#10 Doduo

Doduo is barely a bird, but because of that fact it sneaks in at #10.

#9 Farfetch’d

The only Pokémon that was eaten to extinction, it has been theorized Mewtwo was actually a test run to clone Farfetch’d.

#8 Honchkrow

Tips fedora. Nothing else needs to be said, m’lady.

#7 Mega Pidgeot

Becoming a Mega rocketed Pidgeot to super stardom, will likely win Worlds this year.

#6 Articuno

The leader of the Legendary birds, it had to be on this list.

#5 Chatot

Chatot was banned from VGC, enough to put it here.

#4 Birdramon

Made a huge impact on VGC with priority Brave Birds, feared and loved by everyone.

#3 Tranquill

I don’t know what it is, but Tranquill is a cool Pokémon overall.

#2 Sigilyph

You might not say this is a bird, up to me though.

#1 Lugia

Not only the best bird Pokémon but the best Legendary, just don’t touch its pizza.

The post Top 10 Bird Pokémon. #5 Will Shock You! appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Format

• 7 vs 7, three round-robin matches with a championship week at the end (battles for 1st and 3rd place) (four weeks in all)
• Every player in the tournament must play at least once
• Matches can be played on cart or on Showdown, but preferably on cart
• All battle videos and replays must be saved. Players are highly encouraged to stream their matches.
• Best-of-three sets

Teams are picked by the captains from each region. There are no open tryouts; players were hand-picked for each team by the captains.

Introduction thread is here!

You can track the matchups, standings, and everything else in the spreadsheet here!

East vs Midwest
Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) vs Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom)
Ray Rizzo (Ray) vs Kamaal Harris (Kamaal)
Michael Lanzano (JiveTime) vs Zach Droegkamp (Braverius)
Jeudy Azzarelli (SoulSur) vs Alec Rubin (Amr97)
Wolfe Glick (Wolfey) vs Ashton Cox (Linkyoshimario)
Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar) vs Andy Himes (Amarillo)
Aaron Traylor (Unreality) vs Andrew Burley (Andykins)

Midwest vs South
Andrew Burley (Andykins) vs Jake Muller (Majorbowman)
Zach Droegkamp (Braverius) vs Harrison Saylor (Crow)
Stephen Morioka (Stephen) vs Jonathan Rankin (JRank)
Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom) vs Toler Webb (Dim)
Kamaal Harris (Kamaal) vs Blake Hopper (Bopper)
Kyle Timbrook (TM Ruby) vs DeVon Ingram (Dingram

South vs East
Blake Hopper (Bopper) vs Aaron Zheng (Cybertron)
Ben Irons (Benji) vs Ray Rizzo (Ray)
DeVon Ingram (Dingram) vs Enosh Shachar (Human)
Toler Webb (Dim) vs Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)
Cedric Bernier (Talon) vs Aaron Traylor (Unreality)
Jonathan Rankin (JRank) vs Ben Hickey (Darkpenguin67)
Justin Burns (Spurrific) vs Angel Miranda (CT MikotoMisaka)

West vs South
Gavin Michaels (Kingofmars) vs Logan Castro (Yellowbox)
Randy Kwa (R Inanimate) vs Ben Irons (Benji)
Riley Factura (Gengarboi) vs Blake Hopper (Bopper)
Michael Fladung (Primitive) vs Justin Burns (Spurrific)
William Hall (Biosci) vs Harrison Saylor (Crow)
Conan Thompson (Conan) vs Cedric Bernier (Talon)
Matthew Greaves (Picklesword) vs Jake Muller (Majorbowman)

East vs West
Angel Miranda (CT MikotoMisaka) vs William Hall (Biosci)
Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) vs Chase Lybbert (I Am a Rookie)
Wolfe Glick (Wolfey) vs Gavin Michaels (Kingofmars)
Michael Lanzano (JiveTime) vs Riley Factura (Gengarboi)
Jeudy Azzarelli (SoulSur) vs Colten Lybbert (Rookie Slayer MLG)
Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar) vs Randy Kwa (R Inanimate)
Ben Hickey (Darkpenguin67) vs Conan Thompson (Conan)

Midwest vs West
Kamaal Harris (Kamaal) vs Tony Cheung (Chinese Dood)
Andrew Burley (Andykins) vs Michael Fladung (Primitive)
Stephen Morioka (Stephen) vs Randy Kwa (R Inanimate)
Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom) vs Conan Thompson (Conan)
Alec Rubin (Amr97) vs Matthew Greaves (Picklesword)
Ashton Cox (Linkyoshimario) vs Colten Lybbert (Rookie Slayer MLG)
Zach Droegkamp (Braverius) vs Chase Lybbert (I Am a Rookie)

If you are playing and have a stream location and time for your match, please post it in this thread so that the spreadsheet can be updated with it!

The post North America Regions Tournament Has Begun appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello there! My name is Leonard Craft III, but some of you might know me simply as DaWoblefet. I’ve played Pokémon since I was young, but I never truly got into the competitive scene until Winter Regionals 2013, where Surf Latios piloted me to a 9th place finish in Swiss, just out of the Top Cut. Determined to do better, I joined Nugget Bridge.

Over the past few years, I’ve met players better than me and, by playing them and reading about their thought processes in battle, I’ve learned a lot. Going into Regionals, I had three goals: play on stream, make Top Cut, and place well in the Premier Challenge the following day. I’m proud to say that I accomplished all three of those goals.

My brother Koby (Foob) and I had arrived at the convention center early. We had about an hour to kill because we showed up at TCG registration time. I spent a lot of that time collecting StreetPasses, checking out the stream equipment, and saying hi to the competitors I knew as they walked in. I did my good deed for the day by trading a Focus Sash to Matthew Carter’s (mattj) daughter, Lilly, and wished her good luck in the Juniors division. I got pumped up as I saw Beau Berg (Oreios) arrive on the scene. He and I had teambuilt together, so I was excited (and a bit nervous!) to see how well his team would work out in the Seniors division today.

I already filled out a team sheet online, so while others finished writing their teams down in the registration line, I talked with those around me about weird gimmicks like Scarf Sheer Cold Articuno + Mirror Move Pidgeot. Of course, the attendance of Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) sparked a lot of conversation too.

After registration, my brother introduced some of his friends to me: Jacob Waller (Thank Swalot), Ian McLaughlin (raikoo), and first-year Master Ian Combs (kittykatterz). It was really obvious they were good friends and I chuckled a lot when Thank Swalot kept revealing everything about kittykatterz’s team to me, much to kittykatterz’s dismay. Soon after this, I spotted another good friend: Mario Serrano (Mario C). Thank to our annual warmup battle, I had a lot more confidence in my team and in my ability to play well today. And speaking of my team…

The Team

Before Regionals, I was having a lot of trouble transitioning back from the hyper aggressive VGC ’14 format to the bulkier VGC ’15 format. Particularly, I was using teams that might only have one or two Protects on them. My Pokemon always wanted four moves other than Protect and I was Choice locking a lot of my Pokémon. While there’s nothing wrong with not running Protect or using Choiced Pokémon, I personally had a lot of trouble fighting my way out of losing situations without Protect.

Stuck in that mode where it feels like every team you make is garbage, I did some research on what other players were using. Angel Miranda’s (CT MikotoMisaka) winning Premier Challenge team caught my eye and gave me the inspiration I needed to work myself out of my team building rut.

Salamence @ Salamencite
Nature: Jolly (+Spd, -Sp. Atk)
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 52 HP / 172 Atk / 4 Def / 84 Sp. Def / 196 Spd
Ability: Intimidate –> Aerilate
Moveset:
– Frustration
– Dragon Dance
– Roost
– Protect

Salamence was definitely the star of the team. Mega Salamence’s raw power means Aerilate-boosted Frustration does about as much damage as Jolly Mega Kangaskhan’s Return, which is absolutely ridiculous. Combine that with Dragon Dance and you have a Pokémon that does over 50% to a bulky Rotom-Wash that resists Frustration. Mega Salamence’s natural bulk is superb as well and, on top of that, the threat of a special set with Hyper Voice can cause opponents to misplay if they can’t guess whether or not Mega Salamence is physical or special.

Originally, I had Double-Edge on Mega Salamence because the ability to OHKO Mega Charizard Y, some Sylveon, and Terrakion is really good. However, in testing I found myself KOing myself as quickly as I was KOing my opponents and the difference in KO power between Frustration and Double-Edge after a Dragon Dance isn’t very noticeable.  Speaking of which, I chose Frustration over Return to counter any Smeargle who wanted to try to Transform into Mega Salamence. 1 BP Frustrations do about as much damage as the saddest Eruption from 2013 Worlds and, besides, I liked Frustration for aesthetic purposes anyway.

I chose Roost over coverage moves like Earthquake or Fire Blast because the damage output from those moves were too low for my standards. I also loved being able to get rid of Rock- and Ice-type weaknesses, an Electric neutrality, and low HP. It made Sucker Punch wars with Bisharp considerably easier to deal with as well.

I started my EV spread with the Jolly Nature, because getting outsped by Terrakion’s Rock Slide and Gengar’s Icy Wind are both very bad things that can happen with Adamant Nature. I definitely wanted to outspeed Timid Gengar and Adamant Talonflame, but since Mega Lucario was so close and gave my team a bit of trouble in theory, I opted to invest 196 Speed EVs to outspeed it as well. After a Dragon Dance, Mega Salamence outspeeds almost everything relevant in the metagame, including bulky Suicune after Tailwind, Scarf Landorus-T, and Modest Venusaur in the Sun.

I can’t remember exactly what the Attack investment did, but I do know from my notes that +1 Helping Hand Frustration OHKOs a lot of Suicune. In addition, my Mega Salamence also KOs semi-bulky Mega Kangaskhan with a neutral Frustration after two hits of Rocky Helmet recoil. The bulk survives an Ice Beam from the Suicune Zach Droegkamp (Braverius) used at a Premier Challenge and it makes Terrakion’s Rock Slide a 3HKO most of the time. Basically, I wanted to be able to survive anti-Landorus-T Ice Beams with ease while also assuring those Ice Beams did under 50% after Mega Salamence loses its Flying-type while Roosting.

Clefable @ Sitrus Berry
Nature: Bold (+Def, -Atk)
IVs: 31/1/31/31/31/31
EVs: 244 HP / 164 Def / 28 Sp. Atk / 68 Sp. Def / 4 Spd
Ability: Unaware
Moveset:
– Follow Me
– Ice Beam
– Helping Hand
– Protect

Clefable is one of the best Follow Me users in the format, and for good reason. Clefable’s Fairy-typing and natural bulk allows it to stick around for multiple turns and you never want to give free turns to a Mega Salamence. This Clefable is a near carbon copy of Angel’s and, honestly, that’s because the set worked so well for me.

Follow Me is the most important and most used move of the set, redirecting super-effective Ice Beams against Mega Salamence, Will-o-Wisps targeted at my physical attackers, and all sorts of other attacks. Similarly to the way Sejun played Pachirisu last year, the threat of Follow Me sometimes allowed me to use Ice Beam or Helping Hand, because my opponent was just going to target Clefable anyway.

I preferred Ice Beam over Moonblast because OHKOing Landorus-T is awesome and it’s good generic chip damage against a lot of the metagame. Protect lets me block attacks I wouldn’t want to take otherwise, particularly Sludge Bomb, Iron Head, and Taunt. It also helps me stall out Tailwind or Trick Room, maneuver into a better position and, well, do what Protect does for every Pokémon.

I must give credit to Angel for his EV spread, as it met all the goals I wanted Clefable to achieve: survive Aegislash’s Flash Cannon, OHKO Landorus-T 15/16 of the time with Ice Beam, and have enough physical bulk to take attacks like Bisharp’s Iron Head and Mega Kangaskhan’s Double-Edge. That’s why there are 8 EVs shifted from HP to Defense, it takes physical attacks marginally better while still surviving Aegislash’s Flash Cannon.

Why not Clefairy though? Well, Clefairy does have a great Ability with Friend Guard and does technically have more bulk with Eviolite, but I still prefer the advantages Clefable provides. Clefable’s Sitrus Berry makes it bulkier than Clefairy over a set of turns, and Clefable’s respectable base 95 Special Attack stat means Ice Beam will dent Pokémon that are weak to it. Unaware also works as a nice bonus to prevent boosted Pokémon from being able to set up on Clefable, then swat it next turn with a +6 Aqua Jet, +2 Return, or +2 Bullet Punch. All of these are small reasons by themselves but, when combined, it can become really noticeable in how Fairy-type redirection is played.

Bisharp @ Focus Sash
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Sp. Atk)
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Ability: Defiant
Moveset:
– Sucker Punch
– Knock Off
– Iron Head
– Protect

Despite never actually carrying the Ability, Bisharp is a Pokémon that exerts a ton of pressure on the opponent. Many players aren’t willing to risk leading their Intimidate users because of the potential Defiant boost and Sucker Punch is a great move for locking down your opponent. Combine that with an offensive STABs that remove items and OHKOs Sylveon, you get a solid Pokémon to round out my fantasy core (Fairy-Dragon-Steel).

I love Focus Sash on Bisharp because I love playing in situations where I can attack with Bisharp early on, lose a bunch of HP, then save it for later when the opponent can’t simply swat it. Although the raw power of Life Orb is tempting, I prefer the safety net Focus Sash provides when Protect just won’t cut it.

Virizion @ Expert Belt
Nature: Jolly (+Spd, -Sp. Atk)
IVs: 30/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Ability: Justified
Moveset:
– Close Combat
– Leaf Blade
– Taunt
– Protect

The above team members have a decent matchup against Mega Kangaskhan, but I couldn’t immediately threaten Mega Kangaskhan until I get off a Dragon Dance with Mega Salamence. At first, I had Lum Berry Terrakion like Angel did to fulfill this role. In practice, however, other Terrakion and bulky Water-types like Rotom-Wash, Suicune, and Jellicent were problematic. I originally got the idea to use Virizion from watching Lajo on Showdown and, from there, the Grass-type legendary has not let me down.

Close Combat, Leaf Blade, and Protect are standard on Virizion, but I notice a lot of players opt for Stone Edge as their third move on Virizion for the additional coverage. I really wish I could have fit in the coverage, as it would have improved my Thundurus matchup drastically, but I was more concerned about Trick Room and stopping shenanigans. In the tournament, however, I ended up with a solid matchup against the Trick Room teams I faced thanks to Substitute Heatran. Additionally, Clefable stopped shenanigans pretty well by itself. I was comfortable with Taunt’s usage before entering the tournament, however, so I opted to stick with Taunt instead of including Stone Edge.

Heatran @ Chople Berry
Nature: Modest (+Sp. Atk, -Atk)
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/31
EVs: 132 HP / 20 Def / 132 Sp. Atk / 12 Sp. Def / 212 Spd
Ability: Flash Fire
Moveset:
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power
– Substitute
– Protect

Fast Substitute Heatran with Chople Berry was an idea I picked up from Jeudy Azzarelli’s (SoulSur) Premier Challenge team report. I ended up using a more conventional moveset, however. I really loved playing games where I could eliminate the Heatran or Heatran + Clefable checks, click Substitute, and win. As such, I designed this Heatran with super-specific goals in mind. I chose to invest 212 Speed EVs to outspeed Bisharp and anything speed creeping Bisharp by a point. Next, the 132 Sp. Atk EVs allowed me to always OHKO opposing 252 HP / 4 Sp. Def Heatran with Earth Power. Finally, the rest of the EVs are simply optimized bulk.

If you play with this Heatran, you’ll notice its Heat Waves do absolutely pathetic damage to neutral targets. However, I wasn’t trying to play Heatran in a way that allowed me to handle a variety of opponents. Rather, I played Heatran so that I would win games with it because it was a Heatran. Chople Berry helped a lot with setting up these types of situations, allowing me to OHKO Terrakion, Virizion, and Cobalion with the appropriate super-effective attack after a -1 Special Defense drop from Close Combat.

Suicune @ Rocky Helmet
Nature: Bold (+Def, -Atk)
IVs: 31/0/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 132 Sp. Atk / 60 Sp. Def / 60 Spd
Ability: Pressure
Moveset:
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Tailwind
– Protect

As the last Pokémon on the team, I wanted something that could check Landorus-T and complete a secondary Fire-Water-Grass core. At first, Swampert and Rotom-Wash occupied this slot. However, Swampert was too slow for my liking and Rotom-Wash was too susceptible to flinches from Rock Slide, which can be devastating if it occurs even once. So Suicune took the place of the bulky Water-type.

My team does not rely on Tailwind, but it can be useful to force some additional pressure on my opponents with fast Knock Offs or even faster Frustrations. I opted to run Protect over Snarl because I felt like Suicune would be targeted often. I used Clefable to soak up weaker single-target special attacks anyway, so Snarl’s role was mostly fulfilled already.

Suicune was added to the team very close to the start of Regionals, so the EV spread I made was mostly impromptu during practice time. I started with 60 Speed EVs, which allows me to outspeed Scarf Hydreigon (and subsequently Scarf Landorus-T) after Tailwind. Suicune’s HP and Defense EVs let it survive a +1 Jolly Mega Salamence’s Double-Edge 100% of the time, and the investment in Special Attack allows Suicune to 2HKO semi-bulky Heatran with Scald and has a strong chance to OHKO most Mega Salamence after Rocky Helmet chip damage. The rest was placed into Special Defense to increase the chances of making bulky Rotom-Wash’s Thunderbolt a 3HKO.

Common Leads

While I could lead anything + anything depending on what I encountered in Team Preview, these leads popped up a lot throughout both the Regional and the Premier Challenge because of their inherent synergy.

 + 

Salamence + Bisharp

This lead is good for creating early pressure, allowing me to get a turn one Dragon Dance if I predicted the opponent to Protect from Bisharp’s attack. I often carried Clefable in the back when I led with these two. Because of the switching synergy, I could easily Protect Salamence + switch Bisharp to Clefable to maneuver myself into a better board position.

 + 

Bisharp + Virizion

Surprisingly, this lead was almost more offensive than Salamence + Bisharp. Virizion’s Close Combat allows it to beat out the Terrakion and Mega Kangaskhan that would otherwise threaten Bisharp, while Bisharp’s Knock Off could chunk any Psychic-type trying to pick up a quick KO on Virizion. Taunt + Sucker Punch is also a cool trick the duo can perform, but it is generally better suited for later in a match rather than at the start of one.

Day 1: Regionals

Before I move forward, I must give a special shoutout to OmegaDonut, who told me the new location of where Battle Videos are stored on the SD card for ORAS. Thanks to him, I was able to save almost every Battle Video from the event. Unfortunately, I do not own a capture card, so the quality of my Regionals videos is mediocre at best. Additionally, battle animations refused to turn on no matter what I did.  Stick with me though, because my Premier Challenge games were able to be professionally recorded by Eiganjo. In any case, these videos should still serve as a good reference for what actually happened during my matches.

Round 1 – Aaron Lunsford

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought:  ///

To begin the tournament, I was paired against an opponent wearing super cool Lopunny ears. When I saw the Blissey in Team Preview along with all the other defensive Pokémon, I knew that I had to consider timer stalling if I couldn’t muscle through Aaron’s team with Mega Salamence. After Vaporeon Baton Passed +4 Defense to Blissey, I started to do just that. However, I managed to be lucky enough to hit through +6 Evasion (and Bright Powder, as Aaron mentioned after the match) to take the game without the timer.

Win, 4-0; Record 1-0.

Round 2 – Dakota Meador

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

This game has got to be one of the best I’ve played in my entire life. I felt like I was on fire with my predictions, being able to call exactly when the Mega Metagross would attack and when it would Protect. This game was more than just a win, it was a huge confidence boost for me. Though, I do want to elaborate on turn one a bit. I assumed I would not be able to KO with a Leaf Blade + Knock Off combination attack if Rotom-Wash ate its Sitrus Berry in between attacks so, rather than Protect with Bisharp, I opted to Taunt to block a potential Will-o-Wisp or stop a switch-in from being able to Protect.

Win, 3-0; Record 2-0

Round 3 – Sean Ring

Team Preview: / //(/)
Brought: ///

Before the match, Sean gave me a Star Wars-themed Valentine’s Day card, which was pretty cool. I also learned that Sean lives within twenty minutes of my hometown. Small world!

(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

In regards to the match, things play out pretty evenly until turn four, where it looks like I chose the wrong targets for my moves. To be honest, I was expecting a double target into Mega Salamence and didn’t want to risk getting paralyzed on a Protect. However, turn five was just bad. Don’t ask me what I was thinking there. Regardless, I knew that, with my Heatran in the back and Sylveon as his last Pokémon, I would have the game locked up if I could take out Thundurus.

Sean makes a great lategame call though, as he opts to lock Sylveon into Hidden Power Ground instead of Hyper Voice. This lead to an interesting situation where his Aegislash couldn’t take two Heat Waves, but my Clefable couldn’t take a Flash Cannon. After some careful playing, however, I managed to secure the win.

Win, 2-0; Record 3-0.

Round 4 – Nico Villalobos (Calm Lava)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

I didn’t know much about Calm Lava’s playstyle, but I did know that he was a veteran player and a member of the illustrious Team Magma. After staring at a team that had a very similar composition to mine, I knew this was going to be an exciting game. This was the match before lunch too, so the pressure was on both of us to be able to chow down undefeated.

I wanted to get rid of Clefairy’s Eviolite ASAP to allow my other Pokémon to be able to threaten a KO if Bisharp wasn’t able to get off two attacks. After knocking out Clefairy, Nico sends out Terrakion. Now, judging by his Team Preview, I thought he had Focus Sash on his Terrakion. However, I got flinched in the process of trying to break his “Focus Sash”, leading to a wasted turn. Later I discovered his Terrakion was, in fact, not holding a Focus Sash. I also got to pick up some good information about Nico’s Rotom-Wash and, because I knew it wasn’t bulky, I knew I had a guaranteed KO on Rotom with an Expert Belt-boosted Leaf Blade.

I played this match’s endgame rather sloppily, however. Because I wasn’t confident on my Virizion’s Close Combat damage calculations versus Heatran, I opted to conserve Mega Salamence when I could have KOed Heatran for sure with Bisharp’s Knock Off after a Close Combat with Virizion, even when accounting for multiple Protects and Leftovers recovery. While I still won the game, I opened up the door for a Heat Wave burn on Mega Salamence. Not something I would have enjoyed.

Win, 1-0; Record 4-0.

Phew! I was really happy to have made it this far undefeated. After I ate a PB+J sandwich and some applesauce, I found a charging outlet by Mario C. We discussed how we were doing so far in the tournament and what kind of Pokémon we had seen. I didn’t have much time to rest, however, because our round five pairings were soon put up.

Round 5 – Andrew Hovis (Andrew Hovis)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

This game started off really well for me, but it didn’t take very long for Andrew to reclaim the momentum for himself. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me that most Thundurus-Therian aren’t holding Choice Specs anymore and I made a huge misplay on  turn two by doubling up into a Protect. Honestly, from there, Andrew made the correct plays to win and I never felt the momentum change from that point on.

When the second-to-last turn rolled around, I tried to get a double Protect with Heatran, hoping to block Mega Kangaskhan’s potential Low Kick and have Thundurus-T KO itself with recoil. However, Ice Punch sealed the deal on my Mega Salamence in a solid 2-0 victory for Andrew. Between rounds, I knew the best thing to do was to clear my head and not let my poor playing in one game affect the results of another one.

Loss, 0-2; Record 4-1.

Round 6 – Sean Preiss

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

I was greeted by a vastly different team from the previous rounds in round six’s Team Preview. Approaching this battle, I knew that if I could force switches from my opponent, I could rack up a lot of damage and start to clear Sean’s team of its resources.

That’s exactly what happened. A strong lead matchup was really all I needed to propel my momentum throughout this game. While I know Sean would have probably taken out a few of my Pokémon if he continued with the match, it’s still cool to say I technically won a game without taking damage.

The best part about this game, however, was the conversation we had afterwards. It was really cool to talk about the thought process going into each of our teams with Sean and I think I gave some advice as well, though I don’t remember anything specific. Between our conversation and the win, any amount of tilt I had from round five was gone and I was ready to continue with the tournament like I had done in the early rounds of Swiss.

Win, 4-0; Record 5-1.

Round 7 – Cody Bernheisel (CodeUmbreon)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

When I first saw this team, my thought process was quite literally “Get a Substitute up. Don’t lose.” My notes aren’t too good for this game, but I do remember doing just that. I unfortunately didn’t save this battle for whatever reason, but if you’d like, the match I had with Cody in the Premier Challenge the following day is somewhat similar to this battle and can be found a bit further down in this report.

While our Premier Challenge battle was slightly more in my favor than this match was, the basic principle remained the same: I weakened his Clefable, played carefully to stall out turns of Trick Room, and managed the threats to my Heatran in the proper order.

Specifically from this battle, I remember Mega Salamence needing to KO Mega Abomasnow outside of Trick Room in the endgame, but I wasn’t certain of Ice Shard’s damage rolls with the HP Mega Salamence had left. Luckily, its massive base 130 Defense stat proved clutch, letting me survive the Ice Shard with about 10% HP to spare. During the entire match, Cody was very friendly and sportsmanlike, giving me a smile and a strong handshake even after taking a loss to a matchup he wouldn’t have liked his team to face.

Win, 2-0; Record 6-1.

After this round, my brother informed me that Seniors were finished with their final round of Swiss. While my brother didn’t end up making it, Oreios had, so I went over to congratulate him. He was pretty psyched and together we made a gameplan for his match against Logan Postletheweight, who defeated Beau in Swiss. However, I couldn’t stick around to watch how the match, because it was time for Masters round eight.

Round 8 – Steven Burton (PikaPastor)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

Team Preview was just a mix of emotions. Although Lum Berry Terrakion would have had a strong matchup against a Kangaskhan + Smeargle lead, I could tell Steven had Rain to handle that exact matchup. I knew that the most important thing I could do going into this match was not panic and to manage my targeting just like I would any other match.

I knew damage on Mega Kangaskhan was way more important on turn one than breaking Smeargle Focus Sash, and I knew if I double Protected into a Tailwind, I would likely lose the game. After trading moves, I knew I had two guaranteed turns of sleep and could not afford to switch either of my Pokémon out. I absolutely have to KO Mega Kangaskhan next turn though and, luckily, Virizion manages to get a one-turn wake up…but Smeargle quickly Transforms into another +1 Mega Kangaskhan.

