 Hello friends! Welcome back to another episode here on the channel. I hope you're all doing great and for anyone new to the channel my name is Lee also known as Osiris. In today's episode we are going to be going over all the details in regards to the X9 draft league that I'm actually involved with going forward so content will be starting soon. This is going to be the first episode where we'll be kind of covering just an overview of the players in the draft, the teams very briefly and just what the draft league is all about and what it entails. So the draft league is made up of 16 players, amazing players, amazing content creators as well. Joe actually put the whole draft league together and kindly approached me like a little while ago now and asked me if I'd want to be involved in of course I said yes with open arms so big shout out to Joe for actually asking me in the first place. Very excited to be involved in this draft league I think with the other content creators you know there's a lot of content creators I'm sure you watch and I definitely watch as well so to be involved in it and kind of competing against them is is going to be very exciting so hopefully I can do the content justice over the next few weeks while we cover all the matches and the analysis and things like that but like I say today's video is just going to be an overview of the draft league and then going into my team analysis with my week one opponent which we'll get to in a moment. To mention as well that the draft league will be playing double battles format so all of the rules that are kind of incorporated in VG is what will be incorporated within the draft league going forward so it is a doubles format how we're approaching this one obviously just wanted to make you guys aware of that before we get into the meet and bones of this video. So hopping over into our first screen you can see here it is look at these graphics as well you've got to give a big shout out to all the team working on the graphics for this draft league they've been amazing but here's an overview of all the players that are involved so we've got we've got Colin the battle room we've got CK4 9, Fevzi, Jin, Mandy B, Moxie, we've got Poker Alex, Steph, Viz, Ashton, Nekra, we've got Sierra, Joe of course myself, Pokemon Cast and Nina Poker Bros so I mean like the array of content creators here is amazing and it's like I say I'm kind of repeating myself so I do apologize but I am really hyped for this one and you know the quality of players as well it's going to make it really difficult so the eventual winner you know coming out of this if you can win this it's a massive thing to be able to win this against like such an array of crazy good Pokemon players and at the same time we're going to have a lot of fun with it because I think that the beauty about a draft league is obviously for those that you aren't aware draft league is we get to pick Pokemon and once that Pokemon is picked then no one else can pick that Pokemon so it's kind of like a little bit strategic than the draft picks and things like that but we'll get over to the draft order because it was done in a snake draft so this was the draft order so basically like I said each player takes a turn to pick a Pokemon that is put into specific tiers and that once that Pokemon is picked then you can no longer pick that Pokemon there's lots of rules around which Pokemon you can pick at a certain time and how many you can pick from a certain tier etc and then you get a bunch of free picks at the end which again are restricted by certain rules Joe did an amazing stream of the entire draft list live so if you want to check that out his twitch channel is linked down in the description all the information is over on there and link his youtube as well which you may have uploaded the draft picks to there but you can see from the draft league so we've got all of the players in order it's a snake draft so top to bottom all get one pick and then it goes from bottom to top again so that bottom player even though they're at a disadvantage to begin with they do get a double pick at the end so unfortunately for us we were like second to last in the draft now it kind of worked against us and definitely worked with us as well and I think from my experience from being in like mbls and other draft leagues before I kind of brought that experience with me here so one of the big things was obviously you get that tier one pick the biggest pokemon available like your g maxes all the big powerful pokemon glastria and stuff like that and I thought do I make a plan on a team idea going into the draft league knowing that I'm going to be like that 15th spot and probably whatever I create a team round or an idea round is probably going to be gone by the time it gets to me for that first pick so I thought rather than spend loads of time planning my team and things like that what I did was I decided to just kind of wing it and it sounds really bad but at the same time I kind of thought well I'm going to see what's available when it comes to my pick and make an evaluation and it kind of worked out really well especially towards the end of the draft if you do go and check that out with the the actual draft picks there's a sneak peek of one of the teams here and we'll get we'll go through the teams quickly now got fevzi's team here I'm not going to go into too much detail of the actual teams they were all ranked by john the team on his stream so do check that out they go into a bit more detail about it but just to keep this video a bit more condensed because I'm obviously going over the team that I'll be using in week one today as well um you've got gin and I mean look at this look at gin's logo and everyone provided their own logos mind and you know like some of them