My name is Juan Naar and I’ve been playing competitively since the release of Pokemon X and Y. Most of my practice comes from Battle Spot, where I gained lots of competitive knowledge and experience, and placed first in the USA’s rating list in various seasons. You can find one of my early X and Y Battle Spot reports here.

Fortunately in September of 2014, my country Colombia started organizing Premier Challenges, so I started participating in the tournaments to gather CP in order to attempt to obtain a ticket to Worlds. I managed to win three Premier Challenges and placed second in two of them. With the team I’m writing about, I managed to win the first Colombian regional, achieved Top 8 in the second Colombian and achieved again top 8 in the first Peruvian regional. Currently, I’m placed first in Latin American CP, with 433CP.

The Team

The objective of this team is to gain advantage by using the two most used forms of speed control: Tailwind and Trick Room. Most of my opponents do not expect Trick Room because they see three Pokemon that are naturally fast: Kangaskhan, Blaziken and Terrakion, so they normally tend to be unprepared to stop Trick Room with their. There’s also some times when setting Trick Room is a risky option due to Amoonguss, Aegislash, or Mawile, so in that case I tend to set up Tailwind. When there is little advantage to gain speed control I tend to lead with a basic hyper offensive: Kangaskhan + Sylveon or Blaziken + Terrakion.

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
244 HP/ 244 Atk/ 20 Def
Adamant Nature
Inner Focus
– Fake Out
– Sucker Punch
– Low Kick
– Double-Edge

This is a Kangaskhan that needs to work both under Trick Room and Tailwind, so a neutral speed nature is preferred. The 244 HP/20 Def spread allows for a chance to survive many attacks that normally threaten the standard Kangaskhan spread, while maintaining an excellent offensive presence.

• 252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Overheat vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Mega Kangaskhan in Sun: 195-229 (92.4 – 108.5%) — 50% chance to OHKO
• +6 252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 244 HP / 20 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 165-195 (78.1 – 92.4%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252 Atk Terrakion Close Combat vs. 244 HP / 20 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 200-236 (94.7 – 111.8%) — 68.8% chance to OHKO
• 252+ Atk Landorus-T Superpower vs. 244 HP / 20 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 158-188 (74.8 – 89%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ Atk Iron Fist Conkeldurr Drain Punch vs. 244 HP / 20 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 174-206 (82.4 – 97.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 244 HP / 20 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 180-214 (85.3 – 101.4%) — 1.6% chance to OHKO

Never underestimate the importance of a Kangaskhan’s bulky spread. Inner Focus is preferred over Scrappy to be able to force Trick Room and Tailwind in many situations and to try to prevent counter-strategies like Dark Void, Belly Drum, or a powerful attack when there’s a faster Fake Out user. At worst, we would trade Fake Outs. Even if it runs a bulky spread, Double-Edge is preferred over Return to be able to secure a OHKO against Sylveon, and hitting as hard as possible is a priority over surviving attacks. It also allows Kangaskhan to hit hard even after an Intimidate or after being burned.

Used it in 14 out of 14 matches. Usage percentage: 100%. Win percentage: 11/14, 78.57%

Blaziken @ Life Orb
20 Atk/ 236 Sp.A /252 Spe
IVs: 30 speed
Naive Nature
Speed Boost
– Overheat
– Superpower
– Protect
– Hidden Power Ice

This is the standard mixed Blaziken, with a spread designed to outspeed Adamant Scarfed Landorus, to OHKO most things weak to fighting with Superpower, and to deal very good damage with Life Orb-boosted Overheat. Some calculations:

• 236 SpA Life Orb Blaziken Overheat vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Amoonguss: 213-252 (96.3 – 114%) — 81.3% chance to OHKO
• 236 SpA Life Orb Blaziken Overheat vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Thundurus: 153-181 (98.7 – 116.7%) — 87.5% chance to OHKO
• 20 Atk Life Orb Blaziken Superpower vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 211-250 (99.5 – 117.9%) — 93.8% chance to OHKO
• 20 Atk Life Orb Blaziken Superpower vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Heatran: 198-237 (100 – 119.6%) — guaranteed OHKO
• 236 SpA Life Orb Blaziken Hidden Power Ice vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 177-208 (103.5 – 121.6%) — guaranteed OHKO

I generally tend to pair Blaziken with Terrakion, which is a very good lead against the common Landorus-T + Thundurus. The only problem arises when Landorus has Focus Sash or Assault Vest where the HP Ice won’t OHKO it. Terrakion’s Quick Guard help it against threatening priority attacks, like Brave Bird, Aqua Jet, Prankster Thunder Wave and Prankster Encore, plus Rock Slide helps against Flying types.

Used it in 9 out of 14 battles. Usage percentage: 64.2%. Win percentage: 7/9, 77.7%

Suicune @ Sitrus Berry
252 HP/ 20 Def/ 100 Sp.A/ 116 Sp.D/ 20 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
Calm Nature
Pressure
– Protect
– Tailwind
– Ice Beam
– Scald

A very standard Suicune set, with an EV spread to sponge special attacks in mind. With 20 speed it outspeeds scarf Adamant Landorus-T under Tailwind, and it’s a solid Pokemon that can be used under Trick Room too, like Kangaskhan. Some interesting calculations:

• +2 252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 20 Def Suicune: 223-263 (107.7 – 127%) — 3.9% chance to OHKO
• +1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 20 Def Suicune: 177-208 (85.5 – 100.4%) — 6.3% chance to OHKO
• 252 SpA Choice Specs Thundurus-T Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 116+ SpD Suicune: 182-216 (87.9 – 104.3%) — 18.8% chance to OHKO
• 252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 116+ SpD Suicune: 140-166 (67.6 – 80.1%) — guaranteed 2HKO after Sitrus Berry recovery
• 252 SpA Mega Sceptile Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 116+ SpD Suicune: 176-210 (85 – 101.4%) — 6.3% chance to OHKO
• 252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 116+ SpD Suicune: 116-138 (56 – 66.6%) — 35.2% chance to 2HKO after Sitrus Berry recovery
• 252+ SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 116+ SpD Suicune: 72-85 (34.7 – 41%) — guaranteed 4HKO after Sitrus Berry recovery
• 100 SpA Suicune Ice Beam vs. 44 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 168-200 (98.8 – 117.6%) — 93.8% chance to OHKO
• 100 SpA Suicune Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 156-184 (91.2 – 107.6%) — 43.8% chance to OHKO (Guaranteed after Double-Edge recoil).

I preferred 252HP over 244HP because it allows Suicune to have more chance of surviving more attacks, even if the HP EV is an odd number and isn’t efficient with the Sitrus Berry. Even if it’s a Pokemon with very good defenses, I chose Protect over Snarl and Mirror Coat because it was the safest option, as it allows to stall turns if my opponent uses Tailwind or Trick Room.

Used it in 9 out of 14 battles. Usage percentage: 64.2%. Win percentage: 7/9, 77.7%

Sylveon @ Choice Specs
252 HP/ 4 Def / 252 Sp.A
IVs: 0 Atk, 22 Spe
Quiet Nature
Pixilate
– Hyper Voice
– Moonblast
– Shadow Ball
– Sleep Talk

Sylveon was my main asset when I chose to use Trick Room. Cresselia’s Helping Hand boosts Hyper Voice and the sheer amount of damage output is incredible to even Pokemon who resist it. Moonblast is there to use it against Pokemon that I know have Wide Guard, like Hitmontop, Aegislash and Conkeldurr. Sleep Talk is a very random attack, but it’s the best option against predicting opponent’s Spore from Amoonguss when Trick Room is activated. Hidden Power Ground and Psyshock were far too situational to be considered.

• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Kangaskhan: 165-195 (91.1 – 107.7%) — 43.8% chance to OHKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 44 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 198-234 (116.4 – 137.6%) — guaranteed OHKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Rotom-W: 154-183 (98 – 116.5%) — 87.5% chance to OHKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Mawile: 85-101 (54.1 – 64.3%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 116 SpD Cresselia: 120-142 (52.8 – 62.5%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Helping Hand Hyper Voice vs. 244 HP / 12 SpD Azumarill: 195-229 (94.6 – 111.1%) — 62.5% chance to OHKO

It can also be used outside of Trick Room if paired with Kangaskhan, and even with a decreased speed nature it is able to outspeed some Pokemon that generally have little speed investment like Rotom and Suicune when Tailwind is active. 22 Speed IVs allows it to be faster than Jolly Breloom and Bisharp under Tailwind and under Trick Room too, of course; and at the same time it is faster than neutral speed nature, no speed investment Mega Mawile under Trick Room.

Used it in 11 out of 14 battles. Usage percentage: 78.5%. Win percentage: 9/11, 81.8%

Terrakion @ Focus Sash
4 HP/ 252 Atk/ 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
Justified
– Protect
– Quick Guard
– Rock Slide
– Close Combat

A very standard and perhaps the most used Terrakion set. Focus Sash is preferred over the Lum Berry because it saves Terrakion far more times, especially after the defenses drop because of Close Combat. Quick Guard is a wonderful move that protects against those nasty Pranksters (Taunt, Swagger, Thunder Wave, Encore), Brave Birds, Aqua Jets and slower Fake Outs.

Having both Terrakion and Blaziken in a team means death to a Kangaskhan lead that must switch after a double Protect. Taunt is also a good option, but in my case Quick Guard serves better to protect Blaziken and protect the team against those pesky Whimsicott + Mega Gengar leads.

Used it in 7 out of 14 battles. Usage percentage: 50%. Win percentage: 5/7, 71.4%

Cresselia @ Kee Berry
252 HP/ 108 Def / 148 Sp.D
IVs: 0 Atk, 0 Spe
Sassy Nature
Levitate
– Ice Beam
– Trick Room
– Helping Hand
– Moonlight

Cresselia is my main support Pokemon with a very great item, the Kee Berry. This item lets me switch in a predictable physical attack like Fake Out or a Rock Slide to instantly gain a +1 Defense boost which is extremely helpful in letting her survive most, if not all physical attacks after the boost, and then recover with Moonlight. Under Trick Room, Helping Hand + Double Edge or Hyper Voice makes a very destructive combo. Some might think that having 3 Pokemon with Ice attacks is overcompensating, but the sheer amount of Landorus-T and Mega Salamence truly makes up for it. Besides, I can’t attack Dark Pokemon with Psychic, so Ice Beam is my preferred attacking move.

Some defensive calcs:

• 252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 108 Def Cresselia: 179-213 (78.8 – 93.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• +1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 108 Def Cresselia: 186-219 (81.9 – 96.4%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• +6 252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 252 HP / 108 Def Cresselia: 132-156 (58.1 – 68.7%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Hydreigon Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 148+ SpD Cresselia: 144-170 (63.4 – 74.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 148+ SpD Cresselia: 110-132 (48.4 – 58.1%) — 92.2% chance to 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 148+ SpD Cresselia: 72-85 (31.7 – 37.4%) — 87.8% chance to 3HKO
• 252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 148+ SpD Cresselia in Sun: 69-82 (30.3 – 36.1%) — 46.9% chance to 3HKO

Cresselia is also excellent against Charizard Y leads due to boosted Moonlight recovery, and it sponges those Heat Waves like seen in the calculations. Rocky Helmet and Leftovers also were good item options, but Kee Berry was a life saver in many situations.

Used it in 7 out of 14 battles. Usage percentage: 50%. Win percentage: 6/7, 85.7%

Team Variations

I used Rotom Heat instead of Blaziken in the second Colombian regional. It had the following spread:

Rotom-H @ Life Orb
252 HP/92 Def/164 Sp.A
Modest Nature
– Protect
– Hidden Power Ice
– Overheat
– Thunderbolt

Rotom Heat, unlike Blaziken, works well under Trick Room and stands better against Mega Salamence (Blaziken has to Protect on the first turn to avoid getting OHKO because it’s slower, and then Mega Salamence can get a Dragon Dance). It’s also a better option against Charizard-Y, tanks Heat Wave/Overheat better and OHKOs back with a Life Orb boosted Thunderbolt. Its EV spread allows it to have exactly the same damage output as Blaziken, while having better natural bulk. It survives a Jolly Mega-Kangaskhan Double-Edge 100% of the time and most Hydro Pumps from bulky Rotom-Wash. In the Peruvian regional, I went back to using Blaziken because I felt my team was too reliant on Trick Room.

In the second Colombian regional I went with Mirror Coat over Protect with a Modest nature because I felt it wasn’t hitting as hard as I wanted. Mirror Coat allowed Suicune to win against Mega Venusaur, Ludicolo and Rotom-Wash if I managed to predict opposing super-effective attacks, and a Modest nature allowed me to OHKO 4/0 Salamence 100% of the time. In the Peruvian regional I ran Snarl over Mirror Coat and went back to a Calm Nature. After having played the three regionals, I feel that the original spread works the best with this team.

Top Threats

Even if my Blaziken can OHKO it, if the opponent has an Amoonguss it means that I can’t just freely set Trick Room without taking it out first. Redirection and Rocky Helmet also limits Kangaskhan a lot.

Mega Gengar was the Mega Pokemon that I was most afraid of facing. I have no means of OHKOing it except with Sylveon, but it’s extremely risky because it runs Disable and my Sylveon has a Choice item. This team also has no means of stopping Perish Song. An extremely troubling mega.

Another mega which my team has very difficulty in handling. Easily resists Double-Edge (even with Helping Hand) and Blaziken’s Overheat, as well as being an annoyance to Suicune, Sylveon, Terrakion and even Cresselia. Brute force and hyper offensive is the only option to deal with this Pokemon.

Rotom-Wash, Milotic, Suicune and the other bulky waters are very hard to take down with my team. I put Rotom-W here because of Will-o-Wisp. My best option to deal with them is Sylveon. Bulky waters were one of the reasons I considered Rotom-Heat over Blaziken, since it’s a more favorable matchup.

Here are the battles in HD so you can enjoy watching them! I won’t comment much on them to avoid writing spoilers, I would really like you guys to watch them!

The Tournament

Round 1 vs Luis Rubio (Signum)

Luis is an excellent player who won the second Colombian Regional, earned 6 CP in the International April Challenge and is currently the second in the Latin American CP rankings with 430 CP. In this battle the importance of Inner Focus is demonstrated.

Round 2 vs Fredy Vanegas

Fredy is another important player from Colombia, and the only one who has won 5 Premier Challenges.

Round 3 vs Diego Llanes

Diego is also an excellent player who has won one PC. My team struggled to take out a defensive Milotic.

Round 4 vs Mauricio Valencia

Here you will see a very disturbing Octillery in action, and a costly mistake from my part in the first turn of the match.

Round 5 vs Fabian Espinoza

Helping Hand Sylveon’s power in action!

Round 6 vs Oscar Castillo

My opponent manages to pull off a very interesting strategy.

Round 7 vs Samuel Delgado

My last Swiss battle against Colombia’s top Senior. Hyper offensive was the key here.

Top 8 vs Jairo Saboya

Jairo is also a very important player who achieved top 8 in both regionals. Mega Venusaur was one of the megas that I was the most afraid to battle.

Top 4 vs Ivan Macias

Ivan achieved Top 4 with a very interesting team of Mega Lopunny, Klefki and Malamar. Props to him!

Grand Final vs Mateo Arias

Mateo is also an excellent player who has won many Premier Challenges. Fortunately, my team was very well prepared against Mega Salamence.

My Tournament Experience

Colombia’s first Regional was organized by the VGC Colombia community. Around 75 Masters and 6 Seniors went to play for the glorious championship points. We had very good players that even came from another countries to participate, like ReckonerX from Mexico, Henry Laura from Peru and Christian Milligan, a Senior from Peru who won the Senior category. Some pictures:

And the award ceremony! (I’m the one holding the biggest trophy)

This is all guys, I hope you enjoyed this report, and consider Tailwind-Trick Room as a viable strategy in your teams! My deepest thanks to the VGC Colombia community to be able to make this dream a reality, and for the excellent organization and prices!

The post Speed Control: A 1st Place Colombian Regional Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Registration is open for the 2015 International Challenge — June! As the final online tournament to give out Championship Points this season, players within a few points of each other will be trying to get a leg up on each other. 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, June 26, 2015, at 00:00 UTC through Sunday, June 28, 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 in each age division. Championship Points will not be divided by region but instead will be awarded to the top 256 players.

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 mid-July.

The post 2015 International Challenge June appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The Australian Pokémon Nationals were held on the 6th – 8th June. On the 7th June, for the Video Game Championship there were 321 Master, 96 Senior and 54 Junior competitors. Australia was the first country outside of the World Championships to have a Best-of-3 Swiss Rounds format. It was a change that many players had been asking for here, even petitioned for, but didn’t think we would get so soon, so we were surprised and excited to see it happening. It was a grueling day for everyone involved, and after 9 rounds for Masters, 7 rounds for Seniors and 6 rounds for Juniors, we finally had our Top 16 and Top 8’s respectively. Listed below are the Top Cut teams for each division, a tally showing all the Pokemon used more than once in the top cut and videos of the finals for each division.

Masters Division

1. Matthew Roe (RoeySK)

2. Theron Ho (BlazingSceptile)

3. Lionel Pryce (CatGonk)

4. Jackson Lakey (FamousDeaf)

5. Sean Ronzani

6. Brendan Webb (FloristtheBudew)

7. Ty Power (Sarkastik)

8. Phil Nguyen (Boomguy)

9. Nicholas Bingham (Spiritbomber)

10. Saamid Zikiria (Yourf)

11. Matthew Jiwa (JiwaVGC)

12. Mustafa Olomi (mustytkd)

13. Alexander Poole (triceratops5)

14. Christopher Kan

15. Eugene Tan (IoriYagami)

16. Callum Witt (CruiseVGC)

Senior Division

1. Matthew B. (ZzamanN)

2. Patrick M. (Ayrias)

3. Jakob S. (TheRealFurret)

4. Adam S. (GiraGoomy)

5. Aaron V.

6. Will G.

7. Nick C. (batlizard)

8. Nathan S. (Amperes)

Junior Division

1. Nicholas K.

2. Alfredo C-G.

3. Luke D.

4. Jack G.

5. Jonathan W.

6. Hamish G.

7. Kadan B.

8. Alex C.

Mega Pokémon Usage

Other Pokémon Usage

All videos for the Australian National Championships including those below can be found here at DYoshiiTV’s YouTube.

Masters Division Final

Senior Division Final

Junior Division Final

Feature image taken by Jesse Wilsone for PokéMelbourne, and used with permission.

The post Teams & Battle Videos from the VGC ’15 Australia National Championships appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

It has taken a little while for this to come about, I’m sorry for everyone who has been waiting on tenterhooks for this, but we finally have the full team lists from all of the European National Championships held across May and June. I’d like to thank the dozens of individuals that helped supply the team information that made this possible.

German Nationals

1) Markus Stefan (Blacklag)

2) Tobias Koschitzki (TobySxE)

3) Baris Ackos (Billa)

4) Luca Breitlig-Pause (sewadle)

5) Davide Sperati

6) Sergi Luna (lunaxxl99)

7) Matteo Gini (Matty)

8) Adrian Baumann (Euler)

9) Nemanja Sandic (Porengan)

10) Alejandro Gomez (Pokealex)

11) Jamie Miller (Blaze King7)

12) Christopher Schumacher (Zwockel)

13) Tirso Buttafuoco (Fuoco24)

14) Daniel Pastor (Danielux)

15) Pagonakis Yohan

16) Amin Sulzer (Lorenzo)

17) Szymon Wojdat (Szymoninho)

18) Pietro Chiri (kirro)

19) Florian Henry (Flynned)

20) Carlos Rodriguez (BrintMea)

21) Markus Stadter (13Yoshi37)

22) Naomi Fluckiger (Aquana)

23) Luigi Lo Giudice (LPROX)

24) Jonas Esser (Sharqi)

25) Rebecca Wolf (Sanchan)

26) Huib Buijssen (Lolnub)

27) Brian Zourdani

28) James Kean (Sweet Clive)

29) Christian Cheynubrata (chrisdc)

30) Abel Sanz (Flash)

31) Richard Z.