Next turn, I really hoped that Salamence would win the fifty/fifty and wake up, especially since the Smeargle-transformed-Kangaskhan went for a Power-Up Punch, which Mega Salamence easily survived. However, because it did not wake up, I knew Mega Salamence will wake up for sure next turn. I planned on sacking Suicune to a +3 Return, then use Clefable’s Unaware to survive for a turn while I KOed Smeargle-Kangaskhan with Frustration.

I get even better than that, however, when both PikaPastor and I discovered Smeargle’s happiness wasn’t maxed out. From there, the momentum swung heavily in my favor and I managed to come out of the match with a victory.

Win, 2-0; Record 7-1.

I felt like the win against PikaPastor solidified my position in Top Cut, especially since Andrew Hovis was also 7-1, which gave me good resistance. And when my brother told me that I was playing on stream – well, I was overjoyed. However, as I’m sure most of you know from watching the stream, things didn’t go quite as well as I hoped.

Round 9 – Drew Nowak

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

If you’d like to see our match straight from the source, feel free to check it out on Pokémon’s Twitch channel. Our match starts around 07:08:00.

I think turn one is the most important turn to discuss here, but I also feel like Scott covered everything I wanted to say about the situation. The Protect + switch play felt like the most obvious thing in the world to me and I had a strong chance to survive an Ice-type attack from either Zapdos or Suicune. Because of this, I thought my best play would be to Dragon Dance, then Follow Me and 2HKO Suicune later.

The Thunder Wave was not something I was expecting for some reason, but as soon as it happened, I knew that I would be playing from behind for the rest of the match. Sure, the freeze on Clefable was unfortunate, but as Scott said in the post-match commentary, the Thunder Wave created a potential for things to go wrong. Another big problem with my move was that the prediction was super bold. I had never played Drew before, so making a big turn one prediction without understanding my opponent’s playstyle was a risk I definitely should not have taken.

Once Mega Salamence and Clefable went down, I basically had to hope for something crazy to come my way, which is why you saw Virizion Close Combat on the Suicune. The last turn was just for poops and giggles, of course, but I also wanted to conserve any information Drew and I had left about our teams.

Loss, 0-4; Record 7-2.

After my brother informed me about how large of a noob I was for losing 4-0 on stream, I found out Oreios had made the Top 4 of the Seniors Division. Encouraged by how well he placed, I congratulated him and waited around for the final Swiss standings to go up.

(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

Like I was hoping, my resistance was good enough to get into Top Cut. As I was doing the mental pairings, however, I chuckled as I saw I was up against Aaron Traylor (Unreality). I couldn’t remember much about his playstyle, but I did remember his 2014 Worlds LCQ report, especially the section about maximizing your odds of winning a game. I went into the match knowing I was against a top tier player and that I’d probably see a couple moves that were out of the ordinary.

Top 16 – Aaron Traylor (Unreality)

Team Preview: /////

Game 1

I apologize for not having videos recorded for either this game or game two, but because games in best-of-three matches occur immediately after each other, I had no time to save each battle.

At the start of the game, I lead Salamence + Virizion versus Kangaskhan + Clefable. I felt comfortable in a situation where both of our Megas were surrounded by Fairy-type redirection, so I swap out Virizion in favor of Clefable, who takes a Fake Out as Salamence Dragon Dances. However, a Minimize from Aaron’s Clefable leaves both Aaron and me with a smile. I know that I need to get damage on Clefable and fast, so I simply Follow Me and Frustration, hitting through evasion as Aaron’s Clefable sets up another Minimize.

Next turn, I luckily manage to land a hit through evasion again, but get a low damage roll; Clefable barely hangs on. Knowing the odds weren’t in my favor, I go for a double target Frustration + Ice Beam to try and KO Clefable and I hit through Minimize again with Frustration, much to my relief.

However, Salamence’s power to land all of its attacks was nothing compared to the freezing power of Clefable’s Ice Beam, as the rerouted Ice Beam froze Mega Kangaskhan, I knew I’d just gained a ridiculous amount of wiggle room to work with. I’d like to think I had fairly good position at that point in the game anyway, but the freeze on Mega Kangaskhan very nearly solidified the game right there.

After targeting down the most dangerous threats, I cleaned up the game. I remember intentionally dragging out the game to see if I could pick up any information about Heatran’s item, but all I could determine was that it wasn’t holding a Chople Berry or Leftovers.

Game 2

Winning a game by always hitting through Minimize and freezing my opponent’s Mega wasn’t what I had planned, but I knew Aaron wasn’t the type of player to get flustered by bad luck. In game two, we both lead with Bisharp + Clefable. I end up calling a switch from Clefable turn one and Knock Off Heatran’s Shuca Berry, but from there, my plays start to get a little crazy, including using a Helping Hand-boosted Knock Off into Aaron’s Bisharp.

Although I was making decent turn-by-turn plays, really, any predictions I made resulted in very little reward, because Aaron had a much better positional advantage than I did. Once Aaron removed my Bisharp, he was able to get in a position where I couldn’t take down his Clefable quickly enough.

I remember at a certain point in the game, Aaron was confident that the game was locked up. In a last-ditch effort to win, I revealed Roost on Mega Salamence, trying to dodge a Sucker Punch, but Aaron makes the correct play and Returns my Mega Salamence instead, taking a commanding game two.

Game 3

This game was lost in a very similar manner to game two. I never really had a strong board position. If I had brought Suicune in sooner, I think the game definitely would have played out differently. I really admire Aaron’s turn four play in this game: he stays in with Kangaskhan, letting me pick up two knockouts. In retrospect, that play really makes a ton of sense to me. If I overpredicted a switch and didn’t KO Kangaskhan with Close Combat, he would pick up a KO on Suicune, but if I did KO Kangaskhan, Heatran could still OHKO me right back with Overheat.

To come back after turn five, I would have had to play flawlessly. However, I misplayed hard by assuming without a freeze on Clefable, I had lost the game. Instead of fishing for a freeze, I should have Scalded every time with my Suicune. Clefable could have potentially received a burn a turn sooner or, at the very least, Suicune would not have been obligated to Protect to make sure Clefable fainted from burn damage.

If I wasn’t obligated to Protect, I could have made an Ice Beam + Protect Suicune play, which would have given me a chance to freeze and ensure that a Scald + two turns of burn damage would KO Bisharp. This would give me a 35.6% chance to win (8% from a potential freeze and staying frozen at least one turn or 30% chance of a Scald burn) compared to the actual game scenario’s odds of 9% (30% chance to burn, 30% chance to double Protect).

Regardless, either situation required luck to be on my side, and I don’t want to ignore how well Aaron played throughout this entire set. After all, he did win the entire tournament!

My Regionals run ended with a total record of 8 wins and 4 losses, netting me 15th place, 40 CP, and some trading cards that I sold immediately. With Regionals pressure gone, my brother and I went back to our hotel room, ate some supper, and got ready for tomorrow’s Premier Challenge.

Day 2: Premier Challenge

Despite attending an early-morning church service, I still managed to show up before some of the other Top 8 competitors! After chatting with Andrew Burley (Andykins) about how this and Virginia Regionals were going, Unreality showed us this amazing game called Platypus Evolution that intrigued me far more than it should have.

It was really cool being able to match up names to faces, like Jonathan Rankin’s (JRank) and Zach Droegkamp’s (Braverius). Soon, though, the match between JRank and Unreality was about to begin, so I sat down in the front row to watch the match. I struck up a conversation with Bryce Stewart (Nodochi) about topics like Jolly Landorus-T, his shiny collection, and soft resetting for legendaries.

Bryce was super awesome, lending me his smartphone so I could “preregister” both my brother and myself for the Premier Challenge. He also traded me the Global Link event Berries I was missing for nothing. Needless to say, it was pretty cool to hang out with him.

Unfortunately, the Top Cut matches overflowed into the start of the Premier Challenge, so we all had to turn spectator mode “off” and get back into the swing of things. To start things off, I am paired up against Nathan Powell, who identifies himself as illuminatimon.

Round 1 – Nathan Powell (illuminatimon)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

I feel like I played rather poorly throughout this game. Nathan had a solid team matchup against me, but honestly, there were several points where I could have made better plays. Notably, I missed out on two KO opportunities against Heatran by playing too conservatively. Overall, Nathan played extremely well, predicting exactly when I’d go on the offense with Heatran.

However, that forfeit at the end was actually Nathan’s – he had to leave for the trip home to Canada and he gave me a mercy win. It was really awesome to see someone give a win to a person that clearly didn’t deserve it and I promised myself that Nathan’s generosity would not go to waste.

Win (Forfeit); Record 1-0.

Round 2 – Malik Wilson

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

This was one of my more intense matches of the day, at least in terms of back-and-forth gameplay. I really liked my turn five play by correctly assuming Thundurus would use an attacking move, while still sacking Bisharp to gain a positional advantage with Clefable. The turn afterwards, however, Malik made a great play by not Taunting Clefable, allowing him to nullify the Speed advantage I gained from Dragon Dance.

Unlike round nine the previous day, however, I felt like the Dragon Dance was more justified this time. Because he had already revealed Mega Lopunny, I assumed he hadn’t brought Metagross, meaning either Terrakion or Landorus-T would be Malik’s last Pokémon, and a Dragon Dance would almost ensure a victory against a combination of those Pokémon.

The second-to-last turn left Mega Salamence with a full paralysis, however, and I knew that another full paralysis or Ice Punch critical hit would lose me the game. Luckily, neither of those occurred, and Malik got to witness the bulk of a Mega Salamence firsthand by seeing it survive Mega Lopunny’s Ice Punch with only 7 HP.

Win, 1-0; Record 2-0.

Round 3 – No Show

Team Preview: ///
Brought: ///

My opponent was probably worried about the incoming snowstorm and dropped without following whatever official procedures allow you to drop.  Of course, I didn’t mind the free win and chance to relax, but I knew I couldn’t count on my resistance to let me squeak into Top Cut if I ended up with an x-2 record.

Round 4 – Cody Bernheisel (CodeUmbreon)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

A rematch from yesterday! I went into this match with the same gameplan as last time: “Get a Substitute up. Don’t lose”. Information from yesterday’s match helped tremendously in my decision making, like knowing his Jellicent had Scald instead of Water Spout and that Cody didn’t like risky switches.

A lucky Heat Wave burn on Jellicent helped me to whittle it down much more quickly than I could have before, and the Cursed Body activation didn’t really justify the extra chip damage I was able to get on it. If anything, it prevented Cody from switching to Heatran to try to pick up a free Flash Fire boost. Overall though, I played with my fundamentals against Trick Room and came out with a victory.

Win, 3-0; Record 4-0.

Round 5 – Aaron Zheng (Cybertron)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

Between matches, one of my friends noted that there were only a few 4-0s remaining. And which better 4-0 to go up against than the mighty Cybertron himself? I have a lot of respect for Cybertron because of the maturity he shows when approaching the game, and because of his excellent VGC content that he puts out on his YouTube channel. However, I had theorized the matchup against Cybertron’s Apex-winning team before entering Regionals, so I knew I could approach the match with a clear head.

I make a strong play turn two, switching out Bisharp to prevent him from safely switching in Suicune after I KOed Gengar. Turn five, though, was an interesting one. Cybertron had already seen my remaining Pokémon, and based on what I had seen so far, I guessed that Cybertron’s last Pokémon was Suicune. Because of this, I figured his best play was to sack Mega Venusaur to give Suicune a free switch-in, while racking up some additional damage with Rock Slide or attacking Heatran with Close Combat.

With that in mind, my best play would be to not KO Mega Venusaur while getting some extra damage or potentially a KO on Terrakion. I clearly misread Aaron’s thought process, though, because I let Suicune switch in for free. Unfortunately for Cybertron, a lucky critical hit makes up for my misplay, which prevents Ice Beam from knocking out my Mega Salamence. From there, Aaron opts to forfeit and goes off to recollect himself.

I didn’t think the game was entirely locked up since I would have had to make sure Heatran did not get Leech Seeded from that point on while simultaneously playing around the Terrakion. Needless to say, it would not have been an easy match. If I ever get a chance to play Cybertron again, I hope to be able to rise to his skill level to give him a better match than what I was able to give him here.

Win (Forfeit); Record 5-0.

Round 6 – Ryan Brooker (lolfailsnail)

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

I recognized Ryan’s face from earlier today, but it took me a while to remember that he had placed in the Top 8 of Regionals. Since Ryan was undefeated so far, I could tell he was determined to do just as well in this tournament as he had done earlier today.

Similarly to my matches against CodeUmbreon, I wanted to bring Heatran to force a lot of pressure with Substitute. However, I incorrectly lead Salamence into a Mawile and Ryan makes a solid play by getting Conkeldurr immediately in under Trick Room. A hard read into a Salamence switch enables me to KO Jellicent, however, and from there my gameplan becomes “Stall out Trick Room. Conserve Heatran”.

Because of this, I intentionally let both Clefable and Bisharp go down in exchange for a positional advantage. Turn eight brought about a double Protect, which seemed very strange to me at the time. However, Ryan’s play lulled me into a false sense of security and I very nearly pay for it when a critical Mach Punch hit my Heatran. Heatran’s natural bulk was on display that turn though, and because Heat Wave did not miss either of Ryan’s Pokémon, I was able to solidify my position in Top Cut with a 6-0 record.

Win, 2-0; Record 6-0.

Round 7 – Hans Knutson

Team Preview: ///(/)
Brought: ///

Being 6-0 was no excuse for some of the silly plays I made during this match. Between Dragon Dancing the turn I know Clefable is going down, Sucker Punching into a switching Mega Metagross, and misjudging the damage output of a +1 Frustration, I’m not quite sure how I managed to not fall entirely on my face. While I did make a decent call on the second-to-last turn by using Sucker Punch on the attacking target, I really should not have let myself get into that position in the first place. Still, a win’s a win, and I was happy to be able to advance onto Top Cut as the highest seed in Swiss.

Win, 2-0; Record 7-0.

(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

I was not surprised to see Aaron Grubb’s (LPFan) name paired up against mine for Top Cut. During every event that he and I have attended together, we have had to play each other during a critical round. During Missouri Regionals last year, I managed to squeak in as 16th seed after a close game with him in the final round of Swiss, and at 2014 Nationals, he dealt me my third loss, preventing me from advancing to day two of that competition. Now, we were playing for a chunk of CP in our first best-of-three set together. I was super excited, to say the least.

Top 8 – Aaron Grubbs (LPFan)

Team Preview: /////

Game 1

During Team Preview, Mega Salamence looked like it would have a field day if I could successfully get up some Dragon Dances. I start off slowly by trading Bisharp for information about his Rotom-Heat’s Speed stat, but once Clefable came in, I had a very solid positional advantage. Unfortunately, I misjudged Staraptor’s Speed after Tailwind and lost a lot of HP on Heatran because of it, but throughout the rest of the match, I simply made the plays that would give me the greatest chance of winning. I don’t think the lategame Rock Slide miss against Mega Salamence mattered too much, unless it would have landed a critical hit and Terrakion also got a double Protect.

Win, 1-0.

Game 2

At first, I thought I had a repeat of game one on my hands when I had a fresh Mega Salamence and Clefable against Suicune and Rotom-Heat. Aaron plays perfectly, however, and capitalizes on an obvious Dragon Dance + Follow Me play by setting up Tailwind while switching in Terrakion.

I was disappointed to see the Staraptor come in the following turn, as I knew Frustration would not OHKO Terrakion if Mega Salamence’s Attack stat was at neutral. Terrakion’s Rock Slide told me not to worry about the Intimidate though, as a critical hit and a flinch decided to cancel out a lot of my momentum. I tried to stage a comeback, but my Pokémon had simply taken too much damage to power through four relatively healthy opponents. Aaron ties up the set at 1-1.

Loss, 0-2.

Game 3

Since Aaron had picked up on my habit of trying to use Knock Off on Rotom, a solid switch to Terrakion rewarded him with a +1 boost. Luckily for me, though, decent plays and Rock Slide not flinching Bisharp enabled me to take an early Pokémon lead. Even more luckily, Suicune’s Scald never managed to leave Clefable with a burn, allowing me to use Follow Me for an extra turn and deal loads of damage to Rotom with Knock Off (a 24.01% chance disregarding damage rolls).

After Virizion came in for Bisharp, I knew I had to pick up a double knockout while also avoiding KOs on my end. Since Virizion’s Protect seemed obvious, I ended up attacking with Virizion and got rewarded greatly, forcing a 2v1 situation against Staraptor that was a guaranteed win if Mega Salamence used Protect. During the match, I wasn’t certain about how much the critical hit mattered on his Suicune, but after discussing it later, it turned out the damage rolls were in my favor of Frustration KOing Suicune with the EV spread LPFan’s Suicune had.

Win, 2-0; Record 9-1.

I expected a strong set of games against Aaron and, even with a less than ideal team matchup, he gave me just that. After talking with Sean Ring, who I played at Regionals yesterday, I learned that he was also in the Top 4, but he had to play against Cybertron for his chance at making the finals. I knew my own match was going to be tough as well, though, because I was up against Michael Fladung (Primitive), who had just placed in the Top 4 of Regionals earlier that day.

Top 4 – Michael Fladung (Primitive)

Team Preview: /////

Game 1

Things start off well as I get an early knockout on his Mega Kangaskhan with a combination of Rocky Helmet and Frustration damage. I even managed to use the potential of Thundurus wasting turns to set up a free Dragon Dance, and I got into a spot where I had a fresh Clefable sitting next to a boosted Mega Salamence.

My momentum comes to a screeching halt, however, as I Helping Hand Frustration into Suicune’s Protect and Michael shuts down Clefable’s redirection with Taunt. From there, Thundurus did what Thundurus does best and paralyzed my whole team. It’d be easy to blame the match on “hax” from that point forward, but there were better plays that could have been made.

For example, I could have easily targeted Thundurus down with a Frustration + Ice Beam combination attack instead of aggressively targeting Suicune. It’s not like Michael was grasping at straws either, he was using Thunder Wave for speed control, the full paralysis was just bonus. Luckily, I manage to pick up information about Suicune’s item thanks to Knock Off before Bisharp goes down to a Thunderbolt + Scald combination attack.

Loss, 0-3.

Game 2

Virizion seemed like it would be a solid choice here to help even out the matchup, but for some reason, I didn’t think Taunting Thundurus was the correct turn one play. In reality, it would have forced Thundurus into an awkward Sucker Punch situation that I could have potentially taken advantage of.

Bisharp proved clutch and managed to survive a Rock Slide from Terrakion, only to flinch and be unable to move. From there, I think I gave in to exasperation. I wasn’t upset, because I truly knew I was playing against the odds when I opened myself up to Rock Slide flinches, but the plays I make afterwards show that I didn’t think the game was winnable, when it definitely could have been.

I could have potentially Dragon Danced and taken out Thundurus with an Ice Beam when I sent out Salamence + Clefable, but I had turned on the “don’t get paralyzed” switch in my head and paid for it when a critical Rock Slide hit me. After confirming my suspicion that Michael’s Terrakion was holding a Focus Sash, I congratulated him on the win and wished him the best of luck in his finals match.

Loss, 0-3; Record 9-3.

There are times in Pokémon when you can say “my opponent got lucky” and blame a match on hax. More often, however, there are times when you should say “I could have played this better” or “I shouldn’t have brought a team weak to Rock Slide and Thunder Wave”.

Michael apologized for the luck that came his way, but both he and I knew that he wasn’t trying to land a critical hit or get a full paralysis. Those things came as a bonus to making the correct plays and being in situations where those events could occur. After all, you don’t make Top 4 of a Regionals competition and the finals of a Premier Challenge without a lot of skill!

Conclusion

Finally, my run at St. Charles is over. After saying hello to both Aryana Welch (feathers) and Clayton Lusk (Zubat), it was just about time to say goodbye to everyone! I finished watching the finals match and then my family and I went out to eat at Dairy Queen in celebration. While it’s always fun to play at these events, it can be pretty exhausting to consistently make the best plays throughout the day. I was very proud with my overall result, though: a 16-7 record in games overall, two decent placings at both events, and the chance to play ten different people from Nugget Bridge.

Shoutouts

• Carbonific, for taking the time to properly record my streamed match and upload it to YouTube. It looks much better than the recording I had before and I thank you for taking the time to capture the professionalism of the stream.
• Vince, the tournament organizer, for stopping the Premier Challenge between rounds to let us watch the finals of Regionals and for giving the Top 4 a cool TCG playmat as a tangible prize in addition to our CP. He really knows how to manage a tournament well.
• Daniel Cardenas (KermitTheFrog14), for trading me a Bold Suicune on such short notice.
• Brandon Ikin (Toquill), for trading me Heatran, despite leaving his 3DS in his dad’s car.
• kamikaze17, for trading me the Virizion from his trade thread for basically nothing.
• Primitive, for letting me use his pictures of the final Swiss standings from both events in this report.
• The Anistar Aliens (Stats, Oreios, tlyee61, and KermitTheFrog14), for being awesome to practice with and talk to. The miniNPA has been done for over a year now, but it’s really cool how we’ve all stuck together as a group. You’re the best group of friends a guy could ask for!

Article image created by The Knights of Wario Land for Nugget Bridge. View more on his Tumblr, or visit his forum thread.

The post Dragon Dance Revolution: Top 16 Winter Regionals Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hi. I’ve been building and messing with this team for a long while, actually. Even though the rules were announced back in mid-December, this was a team I’ve been tinkering with for about the last 6 months. The team went through many different changes from the original product I made back then, so I guess I’ll elaborate a bit there before I get into what I did for Regionals.

The Roots

So funnily enough, the only reason why I built this team was because of a team I saw while playing Battle Spot doubles back in June before Nationals 2014. It was a Japanese player named Mikoto Misaka(Not CTMikotoMisaka….) using a team of Mega Gardevoir /  Blastoise / Terrakion / Rotom-H / Aegislash / Hitmontop. I liked the core of team but hated a few elements that this player put on the team. I messed around with the core and after a few ideas thanks to Scott on IRC, I ended up with this:

Mind you, this was only meant to be used for XY Battle Spot. I really loved using this team, even topping the ladder many times with it on both Battle Spot Doubles and Special S6.

More Relevant Times

Now we fast forward to the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Here in Arizona, we had a lot of PCs during this time and I wanted to start mixing things up. So I looked back this team I built a few months back. Now obviously, I couldn’t use some elements of the team thanks to the Pentagon rule so I was back to the drawing board. The PCs were also still VGC 2014 rules, just with the inclusion of tutor moves. The next 3 PCs I had different Mega Gardevoir builds that I wanted to try out, so I mixed things up each time. To save some time I’ll just list the teams and their respective finishes:

Top 8, 20 CP

1st, 40 CP

1st, 40 CP

By then I wanted to try out different things for the last PC until Winter regionals, which didn’t go too well so we won’t discuss that.

Pre-Regionals Building

When the VGC 2015 rules got announced I tried putting together a few teams, one trying to bring back the Mega Gardevoir / Zapdos / Terrakion / Scizor / Fire-type / Redirection core. The initial tests really had me re-thinking the team since the last 2 slots were a bit weird this time around. For the longest time I had Ninetales in the Fire-type slot until I got to talking with a few others about it. Heatran was a suggestion, but had the same issue of getting pressured harder than the pressure it applied. I ended up with Talonflame the night before regionals, and liked the choice a lot during the event. The “redirection” slot was a big toss up for me. It started out with Clefable, but I quickly hated having the typing it provided on the team. After some practice, I decided that the redirection piece of the team wasn’t as needed as I was making it out to be. I looked into other options that would give me better match ups against what I saw the team struggle against, and found a couple suitable options.

After much given thought, I ended up giving a Choice Band Landorus-Therian a shot at APEX 2 weeks before Regionals. During the tournament, it proved to be way more mediocre than I thought. Although it wasn’t the sole reason for games being lost, it just didn’t have the synergy to go with the team. After I got back from APEX, I did some test battles with Mack to try and find a suitable Pokemon. The flow just sort of worked its way to Gengar being put on the team. Now the biggest issue was the fact that I already had Focus Sash on Terrakion. Somehow my solution ended up being to just give Gengar a Gengarite, but I ended up liking the choice a lot after practice battles.

The Team

 @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 228 HP / 4 Def / 36 SpA / 84 SpD / 156 Spe
Modest Nature
– Tailwind
– Thunderbolt
– Heat Wave
– Roost

Probably my favorite Pokemon on this team. I usually favored Thundurus-Therian or Rotom-Wash as my go-to Electric-types in previous formats, but using this team on Battle Spot really changed my opinion of Zapdos. Electric-types not being susceptible to paralysis was a great change for Zapdos. Zapdos proved to be a huge asset to the team with its Speed control, longevity thanks to Roost, and the coverage it offered.

Everything on the set should be a given to why I have it, except maybe Heat Wave. My matchup against Steel-types was pretty bad with the extra coverage, so I almost had to give up the option of Hidden Power Ice just for that coverage. Hidden Power Ice would’ve been nice to have against Landorus-Therian and Garchomp, but I don’t think it would work out in the long run with the team. Roost was extremely nice to help sustain Zapdos’ presence on the field to keep it around for Tailwind in the later game.

The first spread I made for this Zapdos EVd to survive a Choice Specs Draco Meteor from Modest Hydreigon and outspeed neutral base 70s. Overtime I opted for a lot more Speed than I had, eventually enough to outrun Jolly max Speed Smeargle. I took the EVs I needed for that out of Special Attack and Special Defense, which changed the previous benchmark to a damage roll.

 (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 20 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Bullet Punch
– Bug Bite
– Feint
– Protect

Scizor was pretty much a mainstay for this team since the beginning. The Fairy-type resistance and pressure from Bullet Punch and Feint were big parts of why I had Scizor in this slot. It was also one of my only ways to hits Cresselia or Gothitelle for super effective as my team did have a hard time against hard Trick Room teams. Scizor just made sense for the time when I was building the team, but I think after recent events I’m gonna be going back to the drawing board for what exactly I want from this team slot. Scizor did have a big role on the team in the past, but I just don’t think it can do much in the metagame right now.

The set and EVs were taken from R Inanimate’s Seattle regional report with Bug Bite instead of U-turn. Though for all the PCs I used this Scizor at, I accidentally used a Scizor that had the EVs from his Choice Band Scizor set in the same report (Which explains all the KOs that I was missing out on….).