are absolutely insane um so that's gin's team there you can see from the tier one picks you get two tier one picks which are the the better pokemon and they kind of tiered down from their tier two tier three tier four and then you get your free picks at the end and it's all dictated by the draft and what's left available in those tiers so there's joe's team again new york oblivion you've got brave bird buccaneers love this name love this logo from from brice you've got necra of course the shout cast and sylvians probably one of the best logos I think here and a pretty scary team as well obviously um you know rose was able to snipe that glastria really early on it was definitely something I think a lot of players were after so really good there and the concept of her team amazing uh necra's done an amazing like overview of her kind of draft selections as well so go and check out the youtube channel all these content creators all their handles all of their their channels everything will be linked down in the description so do check them out if you want to kind of keep up with some of the other players in the draft league while this is going on we've got nino poker bras with the biggest tornadoes do love this logo as well and uh really nice team you know the osha fu and the cinderace really great tier one picks um and then you've got spoiler alert my first opponent of week one could it come any harder than poker alex with these uh probably the best named team in the tournament uh too hot to handle harry amas do love the logo as well um but alex being true classic alex fashion has picked an amazing team uh with with the options obviously being last in the draft league didn't really help them out initially but making a really good call there with the type of finish on it start that kind of fire water grass core um and get that going for the late game got a lot of options in here then we got sierra with her toronto maple muse obviously me being one of my favorite legendaries got a very soft spot for this team already and because of working with sierra in um the place cup three was amazing experience so yeah i'm hoping i don't know the actual uh schedule yet for all the opponents i haven't looked through it all i don't know if i play sierra but hopefully i do and kind of hopefully i don't as well at the same time you know because she's got a pretty nasty team with the lander estherian the maltres pretty solid picks and then she made a real sleeper pick with the reggie steel as well so that core there is just nasty and obviously reggie gigas and the coughing kind of the the substitute kind of wheezing i guess but works just as well uh mold in there as well very scary team honestly and then you've got our team so we'll stop on this for a minute well no we'll come back to my team in a minute we've got the golden state glasians we've got steff uh with the rilliboon gochum tier one picks lapras magnus on as tier two picks and then the confie is a tier three pick just you know you can see the team kind of forming itself already lots of nice options in here speed control all over the shop and um obviously options to utilize and burden as well which i think is really smart with that grassy terrain that the rilliboon provides scary team love the logo don't want to play it probably will we'll see how it goes and then you go colin one of the all-time best us battlers of all time i think colin's a great battler and it's going to be again an opponent i love that he's involved but an opponent i don't want to be playing because i know how good he is and he's got a solid team that i think reflects quite a lot of like colin's kind of where he's comfortable with things like obviously zaptos grim snarl things that you could see him playing anyway so he's made some really nice picks the ferrathorn as well giving great win cons and things like that and then the kind of the nigh lego here really like because it helps and gives an additional buffer to the trick room mode that he's got with like the ride dawn the uh the bomber snow and the hat turning in a combo as well and obviously keeping that redirection with the togo tick uh then we've got the and arctic igga slashes from viz who is like just a great content creator great battler started off doing singles but has moved recently into vg so it's really nice to have him uh involved as well and uh he comes up with some mad stuff he's a solid battler again one of those players that you're like do i want to play him probably not let's just kind of avoid him tell the latest stages of the tournament got a really scary team as well obviously uh pz he's picking up a little bit of uh it's getting murmurings now in the current vg format so it's a real good pick i think here especially with the indeedy which is probably one of the best like undeniably best kind of support options you've got with that follow me and and psychic train along with all of the other powerhouses he's got access to and a little peeker at the end here's marcus's team moxie boosted i'm sure all of you know moxie boosted great innovative team builder uses a lot of unique things but in this time round he's absolutely destroyed his draft picks because he's got the colossal combo here and he's got ways to utilize that with you know the sneezle there for one he's got the trick room options with dusk globs as well it's a very scary team he's got some really unique picks in here some things that he like favors and is well known for obviously that the evil being one of them that jumps out to me glissa pod as well another one um that definitely relate to him when i see this pokemon great battler scary team definitely don't want to face him but yeah overview i think uh very cool here we go we've got pokemon cast the milwaukie crams obviously really good