How I Won Smogon's Biggest Tournament
Little Cup Open was the biggest smogon tournament ever, all thanks to you all :)
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0:00 Intro
0:54 Early Rounds
3:51 Round 6 vs Plasmagby
6:38 Round 7 vs Fiend Hound
9:37 Round 8 vs PyProd
15:39 Round 9 vs Elfuseon
17:23 Semifinals vs DOOR MONEY
18:47 Finals vs Raichy
22:27 Finals vs Scottie
Freezai is actually a genius. He gets a bunch of people to join, including people who have never played little cup, made a team building video so that people who didn't know the meta would use those mons, and then won the tour
Master of Trolling
Lmao the finesse. But seriously, the top guys who had experience had some crazy strategies too.
It all went according to plan.
Literal pyramid scheme
I don’t think his strategy was that nefarious. Most newbies to the tier would have gone with common builds anyway. As we saw, all of the top players innovated in their own way, Freezai just innovated better.
11:56 "I'm not the main character anymore and this isn't some random trainer This is Red from Pallet Town and he's going to turn me into an NPC" Best line in the video
Facts
Ikr
Not to mention this was the line after "I'm f**ked"
Not to mention this fight inspires several teams he uses going forward!
Hahaha lmao yeah this line was legendary! At the end of the day, it shows that all random no-names can be Reds from Pallet Town with sheer willpower!
So proud of you man!
Hey pokeaim!!
My greatest pokemon achievement is beating pokeaim during his Road to Top 10 RU, and the match being shown on youtube hahah
@@mhead1117 sus?
imagine being the reason the tournament blew up, and then winning it. Absolute madman
Man straight up thought "I need more competition, I think it'd be funny" and then collected the money. What a power move.
Absol-ute gigachad
Mad respect for that pyprod guy. A relatively obscure player taking a decisive game one and a great game two on such a good player deserves props. Also his second team was really cool
he might be obscure, but I find it funny that he's also featured in the thumbnail of the official LC youtube channel video Freezai plugged at the end lol
I love how he turned sweepers into supports for the mind games
PyProd is not that obscure though, former France player at the LC World Cup, he often benches but I think most LC players knows somewhat its name
That's me! The second team was actually from a friend (Lokifan), but I replaced one of the mons I felt didn't really belong for a Grook. Thank you for the kind words, I am beyond pleased! Thank you ACNT, but I have embraced the shadows long ago.
@@pyprod. make this man popular already smh, deserves it
The Binacle usage is about to go from 0.01% to like 0.1% because of that ending. What a legend
Great video man, PyProd here. I didn't quite realize how much that game 2 inspired you for the rest of your run, and while I take pride in that, I must clear up that it was actually my friend Lokifan's build, which I slightly tweaked. I absolutely loved your video, great narrative and the fights are all pretty tense and great! You outplayed and innovated so much, it is only fair that the man who instigated that beast of a tour was the one to win it! My one gripe with the video is I don't tolerate Croagunk slander. Sure, he is not an ideal Pokémon, but... H-He's doing his best, okay? Also, the first part of my username was not meant to be diphthonged, woops. Guess I'll have to change the pronunciation for this one to accomodate for all the Anglo-Saxons around there! My biggest regret was not hard-gliding with Grookey against Diglett on that game 2. That Sludge Bomb definitely surprised me and I could legit have won this if I did Glide. It's only half a regret now, because we got that great video and I got stans to boot! I would still have loved to face aim as well. Thank you, Freezai, for this LC Open experience!
i like how your team’s names were sonic references
@@shugDX Yes, I've been loving every minute of the Sonic Mania OST, and the nicknames happened to fit perfectly with the different mons I've been using!
Thank you for giving us Freezai greatest quote ever at 11:54
what's the pronunciation of your name (feel free to use IPA)? I instinctually diphthongise the y so it's interesting that it's intended to be different, but a pronunciation with the kit vowel makes sense too
It's pronounced differently mainly because I am French. So, in English IPA it would certainly be something like /pi'prɒd/ (the lowercase /i/ sound is closer to French, so it isn't the normal /ɪ/ sound you'd expect to see). But I don't really care if people diphthongise the y anyway because "PyProd" is not a word that exists and as such can be pronounced however you want.
Hey! This is fuzzybunny666. Just wanted to say thanks for the shoutout and had a blast playing. My friend mentioned the LC tournament because of your videos and I spent hours learning the format in preparation. I’ll try to join more going forward!
