Battle Stadium Singles Champions League Teams and Recap

     Hello, I am DerpySuX, commonly shortened to just Derpy. I am Smogon's Battle Stadium Singles (BSS) leader and have been competing for a few years now. I wanted to start this blog as it seems there are very few English BSS blogs. We recently concluded the first ever edition of the BSS Champions League, a team tournament where I managed and played on the Arcane Archmages with my good friend Luisin. Here are the teams I used and how I came to make them. 

Week 1 - KING OF THE DEAD

Miraidon, Pecharunt, Iron Treads, Chien-Pao, Dondozo, Ting-Lu

    Week 1 pitted me against a good friend of mine in The Squash, a fellow top western competitor. From watching his run in our previous tournament, BSS Masters, I saw that he enjoyed using Normal Arceus, commonly referred to as EKiller. I had some success early in Regulation J using Pecharunt as a stop to Arceus and other physically based threats with Foul Play and a defensive Tera Type to get around Arceus' common coverage in Earthquake or Shadow Claw. I ended up pairing this with Assault Vest Miraidon for another bulky restricted that leaned more on the Special side. Miraidon is also supremely threatening and with AV not mandating I invest heavily into its Special Defense to be bulky I was able to run a Modest nature with full Special Attack investment. I opted to forgo coverage on this Miraidon and went with Parabolic Charge in my fourth moveslot to give myself some form of recovery. Paired with Miraidon's insane power level, Parabolic Charge hits deceptively hard and grants Miraidon a surprising amount of recovery. I added a very standard trio of Chien-Pao, Dondozo, and Ting-Lu next. These three are very prominent and versatile staples of BSS, and I used fairly standard sets on all of them. My final addition was Banded Iron Treads, this was a somewhat odd pick but it synergized well with Miraidon, benefitting from Electric Terrain to have the equivilant of a Choice Scarf boost while the terrain is active. This was important as it provided me with some kind of speed control, making threats like Calyrex-Shadow easier to handle.

    The set exposed one of my teams glaring weaknesses; Tera Water Miraidon. This didn't seem undoable on paper as our own Miraidon surely wins the 1v1, but when paired with Agility, Squash was able to save it for late game and run through my team. Our semi Speed control of Iron Treads could not keep pace with a +2 Speed Miraidon and was easily dispatched by a Water Tera Blast, and even if we managed to survive, The Squash made the right call in giving his Miraidon an Electric Seed; which boosted its Defense upon hitting the field and activating Electric Terrain. With this in mind I was all but helpless as soon as he revealed his Miraidon set, allowing him to very cleanly win the set 2-0. Starting out with a loss isn't the best but the team and its shortcomings provided my team and myself valuable info we would use when making teams for the rest of the season.

Week 2 - BERZERKER

Arceus-Fairy, Koraidon, Flutter Mane, Chien-Pao, Dondozo, Ting-Lu

    Week 2 put me up against Feen, who isn't a BSS main but is a fierce player nonetheless. I originally wanted to try something with Choice Banded Arceus but the team wasn't coming together and by mid week I decided to scrap it and try something else. I had been playing some Japanese players and they were absolutely destroying me with Acid Spray Arceus Fairy sets, so I decided that would be my project going into the second half of this week. Being an anti-stall poke, I opted to fill out the last slots with Recover and Taunt, since Judgement's mono coverage would be fine with Acid Spray making Arceus incredibly difficult to switch into, and with Taunt denying recovery attempts the damage would stick, however minimal. To partner with this set I opted for a Choice Scarf Koraidon, this was my choice for a couple reasons; firstly is Speed. The Arceus set can handle bulky teams and even trade blows with Scarfers pretty fine but it struggles massively with faster setup threats like Nasty Plot Calyrex, or Swords Dance variants of Arceus or Koraidon. With a Koraidon of my own I not only have a foil to these threats, but the coverage synergy makes for a uniquely potent offensive core. The only type that can 100% safely come into this Arceus set is Steel, and Koraidon's Fighting STAB and tendency to run Fire type Attacks makes said Steel types very afraid. Both of these opted for defensive Teras, being Poison and Ghost, respectively. The rest of the team is extremely standard with Flutter Mane, Chien-Pao, Dondozo, and Ting-Lu all performing their expected roles. Flutter Mane is a bulky Calm Mind + Charm variant which allowed me more security against things like opposing Koraidon and Urshifu. Ting-Lu was an assault vest variant, making use of its massive HP stat and Vessel of Ruin ability to invest fully into its surprisingly solid Attack stat and turn its defensive prowess into offensive momentum.