32) Felix Rössler (fxelxy)

33) Mattis Teback (JanobiiChan)

34) Brian Bruno

35) Daniel Mardjonvic

36) Christian Schultz (Anima)

37) Mark Klamt (Flame)

38) Alexander Kuhn (Hibiki)

39) Ufuk Kucukakyuz (Ufuk)

United Kingdom Nationals

1) Markus Stadter (13Yoshi37)

2) Arash Ommati (Mean)

3) Baris Ackos (Billa)

4) Eugenio Discalzi (XG J4SON)

5) Matthias Suchodolski (Lega)

6) Miguel Marti de la Torre (Sekiam)

7) Jamie Miller (Blaze King7)

8) Joe Cox (MegaPunchMew)

9) Lajos Kowalewski (Lajo)

10) Matteo Dorrell (MattDorrell)

11) Till Böhmer (Dark Psiana)

12) Terence Dray (Ty Flowsion)

13) Matteo Gini (Matty)

14) Dawn Mathieson

15) Jeremy Mantingh (Jezza)

16) Jan Michelberger (Lati)

17) Alvaro Rodriguez

18) Rachel Annand (SPEevee)

19) James Tarbuck (OnlineTuba)

20) Ethan Hall (Jhon)

21) Sergio Marcos

22) Samuel East (Samuel996)

23) David de Pedro (soulofaetherym)

24) James Kean (Sweet Clive)

25) Sheldon Greenaway

26) Nathan Mack

27) William Tansley (StarKO)

28) Pedro Lima (Findow)

29) Lee Provost (Osirus)

30) Chalkey Horenstein (Chalkey)

31) Alberto Gini (BraindeadPrimeape)

32) Chris Foulds

33) Brandon Ikin (Toquill)

34) Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson)

35) Matthew Shepherd (KaSlaps)

36) Jamie Boyt (MrJellyLeggs)

37) Sam James

38) Oliver Hirsch (Yanzin)

Italian Nationals

1) Francesco Pardini (Alexis)

2) Dominic Scheffler (TheFlashColonel)

3) Miguel Marti de la Torre (Sekiam)

4) Raphael Paul (Glurakxy)

5) Florian Wurdack (DaFlo)

6) Marcel Kapelle (Massi)

7) Michelangelo Baudanza (IP Ender)

8) Riccardo Rispoli (Tecnarca)

9) Eloy Hahn (Dragoran5)

10) Giulia Sogaro

11) Anilcon Ackos (BillaBro)

12) Amin Sulzer (Lorenzo)

13) Carlos Rodriguez (BrintMea)

14) Matthias Hellmoldt (Tyvyr)

15) Peer Broxtermann (Bjart)

16) Christian Cheynubrata (chrisdc)

17) Victor Gardet

18) Len Deuel (Alaka)

19) Ugur Tatli

20) Matthias Suchodolski (Lega)

21) Akira Petrolini (ReaperJoker)

22) Gianalfredo Giusiano

23) Huib Buijssen (Lolnub)

24) Thomas Schadinger (th1806)

25) Aniello Iuliano (Senior14)

26) Javier Berdun (Burdunsito)

27) Ylenia Locatelli

28) Till Böhmer (Dark Psiana)

29) Eugenio Discalzi (XG J4SON)

30) Lorenzo Galassi (Greyfox)

31) Gabriele Cinquepalmi

32) Felix Rössler (fxelxy)

33) Adrian Baumann (Euler)

34) Rina Purdy

35) Joan Bennasar Bonnin (Nova)

36) Lee Provost (Osirus)

37) David Hernandez (Blumer)

38) Giovanni Milani

39) Federico Superti

The post Teams from the VGC ’15 European National Championships appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello Guys! My name is Jonathan Melendez, but you can also call me WackaboomVGC! I recently attended the Georgia Spring Regional Championships in Athens as a Senior. I was 5th seed in Swiss with a 5-1 record, and eventually placed 4th in Top Cut.

As a Senior, I haven’t been doing too well, as all of my regional experiences have been bubbles up to this event. The Massachusetts Spring Regional was extremely tough for me, as I started rough with 0-2 but managed to go 4-2 by the end of the day. Even my Premier Challenge results aren’t what I’d like them to be, with only two PC wins under my belt, one Second place and one Third place. Georgia was make-or-break for me; I needed to at least Top Cut to secure a travel stipend and I surpassed what I thought I could do.

In this Report I will be covering my team and the pros and cons of Athens, Georgia! I was given inspiration from this team by my friend Andras O. (TrickRoomMaster) who used the Politoed & Kingdra core at local Premier Challenges. It was a very fun core to use and thank you in advance!

The Team as it Started

This was a beta of the team, Scizor and Raichu/Kangaskhan would be a Common lead as they would Fake Out a target allowing for Scizor to set up a Swords Dance, Politoed and Kingdra would be in the back to wreak havoc with Muddy Water + Helping Hand. Thundurus would be well, Thundurus, allowing for fantastic Speed Control and such.

I realized that Scizor wasn’t doing much and I could have chosen a better Mega to use in Rain. Raichu wasn’t picking up many knock-outs and was only really using Fake Out and providing support for its partners. I decided to give the team a small overhaul as a result.

The Finished Product

The Team

Politoed @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Modest Nature
– Scald
– Hydro Pump
– Ice Beam
– Rain Dance
Deployed: 8/10 times

Politoed was the backbone of my team, being able to set up rain and outspeed most opposing Pokemon. I could have ran Timid with full speed investment in order to be faster than positive natured, max Speed Base 130s, but even then, Scarf Landorus-Therian would still outspeed Politoed. On the subject of damage output, Scald knocks-out Mega Kangaskhan in two hits, while Ice Beam OHKOs Landorus-Therian and Salamence.

As for surviving, it survives what you’d think it survives, Grass Knot from Greninja, barely survives Thunderbolt from Thundurus, and so on. It can’t really take many hits, but as for dealing fair amounts of damage, it succeeds in doing so. An interesting fact: this was originally Eject Button Politoed for Helping Hand Support and the nice addition of Protect, however I scrapped it since all it would really do was Helping Hand. Not that it’s bad, of course, I did like the available techs with Eject Button Politoed, but I also liked outspeeding certain Pokemon like Life Orb Thundurus or Terrakion to weaken them, then let the big guns like Kingdra and Metagross deal with the rest.

Kingdra @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
– Hydro Pump
– Muddy Water
– Protect
– Draco Meteor
Deployed: 7/10 times

My favorite Pokemon this season. If Politoed is the backbone, Kingdra is the muscle. Being able to spread so much damage with Muddy Water, Hydro Pump and Draco Meteor, Kingdra found itself in almost all of my matches, except for one particular match where I faced an odd Trick Room team with Malamar. As the muscle, Kingdra also outspeeds Scarf Landorus-Therian, Greninja, Kangaskhan, Mega Salamence and Mega Manectric in the rain. Also being able to OHKO Bisharp, Salamence (w/ Draco Meteor) Excadrill, Kangaskhan and has a 75% chance to OHKO Sitrus Conkeldurr.

The set is rather standard, I know, 252/252 isn’t the best Kingdra set. However, it has helped me knock-out and outspeed certain Pokemon that I wouldn’t have been able to KO without this set, although I did wish I would’ve optimized it more.

Metagross @ Metagrossite
Ability: Tough Claws
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Zen Headbutt
– Protect
– Iron Head
– Ice Punch
Deployed: 10/10 times

Metagross: I brought this guy in all of my matches because of how well he fit onto almost every situation. I chose Ice Punch over Substitute because it improved my Salamence, Hydreigon and Thundurus match-ups. Zen Headbutt would be for Conkeldurr and Amoonguss, dealing significant damage to both. Iron Head would be for Fairy-types like Sylveon and Gardevoir, but it was also my best way to deal with Kangaskhan. I chose Jolly over Adamant mostly to outspeed Hydreigon, Terrakion and to Speed-tie with Gengar just in case they carry Shadow Ball.

With a fantastic Base Defense stat of 150, Metagross lives Sucker Punches from Bisharp, Kangaskhan and Mawile without any defensive investment. Because of this, I felt no need to optimize this spread further. I think if I return to this team however, I may switch to Substitute Mega Metagross.

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry None
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 16 SpA / 120 SpD / 44 Spe
Calm Nature
– Taunt
– Thunder Wave
– Swagger
– Thunderbolt
Deployed: 9/10 times

A standard Thundurus set until you realize there’s no item on Thundurus! Woe is me! Long story short, I may have forgotten to attach the Sitrus Berry when I registered this team. I wasn’t paying attention at all, and the rest is history. Despite this, Thundurus was brought to almost every game, since even without an item it was still very useful. I’d usually pair Thundurus up with Metagross which ended up being my favorite lead combination in the entire tournament.

As for the moveset, Taunt would help me with stopping Tailwind and Trick Room. Thunder Wave was the most used move in my tournament run, a necessity in terms of providing Speed Control. Swagger was only really used in my Top 4 match, which I’ll get into later. Overall, Thundurus was used as an amazing support Pokemon in a team filled with offense.

Hydreigon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Earth Power
– Flash Cannon
Deployed: 3/10 times

Hydreigon was a neat addition to the team. I wouldn’t use this fella’ much, but when I did it proved to be extremely powerful, plus was extremely clutch for me in the last game of Swiss. Hydreigon’s spread is pretty simple, doing what it needs to do: KO things and do it fast. Another little tidbit is that I originally wanted a Hidden Power Grass Hydreigon, but I wasn’t able to get one in time. Hidden Power Grass was going to replace Flash Cannon, which did nothing for me in the entire tournament.

Escavalier @ Expert Belt
Ability: Overcoat
Level: 50
EVs: 72 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Def / 96 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Megahorn
– Drill Run
– Iron Head
– Protect
Deployed: 1/10 Times

Escavalier was the one Pokemon I barely used at all in this Tournament. Not that it’s bad, but it does what it’s supposed to do well, by countering Trick Room. Escavalier has been my favorite Trick Room counter so far in this meta, being able to OHKO Cresselia and also two-hit KO Mawile and Sylveon. The one battle I had with a Trick Room team in this regional, Trick Room wasn’t set up and the battle was effectively over before I got to my Escavalier.

Public Enemies

Greninja

This Pokemon was extremly annoying to deal with. I only faced Greninja a couple of times during the tournament, but I didn’t win a battle against it, so that’s saying something.

Charizard-Y

Unlike Greninja where it’s a large Roadblock to my team, Charizard Y is mostly obnoxious to my team once it was able to set up Sun. Even when Charizard does activate Sun, I still have ways to KO it, but it was just a bit more difficult than other megas to deal with.

The Tournament

After about two minutes of driving from the hotel to the venue, I kept on worrying how I’d do. With a Gatorade in my hand, two hours early and my father complaining how my shirt “smelled” I went in with high hopes!

 A Brief Listing of my Battles!

Swiss Rounds

• Round 1: Vs Matt Hogan – Win
• Round 2: Vs Justin Jett – Win
• Round 3: Vs Mahaley McAllister – Lose
• Round 4: Vs Joseph Costagliola (Life Orb) – Win
• Round 5 Vs Luciana G. – Win
• Round 6 Vs Rebecca Broniak – Win
  

Record: 5-1 (Fifth Seed in Swiss)

Top Cut

• Top 8: Vs Abel Goodwin (YummyKittys) – Win (2-0)
• Top 4 Vs Stephen Mea (Gramgus) – Lose (0-2)

Conclusion

In the end I got Fourth Place, losing to my friend Gramgus who later on got Second Place losing to Brady1225. Now I would like to put some pros and cons about my time at the Venue.

Pros

• Getting to meet really awesome people like Life Orb, Gramgus and YummyKittys. You guys are awesome!
• Getting to battle both YummyKittys and Gramgus in my Top cut run.
• Getting a Top 4 in my first year of playing in VGC.
• Getting a Sweet Trophy for Top 4!
• Managing to lock up my Stipend award.

Cons

Honestly there weren’t many. I’m not a stickler for how events are run, plus the venue was beautiful and spacious. If there was one thing that I was pretty sad about, it was that my friend Daniel went 3-3. Daniel’s a great player, and needed CP for his own stipend award, hopefully he could still be able to go to Nationals.

Well that was my team that I used to Top 4 at the Georgia Regional! I wish I remembered my battles more in advance, I hope this report wasn’t too painful to read. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see some of you guys at Nationals!

The post The Sitrus That Got Away: A Senior Spring Regionals 4th Place Team Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Information was compiled with help from Daniel Pol (Chiron), Conan Thompson (conan) and Barudoru’s blog post found here. Twitter names added if applicable

A note in regards to how tiebreakers work in this format, Federica was able to advance from their pool (which consisted of another player with a 2-1 record, slime). Even though slime was able to defeat Federica during pools, Federica’s number of pokemon remaining in prior battles consisted of 3-0 and 2-0 were higher then slime’s 2-0 in both battles.

The following players have an invitation to Day Two of the Pokemon World Championships in Boston, Massachusetts.

1st Place

Syouma Honami (@SHADEviera)

Runner-up

Daiki Moriyama (@mor1yama)

Top 4

Ryouta Otsubo (@barudoru)

BIDC (@BIDcp)

Top 8

The following players have received an invite to play in worlds, but not the paid trip.

Federica “shinobumeiru” (@0p0t0p0t0p0t)

nepinepi (@_NP55)

Penguin (@penguin2142)

Sharon (@syaronalex)

Group Stages

Group A

Penguin advances to Top 8.

みょん (@myon7314)

Bicho (@bicho_5296)

Yuichi Sasaki (@Yuuichi_u1)

Group B

Barudoru advances to top 8.

にしのつかさ (@temp25004762)

ライ (@raito1496)

こもりん (@Sarapoke0914)

Group C

(Viera advances to top 8)

Kaori Kikuchi (@SyadoWCS)

みなみこり

まずいぼう (@mazuibou1)

Group D

mor1yama advances to Top 8.

see (@see_miruo)

glay (@nandeglay)

ユー

Group E

Nepinepi advances to Top 8.

Daichi Kunabe (@Scar3020)

ぷらずま (@pmantoka)

シルバーN (@N14602428N)

Group F

Federica advances to Top 8.

slime (@Westwoodkun)

psk (@psk_medaka)

tatikawa (@pupeet1)

Group G

BIDC advances to top 8.

rem (@yande_rem)

inoseno (@inospeed)

Yuki

Group H

Sharon advances to top 8.

masa (@masaVampharos)

Haru-chin (@haruchin_kawaii)

annyui (@ennui_noon)

Senior Division

1st. Honda Kouki

2nd. Haruki Kondo

Junior Division

1st. Harasaki Shuu

2nd. Yasue Kotone

The post Teams from the VGC ’15 Japanese National Championships appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey, everyone! Lucien Lachance back again with another episode of Top Players Talk! (Technically it’s Top Players Type, but that doesn’t flow off the tongue as nicely). In honor of Japan Nationals, we’ll be discussing the current Japanese meta, the effect of their unique tournament structure on their team building, and various things we saw from the finals.

Joining me this week is a new, yet well known face in Conan Thompson (conan). He qualified for Worlds last year through the Japanese system in the Senior division and is on top of the CP chart, so he’s quite the expert! In addition I have Adit Selvaraj (LithiumAcid). A lesser known player, however anyone who follows him on Twitter knows he is extremely well versed in the Japanese metagame and players and I cannot think of a player more qualified than him on this subject.

Kenan: To start off, what are some of the main differences between the current Japanese meta and the current US meta?

Adit: Well, Kangaskhan still reigns supreme as the top Mega Pokemon in both, while Gardevoir and Salamence are secondary in usage due to the popularity of the archetypes that utilize them (e.g Scar’s M-Gardevoir Trick Room, and Japan Sand). The US meta still favors Kangaskhan, but more types of Mega Pokemon are utilized, such as Metagross (which hardly sees usage in Japan), as well as Venusaur.

Conan: The difference is that the US meta is still using strategies that do not work very well in the current Japanese meta anymore, while the Japanese meta seems to be ages ahead of us. I think after Japan Nationals, the US will catch up to the Japanese meta though; kind of like they did last year. You can already see that things like Japan Sand are getting much more popular here.

Kenan: Conan, when did the US fare well against the Japan meta?

Conan: Oh, never, because the Japanese were playing XY Battlespot, which is pretty much VGC ’15 without the ORAS megas way before VGC ’14 was over. While we were playing VGC ’14, lots of Japanese players were playing that format instead, with unofficial tournaments as well.

Adit: Conan is very right about that. I think they had a longer time to cultivate ideas and practice longer. It’s also important to note that the players who studied the Battle Spot Doubles meta prior to VGC ’15 did quite well during the first wave of Regionals, and in some cases the subsequent ones.

Conan: Yeah, lots of Japanese players completely ignored VGC ’14 as well and only played the Battle Spot format.

Kenan: That definitely makes sense. The only players I know of who played XY Battle Spot are Angel Miranda (CT MikotoMikasa), William Hall (Biosci), Jeudy Azzareli (SoulSurvivor), and some of their friends. Given that the US and Japan metagames are rather distinct, why do US players look to top Japanese teams for inspiration?

Conan: Because they are usually a good meta call. The reason why they are top teams is because they do well vs the current meta and it’s often something the US meta isn’t prepared for yet.

Kenan: Even the teams that are massively weak to Landorus-T? M-Gardevoir TR and Japan Sand to name the two biggest two.

Conan: I don’t think they’re massively weak to Landorus-T. Though the matchup isn’t perfect, those teams definitely have ways to beat it.

Kenan: Of course, you have to beat the top Pokémon across the entire world to make a successful team.

Conan: Yeah, and obviously Landorus is popular pretty much everywhere so it wouldn’t make sense for a team to be weak to it, yet do well.

Kenan: Although I do feel both of the top Japanese cores that have emerged into the US have a distinct Landorus-T weakness, but that might be due the US fear of Rock Slide flinches.

Conan: I agree, they are weak to flinches.

Kenan: Adit, what do you think on this subject?

Adit: I believe that is due to the innovation many Japanese players utilize. Although America arguably has some of the most influential team builders, such as Angel Miranda (Mikoto Mikasa), Japanese players utilize many techs that would be advantageous against opponents not privy to that information (which is why American players enjoy using these teams). Since these teams require players to actively look for them or follow the creators of these teams on social media, a majority of opponents will not have knowledge of the techs used on your team.

Kenan: And the Japanese players definitely are more connected through their various blogs and whatnot. They’re more transparent with their teams and share information extremely readily.

Adit: That’s not necessarily true. During tournaments like the Japan Cup many players make their blogs private so opponents can not read up on strategies that particular player may favor and potentially use against them.

Kenan: But after the fact they’re extremely open about it, correct?

Adit: I wouldn’t say extremely open, but yes they are willing to share their information. Most players do not post their EV spreads but rather post the actual stat numbers in game.

Kenan: What’s the reason for posting the stats instead of the EVs? Isn’t it just slightly more time invested to find out the spread?

Adit: I think many of the players do not play on Showdown too much, so they may not have the exact spread used. Due to the portable nature of the DS and due to the fact taking pictures of the screen is common practice among Japanese players, I think they may find it more convenient

Kenan: That makes a lot of sense. I always wondered about that from looking at some blogs. What do you two think the effect Japan’s… unique (to put it nicely) qualification and tournament structure has on its metagame?

Conan: I definitely think it encourages more best-of-one style teams, which brings more surprises, which I see on Battle Spot.

Adit: Japan’s format is best-of-one, thus the element of surprise is extremely important. During offline tournaments (which are unofficial tournaments run by fans and possibly the only tournaments Japanese players get beside Nationals and Global Link) there is no way for the organizer to enforce anything but the in-game timer so strategies like Minimize become extremely viable. There is a term called “TOD” which stands for time-of-death, which refers to the strategy that Minimize teams employ by attempting to stall opponents to death by abusing the full extent of the timer to achieve victory. Some techs against TOD include the rogue inclusion of Toxic on the moveslot of a Pokemon. My good friend JUNIO won Arena-Off with the move Toxic on his Life Orb Thundurus which was his counter to Calm Mind Cresselia. The tournament structure usually consists of blocks which are played as round robin tournaments with the players with the highest Win-Loss ratio moving on to the final rounds.

Conan: I see these types of teams on Battle Spot sometimes and they have done well at offline events, especially Calm Mind Cresselia and things to counter that like Toxic Thundurus. But when it comes to more serious tournaments, like Japan Cup and Japan Nationals, there is a timer to often prevent these strategies from working, so I think teams used in those tournaments are less prepared for those strategies.

Kenan: Yeah, I’ve seen Toxic crop up every once in a while here in US and it’s never very useful, since the timers are very strict here. Anyway, from all the blogs you’ve read, what are the main things the US has taken away from the Japanese metagame thus far this year, aside from Japan Sand?

Adit: I think Mega Gardevoir Trick Room is the most commonly borrowed influence, especially after Ray used it on his YouTube channel. I recall a variant of the team got both Top 8 and Top 16 at Seattle Regionals piloted by 5th place Nikolai Zelinski (Nikolai) and Luis Canseco (Chaivon) who I had the pleasure of playing at Kansas Regionals.

Kenan: Blake and I tried really hard to make Mega Gardevoir Trick Room work, but we never quite found the magic.

Adit: It’s a difficult archetype to play well, but it’s quite rewarding when you manage to pull it off.

Kenan: What about a less used Japanese idea? I know Escavalier got heavy usage in Japan to beat Mega-Gardevoir Trick Room, but that’s all I know of.

Conan: I think solid Trick Room teams were rare in the US until recently and we started seeing more of those. I also think there were a lot more Mega Gengar in Japan, while it never got very common in the US. Also Safety Goggles never got common here as well, while it was on a lot of teams in Japan for offline tournaments and Japan Cup.

Adit: I would like to talk about the successful teams that really do take the advantage of the best of one format.

Kenan: Go right ahead.