Good luck on your future tournaments!
Cheers man! Great run, as your first performance in the tier, it really is a strong showing!
U were awesome bro gj
Giga chad energy
The goat
*me watching early rounds*: “Oh wow that’s cool to see some lesser known teams!” *me watching middle rounds*: “More standard teams, makes sense” *me watching the finals*: “Good mother of God this man is insane”
"Binacle? This man's insane!" (*freezai charges hyper beam) _"always have been."_
The weakness policy weak armor endure onix is an absurd strat that I'm surprised no one has used
Wait until you see it with Armarouge
@@frankfort332or ceruledge
It's kind of poetic. Of all the people you were arguably the most deserving, congrats! Also, when I saw the binacle I almost screamed. Barbacle is one of my favourite pokemon, so I desperately tried to make binacle work. I had prepared a binacle frilish core to beat mienfoo, pickpocket binacle with no item, to be switched on mienfoo's fake out, and then have a relatively safe switch to frillish, and, if mienfoo's chipped, it becomes a prediction game where, if they hjk into frillish, they take million dmg, and if they don't they risk me shellsmashing, and sweeping after that. Also, it serves as a Knock Off switch it, as the interaction goes: knock off does reduced dmg due to eviolite (asumming) -> the item gets knocked off -> pickpocket activates and I steal another item (eviolite or berry juice are obviously great). It's obviously not the best, and I got knocked off too early to try it out in LC open, but I tried to give it a niche. I'm so proud of binacle for making it, and you for winning the whole thing. (I swear, if it was pickpocket I was losing it)
so you were the 0.01%...
Kudos to you for shouting out the first timer who went the furthest. That’s such a cool detail you didn’t have to include but chose to. (Also kudos to fuzzybunny666)
As someone who got bodied round 3, respect.
Yea that was an awesome nod
Really excellent commentary! As a casual player, I love hearing *why* you won or lost a battle. You're making pokemon strategy really accessible for your audience.
Players: How to win LC? Freezai: *_M I E N F O O_*
Then there's me, who forgot to run a steel type and got my shit rocked by a Meowth in round 2 lmao
Don't feel bad. I forgot to teambuild round 3 after getting a free round 2, scrambled together something at the last minute and lost while playing like a panicky idiot.
Got knocked out by SoulWind in 1st round in 3 games. Still had a ton of fun. Hella props to you Freezai, your passion for LC paid off. Glad you shared the ride with us mere mortals :P
And at least you can say you took a game off sw, which not many people can
one more shoutout to pyprod, we stan the random nobody who shows up to the tournament arc, goes up against the main character in the match directly after said mc just beat one of the mentor figures, and proceeds to give the mc the _fight of his damn life._
AND gives him the strat needed to win the finals too!
LMAO thanks for the kind words! Wording it like that makes it so anime! I embrace being an underdog for these kinds of moments, to show anybody can fare well against and inspire the greatest! I just have to clear up that the second team I brought was from Lokifan, I just changed it a wee bit.
@@pyprod. ITS REALLY HIM HAAHBAHBAHABA
@@shyers3667 Yes, I tend to be myself most of the time. I guess.
Imagine if you correctly predicted the koffing switching to ferroseed at the end of the final game and then cross chop missed... congrats on the win :)
Wouldn't have mattered so much. He could just click the move again.
@@ayo-whats-this burn damage wouldve become a problem
@@ayo-whats-this he’d have to make the prediction again. The opponent could double swap
@@shaderu3402 either way he would get a mon or two down I believe. At the bare minimum one of the opponent mons dies there. He would be in the game still.
Unless of course he misses another cross chop. Then it would be really hard for him.
As the guy who revolutionized the use of Barbaracle in draft league a year or two back, I'm so proud of the tiny baby putting in work. Congrats!
Wow! You’re so cool! Wow!
"this is red from pallet town, and hes about to turn me into an npc" brilliant
I love LC. The entire atmosphere of it is fantastic. Pokemon can build both offensive sets and defensive sets, and you see stuff like Thief and Berry Juice having cool interactions here.
I really appreciate how accessible you make competitive pokemon. Looking at SMOGON is incredibly intimidating, but the way you break down the battles move by move, explaining the decisions and why they're made, is super helpful.