 (F) @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Psychic
– Protect
– Substitute

The reason why I used this team in the first place. Mega Gardevoir just seemed pretty interesting for what it could do that Sylveon struggled to do. However, unlike Sylveon, it does have a lot of problems with a bunch of the top used Pokemon. Gardevoir does have good offensive typing with the compliment of an amazing spread move, but the physical defense and poor defensive typing can be a hindrance at times. I do think Gardevoir is a solid Pokemon and Mega choice, but it’s just not a “big 6″ threat. There was a reason that it was by far the most used Mega and Pokemon in XY Battle Spot Special when they banned the top 12 used Pokemon.

People questioned my use of Psychic instead of Psyshock, and this was a thing I thought about but just never really made the change in game. I just figured I’d rather keep Psychic as people were training their Amoonguss and Mega Venusaur more physically defensive, and Psychic could get me the KO or just deal a lot more damage. The 4th move is extremely filler on Gardevoir, so I actually went through a good amount of thought before I decided on Substitute. Substitute let me do cool things like block status, avoid Sucker Punch, and punish my opponent for defensive switches or Protects.

The EVs I have now were just put there and I never looked back on it. I did take time to make a bulkier EV spread for Regionals, but decided not to use it as it dropped my Speed by a lot and I didn’t want to be caught off guard by the randomness of Swiss best of 1.

 @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 188 HP / 20 Def / 44 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Sludge Bomb
– Shadow Ball
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect

As I stated before, this slot messed around a lot. Gengar sounded pretty good in theory for the Ghost-typing and Will-O-Wisp to add to the team. The big issue was that I already had Terrakion holding Focus Sash so I was hesitant with adding Gengar onto the team.  Gengar seemed like a worthy addition to the team so I began theorizing what to do.

Now, when I decided that I was gonna be keeping the Focus Sash on Terrakion, the thought came to mind to maybe just give it a Gengarite as a filler item. Having it like this not only fit my preference, but it added a nice best of 1 factor of my opponent guessing the items on my Gengar and Terrakion. I wanted to have both of Gengar’s STAB options when I was using it, even though Icy Wind was pretty appealing for Landorus-Therian.

Since I wasn’t using Focus Sash, I did want some kind of bulk on this Gengar. I remembered a team that was posted for XY Battle Spot season 5 Doubles that used the Mega Gengar/Whimsicott combo. I looked up the team and saw he got his spread from another on-site report. Other than what else is listed, it can also take a Jolly Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird.

 @ Focus Sash
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Close Combat
– Rock Slide
– Taunt
– Protect

One of the best Pokemon in the format right now. Terrakion offers everything you wanted in a Fighting-type back in 2014, but could never have. Well, with coverage on a lot of the common Mega Pokemon, it’s a pretty big threat. Another pretty big thing right now in the format is that people are commonly assuming that most if not all Terrakion carry a Lum Berry, which is something that helped me out a bit thanks to my actual item choice.

The set is what you would expect to see, just using Taunt in the 4th moveslot. The only other 4th move option I considered other than Taunt was Quick Guard, but before Regionals I opted not to go for it. Taunt did its job with disruption pretty well, stopping the common Spore, Thunder Wave, and Tailwind. I did try out Lum Berry for a bit, but during the practice it really had an extremely low amount of use and Focus Sash just helped me more.

 @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Brave Bird
– Flare Blitz
– U-turn
– Tailwind

Are we back in 2014? I literally added Talonflame the day before Regionals because I was so indecisive on what Fire-type to use. Lunar tried to convince me on Heatran, but I couldn’t figure out a set I wanted to run with this team. Talonflame just sounded great for a lot more options, like against Venusaur, Charizard, and even Terrakion. I think I really just wanted to try and find a Fire-type that could pressure things more than it got pressured. Talonflame just sounded the best at the time.

I did want to keep Life Orb on Scizor, so I just knee-jerked and gave Talonflame Choice Band and didn’t give it a second thought. With Feint on Scizor I wasn’t too worried about being locked out of options against Quick Guard if I chose to lock into Brave Bird. I was considering going Jolly instead of Adamant due to Mega Metagross and Thundurus, but figured the Speed wasn’t too needed and luckily it didn’t play any factor at all at Regionals.

Southern California Regionals

I drove over to Lancaster with Mack and his daughter on Friday for what was supposed to be a 6 hour drive that turned into a 10 hour drive thanks to a highway being closed due to some shooting. Getting to the hotel at 10 pm, I just showered and slept for the next day. I spent the next morning eating breakfast and filling out team sheets for Mack’s daughter and I, only to find out we didn’t need them. Got to the venue nice and early and quickly got registered. Had to go through a giant line for the player meeting roster, and about an hour later round 1 started with a bit of delays due to online pairings and players needing to be added. Finally with rounds underway, let’s get started:

Round 1: John (5-3)

|

I brought:

From team preview, it looked like standard Mega Blastoise Tailwind cheese which wouldn’t be too hard to dispatch if I matched his Tailwind with my own. He didn’t really bring much that prevented Terrakion from just chipping everything on his team until it got KO’d, so Zapdos and Talonflame just cleaned the late-game.

1-0

Round 2: Jacob (Noobly9730) (5-3)

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I brought:

The re-match of Long Beach finals from back in 2013. I was extra motivated to not have a repeat of finals that year when we got put on as the stream match for the round. The game started out pretty badly for me when I Traced his Hitmontop’s Intimidate to give his Life Orb Bisharp a +1 boost, but I managed to get out of that when I got the KO on it after he thought I would try to Substitute again. The game got closer at the end when he pulled out the Quick Guard Hitmontop, but Mega Gardevoir and Talonflame clutched out the win.

2-0

Round 3: Fred (3-5)

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I brought:

Not sure what was with all the Mega Swampert today, but whatever. In team preview, Terrakion and Zapdos looked pretty safe to lead and Talonflame and Mega Gardevoir could clean up. And that’s exactly how it went. Terrakion chipped Mega Swampert so that Talonflame could get the KO and let Zapdos do what it needed so that Gardevoir could come in, Trace Swift Swim, and clean up with Hyper Voice.

3-0

Round 4: Jackie (3-5)

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I brought:

The first match after the lunch break, the round 1 nerves seem to come back. Turn 1 I go for Tailwind and Protect Terrakion and pretty much win from there thanks to a Protect from his Terrakion the same turn. It ended pretty quickly, not much else to say about the match itself.

4-0

Round 5: Kimo (TFC) (5-3)

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I brought:

The first player I actually recognized of the day. In team preview I didn’t really like any of my Mega Pokemon here, so I ended up without one for this match. In hindsight, Gengar would’ve actually been good to have but Scizor did its part so I can’t complain. The bulky Sylveon gets me by surprise and takes a Brave Bird and Heat Wave and I lose my Talonflame and Zapdos. Now it’s just my Terrakion against 5% Sylveon and Heatran behind Substitute. I don’t know TFC’s Heatran EV spread, so the Rock Slide might be a damage roll. Luckily, I break the Substitute and KO Sylveon with Rock Slide and Focus Sash allows Terrakion to clutch the game.

5-0

Round 6: Daniel (5-3)

 |  

I brought:

In team preview I see the first Mega Metagross of the day, which was a match-up I was a bit iffy on. I was in a commanding spot early game, but due to a Rock Slide miss I had to backpedal a bit. I got back into a great spot with some well-timed Protects and finished the game without needing Mega Gardevoir to enter the field thanks to Scizor.

6-0

Round 7: Erik (Cyrus) (7-1 10th)

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I brought:

6-0 with a top 16 cut you’d think I’d be pretty relaxed, but I stressed myself a good bit for these last 2 games. Turn 1 was pretty rough with my Gengar missing Will-O-Wisp, getting critical hit by Rock Slide, and Thunderbolt paralyzed. I did however manage to get Terrakion in safely and thanks to a critical hit of my own on Rotom-H I got back into the game. Last turn of Tailwind, I kind of have a brain-fart and switch in Mega Gengar instead of Talonflame, which puts me in a pretty awful spot. I still have a chance at the end if Rock Slide misses either my Zapdos or Talonflame, but Cyrus does land both and takes the game.

6-1

Round 8: Nawraz (Knawraz) (6-2 7th)

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I brought:

I was pretty stressed out now due to me looking at my opponents win-loss records. If I lose this, I’m pretty sure I miss top cut(which turned out to be right) so I’m extra motivated for the win. Terrakion and Gengar led pretty well against the majority of his team, so I decided to give it a try. The game was pretty long thanks to Leech Seed Venusaur, but I managed to chip his entire team so that Gardevoir could just come in at the end of the game and finish things up.

7-1, 7th seed

I look at the standings after they fix a misreported win and see I’m 7th seed and playing Dane Zieman in top 16. Top 16 is gonna be played out tomorrow morning, and after Nic does the hack checks we head back to the hotel. Mack goes to take his daughter to the movies and George (Kobratail), Gavin (kingofmars), Matt (TheCalmSnivy), and I stay at the hotel and talk about what happened today over some pizza. I get on Skype to see Zach getting ready for tomorrow as well. I find out that my top 16 opponent actually played on stream round 1 from them, but with no archive I was still sitting with no bit of info. I was fine with that, but info would’ve been a bit nice. I take a bit of time to see what else happened on stream and note a few things just in case then go to sleep.

We all shower in the morning, pack our things up, and then head out a bit early so Mack and I can get to our matches. I ripped off my wristband from the day before, so I had to get in line and grab a new one. We sit down, get the run down from Nic, and get our matches underway.

Top 16: Dane (agentorangejulius) (6-2 13th)

Game 1: 

I brought:

I don’t remember much of this match, except that Zapdos and Gengar kept control the whole game. I got a lot of info this game, which was really good for me since he only got to see my lead Pokemon.

1-0

Game 2: 

I brought:

When I saw the Conkeldurr on the field, I wanted it gone ASAP as I thought it meant Scizor wasn’t in the back so Terrakion could have a late game field day. I ended up KOing both the Conkeldurr and Scizor early on anyway, and with Roost/Tailwind Zapdos and Terrakion in the back, the game ended shortly after.

2-0

Top 8: Eduardo (JustEdo) (6-2 8th)

Game 1: 

I brought: 

The last 2 Arizona players in cut…paired in top 8. In team preview, I knew Zapdos and Gengar would prove extremely useful in this set. It helped a lot that Zapdos also outran his entire team. The game goes along with us matching each other’s Tailwind and I notice his Zapdos is a lot slower and stronger than my own. The game was a bit dicey at the end but thanks to a Rock Slide flinch on his Landorus-Therian, I managed to seal the game with a Hyper Voice for a KO.

1-0

Game 2: 

I brought:

I wanted to ensure I kept the upper-hand from turn 1, so I decided to bring the pressure turn 1. I get the burn on his Kangaskhan turn 1 and things look good until late game with his Choice Band Landorus-Therian and Life Orb Bisharp left. I end up calling his Protect, which let me preserve Terrakion and Zapdos for the 3 vs 1 against his Landorus-Therian locked into Rock Slide. Both get KOed, but Gardevoir outspeeds after Mega Evolving and wins the game.

2-0

Top 4: Alejandro (Legacy) (7-1 3rd)

Game 1: 

I brought:

I had to wait a good bit for my top 4 match due to how fast my other matches ended, but it ended up being Legacy who advanced on in the bracket. The early- and mid-game he outplays me pretty well with calling that I wouldn’t be attacking his Venusaur, almost to the point where I thought I would lose on time. The game turns drastically in my favor when he allows Venusaur to be KOd and I’m free to just start spamming Hyper Voice. He’s still in a controlling spot from my eyes, but then his Zapdos fails to KO my about 60 HP Gardevoir. Gardevoir is then free to KO Zapdos, Cresselia, and Suicune.

1-0

Game 2: 

I brought:

This game was a lot less of a mess. I want to play turn 1 safe, so I simply Protect turn 1 and set up Tailwind not even noticing I Traced Chlorophyll from Venusaur. Overheat goes off on Zapdos and Zapdos takes it pretty well and sets up Tailwind. From here instead of trying to mess around, I just go for the straight KO on Venusaur and get it as Zapdos safely Roosts back to almost full HP. A Critical Hit from Overheat KOs Zapdos, but I’m sitting in a pretty safe spot with a Substitute and Terrakion switched in. With Taunt for his Swagger/Thunder Wave Cresselia, and Moonblast being a 3HKO, I KO the Cresselia and Charizard. Suicune comes in, and the game is over from here as he can’t KO Gardevoir, Terrakion, and Talonflame without getting KOd in the process.

2-0

Finals: Alberto (Sweeper) (7-1 1st)

Game 1: 

I brought:

I look at team preview, and the game plan just looks to be to set up Tailwind and Hyper Voice to victory. Game 1 gets pretty ugly with Landorus-Therian flinching me 5 turns in a row until it finally gets KOed, which leaves me in a weakened spot for Mega Salamence to clean up.

0-1

Game 2: 

I brought: 

This game goes the exact way I needed it to go, no flinch turn 1 from Rock Slide, meaning I get Tailwind. Will-O-Wisp connects with Landorus-Therian while in Tailwind. From there I get to preserve Zapdos like I needed and once Gengar gets KOed Gardevoir cleans up the game without needing Terrakion.

1-1

Game 3:  ???

I brought: 

He goes back to his game 1 tactics, and I decide that it would be best to not risk Gengar getting KO’d and try to set up Tailwind. Unfortunately this leads to me being in a terrible spot after Zapdos flinches and I’m forced to backpedal as I made no progress turn 1 unlike the rest of the games. From there I decide I have to risk something to get back into the game, and it backfires as I lose Gardevoir to a Double Edge from Mega Salamence which ends up being impossible to recover from and the set ends.

1-2

14-3, 2nd place

The set left a pretty bad taste in my mouth with all those flinches, but I knew I could’ve improved on how I played. Alberto was playing to the outs that he had so I can’t really blame him. 2nd place still gives me a pretty great spot CP-wise and a nice brick.

February International Challenge

I decided try a modified version of the team in the International Challenge that went on during Florida Regionals. The only change I made was replacing Scizor with Bisharp as my Aegislash matchup was awful after looking at the team. The change was pretty good, but the bigger thing that this IC taught me was how good Mega Gengar was on this team. Mega Gardevoir doesn’t have the best of matchups against a lot of the top threats in the format, so this tourney really showed me how much Mega Gengar can shine. I ended up going 25-5 1764, which nabbed me 2nd place in the US and 15th overall.

Conclusion

With that, this report is pretty much over. I’m at a grand total of 266 CP at the moment, with 74 CP left to be gained at PCs, leaving me in a decent spot for a trip to Nationals and an invite to Worlds for my first time. I’m excited for the rest of the season, and hopefully I’ll be able to reach that end goal.

Shout-outs

• Mack – Having someone to hang out with and test teams locally is pretty great. Carpooling to events is pretty great too. The best o/
• CTMikotoMisaka, Simon, SoulSurvivor, and Nickscor – Talking things out while fixing things on the team was incredibly helpful
• Call chat – Thanks for the support
• Jio – Drunk jio the prophet….

The post Screaming Through the Desert: SoCal Regionals 2nd Place Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The last round of Swiss for the Nugget Bridge Major is here! After nine long weeks we will put a close to the first stage of the largest online Pokemon tournament ever. I would like to personally thank every participant who joined and followed all of the rules to help make this a smooth tournament. For most of you this will be your last round. I hope you received valuable experience through playing in this tournament and that it translates to success in TPCi’s Video Game Championships. For some players this is your most important round as only players who finish with a record of 7-2 or better will advance to the Top Cut. I wish you all the best of luck in making it. Finally to the rest of you who have already secured Top Cut, there are still byes and seeding at stake for you so don’t hold back!

A final thanks to all the flight leaders in this tournament. Without them there is no way this tournament could have been successful. If you ever see these people at a tournament give them your thanks. They put countless hours into this tournament, enduring headaches that are hard to imagine to make sure this tournament runs as smoothly as possible.

Thank you everyone.

As a reminder here is the bracket. Please read the kick off post for instructions on reporting your score and messaging your opponent.

Flight Leaders are an important part of this tournament, make sure you are using them properly. Please do not spam them with requests and private messages. They are busy people and they will eventually be able to help you. In case you may have forgotten these are your Flight Leaders (they have not changed):

• Flight A: Wyrms Eye + feathers
• Flight B: makiri + Hibiki
• Flight C: Gonzo + Unreality
• Flight D: Braverius + majorbowman

Deadline for this round Monday, April 13th, 2015 at 11:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time.

The post Nugget Bridge Major 4 Swiss Final Round appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Australia and New Zealand have always had a somewhat unique position within the Pokémon Championship Series since their entry in 2013. With heavy involvement from Nintendo of Australia & New Zealand, the events have not been under the Play! Pokémon umbrella like other regions. This year, Nintendo will continue to carry out the bulk of the organization of these events but the structure of the tournament series will more closely mirror North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Qualifying

As announced earlier in the year, players in Australia and New Zealand are a part of the Asia Pacific rating zone. This region does not include Japan or Korea but does include many countries in that area including Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The top 18 players in each age division (10 in the Junior Division) from this zone will receive invitations to the 2015 Pokémon World Championships. Players will earn points by competing in tournaments at the same levels as found in the rest of the world: Premier Challenges, Regional Championships, National Championships, and the online International Challenges. The two two players from each age division at the end of the season will receive a full travel award in addition to their invite.

Regional Championships

Only one set of Regional Championships will take place. They will happen over the course of April and May with five locations in Australia and one in New Zealand. The top two players from each event will receive a full travel award to the National Championships for which news is not yet available.

Brisbane

Saturday 11th April
Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre
South Bank

Sydney

Saturday 18th April
Paddington Town Hall
Paddington

Perth

Sunday 26th April
Perth Arena
Perth

Melbourne

Sunday 3rd May
Collingwood Town Hall
Collingwood

Auckland

Saturday 9th May
Aotea Centre
Auckland

Adelaide

Saturday 16th May
The Ellington
Hackney

The post Australia & New Zealand’s Road to the 2015 Pokémon World Championships appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey Nugget Bridge! My name is Carson St. Denis, I am 13 years old, and I am one of the newer senior players in the VGC community. This season, I had something to prove after my loss early in the Worlds LCQ last year.

So far, I have been having a great competitive season. I had a great run at Fall Regionals using an almost complete replica of Alex Ogloza’s 2014 Nationals team. However, I generally like to have something unique or strange on almost all my teams. My 2015 Winter Regionals team definitely falls under this category.

The Team

I started off using an anti-meta team that included Latias using Tailwind, but had minimal success. While testing out Choice Band Talonflame, I came across the strategy of using a Breloom/Talonflame Kangaskahn core. Talonflame sets up Tailwind before knocking itself out with Brave Birds and then Breloom comes in to Spore while Kangaskahn sweeps.

I also wanted a strong special attacker and decided that Sylveon was perfect with Tailwind support. I then filled in the remaining slots with Pokemon that covered the weaknesses of my core four.

The final team looked like this:

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Spore
– Mach Punch
– Protect
– Bullet Seed

Ah Breloom, my MVP for the Florida Regionals. It is faster than just about everything under Tailwind and was marvelous against Trick Room too where it could neutralize most threats with Spore. It also fits in perfectly with my playstyle. There isn’t much to say about the moveset or spread, it’s a standard Breloom, which happens to be my favorite kind of Breloom.

Kingdra @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
– Muddy Water
– Ice Beam
– Draco Meteor
– Icy Wind

I noticed that my team struggles against Salamence due to its speed, but not anymore with Kingdra around! Kingdra was originally added as a check to rain teams, but it turned into a Salamence counter as well, which was a nice bonus.

It looks fairly innocent in team preview, but fast Ice Beam OHKOs Salamence while Icy Wind gets around redirection. Draco Meteor punishes predicted switch ins and Muddy Water helped against Perish Trap teams, doing enough damage for Brave Bird to KO Mega Gengar. Overall, Kingdra was very situational, but it did its job on the team.

Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 104 HP/ 52 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 104 Spe
Modest Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Hyper Beam
– Psyshock
– Hidden Power [Fire]

Just a standard Sylveon moveset with a not-so-standard spread. I wanted to survive Choice Band Brave Bird from Talonflame, which was still popular in Seniors, so I chose this spread. This survived Choice Band Brave Bird from Jolly Talonflame 100% of the time while still packing enough speed to outspeed most 120 base speed Pokemon under Tailwind. The rest went into special attack to make it hit like a truck.

Sylveon is way better under Tailwind, and it is definitely much better in Seniors than in Masters. I chose Hidden Power Fire instead of Ground as my fourth move to deal with pesky steel and grass types (who are often also poison type). I felt that, with three complete counters to Heatran, I could go with something that also let me deal with Scizor and Ferrothorn.

Bisharp @ Choice Band
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Sucker Punch
– Iron Head
– Knock Off
– Low Kick

A not-so-standard Bisharp. Landorus-T is OHKO’d by a +1 Choice Band Sucker Punch and I wanted to catch people trying to sneak Landorus in the back. Low Kick was there as a way to get rid of Kangaskahn when their trainers overpredict with their Fake Out. This occurred more than you think, but it does reveal the Choice Band early.

I had to run Choice Band because I did not want to give up Life Orb or Focus Sash on my core four Pokemon. In my opinion, the core wouldn’t work as well without those items. Still, Bisharp ended up being a very solid Pokemon with a surprisingly solid item.

Talonflame @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Brave Bird
– Flare Blitz
– Will-O-Wisp
– Tailwind

Talonflame just clicked as the Tailwind setter of my team. Talonflame’s minimal bulk was actually perfect for the team. The Life Orb recoil damage was also perfect for removing Talonflame quickly so I could get Breloom or Sylveon in for free and lockdown with Spore or sweep with Hyper Voice. Bulky Tailwind setters, like Suicune and Togekiss, would just be liabilities once they set up Tailwind.

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Low Kick
– Double-Edge
– Protect
– Sucker Punch

I chose to use a very fast Kangaskhan so that it could perform in and out of Tailwind. I felt like I didn’t have the time to set up with Power Up Punch or the need for Fake Out, so I went with Protect, which I much preferred anyways. I honestly feel Fake Out on Kangaskhan is overrated because of Quick Guard.

Leading Kangaskhan is nice, but I’d much rather have it in the back to avoid Intimidate users.  I already had a great Trick Room match-up with Bisharp and Sylveon being able to KO the Trick Room setter with Knock Off and Hyper Beam respectively. I kept Sucker Punch on Kangaskhan because it still benefitted from priority.

Overall

Overall, I was very comfortable with the team going into both Winter Regionals as it really fit with my playstyle. I still struggled against Thundurus, but I felt I’d rather be weak to Thundurus than Intimidate users and kept Bisharp on the team. I also felt that Thundurus would not be popular in Seniors anyways. Luckily, I was correct in my assumption.

Oregon Regionals

I was very happy to attend a regionals in my home state. I was even more happy to have my own bed to sleep on instead of staying at a hotel. Unfortunately I stayed up all night watching a few Poketubers and went to bed at 2am. Somehow, I woke up at 6am, which was not a great way to kick off tournament day.

There were 6 rounds with a top 8. I hung out with Masterfisk until round 1 started. I started off 0-1 due to some terrible plays against a great player in Henry M. However, I won my next 5 games and made the top cut as 4th seed. I almost took a nap at the venue but, before I knew it, top cut was starting so I had to ditch the nap and continue on with little sleep.

Top 8 vs. Jackson

I knew this would be a difficult match because the 4th and 5th seeded players are usually evenly matched and this was no exception. The series went back and fourth. Great games to him, they were very fun.

Game 1

He leads Kangaskhan and Klefki and I lead Breloom and Talonflame. I Mach Punch and Brave Bird into his Kangaskhan, but he uses Fake Out on Talonflame, taking it down to 50% and I do 60% to his Kangaskhan. He sets up Safeguard with his Klefki.

Next turn I knock out his Kangaskhan with Mach Punch and he fails to Swagger himself. I Flare Blitz Klefki for the double KO he brings in Ludicolo and Blaziken. I switch Talonflame out for Kangaskhan, which takes Ludicolo’s Fake out, as Blaziken brings Breloom down to its Focus Sash. I determined that his Blaziken does not carry Life Orb and Jackson forfeits on the following turn.

Game 2

He leads the same way as in Game 1 and so do I, but this time he knocks out Breloom with Return while Mach Punch takes his Kangaskhan down to 20% with a crit. He sets up Safeguard again and I get a low damage roll with Flare Blitz, leaving Klefki with a sliver of health.

I bring in Kangaskhan and get a double knock out using Double-Edge on Klefki and Brave Bird on his Kangaskhan. Recoil takes Talonflame down to about 30%. Klefki manages to get Torment off on my Kangaskhan, making things a lot tougher.

I switch Talonflame out, fearing a Fake Out from Ludicolo, as he doubles into the slot with the Fake Out and a High Jump Kick to KO the incoming Bisharp while my Kangaskhan Protects. I realize that I have 2 plays: double into the Blaziken with Brave Bird and Sucker Punch and lose if he Protects, or hope the Blaziken isn’t carrying Focus Sash and Double-Edge the Ludicolo. I decide to go with the latter option and he Protects with Blaziken, allowing me to KO the Ludicolo with Double-Edge and double up into the Blaziken the following turn for the win!

After a great series I find out I am playing the undefeated 7-0 player next. Theo was a Worlds competitor and I was a little scared. However, because I was tired from the lack of sleep, I didn’t have enough energy to freak out like I normally do. I am very grateful for that, because I would have been streamrolled if I wasn’t able to stay calm.

Top 4 vs. Theo Y

Top 4 is always where I play my best and I definitely needed to against Theo Y. Facing off against a Worlds competitor from last year, I knew it would be a tough ride.

Game 1

He leads Salamence and Landorus-T while I lead Kingdra and Breloom. He U-Turns my Kingdra, doing about 60% while switching to Heatran.  Ice beam KOs his Salamence and Spore puts Heatran to sleep. He brings back Landorus-T and tries to Rock Slide, but misses both Pokemon! I get good information from Game 1, learning that his Landorus is scarfed. He forfeits shortly after I KO the Landorus with another Ice Beam.

