Tanamar and the Snowbank Barands
Expected team: https://pastebin.com/TUp2Vt83
My team: https://pastebin.com/12hrUwrS

Tanamar was the opponent I was most afraid of in the UCS. I have the most history playing against him and he has this annoying habit of beating me. Getting paired against Tan week 1 felt like a cruel trick, orchestrated for drama. At this point, I did not yet have my regular practice partner in Dragonstrike, and I asked Shademonkey, Hornet, and Narshyl for help this week. This is going to be the longest description I give for any week because I honestly over prepared, but the thinking process is still valuable. 

Tan’s roster was quite formidable at a glance. Mega-Archilles is definitely one of the most powerful megas in Pokémon Uranium. Flamethrower or Fire Blast under the sun is an intense nuke to anything that doesn’t resist it, and is likely going to be suspect tested from the Gamma tier (Uranium’s version of OU). My main fear from Tan’s draft was that he was going to use M-Archilles to punch some dents in my team, and then switch in Coatlith on a predictable water attack and finish the job with Chlorophyll. Anything left standing after these two heavy hitters would fall next to Garlikid and Gengar, together offering perfect coverage against everything and outspeeding my team at the same time. Focus sash Geigeroach offered a way to stop any momentum I may pick up provided Stealth Rocks are not up, and (literally) nuke any Pokémon I put in front of it. Worst of all, looming behind everything else, was the absolute monster that is Actan. Narrowly escaping the league ban its sibling Lanthan received, Actan has the bulk and offense as Beliaddon but with better defensive typing and a real speed stat of 97.

My primary win condition is a scarfed Xenoqueen, which fares poorly against M-Archilles with Flame Impact, and fails to outspeed Chlorophyll Coatlith under the sun. However, Actan was the glue that kept Tan’s team from falling to Xenoqueen, offering the ability to switch into Xenoqueen’s Radioacid while only taking 47% from Fire Blast (non-assault vest careful 252/252+ specially defensive). Geigeroach’s Lead Skin also makes it harder to freely click Radioacid, but with Stealth Rocks up wouldn’t be able to switch in freely. So my gameplan became clear: get rocks up, survive the sun turns, and then somehow kill Actan.

Fortunately for me, M-Archilles has difficulty breaking through Mega Syrentide, which was my mega. Coatlith doesn’t struggle as much to get through, although it can’t switch into Hyper Voice. However, as long as Tan’s Garlikid was alive, I couldn’t expect to start setting up Calm Minds and Rest + Sleep Talking with M-Syrentide. But with Coatlith or Garlikid out of the way, M-Syrentide was still an extremely solid win condition, and would need to stay healthy to be able to actually sweep. This meant it could not be my primary answer to M-Archilles and Coatlith.

So I looked to Feliger. A completely busted Pokémon in its own right, Feliger boasts a whopping base 155 HP / 105 def / 95 spdef. Feliger is a Normal type, which means that while it does not have any resistances, M-Archilles and Coatlith will be unable to hit it super effectively. However, the calcs didn’t look so good.

252 SpA M-Archilles Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Feliger in Sun: 171-202 (33.2 - 39.2%) -- 13.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

This Feliger set was not going to be a reliable answer to M-Archilles, taking 1/3 of its health switching into Flamethrower. But since it was supposed to tank only special attacks anyway, I decided to try out an Assault Vest.

252 SpA M-Archilles Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Feliger in Sun: 114-135 (22.1 - 26.2%) -- 9.2% chance to 4HKO

This was much better, it meant Feliger could switch into 4 flamethrowers before dying, and could almost OHKO (One Hit Knock Out) back with Earthquake.

0 Atk Feliger Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def M-Archilles: 220-260 (75.6 - 89.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Coatlith would be dealing less damage unboosted than Flamethrower, but could be OHKO’d with Ice Punch in return if I needed to, which meant that Feliger could actually function to survive the sun turns. One of the goals had been met!

But this only dealt with 2 out of Tan’s 6 Pokémon. There were still three major threats between Garlikid, Actan, and Gengar. None of the Pokémon on my team could even be considered checks. Fortunately, Aerial Ace is at the top of Feliger’s movepool on the sim, which offered a 4x super effective attack against Garlikid, which means that as long as it was healthy, Feliger could theoretically OHKO Garlikid. Feliger also got Low Kick against Actan, which seemed excellent until I ran the calcs, and somehow Low Kick despite being 200 base power fails to kill with 0 attack investment. To have a 100% chance to kill with Low Kick, Feliger needs 188 attack evs, which is a lot. However, I had already identified Actan as the biggest threat that needed to be dealt with, which is how I wound up with Feliger’s EV spread.