first pick with the regi alecki i mean between glastria regi alecki and probably colossal they're the kind of three top pokemon that probably a lot of players looked at initially and said right i'm gonna try and bag these in that tier one pick um great team overall and great logo although i'm not the biggest kramaran fan kramaran kind of scares me i got a little bit disturbed as you would know from my early experiences with sword and shield in kramaran swaller and pikachu so next we've got ashton cox the man himself the ohio ho ho and uh some really solid draft picks here again a really good team with lots of different combinations in lots of good utility you've got double fake out you've got intimidate with that hitman top you've got sleep threats from the jinx as well we all know about that nice combinations between potentially the anti there with the bulldoze combination with the tentacle for weakness policy and uh it goes on and on on matching up with clear body but yeah i won't go into too many things what i think could happen with this team i'm sure he's got plenty of them and the beauty about ashton is as well when he first came on to the vgc and he was known as like this mad innovator with really like out there teams and doing well in tournaments with them and draft leagues like a pretty good environment for ashton so gonna be definitely a very good pick if if you are supporting him to go the the full way in the tournament wouldn't surprise me if we see him do it and he's got a very he's got a very solid draft pick as well you know then we've got ck49 with the flag staff flygons you know adi is one of the like he's just an incredible battler so to have him involved it's scary but a lot of fun as well and he's got a really good solid draft pick you know toga kiss thunderous got redirection there kiss can perform all sorts of different roles like offensive supportive thunderous incarnate as well it's got the option to be defying pranks though you've seen how good that is in the current format right now and then you've got mamaswine bulu is his next pick snorlax dalmanitan but the the the regular dalmanitan the fire type which is just ridiculously strong especially in the right situations urshifu rapid strike stack attack i missed a ryan poltygeist as well it's a pretty scary team when you look at it got some really solid trick room options in there and then the fast mods in here are really good as well because you've got the thunderous with that really good undeniable kind of speed control and and thunder wave scary face things like that and then airstream on things like toga kiss as well along with the the the follow me there that is all the teams and that brings us to our team who is the southwest score bunnies and this was the draft that we kind of eventually ended up with so if you watch the draft league draw that joe did you'll see that he ranked this team is the best team from the draft now i'm like super happy with our draft league i think we got pretty lucky like i say with how the draft kind of ended up and evaluating what was left at the time when it came to my picks because i knew if i pick venus or it's very unlikely at that point that polka alex was going to pick the tocol because he had two picks so i don't think you pick the tocol in that situation which meant i could then pick the tocol up the next turn after his picks pretty seamless and get that that kind of those two tier one picks which kind of give me a really good base for going forward obviously wanted a trick room mod in the team as well because i think trick room is pretty solid um so i i kind of missed out my tier two picks and went for straight in for my tier three pick with mimikyu just to make sure i had that pokemon there gives me a lot of room a lot of options to be able to kind of shut things down early on that you've got the disguise there which is just amazing and it gives me that trick room mod that i was looking for then going after the ryperia torah kat as well obviously joe picked up incinero early on so i couldn't go for that but it's kind of like uh um the next best thing i guess you know we don't have the dark typing but it's a bit faster it's a good fake out user and it still carries intimidate if i want to utilize it and persimmon i mean it was there because i had the azumaril because i think there's there's combinations there and also having a defiant pokemon um isn't a bad thing and what you've got to think as well in a draft league it's not really like your standard formats where you kind of have them to worry about oh there's so many fairy types being used there's so many flying types being used not every team's going to have these options like you're going to see in a kind of standard metagame so a lot of these pokemon that are generally quite good but kind of get hampered and and like not as viable in a format which is full of like flying or threats that are super effective against it in a draft league that kind of opens the door up massively so things like persimmon in particular things like scrafty really can shine and do do some nice nice work for you uh obviously was able then to pick up charizard is my first free pick because as the draft league kind of ended i was one of the first players to be able to have a pick of the free pokemon from tier one that were left and charizard was left so i was like it just makes sense to get the charizard with the venus on the talk call um teams got a lot of options i think a lot a lot of flexibility a lot of ways to set up if i need to um obviously the the kind of the core of the team with the charizard venus or talk call i'm like i can't believe i actually managed to pick up all three and not get sniped on any of them so it was amazing and um we've got like lots of support options in