Adit: During the Japan Cup a player known as ennui_noon placed 25th with a team consisting of Blastoise-M/Zapdos/Ferrothorn/Landorus-T/Cresselia/Garchomp. The Landorus-T held Bright Powder and the Ferrothorn held Quick Claw. Randy Kwa (R Inanimate) thinks he might have chosen to use those items because the Japan Cup is already a quite exhausting ordeal itself, and by choosing these items, you could possibly demoralize a potentially threatening opponent who may qualify for Nationals by putting them on tilt, which means they could miss qualification. In these best-of-one online tournaments, there is no such thing as opponent win % so there is no repercussion in trying to psychologically gain the advantage.

Kenan: And that makes a lot of sense. You may lose that game but if he tilts and loses the next 2 or 3 your net gain is higher. Fortunately, with our Nationals being best-of-three we won’t see much of that.

Conan: I saw the blog, and the player who used it didn’t seem very serious. Some weird teams will always succeed. The blog says they were “used for playing around safely” and talks about how he dodged Hyper Voices and Ice Beams.

Kenan: That doesn’t sound very safe to me! But we certainly can’t discredit his qualification to Nationals. So after watching the finals, what did you think of the two teams?

Conan: I think those types of teams were expected. The only thing I was surprised about was Charizard + Kangaskhan.

Kenan: Double Mega isn’t as common this format as it was the last, but it might be given some new vitality to players looking to rediscover that idea.

Adit: Well, both of them were both very interesting to say the least. Viera’s team was truly the embodiment of the best of what the Japanese metagame has to offer. Charizard-Y and Mega Kangaskhan have been a very popular pairing as dual Megas so it was interesting to see this combo come into play. I feel like the team had two modes: Kangaskhan overpowering teams who have little ways to counter it and Charizard-Y + Heatran pairing together to incinerate the opposition with high powered fire moves enhanced by the sun. This team reminds me a lot of Jeudy’s Worlds team where he mentions the reason he chose Charizard was because it beat many of the common Kangaskhan counters at the time. As for Mor1yama, it truly seemed like he ran a Bo1 style team.

Kenan: His team was definitely best-of-one oriented. Hidden Power Ice Landorus, while I’m sure is still useful in best-of-three, is nowhere near as potent as it is in a best-of-one.

Adit: Definitely. I think he also knew to expect many Landorus-Therian because there aren’t as much rogue choices of Pokemon at that level of play.

Kenan: what do you think of their choice of item on Landorus? Viera used a Life Orb variant and Mor1yama more than certainly used an Expert Belt special set.

Adit: I feel like both were interesting and effective choices. Viera’s team was a semi-Trick Room team and perhaps wanted a Pokemon that could function in and out of Trick Room, as its speed stat is average without the common Choice Scarf. Mor1yama’s item choice more or less functioned the same way, with the virtue of Expert Belt increasing the chance of KOing opposing Landorus with Hidden Power Ice.

Kenan: Also we can’t forget Earth Power counteracting common Wide Guard support alongside Heatran.

Conan: Well first of all I think a surprise Landorus-T set is good for best-of-one, so it makes a lot of sense. Having used Life Orb Landorus before for quite a long time, I feel like it’s a bit underwhelming, not being able to do its job all the time, but I can see why it comes in handy in best-of-one at least. The Expert Belt Hidden Power Ice Landorus also may not be amazing in best-of-three, but getting a surprise KO on opposing Landorus or Salamence could definitely decide the game immediately in a best-of-one.

Kenan: One of the other teams we saw from top 8 was Paranoia’s team with Liepard and Porygon2. Porygon2 seems rather out of place on the team, traditionally being a Trick Room only Pokemon. What do you think is its purpose on the team?

Conan: That was a team that looked really cool at first glance, but then I remembered what Porygon2 does on those types of teams. Here it’s most likely not a Trick Room variant, but rather a Foul Play, Recover, and possibly Swagger move set, which is very annoying to face when paired with a Liepard. Liepard can also Swagger and Foul Play while also having Fake Out. I’ve played against this on Battle Spot a few times before, and it is not fun.

Adit: Paranoia’s team was very fascinating. Porygon2’s impressive bulk and ability to Recover allowed it to make the most out of Liepard’s Swagger. Since a bulky variant of Porygon2’s offense leaves a lot to be desired, Paranoia uses Porygon2’s Foul Play for it to have some offensive presence. Garchomp was interesting to see again, but I can assume they didn’t want Landorus-T on the team to hinder the strategy of Swagger+Foul Play. Entei synergizes well with this team because, unlike the more conventional Arcanine, it lacks Intimidate but has the ability to cause burns. As SuperIntegration states in his report, “Foul Play works off the opponent’s stats and boosts, but not your status condition, ability and typing.” This means, most importantly, that you can burn a physical attacker and do no less damage with Foul Play, lessening their ability to do damage to you while not affecting your ability to do it back.

Kenan: So if a physical attacker snaps out of confusion, he can always just burn it. A rather interesting team, although it really all makes sense once you look at the big picture. I personally hope that’s something we don’t see often outside of Japan, as it looks annoying to play against. Looking at some of the other top 8 teams, what do you think about Politoed being in two of the top teams?

Conan: Well it shows rain is still good, but those 2 teams were very different. I don’t see it getting as big as it did last year, since people should be more prepared for it this time around, but a solid rain team like the ones that made top 8 are scary to face.

Adit: While I’m not that much of a fan of Barudoru’s team of Politoed / Ludicolo / Krookodile / Amoonguss / Zapdos / M-Gardevoir, Penguin’s team of Politoed / Jellicent / M-Kangaskhan / Escavalier / Smeargle / Amoonguss is an example of a RainRoom team done right. Kangaskhan and Smeargle offer disruption with Fake Out + Dark Void and potentially the ability to set up Trick Room in Smeargle’s case. Jellicent and Politoed can then mercilessly douse the opponents in the subsequent Trick Room or sleep turns of the opponent with the combo of Surf Politoed and Water Spout Jellicent. As for Rain itself? I’m sure a few rain teams will sneak in Top Cut during US Nationals.

Kenan: Both teams have definite modes that they operate in with one having a fast rain and the other a slower one, but both have an off mode to keep the opponent guessing. If you lead wrong against either team, it can easily lead to your exit from the tournament. Since I’m sure people will want to know about it, what do you think about the Senior finalist’s Snatch Rotom-W?

Conan: Again, best-of-one strategies. I think it was a good call though, with so many teams revolving around speed control moves and status moves in general. You can surprise them with that and completely ruin their plan. I don’t see it working very well after your opponent finds out about it though.

Adit: Definitely a best-of-one thing. I doubt that’s going to make that much of an impact in America

Kenan: He also had to have had some prior knowledge into his opponent’s team. He lead two special attackers and Suicune frequently knows Snarl. If I was his opponent, I’d be Snarling all day, not Tailwinding! But maybe that’s why I’m not a National finalist in Japan (also because I live in America). Were there any other interesting teams we saw or heard about from Japanese Nationals that you wanted to comment on?

Conan: I was impressed to see that BIDC made it all the way to top 4 with a team everyone should have already known the details about, since he posted everything on his blog (reposted in English by Chiron) before Nationals and used it in the Japan Cup. I also have to give credit to the player Penguin who made it to Japan Nationals 2 years in a row using a similar Smeargle / Kangaskhan / Amoonguss team both times — this time getting his invite.

Kenan: Were there any other interesting teams or things about the Japanese metagame or system you wanted to comment on?

Conan: Well, obviously everyone wants to see the system improved in the future, and I think making it a best-of-three tournament would influence the teams and play styles in a good way.

Adit: I think that players should borrow from Japan with caution. What may work there won’t always work here. That’s the most important thing I’d recommend before going to Nationals

Kenan: Certainly. The main thing to take away from this is that while Japan is using a lot of unique strategies we in America aren’t particularly prepared for, they are designed to succeed in a best-of-one format, which the US is no longer on. Anyway, thank you guys for taking time to answer all these questions, and good luck at Nationals!

The post Top Players Talk: Japanese Influence appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey everyone, Harrison Saylor (Crow) here and I’m joined by Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom) to talk about the team we each piloted at various Regional Championships. So here’s how it’s gonna work – I’m going to talk about the construction of the team and then introduce the actual team. At this point, Collin will jump in and talk about his experience with the team and the changes that were made in between Seattle and Madison (his words will be in italics!). I’m not going to be talking about swiss or top cut matches, as I feel team reports should focus on the team and not the player (and also because I don’t take notes, but gloss over that fact), but don’t worry; Collin will be providing that content. Alright, now that the formal junk is out of the way, we can get to the good stuff!

Team Construction

I don’t like to work alone. I like working with people. This time around I worked with Enosh Shachar (Human). Together we talked about many aspects of the current metagame, eventually coming to various conclusions. Of those conclusions two stuck with us the most – “Why is there only one successful Trick Room team?” and “Dang, boosted Hyper Voice is pretty good”. To the first point I’m sure many of you know exactly which team I’m talking about – the Mega Gardevoir / Amoonguss / Heatran / Thundurus and friends team that originally came out of Japan. It’s a team that I thought was pretty cool when I first saw it, but then passionately hated it once I actually tried it. It was the team most reminiscent to something that could have come out of 2013 and the fact I thought it just wasn’t very good was disappointing. As for the second conclusion, I’m sure we’re all well acquainted to the power of boosted Hyper Voice at this point.

With these two things in mind, we set out to build a team. And we did. But it wasn’t great. We had hit a roadblock, so I did what I tend to do when I don’t want to play games – watch random matches on Pokemon Showdown! In one of those matches I saw a Sylveon use Calm Mind. It lost horribly, but that didn’t matter. I had seen exactly what I wanted, a better way to run Sylveon so we didn’t have to run Mega Gardevoir. From there I created a team skeleton consisting of Sylveon / Mega Salamence / Cresselia / Heatran / Thundurus-I / Escavalier. After showing it to Enosh he made the suggestion that Thundurus be swapped to Rotom-Wash (a decision we would later revert) and Escavalier be swapped to Rhyperior (one of the best decisions we could have made). As luck would have it, I had a Rhyperior set that Zach Droegkamp (Braverius) had given me a month or two before. With a new team in tow, I went to test it. That first battle was a defining moment for me, I had not used a team that felt like it did since 2013. Enosh played some and agreed with my sentiment; we felt we had a team that had the potential to change the way people thought about Trick Room in 2015 as well as becoming an iconic team of the year.

Threats

Of course the team isn’t perfect, no team is. Here are the biggest threats to it.

Bulky Waters

Bulky waters are 100% the toughest matchup for this team. The only water resist is Salamence, which is a dubious resist in the best of cases. Rotom-Wash, Milotic, and general rain teams, etc each provided a unique set of frustrations. While many people have complained to me about Rotom-W, the most annoying in my opinion is rain with a steel type. That combination was by far the team’s worst matchup. How to get around it? Figure it out on the fly. In Seattle top cut I was able to beat Max Douglas (starmetroid) who was using the same rain team I eventually lost to. You have a team of six with options, it’s time to put your pokemon skills to the test and figure something out.

Life Orb Aegislash

The item is important here. The extra power lets Flash Cannon pick up a One-Hit-KO on Rhyperior, so if I end up being slower I can’t hit it in Blade Forme and if I’m faster I can’t KO without a Helping Hand boost. I hadn’t even considered this Life Orb Aegislash, especially on rain, which became painfully apparent at Seattle.

Bisharp

While not nearly as threatening as the two previously listed things, Bisharp wasn’t the most fun match-up. However, as long as I could Paralyze Bisharp or get up Trick Room, Rhyperior could make short work of it, partially in part due to Rhyperior’s massive Defense stat. If Rhyperior or Heatran wasn’t around though, things could get problematic.

Mega Mawile

While not exactly common anymore, Mega Mawile could be a threat to the team. Though, full disclosure, that’s only in my mind and perhaps on paper. I never actually had troubles beating the few Mega Mawile I faced in testing. Regardless, I’m gonna put it on here.

Sylveon

Without any super effective move to KO Sylveon, if you let it get going it could cause massive problems. She has the ability to OHKO or 2HKO all the Pokemon on the team if she has Hidden Power Ground.

The Team

Sylveon @ Life Orb
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 164 HP / 108 Def / 192 SpA / 4 SpD / 40 Spe
Modest Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Protect
– Calm Mind
– Hidden Power [Fire]

Sylveon, while not the star of the team, was certainly an important player. It puts a fair amount of pressure on the field with Hyper Voice and creates half of the Fairy/Ground coverage combo that works surprisingly well. Life Orb was the item of choice because without the boost from Calm Mind, and even sometimes with it, Sylveon’s damage output left something to be desired. With Life Orb, however, you could come out of the gates as a serious threat right away. The 40 Speed probably seems a bit odd, but it was to outspeed lower speed investment Aegislash who thought they could be cheeky and be fine in Blade Forme, something that Collin actually found out the hard way on our stream match. Hidden Power [Fire] was chosen over Hidden Power [Ground] because I didn’t really like Ferrorthorn and Escavalier.

When I first started using the team, Sylveon stood out as the MVP and it remained all the way through practice. I never really expected much from it but my god, in Trick Room this thing is a monster. I fell in love with the moveset almost instantly. I got to experience Calm Mind first hand at Seattle and now it was my turn to spread the love. She’s adorable, strong, and seems too friendly to be trustworthy.

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Return
– Protect
– Earthquake
– Draco Meteor

Hey it’s Mega Salamence! Have you heard of this guy? At the start of the year I had written Mega Salamence off as not good. That was perhaps a little foolish, but also in part due to not particularly liking the Dragon Dance set. Returning to it and trying it with Earthquake completely flipped my opinions on it. The choice to run Adamant seemed like a no-brainer to me since I had Trick Room (and also Thunder Wave, should I desire it). The extra power was easily worth the lower speed, though I do admit being slower than Terrakion’s Rock Slide is always a bit nerve-wracking. Draco Meteor was the final move on the set because, honestly, I just wanted something with which I could hit Rotom-W for a chunk. The fact that it let me hit other Dragons, such as opposing Mega Salamence, was just a bonus.

I found it really hard to find a Mega I liked. I had used Mega Mawile almost all last season. Smith and I went through the entire list of Megas and I thought all of them were bad. Salamence is one of the most interesting megas in my opinion. He has so many viable options and this was just one of them. I really liked Mega Salamence and the moveset was just icing on the cake.

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 188 HP / 192 Def / 92 SpD / 36 Spe
Modest Nature
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Thunder Wave
– Swagger

You guys are probably already aware of this guy. There’s nothing too special here. Thundurus is here to help with rain and bulky waters for the most part. Thunder Wave was for when I needed to outspeed things and was without Cresselia. When I ran this team in Georgia, I ran Taunt over Swagger, simply because I used Swagger exclusively as Taunt in Seattle. Swagger is still completely merited in that spot, though. It’s really just up to personal preference.

Thundurus is super boring and just straight up cruel. Swagger and Thunder Wave can be deadly. Thundurus really shone in my match against Ashton and in top 8. Outside of that it was just there for moral support.

Rhyperior @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 132 HP / 172 Atk / 44 Def / 156 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 19 Spe / 31 Spe
– Protect
– Drill Run
– Rock Slide
– Ice Punch / Earthquake

Here he is, the star of the show, Rhyperior! He’s the other half of the Fairy/Ground coverage duo of this team and possibly the most iconic member. For the past few years Rhyperior has struggled to be successful, so why has it been this year? The quick answer is that he simply has good matchups right now. Mega Kangashkan, Mega Salamence, Landorus-Therian, and Thundurus all struggle to do significant damage thanks to Rhyperior’s Defense stat and Solid Rock. It’s very easy to put the opponent in a position where they activate Weakness Policy and from there you’re only a Trick Room away from some serious damage. Physically, the EVs make it so that Landorus-Therian’s spread Earthquake is a 3HKO. Specially, they allow you to survive a Scald from a Suicune that doesn’t have much Special Attack investment. The 19 speed IV’s allow you to underspeed Adamant Mega Mawile, while outspeeding minimum speed Brave Mega Mawile. A change that I would make after Seattle, that would be adopted by Collin, is going up to 31 speed IV’s and investing the 4 unused EV’s into Speed. This allowed Rhyperior to outspeed minimum speed Aegislash, slightly improving its matchup. Although it’s implied by the statements about Rhyperior’s speed, Adamant was chosen because it really needs to work in and out of Trick Room (which is why there’s various speeds on all the Pokemon here; this is not dedicated Trick Room). Ice Punch was ok in testing but I rarely used it and actually never used it in Seattle. Afterwards I switched to Earthquake, another change Collin would adopt.

THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND! I loved using this guy so much. He was the co-MVP of the entire event. Running Earthquake was what led to most of my success. I brought him every single game. When Crow sent me the exportable of the team he accidently had 31 IV’s in speed. I assumed this meant that he wanted to outspeed Aegislash that were minimum speed with a Quiet nature. This didn’t effect me much outside of my match vs Ashton, but with his speed it straight up won me the game. I had so much fun using Rhyperior and I suggest you try him out.

Cresselia (F) @ Rocky Helmet / Mental Herb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Def / 148 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Toxic
– Ice Beam
– Trick Room
– Helping Hand

Cresselia’s role here may not have been glamorous, but I don’t think it’s wrong to say she was the most important Pokemon on the team. She was the Trick Room setter and general support. I don’t remember exactly what the EVs do, but I think they make unboosted Aegislash’s Shadow Ball a 3HKO. I don’t really think there’s anything super confusing about the moves here, but I’ll take the time to explain Toxic anyway. The idea of Toxic as a way to help deal with bulky waters was an idea Enosh and I were toying around with. I wasn’t completely sold on it until I heard some other players talking up Calm Mind Cresselia. I had no intention of losing to that and realized I didn’t have a stellar way of dealing with it. Since Toxic helped with both, I ran with it. Another option that I was playing around with in that slot was Light Screen. Light Screen was really great at increasing my team’s survivability, particularly against big threats like bulky waters and Aegislash. It was actually very impressive what Rhyperior could take when behind a Light Screen. However, if going the Light Screen route I would run Psychic over Ice Beam. The biggest disappointment here was Rocky Helmet. While great in testing it was activated probably three times during the entire event at Seattle. Before the tournament had finished, I had decided Mental Herb is a much better item for this Cresselia.

Cresselia is my favorite Pokemon in the game. She provides amazing support with her many forms of speed control and support moves such as Helping Hand. I brought her in almost every game I played. At this point in 2015, I felt that most players wouldn’t be as prepared for her as they should be and she was able to stay alive for almost the entire match most times. I chose to run Mental Herb because I didn’t want to deal with Thundurus Taunts. In practice it was amazing but it never activated at the event. Oh and she’s SOOOOO CUTE!!!!

Heatran @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 196 HP / 252 SpA / 60 Spe
Modest Nature
– Heat Wave
– Protect
– Earth Power
– Flash Cannon

Heatran was the least used member of the team, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t important, just that the game right now is very anti-Heatran. Heatran’s main goal was to do, well, typical Heatran stuff; absorb Fire moves, resist Fairy attacks, beat Amoonguss and Steel types, frustrate Sun teams – you get the idea. I had toyed with the idea of Will-O-Wisp over Flash Cannon, but I really liked the Steel coverage so Flash Cannon stayed. I guess I’ll take this moment to talk briefly about how I really like Safety Goggles Heatran for Trick Room. Safety Goggles on something like Heatran really invalidates arguably the best Trick Room response, Amoonguss. It also helps the team out a lot vs other Trick Room teams who I’m likely slower than once Trick Room is up. The best example is the standard Mega Gardevoir Trick Room team. Safety Goggles lets my Heatran target down their Heatran or Gardevoir without fear of Rage Powder or Spore, which really takes away the vast majority of that team’s power.

Heatran was the least valuable Pokemon on the team at the event for me. Although, this doesn’t mean I regret running him. I only brought him to one match, and it happened to be the only game I lost in swiss to Chuppa. Heatran gave necessary resistances to fairy and it gave the team ways to deal with uncommon Pokemon such as Scizor and the ever present Aegislash.

Madison Regionals!

Before the Seattle Regional I saw Enosh practicing on Pokemon Showdown with the very same team, and I immediately took interest in it. I took the Rhyperior and Cresselia out of the team and focused on building around them. I couldn’t get the team to work as well as I wanted to, so I abandoned it. I ended up using Terrakion, Cresselia, Heatran, Thundurus, Aegislash, and Mega Gyarados at Seattle. I played Crow in the second round and ended up getting destroyed. I finished 18th missing cut. After the tournament, I was able to pick Crow’s brain and really figure out his team. I normally make my own teams, and I take pride in this. I never intended to use Crow’s team, but it seemed liked the best fit. I began to build around Rhyperior and Cresselia because they made the most sense in the current meta. They helped deal with so many of the common threats that are running rampant. I spent two weeks playing with these two and tried all I could to make them work. I kept coming to something very similar to Crow’s team. Once Oliver and Chuppa arrived in Wisconsin, I felt like I had nothing even though I worked as hard as I could for two weeks. Twelve hours before the tournament, Oliver was asleep, Chuppa was skyping, and I was panicking. I decided to put my trust in Crow and threw it together as fast as I could. I practiced until 4 AM with Crow’s team. It felt like something I could easily play even though my practice matches didn’t turn out so well. I slept on it, but when I got up I decided on Crow’s team. Oliver and I scrambled to get the team ready in game. With 10 minutes to spare, I locked my battle box.