In the end, Feliger became this general threat that could narrowly serve as an answer to several threats from Tan. I ended up running Knock Off over Earthquake because, again, Mega-Syrentide answered M-Archilles pretty well, but mostly because of how impossible Gengar was to deal with in the practice games I was playing. I found through playtesting that if Gengar could land Focus Blast against Beliaddon, nothing else on my team could reasonably beat it outside of scarf Xenoqueen, which Tan had two excellent switch-ins for. In the end, Feliger couldn’t possibly beat all of the threats it was teched to beat in a single battle, but being able to trade for two every battle was pretty solid considering those would be some of the biggest threats on the team.

Feliger couldn’t be the main answer to Garlikid. Most things on my team couldn’t even switch into it without being OHKO’d or outsped and 2HKO’d the turn after switching in. This is where I decided to use Whimsicott. Whimsicott’s unique Grass/Fairy typing meant it resisted the STAB attacks from both Garlikid and Coatlith, although Garlikid was a much bigger threat. I’d learned through the practice battles that M-Syrentide could actually switch into Coatlith on a Nasty Plot, survive a +2 Energy Ball (or 2 Energy Balls if Coatlith attacks rather than setting up), and OHKO back with Pixelated Hyper Voice if it came to that. With a Focus Sash, Whimsicott could live any single attack from Garlikid, threaten to OHKO back with Moonblast or maybe set up a Tailwind.

Tailwind was one of the ways I considered I could go on the offensive with my generally slower team. This is why Beliaddon has 196 speed EVs. Under Tailwind and this spread, Beliaddon hits 450 speed, perfectly outspeeding boosting nature M-Archilles at 449. This would allow Belliaddon to kill an unsuspecting M-Archilles with Earthquake.

244+ Atk Life Orb Beliaddon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def M-Archilles: 351-413 (120.6 - 141.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Obviously this would let Beliaddon outspeed Gengar, Actan, and Garlikid and OHKO any of them. I have a history of running Choice Band Beliaddon, which I knew Tan was well aware of and used to playing against. With this plan of running around under Tailwind, I knew I would need a Life Orb in order to change attacks, and that I might be able to catch Tan trying to play around Beliaddon being choice locked, which could let me snag an extra kill.

The one member of my team that I’ve yet to mention is Gliscor. Unfortunately, it was stuck with Defog, Stealth Rock, and U-turn already for its moveset. I ultimately opted to go with Earthquake over Roost because Tan didn’t have any physical attackers Gliscor was capable of walling with Roost. Even Actan deals ~%48 with Metal Cruncher which can drop defense. Earthquake gave Gliscor the ability to hit M-Archilles, Actan, and Blubelrog super effectively. The reason Gliscor has 24 speed EVs is to hit 232 speed, which guarantees it will outspeed specially defensive Actan (which Xenoqueen forced Tan to run), which hits 230 with no investment, and 231 if the extra 4 EVs get thrown into it. The speed creep here is to let Gliscor use Earthquake first before taking a Metal Cruncher, which actually ended up mattering in the final couple of turns of our battle.

Ultimately however, despite all this preparation, every match I played my team against the team I had built for Tan in practice I lost. The speedy Hyper Offense would break through my team, even with Feliger trading favorably. I would never have the opportunity to set up Stealth Rocks to prevent Geigeroach from coming in for free against Xenoqueen or Beliaddon under Tailwind and trading with Proton Beam. But there really wasn’t much more to prepare for. It had already been close to 4 hours of battling across three days, the team couldn’t handle any more silver bullets.
Tan’s team variant I ended with excluded Blubelrog. I tested some variants against it as well, although I no longer have those teams. My literal plan for beating Blubelrog in my head was to predict it to switch into M-Syrentide, and instead of staying in, switch straight into Xenoqueen and force it out or die to Radioacid. In the final battle, I got a little lucky and landed a critical hit Earthquake from Gliscor against it, and got bailed out from dying to an Ice Beam despite my underestimation of Blubelrog.

Obviously, Tan did not bring the team I prepared for (that would have been insane), but you can watch how our match eventually played out here: https://youtu.be/5MIZ1g3OAQU.

Skullex and the Tsukinami Volchiks
Expected Team: https://pastebin.com/3d2Xda9r
My Team: https://pastebin.com/A7RG45DW

This team looked like another bad matchup. The ability of weather teams to go hyper offensive for multiple turns puts a lot of pressure on bulky offense like my draft. Fortunately, outside of rain, Skullex’s team would likely lose to a good scarfer, because none of his Pokémon are particularly good at carrying one. In general, his team did not have a good way to stop a setup sweeper. My two best scarfers were Xenoqueen and Baariette. However, Vaporeon and Laissure are both decent answers to Xenoqueen being monotype, and coupled with Mega-Metalynx in the rain losing its traditional 4x fire weakness, I decided that Xenoqueen would not actually be very effective this week. So I looked to Baariette.