Congrats to fuzzybunny on making it to round 8! I managed to get up to round six with this as my first smogon tourney, but I faltered a bit because of Carvanha. My teams that I had built so far were generally weak to it, and I didn’t realize the imminent threat until it was too late.
Carvanha is annoying. I always make sure to make my teams strongly Carvanha-proofed (which is one of the reasons that motivated me using Croagunk on a team). I know you won't be fooled twice, and I hope you have a great time playing if you stick around!
@@pyprod. I dunno about how heavily I'll be "sticking around" per se, but I'll definitely return for a couple other LC tournaments in the future, with Carvanha-proof teams (and possibly some teams featuring Carv).
I am impressed at the binacle pick at the Pinnacle of the tour too. Great job.
LMAO Binacle dunking at the end, what a performance! Whenever someone brings an unexpected mon/moveset, people in chat shoot it down by saying it's an "unset," which roughly translates to: "COPE SEETHE COPE SEETHE COPE SEETHE," bahahaha!! Wonderfully salted, Freezai!
Binacle was one of the first mons I based an LC team off of, love that it got a lil recognition
11:59 I absolutely love this phrase lol Congrats on winning the tournament!
Shout outs to PyProd tho, man's probably the reason Freezai won in the first place.
fr, that screens bluff strat was so huge- what a creative and ultimately meta developing tournament from everyone involved, little cup ladder is forever changed now
Hey, I am PyProd. The second team is from a friend (Lokifan), but I reworked it a wee bit. I really love all the kind words from you all, as a no-name random player. That means that my goal of showing everyone can do it is fulfilled!
@@ExpandDong420 Might just do that!
"That's one step closer to becoming the Pokémon Lord!" -Freezai, probably
I love what came out of this. Currently I’m playing lc and everyone is trying new teams, new strats and everything looks different from weeks ago. Also I found an amazing Pokémon that is being severely underused. Skorupi with sniper, razor claw, and cross poison. OhKos grooky, resists meinfoo but severely loses to steels.
DOOR MONEY is actually a dude I know named Hacker. He's a really well-known and accomplished draft player, and he plays LC quite a lot IIRC (probably mostly in draft). The name is a play on "theodore mani" who's also a really well known draft player (one of the best SWSH draft players). You probably know him for his high placements on ladders & tours under his showdown name hjkhj, where he's done well in tours and has gotten a lot of number one spots on ladder (particularly well known for his stall). Thought you would find that tidbit interesting. Anyways, great job on the tour win! And if you're reading this Hacker, great job on how far you made it, didn't know you did that well. But maybe win next time???
Gonna echo off this and say Hacker has grown a lot from his time in DBA/PSL and the likes to rising up into DPL and doing so well in this tour. Also hi JukeInTheBox
What a cool narrative, gg for your win! I also like how Pyprod inspired you for the next rounds
Yes, I myself didn't know the importance that I had on the rest of Freezai's runs! My second team is actually not my strat, it is from a friend named Lokifan, and I just revised it a bit.
That line about him turning you into an npc floored me
that was some of the sickest LC strategies i have ever seen succeed that well
HOLY HECK!!! Your commentary goes so well with your smartness! I'm no expert at teambuilding, but you explain these analysis so well. This is definitely something gamefreak should turn to some sort of mini series. Congratultions!
I like that Binacle story. It's VGC Pachirisu all over again. /Not/ a great pokemon but a creative player saw a particular nieche that actually made sense in the context of the tournament. Gotta love it, kudos.
Freezai: "Stall practically doesn't exist in LC" Also Freezai: Hear me out: Crit me not Sweepers
So, not stall?
That's more like bulky offense that requires stalling to become a threat LOL
It's Stall, but it's not Stall.
Also "so my opponent runs a pp stall strat here"
@@sera_sarzad same, but different
Fuzzybunny is actually a friend of mine and I watched almost all of his matches, just sent this video to him and I’m sure he’ll love to see the shoutout. I enjoyed helping him a bit with prep (though he’s an infinitely better player than me). Unfortunately he tilted against Eeveeto after we did a bunch of scouting but he played too quickly and forgot Explosion Magnemite in a winning position in game 1 which turned it around, and game 2 was a pretty poor team matchup. Eeveeto played really well though both games. I might be able to convince him to try for Grand Slam next year, he’s played a bunch of tiers casually over the years including getting to top 10 on UU ladder a couple years back with an Aurora Veil team. Congrats on winning the tournament, it was a ton of fun to see your perspective along with aim’s and fuzzybunny’s!