Game 2

We both lead the same way again and I get the Ice Beam KO on his Salamence due to him overpredicting. I Spore everything and Kangaskhan comes in to clean up after he KOs Kingdra with Superpower. GG.

So, I move into the finals where I’m paired up against Henry M. We talk a little and find out that we were both low on batteries. We plug into an outlet near the exit and play our finals match there. Being near a train station made me feel at home. Thanks to this, I play much better in this set and don’t feel tired at all!

Finals vs. Henry M.

Game 1

I lead Breloom and Kingdra vs. his Salamence and Heatran. I don’t think he noticed that my Kingdra carried Choice Scarf in our swiss match, so I was able to OHKO his Salamence on turn 1. I also got the Spore off on his Heatran and he forfeited quickly to not reveal any more information about his team.

Game 2

He leads Clefable and Terrakion while I lead Breloom and Kingdra again. Helping Hand boosted Close Combat KOs my Kingdra while Breloom Spores Clefable and Kingdra gets off an Icy Wind. Without Kingdra, however, things go downhill fast and Mega Salamence sweeps my team.

Game 3

I lead Kingdra and Breloom for a third time while he starts with Clefable and Zapdos. He Protects with Clefable and I Ice Beam his Zapdos, taking it down to 55% and revealing the Weakness Policy! Spore goes into Clefable’s Protect and Zapdos’ Thunderbolt takes Kingdra down to 10%.

On the following turn, I get a bunch of Bullet Seed crits to KO Clefable while Kingdra goes down. He sends in Salamence while I send in Kangaskhan. I predict the Salamence to Protect and KO Zapdos with Double-Edge. He sends in Terrakion and I protect Kangaskhan and Mach Punch with Breloom to take his Terrakion down to 40%. Breloom goes down to a combination of Rock Slide and Double-Edge.

I knew that Henry wanted to attack this turn and Roost on the following based on our earlier swiss match, so I Sucker Punch his Salamence with both of my Pokemon. Kangaskhan’s Sucker pPnch does about 25% and Bisharp comes through with enough to KO Salamence after the recoil damage it took from the previous turn. However, Kangaskhan goes down and I am forced to try for a crit with Bisharp, but I don’t get it. GG to Henry.

I get 100 CP and some great booster boxes, but I can’t stop thinking about my misplays, such as not bringing in Sylveon. I beg my mom to take me to the Florida regionals and she says she will try! We get the last standby flight of the night to Orlando and I feel reborn. Maybe I can finally win a regionals!

Florida Regionals

I knew, going into this event, it would be tough. With Sir Chicken, Zephyl, and Raikoo going as well, I knew this would be a stressful tournament. I had momentum from doing well at a big event, but I still didn’t expect to do well.

The day before the event, I just sat in my room trying to soak in the experience. I would not go to another event for two months, so I had to do well. I took a nap and had a very good night sleep, but I was still anxious before the tournament.

On the day of the tournament, I was eating as much as possible, trying to calm down. I saw some great players I did not expect to see, such as Darrin, (Ninten678), and Ethan (Kirito), and Albert (NBalberlolz). I knew I had to play my best to do well. Still, I knew this tournament would be fun even though I was nervous.

There were 92 people in the tournament, which would be 7 rounds with a top cut of 8. I started swiss 3-0 before losing due to some horrible hax against a good player. I won my next two matches and then had a horrible round 7 match where I only got three attacks off all game. 8/9 full paralysis made me forfeit quickly.

Thankfully, I was the top 5-2 player going into cut and would be playing the guy I lost to in round 4. I also found out Zephyl and Sir chicken didn’t make cut, so I felt lucky and thrilled to just make it in.

Top 8 vs. Rhys T.

I was the 7th and he was the 2nd seed. I had lost to him in swiss but I told myself that I have a clean slate in top cut. Also, I noticed that his team doesn’t work as well in best-of-threes, as I had more time to find out his tricks and adapt.

Game 1

I lead Kangaskhan and Breloom while he leads Kangaskhan and Sylveon. I Protect Kangaskhan, blocking the Fake Out and put Sylveon to sleep with Spore. He tells me right then that he didn’t bring Thundurus! I am able to Knock Out his Kangaskahn and keep Breloom at full health while he brings in Suicune. I bring in Bisharp and Breloom is able to outspeed and Spore everything, allowing me to take game 1 in easy fashion.

Game 2

I go with the same leads as in Game 1 while he brings Kangaskhan and Thundurus. Unfortunately for him, I get a crit with Mach Punch, taking his Kangaskhan down to the red. I KO Thundurus quickly with Double-Edge while he knocks out my Kangaskhan with Low Kick. I send in Talonflame to pick off his Kangaskhan while he sends in Suicune, which has no options against my Breloom’s Spore. Sylveon and Breloom clean up.

Top 4 vs. Ian M.

My memory is very fuzzy about this set, but it was still a great set against one of the best seniors in the world!

Game 1

He leads Ludicolo and Kangaskahn against my Breloom and Kangaskhan. On the first turn, fearing a Landorus switch in, I double up my fighting type attacks into his Kangaskhan, but he uses Fake Out with both of his Pokemon. I get a little bit angry and make an aggressive prediction.

Somehow, I thought he had Fake Out and Protect on his Kangaskhan, so I Double-Edge Ludicolo and Spore the Kangaskhan. He switches Kangaskhan out to Aegislash and I KO the Ludicolo. He is never able to regain momentum without Landorus-T and he forfeits quickly.

Game 2

He goes rain mode while I bring Bisharp and Kangaskhan. I tried to Knock Off Ludicolo, but he outspeeds me to KO Bisharp with a Helping Hand boosted attack. I send in Breloom and Double-Edge his Ludicolo while using Spore on his Politoed. However, he switches in Landorus-T and I am unable to KO his Ludicolo, leaving it with 20% as his Scald burns my Kangaskhan.

I Protect with Breloom and can’t KO Ludicolo with Sucker Punch. He switches out Landorus and, knowing that he has all the momentum and another Intimidate, I forfeit.

Game 3

I lead Talonflame and Breloom while he goes with rain again. I Spore Politoed and Brave Bird Ludicolo as he chooses to Fake Out Talonflame. With Politoed asleep, I double into Ludicolo with Brave Bird and Mach Punch in case he Intimidates, but he doesn’t switch out.

My memory of the rest of this match is fuzzy, but I remember that he did not bring Landorus and I ended up putting everything on his team to sleep.

Finals vs. Abel G.

I knew that I would be facing a very good player in the finals. To make it even tougher, Abel just beat Albert O., who was the first seed, so his confidence would be soaring.

Game 1

I lead Kingdra and Breloom while he leads Terrakion and Gengar. I use Muddy Water while Terrakion Protects and Gengar uses Sludge Bomb on Breloom, who also Protects. Gengar goes down from another Muddy Water and Mach Punch goes into Zapdos, who switches in for Terrakion.

He sends in Salamence and doubles into Breloom to take it down while I switch Kingdra into Talonflame. I bring in Kangaskhan and Protect with it while Tailwind goes up. Zapdos KOs Talonflame with Thunderbolt and Double-Edge goes into the Protect. I send in Kingdra again and OHKO his Salamence with Ice Beam while Double-Edge takes Zapdos down to 25%. He Thunderbolts my Kingdra, bringing it down to 40%.

Terrakion comes back in and Protects, while I Ice Beam Zapdos for a KO and Low Kick into the Protect. On the following turn he attempts to double Protect in order to stall out Tailwind! I misplay here by using Ice Beam and Sucker Punch. He KOs my Kangaskhan on the following turn with Close Combat and Ice Beam is not enough to take down Terrakion before Kingdra goes down. Great game.

Game 2

I lead Talonflame and Sylveon while he leads Zapdos and Terrakion. I immediately set up Tailwind while using Hyper Voice as he Thunderbolts my Sylveon and Rock Slide KOs Talonflame while bringing Sylveon down to 30%. I KO his Terrakion with Hyper Voice on the following turn and Zapdos ends up at 60% after recovering with its Sitrus Berry. I send in  Kangaskhan to clean up while he sends in Bisharp. I KO both and he forfeits after revealing that he didn’t bring Salamence.

Game 3

I lead Talonflame and Sylveon again while he brings Salamence and Zapdos. We both set up Tailwind and I get an early KO on Salamence. We go back and fourth until I predict a Terrakion switch in and leave him with a lone Gengar against my Sylveon and non-mega Kangaskhan. With the Scrappy ability, I am able to Double-Edge to bring him to his sash and then Hyper Voice for the KO and the win!

Conclusion

Overall I had a great run with the team! This may be my favorite team I have ever used due to the offensive pressure it puts out and I’m happy that I got the opportunity to play against some great players.

With all this success, it’s amazing to me to look back and see how much I have grown from someone who plays to win into someone who plays for fun and the competition. This community amazing. I’d like to thank the whole community for being so awesome!

The post Four Spore and Seven Years Ago: A Winter Regionals Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey! I’m Aaron Traylor and I won the Masters Winter Regional 2015 in St. Louis. The art above was made by my wonderful sister Amanda (Charmanda).

Teambuilding Process

One night, Scott brought up the idea of Kangaskhan and Minimize Clefable, and I tried to build the team with pookar and him a couple times, but they were busy. I figured I should just throw the team together myself. I realized that Kangaskhan and Bisharp was a stupidly good combination that I really needed to counter, so I decided to just use it myself and counter how other players dealt with it. I wanted a Wide Guard Pokémon, so I turned to Aegislash, but two Steel-types left me slightly weak to Fire-type moves. As such, Conkeldurr and Heatran made it onto the team—Heatran would be my Fairy-type resist. Finally, I had Sylveon, but it overlapped with Clefable so I switched to Assault Vest Landorus-Therian, which is my favorite Landorus-T set. The team started winning, so I just rolled with it. This team is affectionately referred to as “No Speed Control, No Water Resists—The Dream”.

I went with a mishmash of nicknames this time. No overarching theme, but three duos.

No Wifing (Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Scrappy / Parental Bond | Adamant
252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
– Fake Out
– Return
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch

The first half of the powerful Wife Her / No Wifing duo. Anyway, this is the same Mega Kangaskhan from my last team report. I changed the nickname and switched Double-Edge for Return, because Double-Edge plus redirection did not equal fun times. Follow Me is pointless if the Pokémon you’re attempting to protect knocks itself out. I thought that Adamant Mega Kangaskhan provided the power I needed and the Speed I needed, and, let’s be honest, when was I ever going to actually use any extra bulk? I like to keep my spreads simple so I know what my Pokémon can do. I would have used Jolly just to outspeed opposing Mega Kangaskhan, but a nature change just for a Speed tie was pointless. Fake Out synergized well with Clefable, and it gave me a lot of momentum in situations where I needed to be offensive. Power-Up Punch allowed Kangaskhan to really abuse free turns created by Follow Me, and Sucker Punch was simply necessary. Ice Punch would have worked to beat Salamence, which gave this team problems before I switched to Unaware Clefable, but then I wouldn’t have been abusing boosted Sucker Punches as much as I wanted to.

Kangaskhan was more of a comfort choice. I have used Kangaskhan at every sanctioned event since the 2014 Spring Regionals. Furthermore, I thought that most players would forget exactly how powerful it was. Its popularity had started to fade at the end of 2014, and even players aware of its power wouldn’t counter it too hard (unlike the metagame at Worlds).

TRIGGER WARNING: MINIMIZE AHEAD.

Boogeyman (Clefable) @ Leftovers
Unaware | Bold
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
– Protect
– Minimize
– Follow Me
– Moonblast

“Cause I’m a gamblin’ boogeyman, and no, I don’t play fair.
It’s much more fun, I must confess, with lives on the line–
Not mine, of course, but yours, oh boy, now that’d be just fine.”

Let’s talk about the elephant on the screen. “Oh, wow, it’s Minimize!” Yeah. I get it. It’s Minimize and I used it to win a Regional. Minimize was the most useless move on my team all weekend and I would have swapped it for Icy Wind in a heartbeat. The only attacks I dodged over the course of both days were Zach’s Scalds. Each game in Swiss I used Minimize in I lost, and I used it Turn 1 in each of those games, so it’s not like it was after the fact. I didn’t actually use Minimize in any practice battles: I didn’t want the practice games to come down to RNG. I wanted to make sure that I would be able to make plays at Regionals without using evasion as a crutch. This team has a lot more to it than Minimize. If Minimize is all you’re going to take from this report, please think about what Wolfe said to me when I tried to convince him it was the best choice. He said, “Aaron, why do you always go for these luck-based strategies? If you’re a good player, you don’t need Minimize to beat people at Regionals. And if you’re a bad player, it’ll only save you four out of ten times.”

I used Clefable instead of Clefairy because I wanted to stop boosting strategies (specifically Dragon Dance Salamence) with Unaware, even though it had negative synergy with my Landorus-Therian’s Intimidate. I also wanted Leftovers recovery, as Clefairy would be stuck with Eviolite. I brought Moonblast because Clefable is actually pretty strong when it attacks, and Fairy-type is a good attacking type. I also wish I had Helping Hand instead of Minimize so I could actually handle Rotom-Wash, but I think that might have baited me into some awful plays. Clefable’s EVs are probably more simple than they needed to be, but whatever. I was much more afraid of physical threats than dealing any specific amount of damage or taking any particular special attack. I could have EVed it to withstand Aegislash’s Flash Cannon, but I didn’t. I ended up seeing zero Aegislash, so it worked out.

Seriously, don’t use Minimize.

Wife Her (Bisharp) @ Focus Sash
Defiant | Adamant
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
– Protect
– Sucker Punch
– Knock Off
– Iron Head

[15:58] <Zubat> wife her

This is the third Pokémon of the core. Originally, I was testing Choice Band and Life Orb so that I could fit Gengar on the team, but both of those overly relied on Clefable and weren’t as good at being standalone Pokémon. Focus Sash Bisharp is just a monster, and it makes most of its “checks” (bar Kangaskhan) take so much damage. I tested Assurance, as a previous iteration of this team had Aerodactyl (as well as various priority moves), but it didn’t end up panning out. I feel like Bisharp has a few cool options if you break away from these four standard moves, but I wasn’t willing to take those routes myself at this tournament.

Fun fact: in 2013, I swore I’d never take Bisharp to another tournament after I played ~500 games on GBU with it and then immediately tossed a game to Enosh at Massachusetts Regionals by making every Sucker Punch/Night Slash decision incorrectly. I’m glad I had Bisharp at this tournament, but I’m still leery of its potential to completely fail via prediction.

BIG DATA (Conkeldurr) @ Sitrus Berry
Guts | Adamant
84 HP / 192 Atk / 68 Def / 164 SpD
– Wide Guard
– Mach Punch
– Drain Punch
– Ice Punch

BIG DATA BIG DATA. I’m going to start this off by saying that Assault Vest Conkeldurr is horrible and I have no idea why so many people are running it. Conkeldurr has so many options and Assault Vest barely does anything for it. I think that in the future, we’re going to see a lot of non-Assault Vest sets doing well. I wanted to take advantage of this Conkeldurr unawareness by running Wide Guard on my Conkeldurr; since Assault Vest sets can’t use it, I knew most opponents wouldn’t try to play around it. Wide Guard was cool to have with Clefable—opponents would try to avoid Follow Me with spread moves and run right into a Wide Guard. It also protected Bisharp and Heatran from opposing Landorus-Therian, which is the first Pokémon people think I’m weak to when they look at this team. The other three moves were chosen because I didn’t want to miss out on anything Conkeldurr had to offer, especially Mach Punch. Guts allowed it to switch in on and absorb burns directed at Kangaskhan.

Spoiler alert: this is an Assault Vest spread for a Sitrus Berry Pokémon. I had planned to update it before the event but I didn’t end up changing it. 84 HP minimizes residual damage, and the Defense EVs allow it take a Brave Bird from an Intimidated Talonflame. Wolfe told me to just maximize HP and Attack for general bulk, but I didn’t fix it in time. Also, I was missing 16 EVs in HP at the tournament—oops. Conkeldurr was my least chosen Pokémon over the course of the two days, although it was definitely my MVP in some of the streamed games—I just didn’t see as many Terrakion, Kangaskhan, or Bisharp as I thought I would. Thanks to Scott for the spread.

By the way:

132+ SpA Choice Specs Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 84 HP / 164 SpD Conkeldurr: 186-219 (97.3 – 114.6%) — 81.3% chance to OHKO

Cybertran / Santy Claws (Heatran) @ Shuca Berry
Flash Fire | Timid
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
– Protect
– Overheat
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power

Hey guys, Aaron “Cybertran” Zheng here. I used maximum Speed Heatran after Wolfe did so well with it in practice against me. It slaughters all sorts of Bisharp and outspeeds max Speed Breloom, which is really funny. The other half of this set that’s important is Overheat. Amoonguss is something that gives my team way too much trouble, and Overheat knocks out it and Virizion faster than Heat Wave does. It also beats Wide Guard + Fire-type weakness combinations by luring them into a false sense of safety. I didn’t miss Flash Cannon, as Fairy-type Pokémon aren’t doing anything to Heatran on this team anyway; I just don’t think it’s a good move on Heatran. I sometimes used it to switch in on a Will-O-Wisp aimed at Kangaskhan, picking up a vital Flash Fire boost in the process. With Shuca Berry, it always won the mirror due to its Speed. The EV spread is an error: I thought it always survived Earthquake from Landorus-Therian, but it turns out there’s a 25% chance of a knockout. I’ll definitely update this spread in the future by removing some Special Attack for Defense. Thanks for everything, Cybertran.

Garmfielfd / the dark web (Landorus-Therian) @ Assault Vest
Intimidate | Adamant
140 HP / 140 Atk / 12 Def / 108 SpD / 108 Spe
– Earthquake
– Rock Slide
– Superpower
– Knock Off

This Pokémon is probably the most out-of-place and anti-synergistic thing on what could have been a very beautiful and nicely-packaged team. The commentators made a lot of fun both on stream and off of my choice here. Unfortunately, it worked better in practice (and at the tournament) than any other Pokémon I could have chosen. Assault Vest Landorus-Therian is my favorite variant of Landorus-T. Not only did I absolutely not want to be locked into Earthquake (or be forced into a suboptimal move), I also wanted it to take special attacks well. Obviously, there was still some awful synergy: in top four, it had to Rock Slide a Metagross and a Terrakion (behind a Substitute) while having no chance at a flinch. Originally, Landorus-T had U-Turn, but Knock Off let me get the damage I needed against Water-type Pokémon. Landorus-T really didn’t do much damage—it kind of just sat there in the hope that opponents would hit it. I thought I would never bring it, but I brought it to almost every game at Regionals.

Thanks again to Scott for the EV spread, which does a ton of things. 140 Attack allows it to knock out Bisharp 15 out of 16 times, while the HP and Defense EVs let it take a Defiant-and-Life Orb-boosted Sucker Punch. The Special Defense EVs give it great survivability, as Landorus-T can take two Hyper Voices from Choice Specs Sylveon and a sun-boosted Overheat from Charizard. The Speed EVs allow it to outrun Jolly Tyranitar, Adamant Bisharp, and Speed creepers in that range.

Team Synergy

This is my catch-all lead. It works pretty well if the opponent lets Kangaskhan boost up or if they have no solid way to knock out Clefable. Also, there are no spread moves that are super effective on Kangaskhan or even have the ability to straight-up knock it out (outside of, like, Helping Hand Life Orb Kingdra in rain), so I was always sure Kangaskhan would get at least one attack off.

This is another very general lead, and probably one of the most common leads in the format. Bisharp deters Intimidate, although often opponents lead with it anyway. Kangaskhan usually lets Bisharp get a few attacks off, which is especially nice if the latter snags a Defiant boost. If I predict a double Protect, I can just switch in Clefable and Power-Up Punch it. Finally, double Sucker Punch is outrageous. I first got on the double priority hype train in 2012 with Dragonite’s ExtremeSpeed and Bisharp’s Sucker Punch. It was monstrous then and continues to be monstrous now, mostly because Kangaskhan is really, really good.

This combination can be lethal if an opponent can’t deal with it. It’s even better if their team has no way to get past Clefable. It works well against opposing Landorus-Therian, too, because I could just knock it out with a Moonblast and a Sucker Punch. Out of all of the leads on the team, I feel that this one has the most 4-0 potential.

If an opposing team has Landorus-Therian and Terrakion (or relies on Landorus-Therian), I’ll bring this lead and watch them struggle against Bisharp behind Wide Guard and Focus Sash.

I was always in awe of people who made BIG PLAYS by switching their physical Pokémon out for a burn absorber. With this team, I decided that it would be amazing for Kangaskhan if I had not just one, but two ways to handle burns offensively. The trickiest part was getting my opponent to actually Will-O-Wisp the correct slot (because I had other burn targets), so if I wanted to make sure that I could absorb the burn, I led with Conkeldurr or Heatran and switched the other in. This worked out all the time in practice, but I only got to do it in round four of the tournament. It won me the game though, so I can’t complain!

Threats

Public Enemy #1: Water-types

You may have noticed that this team has no Water-type resist. Yeah, that was kind of an issue. I kind of went into this Regional believing rain (with Kingdra) to be an automatic loss. Luckily that wasn’t the case, but it made a lot of games harder than they needed to be, such as in the finals where Jellicent put in more work than the rest of my opponent’s Pokémon combined. My counter to Water-types was that they generally dealt minimal damage to Clefable, so I could run amok with the rest of my Pokémon if I played correctly. Obviously this didn’t pan out when my opponents started catching on, as seen in the finals against Zach. Ludicolo wasn’t an issue thanks to all of my physical attackers.

Public Enemy #2: Rocky Helmet

This team has four physical attackers, one support Pokémon, and one special attacker. All four of my physical attackers make contact with at least one move, so there is literally no way for me to avoid taking massive damage from Rocky Helmet. If I can avoid less than four activations of the item, I consider it a successful game. It doesn’t help that Pokémon such as Suicune, which I’m already very weak to, love to carry Rocky Helmet. Also, people will throw it on random Pokémon on their team just to counter Kangaskhan. Ironically, I ran into some strange Rocky Helmet Pokémon like Azumarill in the first rounds of the tournament.

Not Actually a Huge Threat: Landorus-Therian

The first thing many people say when they see this team is, “Wait, aren’t you really weak to Landorus-Therian?” As long as the opposing Landorus-Therian doesn’t have Protect, I’m totally fine. Landorus-Therian can’t deal major damage to Clefable outside of Earthquake, and Kangaskhan and Clefable buy Bisharp enough time to deal a massive amount of damage to Landorus-Therian, especially Choice Scarf or Choice Band variants. Conkeldurr prevents it from doing any significant damage with Earthquake and Rock Slide, and has Ice Punch to deal a major blow in return. Heatran can withstand non-Choice Band Earthquake and can return fire (excuse the pun) with Heat Wave or Overheat—sometimes, it was actually faster. My own Landorus-Therian could also use Intimidate to mitigate it even further. I really was not very afraid of opposing Landorus-Therian.

Conclusion

In short, this team attempted to deal with as many of Kangaskhan’s counters as it could: Bisharp handled Intimidate, Conkeldurr, Clefable, and Heatran absorbed burns, and Conkeldurr and Landorus-Therian dealt with Terrakion. At times, it definitely felt like it was glued together by spit and prayers. It’s a very me team: I never use Speed control, so I’m pretty experienced with playing reactively in that regard. I don’t know how much success you’ll have if you straight up copy and paste this team, but it’s a lot of fun to use and you should try it out. Also, don’t use Minimize.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I’ll talk about my Swiss battles, the battles on stream, and finally the adventure I had in St. Louis with Cybertron, Babbytron, feathers, and Zubat! See you later, friends!

The post Timequake! 1st Place Missouri Regionals Team appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Almost four months ago, registration opened for what would turn out to be the largest online Pokémon tournament in history. After nine long weeks of battling, we’ve finished the Swiss stage of the tournament and are moving into the single elimination top cut! All players who had two or fewer losses are moving on to the Round of 128. The undefeated players and the top performing players with only a single loss will receive byes into the Round of 64.

As before, each round will feature a best of three set as players inch forward through the prize pool. Everyone who has reached this stage of the event will receive some Nugget Bridge Circuit Points (NP) counting towards an invitation to the Nugget Bridge Invitational at the end of the season. Those who make the Top 4 will receive enough points for an invitation in addition to cash prizes. The full prizes are as follows:

• 1st place: $300 + 120 NP
• 2nd place: $150 + 110 NP
• 3rd/4th place: $75 + 100 NP
• 5th-8th place: $25 + 70 NP
• 9th-16th place: 50 NP
• 17th-32nd place: 30 NP
• 33rd-64th place: 20 NP
• 65th-128th place: 10 NP

Any questions or issues for Top Cut should be directed to the tournament forum thread or the tournament host, makiri.

This tournament would not be possible without the flight leaders who put in countless hours every week administrating the event. Thank you to Wyrms Eye, feathers, makiri, Hibiki, Gonzo, Unreality, Braverius, and majorbowman for their efforts throughout the event.

[ View Bracket ]

The post Season 4 Nugget Bridge Major Enters Top Cut appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The Pokémon Global Link has long been a great resource for VGC players due to its wealth of data on both International Challenges and the Battle Spot Doubles ladder. Today, the Global Link expanded into new ground, posting an analysis of the top Pokémon used in the February International Challenge. The article goes over the top threats from February and some of their most common items, moves, and counters during the last International Challenge. Competitive video game strategy content straight from The Pokémon Company International is pretty rare with little published since Worlds, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see an article of this size. The article doesn’t go quite as deep into specific strategic decisions as an article here might, instead seeming to be aimed at being accessible to players of all levels of experience. With signups for the next International Challenge starting soon, hopefully the Pokemon Global Link article will get more players trying to learn more about competitive Pokémon and the official format of the Video Game Championships.

The Pokémon Company International has also started posting battle videos from top players in online competitions on the official Pokémon YouTube channel, which currently has battles from the Battle of Hoenn and Generation Showdown online tournaments.

The post Pokémon VGC Analysis on Pokémon Global Link appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

As we hurdle along the road to worlds at breakneck speed with time relentlessly ticking away, our attention once again is drawn towards the next batch of European Regionals for this season. Will we continue to see the dominant usage of a few key Pokémon, or will others begin to take up the mantle? Who can we expect to see do well? Who will lead the Championship Point standings following the tournaments? Hopefully I’ll be able to divulge some insight into these questions below.