ways to to really disrupt opponents and kind of approach games differently i think going forward so it's it's really nice but getting on to our first match in week one as we kick off this draft league it is against poker alex a very good friend of mine known alex for a long time obviously done a draft league as a multi battle league with my partner before as well so yeah i know exactly what alex is all about any it's a scary proposition i even said to him i was like i wish i had an easier opponent week one but you know there aren't that many easy opponents probably none um and like going into this you can see like where the threats are for us because you've got the the tapu finny the katana mud still is going to be a big issue for us here and he's got like you know if you decide to go down a trick room route he does have ways to um to really disrupt that trick room mod with the viker vault you know he's got um decent options to shut down trick room as well with chandelier and he's got the draper as well with that them is a cloud nine i think it gets access to to stop our weather all together which we quite you know heavily rely on so there's a few things that we need to think about when we're kind of approaching this matchup now i think for us really when when when i look at the team you know i think charizard is amazing for us there's not really many ways that alex has to deal with the charizard in particular that was my first thinking i think if he gets into a trick room with mud still that can be a bit tricky but um other than that there's only really the katana that will outspeed charizard like naturally um in the in the in his entire team so i think alex would probably prefer a trick room mod so it's maybe something that i don't really lean on too heavily whereas if i've got the talk all to kind of come in and maybe for this one rather than be like super hyper offensive eruption heatwave maybe something like yawn could be a little bit more valuable for me because i could see him setting the trick room up and then just slowing the game down for myself and stalling out those trick room turns is probably going to be a better way to approach it chandelers definitely something that i worry about because chandelier can take attacks pretty well from charizard obviously with the flash fire gotta be careful where i'm aiming those fire type attacks into um and obviously we can use scorching sands um but chandelier can set the trick room up as well and can we deny it um this is where mimikyu kind of maybe comes into the question because i think mimikyu here obviously outside of the katana again does pretty well against most of the team it gives us a way to get rid of draper pretty quickly with something like play rough um we can do decent damage to glaring zaptos don't really worry about that too much either can do good damage to the umbra and can shut down the chandelier so i feel like mimikyu very good option for us especially as a lead to kind of just get a gauge on what alex is trying to do and it gives us an option to try and help shut things down so what i'm going to do now is hop over into showdown and i'll show you how i'm starting to put this team together okay we're now over on showdown and this is the team that i've put together now i'm still a bit unsure on a few elements of the team but there's a few things on alex's team that i'm worried about and you can see here i think the big players that that would worry me a little bit more than anything or definitely the mudsdale i think like with the salt fest it's probably a good way to approach the team that we've got and also i think um the viker vault as well under trick room it can be very scary and both give charizard a hard time charizard's definitely something i'd like to go forward within this match um i think the residual damage and probably is my max mon it probably gives me like a lot of scope unfortunately like not going the life or brute uh i i feel like i've got a couple options where i can go like wackenberry to give us protection against the the electric threats that are here in the the rotem frost or the the viker vault or i can go for the charlie berry which gives me a little bit more room around the mudsdale and i've kind of opted honestly for the charlie berry for this one particular reason so um i can fake tears and then i can launch a big attack into the mudsdale um turn one and not worry about having to utilize the charm because if i'm utilizing charm that i'm not maybe doing as much damage as i would like to onto the mudsdale and the thing is i don't know if there's going to be the only line of protection that alex has got on his team for recovery is going to be the tapu finney with heal pulse whether he goes down that route or not i don't know the other big problem for us is obviously the draper which gives us loads of issues whereas the fakes here kind of helps us get around that a little bit especially when you pair it up with something like the charizard um so the the jolteon spread here just kind of helps us slow things down with charm obviously the carton of the mudsdale or the the kind of the big threats got to watch out for glarian zaptos of course as well because that could be something that he goes like coaching with so one of the things that i wanted to do between this set was kind of allow charizard the room to kind of function against particularly the the mudsdale especially if we do see like a coaching where it's plus one but at the same time i feel like i'm kind of torn in decisions where i maybe want to go for a fake tears uh in that that that situation to just maximize damage um but this charizard spread it's not the the most offensive but with the charlie berry allows me to take a plus one max rockfall uh from uh adamant 252 mudsdale so i