You know the battle's gonna get good when a finalist brings in a pokemon not even fisherman with 6 level 5 Magikarp would use
Hey, I am a first time smogon user aswell and made it to round 7 and lost to the eventual finalist on a 3rd round high jump kick miss. Your videos are so great for me to get into this. Thanks a lot.
As someone who has been around the community before Smogon even existed, I appreciate your Channel so much.
Yoo you are the reason this tourney blew up, and won???? Amazingly done dude, here’s waiting for more “Here’s why” videos!
It's crazy how much the game changes when both players know the meta so well. That binacle was absolutely insane.
That final fight was sick. The heat sets, the bluffs, the Binacle.
Just came from Pokemon CHalanges react of your sexy nuzlock run in emerald. You are amazing man! Good Job
"this guys from pallet town, and he's about to turn me into a NPC." lmao
Honestly one of the best competitive pokemon videos I've seen. Really great strategy breakdowns and battle analysis and being able to cover your entire run without it turning into a slog is super impressive. Really hope you make more videos like this
This whole video in a nutshell "It looked like a normal team... BUT". Great job, really well explained as well!
Making a second comment cause I have to emphasize how great everything in this video was. Great gameplay with many sick strategies, great storyline with the "creator" of the tournament winning, great script keeping things understandable and engaging and great music choices too. Best vid on the channel maybe.
In the beginning I thought „ugh, LC is so one-dimensional. The same 8 Pokémon over and over again“ (I just assumed, never actually played it). After this video, I‘m completely turned. Never have I seen this many variations, traps, adjustments etc in such short time. Every match had its own spice and I love it. Thanks for the enlightenment!
Ha! I was a first timer that got to r7, I was wondering how many of us there were, and my last game was beat by eeveeto! If I beat Eevetoo we would have had the two furthest noobs together 😂
One of you would have gone even further! Good job on your placement
Shout out to you I randomly out of no where today thought, “I wonder who won the little cup.” 😂😂😂
Freezai out here playing 5d chess on pokemon showdown. Predicting his opponent's entire strategies before the game even starts.
this is maybe the best pokemon video I’ve ever watched on youtube. binging your content right now, and i must say your quality on every upload continually amazes me
"Ferroseed walls my entire team" is a phrase you would never hear in any other tournament
Absolutely incredible. And the quality of the videos you are putting out is getting better and better too. Compliments to you
this was the first tournament I signed up for because of you, and here I am today still playing Little Cup and drafted to the Little Cup Scrub League! thank you for getting myself and so many others into the tier
dude this was some high level gameplay. thank you for sharing it: although I don't play pokemon anymore, this will certainly be much helpful for somebody who still does. congrats man and thank you again!
PyProd's nickname scheme for his Pokémon is awesome.
You're acthually cracked my manth
Insane plays especially that last one. Well played and well deserved
Kinda shocked this comment’s been buried for as long as it has Sup
The weak armor onix caught me so off guard and that was an insane play by him. I recently discovered this channel and have been going through so many videos in order to get better, especially random battles which r my favorite imo it requires more on the spotlight skill than a premade team.
This tournament was a Blast, ironically enough, my team that i built was very similar to one of joeys teams he used later that being ponyta G, Grookey, Koffing, Trapinch, Mienfoo, and Pawniard, and it was a blast.
So no one gon talk about the weakness policy onix
Congrats! I really love people that create new sets / bring “strange” mons to tournaments. Great Games
Banger vid. I signed up because of your encouragement, got an afk opponent round 1 & and got outplayed round 2. I stopped following the tournament afterwards and had no idea you were the champion. Amazing job man, this puts you even higher in the smogon hall of fame. Like, you won the biggest tournament of all time man. I love the creative movesets you use. Usually youtubers use wack movesets to try to make trash pokemon good, but in a tournament environment where planning is everything, suprise factors like that are tremendously effective. I also played around with things like double dance hoothoot or final gambit spam or future sight natu but I'm too bad to make it work. And because I played a lot of little cup in preparation for the tournament, I can appreciate even more how crazy weakness policy onix, ice fang tyrunt, screens abra, and sludge bomb diglett are. I was also hoping to hear you talk about morelull in the penultimate game, it's a mon I was discussing the viability of in LC chat. You display masterful understanding of team stucture and matchups, knowing how your opponent will react to your set up mons to counter them in the next game. You give excellent narration in the video, explaining just what is necessary and letting the battles play out when needed. And the story is so captivating. Facing randoms, underdogs, LC enthusiasts, Smogon veterans, the LC Leader himself. I really think custom avatars is one of the best decisions Showdown ever implemented. Like, your finalist opponent has a damn Ho-oh, how cool is that. This is really a magical moment. Imagine my shock. Imagine my admiration. You are the reason it even became the biggest tournament of all time in the first place, and then you went ahead and won it. Incredible job, mister Serene Grace who is now known as Freezai.