Prizes

As before, there are a lot of championship points on the line for these regional events. These points are critical for securing the coveted invite to the Pokémon World Championships in Boston later this year. Please note that supplementary prizes may be awarded for individual tournaments, and are subject to further confirmation.

• 1^st Place – 120 Championship Points
• 2^nd Place – 100 Championship Points
• 3^rd & 4^th Place – 80 Championship Points
• 5^th-8^th Place – 60 Championship Points
• 9^th-16^th Place – 40 Championship Points
• 17^th-32^nd Place – 30 Championship Points (Kicker: 64 Participants)
• 33^rd-64^th Place – 20 Championship Points (Kicker: 128 Participants)
• 65^th-128^th Place – 10 Championship Points (Kicker: 256 Participants)

The Metagame

We are now just over three months into the 2015 format, and with it the murky waters from earlier in the season are now beginning to dissipate as players get to grips with the changes in the format. However, this is still a period where the majority of individuals will be looking to refine their teams, building on ideas already in the public domain or creating the next big thing. The winter regional in Arnhem, as well as the five in the North American circuit in February underlined some interesting trends and concepts that I will be highlighting a little further down. But these tournaments primarily showcased how players’ familiarity with their own playstyles led to top results. Many established players are enjoying great success with the same Pokemon and teams that have served them well in the past. Going into these events, we can most likely expect players to begin wandering further away from the comfort zone. With more time to practice, we should begin to see more innovative strategies and more exotic Pokémon choices.

On a more general level, outside of some of the more influential individual Pokémon that I want to highlight, I do want to draw attention to a couple of teambuilding points that are worth noting. I think the first of these is how prevalent Steel types are becoming in this format. Despite a reputation as one of the best defensive types, Steel has suffered from a lack STAB utilization on Steel-type Pokemon. The initial introduction of the Steel-weak Fairy type didn’t do much to boost Steel’s usage, due to the lack of viable fairy Pokemon. This year is different for multiple reasons, and this combination of factors has led to the Steel type being a must-have on essentially every team. The expansion to the National Pokedex meant a wider pool of Fairies in the format, and many of these have seen usage. Many of the Fairies already available have been given a boost from move tutors. As a result, types that are able to defensively cope with the barrage of Fairy-type attacks have been in hot demand, with Steel being the obvious go-to.

This is the reason Fire-types are finding widespread popularity, because they resist both Fairy and Steel-type attacks. It is strange to consider that your Fire types might need to fulfill a defensive role on the team, something many players are not used to. This explains the prevalence of Heatran and Arcanine. Wide Guard also gives Fire types an advantage by allowing teams to neutralize the threat of spread damage from Rock Slide, Earthquake, and Surf, moves that are often spell trouble for Fire types. Pokemon like Aegislash and Swampert provide more options for Wide Guard support to suit a variety of teams and playstyles.

Speed control is essential in this format, usually taking the form of Tailwind or Thunder Wave. Setting up Tailwind is often Talonflame’s role, but there were some interesting users that cropped up in Arnhem regionals, including Hydreigon and Mega Charizard-Y. Being able to double your team’s speed for effectively three turns allows you to fire off attacks with slower, bulkier attackers that may otherwise be threatened by faster opponents. While Thunder Wave only affects one opposing Pokemon rather than the whole field, it doesn’t expire and provides the bonus of preventing your opponents from moving at all. Common users include Thundurus, Zapdos, and Cresselia. Icy Wind and the various derivations are another option, allowing you to deal damage while also slowing the opposing Pokemon. This for the most part is incredibly useful, as it will often bring a fast, frail attacker down into a more favorable speed bracket while also setting up a KO. However, it can carry an element of risk with Bisharp and Milotic still being fairly commonplace in the metagame.

It must be said that it is of no real surprise that Mega Kangaskhan returned with a vengeance to its place as the most popular mega at this early stage of the season. Its ability to run bulky or aggressive builds and fit onto essentially any type of team, its place in a respectable speed tier, and its access to arguably the most broken ability in the game, has been aided with move tutors offering it the ability to diversify its conventional moveset that became a staple of last year. I feel Kangaskhan was obviously a safe, reliable pick for many players early in the season. That was despite the introduction of more Pokemon able to directly threaten it. Terrakion, Landorus-T, and, to a lesser extent, Heatran, all are able to stop Kangaskhan from dominating the field. The big question is how its usage will hold up as we progress further into the season. I would still expect it to give a solid performance in both events this week, so it will be intriguing to see how players build their teams to counter it.

The other interesting feature to come out of the regional data is how much the metagame has shifted to a ‘big six’ of mega evolution options that saw general widespread use. It is fairly safe to say that those seen above, along with Mega Kangaskhan, all have inherent strengths and weaknesses which can be utilized and exploited in a variety of situations, but it’s up to each and every team to compliment them as best as possible. It is good to see that some of the new crop of mega evolutions introduced in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have proven to be viable. Both Mega Salamence and Mega Metagross were touted to be among the best of the bunch and so far this has proven  to be true. The remaining three are old staples from last year that are still holding strong where most of the other plausible alternatives have fallen by the wayside. Mega Charizard-Y continues to maintain a steady usage track record, providing huge damage output. On the flip-side Mega Mawile has fallen from its spot as arguably the best mega in the game at the end of last year. The change in format has been quite hostile to it, with more hard counters being reintroduced into the format. Individual Pokemon such as Heatran flat out wall it. Mega Venusaur is a slightly more obscure Pokemon choice. Some of its popularity may be due to a certain YouTuber, but on the whole, it plays very differently than the other megas, taking on a much more defensive role in teams rather than an offensive role.

The tiger is definitely on the prowl once again in 2015, and it was no real surprise to anybody that Landorus-T was the second most-used Pokemon across all of the top cut teams in the six regionals that took place. I feel that a lot of its popular usage is down to its Intimidate ability being very useful against the many physical threats currently around. While the data has suggested that regionals focused more on the specially-inclined attackers, Landorus is still a Pokemon that can have a huge influence in a variety of situations.

While its usage is on the increase in a general sense, Blaziken is a remarkably good anti-metagame call, and I expect to see more of them appearing in the UK and Italy. It offers remarkably good coverage and it can tackle a vast majority of threats that are currently popular in the metagame. Not only does it have the capability to knock-out Mega Kangaskhan in one hit, but it also destroys all the Steel types in common use. It gets access to Speed Boost, an ability that can easily snowball a game if given the opportunity, and it can be run as a mega or not. Blaziken usually utilizes its massive Attack stat by running a purely physical moveset, but special and mixed variants are becoming more commonplace. I see Blaziken posing a unique threat to a majority of teams if they are not prepared for it.

Spring Regional Predictions

This weekend we have two European Regionals taking place, one held in the United Kingdom, the other in Italy. Both have strong lineups, so it is definitely going to be an exciting weekend when the dust settles and the results are known. And, being so close to the Nationals, it will provide a very clear picture of what we can expect. The standings that are given within both previews were correct as of the 9th April; subsequent Premier Challenges may have since been uploaded. I will note however that there is a heavy bias in players mentioned from the UK and Italy for their respective National event. While I endeavour to cover as broad of a spectrum of countries and players as possible, and given the wide number of messages I have sent out, most of those I could confirm attending came from the host country.

As ever, a disclaimer about these kinds of articles: Regionals are, without question, the most accessible events to players of all abilities. Very often, Regionals are typically the first level where players establish themselves. There will almost certainly be individuals who make the Top Cut in these events who have never before achieved such success. This is not a bad thing; it merely showcases the growing player base.

United Kingdom Regional

Difficulty Rating

/ 5

(Three Large Chickens that like to troll) / 5

Location: Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, Upper Clifton Road, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, B73 2AB

Registration Time: 9:00 – 10:00

The Scoop

After the rumour mill got set into overdrive post-Arnhem regarding the possibility of further Regionals this season, we were greeted to the news that the UK would be getting its chance to host a Regional event for the Video Game. It’s particularly noteworthy as both Suzie Masters and Ian Fotherington who will be hosting the event have very much been the staple organisers for most of the Premier Challenge events this season for the UK, and their dedication is definitely unquestionable. Having been to two events held in Crawley, very few I have spoken to could argue about the top quality organisation they bring, so I certainly expect that the Regional will be no different. It also goes to show, along with the Italian Regional that TPCi are moving towards more substantial events in more regions.

At the time of writing, the event is close to its maximum capacity that the venue can reasonably hold. As a result, we are pretty much guaranteed to have over 128 Masters competing, meaning that the top 64 will earn championship points. The interest in this particular event has been notable, which is very promising for future regional and national events in the UK! Half of the players who top cut in Arnhem will be in attendance at this event looking to repeat the feat here. There will be many big names present, so the standard of play is expected to be fairly good as reflected in the difficulty rating.

As we near the National leg of the European season, the CP table is starting to take shape and with the Premier Challenges continuing to offer many players the points they crave, we are starting to get an idea of the names to look out for in this season. Once more, the championship points earned here could be significant in deciding who qualifies directly into the Day 2 portion of the Worlds event, and will almost certainly play a huge factor in some securing a spot to attend World Championships at all.

The Main Players

Arnhem certainly has a big hand in the composition of the individuals currently leading the CP standings in Europe. Everybody’s favourite Canadian-living-in-Ireland Kelly Mercier-White (KellsterCartier), the runner-up in Arnhem, leads the pack with 266 CP. UK’s Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson), who defeated Kelly in the finals to claim the title of Netherlands Regional Champion is in second place on the rankings with 252 CP, but crucially still has yet to hit the Premier Challenge best finish limit. Germany will be represented by community favourite Baris Ackos (Billa). Sixth place in Arnhem helped Baris secure third place with 252 CP. I can personally attest to his skill after facing him in swiss. Given his unerring consistency, Billa is a solid pick for top cut here. Christopher Arthur (Koryo) is our final returning top-cut player from Arnhem, placing third at the event. Christopher is definitely an accomplished player in his own right and will certainly be a player to watch. Moving on to players outside of those who top cut in Arnhem, UK’s Lee Provost (Osirus) is currently 55^th in the rankings with 130 CP. Lee has been taking full advantage of the Premier Challenges to put him just within the Worlds invite spot, but this tournament will likely be the first serious test for him this year.

There are, rather unsurprisingly, a large faction of UK players who are worth mentioning. The Miller brothers, Jamie and Justin (Blaze King7 & ThrillerMiller9) have been taking advantage of the Premier Challenge CP giveaway, and are in the hunt for Top 60 in the rankings. Justin is the closest at 64^th place. Jamie made a Worlds appearance in 2014, so is definitely a capable battler and should be within the upper echelons of the standings. Justin is certainly capable of making it to Worlds based on what I’ve seen of him at local Premier Challenges as well as previous exploits at Nationals. However, strong results here will be needed to keep pace with those ahead of them in the rankings. Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou) is definitely one individual looking to get his season back on track. After scoring his first batch of CP this season at Crawley in March, he has a great deal of catching-up to do on the CP front. A Regional run is certainly on the cards for this double UK National champion and three-time Worlds attendee, but has to be an outside bet at this point. He will be joined by Steve Edgson (SirSmoke), whose season has been patchy at best, but still seems to be getting by in the CP stakes with 106 points, leaving him in 73^rd place. Any Worlds-level competitor is capable of producing momentum that carries them to a surprise winning streak, but given the present form, Steve is an outside bet. Speaking of worlds competitors, one that I am personally looking forward to meeting is Daniel Nolan (Zog). A 2011 top-cut and 2013 world championship competitor, Daniel will once again grace the presence of all in attendance with his unique brand of humour and wit. Heavens knows what we should expect to see, but if his numerous tournament reports are any indication, Sutton Coldfield will never be the same again!

Yan Sym (Sogeking) and William Tansley (StarKO) are two dark horses from the UK, with Yan sitting in 13^th, and Will in 25^th. Both scored important championship points from Arnhem back in February with Top 32 results, and while both have shown tremendous form and consistency in Premier Challenges, their efforts on the bigger stages is still a niggling doubt. The Birch brothers, Jake and Joe (WhiteAfroKing92 & Professor Birch), are also going to be in attendance. They both sit just inside the top 200 on the rankings list, so some work from both is required to climb further. Phillip de Sousa (P3DS) previously top cut UK Nationals in 2014 and placed top 8 in the StreetPass finals, so his is a name worth looking out for, but this will be his first tournament outing of 2015. Richard Fairbrother (NidoRich) is also one to note. Winning Manchester #5, one of the long running grassroots events in the UK, is the obvious highlight for him, but Richard has also achieved top-cut results at UK Nationals in 2012 and 2014. Finally, Samuel East (Samuel996) is the last major name I want to mention. As the runner-up of the Nugget Bridge Circuit for season 3, there is no doubt of the skill and determination of this individual. I am personally unsure if Samuel has been playing much at all this year, but I see no reason why he can’t secure a decent result if he has done his homework on the format. Even with the players covered above, there are still at least a dozen or so individuals who have the capability to do well who have not been mentioned.

The Crystal Ball Predicts…: I’m going to go with Christopher Arthur (Koryo) on this occasion. Given that the event will be a single day, players will need a great deal of physical and mental stamina to get through to the end, and I believe Koryo has that in spades.

Fancy a Flutter: My outside pick for this event goes to Richard Fairbrother. I think a lot of people understate Richard’s capabilities, perhaps due to his lack of a Words showing. However, having been one agonizing match away from achieving this feat in 2012, Richard can certainly match those who compete at the highest level.

Italy Regional

Difficulty Rating

/ 5

(Three Pokemon trying desperately to imitate the Italian flag) / 5

Location: DARK SIDE – Via di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice 82 (Angolo via Coriolano) – 00181 Roma

Registration Time: 10:00 – 10:30

The Scoop

I think this Regional came as quite a surprise to many players, especially given the proximity of the date of the event to its announcement, and the fact that it is scheduled for the same weekend as the UK Regional. That said however, it is nonetheless an important step toward increasing the range of events for us. Italy certainly has a great history in the official format, with the 2013 World Champion Arash Ommati helping to carry the flag of this very passionate nation. It was fitting that Italy should have its own Regional.

One thing to note about this Regional is the attendance cap which is set at 120 entrants. This is a low number, but given it roughly matches the total number seen at Arnhem, I’m expecting it will likely see a similar breakdown of numbers in the respective divisions. While this event only has one player from Arnhem’s top cut event in attendance, it is still worthwhile noting that a number of prominent players will be in the field, many already looking to solidify their position in the invite spots.

The Main Players

I think it is only fitting to begin this article by discussing Arash Ommati (Mean). While Arnhem was possibly a little disappointing for Arash, where he placed 15^th in swiss, the rankings are a much better reflection of his capabilities. At 4^th place in the standings with 240 CP, Arash goes into this event as one of the challengers for the CP lead in Europe. I would personally expect Arash to top cut here. His season to date has been very strong and he has attended a large number of Premier Challenges in order to maximize his CP earnings, such is his dedication to reaching Boston. While Arash claimed the title, let us not discount the fact that Matteo Gini (Matty) was the forerunner for Italians’ hopes at the World Championships. As the runner-up to Ray Rizzo in 2011, Matteo is certainly regarded as one of Europe’s strongest players, and this season is set to add to his list of two world invites and numerous other achievements. Currently sitting 8^th in the rankings with 192 CP, Matteo could easily jump to the top of the standings after this tournament. Similar to Arash, I expect him to top cut this event with relative ease. If we’re going to let one Gini out of the bottle, then it is impossible to stop the second, as brother Alberto (BraindeadPrimeape) is also in attendance. Alberto made his debut at the World Championships last year off the back of a solid season, and is  in good shape to return once again. Currently sitting in 17^th place, any solid number of points should give him some upward movement in the rankings as the point differences between players is still small and a handful of those immediately above him are not attending either event. The German contingent of players is very likely to be led by Florian Wurdack (DaFlo). With respect to Florian, he felt he would likely be making the journey but was not completely sure, but stands a solid shot of doing well if he does. His 6^th place in the CP rankings with 208 CP gives him a solid platform to work from and I think if he does go, he will have the bit between his teeth. Austrian Noah Fuchs (Daydreaming Ninja) burst onto the scene with a 7^th place finish at Arnhem, and currently sits 16^th in the CP standings, right on the cusp of the day-2 and travel award cut-off. Noah may not feel significant pressure to avoid dropping outside the invitation cutoff, but will definitely require a strong result in Rome to fend off those in close proximity in the rankings. The key here will be if he can replicate his strong runs seen in Arnhem as well has his Salzburg Arena Challenge top cut.

The depth of the Italian player base is quite frankly astonishing and it’s apparent as you glance through the CP standings. Players I’m expecting to make an impact include Luigi Lo Giudice (LPROX) and Lorenzo Galassi (Greyfox). Both players have represented Italy at the World Championships in previous years, so they definitely have a solid shot of securing top cut positions. Luigi Orsi (ZPhoenix) is very much in the thick of the invite scrum in a credible 21^st position with 170 CP. One of the unfortunate individuals to miss out on CP in Arnhem by a few places, Luigi will be keen to redeem himself by performing well at his home event. Some points here will be needed to fend off those in the chasing pack. Not so far behind Luigi in 24^th position is Simone Sanvito (Sanvy). One of the more outsider picks for this preview, Simone has had a strong season in the various Premier Challenges, racking up three victories and a further two top cuts for 160 CP. While the local scene differs greatly to a broadly European event, it is still worth noting that his level of consistency shows respectable skill. Aniello Iuliano (Senior14) is currently 33^rd in Europe, and is a player who has made the oftentimes difficult transition to the Masters division this season. Having made the world championships as a senior last year, Aniello seems to have made the transition surprisingly smoothly, despite feeling pessimistic about his chances earlier this season. Three Premier Challenge victories and a top 4 later, you’d have to agree that his chances are fairly decent.

Just as the Pokemon Genies come in a trio, the Ginis also come in threes (cue audible groan from the readers) with Nicola Gini (NicoAkiwa) in attendance with his brothers. Nicola has been doing well in the circuit so far, and sits at a respectable 44^th in the CP standings. There is a very real prospect that all three brothers could top cut this event and looking further ahead, I would not be surprised to see all three of them at worlds, which would be a staggering achievement. Continuing down the CP list, Pietro Chiri (kirro) top cut Italy Nationals in 2014, but unlike those listed above, lies agonizingly on the wrong side of the world invite line at 61^st position. Again, his position is tenuous, and a lack of vital CP will drop him further back in the standings. The final Italian player I wish to mention, Matteo Donati (Poops), is very much a speculative pick, but was supported by a number of his peers when I was trying to conjure up information for this event. The season so far has not yielded much in terms of points, with only a single top 4 finish at a Premier Challenge to his name. That said, I think Matteo is a player who has shown he is more than capable of high level play. At 79 Nugget Points on the Nugget Bridge Circuit, he lies amazingly close to securing an invitational spot, showing the dedication he has made to the game this year. One young German who may be attending, another graduated senior from last year, is Adrian Schwengebecher (xChessx). Once again, most of his previous exploits are from his Senior years. A top 8 in Bochum as well as a top 4 in Manchester last year were more than sufficient to get him to Washington D.C. with a Top 16 finish. This year, Adrian lies 89^th in the CP standings, and seems to be coping with the demands of the Masters division very admirably. His attendance is still in limbo, but he looks likely to be among the field of players.

I am going to preface my final picks with the following: you four are all fruitcakes and insane for what you are attempting! Four players attending the UK event are planning to make the journey over to Italy in the short 12 hour window between the likely end of play in Sutton Coldfield to the start of registration for the Italian event. These players are Ben Kyriakou, William Tansley, Yan Sym and Steve Edgson. Assuming the flight is not delayed, passport control is gotten through with minimal fuss, and they can find an extremely fast taxi, they should make it to the venue before the registration ends. Mind you, they might be dead on their feet, so I don’t know how much stock I’m prepared to put in them doing well here, because they will not be running on much sleep at all! All things considered, they may prove to surprise a lot of people; they are certainly capable of doing so.

The Crystal Ball predicts…: I don’t think it is too far of a stretch to go with Matteo Gini (Matty) on this occasion. Matteo is certainly a stalwart of the VGC events in Europe, and I would be surprised personally if he does not make the top cut. Once there, I feel that his experience and mental strength in such situations will be more than sufficient to prevail against any of the other players.

Fancy a Flutter: Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m going all-aboard the Gini train. I’m a sucker for a good story, and I would dearly like to see Nicola Gini reach the top cut with both of his brothers at the same time. It’s hard to argue against a family trio that has helped to shoulder the burden of Italian VGC for years.

As for me…

As you can probably expect, I am going to be attending the UK Regional in Sutton Coldfield. I hope I will be able to catch up with my fair share of familiar faces and meet new people as well. My aim is to be recognizable by everybody at the event. That may boil down to wearing a loud shirt going dreadfully overdressed for the occasion. We’ll see what happens on that front. As ever, I must thank everybody who was kind enough to help with providing the information that went into this preview. Some of you provided a great deal of information and assistance particularly on the Italian event, and it really is much appreciated. If you want to get involved with the discussion, highlight individuals who you feel are worth drawing attention to that I might have missed, or give your own predictions on who you feel will be victorious, feel free to leave a reply. I look forward to reading your thoughts.

The post VGC 2015 European Spring Regionals Preview appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello everyone! My name is Noah. I am from Austria and recently I played at the European Winter Regionals in Arnhem. When the new ruleset for 2015 was announced, there were so many things for me to try out and I was motivated going into the new year! Thomas (TH1806) and I started playing together on Showdown with Tailwind Suicune and were really successful. However, as popular players started picking up Suicune as well, people got a lot more familiar with it, making it less effective.

I played with Charizard-Y and Mega-Salamence, but I wanted something creative for Arnhem. Looking at all the popular Megas used in recent tournaments, Mawile was the perfect counter to almost every one of them. Since I was comfortable with Tailwind, I knew I wanted a Tailwind user on my team. I decided that Hydreigon was the perfect partner for my Mawile. Not only did the typing have good synergy with Mawile, but Hydreigon also had access to Tailwind.

The next two Pokémon I added were Thundurus and Breloom. Thundurus was my second way to gain speed control. It reminded me of the popular Mawile-Hydreigon-Zapdos core from 2014. Breloom was my second lead combination with Hydreigon. It gave me access to Spore and was a check to Bisharp, which was common this season. For the last two slots, I needed a switch in on fire type attacks and a Wide Guard user. I chose Heatran and Aegislash.

Overall, I felt satisfied that the team could handle most match ups. The only thing that bothered me about the team was running three steel-types, but I managed to play around this weakness.

The Team

Mawile (M) @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Atk / 4 Def / 172 SpD / 20 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Play Rough
– Iron Head
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

• Iron Head OHKOs most Clefables and Clefairys
• Surivives Charizard-Y Heat Wave outside of sun

Mawile was great to use and I brought it to every match. Back in 2014 I was using Mawile for half of the season, making me really confident with it in Arnhem. When I led with Mawile, I usually Protected the first turn and setup Tailwind with Hydreigon or paralyze something with Thunder Wave. After some setup, Mawile just sweeps through opposing Pokemon.

Hydreigon (M) @ Draco Plate
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 188 HP / 76 Def / 204 SpA / 36 SpD / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Tailwind
– Protect

• survives Close Combat from 252 Jolly Virizion
• 50% chance to survive Close Combat from -1 252 Jolly Life Orb Terrakion

My secret weapon! Nobody expected Tailwind on Hydreigon, so I got to set it up freely almost every match without the risk of Taunt. The only thing that stops Hydreigon is an opposing Draco Meteor as I often Intimidated fighting types, making them not a threat.

In a match against a special Mega-Salamence, my opponent predicted a Choice Scarf on my Hydreigon, allowing me to setup Tailwind and KO Salamence on the following turn. When I created the spread I thought about investing more into SpAtk, but the 36 SpDef saved me a lot of the time in practice. The reason why I did not opt for Life Orb was because I wanted to stay on the field as long as possible. In the beginning, I carried a Haban Berry but it never activated. My friend Thomas (TH1806) suggested Draco Plate, which turned out to be the best choice for me!

Breloom (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Bullet Seed
– Mach Punch
– Spore
– Protect

A standard Breloom. I chose Adamant nature for the extra damage output and speed didn’t matter under Tailwind anyways. With Tailwind up, Breloom was a beast. It dealt tons of damage and spammed Spore.

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 164 HP / 76 Def / 36 SpA / 196 SpD / 36 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Thunder Wave
– Swagger

• Outspeeds base 70 like Breloom and Bisharp

My Thundurus was also a beast! I was satisfied with the spread that I created, though I forgot what the EVs do exactly. But trust me, they work. Thundurus was there to give me the edge in RNG and provided another method of speed control. I chose Swagger over Taunt because it seemed more viable to me, but made me a bit weaker to Spore users like Breloom. In round five of swiss I was behind by a lot, but Swagger brought me into a situation were I was able to win.

Aegislash (M) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 204 HP / 228 SpA / 76 SpD
Quiet Nature
– Shadow Ball
– Sacred Sword
– Wide Guard
– King’s Shield

• Survives most Charizard-Y Heat Wave in the sun

Aegislash was there for coverage, defensive switch-ins, and Wide Guard. I like the spread I created. In Tailwind I can outspeed most Heatran and Bisharp and KO them with Sacred Sword. Because I also had Mawile, I didn’t miss Flash Canon. Wide Guard was rarely used, but the option was important.

Heatran (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power
– Substitute
– Protect

Heatran was really valuable to the team. I got around 4 Flash Fire boosts during the tournament through smart switching. I opted for a 252/252 spread because my own matchup against Heatran wasn’t good, so I wanted to be able to outspeed and KO it. I didn’t need extra investment in bulk since Heatran is generally bulky. In retrospect, Leftovers were fairly useless. In the future, I would use Chopple Berry, Shucca Berry, or maybe even Life Orb.

Conclusion

During the tournament, I often brought Hydreigon, Mawile, and Breloom, with the 4th Pokémon being dependent what I saw on the opposing team during team preview. Tailwind surprised a lot of people and allowed me to finish the tournament in top 8! I think the core of the team is really powerful and, if adjusted to keep up with the meta, can still be viable.

Overall, I had a really nice weekend and met a lot of cool people. I am also looking forward to participating at the Germany Nationals and Regionals as well as the Italy Nationals and Regionals.

