First time expert (and cracked love cup team)

Hit expert for the first time today! Am on my third season, started playing in August last year. Hit veteran on the last week of the season last time. Struggled to hit veteran in GBL while great league was active and then tanked down to 2200 trying to play ultra league. Really did not expect this team to work so well but I climbed 500 points in 3 days with it (while not feeling like I was playing that well). Still a little mystified by the unexpected climb, but very happy!

A few notes on the team if anyone is interested in giving it a try during the last few days of Love Cup

-Got the team from a Reiss video. King GBL has also been using it on his youtube streams the last few days if anyone wants to see how it plays.

-I ran shadow ball on Lickilicky and sludge bomb on slowbro. Went with shadow ball for better pacing but not sure if it was the right choice. Made the Miltank and Lickilicky matchups harder, in exchange for slightly better pacing. However, definitely think sludge is the right choice for Slowbro here because it helps a lot with the water types that Skele would otherwise really struggle with.

-General strategy was to not use shields on lickilicky and to save them for the backline (usually skele as an amazing closer). Only exception would be to fight for switch when they’d shown something as lead (like ariados) that Skele would totally dominate but had swapped it out for something else. Then I would try to invest a shield to line Skele up against that matchup.

-Soft losses with Lickilicky were totally fine, particularly if you could get an incinerate or two lead with Skele.

-I was pretty aggressive about baiting squishy leads (like druddigon, bruxish) where I knew they wanted to fight hard for switch. And they’re squishy enough that two body slams would take them out even if the baits were called. And even if they got alignment, skele with a shield advantage is incredibly strong.

-Skele is really an amazing closer. So many things in the meta will be one shot by either a shadow ball or a disarming voice. Really hoping torch song is 45 energy because he’s so much fun to use and would love for him to have GBL play.

Good luck everyone on their pushes in the final few weeks. Definitely learned you can climb quicker than expected if you find a team in a limited cup that really clicks for you!