Choice Scarf + Moxie is an ancient combination dating back to the introduction of Moxie. Salamence and Gyarados both got Moxie as a hidden ability, and were popular stars of UU (forgive me for showing my age). Baariette has a high raw kill threat with its Hi Jump Kick, threatening to OHKO most Pokémon that don’t resist it after just 1 Moxie boost. As always, one thing to watch out for with Hi Jump Kick is Ghost types, however Skullex did not have one in his draft other than Dramsama, which I did not expect him to bring. This was a major weakness I prepared to exploit.

The only trouble was that scarf Baariette would be outsped by all of the Swift Swim Pokémon on Skullex’s team once Yatagaru set up rain (the temporary implementation of Stormbringer on the simulator was Drizzle). This meant that I needed a solid answer to Yatagaryu. Fortunately, Whimsicott resists all of Yata’s stabs and can threaten back with Moonblast. Additionally, Anderind can deny the rain with its Snow Warning, as well as threaten Yatagaryu out with a scarf with and its stabs. These two were my main plan to beat Yatagaryu.

Here is where I went full stupid mode. I personally don’t like scarf Anderind, I think it loses a lot of its power. So what I really wanted to do was run a Choice Band set, even though I would obviously be outsped by Yatagaryu. However, Skullex wouldn’t know that. I could bluff a Choice Scarf on Anderind and force Yatagaryu out, because Yata was such a crucial part of Skullex’s strategy, and Mega-Metalynx was such a reliable switch-in to Anderind. So, predicting this relatively standard play pattern, I decided to put Focus Punch on my choice band Anderind set. I didn’t really need it to beat Mega-Metalynx, but I did need it to flex.

252+ Atk Anderind Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metalynx: 314-370 (83.9 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Anderind Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega-Metalynx: 236-278 (63.1 - 74.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery


There was no real reason to diverge from the standard Gliscor and Mega-Syrentide sets this week, but I decided to bring a non-assault vest version of Feliger as an additional win condition. There is quite a benefit to bringing different strategies each week (just wait until week 4), because it means your opponents have to expect more things when preparing for you. Bringing Baariette this week meant my opponents would have to consider the possibility of facing one in the future. Increasing the diversity of my team comps played a factor this week, but I still needed to make sure I brought the right Pokémon for the job.

In the actual battle, Anderind became useless as quickly as the first turn, but the main gameplan went rather smoothly. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/4P7R9gcTCBE.

Jabuloso and the Venesi Baariettes
Expected Team A: https://pastebin.com/x2iPkWTj
Expected Team B: https://pastebin.com/EFR6AKfR
My Team: https://pastebin.com/A4mXk55e

I took one look at Jabuloso’s team and thought: “Wow this looks like a bad matchup.” Every Pokémon on Jab’s team was straight from the gamma viability rankings, completely unfair if you ask me. However, I received a secret weapon that Jab would not receive: Dragonstrike. This was the first week that Dragonstrike helped me, and only with his help would I be able to beat Jabuloso in an extremely tight game (sorry spoilers) and eventually go on to win every game including the finals. I started every week by asking Dragon when he was free to help me prepare, and sometimes I would ask immediately after my battle the previous week to get a head start.

But enough gushing about my spectacular practice partner, how could I beat a real Gamma team with the scraps of a draft team? Well, I’d have to use my own unfair Pokémon: Xenoqueen and Mega-Syrentide. Unfortunately, it would not be as easy as clicking Radioacid with a choice scarf due to Gararewl, or simply setting up Calm Minds and Rest + Sleep Talking through teams with Hyper Voice thanks to Frikitiki. Gararewl is basically the only non-Nuclear Pokémon in the game that resists Nuclear moves and does anything useful. It is what you want on your team against a Xenoqueen. As for beating Mega-Syrentide, if you don’t have Metalynx, Frikitiki is your next best bet. Both Metalynx and Frikitiki resist Hyper Voice and threaten back with powerful physical grass attacks. By the nature of his draft, Jab had counters to my two best win conditions.

Jab’s team also boasted Alpico, arguably the second best special attacker in the game behind Yatagaryu, and Mega-Baariette, arguably the best sweeper under Sticky Webs, which Jab had access to in Sponaree. To make matters worse, Gyarados could also sweep relatively unimpeded. Jab’s team was basically 6 setup sweepers (Frikitiki, Mega-Baariette, Gyarados, Inflagetah, Alpico, and Navighast) plus Luxelong and Gararewl. The trick was guessing the 4 sweepers he would bring, which would be impossible. So why try to guess 4, when you can just prepare for all 6? (I was so completely sure I was going to lose this week).