Important Matches

Round 3: Mangosol

This was my first opponent whose name I recognized. This match was important because I was able to leave Cresselia in against a Thundurus and just set up Trick Room because of my Mental Herb. Once Trick Room went up, Rhyperior and his best friend Sylveon were able to KO everything in the 4 turns.

Round 4: Chuppa

This was my only loss in swiss. Chuppa stayed at my house and watched me practice for almost the whole night, so he knew how I liked to play and what I liked using. I also helped Chuppa get all his Pokemon so I knew all of his items and spreads. I played turn one very poorly, giving Chuppa a massive advantage. Chuppa played really well and deserved the win. This loss put me at 3-1, which meant that if I lost one more I wouldn’t be able to cut, so I had to spend the rest of the day playing at my best.

Round 6: Whitney Johnson

Seeing this match up kinda scared me. I knew this guy just got Top 4 at Kansas City, so I knew I was in for a tough match. I led Sylveon and Cresselia into Nidoking and Kangaskhan. Whitney said “ You brought the wrong Pokemon to this match up.” I knew his Nidoking held a Choice Scarf after learning about the teams from Kansas, so I protected Sylveon and used Trick Room. Cresselia flinched from Fake Out and Sludge Bomb went into my protect. I proceeded to switch into Rhyperior and use Trick Room again. He brought in Ferrothron and I decided to switch in Salamence to let Rhyperior survive Power Whip. Rhyperior actually had a really good chance of surviving it with the HP it was at, but it fainted. Next turn Sylveon came in and decided to crit Whitney’s Ferrothorn with Hidden Power Fire, so I was able to come back.

Round 8: Ashton Cox

Ashton had three things to hit my Cresselia super effectively, so I knew she wasn’t coming to the party. All day I heard tidbits such as special Kangaskhan and Choice Specs Gengar. I went with Thundurus as my form of speed control for this match. I led Thundurus and Sylveon into Gengar and Rotom-Wash. I had Rhyperior in the back so I knew Rotom was going to be an issue. I knew he was going to double up on Thundurus but I played it safe and protected Sylveon. After several turns of trading KOs, it ended up with my full HP Rhyperior and Salamence vs his Aegislash and Kangaskhan. He used Ice Beam on Rhyperior, activating my Weakness Policy, and my Rhyperior outsped the Aegislash and KO’d both it and the Kangaskhan, giving me a chance at defending my title once again.

252+ SpA Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Ice Beam vs. 132 HP / 156 SpD Solid Rock Rhyperior: 100-118 (48.3 – 57%) — 90.6% chance to 2HKO

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 132 HP / 44 Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 126-150 (60.8 – 72.4%) — guaranteed 2HKO

This is what you get for running Ice Beam Kangaskhan.

Top 8: Nic Sefranek

Cresselia didn’t seem to be thrilled to attend this party either, so once again I went with Thundurus. I felt completely in control in both games and took both rather easily with the same four Pokemon: Rhyperior, Thundurus, Sylveon, and Salamence. Game 2, he mistakenly used Dragon Dance. Sylveon screamed all over his team and I moved on to top 4.

Top 4: Wesley Morioka

I haven’t had this much fun in a Pokemon match in a while. Wesley was a blast to play and I enjoyed talking to him and the judge. Rotom-Wash was a massive issue, so I knew I was going to need to focus on taking it down every time he brought it. Game 1 he didn’t bring Rotom-Wash, so I won pretty easily. Game 2 he changed it up and brought Rotom. I messed up my momentum completely, forcing myself into Trick Room with Salamence on the field. Wesley punished any chance I had of switching so I wasted my 4 turns. Game 3 I focused on setting up Trick Room and really abusing it, and I was able to win.

Finals: James Baek

This was the kind of stuff that I needed to be ready for. Clefairy had Healing Wish, but outside of that it was stuff I expected. I was able to handle his Calm Mind Cresselia very easily with Toxic. He had no super effective hits for my Cresselia, so she was free to support my team to the utmost extent. I got a few flinches on his Cresselia Game 1, but they didn’t matter that much in the end. Game 2 my Sylveon dodged a key Icy Wind, allowing me to secure the match. I found out afterward that I would have survived anyway.

The Core 4 (Collin’s opinion)

These four Pokemon were the four I brought almost every game. I felt like the synergy between these four stood out so much that I needed to mention it. I felt that with these four, I could handle almost any team. I had a convincing non-Trick Room mode with Salamence and Sylveon, and a very threatening Trick Room mode with Rhyperior and Cresselia. I have been playing Trick Room since the beginning of my competitive career. Trick Room makes the most sense logically, why run any speed if you can run all attack and bulk? Salamence also was able to function in Trick Room if I needed him to because of his exceptional mega bulk. Sylveon and Rhyperior were able to really shine with Cresselia and Salamence supporting them.

I’d have to say I agree. The combination of Cresselia/Salamence/Rhyperior/Sylveon was in almost every case the most threatening combination. Not only that, but the combination works significantly less well with even just one of the the pieces removed, which I think really speaks to it being a “core”.

Conclusion

I felt I needed a huge win and Madison did this for me. I put myself in a good Championship Point range and I was happy to defend my title. I loved the stream, and Crow’s team felt so comfortable in my hands. Thank you to Crow and Enosh for creating such a beautiful team! I finally won a regional with my favorite Pokemon, Cresselia! This was her party to attend and she attended it like a true princess.

Overall I think the team was a huge success. Not only did I take 3rd place at Seattle and Collin take 1st at Madison with it, but it accomplished the main goal Enosh and I originally set out with – create a new, successful, Trick Room team that hearkens back to 2013.

Want to know more about the team? Have suggestions about it or a different version you run (and no, Pledge with Cresselia and Rhyperior does not count)? Have you played the team to success elsewhere? Let us know in the comments!

The post Welcome to the New Extreme: A Seattle 3rd & Madison 1st Place Team Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Preamble – That Zero Two Start Feeling

2015 has not been a good season for me.

Although I had expected this due to a number of real-life commitments, I didn’t expect to start 0-2 at Perth Regionals and also fail to win any CP at the single West Australian Premiere Challenge. Regardless, I was set on going to Nationals just to catch up with friends, in some ways relieved at the lack of pressure to perform.

and
then
it
happend

A surprise best-of-three Swiss announcement filled me with a burst of confidence even though I’ve barely played VGC15 and have no results this season to speak of. Regrettably, young Cat-Gonk slips the leash and this horrible thing blurts out of me on Twitter..

Well, with such a bold claim like that it’d certainly be embarrassing, if I didn’t follow up!

The Team

I practice what I preach; this is a standard line-up with a few tweaks and wholly unsuited to best-of-one, but with all the tools I need for best-of-three (save for Taunt and a Ghost type, which I sorely regreted not having in Round 5).

The main design goal was to run the Kangaskhan + Landorus-T + Heatran + (electric/flying) standard core on a team with two Ice moves, two Fire moves, and some sort of speed control. Thundurus-I was originally on the list, but didn’t last through testing.

Other design objectives included:
– Fire/Water/Grass core
– Reduce Thundurus-I to the glorified flying meowstic that it is
– Strong game against Trick Room and rain teams
– Bulk to offset the triple Ice weakness

An earlier variant of this team with Raikou over Suicune kept me at 1800 for a fair while during BS season 9 after ~150 games, and achieved absolutely nothing in any event that awarded CP. After switching Suicune in over Raikou, I rose to just under 1800 after ~60 games in season 10. I should really have played more, but I wasted a week of testing because at the time I couldn’t be bothered.

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

This is the same Kangaskhan I used last year. Keeps things simple.

Had I kept in shape all season I’d be running a Mega Salamence team instead since Mega Salamence is amazing, but you need to be good to use Mega Salamence whilst with Mega Kangaskhan you only need to be average. Then again, had I lost one more game in testing due to Sucker Punching something slower or something with valid non-attacking options other than Protect, I would have switched to Mega Salamence out of frustration.

Low Kick gets KOs, including the all-important Heatran as well as other Kangaskhan, but Power-Up Punch wins you games. Adamant seems like a better choice for a Tailwind team, but winning that speed tie is just too important for me, and people often assume Mega Kangaskhan doesn’t have maxed Speed when they see Zapdos and/or Suicune in Team Preview. Oh, and since it will come up, +6 Sucker Punch will not OHKO Terrakion, and will obviously raise its attack stat because of Justified.

Kangskhan was used in every game except against FloristTheBudew due to the amount of hate he was running.

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Def / 4 SpD / 148 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Earthquake
– Rock Slide
– Knock Off
– Superpower

I used amr97‘s build. Even though I did miss U-Turn, Knock Off is a godsend in best-of-three. The Intimidate is required for a lot of my team to survive common Fighting attacks and the flinches are required for me to win games against Better Players.

Zapdos @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 116 HP / 232 Def / 4 SpD / 156 Spe
Modest Nature
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Heat Wave
– Tailwind

Zapdos is possibly the most important member of the team, when it’s required. If brought to the wrong matchup, Zapdos can become dead weight really fast.

Fighting the Tailwind war is a necessity for this team and fortunately it contains all the tools to do so. Even if there’s a free KO on the table against an opposing Tailwind opener, it is almost always better to set up Tailwind instead. Although this team is quite fast, many common Pokemon can cause issues unless the team can KO them before they can react, so much so that in 9/10 games Mega Kangaskhan/Zapdos will be in the lead.

Zapdos’ EVs are a little interesting, and credit goes to AdaVGC for the inspiration. It outspeeds Smeagle, which is obvious, but this Zapdos has a perfectly realistic chance to take a Double Edge and a follow-up Sucker Punch from Jolly Mega Kangaskhan. Furthermore, it can survive three Rock Slides from Landorus-T and even a Stone Edge critical hit from a Life Orb Jolly Virizion (most of the time). I originally wanted to put enough EVs into Special Attack to ensure the OHKO on zero-investment Landorus-T, but, in the end of the day, being able to survive against Mega Kangaskhan feels more important and Landorus-T usually gets chipped by Fake Out damage anyway.

Ferrothorn is also really common in Australia, bizarrely enough. The “Ghetto FWG” core of Arcanine / Milotic / Ferrothorn pops up with surprising regularity and, while not ideal, can still be quite threatening if played well.

Heatran @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Flamethrower
– Flash Cannon
– Earth Power
– Protect

The frog race is real. Fast Heatran was shown to be a thing in Worlds 2013 and is again rapidly becoming the standard. There were at least three that I know of on Day Two. Zero bulk investment is a problem, however -1 Mega Kangaskhan can’t OHKO with Low Kick (but -1 Life Orb Blaziken still can).

The pros run Substitute over Flash Cannon, but Flash Cannon is great for neutral damage (with surprising effect on Mega Salamence) and I have never lost a game wishing I had put up a Substitute the previous turn, even though I’ve lost plenty of games against enemy Heatrans who have.

Flamethrower was chosen over Heat Wave, because I got sick of this attack missing more often than not, and I wanted something to surgically remove Amoonguss and Aegislash after they had taken some chip damage. Flamethrower also helps against anyone expecting to block the Heat Wave with a Wide Guard and who doesn’t have the opportunity to use King’s Shield first to scout.

Suicune @ Assault Vest
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 188 SpA / 4 SpD / 60 Spe
Bold Nature
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Snarl
– Mirror Coat

It’s ironic, given how much I loathe using Suicune, that it ended up being my MVP over the weekend. Suicune is something of a necessary evil. Bizarrely, Water is now a vital offensive and defensive type, but with only one legendary Water type (this format would be completely flipped on its head if Keldeo was legal) good users are few and far between. Suicune is horrible, but something’s got to do it.

Suicune comes in against any team that has multiple weaknesses to Water and Ice, and there are no shortage of those in this format. In addition, Suicune has an important role as a Snarl user that I can lead with against Rain, and cripples the special spread attackers that are common in Trick Room teams. I can understand why people have had success putting Snarl on physical Pokemon in the past, such as in Wolfe’s VGC14 LCQ team, because it’s such a versatile move. The hard part is remembering that sometimes Suicune still has to attack for damage, and that Snarl boosts the abilities Justified, Defiant and Competitive.

The EVs aren’t anything special. They were pretty much copied from DaWobleFet’s build, but I took out the Special Defense investment and put it into Special Attack to boost Suicune’s pitiful damage output.

Mirror Coat did not get used once during the tournament, possibly due to a lack of Thundurus-I in my pairings, but was a never-ending source of amusement on Battle Spot. The only time I had a chance to get value with Mirror Coat was in game one of the Top 8 set.

Amoonguss @ Mental Herb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 212 Def / 44 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Giga Drain
– Rage Powder
– Spore
– Protect

I’ll be honest, this was a vanity pick. Sylveon was originally in this spot and is arguably just as useful against Trick Room and Breloom is probably better overall since I have Tailwind on Zapdos and a potential Icy Wind on Suicune, but Amoonguss is family and family means no-one gets left behind.

Amoonguss gets brought in blindly against Trick Room (barring Escavalier shenanigans), anything relying on single-target moves that I can sneak a Power-Up Punch in on, Cresselia (yolo knock off + spore is a totally valid play, okay), as well as any team with a quad Grass weakness to exploit.

With this EV spread, Amoonguss  can withstand a Zen Headbutt from a Jolly Megagross 100% of the time. Then, I decided to take the risk against Breloom (which can’t OHKO Mega Kangakhan anyway unless it carries a Fighting move other than Mach Punch) and leave out Sludge Bomb, or the trendy Foul Play. Due to every member of the team, other than Landorus-T, carrying something with good effect on opposing Amoonguss, this team can often win the mushroom war against anything other than Japanese Sand or hard Trick Room, which is a nice change.

Mental Herb deserves its own paragraph. Rocky Helmet is nice, especially as a switch-in against a Kangaskhan + Landorus-T lead that points Low Kick + Superpower at my own Mega Kangaskhan, but Mental Herb utterly neuters Thundurus-I and allows me to Power-Up Punch my own Amoonguss in the face of a first turn double Protect. If the Nationals metagame is anything like Perth (spoilers, it wasn’t), I’m going to play a Thundurus-I in every round; winning one game out of each set thanks to a surprise Spore that shouldn’t have landed sounds like better value than the occasional 1/3rd of the health of a Mega they may not even be running.

Threats

Conkeldurr:

• Conkeldurr is great in this format and does serious work here, hitting five of my six Pokemon for super-effective damage while ignoring everything Suicune can do.
• The only real solution is to hope the Conkeldurr does not have Sitrus Berry and swing in with Mega Kangaskhan, or to put it to sleep with Spore.
• Goggles Conkeldurr is so the new meta.

Infernape + Pixillate Hyper Voice Lead:

• Lead Landorus-T / Suicune, lock in Earthquake + Snarl and hope for a miracle. The Fake Out is almost always going at Landorus-T.

Gyarados with Lightningrod support:

• Fortunately, Gyarados is horrible in this format unless there’s something next to it that neuters Thundurus-I, or in this case Zapdos.

Lum Berry or Safety Goggles Cresselia:

• Amoonguss is my primary out for Cresselia despite the Psychic weakness.
• With nothing on this team that can really deal damage to Cresselia, other than Power-Up Punch boosted Returns, there’s not much to do other than focusing on Cresselia’s partner and just accepting that the other player will have speed control.

Perish Song:

• This match-up is a write-off. Can occasionally push through with damage, usually can’t.

Common Setups And How To Deal With Them

Double Genies: Kangaskhan/Zapdos lead, Landorus-T in back.

• This is a guessing game dependent on Rock Slide flinches, but one ultimately in this team’s favor.
• A Mega Kangaskhan / Zapdos lead (which remains the safest lead for this team) followed by a switch from Mega Kangaskhan to something else or a Fake Out on Landorus-T does well here.
• Leaving Mega Kangaskhan in can be risky because Thundurus-I is highly likely to Thunder Wave it.
• While it leaves Zapdos open to a Rock Slide flinch or a double target, if Zapdos stays in without a Fake Out, the odds are still in its favour.

Terracott: Landorus-T/Zapdos lead

• Don’t laugh.
• It’s almost legitimate this gen now that Beat Up can’t be redirected with Rage Powder and Whimsicott has all its egg moves available at once.
• Landorus-T / Zapdos and Earthquake + Tailwind is probably the best lead. If the Whimsicott Taunts the Zapdos, an Earthquake will KO the Terrakion next turn; if they Tailwind + Protect they gain nothing and will be magically compelled to Encore the Zapdos slot next turn thus allowing for a free switch.
• Watch Whimsicott’s moves; almost all of them have Tailwind and Encore… What are the other two? Beat Up and Protect will be the two most common options, but write down whatever they use. Once they reveal their set they’re not quite as dangerous.
• There are, of course, a lot of other really frustrating things that Whimsicott can do, but Good Players Who Use Whimsicott are a really small subset of the player base.

Clefable + Dragon Dance Mega Salamence: Kangaskhan/Zapdos/Landorus-T/Heatran

• In just over 200 games I have yet to see a Mega Salamence with Dragon Dance on Battle Spot… Possibly because they all already hit 1900.
• Either is fine individually, but together they can cause problems. Salamence stops Amoonguss, Unaware blocks Power-Up Punch boosts, Heatran’s Flash Cannon isn’t a guaranteed OHKO on 252/4 Clefable, Clefable shuts down Landorus-T with Ice Beam and also gets a guaranteed 3HKO on Zapdos. In addiction, two Ice moves aren’t worth anything if they get redirected onto Clefable.
• It is extremely safe to lead Mega Kangaskhan + Zapdos/Landorus-T here. Unaware ignores the -1 Attack from Intimidate and many Clefable users don’t even use Sitrus Berry (Double Edge from Mega Kangaskhan is a guaranteed OHKO regardless and Safety Goggles answers Breloom).
• Pretty much every Salamence will still outspeed Kangaskhan on the turn prior to Mega Evolution (188+ Jolly lets them outspeed 252+ Ludicolo in rain), but not all of them run this much speed. Moreover, a Double Edge from max speed Mega Salamence can never OHKO a Mega Kangaskhan (94.4% maximum against 4 HP Mega Kangaskhan, Adamant is a 25% chance to OHKO). Sometimes the best thing to do is just to stay in and swing!
• An unintimidated Mega Kangaskhan will actually win a 1v1 against many Mega Salamence. Return + Sucker Punch is a possible, but unlikely, KO on most Mega Salamence and Double Edge (from either party, haha) guarantees it.

Sun: Kang/Zapdos/Landorus-T/Heatran

• Sun Room is an auto-loss unless Mega Kangaskhan can land a Power-Up Punch.
• Sun itself is not so bad, just keep Landorus-T alive, keep Heatran in the back, and maybe slip in a Tailwind. Depending on how much hate they have for Landorus-T, Suicune comes in over Zapdos (a lesson I forgot in round 4).
• Scout out the Hidden Power Ground on Charizard Y. Make them use it. They might not have it, and if they do, they’ve traded Overheat to get it.

Trick Room: Kang/Heatran/Amoonguss + Landorus-T/Suicune

• Gothitelle implies Trick Room. Cresselia and Amoonguss probably imply Trick Room.
• This team scoops for Helping-Hand boosted Choice Specs Sylveon unless it can stop the Trick Room going up or stem the bleeding with Suicune. Hopefully, all the kids running Bisharp, Talonflame, Thundurus-I and other older line-ups will keep Trick Room down, and I have my doubts that anyone will be brave enough to use Safety Goggles at a live event with a wide range of players.
• Mega Kangaskhan, Amoonguss and Heatran are required, and depending on what the enemy team looks like, Landorus-T (Knock Off, Intimidate) or Suicune (Snarl, Scald) will be the fourth. Snarl from Suicune isn’t an auto-win here since Cresselia doesn’t always attack and may just use Helping Hand.
• Keep Amoonguss alive at all costs, sacrificing Mega Kangaskhan is worth it. This depends on the environment at the time though, sometimes Mental Herb is everywhere, sometimes it’s Goggles or berries
• Cresselia can take a double-target from practically anything. Therefore, Power-Up Punch is very good here since Cresselia will always need at least two attacks to die, and attacking twice unboosted does less damage than a Power-Up Punch plus an attack.

Rain: Amoonguss/Suicune lead

• This is the one situation where it’s okay to lead with Suicune / Amoonguss. Snarl + Protect on the first turn is often a guaranteed win. Watch for when Pressure resolves since Scarf Politoed can get two Ice Beams off before the first Snarl lands.
• Amoonguss is required to tank boosted Water attacks which still do a ton of damage, and Scald can burn Mega Kangaskhan regardless of how many Snarls have been thrown around.