Shout outs to my friends. Nothing is as cool as playing on Showdown together with Jip (Keonspy), Kelly (KellsterCartier), and Thomas (TH1806)! You guys helped me improve and also inspire me to make new teams! Credits to Jip (Keonspy) for creating the wonderful cover art for this article!

Thanks for reading!

The post Surprisingly Windy Sweep: Top 8 European Winter Regionals Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Registration is open for the 2015 International Challenge — April! As the first online tournament to give out Championship Points this season, there will be a lot of interest going into this event. The tournament may very well decide the last few spots for the 2015 Pokémon World Championships. Players will play on the Competition ladder on Battle Spot from Friday, April 24, 2015, at 00:00 UTC to Sunday, April 26, 2015, at 23:59 UTC. There is a limit of 10 battles per day for a total of 30 battles in the tournament. The highest ranked players will receive Championship Points as follows on a region-by region basis (US & Canada, Latin America, Europe, South Africa, and Asia Pacific) in each age division.

Registration ends as soon as the tournament begins so be sure to get your entry in on the Global Link now. You don’t need to lock your Battle Box until just before your first match. To register, log in to the Pokémon Global Link and click on the Competitions link on the left hand navigation bar. You must have your Player ID linked to your Pokemon.com account that your game card is associated with before the competition begins to receive Championship Points. Results will be released on May 1st.

The post Registration Open for 2015 International Challenge April appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

South Africa’s first Regional for VGC ’15 was held in Johannesburg, Gauteng. Attendance levels in South Africa are slowly growing, with a turnout of 24 players on the day a sign of bigger and better things to come. There were a few surprises with some newcomers earning Top Cut spots while some experienced campaigners came up just short. There were 5 rounds of Best-of-1 Swiss, followed by a Top Cut of 8 played in a Best-of-3 format.

Masters Division

1: Morné S (Acreland)

2: Dale Schwikkard (DalesHand)

3: Nikola Radevic

4: Jonah Alter

5: Armand Kruger (Snorlaxeon)

6: Stephan Davel

7: Ruan Pansegrouw

8: Stephen Botha (SteveBaPanda)

Keep an eye out for the next batch of regional events in South Africa at Kwa-Zulu Natal and Western Cape. We’ll report the results as they come in!

The post Results & Teams from the VGC ’15 Gauteng Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello again, this is R Inanimate. One of the first articles I wrote for Nugget Bridge was an article regarding Team Preview. While a lot of points in that article still hold true today, it’s hard to deny that it is out of date with regards to the where we are now with 6th Gen battles. As such, I felt that I should spend the time to rewrite it and bring it up to speed.

Team Preview and selection are a very important part of playing Pokémon battles. This is where the battle begins. This is before the point where we worry about luck factors swaying the results. This is where information and assumptions can dictate the future direction of the battle. Team Preview is a game of information. It tests the player on what they know about the opponent’s team based on the six species that they see and what they know about their own team in order to match up against the opposition. A player needs to take what they know and apply that to a four Pokemon selection that will lead them to victory.

As with my previous article, I state the following disclaimer: “Due to the nature of Team Preview, don’t expect me to be able to tell you a perfect answer to every Team Preview situation you will find yourself involved in with the current team that you are using.” Team Previews are subjective and dynamic. What one needs to pay attention to will differ depending on the team they are using and their own personal play style and skill level.

For example, someone may choose to bring a team and lead based on a prediction of what their opponent might lead, while another player may try to look for a more conservative team set up where they have a safe lead that can keep them from falling behind regardless of what their opponent may bring. In this article, I hope to share some things to look for in Team Preview, as well as some ideas and strategies to keep in mind while making a team selection.

What is Team Preview?

Team Preview is the screen you see just before a battle begins. You will see the six Pokemon team of your opponent on the top screen and your own team of six on the touch screen. Here you will choose the four Pokemon that you want to have participate in the battle. The first two chosen will be who you lead with and the third and fourth member chosen will be in reserve to be switched in or to replace a fainted Pokemon.

A timer is active on Team Preview, providing you with 90 seconds to decide on which four Pokemon to bring into battle. Should a player not CONFIRM their decision within the 90 seconds provided, the game will automatically fill in the remainder of the team, starting from the top of their list.

Just to be clear, this will mean that the two Pokemon in the top row of the screen will be sent out as leads and the two in the middle row will be brought in the back. So, if you don’t want the game making the most lazy team decision for you, it’s critical that you get your selection submitted within the 90 seconds. Likewise, it’s a good idea to take note of what you see as the first 4 Pokemon on the opponent’s team just in case that they run out of time.

What to look for?

It is important to see what your opponent has on their team and quickly assess some of the key features on their team. One way is to simply know and familiarize yourself with what each individual Pokemon can do. Having this level of information is ideal, and it tends to be something that people develop over time through practice, but it can be an overwhelming amount of information for newer players.

If you do want to try to improve your knowledge, start with some of the more common individual Pokemon in the current metagame. There is an overview article that can be found on NuggetBridge that can give you an idea of the Pokemon one may see in VGC 2015. Alternatively, you can check some usage statistics for Battle Spot Doubles for the ORAS League on the GBU website and see what sort of movesets are popular for various Pokemon.

Instead of giving an overview of individual Pokemon capabilities again, I will instead cover a number of supportive Moves and Abilities common in Double Battles. What they do, why you should be aware of them, and what Pokemon have these capabilities. When looking at this list, you should ask yourself:

1. Does your team care about x?
2. If so, how does your team deal with x?

Not every team needs to be concerned with every single little thing. But every team should have at least some sort of game plan for every single little thing they come across. After all, even if something isn’t considered to be a threat, careless actions can make one eat their words. This list of supportive options are not written in any particular order.

Potential Megas

New to XY and ORAS is the introduction of Mega Evolution. Many of the popular Mega Pokemon have a decent balance in how their 100 Base Stat gain is distributed, along with a change in ability that boosts their damage potential (Parental Bond, Huge Power, Tough Claws, etc.) or provides a strong supportive ability (Shadow Tag, Intimidate, etc.).

Since only one Pokemon on a team may Mega Evolve per battle, usually teams will have only one Pokemon that is able to Mega Evolve. While not as common as in 2014, dual Mega teams are still seen on occasion. Unless there’s a lot of threats on an opposing team discouraging its usage, people will bring their Mega Pokemon to the battle, so quickly identifying which Mega you’ll be dealing with is a good place to start when deciding which four Pokemon you want to bring into battle.

Some of the more popular Mega Pokemon include: Kangaskhan, Mawile, Charizard-Y, Metagross, Salamence, Venusaur, Swampert, Gengar, and Camerupt

Fake Out

Fake Out is a 40 Power Normal-Type Move that can only be used on the first turn that a Pokemon is active on the field. The selling point of this move is that it acts at +3 Priority and has has a 100% flinch rate. As such, this move cannot be redirected and its target will be prevented from moving for one turn, provided that they don’t have Inner Focus or Shield Dust.

Fake Out has great utility in covering your partner from a threat for one turn, making potential set ups like Trick Room or Tailwind harder to disrupt. Alternatively, it can be punishing against Pokemon without Protect, forcing them to lose a turn and be at the mercy of your partner, who can get free damage on them.

Recognizing that your opponent does not have any means of Fake Out support can make it safer for Pokemon holding choice items to lead in battles. If the opponent does have a potential Fake Out user, it is a good idea to think about what you can do in order to play around it and avoid falling behind early in the battle.

Fake Out has a fairly wide distribution. Kangaskhan is by far the most common user of Fake Out simply because it is one of the most used Pokemon in VGC 2015, but other Pokemon with Fake Out you may see include: Ludicolo, Infernape, Raichu, Weavile, Scrafty, Hitmontop, Hariyama, Lopunny, and Mienshao

Intimidate

The introduction of Mega Pokemon to the scene has brought in a handful of Pokemon that are able to brute force their way through their opposition with heavy hitting STAB attacks. This motivated players to have a number of ways to handle these Pokemon. Intimidate is one of the tools that people use to weaken these heavy hitters and make them more managable for their team.

Intimidate is an ability that activates upon entering play, either by a Pokemon entering the field with the ability or from a Pokemon gaining the ability in mid-battle with something like Skill Swap or Trace. When it activates, it lowers that Attack of BOTH opposing Pokemon by one stage. Since it doesn’t require any moves to be used at all, it is easy to execute and is a flexible way to debuff the active opponents’ Attack stat.

A person can lead with an Intimidate Pokemon and start the battle off with their opponent’s Pokemon at -1 Attack. They can also switch out to a Pokemon with Intimidate, simultaneously dropping the opposing Pokemon’s Attack while bringing in a new Pokemon that may have a more favourable match up. Looking back at some past articles of teams that made top cut in larger tourneys, you’ll see that a good 66% of teams have at least one Pokemon with Intimidate on them, even for past formats like VGC’13 and VGC’14.

Landorus-T and Salamanece are the two most likely Pokemon that you’ll run into that have Intimidate. However, other Pokemon include: Gyarados, Staraptor, Arcanine, Mawile, and Mega Manectric.

Defiant and Competitive

As a consequence of Intimidate being such a valuable tool, Pokemon with Defiant and the newly introduced Competitive abilities are more popular. These two abilities increase a Pokemon’s offense stats whenever they are afflicted with a stat drop from the opponent. Defiant will increase Attack by 2 stages every time an opponent drops one of the Pokemon’s stats while Competitive will increase Special Attack by 2 stages for every dropped stat.

These Abilities are used to deter Intimidate users, as the Attack drop from Intimidate will trigger a boost to Defiant or Competitive users, leaving them at +1 Atk or +2 SpAtk respectively. If you aren’t careful, feeding a boost into these Pokemon can lead to a dire situation.

Bisharp and Milotic are the two most commonly seen with these abilities, but you may want to keep an eye out for Pokemon such as Primeape, Braviary, or Wigglytuff. Tornadus and Thundurus have Defiant as Hidden Abilities but, currently in VGC 2015, they are not legal for VGC play.

Auto-Weather

Auto-Weather, as the term suggests, refers to Pokemon with abilities that summon a weather condition upon entry. If two Pokemon enter the field at the same time, the slower Pokemon’s weather condition will overwrite the faster Pokemon’s, thus “winning” the weather war. Some Pokemon have an Auto-Weather ability upon Mega Evolution. In those situations, since Mega Evolution occurs after switch ins, they will always win weather wars against other Auto-Weather Pokemon, save for a slower Pokemon Mega Evolving at the same time.

Unlike previous generations, weather from these Pokemon are no longer permanent, lasting for the usual five turns (eight if they are holding their respective weather stone) as if they used a weather move like Rain Dance. Long gone are the days of mandatory weather wars, where it was almost necessary to have some sort of weather changer of your team. Still, every now and then you will see people who run teams with some reliance on weather, particularly rain or sun.

Each weather has a ton of different effects associated with them, so it’s easier to just look up each weather condition on your own. While manual weather users have a use here and there, it’s mostly important to just look at the Pokemon with Auto-weather themselves. Those Pokemon are:

Drizzle: Politoed
Drought: Ninetales, Charizard-Y
Sand Stream: Tyranitar(+Mega Tyranitar), Hippowdon
Snow Warning: Abomasnow(+Mega Abomasnow), Aurorus

Prankster

Everyone’s favourite ability. Prankster grants +1 Priority to all status moves performed by the user. This can make it fairly easy for these Pokemon to spew out status effects and disruption through moves like Taunt, Will-o-Wisp, Thunder Wave, Encore, and Swagger. Most Prankster Pokemon are purely supportive, except Thundurus who’s Base 125 SpAtk allows it to deal respectable damage even without any investment.

These Pokemon can be a huge pain if left unchecked for too long, so being able to find a way to minimize the disruption they can cause to your team can go a long way in winning battles against teams that rely on Prankster support. After all, the last thing you want to see is your entire team bogged down with Paralysis and relying on RNG every time you make a move.

There’s a small selection of Pokemon with Prankster. Thundurus is the most common one, but there is also Whimsicott, Sableye, Meowstic, Liepard, and Klefki that are used as Prankster Supporters.

Trick Room Users

Trick Room is a field effect that reverses turn order within a priority bracket for the next four turns. This means that a Pokemon with a higher Speed stat will move after a Pokemon with a lower Speed stat, but moves with increased Priority, such as Protect, Mach Punch, or Sucker Punch will still move ahead of everyone else. This can be a total nightmare for faster, aggressive teams as they find themselves unable to mount a counterattack, even if they manage to survive the four turns of Trick Room.

Teams that have Trick Room will often include a good amount of slower, bulkier Pokemon. Since Trick Room is a lowered priority move and requires a Pokemon to move last, they often need support to get Trick Room up. Being able to stop Trick Room from ever going up is huge against a Trick Room team, but don’t expect it to be easy. If you think that trying to stop the set up is a good enough to beat Trick Room, you’ll be in for a rough time.

Common Trick Room users include: Cresselia, Gothitelle, Slowbro/Slowking, Aromatisse, Dusclops, Jellicent, Chandelure, Porygon2
Common Trick Room Attackers may include: Mega Mawile, Mega Camerupt, Conkeldurr, Abomasnow, Hariyama, Tyranitar, Gastrodon, Sylveon, Rhyperior, Heatran
Common Trick Room Supporters may include: Scrafty, Amoonguss, Clefable, Choice Scarf Landorus-T

Follow Me / Rage Powder

Often referred to as Redirection moves because of their effect, Follow Me and Rage Powder are +2 Priority moves that will cause all single target moves used by opponents to be redirected towards the user of Follow Me or Rage Powder, with the exception of Sky Drop. Do note that these two moves are not identical. Since Rage Powder is a powder move, it will not redirect moves away from Pokemon that are unaffected by powder moves, such as Grass-type Pokemon, Pokemon with the Overcoat ability, and Pokemon carrying Safety Goggles.

Redirection is a powerful supportive tool in Double Battles, as it allows a Pokemon to cover their ally from a wide variety of moves, guarding them from damage and harmful statuses. It can also be used as a way to disrupt strategies where one may try to target their own teammate.

Redirection lets the user’s ally move freely. If you are not prepared for Redirection, it can put you in a situation where your opponent has a number of free turns where his other Pokemon can attack or set up. If you see a Pokemon with Follow Me or Rage Powder on a team, you’ll need to bring something to deal with it, because you’ll likely have to take it out first whether you want to or not.

Follow Me is seen from Togekiss, Clefable, Clefairy, and Pachirisu
Rage Powder is mostly seen from Amoonguss and Volcarona

Minimize

Minimize is a move that increases evasion by two stages. Every now and then, on Battle Spot, you will run into people who try to set up an Eviolite Chansey with Minimize (or a Clefable with Minimize and Cosmic Power). This can lead to a situation where they try to win by making a last stand with a +6 Evade Chansey, eventually coming back from something like a 3v1 situation simply because you are unable to land consecutive hits while they just restore their HP with Softboiled from the few hits that do land.

It’s a slow and frustrating strategy to play against, but fortunately time is not on their side during live events with the 15min/45s timer. If you ever see a Chansey during a live event, you may want to consider playing towards a timer win as early as possible.

Tailwind

Tailwind is a move that doubles Speed of the user’s team for the next three Turns. Tailwind’s boost is not tied to changes in Speed stages, so being at -1 Speed under Tailwind will be 1.33x Speed while being at +1 Speed under Tailwind is 3x Speed. Teams with Tailwind users typically uses the three turns to mount an offense instead of setting up further.

Since the move Tailwind doesn’t have lowered priority like Trick Room, it is a lot easier to set up, especially with Pokemon like Whimsicott or Talonflame who get increased priority for it. However, the duration of Tailwind is shorter and it can be counteracted by moves like Thunder Wave or Icy Wind, making it not that difficult to endure. Still, it definitely requires some planning and foresight. If you aren’t careful, you may find yourself taking more damage than you would like, or end up in a situation where the opponent can easily set up another Tailwind.

Now that Tailwind has returned as a tutor in ORAS, Suicune, Whimsicott, and anything that has wings can learn Tailwind. The prime suspects will be Zapdos, Suicune, Whimsicott, Togekiss, and Talonflame.

Wide Guard

Wide Guard is a +3 Priority move that protects the user and its ally from damaging spread moves, such as Earthquake, Heat Wave and Rock Slide. The key word here is “damaging”. It does not block multi-targeting status moves such as Dark Void, Teeter Dance or Leer from affecting the party.

Since its update in 6th gen, Wide Guard can be used consecutively as many times as you like without ever failing. However, consecutive uses of Wide Guard will still effect the chances of using Protect successfully. Feint will remove the effects of Wide Guard for the entire party if it deals damage to any Pokemon protected by it.

Wide Guard is not so significant that people will think “Oh boy, I need to have something that can deal with Wide Guard!”, but it is definitely something that one should be aware of.

Most commonly, Aegislash is seen as a potential user of Wide Guard. Aside from Aegislash, Pokemon like Hitmontop, Mantine, Swampert, and Mienshao also often run Wide Guard.

Quick Guard

Quick Guard, like Wide Guard, is a +3 Priority move. However, instead of blocking damaging spread moves, Quick Guard blocks priority moves. In this gen, this includes blocking moves that are acting at increased Priority due to Prankster or Gale Wings. As Quick Guard is the same Priority as Fake Out, one must be faster than the Fake Out user in order to block it with Quick Guard. Lastly, Feint will still break Quick Guard, even though it is a Priority move.

The main selling point of Quick Guard would be its ability to block Fake Out and keep Prankster Pokemon at bay. There is a relatively diverse distribution of competitively viable Pokemon that can learn Quick Guard, but it isn’t a staple move on anything at this given point. For example, looking at Battle Spot statistics, Quick Guard tends to be used, at most, 30% of the time on a Pokemon. As such, it’s something to keep in mind, but not something to really worry about until you actually see it. Hopefully, it won’t be too late by that point.

Lightning Rod

Lightning Rod is an ability that redirects all Electric attacks towards the Pokemon with the ability. The Pokemon is also granted immunity to Electric-type moves and their Special Attack goes up by one stage whenever it is hit by one. This applies to non-damaging Electric-type moves, such as Thunder Wave. Lightning Rod cannot redirect moves that are self-targeting or multi-targeting, though it will still be immune and boosted in the latter case. An interesting quirk about Lightning Rod is that it will also redirect Electric-type moves from its ally.

Lightning Rod is a powerful ability due to its utility in protecting the team from Electric-type attacks and paralysis from Thunder Wave. In this regard, it can severely restrict Electric-type Pokemon from functioning properly in a battle. As such, if you are relying on Electric-types to do some work for you, removal of Lightning Rod Pokemon is a priority.

While Lightning Rod is a powerful ability, a lot of the common Pokemon using it are extremely frail. Either that or they are Rhydon. The usual Lightning Rod users seen in VGC are Raichu, Manectric, and Mega Sceptile. Do note that such terrifying Pokemon as Seaking, Plusle, and Zebstrika also have access to this ability.

Storm Drain

Essentially Lightning Rod for Water-type moves, Storm Drain redirects Water attacks towards the Pokemon with the ability. In addition, it grants Water-type immunity and boosts Special Attack by one stage whenever a Water-type move hits the Pokemon. Unlike Lightning Rod, Storm Drain is strictly for blocking damaging moves, as Soak is the only non-damaging Water-type it can redirect away and block.

Realistically, the only Pokemon with Storm Drain that you’ll ever see in VGC is Gastrodon. However, there is also Cradily, Lumineon, and Maractus who have the ability.

Burn

Burn is a status condition that halves the afflicted Pokemon’s physical attack power and causes them to lose HP at the end of every turn. There are three moves typically associated with this status: Will-o-Wisp, Sacred Fire, and Scald. Will-o-Wisp is a status move with 85% accuracy and it directly burns a target. As the move’s name suggests, it is commonly seen on Ghost-type Pokemon and the occasional Fire-type.

Sacred Fire is a strong Fire-type move with a 50% chance to burn and it is only seen on Entei. Scald is a Water-type move with a 30% chance to burn and you’ll often see it on bulkier Water-type Pokemon, such as Suicune, Gastrodon, Politoed, or Milotic. While most standard damaging Fire-type moves have a chance to burn, a 10% chance is small enough to not worry about until it happens.

A burnt physical attacker can quickly become dead weight, especially against teams with high physical defense. As such, it is pretty important to avoid burns before getting some decent damage in. While Scald’s chances of causing a burn is only 30%, if you give an opponent the opportunity to fire off a number of Scalds, there’s a pretty good chance someone will get burned.

Paralysis

Paralysis is a status condition that reduces the afflicted Pokemon’s speed to 25%. In addition, the Pokemon has a 25% chance of being unable to move for a turn. The decrease in speed can be devastating to Pokemon that heavily rely on speed or depend on speed boost from abilities like Swift Swim or Chlorophyll. The chance of being fully paralyzed tends to manifest at the most ill-opportune times.

While Paralysis has solid utility, do note that it is does not directly reduce the opponent’s offensive strength. People sometimes get a bit too carried away with trying to frustrate the opponent with paralysis and end up fishing for full paralysis when there was another path to victory with better odds.

Thunder Wave is the primary source of inflicting paralysis in VGC and Thundurus is the primary user of Thunder Wave. Less commonly, there is Glare from Serperior and Nuzzle from Pachirisu.

Sleep

Sleep prevents a Pokemon from moving for 1-3 turns. Putting a Pokemon to sleep before they are able to move for the turn will cause them to spend one of these sleep turns. As such, Sleep is a reliable way to stop a Pokemon for at least one turn. Most of the time, sleep is inflicted by Spore or Sleep Powder from various Grass-type Pokemon. In these cases, fellow Grass-types and Pokemon holding Safety Goggles become immune to sleep.

There is also Smeargle, with the infamous Dark Void, who can put both opposing Pokemon to sleep at the same time. Also, there’s a fairly large number of Pokemon that can learn Hypnosis, but the ones that use it are few and far between.

While sleep is a temporary status, being caught unprepared can leave you rolling the dice and hoping that your Pokemon can wake up before getting knocked out. While sleep can be considered an unreliable strategy for the user as well, the odds are still mostly in their favour when they are faster than your team.

Common Pokemon that can induce Sleep are Smeargle, Breloom, Amoonguss, and Venusaur (non-Mega)

Recovery Moves

In particular, the recovery moves that that heal 50% the user’s HP when used. While these moves are a lot more self-serving that what has been previously listed, they are moves that do see usage in VGC. A battle can quickly turn for the worse when something is able to recover their HP and get themselves back into the game.

It can either force people to extend themselves in order to knock it out or leave it alone and let it attack freely. As such, it is important to bring something that can deal with these sorts of Pokemon. Recovery moves create a large advantage for the opponent in late game as they can slowly wittle down your Pokemon while staying healthy. In a 1v1 situation, a Pokemon with a recovery move will have a very good shot at winning the tie breaker when time runs out.

While there are some Pokemon, such as Chansey or Mega Slowbro, who may go all in on trying to make a last stand but are thus prone to timer stalling, Pokemon such as Zapdos, Jellicent, and Milotic tend to play a more active role in battles while still having the ability to heal themselves.

Perish Trap

A strategy that was made possible in VGC 2013 with the introduction of Hidden Ability Gothitelle, a Pokemon that could Protect and has the Shadow Tag ability. Perish Trap is the strategy using Perish Song to knock out your opponent’s Pokemon, with Shadow Tag preventing them from switching out. Teams that attempt this tend to be quite distinct and often are completely devoted to pulling off the strategy. However, every now and then, you may run into a few tricks and surprises.

Battles involving Perish Trap require a lot of forward thinking, as you usually only have a few opportunities to break through the strategy. It is important to identify the strategy early and plan what you bring accordingly in order to try to disrupt the Perish Trap.

Common Pokemon on a Perish Trap team include:
Shadow Tag user: Mega Gengar, Gothitelle
Perish Song User: Mega Gengar, Politoed, Azumarill, Marowak
Support Pokemon: Scrafty, Liepard, Kangaskhan, Amoonguss

Piecing It All Together

Okay, so you have built a team. You know your Pokemon types and basic match ups. You’ve done your research about the various supportive options that can form the backbone of VGC teams. Now it is time to put everything together for the Team Preview.

In order to help you make an informed decision, here are a few general tips:

What do you see?

The first thing to do in a Team Preview is to look at the preview. Quickly survey what Pokemon species are on the opponent’s team and make note of what sort of support tools you believe they have on their team. “What potential Megas do they have?”, “What kind of weather is present?”, “Is there a threat of Trick Room?”, etc. Gather up all the information that you can possibly perceive from seeing your opponent’s six Pokemon and make a judgement call on what you believe they will be trying to do in the upcoming battle.

What do you bring?

After seeing what the opponent has, you should compare it to what you yourself have. Basically, if you feel that you have a strong matchup against the opponent’s team, you should stick to your main strategy and try to maintain your advantage over the opponent while playing conservatively in order to prevent them from mounting a counter offensive. If you feel like your match up is poor, look for a way to gain momentum and catch up to your opponent while avoiding a one sided slaughter.

This is where being familiar with your team and coming up with plans for various difficult match ups are important. By knowing your own team’s personal strengths and weaknesses, you can easily make the proper call and act accordingly in your battles. Often times, a team preview might look like a bad match up, but you can still win by simply making the correct calls in Team Preview in order to avoid a terrible Turn 1 lead match up. Keep a few solid switching options in order to keep your choices open and keep yourself in the game.

If you are having some trouble deciding what to bring against an opponent, sometimes it helps to look at the reverse. What do you think the opponent will bring against you? While you won’t know the moveset and items that they have, sometimes you will be able to rule out certain Pokemon because they just seem bad against everything that you have.

Other times, you get situations where you can anticipate your opponent to bring a certain Pokemon, simply because their entire team is dedicated towards a particular strategy. This situation is most commonly seen with trainers that use a dedicated Trick Room team.

What do you fear?

While Team Preview does provide information before the battle starts, it is still very possible to have surprises on a team. Players can see what Pokemon the opponent has, but will not immediately have information about items and movesets. While it is possible to guess what each Pokemon’s function is on the team based on some background knowledge of what each Pokemon is capable of and what each Pokemon commonly runs, uncommon move or item choices can easily be used to catch people off guard.