Basically, there is no substitute for practice. I built these two teams for Jabuloso and had Dragonstrike play them against me with whatever modifications he felt like making. The result was that I lost several (several) battles. But, I learned that I did not have a good answer for Alpico, so I brought Corsoreef and prayed Jab wouldn’t bring HP Grass. I learned I really needed an Intimidate user to slow down the Swords Dancing and Dragon Dancing that all of his threats could use, so brought choice scarf Baariette again, now with Intimidate and an extremely careful selection of moves: Hi Jump Kick for Mega-Baariette, Alpico, Gararewl, Frikitiki/Inflagetah. Thunder Punch for Gyarados. Poison Jab for Luxelong. And Aerial Ace for Navighast.

When you make a moveset like this, you need to know exactly how much damage each of the moves does to each of the Pokémon it’s supposed to hit. You need to know when you can and can’t revenge kill. In preparation, I did a calc for all of the Pokémon above, and screenshotted them so I could have it on hand during the battle. It may sound like a lot of work, but it doesn’t take much more than 10 minutes. I can’t recommend enough doing some preliminary calcs, especially against Pokémon you don’t see very often.

Having this prior knowledge lets you quickly identify your opponent’s movesets. To use an example from week 1, I knew after the first Fire Blast that Actan was specially defensive and that I wouldn’t have to worry about a Rock Polish set. During my battle this week, I knew immediately after the first Hyper Voice from Mega-Syrentide that Jab’s Frikitiki was Assault Vest, which meant I didn’t have to worry about a Swords Dance set, which conveniently meant Gliscor would be able to wall it as it had Roost this week (for that exact purpose).

My final measure against the myriad set-up sweepers Jab could bring was Whimsicott. It didn’t have any special double stab resistances this week, but it did have Prankster Encore. This meant that if I switched Whimsicott directly in on Jab going for a boost, I could Encore it and force a switch. Additionally, Memento could serve as a last resort to stop a sweeper. But even with all this, it looked grim. Dragonstrike and I agreed that if Jab brought the first team variant, it would be extremely difficult for me to win, if not impossible.

Lo and behold, Jab brought 5 out of the 6 on that team. I literally messaged Dragonstrike upon team preview “are you kidding me.” Despite this, I still had to formulate a gameplan. I knew that if I could wear down Frikitiki with Stealth Rocks and having it switch into Hyper Voice once or twice, Mega-Syrentide would be able to completely sweep. The scary thing about the Xenoqueen and MegaTide core of my draft is that they attack on completely different axes. I could use Xenoqueen to slowly wear down Gararewl, which Jab would have to use to constantly pivot throughout the match. When it was eventually worn down enough, Jab would no longer be able to switch it in to Rapid Spin away my Stealth Rocks. Gliscor would let me constantly keep up momentum against his team through U-turn and Defogging away any hazards Jab set up along the way. Importantly, Gliscor matched up very well against Gararewl, and never had to fear switching in, but always forced Gararewl out.

I would not have won the match without a long sequence of perfect predictions. I called multiple switches from Jab and hard switched into an answer to maintain momentum. In truth I got quite lucky on multiple turns, but was only able to capitalize on that luck by using my gameplan to navigate the match. Ultimately, Xenoqueen was eventually able to wear Gararewl down to where it was no longer effective, and I kept Baariette alive for a surprise Aerial Ace to kill Navighast. Gliscor was able to keep Stealth Rocks off my side of the field and kept getting U-Turns off when Jab switched Gararewl out, letting Xenoqueen come in repeatedly. Honestly the battle almost deserves a post of its own, but I’ll let someone else do that. For now, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/BjOvsiF3dIA .

Mizz and the Nowtoch Jackdearys
Expected Team: https://pastebin.com/YSpfWFHK
My Team: https://pastebin.com/zHbpVnEJ

Look, if you haven’t figured it out by now, hyper offense was a bad matchup, and Mizz’s sand team was no exception. Generally, sand teams in Uranium struggle against bulky waters like Mega-Syrentide, but Mizz had the answer in Winotinger. Choice Scarf Final Gambit Winotinger is a clean answer to MegaTide no matter how many times I’ve used Calm Mind. The other problem with yet another weather team is it is impossible to outspeed it under the weather effect. My go-to answer to weather sweepers had been Anderind, but this week it didn’t look particularly promising. For starters, Escartress switches in on every move scarf Anderind has and sets up sand again, negating the hail Anderind sets up itself. Additionally, both scarf Winotinger and scarf Chimaconda outspeed and OHKO Anderind, and I was pretty certain they would both be scarf, as much as Tan complains about scarf Chimaconda.