Japanese Sand: Depends on their choice of water type

• This can be tricky since all these Pokemon are good against theirs, but the reverse is also true.
• Landorus-T is a must as is Mega Kangaskhan, but the other two slots could be anything. Even Zapdos can be useful here if a sneaky Tailwind can go up to help Heatran. In general, most players won’t bring Excadrill against a team with Suicune, Landorus-T and Amoonguss, so that often makes it safe to bring Heatran.
• A lot of this match-ups hinge on locking Scarf Tyranitar into something unfavorable and then sending in something that can slip the leash like Amoonguss (which will always survive an Aerialate Hyper Voice from Mega Salamence, though Amoonguss won’t like it very much).

Day One – Zero Point One Five Percent

Unfortunately, I can’t remember much of what happened since I realized way too late that replays weren’t going to be available.

Round 1 (W 2-0): Jackson Mayberry

Game two was very eventful. I switched into a few too many resisted snarled Ice Beams and got my Kangaskhan frozen… Which then immediately thawed and attacked his Ludicolo! I couldn’t actually stop myself from exclaiming RIPPERRINO when this happened, but Friend Guard allowed Ludicolo to survive and the moment was lost. Rocky Helmetless Amoonguss KOed a 50% HP Life Orb Talonflame with recoil to seal the game.

Round 2 (W 2-0): Kyung-Min Kim

Great to see players coming out of New Zealand! Milotic gave me problems, but defensive Snarl Arcanine was more of a hindrance than help. Game one involved a critical hit burn from Scald on my Kangaskhan as well as a nonlethal critical hit on my Landorus-Therian, but it was still not enough to overcome a crucial Rock Slide flinch.

Round 3 (W 2-1): Liam Paternott

Game one I won the Mega Kangaskhan speed tie and got a relevant critical hit later on.

When I saw the Suicune on team preview I knew what was going to happen and that I had to fight the Tailwind war, but in game two I let him get Tailwind up over me in exchange for his Mega Kangaskhan. This wasn’t a good trade for me and his Breloom was then free to run over my team.

I didn’t make the same mistake in game three.

Round 4 (L 1-2): The Other Tony Nguyen

I saw the name and was hoping for another go at Competny, but he was 2-2 at this point.

In game one, I beat him 4-0, but in game two he cracks wise and started his game leading Landorus-T + Mega Charizard-Y. I had to bring Suicune in to stand a chance and make big plays, but I kept running Zapdos like an idiot and lost. A single Heat Wave critting Zapdos and burning Kangaskhan in one stroke didn’t help either. Great team, protects Mega Charizard-Y really well.

Round 5 (L 0-2): Paulo Amedee (Mastodon)

perish trap
yeah
nah

Round 6 (W 2-0): Aaron

At 3-2 I figured we’d both just be playing for funsies and my opponent was pretty chill. It turns out he was using a borrowed team and wasn’t too familiar with the game, but he put up a great fight all the same. Looking forward to playing him next year once he’s a bit better prepared.

Round 7 (W 2-0): Eamon Connor

I can’t remember too much about what happened here. Some long sleeps helped me out a lot, as did a Cresselia without Ice Beam. This could have easily ended up a repeat of round four had he started with leading Landorus-T + Mega Charizard-Y, though.

Round 8 (W 2-1): Zarif Ayman

For once I was not the loudest person on the table since both pairs next to us were somewhat exuberant.

Zarif is back for revenge after our game at Brisbane Regionals last year and after round four I wanted the scalp of someone wearing a Brisbane Bisharps shirt. Sadly, we only got to play one actual game of Pokemon since game one involved three Rock Slide flinches plus a Heat Wave miss and I can’t repeat what RNG did to him in game three on a PG rated site. Thanks again for not conceding the next round!

Round 9 (W 2-0): Bronson Kung

This was the fifth Ludicolo I saw that day.

Once again, great to see NZ stepping up to the plate. Bronson was using MajorBowman’s Missouri Regionals team, but I’ve practiced this match-up in my head a lot and know what to do despite not having Sylveon. He also didn’t know my Amoonguss had Mental Herb and was playing a little too safely. A Zen Headbutt critical hit on my Amoonguss didn’t stop the bleeding and I took game one.

Game two involved a LOT of RNG going my way. Without that double Thunderbolt paralysis + full paralyzes on Ludicolo there would have been a game three. Looking forward to our inevitable rematch in the future.

Day Two – Tactical Espionage Action

It is worth mentioning that two of the four West Australians who went to Nationals made it to Day Two, and neither of them made cut at Perth Regionals. Free-est Regional indeed.

Top 16 (W 2-1): Nicholas Bingham (Spiritbomber)

Since he has played so many of my friends we had a lot of intel. He was using my team from 2014 modified for the new format, with that other popular scarf intimidate user, the original Life Orb steel type, and the amr97 Rotom-Heat rather than my gangster Lum Berry build. Somehow, he dodged every rain team in the room (the reason I abandoned that team early in the season) and was now up against me in a match-up I felt I couldn’t win.

All he had to do to win was lead Rotom-H / Landorus-T and I go onto the back foot, but he didn’t in game three and in game two I had the RNG on my side.

Top 8 (W 2-0): Brendan Webb (FloristTheBudew)

My comrades provided me with intel, but his team is somewhat obvious and having tested support Volcarona with Famousdeaf early in the season I know exactly what to expect when Amoonguss is conspicuously absent from Japanese Sand.

This is a hit or miss match-up for me, but with so much of his team dedicated to dealing with Kangaskhan I could just choose not to bring it. Since he had Ferrothorn I couldn’t really bring my non-RH Amoonguss either, which made picking my four nice and easy.

None of this means anything when I RNG like a madman live on stream, KOing his Rotom-Wash from outside of Sitrus Berry range with a critical hit in game two.

(audio cuts in and out a little bit on this video)

Top 4 (L 1-2): Theron Ho (BlazingSceptile)

Haha omg! I got ruined…

I did well enough in game one, but didn’t make the plays I needed to in the next two games. Boomguy had even told me beforehand that BlazingSceptile calls all safe plays and that I needed to play fast and loose, but I just… didn’t.

For real though, how does one man has the courage to call the t1 no fake out?

Wooden Spoon Playoff (W 2-1): Jackson Lakey (Famousdeaf)

Neither of us were playing too seriously at this point, but this is a fitting end to the season.

We knew each others’ teams front and back. With no Fake Out or speed control on his team, he’s cold to a Tailwind which is why I blindly lead Kang + Zapdos each game. My guess is that he didn’t bring Aegislash because he knew my Heatran has Flamethrower and Life Orb which isn’t quite a kill, but would be with any chip damage. He also knew I was running Assault Vest Mirror Coat Suicune which might explain why he was reluctant to bring Thundurus-T, his usual out for opposing Heatran.

Without Earthquake on Mega Salamence only a freeze in game two could slow me down and constantly winning the timid Heatran race as well as Landorus-T blatantly cheating, kind of helped just a little bit, maybe. And if I do say so myself, my read on the game three Virizion switch-in was d i s g u s t i n g

(commentary on this video from Dawg and Chiron is tight as, give it a watch!)

Conclusion

This isn’t the championship trophy I’ve been chasing for the last sixteen years and top 4 in one event might not be enough for a Worlds invite, but it’ll do.

Props:

• Nintendo Australia and TPCI. This tournament was the envy of the world. No VGC event has been run this smoothly and best-of-three Swiss for VGC on top of that is unheard of!
• My opponents. All of them were Cool Dudes and must have gone 6-3 for me to make cut, so I guess the drinks are on me next time we’re all in town. Thanks again, guys!
• My wife, my kid and my cat. Thank you for all the support while I fly away for the weekend to play a game for ten year-olds.
• Team Delphox. It’s invaluable to be able to bounce ideas off teammates as well as having a library of traded 5IV legendaries to select from. Sorry not sorry for being cringey in that interview.
• Speaking of cringe, thank you to the Australian VGC chat for, uh, umm..
• The Random Number Generator. I won several games off of Hail Mary flinches and lucky procs. Sadly, luck is still a huge factor in best-of-three.
• Seeing all of you again group hug

Slops:

• Perish Trap. On that note, thank you based Mastodon for the final round choke that almost knocked me out of cut.
• I don’t like VGC15. The only thing I like about it is the accessibility since anyone can just run the standard core, add two Pokemon to taste, and come fourth at Nationals. It’s ironic that Japanese Sand, a copy-pasted team, feels like a breath of fresh air since it has no legendaries! Here’s to hoping that VGC16 will be a restricted format.
• Can a brother have some Personal Space?!

The post Ruby Slippers: Top 4 Australian Nationals Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

“I can show you the world

Shining, Shimmering, Spleeendid!” – Jamie Miller, 2014

Hello Nugget Bridge! It’s Eden (Xenoblade Hero) here, and this is a report on my team that I’ve used for the entire ’15 circuit. I was only able to attend two events that distribute CP this year, so essentially my Worlds chances have been decided on twenty games! This is my second article on NB, and hopefully I can make it more in depth and enjoyable than my previous report; Fasten your seat belts as this is going to be lengthy!

Teambuilding Process

At the dawn of VGC ’15, I initially tested out the new ORAS Mega Pokemon such as Gallade, Glalie and my personal favourite Slowbro. Unfortunately, I could not warrant using the first two because they didn’t fit my more defensive playstyle; in the case of Slowbro, it was difficult to use in the current environment with prominent threats being Hydreigon, Aegislash and Thundurus. I even tried out level 1 Smeargle + Cresselia + Mega Heracross at one point to guarantee Trick Room against a fast environment and force offensive pressure due to the threat of Endeavour. Mega Heracross performed very well and manages to OHKO most Pokemon in the metagame however this team became unreliable due to over relying on Trick Room being set up. Therefore my new check-list for a Regionals team was the following: to include optional speed control, to have at least two checks to (or methods to get around) all of the current top 12 Pokemon, to contain powerful spread coverage that gets past redirection and last but not least, to include no Pokemon which are entirely passive. Arguably I didn’t fill all the criteria with this team but it both performed consistently in testing and contained threats that were bulky and fitted to my own style of play. Another added bonus of this team is both a Fire/Water/Grass core and a Steel/Fairy/Dragon core which allows me to make optimal defensive switches into punishing offensive options.

All of the EV spreads for this team I made myself – I like to refrain from using elements of others’ teams aside from as reference points to make my own EV’s around. I see many people asking online for people to make sets for them but ultimately, it is only the players themselves who know what their own team has a weakness to and what is optimal. Practice makes perfect!

MISS. INGNO (Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 172 Atk / 156 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Double-Edge
– Low Kick
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

Bought to 20/20 games this season

I’ll get this Pokemon out of the way first as many of you have seen Kangaskhan throughout VGC ’14 and this season. The majority of the Pokemon placed on my team are made to either threaten or deter threats that give my Mega trouble, such as Terrakion, Landorus-T, Mawile and Aegislash. I felt like Protect was a more consistent option than Fake Out as well due to opponents often double Protecting in BO1 anyway, and in BO3 being able to Protect helps me pivot around Kangaskhan so I can keep it in the field after turn one if a threat appears.

I made this EV spread myself to survive opposing Kangaskhan’s Adamant Low Kick, to outspeed max speed Timid Heatran that have become a common choice of late, and to contain enough attack power to still reliably OHKO 4HP Kangakhan with Low Kick. I only switched to Double Edge a week before the tournament; it was originally Return but the lack of power was noticeable and the bulk investment was still sufficient vs opposing Kang (as I would not be using Double Edge against them unless I predict a switch out). I brought Kangaskhan to every single game on the day, in fact I lead with it every game too! This proves the strengths outweigh it’s weaknesses in an effective team setup, with the right partners to deal with major threats.

STEVE (Sylveon) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Def / 188 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Hyper Beam
– Helping Hand
– Protect

Bought to 11/20 games this season

Named after the one and only Edgson.

I found Sylveon to be exceptional vs more passive teams such as the one I faced in the UK Regionals top cut and opposing Trick Room during turn one. A lot of powerful setup strategies that use Pokemon such as Pachirisu and Togekiss are also hindered due to Hyper Voice being such a powerful spread move, hitting the partner for heavy damage. I found many opponents tried to target down Sylveon the instant it is sent out as well due to it being a hard-hitting threat, so I felt Protect was a must and Choice Specs was too risky to use (often the extra power is unnecessary because Pokemon like Assault Vest Conkeldurr are EV’d to survive the Specs variant of Hyper Voice anyway). The older version of this team had Life Orb with Hidden Power Ground, but I eventually found the power between that and Pixie Plate barely noticeable and Hyper Beam’s ridiculous wallbreaking potential means I could justify swapping the item and Hidden Power out. Helping Hand was an asset on the team for multiple situations – even with Tailwind Sylveon doesn’t outspeed the Jolly base 100+ speed tier and I wanted to keep the bulk investment as it was, so Helping Hand can guarantee faster threats get the KO’s they need. Even without speed control I can guarantee KO’s with Kangaskhan’s Sucker Punch, or my Scarfer which will be revealed shortly, before Sylveon is attacked. To give an actual situation where it came in useful I Helping Hand boosted my Kangaskhan to OHKO an opposing Heatran with Low Kick through Chople Berry during one of the Nugget Bridge Live tournaments I entered.

The EV spread was created to survive Jolly Mega Salamence’s Double Edge and KO back variants with slight bulk investment, as well as surviving some Kangaskhan Double Edge’s and all Kangaskhan’s Returns and KO’ing back less bulky variants with Hyper Beam if I need to remove one immediately. The special defence investment may seem very low but it still allows me to take an unboosted Flash Cannon from Aegislash and deal some damage back with Hyper Beam. The 20 speed investment was left over from my calculations and is there to speed creep other Sylveon.

KrillerQueen (Milotic) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 36 Def / 220 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Scald
– Icy Wind
– Ice Beam
– Hydro Pump

Bought to 10/20 games this season

I want to break free from making these terrible nicknames!

A large threat to Kangaskhan was Intimidate and the prominent Landorus-T. This made Milotic a very good choice to threaten Landorus and, like Bisharp, manipulate the opponent into not leading with their Intimidators. This moveset may seem ridiculous at first glace; surely two water and ice type moves isn’t making the most of the movepool available to Milotic? I considered the other options a lot and I found all the Hidden Power types to be poor options to be forced into, with Grass and Fire being only powerful in best of one situations before being revealed. Often against threats such as Suicune a burn is a lot more valuable to chip away health consistently and to limit switch ins because of the burn chance. Mirror Coat falls into the same category of being tough to use after being scouted (as well as being awkward on a Choice set). Icy Wind found use as an extra form of speed control, and the spread coverage enabled me to get past redirection if needed (for example if the opponent uses Dragon Dance with redirection I can nullity the speed increase whilst doing chip damage, allowing my partner to KO the Follow Me/Rage Powder user). Hydro Pump was to guarantee a OHKO on Terrakion which Scald failed to pick up, and due to the popularity of the fighting type I kept it on the set. Scarf is also an interesting concept on a Milotic, making it difficult to remove due to being able to attack first reliably against common speed tiers in the metagame, with a brilliant base 81 speed that speed creeps Timid base 80 Scarfers, Adamant Scarf Landorus-T and base 130 speed Pokemon such as Mega Gengar.

The EV spread is simple – it survives all priority attacks up to Choice Band Talonflame’s Brave Bird and keeps the fantastic speed tier. The rest is invested in special attack.

FlamingShibe (Entei) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 116 HP / 132 Atk / 4 Def / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Sacred Fire
– Stone Edge
– Snarl
– Protect

Bought to 15/20 games this season

I’ve seen various sources stating that they believe Entei is a poor man’s Arcanine. However, there was several reasons I spent days soft resetting for one. Stone Edge makes Entei a fantastic option against Charizard Y, Volcarona and the sun archetype the rest of my team has problems against. Sacred Fire is also similar to Scald in that it limits the plays an opponent can make due to the threat of a burn. I saw that Safety Goggles was a popular option on Battle Spot which surprised me – Substitute is a very good option to check teams worried about Amoonguss and Breloom, and additionally Sacred Fire does massive damage to both of them, 2HKO’ing Sitrus Amoonguss if redirected and threatening just under a 50% chance to OHKO Breloom factoring in the burn chance and move accuracy, a heavy risk to take to Spore. On the subject of Substitute I did test it as a move alongside Will O Wisp for the guaranteed burn chance but found Snarl much more useful for the bulky style of my team, offering special attack drops alongside the potential physical attack drop of Sacred Fire to make my team’s bulk insurmountable in some situations. More reasons I used Entei over Arcanine were the higher BST which allowed me to invest more efficiently to take Earthquakes etc, and the lack of Intimidate due to many teams containing Defiant or Competitive alongside the more threatening physical attackers nowadays. I figured I would take my chances with a high probability to burn rather than occasionally cause a domino effect; even though Arcanine has access to Will O Wisp to lure Bisharp’s Sucker Punch as an example, the opponent could predict around my forced plays, leaving a powerful +1 Bisharp against my weakened team. Flexibility seems to be key.

The EVs were created to survive Landorus-T’s Choice Scarf Earthquake and Life Orb Hydreigon’s Draco Meteor. The speed investment was to outspeed Smeargle’s tier and give me another option to hit it and burn through a Sash if my Kangaskhan is threatened, as well as outspeeding a lot of Pokemon who aim for the same speed tier. The leftover EV’s went into attack to give Entei additional power.

Metal★Face (Ferrothorn) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Atk / 28 Def / 20 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Leech Seed
– Gyro Ball
– Power Whip
– Protect

Bought to 8/20 games this season

I have been using Ferrothorn as a hard rain check since VGC ’14 due to the prominence of rain teams in the European metagame. I didn’t end up facing it on the day of Regionals but Ferrothorn had similar uses to Heatran in that if certain threats are taken out, Ferrothorn can wall an entire team if unprepared (as well as stall with Leech Seed) – although you need a heavily defensive mindset and good team management to achieve this most of the time. The only major problem I face with Ferrothorn is it’s low speed, allowing it to be 2HKO’d in some situations (which Billa took advantage of during Swiss), however, physical attackers take a lot of damage and often put themselves into KO range for Kangaskhan to clean up. Power Whip and Gyro Ball are self-explanatory and as STAB moves help out my team’s overall coverage. Lum Berry was considered because Ferrothorn often gets targeted with burn by Rotom-W, but I found the large amount of chip damage from Rocky Helmet + Iron Barbs saved me on occasions where I had to stall physical attackers.

The EV spread 2HKO’s the most bulky AV Ludicolo set I have seen (Bopper’s ’14 Worlds Ludicolo set) and KO’s Mega Kangaskhan after being attacked by it, factoring in Rocky Helmet damage. It also survives Virizion’s Life Orb Close Combat, Terrakion’s unboosted Close Combat and has an 18% chance to be 2HKO’d by max attack Scrafty’s Drain Punch. It also beats Aegislash 1V1 in a mirror with Leech Seed as long as Aegislash does not get an early special defence drop with Shadow Ball.

Da Ba Dee♪♪♪ (Latios) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Psychic
– Hidden Power Ground
– Tailwind

Bought to 15/20 games this season

Latios turned out to be a surprise MVP during both tournaments. He manages to check plenty of threats with a good speed tier and excellent STAB coverage, helping me out against Pokemon such as Mega Venusaur, Terrakion and more Pokemon that cannot hit Latios for super effective damage. Hidden Power Ground was an option for Steel types, particularly Heatran and Mawile in Rain if I needed to hit them relatively hard. My team lacked methods to OHKO Heatran but the presence of multiple threats that can hit it super effectively is usually enough to deal with it. Tailwind was another unexpected move for many I faced, and I found Latios to be both one of the most powerful and consistent setters with a Focus Sash and great typing; Latias misses out on extra power and needs a boosting item to even KO Terrakion, which means less investment for other areas. I will admit that if I could fit Protect on the set and didn’t run Tailwind I would remove Sash for Life Orb which was suggested to me multiple times, as it can pick up extra OHKO’s on some key threats e.g. fast Heatran and Virizion.

Team Weaknesses

Cresselia almost always manages to set up on me as I lack ways to OHKO it outright, although chip damage allows me to take care of it with Sylveon + another Pokemon before it causes too many problems. Trick Room sets however will usually get the chance to set up with Fake Out support if my opponents suspect my own Kangaskhan doesn’t carry the move; I would simply have to adapt with slower Pokemon to the conditions and use Snarl and burns to chip away at their team, or resort to switching in resists (which thankfully isn’t too much of an issue due to my team’s good type synergy). I carry no Taunt as most Cresselia that need to set up seem to carry Mental Herb, so it’s not as useful as in previous seasons.

Suicune turned out to be a major problem for me at Regionals, resulting in two of my losses on the day when I decided it was too risky to bring Ferrothorn just to use Power Whip. Specifically Calm Mind sets and Snarl sets + recovery enable it to wall some of my more powerful attackers such as Sylveon and Latios.

Other major weaknesses are generally based on leading incorrectly for particular combinations as I had good checks to individual threats. Mega Gengar is not particularly common but if it is used effectively and the opponent gets past Latios’ Sash, it can heavily weaken most of my team with a Will O Wisp offensive set, or even cause issues with Perish Song. This team also doesn’t have a way to OHKO Amoonguss, which I accommodated for with a change to my team come Nationals.

