Either way – an amazing showing by both sides in a truly close battle of two very deserving victors.

Final Results

After many intense battles, we congratulate the following:

Koloway
3rd place

AustinFraud
2nd place

CSY
Winner

What do YOU think about the results of ACP’s very first Pokemon Showdown tournament? Did you expect these victories – and what would YOU have done in these matches?