Both of these two scarfers have a base speed stat of 85, which is 1 more than Xenoqueen at 84. This meant that Xenoqueen would be permanently outsped by Mizz’s two scarf users, and that it would not be able to get much of anything done, especially when Tracton presents the same problem after a Speed Boost and Protect. This week especially, I would not be able to rely on my Pokémon to outspeed the enemy team with a casual choice scarf, so I would have to innovate (very annoying, honestly).

There are a couple of different reasons why I brought Trick Room this week. On top of everything above, I promised Mizz I would “bring something spicy.” And, as we’ve already mentioned, it’s important to bring different strategies each week to keep your opponents guessing. There isn’t a lot to say about making a Trick Room team, but I’m going to do it anyway. Trick Room lasts 5 turns, and you want to maximize the number of turns you get to take under its effects. Outside of Tracton, every turn under Trick Room Xenoqueen is guaranteed a kill with Radioacid. To maximize our number of turns, Whimsicott has Memento (giving Xenoqueen a free switch-in) and S51 has U-Turn (I only realized later that S51 would have been better with Explosion).

The other thing to make sure when making Trick Room teams is that you don’t go all in on Trick Room. The battle will last more than the 5 turns Trick Room will be up, and it’s very difficult to set it up again and sweep. My plan was to have two Trick Room users in Whimsicott and S51, both of which would set it up for Xenoqueen to dent some things, but I would still need a team for the rest of the turns.

Mega-Syrentide is a staple of the team, but this week would not be able to Calm Mind sweep through everything due to Winotinger’s Final Gambit, so I brought Calm Mind + 3 attacks. Not that M-Syrentide has many options, but Ice Beam was for Cocancer, Surf for Chimaconda, and Hyper Voice for everything else. M-Syrentide would also be my best answer against Tracton, which threatened to stop Xenoqueen’s Trick Room sweep. With the calcs I’d done, max physdef M-Syrentide would be able to switch into any Tracton set regardless of any factors and 2HKO. With Tracton dead, all I would have to do is set up Trick Room a second time with S51 and finish it off.

My backup backup win condition this week was Feliger. Nothing on Mizz’s team could 2HKO it without boosts, which meant that Slack Off would allow the cat to clean everything up outside of a random mon clicking Toxic. It was my fault for not doing enough preparation this week, but I should have known that scarf Winotinger would not 2HKO Feliger with Aura Sphere, and it almost cost me the match. The match, as always, can be watched here: https://youtu.be/3hlJz1b-5Lc.

Spoder and the Legen Harpteras
Expected Team: https://pastebin.com/sKYH3GBv
My Team: https://pastebin.com/LwDE56Wm

Somehow I found myself up against yet another bad matchup: hyper offense. Except this time, Spoder had the two fastest and most offensive physical attackers in the entire game. Mega-Inflagetah, even without functioning Accelerate, kills most things after a Swords Dance. Harptera kills basically everything after a Swords Dance. Fortunately for me, Spoder’s team is extremely weak to Stealth Rock, and only has Dermafrost to Rapid Spin and remove them. Because I identified that Stealth Rock was so vital to my win, I brought Sableye for the first and only time this week to block the Rapid Spin to remove them.



Going into this week, I wasn’t super worried given how solid I considered my strategy this week. Spoder would truly have no way of escaping Stealth Rocks once I got them up. However, playing against the team I made with Dragonstrike, I realized that Spoder could just Swords Dance a couple times and it would be over whether I had Stealth Rock or not. The most scary Swords Dance user he could bring was easily Harptera. In order to beat it, I decided to do something quite stupid, and bring Baariette. Now baar with me for a second. This rancid Baariette set could switch into a swords dance from Harptera and live the Acrobatics, killing back with Rock Slide.

Obviously the previous statement is a complete and utter lie. But Baariette with Ice Punch has game against Dunseraph, Fafninter, Dermafrost, and Astronite. If I got lucky, I could catch Harptera on the switch-in and kill with Rock Slide. The best and only real answer I had to Harptera was physdef S51 with Eviolite. It also walled and killed Leafeon with Toxic and Recover spamming. For Mega-Inflagetah, my Mega-Syrentide would have to do. Once all the Swords Dance users were out of the way, Feliger would be able to brute force through the rest of Spoder’s team with a Slack Off + 3 attacks set in Earthquake for Jolteon, Brick Break for Fafninter, and Rock Slide for Harptera.

When it came time for the battle, Spoder didn’t actually end up bringing Harptera, which was my biggest problem and worry. When you watch the battle, you will see me throw certain Pokémon away to their certain deaths. When I did this, I was letting Toxic wrack up and preserving health on Pokémon I need to actually win, while the ones I was sacrificing to Spoder’s fervor wouldn’t help me win at that point anymore. You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/aIMUFnRiDP8.