    This was one of the more decisive wins of the season. Acid Arc, as we called it, was not seen outside of Japanese circles and as such my opponent was woefully unprepared for it. The pressure Acid Spray put out forced him into extremely predictable switches and suboptimal sacks that allowed me to run away with the game without much effort at all. This isn't a knock against Feen's abilities as a player but moreso an attempt to illustrate how much this set did due to the surprise factor of it. There was legitimately nothing he could do to counterract the set, and even when it finally fell in game 2, his team was so badly weakened that all it took was Koraidon coming in and clicking Outrage to seal his fate. With this win I was able to find my footing and move forward with the season, secure in my ability to handle anyone thrown my way.

Week 3 - Blitz

Eternatus, Zacian-Crowned, Arboliva, Chien-Pao, Dondozo, Landorus-Therian

    Week 3 saw me facing TTK; a solid all-rounder who had begun to learn BSS pretty recently. He managed to knock me out of BSS Masters with the help of a very unfortunate Scale Shot miss on my part, so I had a score to settle coming into this week. I knew I wanted to use Eternatus coming into this week so I started there. Initially we had a Power Herb Meteor Beam set, but the lack of longevity made it very difficult to get consistent value out of Eternatus. We shifted to a Life Orb set with Recover, inspired by the standard Ubers set, however we shifted to Covert Cloak later into the teambuilding process. Zacian was chosen to be a complement to Eternatus, covering problematic matchups like Flutter Mane. Chien-Pao and Dondozo were added as all round offense and defense, respectively. Lastly, Landorus Therian was chosen as our ground type. With its Scarf set it not only provides good cleaning potential in addition to the ability to blank Miraidon's electric type assault; but the fast U-turn proved itself invaluable in testing. This allowed us to position Zacian and Eternatus with brutal precision, ensuring maximum value. Initially we had a second ground type in Ursaluna Bloodmoon in the last slot, but we noticed a severe weakness to water types, most notably Tera Water Miraidon and especially Kyogre. Arboliva was chosen for its ability to cover these weaknesses while still checking the Calyrex Shadow that Ursaluna was meant to beat.

     I was granted a pretty favorable matchup this week, facing a Pecharunt + Fairy Arceus bulky core. Eternatus and Zacian were able to put immense pressure on TTK's team fairly easily. Game 1 ended in Zacian forcing Arceus to reveal its tera and discouraging my opponent from bringing it in Game 2, to which I brought Landorus instead of Chien-Pao to curb his attempts at Fissure spam. Landorus ended the set by clean sweeping a weakened team after Eternatus and Zacian forced the opponent to waste a lot of resources dealing with them, resulting in another clean 2-0 set win. 

