>>30442653I hopped through the video a bit and went to the ~10 min mark too. He does say the better player doesn't win.
However, that talk of special snowflake losing vs. buckling down this year doesn't aptly describe the experience. He was still being creative if you listen to the way he describes his application of Raichu unconventionally, but it's just that he's not going to get a big head and try to make an Exeggutor work. So his buckling down wasn't really that much conforming, just him not thinking he can win with anything by courtesy of his skill level.
I don't think he fully understands the situation either. In 2015, countermeasures to CHALK didn't work, while in 2016, countermeasures to the Big 6 did work, so it's not something that's easily dismissed as going one way or the other.
And the elements of luck are things from Singles but obviously magnified because 4 mons are involved at a time rather than 2, e.g. paralysis, flinching, missing. Swagger is allowed and exploited. Sleep is heavily exploited. Protect is a main facet of the game so picking the right mon to hit, especially at higher levels of play where they may predict which one you think they'll Protect, can become a coin flip. And then there's the coin toss in itself of who wins when a Protect move is executed the second time in a row.