UK Regionals Tournament

I woke up at 5am and took a train journey to get to Birmingham in time for the tournament. Thankfully my group arrived early so we managed to stock up on supplies before heading to the town hall where the venue was. I spent most of the journey trying to convince my friend Robbert (ragnarobb) not to use a Double Team Thundurus, telling him about the merits of Swagger. With that he decided, to the tune of many annoyed opponents during the day, to get rid of Protect for Swagger and put Brightpowder as it’s held item (Sitrus and Leftovers were already in use). Additionally, Jade (evilpinkdragon) was running a Mega Heracross team with various speed control options and Matt (bullanator) was running Wide Guard Mega Gallade. After a relatively painless registration we waited for our games to begin…

Round One vs Liam

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This was Liam’s first tournament and he was using what appeared to be an in-game team so I lead with my go-to Kangaskhan/Latios lead. Blaziken was the main threat to my Kangaskhan, so Latios covers the weakness nicely, and I even have the option of using Tailwind on a Protect. This comes into play on the second turn, where I Tailwind up for a relatively clean victory; not much on the team could survive a Double Edge from Kangaskhan. I wished my opponent luck in the next round and waited with my friends for the next game

1-0

Round Two vs James Kelly

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James recognised me from the train journey so it was nice to see a familiar face! As for the battle, his Kangaskhan/Sableye lead actually threatened mine heavily. Unfortunately a turn one misclick from James changed momentum in my favour entirely, despite a Quick Claw Quash activation happening to out-prioritise my Sucker Punch into the opposing Kangaskhan the next turn – I felt it was a safe play when it was shown that mine was faster by the mega evolution order. Sylveon and Kang dealt with the rest of the team relatively well as his Mega was on low health – also a shoutout to three Mega Kangaskhan’s being on the field during turn four!

2-0

Round Three vs Chris Barton (Havak)

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Chris is a great guy who the UK community has a lot to thank for, with his well hosted tournaments over the years. I had never actually battled him though so I was intrigued to see a team containing a heavy VGC ’13 influence with Conkeldurr/Cresselia/Heatran used against me. I figured Kangaskhan and Sylveon would be a safe lead to apply pressure if Trick Room + support such as Fake Out or redirection was on the field turn one (assuming he had Trick Room, which it transpired was actually never used). This turn was huge in terms of momentum, and I took an educated guess that Chris was carrying Fake Out to set up a Substitute for Heatran, so I opted not to Protect and double target the Kangaskhan. Hyper Beam from Sylveon OHKO’ing one of the biggest threats then allowed me to focus my efforts on taking out the rest of the team and keeping my two Pokemon on the field prepared for all potential opposition. Latios and Milotic worked brilliantly together for this purpose; Chris had a Togekiss in team preview so I was worried that would be bought and I would regret not bringing Ferrothorn, but it turned out not to be the case.

3-0

Lunch Break!

This tournament was so well hosted we actually got a break on time! My local friends, as well as Matthew (Aren142) and Nathan (Gazooki666) – who you may remember for the wonderful mono Fairy team he used at ’14 UK Nationals – walked to Subway to chow down on some well-earned lunch. The trek back was entertaining since the venue was considerably placed on a tall, steep hill. Whilst catching breath and realising the health benefits of competitive Pokemon battling, suddenly round four was upon us.

Round Four vs Rafik Sadli

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I know Rafik from the chat which the Walsall lads and I frequent, it was funny to be paired against another familiar name. Immediately I led Kangaskhan and Milotic to put me in a decent position vs Landorus-Therian in the back and Volcarona, which I wanted to take out quickly in case it was a Quiver Dance set with Aegislash as Wide Guard support (how wrong I was!). Hilariously Gardevoir tracing Competitive threatened me into not using Icy Wind on the first turn, so I had to switch out which was read perfectly by my opposition. Taking out Volcarona allowed my preserved Ferrothorn to seal up the game, but not without scoring an unfortunate critical hit to take out the Gardevoir earlier than planned. If you’re reading this Rafik you played superbly; you should join us all on the chat more often too!

4-0

Round Five vs Stephen Gibbon (Stegibbon)

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So here I was, sitting on Table 1 against Stephen, both of us with perfect scores. I feared him leading with Liepard/Breloom so I lead appropriately for it, with chances to KO the Breloom and switch to a backup plan of Ferrothorn if necessary (which coincidently walled the majority of his team too). Steve was in the back to scream at the opposition with Hyper Voice as well. What could possibly go wrong? The answer for me was a lot, and he dispatched my Ferrothorn quickly which didn’t allow me to chip the Suicune into KO range later. Even though I played poorly throughout this game by allowing team members to get paralysed, Sylveon bought the match down to a 50-50 call of whether to Sucker Punch the Metagross or Double Edge the Suicune – KO’ing either would almost guarantee me the game. I incorrectly call both predictions (the first Double Edge was a poor play as the Metagross should feel relatively safe, whereas Suicune was in KO range with a Helping Hand boost). The second attempt I felt I thought out somewhat better, because Metagross was faster and Suicune being taken out would have more than likely sealed up the game, leading me to conclude he’d Protect Suicune and attack with Metagross. This didn’t turn out to be the case and I lose. Thankfully all losses are learning experiences and I analysed the battle before heading into my next game.

4-1

Round Six vs Baris Akcos (Billa)

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I was so glad to face off against a Worlds competitor in this tournament! I feel this match could have gone a lot differently had I played less aggressively with the Ferrothorn because it was a win condition against Baris’ team; I assumed that he would target down the Kangaskhan as he saw his own was faster the first turn of the game and he also didn’t know I had Protect at that point. It was tough for me to come back at this stage, and eventually my Choiced Milotic runs out of PP due to Suicune’s Pressure! I thought that I played much better in the latter half of the game but, with Kangaskhan KO’d, it was too little too late. Regardless it was an entertaining game – although I felt like I was out of the top cut at this point I still decided to play the tournament out and was eager to see what other strategies I’d face.

4-2

Round Seven vs Gerald de Olivera

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This player faced me on heavy tilt, mentioning their previous game where they fell victim to Swagger, Thunder Wave, Double Team Thundurus. I knew I shouldn’t have let Robbert take the genie through team registration…

I decided not to share this replay as I felt the opponent’s previous match somewhat affected the outcome of this game. I managed to set up a Tailwind turn one and KO his Charizard before he burns my Kangaskhan which I felt was a good trade. From there, I take out the Gengar and Hydreigon with Kangskhan, Latios and Sylveon as my Draco Meteor misses and my opponent scores a critical hit with a -2 Draco the following turn to knock out my Kang. Thankfully, with those two out, Conkeldurr could be taken out with the combined presence of Sylveon and Entei in the back.

5-2

Round Eight vs (bagleopard)

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My final opponent of the Swiss turned out to be another Nugget Bridge member! Once again I fell back on the Kangaskhan/Latios lead as I felt they supported each other well and I had the ability to set up Tailwind; Latios could also take out the troublesome Mega Salamence whilst Kangaskhan could defeat Mamoswine. I loved his use of Crobat as a lead – I tested it myself earlier in the season and found it was a fantastic Tailwind supporter. Fortunately for me the opposition decided to Quick Guard the first turn as I used Double Edge on Crobat and got my own Tailwind up with Latios, forcing my opponent to play on the defensive to get around the situation throughout the next few turns. I bought it down to a Choice Scarfed Mamoswine and doubled up on it to secure the win, Milotic being clutch throughout this game with its item choice.

6-2

I didn’t expect to get into Top Cut at this point, but felt pleased that I had managed to play some incredible opposition and not go on tilt during the tournament. Looking at the results, I was completely stunned to see myself in 8th position above some very big names who had just missed out via percentage. This meant I had to fight the only player who went undefeated in Swiss.

Top Eight vs Jamie Boyt (MrJellyLeggs)

My opponent went undefeated in the Swiss and his team immediately struck me as one that has plenty of surprises up it’s sleeves, with an unconventional choice in Serperior as well as both Lucario and Charizard. Milotic had served me well throughout Swiss but here there were too many threats that either OHKO’d it outright or didn’t care about it being on the field. I didn’t bring Ferrothorn to either game, which in hindsight would have been incredibly useful in threatening Suicune and Serperior. Additionally, all of Jamie’s Pokemon that threatened the Steel and Grass type had to take both Rocky Helmet and Iron Barbs recoil – in the case of Mega Charizard X, Flare Blitz recoil too which would have put it into Sucker Punch range. In game two I feel Ferro could have been useful over Entei seeing as the Charizard wasn’t a Y variant, meaning Stone Edge wasn’t quite as valuable.

Game One

My go-to lead was Latios and Kangaskhan – it provided immediate speed control against what appeared to be a very offensive team. The coverage Latios and Kangaskhan provided takes on most of his team including Suicune and Serperior, which I predicted as a lead. However, he leads Thundurus and Lucario. With this I felt I had a chance to Tailwind as Kangaskhan would be the number one target to get rid of, and if I Protected I could outspeed Jamie’s lead the second turn and force him to make a call. This happens, and I make the decision to Double Edge Thundurus assuming he would Protect and he didn’t Mega Evolve to keep Inner Focus on the first turn. This knocks out the Thundurus, but I was surprised to see Lucario not Mega again and use Close Combat, which I thought was rash initially as I could have KO’d it outright. Turns out after analysis Jamie had no safe switch ins, nor did he have Protect so that was his best play to preserve the Pokemon in the back. He knocked out Kangaskhan factoring in Double Edge recoil and I discover the Focus Sash when my Latios uses Psychic. The next turn I switch in Sylveon as he brings in Charizard. I expect the double target into Sylveon with Heat Wave and Bullet Punch, so I switch Entei in over Latios (in case I need the Focus Sash later) and Protect. He does indeed double target but the Charizard X is revealed which makes my Hyper Voice more effective. The next turn Follow Me is shown as I decide a double target is the only play he could use to win this match, so I fire two attacks off and thankfully both of them connect, knocking out both Pokemon. The match is pretty much mine from this point, but not without seeing a very fast Togekiss that could have potentially been a Scarf variant.

Game Two

For the second game Jamie leads with Serperior and Suicune. Completely unaware of their tricks I went for the Tailwind/Double Edge into Serperior, expecting to pick up a KO. However, Serperior goes for the Reflect which enables it to survive and set up a Tailwind of its own with Suicune. I felt it was a bad decision in hindsight for me to go for the Tailwind on the same turn because if I managed to let the opponent use Tailwind first, my Tailwind would fade out afterwards, giving me momentum. I would have also been able to double up on a Pokemon of choice but, of course, Jamie may have considered the same action. Reflect was really troublesome for me to get past with the Suicune setting up a Calm Mind the next turn as I knock out the Serperior and cause chip damage with Psychic. Next I double target the Thundurus slot, which I end up regretting, as Thundurus outspeeds and KO’s Kangaskhan – I was expecting the Latios to get double targeted due to Reflect being in play and Kangaskhan potentially knocking herself out with recoil anyway. If I’d used Draco Meteor on the Thundurus slot I would have had a high chance to OHKO factoring in Life Orb recoil (I didn’t discover the item until this turn) and put myself in a better position; I feel that the lowered Special Attack (preventing me from OHKOing the Charizard X on the switch-in) and the belief that my Kangaskhan would not be KO’d in the turn stopped me from doing this. Jamie from here cleverly doubles the Sylveon that I switch in the next turn, although it doesn’t cause enough damage to stop me from using Hyper Voice. The match was truly over when my opponent set up Tailwind, which guaranteed both of his Pokemon outsped and KO’d my own. I was outplayed in this match, and the different Pokemon choices Jamie made caught me out.

Game Three

This time around I lead with Kangaskhan and Sylveon in fear of the lead used in game two. This is punished with a fantastic lead from Jamie: Charizard and Lucario. From this I expect the Sylveon to be double targeted so as a result play defensively and switch Latios in to set up my own Tailwind whilst Sylveon Protects. I was surprised to see that Sylveon was not Bullet Punched nor did it get hit by Flare Blitz. Dragon Dance happens, and it’s a smart move, albeit risky if my Sylveon did decide to launch a Hyper Voice at both Pokemon on the field. He chose not to Mega Evolve, however, to combat the possibility of that happening, as it’d be resisted. Close Combat hitting Latios also breaks its Sash so I find myself in a bad spot for misreading the first turn. Turn two brings me back some momentum as Jamie aims attacks at both of my Pokemon, not KO’ing the Sylveon and taking a Hyper Voice for his troubles. The turn afterwards I feel decided the outcome of the match. My flawed logic was that my opponent had to stop Sylveon from attacking, but Kangaskhan can Sucker Punch. As he hadn’t shown Protect I assumed his only play was to Close Combat Kangaskhan and Flare Blitz the Sylveon since Follow Me is punished by Hyper Voice. He does use Follow Me in the turn however and KO’s my Kangaskhan, which lets me knock out both Pokemon with Hyper Voice and bring the match to a 2v2. I use Protect on Sylveon the following turn as it’s my win condition and if it manages to Hyper Voice the game would be won; he doesn’t fall for this however and does a gutsy play of predicting my Protect and targeting Entei. My Entei then Snarls and I know my Sylveon is likely to survive a combination of -1 Thunderbolt and Scald based on the damage Sylveon received from a +1 Scald and Thunderbolt in game 2. Unfortunately the next turn he manages to get a critical hit with the Thunderbolt, which may have changed the course of the battle. It was still a slim chance of winning if I used Hyper Voice that turn, but it was possible. I don’t have any regrets about how I played the latter half of the game and I’m glad I could have faced Jamie’s unconventional and well-built team, as well as feel the atmosphere of being up on stage with other UK players clapping and cheering us. Eighth place at the first UK Regionals isn’t half bad either!

UK Nationals Preparation

Whilst my Pokemon choices remained the same when entering the UK Nationals, I made a few edits to the team to help me out against certain problematic team builds:

Feeling Ruff (Entei) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 116 HP / 132 Atk / 4 Def / 92 SpD / 164 Spe -> 92 HP / 100 Atk / 4 Def / 148 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Sacred Fire
– Stone Edge
– Snarl -> Roar
– Protect

To compensate for removing Snarl, I felt the need to increase the Special Defence investment to live a +2 Aegislash Shadow Ball whilst still surviving Landorus-T’s Scarf Earthquake. But you may be asking yourselves: why on earth use Roar over Snarl?

You may notice that my team appears weak to Trick Room and Perish Song at a glance. Roar enables me to prevent Trick Room from being set up by being -6 priority, one priority above Trick Room. I can also shout at my own Pokemon or a Shadow Tag Pokemon to get them out of the field, giving me the versatility of switching. I also have the cheeky combo of using Hyper Beam with Sylveon, then Roaring with Entei to pivot myself out and remove the cooldown turn of that attack. Overall I believe changing Snarl was one of the best decisions made for my team.

Da Ba Dee♪♪♪ (Latios) @ Focus Sash -> Life Orb

After much convincing from Matt (Mattsby), I switched my item to Life Orb. Bisharp’s apparent decline in popularity (and the fact my team had multiple answers for it already) resulted in me feeling more confident about removing the Focus Sash. Here is a few calculations that wouldn’t have been possible without a Life Orb

252 SpA Life Orb Latios Hidden Power Ground vs. 44 HP / 4 SpD Heatran: 172-203 (100 – 118%) — guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Latios Psychic vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Virizion: 164-195 (98.2 – 116.7%) — 81.3% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Latios Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Thundurus: 173-204 (111.6 – 131.6%) — guaranteed OHKO (NOTE – Life Orb Offensive Thundurus seemed to be the most common variant in testing)

UK Nationals Tournament

At the tournament itself registration went ahead of time and we were all checking in at about 10am. Unfortunately the time ticked down to 2pm before the first round even started, which was disappointing after a promising start organisation-wise. I couldn’t gather the replays for the event but I did record them on my camera – they will soon be up on my Youtube channel if anyone likes shaky cameras and hates words.

Round One vs Liam Murphy

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Liam knew me before the match started as I faced his friend at Regionals! From team preview I knew I wasn’t going to have an easy time when I saw the Perish/Rain core, so I had to be careful with my leads. Kangaskhan was relatively flexible as a lead and hits Mega Gengar hard if I don’t mega evolve, whereas Milotic will allow me to hit the potential Mega Lopunny before it attacks, as well as put pressure on all leads barring Politoed + Ludicolo. I knew Ferrothorn was my win condition as only Mega Lopunny threatened to 2HKO it, and it fares well against the Rain mode. Perish is set up turn one with the Gengar/Raichu lead but on the second turn of Perish, Liam switches out both of his leads for Politoed and Ludicolo, predicting I would target the Raichu slot. Unfortunately for him I call the potential Eject Button switch in and double up on what was the Mega Gengar slot. Ludicolo lives the attacks and I’m free to switch out. From here I gain momentum from a double switch and manage to deal with the rest of the team before another Perish Song destroys my ‘mons.

1-0

Round Two vs (gingeruprising)

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A member of Nugget Bridge for the second round! Unfortunately this match took several minutes to start due to both our 3DS’s being unable to connect for an unknown reason, forcing us both to restart our games. When the battle does start I decide to lead Kangaskhan with Latios to support against the potential Amoonguss, Hydriegon or Conkeldurr. The lead also enables me to KO Milotic with a Double Edge + Draco Meteor. My opponent however leads Talonflame and Amoonguss, Protecting and Quick Guarding on the first turn as I Double Edge the Talonflame for the OHKO. I can understand why Quick Guard was used and it’s a shame it didn’t succeed due to me not carrying Fake Out! Next turn Metagross is on the field and Amoonguss is switched manually for Hydreigon as I Psychic and Double Edge the Amoonguss slot to accommodate for a switch, catching and OHKO’ing Hydreigon. Metagross sets up a Substitute which was a wise choice. Hidden Power and Sucker Punch hits the Metagross next turn, an unfortunate critical hit on the Hidden Power sealing up the game for me as Amoonguss is left alone on the field.

2-0

Round Three vs Sam Brookes-Franclin

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So for round three I find myself getting paired up with Sabrofra of SONM, a Nintendo-based forum I frequent. It was nice to finally meet him in person and his team scared me in preview by being intimidatingly bulky. I had to lead very hyper-offensively to even hope to break through it, whilst Sam bought out Bisharp and Cresselia, evidently wanting to take out the Latios that threatened Mega Venusaur. Once again, my win condition was the Ferrothorn and I couldn’t afford to lose it recklessly so I had it in the back, ready to switch in. I manage to take out Bisharp turn one, switching Latios for Ferrothorn as Cresselia uses Skill Swap on my Kangaskhan, cruelly taking away Parental Bond! This is given to Venusaur next turn as I switch my Kangaskhan out and Leech Seed Cresselia. Over the next few turns I trade Latios to get Tailwind up as the leads change to Kangaskhan and Entei in Tailwind on my end vs a Mega Venusaur and Suicune on the other side. Thankfully I win the struggle and manage to take out Venusaur, allowing my Ferrothorn to clean up the remainder of the team. Good game Sam and I hope to see you around the circuit more!

3-0

Round Four vs Maxwell Boyle

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Maxwell was my round four opponent and I was met with a very well-constructed Trick Room team! Thankfully I lead with my secret weapon, attempting to lure attention with Kangaskhan whilst my Entei threatens Trick Room being placed with Roar. Double Edge may have seemed strange on the Mawile turn one but it guaranteed my Entei KO’s the Mawile with Sacred Fire even at -1. Play Rough does severe damage to Kangaskhan from the Mawile and it puts me in Sucker Punch range. The next turn I Low Kick the Heatran and score an unfortunate critical hit which OHKO’s whilst I Sacred Fire the Mawile slot which switches to Dusclops. Hariyama and Dusclops put me in a difficult position and Maxwell gets his Trick Room as I choose to switch Kang for Sylveon in case of Close Combat, and to threaten his switch ins. Hariyama switches for Mawile as Dusclops shows the ace up it’s sleeve: Memento. Unfortunately for me I miss the Sacred Fire on the predicted switch, so even though I have more Pokemon on my side of the field, the game definitely isn’t over. My Entei is targeted with Hariyama’s Stone Edge and KO’d whilst I Hyper Beam the Hariyama and incorrectly call the amount of damage it would do, leaving a Mawile and Hariyama on half health against my Sylveon and Kangaskhan. I manage to stall out the Trick Room with Protects and predicting Sucker Punch onto my Kangaskhan, Helping Hand Sucker Punch the Hariyama, which only just manages to OHKO after the earlier Hyper Beam. My preserved Milotic in the back manages to clean up a very close match.

4-0

Xenoblade Hero vs No Lunch Break?

It was roughly 6pm at this point and my food rations had ran out. To avoid further delays we weren’t given a break, nor could we risk leaving the venue due to potentially missing a round. I wasn’t the only person in this situation and I can safely say this did affect players throughout the day. I hope the tournament organisers can plan the event better for next year, as this level of neglect in organisation isn’t a one-off.