Dee and the Zeta Sponees
Expected Team: https://pastebin.com/4cTPkhsb
My Team: https://pastebin.com/p1HmkD8u

As sad as it makes me to break the streak of declaring every week a bad matchup, this week was for once a good matchup. Mainly this was because Dee did not have the tools to survive hits from scarf Xenoqueen’s Radioacid. Their only outs were Extremespeed Barand and Protect + Speed Boost with Stenowatt. For Barand, M-Syrentide and S51 together could play around the most threatening choice band set, and for Stenowatt, I brought Roar on Tofurang to hard switch in upon sight and Roar whatever Stenowatt would Baton Pass to out again, removing the buffs.



There was also nothing to stop Mega-Syrentide, which itself stops Mega-Gyarados cold and OHKO’s it with Hyper Voice. Ultimately, I don’t think there was much Dee could have done differently to win this week, their team just wasn’t equipped to handle Xenoqueen and Syrentide, as you can see here: https://youtu.be/uziyw2LwaAE .

Poisseman and the Moki Nimfloras
Expected Team A: https://pastebin.com/qxw0cpr2
Expected Team B: https://pastebin.com/r2ys8yhr
My Team: https://pastebin.com/w6xjjgRy

This week looked rough, but winnable. Poisseman’s only two checks to Xenoqueen were spdef S51-A and Metalynx, and neither take the fire type coverage moves well. In fact, Poiss’s entire team was pretty weak to fire types. It looked like I would finally be able to bring Beliaddon again. Unfortunately, this looked like the worst match-up for Mega-Syrentide yet. Metalynx is probably the best M-Syrentide counter in the game, but Theriamp and M-Arbok both revenge kill M-Syrentide with their powerful super-effective STABs with ease. With Ice Punch, Theriamp punches through my best answer to it in Gliscor. After a Swords Dance, Theriamp could only be stopped by choice scarf Xenoqueen.
But Poiss had two other potent threats. Seikamater has more than enough bulk to set up several Quiver Dances and can continually heal off chip damage. The only way I could beat Seikamater was having it die to Toxic. That’s why I have Toxic on Tofurang, S51, and Feliger. It was literally that important. The secondary plan was to Roar it out with Tofurang.
Tofurang was my plan to beat Poiss’s other threat as well: Mega-Arbok. Mega-Arbok loves to set up multiple Coils and plow through teams with Sucker Punch, a very accurate Gunk Shot, and Earthquake. Just like Seikamater, there was no beating it after it got enough boosts, so what do you do against that? Roar. My plan with Tofurang was to Toxic Seikamater before promptly roaring it out, and then Will-O-Wisp Mega Arbok before roaring it out. The double status, Roar, and U-turn may look weird, but I had a feeling Poisseman wouldn’t expect it. If I was able to side step Theriamp somehow, Toxic Seikamater and phaze it before it can set up and sweep my team, and then Will-O-Wisp Mega-Arbok and also phaze it before it sets up and sweeps my team, then I can win, easy.



Another out to Mega-Arbok was Defiant Beliaddon. Arbok has no choice but to give it a Defiant boost upon switching in, whether pre-mega or not. Also, Beliaddon beats everything on Poiss’s team outside of Theriamp with relative ease, aside from Archilles which folds to Gliscor anyway. I speed crept it to reach 222 speed in order to beat physdef Nimflora which hits a speed stat of 220. Beliaddon is almost never run with speed, which is partially why speed creeping it specifically is so effective. Somehow, the battle plan with Tofurang went perfectly to plan, and if you don’t believe me, see for yourself: https://youtu.be/-c_YiOpZXxc.

Poisseman and the Moki Nimfloras Part 2: Electric Boogaloo
Expected Team: https://pastebin.com/3Qi3dSaM
My Team: https://pastebin.com/RyFWPuuT

Same game plan, just like the first, but somehow, things have got a lot worse. So this week I wouldn’t be able to gimp Poiss’s entire lineup with a single Tofurang. Additionally, Poiss got some new toys in Tracton and Herolune. Tracton would present a problem due to its ability to tank Radioacids from Xenoqueen and set up a Swords Dance before plowing through my team. Herolune had recently been showing up in the preliminary Beta tier (Uranium’s UU) with a choice scarf and wrecking things particularly hard. I was afraid that someone would finally catch on and start scarfing their Pokémon to blow out Xenoqueen.