think that's pretty good and then allow me to get at least the residual damage off which might set up a late kind of game win um so this was pretty much here the the jolteon can support uh the team super well with fake tears um the talk all of venus of course uh the charm helps out against those physical attackers the only one like i say need to watch out for is the glarian uh zaptos but i do have thunderbolt for that now roar is an interesting choice here as well because i feel like one of the things that alex may try and do is go down a trick room it's a certain point in the game and he's got a lot of pokemon that perform well in a trick room environment he's got ways to stop the trick room as well um and especially if that vicar volt gets set up under trick room it's going to be it's going to be really difficult to deal with so one of the ways to stop chrysalia or chandelier in particular especially with a mental herb like it can easily go down a taunt route but mental herb kind of skews that for us like massively so one of the things that i thought would be quite good in that situation scenario would be roll so i can kind of just roll them out of the field because it's not likely that crest is going to max watch crest match max in this match um but like i say it gives me a way around the mental herb without kind of having to worry about it so they're the options there for the jolteon really straightforward spread of a c252 230 you just want to maximize the uh the speed and the damage output especially because i've got the sash which gives us a little bit of security uh for the the first couple of turns it's on the field charizard have kind of explained like i was torn between wackenberry and charlie berry i feel like one of the resist berries here would be probably beneficial like i could go down a life orb route with the sun up but there's going to be issues with drampa being on the field probably getting rid of the sun and also the fact that you'll probably calc things like crest to take the um the the life orb in sun uh gmax wildfire anyway so to really get a little bit more out of charizard i feel i want to keep that speed that so at least i'm speed tying with glarian moltres because i don't want to get into a situation where if he brings it and he starts max airstreaming with it at least i can try and keep pace with him and have the chance to get the airstream off before he gets it off to support one of these other pokemon which could be an option he goes down you know um so a little bit more bulkier uh with charizard scorching science is there to hit things like the chandelier because otherwise we're going to be kind of stuck i mean we've got airstream but it does help out um against that in particular i did think about um dragon pulse as well uh just for the drampa but i don't know if it's really that necessary because we've got plenty in the team that can help kind of support that so um that's the charizard in a nutshell um charizard doing charizard things uh hopefully we can get it in the sun with the torcal um and the protection that we've got from jolteon and especially scrafty with the intimidate there uh calm charm as well really is going to help it kind of just stick around as long as we need on the field because there's going to be a situation possibly if the trick room does go up we need to stall out and i think that the tools that we've got here do allow us to a certain extent to kind of stall out some of the the trick room shenanigans that could be going on uh torcal going to be up next so torcal i've been really toying between going like hyper defensive with body press or going with a salt vest with something that i looked at i thought that could really work well um but in all honesty i think for when you think about the situation when torcal will come onto the field and really be the valuable team member for us is if that trick room does go up and the biggest threat at that point is going to be the the viker vault so i think what i've done is catered the the the spread so we're able to always take um a max lightning from a modest two four two viker vault um and then the shucker as well gives us a little bit of room against mudsdale in a trick room environment where we at least are able to take a max um max quake or max rockfall we take the max rockfall anyway but the max quake obviously with the stab there is a bit more powerful and that then allows us to get the yawn off hopefully stall out the trick room open up a bit of room for us and with heatwave and earth power kind of gives us the spread that we need where we're not going to be like locked out against something like shandal at least with earth power we got a way to hit it it's a little bit bulky there venus i do think is quite important to this match i don't know how pivot i'll be and i don't know if i'll really see myself maxing it but it is something that i think is needed in particular for uh the the tapu finny in all honesty that's the big thing and obviously just venus all in sun in general is going to be very powerful uh it gives me kind of a backup um maximum if i want to go down that route but particularly for the finny like we do have jolty on here for the finny but i think venus all um can do well against the mudsdale as well for sure needs to be careful against the the zaptos but that's why we went with the cobra berry on it and the residual damage is going to be so unvaluable chandeliers another one that's a little bit iffy um of course without the sun chandelier causes us also all all all sorts of issues especially if it's max speed but that's kind of why um i've got the charizard there and the the jolty on to kind of help out with that matchup also to know as well there is the option where i could have went maybe shadowball over charm