If you are planning to take advantage of surprise factors in Team Preview, however, be sure to not go overboard with it. Ideally, you want to have something that can both act as a surprise while still functioning well when people know about it. One-shot surprises can be good, but if it becomes useless if the opponent knows about it, it can be dangerous to rely on in best-of-three play or during larger live tourneys where information about unique things may spread as more people play against your team.

Team Selection in Best of Three

As a best-of-three series involves two to three battles, you go through multiple team preview screens. The first team preview will usually be played out similar to a best-of-one team preview, but after that battle there are a few more things to consider.

What Did You Learn?

A team preview involves a bit of personal judgment and background information in order to speculate what your opponent’s items and movesets are and what their overall team strategy is. But after playing a battle, a lot of uncertainties about the opponent’s team will be revealed.

If you are caught off guard by some surprise moves, you now know about them going into your next battle(s). Information about who is holding what items, which Pokemon have Protect, and any unusual movesets are extremely valuable in making an informed decision on what to bring into your next battle. As such, one of the worst things that can happen is to get completely demolished in the first game and not see all the Pokemon they brought or barely seeing any of the movesets.

Adapting

With the information you have acquired from playing your opponent, you enter your second or third battle with the opportunity to change what you bring in. Too many times I see people who feel that, because they lost game 1, they must change what they bring in game 2. Similarly, some people feel that, since they won, they are completely okay to just stay with the same Pokemon for their next battle.

Cutting corners like that is unacceptable. It is important to look beyond the results of the previous battle and see how that result occured. Here’s a bit of an extreme example:

Your team in Game 1 was having a dominant matchup. However, you lost because you missed a bunch of 90% accurate moves that would have won you the game if any had hit. Also, you know that the opponent can’t really bring their other two Pokemon without making things easier for you. Why would you change what you brought in game 1?

It’s important to look beyond the result of the previous battle and determine how that result came to be. If you relied on a surprise factor in order to win against the opponent, you can’t really expect them to fall for it again. If you got bailed out of a losing battle by a gratuitious amount of luck, it might be a good idea to adjust what you bring in game 2 since it isn’t feasible to bank on luck again.

You also need to consider the fact that your opponent is given the same opportunity to change as well. Depending on how the battle went, it can be possible to predict what they may bring in the next game.

Regardless of the result, it is important to keep your cool between battles. Don’t despair because of luck factors causing an “undeserved” loss and don’t fret if you got crushed in the first game. Likewise, don’t let it get to your head when you crush an opponent 4-0 in the first game. Think through each team preview as you see them and use what you learn from previous games to guide you towards victory. Remember, team preview is the part of the battle where luck is non-existant, so it is important to make it count.

Team Preview in Multi-Battles

In Multi-Battles, you see 12 opposing Pokemon, your ally’s six Pokemon, and you can only bring in three Pokemon. Don’t overthink it. Just have some fun and hope that you and your partner are in sync on what to bring to the battle.

Conclusion

Did this seem like a lot of information to take in? Now try thinking about all of this stuff within 90 seconds. People tend to take the ability to assess team preview information for granted. It’s good to think about exactly what you are doing during those 90 seconds.

For cases where you feel that things don’t feel quite right and you are losing more battles than you should be with your team, perhaps it is a good idea to look at how you built your team and also how you get into undesirable situations. I hope you were able to learn something from this article and hope that it will allow you to improve in VGC.

The post They’re Eying Each Other Warily: Team Preview Guide ver.2015 appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello everyone! I am Franklin Sujo, a former TCG player and long time competitive singles player that finally got serious about VGC. Playing at large events is nothing new to me. For years, I played Yugioh and various Play! Pokémon events in Florida and South Florida.

I enjoyed watching the amazing work from the Nationals and Worlds streams in 2012 and 2013 and, when my local league was cleared to do the first set of Primer Challenges, that finally got me into playing VGC.

The Team

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Protect
– Low Kick
– Sucker Punch
– Return

Yes, it’s an older boring spread. And yes, it might be outdated. But yes, it still works. The first thing most people will notice is the lack of Fake Out and that is because the threat of Fake Out is just as good as Fake Out for the rest of my team and I knew that I’d have to fight a lot of Hariyama this weekend. Protect is there to scout out moves or to burn Tailwind, Trick room, and to block Close Combats. I chose Low Kick over Power Up Punch to handle opposing Kangaskhan, Terrakion, and Hydregion.

I’m the type of person that loves more power, but Double-Edge recoil damage is way too much to justify the small boost in power. Kangaskhan, being my Mega, was brought into every single game, usually in the back to disrupt tempo with the threat of Fake Out.

Clefable @ Mental Herb
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 28 SpA / 68 SpD / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
- Ice Beam
- Follow Me
- Helping Hand
- Protect

So I had Angel’s Clefable in my box already, but I was testing around with Amoongus. In the two weeks leading up to the Florida regionals, I wanted a Fire-Water-Grass core but, in the car ride from the airport with miyukihimeVGC and Mancuso, we where talking and Clefairy was brought up. The desire to have a Fairy type on my team with Helping Hand/Follow Me support made me switch back to Clefable. I would have used Clefairy, but I forgot to breed a new one. Unfortunately I couldn’t bring Clefable into as many games as I would have liked, but it helped a lot in the few games it saw.

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 232 HP / 84 Def / 112 SpA / 80 SpD
Bold Nature
– Ice Beam
– Scald
– Tailwind
– Protect

Oh bulky speed control water type, you will be the underlying theme of this season. I have a good friend of mine, Gary, who came up to me to tell me “I told you so,” after I talked down the bulk and power of Suicune. Now here I am playing this beautiful ribbon butt water dog/cat/gerbil.

100 Special Attack is enough to OHKO 4 HP Landorus and Salamence, with a 31.3% chance to OHKO Garchomp. The extra 12 EVs were added to make me feel better when I have to hit other targets for neutral damage with Scald and Ice Beam. Suicune did have Snarl before the event, but I ultimately voted against it in order to recover HP with leftovers and block double target turns with Protect. Tailwind was a very underused move for me at this event, not because I couldn’t find a situation to setup Tailwind, but because the situation never called for it.

Heatran @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 156 HP / 252 SpA / 100 Spe
Modest Nature
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power
– Flash Cannon
– Protect

This is my anti-Steel/Fairy Pokémon. Heat Wave will always be an amazing move as long as it has STAB Earth Power to hit the targets that resist Fire/Steel, or if they’re named Suicune. I was thinking about putting Substitute on this set, but the lack of Steel/Poison type moves on my team made me want to keep Flash Cannon so that I would have more anti-fairy coverage. 156 HP made Scald from Milotic and Suicune typically a 2HKO while also surviving Scizor’s Superpower and Bullet Punch.

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 46 SpA / 68 SpD / 28 Spe
Bold Nature
– Thunder Wave
– Taunt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Thunderbolt

Once I saw that VGC 2015 was going to allow Genies, I knew I wanted to use Thundurus just for its Prankster Thunder Wave and Taunt. Taking advantage of its natural bulk, it will usually absorb 3 solid hits before getting KO’d. 46 Special Attack is enough to OHKO or 2HKO all relevant non-Rotom Water/Flying types with Thunderbolt and have a very good chance to OHKO 4 HP Landorus-T with HP Ice. It was a toss up of whether Thundurus or Suicune would carry the Sitrus Berry, but the burst recovery is better suited on Thundurus. I had forgot to put Swagger on Thundurus, but having more Ground/Dragon/Landorus coverage never hurts.

Terrakion @ Lum Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 20 HP / 228 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Rock Slide
– Quick Guard
– Close Combat
– Protect

The EVs gave Terrakion a bit more bulk. It helped in testing, but not against any of the teams I fought during the event. The moveset is pretty self explanatory: Quick guard is to block most Pranksters and Fake Out users. STAB Rock Slide hurts a lot and comes with a nice flinch chance. Close Combat blows up everything else. I did have Double Kick as a way to deal with Focus Sash Bisharp and Smeargle, but figured that the rest of my team would discourage Bisharp, while Thundurus had Taunt for Smeargle to render it useless.

Tournament Report

Round 1 vs. Blake

vs.

Terrakion’s Quick Guard blocked Fake Out, but it still got blown up by a Close Combat. It was very interesting to see Greninja and Nidoking on the same team, as they tend to have the same job of doing a ton of damage with very similar coverage. The Greninja ended up being neutralized by Thunder Wave, but it still KO’d my Thundurus. The main thing to remember is that Greninja’s best tool is its speed, as it hits way hard but doesn’t have much bulk. I believe it was holding an Expert Belt and Nidoking was holding Life Orb based on some damage calcs I ran after the battle. Kangaskhan and Suicune together took their first victory of the day!

1-0

Round 2 vs. Andrew

vs.

This was just an evil match on my end. Andrew’s Salamence only KO’d Terrakion with Double-Edge after getting flinched and fully Paralyzed while its partner Suicune got taunted, preventing it from setting up Tailwind. Andrew’s combo of Rotom-H’s White Herb with Helping Hand boosted Overheats effectively gave him 2 and a half full-powered Overheats, which I found very interesting. There was a support Lickilicky and Bisharp on his team as well, which meant that a Helping Hand Normal Gem boosted +2 Explosion could have been another threat on his team, but I will never know. Heatran and Kangaskhan RMA‘d the oven and fried Cresselia to earn me the second win of the day.

2-0

Lunch Round

Subway with friends while trying to avoid the massive potholes that littered the road leading to and from the venue.

Round 3 vs. Eric

vs.

I learned a very important lesson here, in that Aroma Veil blocks Taunt. It is surprising that Aromatisse is not more popular, since it has a built-in Mental Herb, enough bulk to survive just about anything, and Heal Pulse. Trick Room went up turn one and I had to play around Hariyama’s Close Combat for a few turns. Heatran managed fire off two Flash Cannons to KO Aromatisse and Kangaskhan, at -1, was able to OHKO Amoonguss after getting a crit on the first hit. I really hate having to fight Trick Room teams.

3-0

Round 4 vs. Ziad Elaawar (Zenithian) (Eventual 15th place)

vs.

Another Trick Room team with Zapdos and Rain support. This game I had to take out Gothitelle as fast as possible and play around Hariyama’s Close Combat. Suicune switched in to take a Close Combat for Kangaskhan and the defense drops starting racking up on Hariyama. It came down to Heatran, by herself, staring down a full HP Hariyama and 35~40% HP Ludicolo outside of trick room. Heat Wave hit and KOs both targets!

I was experiencing the best feeling, but then I remembered about the full HP Mega Mawile in the back. Mawile crits with its Sucker Punch, leaving me with a single chance to hit a 95% accurate move that only has a 25% chance to OHKO 252hp/0 SpD Adamant Mawile. HEAT WAVE OHKO’d Mega Mawile, letting me take the round!

4-0

Round 5 vs. Willam Collins (Wiretap) (Eventual 3rd place)

vs.

Round 5 took forever to start, for what ever reason. So, before the match, we played mind games with each other using our plush dolls and my Rotom/Rotom-F playmat. The match opens with one the scariest leads, Scizor and Blaziken. I double protect to avoid any damage while predicting the Protect from his Blaziken. Clefable then wagged his finger and ate Scizor’s banded Bullet Punch to the face and then asked for more. So Blaziken gave it a knuckle sandwich, KOing Clefable.

Kangaskhan OHKO’d Blaziken with Return, which made the match infinitely easier as I had no other way to deal with Blaziken. Suicune and Kangaskhan then made quick work of Mega Venusaur and forced Swampert to switch back to Scizor. I suspect that Scizor + Triple Starter will be a scary team in the metagame until something totally outclasses them.

5-0

Round 6 vs. Josse

vs.

This game was silly. I wish I was able to record this match as a example of offensive play vs. defensive plays. Josse’s Thundurus taunts mine, but I countered by simply using Thunderbolt on his Terrakion, knowing it’s a 2HKO after the Close Combat defense drop.

I switch Suicune in to take the Close Combat and it also gets taunted while his Suicune sets up tailwind. I double target his Thundurus with HP Ice and Ice Beam, cleanly knocking it out without having to deal with Sitrus Berry. Josse’s Metagross comes out and I taunt it, expecting it to set up a substitute, but Thundurus ended getting KO’d by Ice Beam and Zen Headbutt. Kangaskhan and Suicune Sucker Punched and Scalded their way to victory, scoring the burn on Josse’s Suicune. Josse mentioned afterwards that he tried to stop me from setting up, which I read correctly and adjusted by simply attacking.

6-0

Round 7 vs. Kyle Ayala

 vs.

Yet another trick room team, but with Cresselia starting in the back. Constant pressure from my Kangaskhan and Thundurus stopped any chances of trick room. It was a really really tough lead, but Kangaskhan and Heatran pulled it off again, with the biggest play being Kangaskhan’s Return KOing a 70% HP Rotom-W still carrying its Sitrus Berry. The crit on the second hit of Return might have mattered, but the first hit did about 60% of its HP, so it might not have been that bulky. Heatran KO’d Mawile and Cresselia without an issue. Maybe if he had lead with trick room, things would be different, but that’s for an alternate reality.

7-0

Round 8 vs. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario) (Eventual 4th place)

vs.

I kind of lost at team preview by not bringing Terrakion and Heatran in the back. I tried to burn through sun turns and take care of Gourgeist with Ice Beam, but things got out of hand once Kangaskhan and Clefable got burned. Scarf Typhlosion in the sun truly is the the volcano Pokémon, as Eruption takes out Thundurus and a solid 50% on Suicune.

7-1

Round 9 vs. Ben Hickey (Darkpenguin67) (Eventual 9th place)

 vs.

This was the first Mega Kangaskan I fought all day and Low Kick didn’t KO it. Also, I wished I had kept Ice Punch on my Kangaskhan as well. It was nice to see Sylveon as well, as I did expect it to lose favor over the course of the year due to Bisharp and Heatran usage going up. Heatran does have a x4 resistance to Fairy, but it still took a lot of damage from Thunderbolt and Choice Spec’d Hyper Voice. My team was simply picked apart, but I knew I’d still make it into Top Cut.

Top Cut Round 1 vs. Cash Koskta (Cash_Koskta) (Eventual 5th place)

The best trick room team I faced in the tournament. In team preview, I was thinking about having Thundurus taunt Cofragrigus, but it was carrying Mental Herb. In Game 1, everything I had got blown up with Cash making great calls on protects and switches, while my Pokemon were taking chip damage from hail.

Game 2 lasted a bit longer, but had the same result. Heatran might have solo’d Mega Mawile, Abomasnow, and Cofragrigus if Heat Wave hits and if Abomasnow didn’t have Sash or Ice Shard. All in all, making it to Top 16 is a great finish, considering it was my first major VGC event.

Conclusion

It would be great if I can make it out to Nationals, but I’m not pulling out my hair about it. I felt my team was fairly “standard”, with 4 legendaries, but those were the four Pokémon that perfectly fill the roles I needed. My team does have issues with fighting Pokémon, being very fighting weak, but I’ve gotten used to playing around it with smart Protects.

Hopefully, by the time Nationals rolls around, I would have mastered the Trick Room matchup. But that feels more like a personal matchup problem and not an actual problem matchup for the team.

I would like to say thank you to Heidi for running the event. It had a slow start but, like Regigigas, it got its act together by Round 5. I wasn’t able to hang out with my TCG friends, but they were all playing their Top Cut matches, so there’s a good reason for that!

The post What a Load of Hoopa! Florida Winter Regionals 14th Place Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

It was the biggest weekend so far for Europe this season with two Regional events taking place on the 18^th and 19^th April. It’s taken a little time to get information on the teams from the Top Cut, but we are happy to be able to share this with you now:

United Kingdom Regional

Masters Division

1) Philip de Sousa (P3DS) –

2) Daniel Oztekin (Necrocat219) -

3) James Boyt (MrJellyLeggs) -

4) Stephen Gibbon -

5) Yan Sym (Sogeking) -

6) Baris Akcos (Billa) -

7) Andy Waddell (peng) -

8) Eden Batchelor (Xenoblade Hero) -

Italy Regional

Masters Division

1) Giovanni Milani –

2) Gilberto Goracci (Braseg257) -

3) Luigi Schiavone -

4) Guido Marino -

5) Simone Perilli -

6) Alberto Gini (Braindead Primeape) -

7) Fabio Del Pidio -

8) Dario Cioffi -

Many congratulations to the winners and those who reached the Top Cut of both events! Our next major event in Europe will be the German National Championships, which will be held at the Carl Benz Arena in Stuttgart on the 16^th and 17^th May.

The post Results & Teams from the VGC’15 United Kingdom and Italy Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The long awaited Dodrio Cup 2 is now here. The Dodrio Cup 2 is the Nugget Bridge twist on 2013’s CoroCoro Cup. While we cannot give Worlds invites, you can earn a spot in the Nugget Bridge Invitational.

Dodrio Cup is a 3 versus 3 single elimination team tournament with a fun twist. Species clause applies across your entire 3 person team. This means a Pokemon cannot be used on more than one person’s team within your team. Tired of seeing Landorus on every team? Only one of your opponents can have it each round now! Not only does this prevent some of the more common Pokemon from being used so much, it opens the door for some creative Pokemon team building. Some of the lesser used Pokemon now have a chance to shine and prove their worth.

As mentioned this is a 3 person team tournament so only people with 2 other teammates can join. Get your friends together and compete in one of the more unique rule sets for a chance at glory.

Rules for Dodrio Cup:

• Normal rules for the Nugget Bridge Circuit apply (so Standard Ruleset)
• Teams will be made up of 3 players, no more, no less.
• Species clause will apply across all 3 players. This includes all formes — if a Pokemon shares a Pokedex number with another Pokemon it is not allowed.
• If species clause is broken, the offender will receive a game loss for that game.
• Each game is a best of 1. First team to win 2 games advances.
• Single elimination.
• The game must be played on a 3DS system rather than simulators outside extreme circumstances approved by the tournament organizer makiri

Example of a BAD team

• Huy has Rotom, Goodra, Meowstic, Aerodactyl, Azumarill, Pikachu
• Scott has Mawile, Slurpluff, Chesnaught, Conkeldurr, Rotom, Gyarados
• Evan has Kangaskhan, Rotom, Salamence, Garchomp, Tyranitar, Ferrothorn

As you can see each team has a Rotom, this is not allowed. To fix their teams, 2 of the players need to remove Rotom from their team.

Example of a GOOD team

• Huy has Politoed, Goodra, Meowstic, Aerodactyl, Azumarill, Pikachu
• Scott has Mawile, Slurpluff, Chesnaught, Conkeldurr, Aegislash, Gyarados
• Evan has Kangaskhan, Rotom, Salamence, Garchomp, Tyranitar, Ferrothorn

You may register by having all three teams members sign up in the thread and then having the captain join the tournament on Battlefy. Both steps must be taken to complete registration. Registration will close on April 29th, 2015 at 11:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7).

The post Dodrio Cup 2 Signups Have Begun appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey guys! This is the first in what I hope will be a long series of beginner content produced for Nugget Bridge. In this article, I’ll be talking about the differences between playing competitive Singles Pokémon and playing competitive Doubles Pokémon because I think that is a point of confusion for a lot of players who try to get involved in VGC. I’ll also explain how some VGC rules are different.

The vast majority of battles in the Pokémon universe are Single Battles, from the moment you get your starter Pokémon to when you finally defeat the Elite Four and become Champion. Only a handful of battles ingame are Double Battles. VGC can seem daunting, but trust me, it isn’t difficult once you get into it. Let’s get started!

Double Means Two

It’s easy to see that Double Battles feature two Pokémon on any side of the field instead of one, which means that four Pokémon are in play at most points in time. Since so many more Pokémon are on the field, that means that each player has double the options they do in a Singles battle. There are different strategies, too: for example, the “double target”, where one player attacks an enemy Pokémon with both of theirs in order to remove it from the field faster. Another riskier move is the “double switch”, where a player switches both of their Pokémon instead of one in order to gain a favorable position.

Protect

Protect is the most common move and the most important move in Double Battles. I could probably write a whole article about Protect (and I probably will), but here’s what you need to know: in order to outplay your opponent in Doubles, Protect is almost necessary, because you can shield one Pokémon while attacking with the other. Unless your Pokémon has four moves so utterly important that you can’t imagine bringing that Pokémon without them, you definitely want Protect.

There are also two important moves that aren’t useful at all in Single Battles, which are Wide Guard and Quick Guard. These moves, while situational, can save your Pokémon from devastating spread attacks and priority attacks respectively.

No Stuff Too Tough

In Singles, threats like Mega Salamence, Mega Kangaskhan, Greninja, Aegislash, Mega Gengar, and Mega Lucario can sweep entire teams. It’s very difficult for one specific Pokémon to dominate in a Double Battles tournament. Since you have two Pokémon out on the field at any given time, not only do you have two ways to attack their top threat, but it is also nearly impossible for a Pokémon to knock out two enemy Pokémon at once, meaning that you can almost always get an attack off even if one of your Pokémon faints. For example, Mega Kangaskhan dominated tournaments for months in VGC 2014, including winning US Nationals. At Worlds, many players successfully used a combination of Gothitelle and Mega Mawile to defeat Kangaskhan easily. Indeed, no Kangaskhan placed in the top 8 at Worlds that year.

… But Don’t Slack Teambuilding

However, this in turn means that you can’t be lazy when countering threats to your team. In a Single Battle, if you have a Pokémon that hard counters another, it is safe to leave it in versus that Pokémon. In a Double Battle, however, what if they use Protect with their threat, and knock out your counter to that threat with their other Pokémon? You’re probably going to lose the game.

In Singles, it’s also possible to switch in a Pokémon that “checks” the opposing Pokémon by being tough for that Pokémon to damage but not defeating it right away. A good example is Ferrothorn, which checks Mega Kangaskhan. In Doubles, if you switch Ferrothorn in too early, Kangaskhan can target Ferrothorn’s partner and still deal massive amounts of damage while being “checked”. Teams have to be balanced in order to adequately deal with every Pokémon.

Shorter Battles

Double Battles move very quickly. VGC battles average 8-10 turns, which could be a tenth or less of the length of a Single Battle. This has two effects: for one, moves like Toxic and items like Leftovers are much less effective. This is because those moves and items damage/heal per turn, and since there are fewer turns in a VGC match than in a Single Battle, they heal less and do less damage. Instead of Breloom holding a Toxic Orb to recover HP with Poison Heal, it instead carries Focus Sash or Life Orb. Second, moves that change the game for a short number of turns are more powerful and common, especially Tailwind and Trick Room.

Also, VGC battles enforce a 15 minute timer, with only 45 seconds per turn. Battles move quickly naturally. At the end of the game, if time is called, the player with more Pokémon on the field wins.

Be Careful Boosting

Don’t expect to have any one Pokémon out on the field for a very long time. Primarily defensive Pokémon (e.g. Blissey and Hippowdon) don’t work out because of the short timer and because they can be easily double targeted and knocked out. Those that do succeed end up in a supportive role. For example, rather than being a monster with Calm Mind or Cosmic Power and the ability Magic Guard like it is in Singles, Clefable supports with Follow Me and Helping Hand. In fact, defensive setup is almost nonexistent, outside of the rare Calm Mind.

The other half of this statement is that offensive setup isn’t amazing, too. Even if you get crazy stat ups on a Pokémon like Mega Blaziken, it can be targeted by both enemy Pokémon when it attacks, leading to its swift defeat. Baton Pass in particular is ineffective. To start a Baton Pass chain, you need to disable an enemy Pokémon so you can go to town boosting. It’s nearly impossible to disable both enemy Pokémon in Doubles. The only Pokémon capable of that is Smeargle with Dark Void, which is easily outsped, Taunted, or evaded. Baton Pass takes a while to get going, and ultimately, it only boosts up one Pokémon, which can then be defeated by double targeting or timer.

This isn’t saying that boosting isn’t good in Double Battles by any means. A boosted Pokémon is a more powerful Pokémon. In Doubles, players need to be much more careful with their boosted Pokémon because they are always threatened.

Follow Me to Victory

In fact, a whole different host of Pokémon are viable in Double Battles. Pokémon like Amoonguss, Togekiss, and Cresselia, while decent in Singles, blossom in Doubles because they can use Rage Powder, Follow Me, Tailwind, Trick Room, Helping Hand, Icy Wind, or any number of strong moves that are made for Doubles. Don’t count Pokémon out because they aren’t working for you in Single Battles!

Spread All Over

Doubles mechanics are bittersweet for spread moves, which have the ability to hit both enemy Pokémon (and sometimes your partner Pokémon!). Physical Pokémon with moves like Earthquake or Rock Slide and special Pokémon with moves like Heat Wave, Hyper Voice, or Muddy Water are able to inflict much more damage overall than they would in Singles. They don’t deal full damage, however: moves in Double battles deal only 75% of the damage they deal one-on-one. Here’s how spread move damage works in a Double Battle:

• “Hit All Pokémon” spread move when both players have 2 Pokémon: 75% power
• “Hit All Pokémon” spread move when one player has 2 Pokémon and the other has 1: 75% power
• “Hit All Pokémon” spread move when one player has 2 Pokémon, the other has 1, and any Pokémon uses Protect: 75% power
• “Hit All Pokémon” spread move when each player has 1 Pokémon: 100% power

• “Hit Both Opposing Pokémon” spread move when each player has 2 Pokémon: 75% power
• “Hit Both Opposing Pokémon” spread move when the player using the move has 1 Pokémon and the other player has 2: 75% power
• “Hit Both Opposing Pokémon” spread move when the player using the move has 1 Pokémon, the other player has 2, and any enemy Pokémon uses Protect: 75% power
• “Hit Both Opposing Pokémon” spread move when the player using the move has 2 Pokémon and the other player has 1: 100% power
• “Hit Both Opposing Pokémon” spread move when both players have 1 Pokémon: 100% power

Skilled double battlers use strong spread moves to their full effect in order to win.

Hazards Aren’t Great

Stealth Rock, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and Sticky Web are less effective in Double Battles than in Single Battles. Double Battles are shorter, which means fewer switchins. Also, switching isn’t as necessary to outplay your opponent. Using a hazard move is perceived as wasting a turn that could have been spent attacking or disabling enemy Pokémon. No hazard move has been used successfully at any high level of VGC.

VGC: Bring 6, Pick 4

In VGC format, you don’t bring all the Pokémon on your team to battle. Instead, you pick two to leave behind at Team Preview. This means battles go even faster. Because players don’t have to use all the Pokémon they bring, teams with two or even three Mega Pokémon are possible. Also, “Bring 6 Pick 4” adds another element of strategy to the game: if one Pokémon isn’t going to be very good against your opponent’s team, you don’t have to use it in battle.