The fact that PyRod nicknamed all of his Pokémon to reference Sonic songs made me smile
Damn, you got it! I have been loving Sonic Mania songs and the nicknames just fit so well.
I am so impressed by the sheer brilliance of your teambuilding. First shadow tag Wynaut, now this!
Loved the "Turnament Report"-Style of the video. All the insights you shared relating to teambuilding and why you and you opponent picked specific teams for specific match ups - so f*ckn interesting!
me, just closed up the shop for the night: god i can't wait to go home customer that clearly sees the closed sign and lights off: 1:10
Ayo congrats for winning this! Thanks for exposing my lose on round 9 at 15:28 btw lmao (Be Like Bisharp here hi). This tournament was really cool, it was not my first, but it was by far my favorite. Btw thanks to you I'm now officially an LC main (I've been a PU main for a while, but this tier is just so great and PU is boring nowadays). I'm happy that you won, because for me you are one of the best players in the world.
yoo blb here
"I was not a normal Onix , I'm an Onix that has never been seen before." -Freezai
Jokes about your madlad move aside here, thanks for talking me into joining even if I only lasted 3 rounds. It was hella fun even if it was starting to eat up valuable time during the tournament run.
Can't believe I really sat down and watched the whole thing lol. Great video, great strats, great presentation. LC is a very fun format to watch.
Not only did PyProd. Have some nasty teams, but he nicknamed his whole team after the Sonic Mania OST, one of the most based Showdown players I’ve ever seen.
Haha lmao thank you!
Man is absolutely cracked
You're a beast man, you out yourself in the spotlight of pokemon content with your interesting pokemon history videos. But you're not only the random facts guy, you're a competitive genious. Insane respect and congratulations
Dont play Smogon. Dont play Little Cup. Havent even touched competitive in years. This series and explanation behind the plays and choices was AMAZING. Great work!
Wooooooooo this is what I like to see! Innovating and taking titles, truly you are a gamer's gamer.
That weakness policy, weak armor endure dragon dance onix hit like... I don't know man never seen anything like that before.
This is the best channel I’ve found recently. You and FlygonHG are just so enjoyable to watch
Damn dude I can’t express how awesome it is as a daily viewer to see your thought process when everything is on the line I got so much respect for you
Little cup looks real cool. Initially I thought it was super limited in viable sets/mins, but after seeing this, the variety in movesets and niches Pokemon have is insane. Gonna give LC a go on showdown next time I'm in. Take care and thx for the great content.
That onix build is super clever! Great job man, super entertaining and helpful analysis
congrats freezai! this was a dope video and a sick run to watch
Awesome. Being the reason the tournament blew up and winning the entire thing, with a never seen Pokémon. This video really makes me want to get into LC.
congratulations!! amazing video, you really deserve so much more subs and views!
This is a high quality video. Tight editing. Good pacing. No BS. Not just a stream reupload. It’s perfect.
The script and gameplay were top notch for this video. This is so good it'll be worth revisiting. Great stuff.
Congrats man! Deserved win for the man that gets me back to LC every time!!
really great video! i was super engaged the whole time, even knowing you'd win!
Freezai really just popped up out of nowhere and is making a huge impact on the community
The writing of these videos is so excellent
The final was nuts. It was so high risk I couldn't breathe.
This was a beautiful display of metagaming and intricate tier knowledge, truly commendable
Great teams, great commentary, great video. This was a blast to watch.
PyProd, this man has my respect.
:muscle:
The narrative of this video is so compelling. Freezai’s presentation is top notch
Congratulations!!!! That ending was BRILLIANT!!! Bravo , Freezai!!
As someone who never plays LC. This video was amazing. Great job explaining the teams and your thought processes