We're in the finals, so that means another 2 teams have been eliminated from the tour. This time, we'll be looking at the teams which on paper had some of the biggest chances to win BLT, starting with the
Sunyshore Snorlaxes.
-The draft:
The snorlaxes' playing manager was EternalSnowman. This is pretty good as ESM showed to be a good Doubles player, with his most notable showing being R11 of DOU Winter SSNL. On top of that, he proved some versatility by reaching R6 of OU, indicating he could play that in a pinch if needed. However, in more recent showings, his DOU struggled a bit, reaching only R6 of DOU Spring after being given the win in R5, and going 3-5 in DPL. Still, it's an alright pick.
Starting off, they got kythr for 11.5K. Kythr had some great results to show, such as an unexpected R8 in OU SSNL, R6 in RU Kickoff and R10 of Monotype Spring SSNL. This was counteracted by a middling performance in RU Spring SSNL R4 and Monotype Summer SSNL R6 just before the tour started, but just like ESM, kythr had potential to be a worthwhile investment. After unsuccesfully nomming Jeran, and losing bids to GW and Mishimono, they landed an 11K cheese, to which trace did not consent. This definitely seemed as a misbuy on paper, where sentimentality or just being friends weighed heavier than competitiveness. Cheese had no true records to boot, as they didn't play in DPL despite being drafted and got to R7 of DOU Spring SSNL (was in R6 when draft took place). Additionally, this meant ESM would not play DOU, and had to play a tier where he had no gen8 records for. After these two buys it was pretty quiet on the laxes' side, and following lost bids to xskelly, maki's fox and blinkboy, there were only a handful of players left in the first pool. They got ythhhh who qualified first in the cycle, but had no records, and Urfgurgle, who played NU in BLT III (1-X record, with X >= 3), but also had no true gen8 experience to speak off. After the first part of the auction was over, the snorlaxes had a team that wasn't looking that hot yet. Kythr seemed to be the best player so far, but cheese pushed ESM out of DOU and ythhhh + urfgurgle looked like fillers.
For the second round, they just missed out on three coveted players in Trade, Updated Kanto and Twixtry, they landed their first smash hit in Feliburn for 21.5K. Feli was the best RU player in the pool and to get him for a bit more than 20K isn't bad at all. Next up they got Havens for just 8.5K, which was competent in monotype. However, it put another strain on their team roster and with both Feliburn and Havens on the team, kythr should be left in a tier they didn't main. Havens could also play DOU a bit but that was completely out of the question when you have both cheese and ESM to compete with. The laxes missed out on Snofall and plas, and spend 9.5K on ... Attribute? This purchase shared some similarities with cheese, where being friends, or at least a goon, meant more than winning. Attribute's best showing was reaching finals of Monotype's bo3 multigen seeded tour, which isn't even gen8 all the time. Other than that, they got to R3 in OU Stour tour and had two runs to R4 in SS Stours. Havens would be deadweight on the team if Attribute played mono, so Attribute in OU was a fact, but SS OU Attribute wasn't really a superstar yet.
The hatterenes thwarted their attempt at completing their OU core by snatching away dahli, the rufflets took away UU-mainer ORAS-Mega, but the laxes got a big buy again when they got Roginald for 16.5K. Roginald had absolutely no gen8 results to speak of, and is a friend of the goons as well. This seemed like a big overpay to me, but maybe they just saw something that I missed. The next overpay happened when they got Poat for 11.5K. Poat went undefeated in NU last year, but kinda stopped after that and came back for BLT VII. It wasn't immediately clear if he kept his skill, so this was a risk as well. Losing out on Sciroccoo, the pool of players was extremely barren again. They got yovan33321 for 6.5K, who was a good sleeper OU pick for the price they went for. They reached R6 of OU SSNL and R5 of Stour Tour and had a possibility to show potential if given the chance. They finished things off by picking up Sakumoto/Pathetic Worm, who didn't really had any records.