Wrapping Up

I hope you feel ready to take on the world of Doubles Pokémon, because I think you’ll have a great time. See you next time!

The post Differences Between Single and Double Battles in Pokémon appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This is a report on two variations of the team used originally used by Michael Fladung (Primitive), and later used by Adit Selvaraj (LithiumAcid) to get 4th and 7th place at St. Louis and Orlando Regionals, respectively. This article is written by both of them, and they have chosen to written this as such, to highlight the differences in both variations.

Primitive’s Take

Hey everyone! I’m Michael Fladung, a.k.a Primitive here on the forums. In this article, I want to showcase the team I used to achieve 4th place at Missouri Regionals and 2nd place at the subsequent Premier Challenge. This team was very fun and reliable. I’m glad I had success with this team.

Terrakion @ Focus Sash (Squad Lord)
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Close Combat
– Rock Slide
– Quick Guard
– Protect

(Used in 8/9 Swiss games and 5/9 Top Cut games)

Terrakion is my favorite Pokémon. It’s a Pokémon that brought me success back in 2013, so I aimed to use Terrakion on this team as well. I chose to use Focus Sash because I always wanted my Terrakion to win the mirror even if it lost a Speed tie. Focus Sash also made Terrakion a great lead option.

Terrakion helped against a lot of Pokémon that the other members of this team had problems with – namely, Mega Charizard-Y, Heatran, Mega Kangaskhan, and Thundurus. I don’t think this team would have been as successful without Terrakion and its ability to deal massive damage.

Terrakion was the leader of the group, making it the Squad Lord.

Thundurus-I (M) @ Sitrus Berry (Steeznuts)
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 100 HP / 116 Def / 4 SpA / 132 SpD / 156 Spe
Calm Nature
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Thunder Wave
– Taunt

(Used in 6/9 Swiss games and 3/9 Top Cut games)

What can I say about Thundurus? Best Pokemon in VGC ’15, in my opinion. Thundurus is an amazing support Pokemon that can help shut down a lot of teams. Prankster Taunt can prevent any sort of set up from your opponent with the gift of priority. Thunder Wave is the best move in the game, and it definitely won me a few matches.

The EV spread makes Landorus-T Rock Slide a 3HKO with Sitrus Berry. It also survives Double-Edge from Adamant Mega Kangaskhan and Life Orb Draco Meteor from Hydreigon. The speed was continually tweaked until I found myself outspeeding opposing Thundurus at least 8/10 times, as I saw it important to outspeed and Taunt the opposing Thundurus.

The nickname is my Pokemon Showdown! alt. I couldn’t think of any good nicknames, so I went with the only name I knew for a fact I liked.

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite (20XX)
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Fake Out
– Return
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch

(Used 9/9 swiss games and 9/9 top cut games)

When I was thinking of a mega, my first thought was Kanghaskhan. I saw Kangaskhan as the safest, most reliable mega going into a tournament with no set meta. I went with the most basic spread. I wanted to, at worst, speed tie with other base 100’s and saw it unnecessary to invest in more bulk. Kangashkhan appeared in all of my games and was extremely useful in all of them.

The nickname is stolen from William Hall (Biosci) I saw his Kanghaskhan named 20XX back at Arizona regionals last october, and I thought it was hilarious and a great reference.

Suicune @ Leftovers (Bruh)
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 100 SpA / 108 SpD / 28 Spe
Calm Nature
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Tailwind
– Protect

(Used 3/9 swiss games and 6/9 top cut games)

Suicune is, in my opinion, the best Water-type right now. With its amazing base stats and a good variety of support moves, it was the first Water-type to catch my attention.

I really needed a good counter to Landorus-T and Suicune definitely filled that role. The EVs allow it to outspeed Choice Scarf Landorus-T in Tailwind and OHKO 252 HP Landorus-T with Ice Beam.
The Defense EVs allow it to live a +1 Jolly M-Salamence Double-edge and retaliate back with an ice beam. The Special Defense EVs are to live Choice Specs Thundurus Thunderbolt and to absorb stronger special attacks.

I nicknamed Suicune “Bruh” after a game I played on Pokemon Showdown! where my opponent said “Bruh” to me after it survived from turn the first turn to the end of the game.

Aegislash @ Weakness Policy (Shmoney.)
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Shadow Ball
– Flash Cannon
– Wide Guard
– King’s Shield

(used 5/9 swiss games and 8/9 top cut games)

Aegislash’s role was to help against Trick Room teams because they were a huge problem and nothing on my team could work well with Trick Room up. Giving Aegislash the least possible amount of Speed allowed him to outspeed most other Pokemon in Trick Room.

I used a very straight forward EV spread for a very straight forward Pokemon. The boost from Weakness Policy allows me to OHKO Mega Mawile with Flash Cannon after taking a Sucker Punch. I was very split on whether or not to use Wide Guard or Substitute, but after thinking about the pros and cons, I chose Wide Guard to help against Sylveon Hyper Voice and Landorus-T Rock Slide/Earthquake.

The name Shmoney was a joke nickname I threw on in the registration line before a Premier Challenge back in January. My local friend John enjoyed the name a lot and wanted me to keep it, so I did.

Arcanine @ Rocky Helmet (TheGr8)
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 196 Def / 60 Spe
Bold Nature
– Flamethrower
– Snarl
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect

(used 5/9 swiss games and 5/9 top cut games)

Arcanine is by far my favorite member of the team. I got this EV spread from Colten Lybbert (Rookie Slayer MLG), so thank you Colten for the Arcanine. I am really glad I used Arcanine during the event; I really like Arcanine as a Pokemon, and he was very fun to use.

For this slot on my team, I needed a Fire-type, needed Intimidate, and I also needed more physical bulk. The 60 Speed EV investment allowed me to outspeed Adamant Bisharp and the rest was put into bulk. It was very effective in the tournament and it allowed my Arcanine to stay on the field without fear.

This Arcanine is named after my good friend, Tom Hull (TheGr8), who has supported me for a long time and has really helped me stay focused.

Shoutouts:

• Richard Ashby (TheAshAttacks) and Lee Camacho (raindanceking) for driving out there with me and helping me out the whole weekend.
• Adit Selvaraj (LithiumAcid) Glad to have made this article with you. And I’m happy to see your success with the team.
• Chase Lybbert (I Am A Rookie), Colten Lybbert (Rookie Slayer MLG), Sam Johnson (Rasta Charmander), and Chris Danzo (Lunar), thanks for being my good friends and testing with me before the event. Team Tank Top!
• Tyson Gernack (Firefly) Talking to you daily helps me think a lot and really helped me prepare for regionals. Thanks for supporting me!
• Tom Hull (TheGr8) You’re awesome! Thanks for all your help, and I got Arcanine in top cut just for you!
• Andrew Burley (CandyAndykins) you are the funniest, and you made me laugh all weekend.
• Kevin Fisher: thanks for letting us stay in your room the night before the tournament and playing Project M with me until 5 am.

LithiumAcid’s Orlando Regional Report

Hello there, Nugget Bridge! My name is Adit Selvaraj (LithiumAcid) and today I’m going to talk about the team that I used to get Top 8 at the Florida Pokemon Regional. However, before we get started, I’d like to introduce myself a bit more properly.

To get some context about me, I started playing VGC in 2011 after reading about it on pokemon.com. I have fond memories of playing on the SkarmBliss server and have enjoyed watching the meta evolve. I attended my first event last year at Orlando Regionals with a heavily modified version of Keewan Bae’s Eject Button Politoed team and ended the day with a 5-4 record. With this, I had my first live tournament experience and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the majority of the community. I was unable to attend Nationals due to a previously planned trip to India and the United Kingdom. While in the UK, I had the opportunity to meet my friends Brandon Ikin (Toquill) and Worlds 2013 competitor Rina Purdy (SqishyRina). The whole international scope of the social experience was enough to pester my parents to let me go to Washington D.C for the World Championships.

My final event of the VGC 2014 season was the Worlds Last-Chance Qualifier where I used UK national champion Albert Baneres (Arbol Deku)’s team of Politoed /Ludicolo/Manectric-M/Talonflame/Mawile-M/Hydreigon. I went 2-1 where I lost in the 3rd round to a Japanese player using a Scarf Smeargle and an Unnerve Mega-Tyranitar. Despite not qualifying through the LCQ, Worlds was a such a great experience and I became even more determined to make a name for myself in the following season.

I wasn’t able to attend any Fall Regionals, so I spent a lot of time studying the Battle Spot Doubles metagame, namely the Japanese grassroots tournaments such as the Arena-Off.

As soon as ORAS was released I played a lot on the Battle Spot Doubles ladder even at one point reaching 5th in the USA with a strange Perish Trap team of non-Mega Disable Kangaskhan/ Sap Sipper Azumarill/ Mega-Gengar/Fire Spin Arcanine/ Amoonguss/ Landorus-T. I liked the inherent feel of the team, but I didn’t want to use a team that required it to reveal all of its tricks to win.

After testing the standard Entei goodstuff team (which was extremely popular in Japan in XY) extensively, I became frustrated about how Sacred Fire rarely burned the opponent for me. I knew I would need something more consistent to make it through the Swiss Rounds, so I bid farewell to the Volcano Pokemon.

Feeling hopeless and woefully uninspired, i decided to watch the St. Louis Regional stream to get some inspiration, I saw Michael Fladung (Primitive)’s team of Kangaskhan/ Arcanine / Terrakion/ Suicune/ Thundurus/ Aegislash. The team instantly caught my eye, namely because the team utilized some of my favorite Pokemon of all time. I honestly think that one does the best with Pokemon they are attached to (granted if they are viable, of course).

Michael kindly shared his spreads with me and I tailored them to my liking. I was extremely pleased with how this team performed, and I was ecstatic I could achieve a Top 8 at a regional with my favorite Pokemon. Without further ado, let’s get on to the team!

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite (<3MamaBirch<3)
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
– Return
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

I don’t have much to say about Kangaskhan. It’s simple, effective, and I don’t want to overcomplicate such a standard fixture in our metagame.

In testing I found that Kangaskhan would accumulate boosts and then be the victim of a double target which would effectively taking her out of the battle. For this reason, I decided to run Protect over Fake Out. Protect was extremely helpful in burning Trick Room or Tailwind turns, and I would highly recommend it over Fake Out.

A well timed Protect allowed my +2 Kangaskhan to ravage an opponent’s team with ease if they foolishly double targeted her.

Kangaskhan is named after everybody’s favorite cute white girl, Angel Miranda (CT_MikotoMisaka).

Suicune @ Leftovers (HeavenlyBlue~)
Ability:Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 92 SpA / 44 SpD / 84 Spe
Bold Nature
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Protect
– Tailwind

Suicune is THE premiere bulky water type in my opinion. With absurd bulk on both sides of the spectrum, an impressive support movepool, and an amazing design, Suicune appealed highly to me.

Suicune’s locus of support goes far beyond what Rotom-W can do in regards to its teammates. Tailwind was a form of speed control that ultimately sold it for me on over the washing machine.

The EVs allow Suicune to outspeed Scarf Landorus 100% of the time in Tailwind and OHKO most variants barring the uncommon but effective Assault Vest version. This was a better chance to outspeed than the more bulkier 20 Speed one I was planning on using. Thanks to David Mancuso and Tommy Cooleen for convincing me to use this spread instead.

I was annoyed that I was forced to forgo Sitrus Berry, but Thundurus appreciated the burst recovery instead. To accommodate this change I decided to use Protect over Snarl to synergize better with Leftovers.

Suicune is named after the song “Heavenly Blue” by Kalafina. It’s the opening theme for the anime Aldnoah Zero, which is one I highly recommend.

Thundurus-Incarnate @Sitrus Berry (Dear My Friend~)
Ability: Pranskter
EVs: 236 HP / 116 Def / 4 SpA / 76 SpD / 68 Spe
Bold Nature
-Thunderbolt
-Hidden Power [Ice]
-Taunt
-Thunder Wave

As much as I’d like not to admit it, I felt like I abused Thundurus far too much during this particular tournament.

Whether it was spreading paralysis with Thunder Wave, or preventing set up with Taunt, Thundurus truly pulled it’s weight during the event.

The EV spread was given to me by 2-time UK national champion Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou) and allowed it to survive a Stone Edge from Adamant 252 Attack Landorus, as well as Rock Slide being a 3HKO after Sitrus Recovery. 68 Speed was used to always outspeed all non-Scarf Smeargle 100% of the time.

Thundurus’s nickname comes from one of the ending theme songs of To Aru Kagaku Railgun, a series with a protagonist who can manipulate electricity.

Terrakion @ Focus Sash (Oath/Sign)
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 Atk/ 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
-Close Combat
-Quick Guard
-Protect
-Rock Slide

Terrakion’s purpose was to be a check for Charizard Y as well as a way to deal heavy damage to opposing Mega Kangaskhan. Having a fast STAB Rock Slide was immensely helpful as well.

I absolutely hate mirror matches so I chose Focus Sash as an extra insurance in case I ended up losing the speed tie to opposing Terrakion. Unfortunately, the Focus Sash was broken in both instances I was facing another Terrakion, but I was able to either make a prediction or naturally win the speed tie to make up for it.

The nickname is the title of the opening song to my favourite anime, Fate/Zero.

Arcanine @Safety Goggles (*Synre*)
Ability:Intimidate
EVs: 204 HP / 156 Def / 44 SpA / 28 SpD / 76 Spe
Bold Nature
-Flamethrower
-Will-O-Wisp
-Snarl
-Morning Sun

My absolute favorite Pokemon on this team. I have been enamored with Arcanine ever since 1999 and my goal was to simply Top Cut a regional event with it.

I knew Arcanine wasn’t used as much in previous metagames except for 2009 as a Lv.1 Smeargle counter. However, the more physically oriented metagame of VGC 2015 gave Arcanine the perfect targets to smite a Will-o-Wisp on. My bias toward it only increased more and more after seeing Scott Glaza (Scott) hyping it up on Twitter.

The reason why I employed Arcanine as my Fire-Type over Rotom-H or Heatran is simply because I enjoyed using moves like Will-O-Wisp and Snarl in tandem with Intimidate. My play style is focused on lowering the opponent’s offensive potential and I used Arcanine much like my bulky Snarl Manectric I used in the majority of my 2014 events. Arcanine couldn’t have been a more perfect candidate (or canine) for this role on my team.

The Defense EVs allows Arcanine to survive moves like 252 Attack Double Edge from Jolly Kangaskhan and a double target Earthquake from 252 Adamant Landorus-Therian even before factoring in the attack drop from Intimidate. The 76 Speed investment allows it to outspeed max speed Adamant Bisharp and burn it with a Will-O-Wisp. The rest of the EVs were dumped in Special Attack and Special Defense.

While talking to Michael (Primitive) about the team, he mentioned he wished he had Safety Goggles to help with the Amoonguss match up. Unfortunately, I did not run into a single Amoonguss or Breloom the whole day and in hindsight, another item like Rocky Helmet would have sufficed. Flamethrower was chosen over Heat Wave because of the stronger power a single-target move has.

The nickname comes from Scott’s name from his time as magnanimous moderator on Smogon. Arcanine is one of his favorite Pokemon as well, so it was only fitting I named it after him.

Aegislash @Weakness Policy (ShadowWORLD)
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 92 SpA / 156 SpD / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
-Shadow Ball
-Flash Cannon
-King’s Shield
-Wide Guard

And now in the most anti-climactic fashion I bring you the most boring Pokemon on the team.

The spread is a Modest version of Colin Heier (TheBattleRoom) ‘s Worlds Aegislash spread. However in retrospect, I wish I had used a Quiet 0 Spd IV one, as it would have helped immensely against Wolfe, and possibly help me win Game 3 of my Top 8 match with Wiretap.

Combined with Arcanine’s Snarl, and the SDef EVs, Aegislash was able to survive a double target Earth Power from M-Camerupt and Cradily on the same turn, and OHKO Cradily with a +2 Flash Cannon in my 6th round Swiss game.

The nickname comes from Persona 4: The Golden’s opening theme ,”Shadow World”.

War Story:

First of all I want to thank Franklin Sujo (kunx990) for picking me up from my house and driving me to the event.

When we reached Orlando, we had a few hours before we have to pick up David Mancuso (Mancuso), so I went to the venue. The TCG event is in full-swing and I’m fortunate enough to see my friends Tom Hull (Arcanine buddy :>) and Tommy Cooleen (Tman) who’s already 2-1 in the TCG event (he later scooped out of Top Cut to play VGC the next day). It was great to see them after Worlds again.

At 4:30, Franklin and I leave in the pouring rain to pick up Mancuso from the airport. Unfortunately we hit a pot-hole, and we have to spend another 3 hours replacing a damaged tire. On the car ride to Zach Drogenkamp (Braverius) ‘s hotel, Mancuso and I hype Franklin up on the power of Clefairy/Clefable over Amoonguss. Franklin heeded the advice and ended up making Top Cut the next day!

Franklin drops us off at the Ramada hotel, where an old man (who had far too much to drink) helped Mancuso and I find our hotel room. I was so happy to see Zach again, and meet Jonathan McMillan (MrEobo) for the first time. Later, Justin Stipe (panko), Garrett Cresenzi (araluen7), and Jake Muller (MajorBowman) and a few other players stopped by the hotel room. We all were hungry, so we decided to get a late dinner at Chik-Fil-A (in our pajamas, more or less).

I spent a lot of time talking to MrEobo (who rocked some fabulous Pikachu lounge pants) and MajorBowman, talking about a multitude of things like the Shiny + Contest Ribbon animation mechanics (which actually wastes 20 seconds on the timer every time you switch a Pokemon in) and MrEobo’s legendary response to the “Is Dewgong viable?” thread.

Later that night 3rd in the World but number 1 in our hearts, Collin Heier, finally comes from the airport. Me and Collin messed around with Mancuso for an hour and then fall asleep. I was a bit sleepless for a while, as by that time tomorrow I would know whether I made it into my first Regional top cut. The fear of bubbling plagued my thoughts as some of my more accomplished friends were unable to beat the bubble like Gavin Michaels (kingofmars) at Southern California and Blake Hopper (Bopper) at Houston.

We kind of overslept, and rushed to get to the venue. I forgot to register online, so I had to rush and find my Play! ID and go through the necessary steps to register on PokeGym.

After we finished the registration, I see a multitude of familiar faces, including Chalkey, JTK, Yellowbox, and OmegaDonut. It was really nice to catch up with them after seeing them in DC.

Later, I meet some seniors including Sir Chicken, and raikoo (Best Senior NA), who’s Worlds team I used to win a copy of Omega Ruby to give to Mancuso.

Me and David meet up with DeVon (dingram), who looks quite tired from his late-night ride to get here. While those two were talking, I tried getting myself in the right mindset for achieving my goal.

I think my biggest flaw as a player is heavily underestimating “unknown” players or players who do not have any presence on Nugget Bridge. As much as I was intimidated by the big names here (Dingram, ryuzaki, Wolfey, Mancuso, TheBattleRoom, etc…) I was even more intimidated by the fact that I could potentially underestimate an unknown opponent and play below par.

I didn’t have much time to mull over this prospect, because I saw Keegan Beljanski (Darkeness) and decided to chat him up.

Keegan was a big part of my success at this regional. He and his girlfriend, Rosemary, were always encouraging and were great to talk to during the event and lunch break. It turns out Keegan and Rosemary are huge anime fans, and we shared our feelings on how much Clannad was heart wrenchingly sad among other things.

Battles

(I didn’t take notes, but I will recall the ones I can remember)

I was able to go 7-0 in a row in Swiss and lost rounds 8 and 9 after I was guaranteed cut.

Round 2: Jeremy Rodriguez (Serapis) – Win

Team:

Jeremy recorded this match on his capture card, so you can watch the battle here:

From a first glance, it looked like my opponent was heavily inspired by Randy Kwa (R Inanimate)’s 2013 Togekiss+Mold Breaker Excadrill team. Terrakion would probably struggle in this match up, so i went in with the goal of setting up Kangaskhan and dealing heavy damage. Strangely, Jeremy did not bring Togekiss which may have had made this a more irritating match up. I’m glad to say that Thundurus and it’s magical hax powers managed to ameliorate some bad situations caused by my own stupidity this match.

Some of these situations included Power-Up Punching his low health Mega-Mence. If his Salamence didn’t get fully paralyzed, a combo of Return+ Conk’s Mach Punch could have possibly KOed Kangaskhan, leaving me unable to deal with his Gastrodon.

Round 3: Adam Doricott (Dozz) – Win

Team:

The next round, I get drawn against Nugget Bridge Moderator and Worlds 2011 competitor, Dozz. He was very skilled and kind, and I’m glad I had the privilege to play him.

His team has some semblance to his 2012 US Nationals top cut team, and some 2011 flair with the Durant.

I think this match was one of my closest all day, and it honestly came down to him targeting the Kangaskhan slot (which I switched into Arcanine) rather than my Terrakion slot with his own Terrakion.

Round 5: Justin Stipe (panko) – Win

Team:

This match was against one of my friends and fellow Florida player, Justin Stipe.

Justin was talking animatedly about his team during lunch break, so I knew he was using Protect LO Thundurus with Grass Knot, and Lum Terrakion. Terracott was extremely frightening but he luckily he didn’t bring it against me.

From turn 1, Justin played beautifully. He smartly targeted my Terrakion with Grass Knot and brought it down to its Sash. Whoever won this game was determined by which Terrakion won the speed tie. My Terrakion managed to win it and I was able to take the match.

Round 7 – David Kubiak (MangoPickle) -Win

Team:

I got paired down this round, and was playing my good friend Blake Hopper (Bopper)’s friend David Kubiak.

His Latios had interesting techs like Tailwind and Light Screen, but I was able to win by setting up my own Tailwind and paralyzing his pokemon. His LO Bisharp was extremely scary but I managed to block Sucker Punch by using Sucker Punch with my own Kangaskhan.

Round 9 – Wolfe Glick (Wolfey) – Lose

Team:

I was playing a playing a player I admired since 2011 on stream this round and it was somewhat surreal getting the opportunity to do so. I have contributed Japanese translations to Wolfe’s website Eggy Emporium last year, so it was nice to see him again (albeit, I wish this encounter was under different circumstances)

This was a very anti-Kangaskhan team, so i was unable to bring it safely. I was simply unable to play how I normally play with this team, removing a majority of my offensive pressure from the get go.

I was guaranteed cut at this point, but I desired to put up a good fight. I mainly wanted to show off Arcanine, and in my opinion the highlight point of the match was whenever my 20 HP Aegislash-Blade was able to survive a Mega Venusaur’s Giga Drain thanks to Arcanine’s Snarl and KO it back with a +2 Shadow Ball. Despite that knock-out on Venusaur, Wolfe was one step ahead of me the whole game, and I concede defeat. I was very glad to play a Worlds-caliber player for the 2nd time that day.

Top Cut

Top 16 – Scott Corman- Win (2-0)

Team:

Apparently my opponent had beaten Zach (Braverius) on stream earlier, although this was unbeknownst to me at the time. This looked like an extremely hard Trick Room team, and seemed to have no fast mode to speak of. To put it frankly, it looked like a team an AI in Pokemon Battle Revolution/XD/Colosseum would put together, simply unified by a general concept or strategy (in this case, having a low Speed stat) and not deviating from it.

Since I beat him in the 6th Round of Swiss, I had information from our previous match. He had Life Orb Protectless Conkeldurr and Sitrus Berry Magic Coat Cresselia (with no other attacking move bar Ice Beam and only minimum Special Attack Investment).

In both games I focus on nuking Conkeldurr right of the bat, and then proceed to sweep with my boosted Kangaskhan. Protect Kangaskhan, and support Arcanine were hands down my MVPs.

Top 8 – William Collins (Wiretap)- Lose (1-2)

Team:

Another highly anti-Kangaskhan team. LO Blaziken and Terrakion made me very uncomfortable, as did his Swampert. This match up highlighted all the flaws in my team, specifically the weakness to Blaziken and a way to sucessfully deal with bulky Ground/Water types sans attempting to hit them hard with the brute force of Kangaskhan.

In game 1, I get frozen 5 turns in a row with his Swampert’s Ice Beam. I have no way to win this match and forfeit (0-1)

Next round, he couldn’t deal with my boosted Kangaskhan and I take the game (1-1)

In the final match,we were almost evenly matched in terms of the amount of Pokemon we had eliminated from each other’s party. However victory was not to be, for me as a critical hit Earth Power takes my Arcanine out, completely changing the outcome of the game and giving William the tools needed to win. (1-2)

William was a great opponent, and even though I had an extraordinary amount of hax in these matches, I don’t want to take away from his playing ability one bit. There’s a very good reason he was 8-1 in Swiss. Kudos to him for running Blaziken so successfully!

With this my Florida Regionals run comes to its end. I was one win away from a regional brick, but I am more than pleased with how I performed.

Shoutouts:

• Michael Fladung (Primitive)- Thank you for collaborating with me to build this second version of the team, I’m so grateful for all the help.
• Tyson (Firefly), Andy (TwiddleDee), Shannon (Souldewz) and many more- You guys were the best support! It made me smile throughout the event when you guys were cheering me on!
• Yellowbox, TheBattleRoom, Bopper, JiveTime, BlitznBurst- It was nice getting help and encouragement from each and everyone of you. I hope I can give you more Japanese meta secrets soon, Jive :>
• #imoutos + Call Chat – Thanks for letting me not watch bad anime~
• Tommy Coolen, Tom Hull- You were such a big support at the event #Arcanine Nation.
• Brandon Ikin (Toquill)- Thank you so much for helping me when I was freaking out in the weeks before regionals. You are really one of the best friends I could ever wish for, and I hope to come back to Milton Keynes soon.
• David Mancuso (Mancuso)- David, I am so proud of you for the finish. I always love seeing you and your help in updating spreads and helping me get in the right mindset was invaluable.
• Zach (Braverius)- Really enjoyed rooming with you, and thank you so much for the encouragement before I played on stream.
• Dozz, OmegaDonut, ryuzaki, P_d0nz- Thank you so much for streaming and commentating! The stream made the whole experience much more enjoyable ~

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