Week 4 - KO

Miraidon, Ho-Oh, Urshifu-Rapid Strike, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, Wo-Chien, Clodsire

    Week 4 was perhaps my favorite set of the tournament, being against my good friend Papiloco. As Papi knows my playstyle quite well, I knew I would have to think outside the box here. I decided on Miraidon and Ho-Oh as my restricted core, since there are a lot of options when it comes to using said restricted picks and they would provide a solid backbone for the rest of the team. After hitting on the restricted core, I decided to use a bit of a different defensive core, picking Wo-Chien and Clodsire. Wo-Chien is a great stop to physical Arceus variants and Tablets of Ruin allowed me to invest quite a bit into Special Defense, allowing it to stand up to Calyrex Shadow and take a hit from Miraidon in a pinch. Clodsire was chosen as my defensive ground type, being able to survive a hit from Miraidon, set hazards, and Water Absorb allows it to switch into Kyogre and Tera Water variants of Miraidon. Ursaluna Bloodmoon was taken as a more offensive check to Miraidon and as a normal type to trade blows with Calyrex Shadow. The final addition was Urshifu Rapid Strike, and the set we settled on was Substitute + Swords Dance. This set covered a very crucial weak point which was opposing bulky cores, more specifically Garganacl. The set itself was, as anticipated, a great set. The set went the full distance to a game 3, which I may write about on its own as it is one of my favorite games I played in 2025. Ultimately, I was able to close the set out in my favor, resulting in a 2-1 set win.

Week 5 - BLITZED TF OFF

Koraidon, Calyrex-Shadow, Flutter Mane, Landorus-Therian, Ting-Lu

    Week 5 had me up against MZ, a BSS veteran that mostly specializes in GBU (gen 5 BSS). This team was honestly pretty half-assed. My team had already qualified for playoffs unless a major upset occurred. I used this week to test some new ideas, being Skeledirge as an Arceus stop alongside defensive Landorus Therian. The team outside of that is a very standard Derpy-styled team. There's not much to say here in all honesty. The set itself was a rather unfortunate loss too. MZ brought various Taunt users, making it very difficult for Skeledirge to get much of anything done. I managed to bounce back and win game 2, but game 3 ended when I failed to predict a Scizor's Tera Normal and lost my Calyrex. With my last Pokemon being Flutter Mane, the game was all but over. Thankfully my team had secured playoffs regardless of any variable by this point so my lackluster performance did not cost us. 

Semifinals - DEVIL MUSIC

Arceus, Calyrex-Shadow, Chien-Pao, Urshifu-Rapid Strike, Dondozo, Ting-Lu

    Semifinals saw me rematching with The Squash, which I was very happy with. After my loss to him in week 1 I wanted to get another chance to play him and show what I had learned from said loss. Being round 1 of the playoffs, I knew I wanted to make sure my team was overall consistent. I ended up settling on what I consider to be the best restricted core in Regulation J; Arceus and Calyrex Shadow. The Arceus was box standard, with Silk Scarf to boost Extreme Speed even further, Calyrex was a little more oddball, being a Choice Specs bomber with Tera Blast Ground. Given my Focus Sash was free, I decided to immediately add Chien-Pao, going for an Adamant Swords Dance variant with dual priority. I rounded out my offensive core with Choice Scarf Urshifu Rapid Strike, providing some speed control that doesn't rely on priority. My defensive core was the tried and true TingDozo, both providing good damage output and a solid backbone to rely on in a pinch. 

    The set itself was one of my best performances, Specs Calyrex had an absurdly good matchup and as soon as I confirmed Squash brought Choice Banded Koraidon I knew I was able to force progress as long as I didn't let Flutter Mane paralyze me. In game 1 I accomplished this by utilizing Tera Ground to break Sash via Grass Knot, and then utilizing Yawn cycling with Dondozo to waste the Sun turns, ensuring Calyrex outsped Flutter Mane and cleaned up. In game 2 I led with Urshifu, utilizing Tera Water Surging Strikes to force damage. I was stopped by Rest Dondozo, but this also meant entry for Calyrex. Figuring Squash would try to send in Flutter Mane with Tera Normal to punish Astral Barrage, I went for Psychic instead. This indeed caught the Flutter Mane switch, and from there it was just a matter of ensuring I didn't fall victim to another defensive tera use. Thankfully, my own Dondozo was ready to come in and scout Koraidon, and once it revealed Tera Fire I was safe to find entry with Calyrex and end the game. I sacrificed Urshifu to Dondozo's Fissure, and Calyrex came back in to seal the game with another 2-0 win.