The roster of the laxes looked good and definitely had potential to be a big threat to any team. However, they lacked any UU- or LC-main so they had to be creative there. Still, in the end the lineup seemed worthy of being in the top half, and in my powerranking I put them in 3rd place.
-The tour:
Some surprises and some expected records, with none of them negatively affecting the snorlaxes. Cheese reintegrated well into gen8 DOU with a near-flawless record, getting a deadgame against SMB and losing to Z strats. Havens demolished most of the stacked monotype pool, as well as getting a DOU win in Week 7 when nothing mattered for the laxes and they were just fooling around. Feliburn went 6-2 in RU, but that can still be seen as a bit of a letdown. Where the loss against Mac3 was because the skill levels were of similar magnitude, the loss against dandaman was a big surprise. A loss against pradhaaan in an unlucky tiebreaker meant feli didn't had any OU succes in BLT either. Kythr surprisingly went 4-2 in UU, with the biggest accomplishment being a win against 70to90gxe, but the other wins weren't that memorable. Snofall was out of touch with the metas, and in hindsight TMM and GunGunJ struggled really hard this tour. They lost to ORAS-Mega twice and couldn't win against Maki's Fox in monotype either.
Roginald went neutral and looking at the opponents he had to face this was to be expected pretty much. Wins against pradhaaan, stareal and blimax were nice as I deem them to be of equal skill, but on the other side there were losses against non-OU mainers NRTS and APW001. The win against HellRayquaza1 and loss against Electric Win weren't surprising when ewin was on a roll following some good wcop results. In the end they lost an unfortunate tiebreak to blimax. EternalSnowman ended up as their LC-player, and pulled his weight in that tier going neutral. No big surprises though.
Poat was a big wildcard going in but ended up negative in NU. The pool was stacked and even though poat looked like one of the lesser players in there, wins against GW, ToastedBunzzz02 and confide were nice for him. Regardless, he couldnt repeat the same surprise as he made last year, but the odds were heavily against him if that was what he wanted to happen. Attribute lost against mainers in an OU pool that was too much for him, and the wins weren't that memorable. Urfgurgle, Sakumoto and yovan33321 were given a minimal amount of screentime, and didn't manage to surprise either. ythhhh didn't say anything after week 1 and hasn't played as a result.
The snorlaxes didn't really had any trouble qualifying for playoffs, and they had to face the Rufflets there. In week 1, they beat the Rufflets 5-3, and most of the results from week 1 were repeated here. There was one win for both teams in OU. DOU, Monotype and RU were won by the laxes and NU and UU were victories for the rufflets. The only thing that changed was that the rufflets had an LC-main who was on a big streak at that moment, and the only outcome that changed from Week 1 turned this semifinals in a tie. The snorlaxes picked DOU as their tier and the rufflets went with a second OU. Both of these picks were from my point of view the best for each team. Cheese did what was expected from him, praised the sun and beat shadowmonstr. Both feliburn and roginald lost their OU matches to what players of both teams called hax.
-Verdict:
There isn't that much inherently wrong with the snorlax team, outside of the lack of a real UU- and LC-main. Basically all of the battles in the semifinals could have gone either way, and this match could have been decided without a tiebreak as much as it could have been with one. If there has to be anything I should point at for the laxes as their main flaw, I'd say their roster was a bit stiff, with multiple people being forced into slots they haven't mained comfortably this gen (kythr in UU, ESM in LC, Attribute in OU), just because there were other mains that had to occupy their slots. If you wouldn't look at the tiers that the laxes played in week 7, they would only have feliburn who played more than 1 tier, and even that instance was just for the tiebreak. The laxes had a slight mismanagement in deciding who to buy, and their roster had no flexibility at all. Arthritis/10
Swamperts tomorrow in a new post!
Resort City Rufflets 
Hammerlocke Hatterenes 
Mellow1004 
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