However, I got some new toys as well. Harptera is an egregious Pokémon that can easily clean up draft teams without the actual answers that keep it in check in Gamma Tier. My team was basically the same with Harptera replacing S51 and Mega-Syrentide replacing Feliger. Despite Feliger’s raw power, Herolune would present a real way to break through it.
The only strategy that I truly gave away in the first match was Tofurang, which meant that Beliaddon’s speed creep could be effective again. Additionally, Beliaddon’s new speed beats neutral natured Herolune, which would be useful given Herolune is expected to force Beliaddon out. However, if Beliaddon failed, Mega-Syrentide switches into most Herolune sets pretty easily and blasts something with Hyper Voice or Surf.

I also expected Poisseman to actually bring Archilles this week to counteract Tofurang and shore up his weakness to Xenoqueen (with Flame Impact) and Beliaddon (with Earthquake), which was another reason to bring Mega-Syrentide over S51.

In the week 7 match, my Xenoqueen traded for his Theriamp, which was actually very good for me all things considered given how dangerous Theriamp was to my team. I didn’t want to make the same trade this week, which is why I led with Gliscor and set up my Stealth Rocks. Before I drop the battle video, I’d like to impart a little bit of battling strategy: when your opponent uses moves like Reflect, Trick Room, Light Screen, or has weather summoning moves like Drought they intend to abuse, you should stall out as many turns as you can. Oftentimes it will help them if you kill the Pokémon setting up Trick Room or Reflect. In this battle, you can see me choose to U-Turn with Gliscor instead of using Earthquake and killing Jerbolta, switching into Tofurang, then switching back into Gliscor to eat an attack from Jerbolta. That wasted two turns out of the 5 Reflect would be active. I forced Poisseman to manually switch Jerbolta out in order to get a threat in, which then had to take chip damage upon coming in -- in this case a crit Earthquake to OHKO. But enough about the minutia, see for yourself: https://youtu.be/0yJR3jhky_A.

Tanamar and the Snowbank Barands
Expected Team A: https://pastebin.com/bvMQLK7S
Expected Team B: https://pastebin.com/ggU6EaGp
Expected Team C: https://pastebin.com/0XmKtyVU
My Team Draft 1: https://pastebin.com/wstNbCNm
My Team Draft 2: https://pastebin.com/isR2kLLn
My Team Draft 3: https://pastebin.com/LgEXCQ2W
My Team Draft 4: https://pastebin.com/WAYMzzNJ

This was it. The Big Kahuna. The Whole Enchilada. The Royale with Cheese. The Tall Pancake Stack. The Super Soaker. The Bacon Chicken Ranch Pizza. The Grand Finale. Take your pick but to be honest I’m choosing none of them except maybe the pizza. My goal after beating Tan in the first week was to go undefeated through the regular season, and let the playoffs happen as it would. I had already accomplished that. But now there was a greater feat on the table: going entirely undefeated through the whole tournament and becoming the first UCS Champion.

To do this, I would have to beat Tan — again. It was time to enter the training chamber from Dragonball Z with my battle prepping partner Dragonstrike and come out a week later. For this battle, I built three possible teams for Tan. All of them had Actan and Blubelrog, which I predicted would be core to Tan’s strategy. Blubelrog is still one of the best counters to Mega-Syrentide, and Actan is just a house. Blubelrog doesn’t have many options given that it is designed to counter M-Syrentide. It had to run Haze and Sludge Wave, and I figured it would have Ice Beam for OHKO’ing Gliscor. Its 4th move would probably be Protect for scouting against scarf Xenoqueen (like in week 1), and is also in general a classic Tan move, but it could also be Toxic.

Actan would almost certainly be specially defensive again to counteract Xenoqueen, the same set as week 1, but I had to also consider a Rock Polish set. After a Rock Polish, Actan could use its ridiculously powered STABs in Metal Cruncher and Knock Off, coupled with Earthquake to cleanly sweep through my team. My best answer to Actan would be to paralyze it with Dunseraph’s Glare, which would effectively neutralize it’s offensive presence, and allow my slower attackers in Anderind and even Mega-Syrentide to take care of it once weakened.

One of the new tools Tan had at his disposal this time was Antarki. Tan makes Antarki work in ways no one else can, and there was a lot of versatility to be afraid of. Fortunately for me, Tan had already shown me most of what Antarki can do in regular matches for months by stomping me with it repeatedly. I expected the most likely would be the standard specially defensive set with Will-O-Wisp, Recover, Shadow Ball/Flamethrower, and Taunt/Toxic. However I also knew to prepare for Calm Mind offensive and Specs/Life Orb. With Antarki and Blubelrog, there was little reason for Tan to bring Gengar this week, despite how difficult it had been for my team to deal with in week 1 preparation. So honestly, this made me a little less worried. I play against Antarki pretty regularly in Gamma battles, especially ones piloted by Tan.