Round Five vs Miguel Marti (Sekiam)

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I was paired with none other than Sekiam in round five! I expected the Blaziken lead so I lead with Latios/Kangaskhan in an effort to potentially set up Tailwind. This came in useful unexpectedly since Milotic and Amoonguss were bought out. Over the next two turns, Miguel switches Amoonguss for Tyranitar when I predicted redirection, then Tyranitar back into Amoonguss to cause Rocky Helmet recoil from Low Kick when I called the Scarf attack onto Latios, which was very clever. This caused my Kang to become burned with a Scald from the Milotic, and my Kangaskhan knocks itself out with Double Edge the next turn whilst the Amoonguss/Milotic lead Scalds and Spores into Latios. From this point onwards it was very difficult to win the match. There’s a lot of switches, but I do manage to OHKO the Scarf Tyranitar with a Gyro Ball as I keep switching between Latios and Milotic to take hits between them and preserve them both. Milotic even survives a critical hit Power Whip from three-quarters health, and Amoonguss lives a Life Orb Latios Psychic on a minimal amount of HP when it wakes up! Eventually I bring it down to a 1 against 2 with Ferrothorn remaining but ultimately Miguel chose to wait for the timer to count down and win the match. Even without the timer though, Excadrill would have likely cleaned up the remaining Ferrothorn. Good game!

4-1

Round Six vs Suzan Radić (Sumpex)

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I knew Suzan as I battled her at one of the Streetpass qualifier events in 2014, so it was nice to battle again. She had a considerably threatening team and this was the first battle in my competitive season I chose not to lead with Kangaskhan because she had so many answers for it with a potential Mega Lopunny, Salamence (which turned out to be Scarf) and Landorus-T. Milotic was a good pick for the double Intimidate core, and it can support Entei relatively well so I decided to lead with those two. Sylveon and Lopunny was her lead and I spent the first turn trying to burn Lopunny with Scald, which fails, as Fake Out goes into Entei and Hyper Voice hits my team. Lopunny shows the Protect second turn as I switch the Milotic to Ferrothorn in case I need it later. Third turn was scary as I had to call what the Lopunny would target, otherwise I would be in a very difficult position. Protecting Ferrothorn is my call seeing as it can potentially OHKO both the Pokemon on the field. It turns out to be the correct choice as I get to OHKO the Lopunny with Sacred Fire whilst Drain Punch hits the Protect and Hyper Voice almost KO’s my Entei due to the chip damage it had taken. Salamence switches in, and I switch Kangaskhan into the Ferrothorn slot in fear of a Fire move. Suzan chose to Earthquake with the Salamence and switch Sylveon for Aegislash, activating a Weakness Policy but also putting the Aegislash in Sucker Punch range for me, as well as knocking out my Entei. KOing the Aegislash seals the game for me, as Sylveon and Salamence are cleaned up with the combination of Kangaskhan and Milotic.

5-1

Round Seven vs Pedro Lima

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A very polite Portuguese player was my seventh opponent. From team preview I saw that Ferrothorn was a must-bring, and the rest of my choices were made to protect the Ferrothorn and allow it to clean up late game. The first turn I predict Heatran to Protect so I attack Suicune and switch back to Latios. I call this incorrectly as Pedro decided to Heat Wave, causing plenty of damage, whilst Tailwinding with the Suicune. This caught me by surprise as unless the Heatran was exceptionally bulky (it wasn’t running Chople) I had the chance to OHKO it turn one, clearing up the main threat to Ferrothorn, but I didn’t call this correctly. When I get up my own Tailwind my opponent decided to play more defensively, Protecting with the Heatran that was behind a Substitute then switching it out for Cresselia, which I didn’t call. My opponent seemed to adapt quickly to the situation. Whilst we both make defensive switches I eventually catch out Cresselia using Icy Wind as I switch in my Milotic, giving me a +2 Special Attack boost. This allows me to take out the Heatran before it uses Heat Wave on Ferrothorn since my opponent didn’t suspect the Scarf I’m holding. Kangaskhan switches in, and eventually reveals it has both Fake Out and Protect which turns out to be very important later. With less than a minute left on the clock we’re put in a 2V2 situation with Pedro’s switched in Kangaskhan and Cresselia vs my own Ferrothorn and low HP Kangaskhan. I make the mistake of targeting Kangaskhan as he Protects and wins on HP majority. My mistake cost me as I drop to X-2 with two battles left.

5-2

Round Eight vs Gareth Buckley

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Gareth was such a great guy to face; so full of energy despite all of us being at the venue for over thirteen hours at this point! His team was full of unconventional sets, namely Charge Zapdos which gave me an awful lot of trouble with the Special Defence boosts he managed to get up. I lead with Kangaskhan and Latios against a Bisharp and Zapdos. Sylveon was very useful in this situation so I decided to switch it in on the second turn whilst scaring the Bisharp out, allowing me to throw out Hyper Voice against a bulky Charge Zapdos and Suicune. Zapdos takes out my Kangaskhan as I Double Edge and Hyper Voice the Suicune, which barely survives and throws out an Icy Wind. My Draco Meteor misses Zapdos unfortunately as Roost and Rest is used against me, Suicune showing it’s Chesto Berry. The next turn I focus my efforts on successfully KO’ing the Suicune. Bisharp switches into the slot and I switch Latios out for Entei as I Protect my Sylveon and go on the defensive, successfully predicting the Iron Head. By the time I knock out the Bisharp with Sacred Fire, I’m facing a very scary +4 special defence Zapdos and a Terrakion. Sylveon managed to avoid a Rock Slide and survive the charged Thunderbolt as I Hyper Voice the Terrakion for the KO, leaving three members of my team to deal with Zapdos. Very good game sir, you had me worried when you pulled off so many Charges whilst I was dealing with your other threats!

6-2

Round Nine vs Alberto Gini (BraindeadPrimeape)

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My final opponent was none other than Alberto Gini. Seeing a sun mode within the team I chose to lead with Latios and Entei instead of bringing Kangaskhan. This is because Tailwind is possibly the key to me winning this game, and Entei deals with the sun archetype very well. Charizard and Aegislash is the lead. I manage to double target the Aegislash with Hidden Power and Sacred Fire for the KO as Charizard switches out to Sylveon, and Landorus-T is sent in. I’m worried that the Scarf Landorus-T will flinch me when it goes for the Rock Slide but thankfully it doesn’t as I Protect Entei and get my Tailwind up, sacrificing Latios to get Kangaskhan on the field. From here I make the mistake of not targeting the Sylveon, instead double targeting the Landorus-T expecting either a switch or Protect from the Sylveon. Landorus faints as Hyper Voice is successful and hits my team for good damage. I then wrongly predict twice in a row that Charizard Y will Protect to live my Stone Edge attempt, instead double attacking Sylveon expecting it to Hyper Voice. This is punished, and I’m left with Milotic on red health against a burned red health Sylveon and a full HP Charizard. From here, I double target the Charizard with a Scald and Stone Edge combination, but unfortunately for me Stone Edge misses. Alberto gets the momentum he needs, Heat Waving to knock out Milotic and put Entei on low health. From here I successfully use Protect twice to stall out the sun and Sylveon faints. All rests on me surviving the oncoming Overheat outside of Sun from Charizard Y, but the damage is enough to knock my Entei out. I was still very happy to see the win meant a lot to Alberto and his friends cheered him on as he went 7-2. I shake his hand and wish him the best for top cut!

6-3, 41st overall

It shows that there’s such a small line between victory and failure. Although my season is over, I will keep practising so I can get even stronger when VGC ’16 comes around where hopefully they’ll be more tournaments that I can gain CP from and get some realistic practise in before the Nationals.

Conclusion

• Thanks firstly to my sister (evilpinkdragon) for encouraging me, offering input and just being an awesome person in general.
• Congratulations to my good friend Robbert for going 4-0 at one point with Swagger, Thunder Wave, Double Team, Brightpowder Thundurus at Regionals. Never forget. Thanks to Matt, Robbert, Katy, Nick, Andrew, Sean, Alex, Nathan and Matthew for being there at the events and being wonderful people to talk to.
• Thank you Ben (Kyriakou)! You were the main inspiration for me to start competitive Pokemon battling when I faced you at ’13 Nationals. Sylveon is better than Florges though, I’m sorry :(. Likewise thanks to Steve (SirSmoke) and Sam (SuperIntegration) for being great, it’s always good to catch up with you guys!
• Nosepasses (you know who you are) thanks for inviting me to your humble chat. You’re all top lads and it’s great to talk to you on there.
• Pokemon Battle Club, particularly Jamie (BlazeKing7) for helping me test out team ideas; hopefully I can join you at Worlds one day.
• Thanks everyone who talked to me across the events – sorry if I haven’t given you a personal shoutout!
• And thank you, the reader, for reading this article and being part of our fantastic community!

The post Latios Takes Flight: A Top 8 UK Regionals and Top 64 UK Nationals Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey, everybody! Lucien Lachance back again for Top Players Talk. With Nationals in a few days, many newer players will be going in with little to no Best of 3 VGC experience, so joining me today are two of the most experienced Best of 3 VGC players to answer some questions about how to maintain a positive mentality and how to keep endurance high throughout the long day. They’ll also give some advice on where to meet players from the community and how to make the most of the weekend. This article is a bit shorter than the last two, but I hope it’ll be the most useful for new players to the community looking forward to their first Nationals or players wary about the new format.

Returning for another appearance is America’s sweetheart, Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom). He’s been in several Top Cuts, and frequently runs deep in tournaments. His recent experience at Worlds will certainly resonate with newer players, due to his mentality being similar to that of nervous players. Joining him is one of the major faces for VGC, Aaron Zheng (Cybertron). With his two National victories, a plethora of Regionals finals, and a 3rd place finish at Worlds, few players play more Best of 3s than he does yearly.

Kenan: Looking at the new format for Nationals, what is the biggest difference about Bo1 swiss than Bo3?

Collin: Bo3 Swiss allows for the better player to win in most situations. If you get unlucky, usually you can bring it back in games 2 and 3. I also think the biggest difference is the amount of endurance you have to have to compete at an all day Bo3 event. 27 potential games is a lot to handle and you need to stay relaxed and fresh throughout.

Aaron: Best of 3 is incredibly beneficial for stronger players.  Like Collin mentioned, RNG is mitigated; even if luck doesn’t go your way in the first game, you still have options to win the set. I think the most important thing, however, is a player’s ability to adapt to their opponent’s play style and team, something stronger players are more skilled in due to their experience. Since Pokemon is such a volatile game, Bo1 often feels like a crapshoot; we’ve all had our fair share of losses to things that catch us off guard. However, in Bo3, the better players will adapt accordingly. Newer players may also struggle in changing up their game plan after winning the first game. The time crunch is also a major factor. It’ll definitely be a long first day, but when your entire season and Worlds invite is on the line, I think it’s important that we have Bo3.

Kenan: What is the best advice to someone who gets lucked out G1, or is forced to play G3 due to hax?

Collin: I think whenever you lose game one due to luck it usually upsets players and sends them on a massive tilt. This can be really hard to deal with if you have zero Bo3 experience. You need to put everything that happened last game behind you. Start fresh. I think that is essential for anyone doing Bo3. Each game is a completely different game and you only carry over information from game to game. Being forced into a game three can be very stressful, but you should have won the last two anyways so you can most likely beat them again.

Kenan: Well said. Just be sure to keep a positive mentality going into Game 3 and you can easily overcome that spell of bad luck. Aaron, what is your advice?

Aaron: Collin basically summarized what I wanted to say. You just have to move on and treat each game as its own. It can be incredibly frustrating and upsetting to get forced to a Game 3 because of RNG, but players need to remember that it’s just another factor in the game. Don’t second guess yourself and play that 3rd game with confidence.

Kenan: You guys both mentioned the endurance it takes to play all of these Bo3 sets. What are some ways to stay on top of your game mentally with a maximum of 27 games in one day?

Aaron: Well, speaking from experience, one of my biggest weaknesses in a long Bo3 tournament is playing more carelessly towards the end, i.e. not making the safest plays possible. Make sure you don’t let the fatigue get to you. I think getting a good amount of sleep the night before and staying hydrated throughout the day is more important than people give it credit for. Personally, I also like to review my game/sets after I play them to see what I’m doing right and wrong. Remember that for Day 1, the goal is to win 7 sets to make it into Day 2. It doesn’t matter when you win them. Stay focused.

Kenan: Mentality is a huge issue. I was talking with Blake Hopper (Bopper) about his run through LCQ at Worlds last year, and he said changing his mentality from “If I lose this game I’m out” to “I’m one win closer to getting into Worlds” made it much easier for him to squeak through LCQ and do well at Worlds. Also, I think you raise a very good point. X-2 is a dangerous position to be in, but not nearly as hazardous as it was in years prior. Be sure to make every one of those sets count if you get to that point.

Aaron: For sure– also, unlike Worlds, you know you can lose twice in Day 1, so you don’t need to stress out constantly after picking up your first loss.

Collin: I agree with Aaron completely. I think you need to stay well rested and well fed throughout the day. Make sure you don’t let individual loses get to you.

Kenan: Collin, do you have any personal ways to stay focused throughout the day? Aaron mentioned he re-watches his games and looks for his errors to improve in the next set.

Collin: I personally really like to go outside and just be by myself and just reflect on my day and to just keep thinking forward.

Kenan: Just remaining calm and focused on what you need to do and keeping a good mindset overall, I see. So another big issue some people are foreseeing is their DS’s running out of power during games, do you guys have any experience with this during your time as a player?

Aaron: Yes, way too many times – even though I’ve never had my DS actually run out of power, it has come very close. Definitely charge your DS the night before, and I really recommend buying a portable battery pack – it’s cheap and will get you through all the VGC tournaments you’ll go to for the rest of your life. Don’t have a silly loss because your DS runs out of power.

Collin: I never have had this problem because I’m way too paranoid about that exact issue. I think charging the night before usually can get you through the day, and make sure you shut off between rounds.

Kenan: So something a lot of newer players are going to have to deal with is getting matched up against a “big name” player. What is your advice to those players who are a little intimidated by the matchup?

Collin: I think this incident occurs at almost every event. I had problems with this at Worlds, actually, when I played Sejun in Top 4. I saw him as someone who I couldn’t compete with and I didn’t give myself a fair chance to beat him. I think you just need to focus on playing the game and not playing the name. It almost gives you an advantage as well. You may know how that good player plays by watching his/her YouTube videos but they don’t know how you play. Just keep focused on playing and take it one game at a time. Even if you get 4-0ed just sit back, take a deep breath, and focus on making game 2 better.

Aaron: Yeah, great points by Collin. I actually think newer players can use it to their advantage. There’s a lot of information and gameplay of all the top players online, which you can use to study. Pokemon really is a game where mid-level competitors can take sets off top level-competitors if they’re playing their A game. It’s cliche, but just try your best! Even if you lose, it’s always exciting to play the best players in the game. I love playing sets vs. players like Wolfe and Collin because you learn so much from them. Remember to have a good time!

Kenan: And every top player had their breakout year where they upset a lot of top players to become some of the best. it’s just a matter of making it your year, and I’m certain we’ll have a handful of players who will surprise us this upcoming week. Is there anything else you wanted to bring up about the event itself?

Collin: Tilt is a very real aspect of all competitive events. I think you need to remain relaxed and be completely focused throughout the event.

Aaron: This is probably the most hype Nationals we’ve ever had in VGC, so just be excited to be part of such an awesome event!

Kenan: Now to move on to the social side, what are some of the best places to meet other players, aside from the event itself?

Collin: I think the important thing to remember is that you are going to a convention center filled with people who all love the same game as you. Some are more fans of the franchise than others, but we all love battling and playing this game so use that to your benefit. Making friends is pretty easy to do at events like these and just put yourself out there and be yourself at these events and you can meet some really cool people. Any hotel you are at, you will run into a fellow player and the convention center is perfect to meet people.

Aaron: Indy itself isn’t the coolest city, but there’s still a lot of fun stuff you can do with friends. I recommend mini-golf at the mall. Nationals isn’t just about the main event – for most people, that’s just one day. Enjoy all the amazing side events and the hype battles/commentary. It’s definitely an amazing experience regardless of how you do in the actual tournament.

Kenan: Definitely. People always say the tournament is the worst part of Nationals. Also, the open gaming lounges at the Convention Center are always bristling with people playing various games and looking to meet new people. Where are some of the better places to eat around the area?

Collin: I mean I don’t know if this place is really a good place to eat at, but Steak and Shake is always a fun time for whatever reason. It’s almost a Nationals tradition to eat some steak and drink some shakes. I know last year Toler wanted to eat at some fancy restaurant or something so there are nice places to eat, but during the event you definitely are probably going to eat at the mall food court due to speed and ease of access.

Aaron: I just go to Steak and Shake, Buffalo Wild Wings, TGIF, Noodles and Co, California Pizza Kitchen, and occasionally a larger restaurant.

Kenan: So what’s the biggest thing to remember for the social side of Pokemon? For me, it’s that the top players are just people and are very approachable, but be mindful that they have their own friend groups they haven’t seen in a whole year. Of course come say hi, but be sure to be respectful of the friendships they’ve garnered over the years.

Aaron: That’s exactly what I’d say! Pretty much everyone is incredibly kind and welcoming in person.

Collin: Don’t be afraid to approach anyone, almost everyone will talk to you or help you out if you get lost or something. I love this community and it is just so nice and refreshing to be able to see everyone.

Kenan: Once again, thank you two so much for answering some questions. Good luck this week at Nationals and I hope to see you two do exceptionally well!

The post Top Players Talk: Mental Preparation for Nationals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey, all! You may know me as Joe Nunziata or, if you go by my screen name, JoeDaPr0, and I have been pretty active on the metagame and player database for the Senior division. With such knowledge, I figured to share it with the members of Nugget Bridge, and hopefully this will help you get prepared for the upcoming International Challenge and, more importantly, the United States National Championships!

Before I jump into profiles with players, I feel as if it’s necessary to address Nationals information, for those who may be confused, clueless, or frustrated.

United States Nationals Event Information

Pre-Registration for the US National Championships is required. You can pre-register on this page. If you do not register at that link, you will not be able to play.

Location

The event venue is the Indianapolis Convention Center, in Indianapolis, IN. It’s somewhat challenging to find if you don’t know your way around, but it should be a big, silver building that is found along South Capitol Avenue. Another eye-catching clue is the Pikachu balloon used for parades inside the convention center entrance. Don’t worry, though, as the entrance to said convention center is mostly made of glass, creating a visible view of the Pikachu balloon.

If you’re using a GPS for driving to this event, the address can be found here:

100 South Capitol Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46225

Travel Awards

Based on your Championship Point ranking, you will receive:

• Top 64: $750 Travel Stipend
• Top 32: $1000 Travel Stipend
• Top 16: Travel and Accomodations fully paid for both the player and a guardian + $300 Travel Stipend.

Prizes

• 1st: $5,000 in scholarship money, Nintendo Wii U 32 GB Deluxe Set, 72 booster packs.
• 2nd: $3,000 in scholarship money, New Nintendo 3DS XL, 72 booster packs.
• 3rd and 4th: $1,500 in scholarship money, New Nintendo 3DS XL, 72 booster packs.
• 5th through 8th: 36 booster packs
• 9th through 16th: 18 booster packs
• 17th through 32nd: 8 booster packs
• 33rd through 64th: 4 booster packs

Last Minute Tips

• It is very easy to get stressed out after playing a maximum of 24 games and a minimum of 16 games in a single day. Bring something to entertain, refresh, or refocus yourself between rounds.
• Do not be discouraged from playing anymore if you have received 3 or more losses. Pokemon is mostly played for the fun of it so live it up to it’s meaning!
• Bring a notepad in order to jot notes on enemy teams down. Note that you must start with a CLEAN sheet of paper every round.
• Bring snacks and water to maintain your focus during and in between rounds.

Player Database

Now, onto players that you should take note of and be prepared to see at the U.S. National Championships. These players are no slouch — be wary!

I assume the best way to do this is to start from the top of the map and make our way down.

Canada

Nathan W. (Peanut Butter)

Accomplishments: Wisconsin Regional Champion 2015 (65th in Championship Points).

Nathan had stomped out his first ever regional which was a pretty tough regional. There were players from all over the US, primarily the East coast and Midwest, and his prior lack of attendance definitely gave him the surprise factor — which he made full use of, winning the whole tournament. I expect to see Nathan at Nationals and wouldn’t be surprised if he moves on to Sunday.

Allan X

Accomplishments: Indiana Regional Runner-up 2015 (26th in Championship Points).

Whether Allan will attend Nationals is an unknown at the moment, but I would expect him to show up. He, like Nathan, invaded the United States and almost won a Regional Championship in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Though, keep in mind this was in the stage of the season where the 2014 format was still in place. Regardless of the format, Allan will be a tough and mindful opponent to look out for as the brackets are being viewed.