just to give us a little bit of extra stab but i think i'm not really sure i need that because the next pokemon and the the one after that kind of really help out with it so this is the mimikyu again toyed around with with different spreads and things that i was going to go on with the mimikyu for this one um the speed stat allows me to outspeed max speed rotom frost and anything below that so chandelier and things like that not that i need it but i don't think i need any more speed on mimikyu than that i think that's pretty good it guarantees me the taunt so i can shut things down like like chrycellia like we talked about you know they haven't got the mental hope then taunt really helps us open the door for stuff like that especially against tapu finny that it's one of those pokemon that tends to want to set up you know in game so gives us that option to shut it down i did think about wood hammer here because i think wood hammer gives us a nice physical option against tapu finny which may get caught mines up and the mudsdale as well and just that secondary grass typing that we we can have access to without having to rely too much on the venus all um but i kind of in the end opted for the swordstand set because i think the thing is with the team i feel like there's going to be opportunities where there's room for mimikyu to kind of set up and punish turns where alex might try and set up say there's a situation where he's trying to get the trick room up i can roar out if i've got the board position anywhere in swordstands in that scenario and even if not if he says he's got chandler out on the field and i know he's going to try and get a trick room up in that scenario i can swordstands that turn and then take advantage of the the priority shadow sneak the thing is with the life orb as well shadow sneak guarantees a knockout on chandler like a two hit keo onto chandler and the play rough is a guaranteed one hit on galarian zapdos so for those reasons it was kind of it made a lot of sense also the play rough gets the draper as well which can be a little bit problematic and obviously restricts our sun so i think the mimikyu i could have went protect on it i could have went a different route with it for sure but i feel like an unbalance this feels like probably the best mimikyu option that i've got i don't need to worry so much about the katana because we've got such threats in you know the charge of the toko and the jolte onto a certain extent that can help it shut down and the last slot i could have went for torokat here but i've opted to go for scrafty and it's a bit strange because obviously it does have access to fake out and i've thought long and hard about this but i think the fact is that scrafty can pressure fake out and enforce like double protects in certain situations which is maybe enough in those scenarios to allow me to get like a bulk up off and minus one katana against a plus one plus one scrafty we should win out in that scenario most cases the ice punch is there for coverage against mudsdale because i think i don't want to be in a situation against mudsdale in an end game with scrafty where um i'm contending against being able to hit it for good damage if we can get ourselves to like plus one plus two at least then the ice punch even if we all proc in the stamina boost we're going to be able to kind of maybe out damage it especially if we combine that with like drain punch recovery so um i think that this scrafty is interesting gotta be careful how i use it of course because the thing is we don't want to be propping the defiant ability on the zaptos but i do feel like we've got enough in the team between like the jolly on charizard um and the mimikyu to a certain extent to kind of deal with those threats so that is the team um for today's uh episode really the analysis going up against alex in week one which is the too hot to handle hariyama so it'd be great to hear your thoughts on the draft league in in general your thoughts on the matchup how you think it's going to go and keep an eye out for the matchup soon i will post out on our comment section of the channel when the match is scheduled to go out when i've decided that with alex so keep an eye on that one thank you so much for tuning in there friends come back to this one come back to our big camp but it's been it's been a really interesting video i am i would like to have some sort of feedback with how the structure of this is being set up obviously in future videos um i won't be uh doing all the bump beforehand we'll be diving straight in with the team and then coming into my analysis so it has been like shortened down a bit for today's episode so it's not as in-depth as i probably would have liked it to have been but i would love to hear your feedback on the structure and things like that now make sure to check out the other side of the battle and any analysis from poker alex all his handles are down in the description below it's a great content creator if you've never come across him before you know you're missing out he does a lot of content in spanish obviously is from spain but his content in general you can pick up the gist and he's one of those players he's one like i think he's one of the best players in europe and they're like and that's no exaggeration i think he's an incredible player and if you're coming into vgc new he's definitely someone to keep an eye on watch how he plays learn from because you can pick up so much from him and uh he's a good guy as well at the end of the day which counts for a lot you know so hopefully you've enjoyed today's episode friends thank you so much like i say for tuning in and uh stick around and stay alert stay alert stay alert for the match coming out soon all right have a good one take care of yourselves bye bye