Semifinals Tiebreak - NIGHT VISION

Miraidon, Ho-Oh, Urshifu-Rapid Strike, Gliscor, Dondozo, Ting-Lu

     In a tournament as competitive as BSSCL, it was inevitable that a tie would happen in playoffs somewhere. This meant I was playing Squash for a third time, and with our head to head being 1-1 this tournament it was going to be a very good set. For my restricted core I settled on Choice Specs Miraidon and defensive Ho-Oh. The high damage output of Miraidon, especially in tandem with Specs, and the defensive prowess of Ho-Oh opened up a lot of avenues to take the rest of the team. Instead of Chien-Pao I decided to use my Focus Sash on Urshifu, this allowed me to further bolster my Defensive core with the addition of Gliscor, which provided insurance against other bulky cores via Toxic and the status immunity that Poison Heal provided. This was especially important as I decided to use Assault Vest Ting-Lu again for this team, forgoing longevity in favor of being a more active offensive presence. Since I had Ho-Oh to absorb potential burns I decided to use Tera Steel on Ting-Lu in order to both boost Heavy Slam and better absorb Draco Meteors. 

    The matchup this time was fairly neutral, both of us had the ability to break through the others' team without it being easy either way. Sash Urshifu was able to punish an aggressive Draco Meteor from Miraidon in game 1 and hit it hard with Close Combat, once at -2 Special Attack, Ting-Lu had free reign to come in and do whatever it wanted. Tera Steel showed its value in the late-game by allowing Ting-Lu to resist Draco Meteor and finish off Miraidon; ensuring Ho-Oh was able to zero in on Zacian and win the final 1v1. Game 2 opened with a very fortunate crit into Squash's Ting-Lu, which more or less sealed the game right there. Once Miraidon had terastallized and no longer resisted Electro Drift, it was just a matter of positioning so it was able to come in safely and claim another KO, after which there was no hope of a comeback. The deciding set in semifinals ended in another 2-0 victory. 

Finals - Monsoon Season

Koraidon, Kyogre, Chien-Pao, Flutter Mane, Urshifu-Rapid Strike, Ting-Lu

    Finals saw me facing Yone, a good friend of mine and one of the most talented BSS players around. If I'm totally honest I didn't spend as much time as I should have on this team. At this point in the tournament, the BSS 2025 Invitational was also in finals and I was focusing on that as well. With the Invitational not being teamlock, I had to prepare 5 different teams for that set, and I sadly neglected to give this team the care it needed. I settled on a defensive Kyogre set with Thunder Wave, enabling my offensive core of Swords Dance Koraidon, Chien-Pao, and Specs Flutter Mane. This team ended up skipping out on coverage elsewhere, however, and this ended rather poorly.

    I knew upon loading into the set that I was in trouble. Yone had brought Acid Arceus, which I completely neglected to consider during the building process. I did have an unfortunate crit happen on my Ting-Lu, but even so, Game 1 was extremely rough. I had to bank on Arceus getting fully paralyzed and my Koraidon being able to set up a Swords Dance and reverse sweep, this didn't happen though. Arceus got the Thunder Wave off and from there my fate was sealed. Game 2 was much of the same. I managed to get through his Dragonite and threaten Miraidon out to set up a Swords Dance, but Yone was prepared with Tera Fairy on his Arceus, once again getting the Thunder Wave off and sealing my fate. Finals ended with a decisive 0-2 loss, and my team was unable to close out the finals. 

Conclusion

    Although we fell short in the playoffs, I thoroughly enjoyed myself during this event and was proud of my performance overall. My team gave everything we had and we managed to make it to finals, which I was proud of in itself. I managed to go on to win the 2025 BSS Circuit which I am very happy with. Thank you for taking the time to read my first blog post, I hope to see you again!