I still don’t have many good switch-ins for it; very few of my Pokémon can take a burn from Will-O-Wisp or would appreciate switching into a specs attack. Mega-Syrentide could take it on pretty consistently, but would give a free switch-in to Blubelrog, which I really didn’t have a good switch-in for (don’t want to lose HP on Feliger, which was supposed to check Mega-Archilles). This was where I started considering Dunseraph more and more. It had both the ability to paralyze Actan and Toxic stall Antarki. What’s more, bringing it in against Antarki would welcome Actan in, where I could paralyze it. But Dunseraph had a greater, more important role here: dealing with Mega-Archilles. Once again, Tan’s team (now with Gellin) had the potential to completely sweep me under the harsh sunlight provided by Drought. Dunseraph is one of the only true counters to Mega-Archilles and is the reason that variants run HP Ice. It has the unique ability to switch in on both STABs and cripple Mega-Archilles with a Glare. Dunseraph spamming Glare was going to be my answer for Actan and Mega-Archilles, and could also Toxic stall to deal with Antarki. It was stretched a little thin but it could probably accomplish all three if things lined up right.

But I had a few new toys as well. If I failed to emphasize how quickly Harptera can end a battle last week, let me do it again here. Tan’s best answer to Harptera (outside of Flame impact from Mega-Archilles, but more on that later) was physdef Laissure, which would not do the job after being weakened, which is why I opted to run U-Turn despite being a Swords Dance set. I knew that if things lined up well, Harptera could cleanly sweep as long as I ran Brick Break for Actan instead of the standard Drill Run set.

The other toy I now had was Escartress. Usually a physically defensive tank and Stealth Rock setter, it is the other counter to Mega-Archilles. It is the reason Mega-Archilles variants run Hidden Power Grass. However, it can also be quite threatening with a Shell Smash set. I don’t know if Tan realized this, but almost his entire team was hit by Earth Power super effectively. The ones that weren’t (Gengar, Garlikid, and Gellin) would fold to Surf or Ice Beam with enough prior damage. Shell Smash would also allow Escartress to outspeed everything except the Chlorophyll users provided there was no Sticky Web from Tan’s Cubblfly. Both Harptera and Escartress could single handedly blow through Tan’s entire team with the proper setup.

Lastly, in keeping with a time honored tradition, I refuse to use a normal “good” set on Anderind. This week it was part of negating Tan’s weather sweepers, which meant taking on Mega-Archilles. I planned for the lead matchup, where he would lead Mega-Archilles to get it mega evolved turn 1, and I would bring Anderind as bait. I know you’re thinking, “But Fam, Anderind is weak to and outsped by Mega-Arch, you’re just going to get obliterated!” And that’s what I was hoping Tan would think too, and that’s what makes it bait. Anderind was specifically EV’d and itemized (Occa Berry) to live exactly one Flamethrower 100% of the time from Mega-Archilles under the sun.



252 SpA Mega-Archilles Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 48 SpD Occa Berry Anderind in Sun: 271-319 (84.4 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
236+ Atk Anderind Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega-Archilles: 366-432 (130.2 - 153.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

It would be able to OHKO back with Earthquake, completely removing the biggest counter to Harptera and one of the biggest threats to my team. Anderind would also serve as a functional check to Chlorophyll Coatlith, OHKOing it with Ice Shard.

236+ Atk Anderind Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Coatlith: 372-444 (103 - 122.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

It was important to know how much Ice Shard would do to Tan’s other grass types as well, so I made sure to know those calcs too. Calcs like these are easy to neglect, but are critical when it comes to priority moves.

236+ Atk Anderind Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Garlikid: 158-188 (49.2 - 58.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage
236+ Atk Anderind Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Gellin: 176-210 (54.8 - 65.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage

Again, Tan’s team was very weak to Ground type attackers, and Anderind was no exception. Ice/Ground in general is really powerful offensive coverage, and if Anderind had the speed of Theriamp and access to Swords Dance too, it would easily be one of the best physical sweepers in Gamma tier.

At the end of the day, I’d already gone undefeated in the regular season, and I really wanted to throw in a meme set or two for kicks. After all, if you’re not willing to meme in a tournament, then what’s the point? If it works, you’re a genius. If it fails, you have a perfectly good excuse for why you lost. There’s nothing to lose (other than the finals against the best player in the tournament, of course).

I don’t plan on participating in the next UCS Draft League, as you can tell by now it was a lot of work and I would only be letting people down by putting in less and losing. If I put in less and still won, well then I’d just make people feel bad. Either way, I’m going to be taking a (deserved) break from the draft league for a while. I’ll still be helping with the administration of future leagues. I’m working on a program that will automate stat collection for the league, for instance. I hope you hear from me again next season when I go through the participants’ teams and throw out some predictions for the tournament. Until then, enjoy this finals match: