+##### _Meta-ish MBCed_{as=cite}: closing thoughts
+
+on the friday just befur the sinnoh tour weekend, just over a week
+ befur the close of the season, yr cat just barely crossed the
+ 2500 elo threshold of veteran rank.
+i have stopped making a concerted effurt towards laddering (even as
+ stardust rewards are still boosted fur the remaining week of the
+ season, which is a shame to miss out on), and i would like to
+ purresent some closing extra thoughts on the team and my skills as
+ a player
+
+i find it interesting that i managed to ladder so far---at least 700
+ elo---with a lanturn/umbreon core; both mons are absol-utely strong
+ in the great league but it is not exactly an obvious pairing, since
+ umbreon does nothing to deal with lanturn:U+2019:s ground weakness.
+ (again, grass is currently uncommon enough to mostly ignore.)
+it is not lost on me that my push to veteran did involve covering
+ ground, even if not with the most obvious choice of skarmory, who
+ i do not have (with great league stats, at least)
+
+i think of the significant changes i made that allowed me to reach
+ veteran was a reevaluation of how to play froslass.
+while it *is* true that froslass heavily benefits from shield (or
+ energy) advantage, sometimes it is still the best play to bring it
+ out even in two shield scenarios (though this must be done
+ decisively; froslass gets destroyed by minor energy disadvantages.)
+i found myself :U+201C:safe switching:U+201D: against mud boys very
+ often; against whiscash (who is often left in) this play will
+ actually usually force the oppenent to give up their shields
+ (especially as i lead a good mon hard countered by ground.)
+(umbreon is a losing switch into whiscash if a scald burn ever
+ happens, and that usually does happen)
+
+a consistent weakness i have recognized in my play while laddering
+ to veteran is my poor sense of alignment: i often recognize
+ situations where i have a hard counter to one or more mons in the
+ opposing team, but have many times failed to force the team to
+ have to deal with the disadvantage by giving up switch.
+similarly, i have forced myself into bad matchups in many situations
+ by switching aggressively to purrevent energy disanvantages, which
+ i really should have learned better than to do a long time ago.
+so it goes.
+
+i am not sure what the next season will look like fur me, what with
+ any pawtential balance changes and a general lack of extra mons to
+ play with.
+i do have an rank 9 lickitung i intend to build eventually, as well
+ as a rank 40 (non-shadow) dragonair, as well as a reasonably good
+ chargabug and (eventually) azumarill; and, of course, the cresselia
+ from the road to sinnoh raid challenge (who i would like to trade
+ fur better IVs).
+but it is not immediately clear to me that i have mons that would
+ solve my current purroblems when it comes to overall teambuilding.
+i also do not have much stardust left to build mons with either, not
+ to mention elite TMs
+time will tell what the future hath in store, i suppose!
+
+#### _Meta-ish Dair_{as=cite}
+
+{as=details}
+::::::::::::
+{as=summary}
+teamsheet
+
+* Dragonair \
+ 4/14/15 (rank 40/4096) \
+ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt
+* Sparkblub (Lanturn) \
+ 5/15/12 (rank 68/4096) \
+ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt
+* Snampy (Froslass) \
+ 5/14/14 (rank 472/4096) \
+ Powder Snow, Avalanche, Shadow Ball
+::::::::::::
+
+fur the final week of gbl i decided not to worry about laddering, and
+ in fact almost decided not to play any gbl at all.
+then i remembered that stardust rewards fur the last week of gbl were
+ inflated, so i decided to try out dragonair and see how it worked,
+ especially given that it would be somewhat buffed in world of
+ wonders, just enough that early PvPoke simulations were giving
+ dragonair a just barely pawsitive weighted battle record
+
+it may be clear from the teamsheet already, but this team _struggled_.
+i dropped to 2200 elo trying to make the team work.
+
+at furst i used dragonair on the lead with my lanturn/umbreon core that
+ i used to climb ladder, but after getting punished enough fur the
+ double-weakness to fairy i switched out umbreon fur frosslass.
+this left the team without anything of a real safe swap, and made it
+ difficult to play around lost leads.
+it definitely did not help that both dragonair and froslass are quite
+ frail.
+
+more than anything else, i fuond from playing this team that
+ familiarity with the mons on your team is very impurrtant to this
+ game.
+i think it even bigger deal that i did not know how to play dragonair
+ well that made this team, than that the team has obvious weaknesses
+ (hell, my most tryhard laddering team has obvious weaknesses).
+
+if i were to try a team like this again, i might simply accept the
+ double weakness to fairy and run the umbreon/lanturn core until i
+ have better mons to suppurt dragonair with
+
+#### timeless travels: some unfocused closing thoughts
+
+{as=details}
+::::::::::::
+{as=summary}
+end of season stats
+
+* Veteran rank; 2220 final ELO
+* **Wins**{as=b}: 729
+* **Battles**{as=b}: 1,415 {% 51.5 purrcent winrate %}
+* **Longest Streak**{as=b}: 13
+* **Stardust Earned**{as=b}: 1,933,448
+::::::::::::
+
+it is really too bad that i have struggled to even find a skarmory this
+ season, not to mention one with good IVs!
+
+the rough end to my season, as well as the chaos inevitable from a
+ ladder reset, has shaken my confidence in the game more than a little
+ bit.
+this is somewhat unfair, i suppose, given that even the best purrformance
+ i have managed out of a team still has some very obvious weaknesses,
+ but it is still unnerving to face the fact that i still have a long
+ way to go in this game, and not just in getting the mon fur good team
+ compussitions
+
+something that has also become clear to me is that i simply do not have
+ it in me to consistently play all my sets (the fact that my team
+ needs a lot of work sure does not help!);
+i have simply come to expect this.
+frankly, i am surpurrised that i have played all my sets so far in the
+ season at time of writing{% 2024-03-02 %}; but this streak will
+ surely end soon enough.
+
+as a side note; it has been fun that M and J have seemed to pick up gbl
+ since the end of the season with evidently some expectation to play
+ at all in the current one.
+i do wonder how much my teams would struggle against theirs!
+
+:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+
+## World of Wonders
+
+{as=section lang=en-X-catspeak}
+:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+
+### [][@:Aescling]
+
+#### _Meta-ish MBCed_{as=cite}
+
+{as=details}
+::::::::::::
+{as=summary}
+teamsheet
+
+* Sparkblub (Lanturn) \
+ 5/15/12 (rank 68) \
+ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt
+* Shadow (Umbreon) \
+ 0/15/14 (rank 2) \
+ Snarl, Foul Play, Last Resort
+* Snampy (Froslass) \
+ 5/14/14 (rank 472) \
+ Powder Snow, Avalanche, Shadow Ball
+::::::::::::
+
+:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+
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