Washington

Henry Maxon (Snake)

Accomplishments: Portland, Oregon Regional Champion 2015, 2011 Junior National Champion, Top 4 World Championships 2011, Top 4 Seattle, Washington Regional 2015 (1oth in Championship Points).

Henry is a great player and will for sure be at Nationals as he has a free trip being Top 16 in Championship Points as the 10th seed. His accomplishments really say a lot for the type of player he is. 2011 was clearly his best year, but it seems as if he is returning in the 2015 season with really good Regional Championship finishes. He is definitely one to be reckoned with on the roster!

Caden Kamp (Scumbag Caden)

Accomplishments: Utah Regional Champion 2015 (14th in Championship Points)

Caden has proven himself worthy to be on this list because of his Regional Championship domination in Utah. For starting his season in March, he has risen up through the ranks pretty quickly and is an immediate opponent to look out for.

Oregon

Carson St. Denis (Dorian06)

Accomplishments: Florida/Seattle Regional Champion 2015, Oregon/North California Runner-up  2015, Top 4 Utah Regionals 2015 (1st in Championship Points).

Taking a glance at Carson’s accomplishments, all I can say is “Just wow!” He made at least top 4 in just about every Northwest Regional Championship in the 2015 season. Also achieving 1st in Championship Points is pretty awesome, considering this is his “first serious VGC season.” Him being a veteran TCG player and almost achieving maximum Championship Points before Nationals grants him the mindset and intimidation of an elite Senior — one to be feared.

Illinois

Jacob Waller (Thank Swalot)

Accomplishments: Top 4 Missouri Regional 2015, Top 8 Kansas Regional 2015 (25th in Championship Points).

Jacob is no slouch at all. He has gone 5-1 in the Swiss rounds of the Missouri Regional and 4-2 in the Swiss rounds of both the Kansas Regional and Wisconsin Regional. Don’t expect an easy battle by any means if paired with Jacob because he does have a good amount of strength in best-of-3 formats.

Ohio

Darrin Cooper (Ninten678)

Accomplishments: Top 2 Missouri Regional 2015, Top 4 Wisconsin Regional 2015 (6th in Championship Points).

Darrin is a pretty good player in the Senior division. He has placed at least Top 4 at two Regionals — both of which had intimidating competition — with an interesting not-to-be-mentioned Mega Evolution on his team each time. Like Jacob, I wouldn’t be surprised if Darrin moves on to Day 2 of Nationals, but I could see him falling short as well. However, his background is really good for Seniors and will be a tough opponent to face, as he clearly thrives in best-of-3 formats.

Luka Trejgut (Deltazephyl/Zephyl)

Accomplishments: Indiana Regional Champion 2015 (20th in Championship Points)

Luka has a relatively superior mindset for a Senior and his teambuilding style is really strong and fluent — the key to success in best-of-3 styled formats. Also, his tyranny in Indiana has given proof that he isn’t just another Senior, but a skilled one.

Pennsylvania

Michael Spinetta-McCarthy (Sir Chicken)

Accomplishments: Virginia Regional Champion 2015, Pennsylvania Regional Champion 2015, Massachusetts Regional runner-up 2015 (2nd in Championship Points).

Michael is considered one of the best Seniors in North America, and it’s not surprising why people think that. He’s got an amazing mindset for best-of-3 styled play and has won two Regionals in probably the most difficult region of the United States: The Northeast. There is no doubt in my mind that would say Michael is going to make it to Day 2 of US Nationals, and will be one heck of an opponent to be matched against.

New York

Mihrab Samad (Megachar10)

Accomplishments: Top 4 Massachusetts Regional, Top 8 Pennsylvania Regional (18th in Championship Points)

Mihrab is known for using unconventional Pokemon choices, such as Landorus-Incarnate at Massachusetts and Crobat at Virginia. He has pretty good experience in a best-of-3 format, considering the Massachusetts Regional was recent. Mihrab, however, will need to hold back on gimmick strategies or Pokemon, if he wants to be consistent at Nationals. If he does create a consistent team, he will for sure be one to look out for on the Nationals bracket!

Brendan Zheng (Babbytron)

Accomplishments: 2013 Junior World Champion, Finalist at Texas Regional 2015, Top 8 at Missouri Regional 2015 (30th in Championship Points).

Brendan should be known by basically every Senior at this point, as he is the brother of Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) and is titled the 2013 World Champion in the Junior division. He also has had a pretty good Regionals run this season as a finalist in Texas.

New Jersey

Kylie Chua

Accomplishments: 2014 Nationals Top 4, Massachusetts Regional Champion 2015, Top 8 Kansas Regional 2015 (5th in Championship Points).

Kylie has had a great last two years being in the Senior division, as she has done well at Regionals this year and was a semi-finalist at Nationals last year. She is also the sister of Paul Chua (pwny person). Kylie is, without a doubt, one to look out for in the Swiss and Day 2 bracket, as she is expected to get Day 2.

Zachary Boyd (Progress1/Smeargle Kid)

Accomplishments: Runner-up Virginia Regionals 2015, Top 4 Pennsylvania Regionals 2015 (7th in Championship Points).

Zachary is known for using Smeargle at events, and I think that proves he is one of the better players in the Senior division in terms of best-of-3 formats. Considering he has been using a somewhat gimmicky strategy for the entire season, he is good at playing his cards right and not revealing too many tricks too early.

Jake Skurchak (pokebeys)

Accomplishments: Finalist at Wisconsin Regional 2015,  Semi-finalist at Virginia Regional 2015 (4th in Championship Points).

Jake is quite a player who’s very consistent in best-of-3 format play. He has also had a very good season in 2015 in terms of Regional Championships and Premier Challenges.

Stephen Mea (Gramgus)

Accomplishments: Top 8 Massachusetts Regional 2015, Finalist Georgia Regional 2015 (24th in Championship Points).

Stephen has had a pretty good season in 2015, as he had Top Cut Massachusetts and Georgia, both of which were very recent.

Jake Rosen (sableyemagma)

Accomplishments: Finalist Pennsylvania Regional 2015, Top 8 Massachusetts Regional 2015 (23rd in Championship Points).

Jake has had a pretty good run this season, though keep in mind Pennsylvania was played in the X/Y format. Don’t let that phase you, since he has had a good season in the OR/AS format with a Top Cut finish at Massachusetts recently and great placements at Premier Challenges.

California

Emilio Forbes (emforbes)

Accomplishments: North California Regional Semi-finalist 2015, South California Regional Champion 2015, (43rd in Championship Points).

Emilio is a great West coast Senior and one to look out for at Nationals! I would expect him to move on to Day 2, as he has done pretty well in the International Challenge and had a great Regional Championships/Premier Challenge run. Considering the west coast is packed with good Seniors, his accomplishments are definitely above the average player.\Emilio be like

George Langford (Kobratail)

Accomplishments: North California Regional Champion 2015, Semi-finalist Arizona Regional 2015 (12th in Championship Points).

George has had a similar season to Emilio, except that he maxed out his Premier Challenge Championship Points.

Kentucky

Joe Nunziata (JoeDaPr0)

Accomplishments: Missouri Regional Champion 2015 (17th in Championship Points).

Joe has had a decent season. Winning a Regional is good and all, though it’s shaky on whether he will move on to Day 2 at Nationals, considering he has been known for using weird strategies in 2015 such as Mega Garchomp + Togekiss to get 9th at Wisconsin and Chesnaught to win the Missouri Regional. He will need a consistent strategy, similar to Mihrab, in order to make it to Day 2 if possible.

Texas

Ian McLaughlin (raikoo)

Accomplishments: Texas Regional Champion 2015, Top 8 Missouri Regional 2015, Top 8 Kansas Regional 2015, Top 4 Worlds 2014 (3rd in Championship Points)

Not much to say about Ian other than that he is one of the best Seniors in North America and is 100% expected to compete at Day 2 of Nationals. He is a Worlds competitor in the Senior division and has had a great Regionals run. You better be in your best state of mind if you do manage to face him at Nationals!

Georgia

Abel Goodwin (YummyKitties)

Accomplishments: Finalist Florida Regional 2015,  Top 8 Georgia Regional 2015 (21st in Championship Points).

Last but certainly not least, we have Abel who has had a pretty good season for Regionals in the South. He has been doing well in best-of-3 formatted play so far, and I don’t have many doubts that he will move on to Day 2 at Nationals. Beware of Abel in the Nationals bracket.

Honorable Mentions

Joseph Costagliola (LifeOrb) – Virginia

Accomplishment(s): Virginia Regional Top 4 2015 (7-0 in Swiss) (51st in Championship Points).

Jonathan Melendez (WackaboomVGC) – Maryland

Accomplishment(s): Georgia Regional Top 4 2015 (33rd in Championship Points).

Albert Olster – Kentucky

Accomplishment(s): Florida Regional Top 4 2015 (61st in Championship Points).

Senior Pokemon Metagame

The following section will explain all the common Pokemon, move, ability, and item choices in the Senior division Metagame.

Mega Evolutions

Mega Salamence

Mega Salamence is the most popular Mega Evolution in the Senior metagame, and for good reason. Its massive damage output and versatility makes it both a special and physical threat. Setting up Dragon Dances in a physical standpoint could be deadly and lead to potential sweeps while Hyper Voice in a special set ignores redirection and does massive damage.

EV spreads: Mega Salamence is mostly used with a 252/252/4 spread, using Timid or Jolly natures. The 252/252 is commonly used in Speed and physical/special attack, while the 4 EVs are used in HP.

Common partners: / /

Mega Salamence is sometimes used on Sand teams, hence the Tyranitar and Excadrill, and will most commonly be seen using a Mixed (Double-Edge/Hyper Voice) or a completely special (Hyper Voice/Draco Meteor) set. However, it can also be used as a duo with Clefairy. With Clefairy, Mega Salamence uses Dragon Dance and Roost in order to have maximum sustain, damage, and speed while Clefairy uses Follow Me and supports Mega Salamence with Friend Guard support, reducing all damage toward it by 25%.

Notable moves: Dragon Dance, Double-Edge, Earthquake, Protect, Draco Meteor, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Substitute, Roost, Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Return.

Ability choices: Intimidate

Item choices: Salamencite

Mega Charizard (Y)

Mega Charizard Y is a deadly Mega Evolution, having access to Drought, Heat Wave, Overheat, and a massive 159 base Special Attack stat. Mega Charizard Y is mainly used hyper offensively, though can be bulky at times.

EV spreads: Mega Charizard Y will sometimes run a 252 Special Attack and 252 Speed with a Timid nature, maximizing it’s offensive pressure. However, Mega Charizard Y are commonly run bulky with lots of investment in physical defense and HP in order to survive attacks like Mega Kangaskhan Return or Choice Scarf Landorus-T Rock Slides. The bulky spreads will commonly use Modest, since 4 Special Attack investment with a Modest nature can OHKO Mega Kangaskhan with Overheat and the Special Attack stat for 100 Special Attack with Modest is equal to 252 Special Attack without Modest.

Common partners: / /

Landorus-Therian is the most common partner for Mega Charizard Y because it provides Intimidate support, giving Mega Charizard Y an easier time surviving physical attacks. Also, Landorus-Therian gives extra coverage in Earthquake and Superpower to hit Rock types like Terrakion and Tyranitar, both of which outspeed and KO Mega Charizard Y. Aegislash is also a common partner for Mega Charizard Y in that it provides Wide Guard support and can OHKO threats such as Terrakion with Flash Cannon. Thundurus-Incarnate is a somewhat common partner for Mega Charizard Y, in that it provides valuable Speed control with Thunder Wave and Hidden Power Ice in order to do massive damage to Landorus-Therian, possibly even OHKO.

Notable moves: Heat Wave, Protect, Overheat, Solar Beam, Hidden Power Ground, Flamethrower, Ancient Power

Ability choices: Blaze

I highly suggest not to choose Solar Power, as it doesn’t do much of anything for Mega Charizard Y except for take a guaranteed 10% of damage in the sun when switched in.

Item choices: Charizardite Y

Mega Kangaskhan

Kangaskhan has always been #1 in Battle Spot usage, and for good reason. However, Mega Kangakshan isn’t used too terribly often by Senior players as, say, Mega Salamence is. Mega Kangaskhan might have average base stats, but it has great bulk being a Normal type and at least 100 base stat points in defenses. Also, Mega Kangaskhan is used because of Parental Bond, giving Mega Kangaskhan practically a free Choice Band; however, the “Choice Band” added damage is separate from the normal damage of an attack. In other words, Mega Kangaskhan hits twice.

EV Spreads: Mega Kangaskhan primarily run Jolly or Adamant with 252 Attack and 252 Speed with 4 HP.  Some Mega Kangaskhan could have some bulk investment, such as 212HP and 60 Defense in order to survive Adamant Mega Kangaskhan Low Kick. They also could run 228HP and 28 Special Defense in order to survive Mega Charizard Y Overheat with 4 Special Attack and Modest.

Common Partners: / /

To be honest, Mega Kangaskhan doesn’t have any partners. Mega Kangaskhan just fits any team and/or pairing with ease. For example, if Mega Kangaskhan is paired with Cresselia, Cresselia can use Trick Room while Mega Kangaskhan uses Fake Out on the threat toward Cresselia. Mega Kangaskhan is most commonly seen on the core of Mega Kangaskhan, Landorus-Therian, and Thundurus-Incarnate, as they all cover each other very well and is a nearly indestructible core. Landorus-Therian provides Superpower/Earthquake support to hit Terrakion, which is a pretty big threat to Mega Kangaskhan. Thundurus-Incarnate provides Speed control with Thunder Wave while Taunt is used in order to prevent Will-O-Wisps on Landorus-Therian or Mega Kangaskhan.

Notable moves: Fake Out, Protect, Return, Double-Edge, Low Kick, Power-up Punch, Sucker Punch

Ability choices: Scrappy, Inner Focus

Scrappy is used in order to get a Fake Out off on to ghost types such as Gengar while Inner Focus is used to prevent faster Fake Outs while getting a good amount of damage or another Fake Out off on to the opponent’s Fake Out Pokemon’s partner.

Item choices: Kangaskhanite

The Offense

In the next following subtopics including this one, I will list all the Pokemon in the category and then give a sentence or two on what to expect from them.

Landorus-Therian: Used mostly with a Choice Scarf, Choice Band, Assault Vest, or occassionally Lum Berry with the moves of Earthquake, Rock Slide, Superpower, U-turn, or Stone Edge. Landorus-Therian also provides useful Intimidate support while being extremely offensive with base 145 Attack.

Aegislash: Mostly seen with the items of Weakness Policy, Life Orb, or Leftovers with the moves of King’s Shield, Wide Guard, Substitute, Shadow Ball, Flash Cannon, Shadow Sneak, or Iron Head. Aegislash is both extremely offensive with its coverage and base 150 in offensive stats and extremely defensive in its typing and base 150 in defensive stats.

Rotom-Heat: Mostly seen with Life Orb and Safety Goggles with the moves of Overheat, Thunderbolt, Protect, Thunder Wave, Will-O-Wisp, and Hidden Power Ice. Rotom-Heat is mostly used to outspeed and OHKO Aegislash, Landorus-Therian which aren’t holding a Choice Scarf,  Mega Charizard Y, and Talonflame while doing massive damage to bulky Pokemon such as Suicune. It’s typing also allows it to wall most of the common fire types such as Heatran, Mega Charizard Y, Talonflame, and opposing Rotom-Heat.

Heatran: Heatran can be ran multiple ways, but it’s most common items are Leftovers, Chople Berry, Shuca Berry, Life Orb, and Safety Goggles. Heatran’s item basically can determine it’s set most of the time. For example, a Leftovers Heatran will indicate that it has the move Substitute while a Life Orb Heatran will probably have either Overheat or Flash Cannon in place of Substitute. Heatran’s most common moves are the previously mentioned Substitute, Overheat, Flash Cannon, Heat Wave, Protect, Earth Power, and Fire Blast.

/

Gengar/Mega Gengar: Gengar is almost always seen with a Focus Sash, and is a fast, supportive, and offensive Ghost type. Some moves Gengar like to run include Will-O-Wisp, Sludge Bomb, Taunt, Icy Wind, Shadow Ball, and Protect. Gengar can also be a Mega Gengar with moves like Perish Song, Disable, and Protect. Gengar isn’t the most common of the common Pokemon, but it’s support and coverage options are something to prepare for!

Hydreigon: Hydreigon will most likely have the items of Choice Specs, Choice Scarf, and Life Orb with the moves Draco Meteor, Dark Pulse, Earth Power, Flamethrower, Protect, Flash Cannon, and Dragon Pulse. Hydreigon has a pretty big base Special Attack stat of 125, and combined with the Modest Nature and Choice Specs will be immediately lethal.

Terrakion: Terrakion commonly has the items of Focus Sash, Lum Berry, and Life Orb, though Life Orb isn’t seen often. This horse will be packed with the moves of Rock Slide, Close Combat, Protect, Quick Guard, Stone Edge, Taunt, and Roar. The first three aforementioned moves are nearly always seen on Terrakion, but the fourth move is debated on by the player by the last four aforementioned moves. Terrakion is used because it outspeeds and OHKOs Mega Kangaskhan while doing massive damage with it’s coverage to other Pokemon.

Bisharp: Bisharp is almost always seen with either Life Orb or Focus Sash, but can run Choice Band in order to OHKO some Cresselia with Knock Off. Be wary of Bisharp’s ability Defiant, as it can turn into a +1 Bisharp after an Intimidate and start doing an overwhelming amount of damage with it’s moves. Popular move selections for Bisharp are Sucker Punch, Iron Head, Knock Off, Protect, and Assurance. Bisharp is mostly known for it’s amazing coverage, basically doing neutral or super-effective damage to the current metagame and gets OHKOs on Pokemon such as Sylveon.

Talonflame: Talonflame can be run a multitude of ways, and it’s most common items are Life Orb, Choice Band, and Focus Sash. It’s move selections are commonly Brave Bird, Flare Blitz, Tailwind, Overheat, Quick Guard, and Protect. Talonflame’s ability, Gale Wings, give all of it’s Flying type attacks +1 priority. Talonflame can be run as a supportive, kamikaze Pokemon with Tailwind, Quick Guard, and Overheat while some more offensive Talonflame will be seen with Life Orb and Choice Band with Brave Bird, Flare Blitz, and Protect.

Sylveon: This Pokemon will most likely be seen with the items of Choice Specs, Pixie Plate, or Life Orb with the moves Hyper Voice, Protect, Hyper Beam, Shadow Ball, Psyshock, Calm Mind, and Helping Hand. Sylveon is known for it’s amazing ability, Pixilate, which converts all moves that are Normal type in to Fairy type attacks with a 30% increase. Sylveon do occasionally run Calm Mind and Helping Hand, but expect 100% that Sylveon will have the move Hyper Voice.

Milotic: I’m sure you weren’t expecting to see this in the offensive section, but Choice Scarf Milotic is fairly common in the Senior division. Choice Scarf Timid Milotic will always OHKO Landorus-T unless they are Choice Scarf Jolly, but there aren’t too many of those around. There is also the bulky variant of Milotic with Recover and Icy Wind. Milotic is only viable this season due to it’s pretty great ability: Competitive. Competitive boosts the Special Attack stat by 2 stages if one of it’s stats are lowered (i.e. Intimidate, Icy Wind).

Breloom: Breloom can either be Focus Sash, which it commonly is, or Choice Scarf. Focus Sash variants will run Spore, Mach Punch, Bullet Seed, and Protect while Choice Scarf sets will carry Force Palm/Superpower, Bullet Seed, Rock Tomb, and Spore. Breloom is mainly known for firing off fast Spores while still doing a good amount of damage with Technician boosted Mach Punches and Bullet Seeds.

Mamoswine: One of the less common Pokemon in the Senior format, but some may be influenced to run it because it does an amazing job against the genies: Landorus-Therian and Thundurus-Incarnate. This mammoth will normally run Icicle Crash, Ice Shard, and Earthquake while it’s 4th move will differ from Icicle Spear, Rock Slide, Superpower, and Iron Head. Mamoswine is known for carrying either Life Orb, Focus Sash, or Choice Scarf with the ability Thick Fat, which reduces damage taken from Fire and Ice type attacks.

Blaziken: Always seen with Life Orb or Focus Sash, and is an extremely offensive powerhouse with it’s ability Speed Boost, which increases the Speed stat of Blaziken by 1 stage every turn it is on the field. Notable moves that Blaziken carries include Low Kick, Overheat, Rock Slide, Protect, Brave Bird, Hidden Power Ice, Superpower, and Flare Blitz. Basically, the strategy with Blaziken is to protect first turn, which players can abuse by either not attacking it or getting him/herself into a better position in order to take out Blaziken the following turn. I expect Blaziken to see a rise as Nationals come along, and I think it’s relevant enough in Seniors as is.

/

Rain: Politoed (left) and Ludicolo (right) are a great pairing because of Politoed’s ability Drizzle, which automatically summons Rain for 5 turns, and Ludicolo’s ability Swift Swim, which doubles the Speed stat when Rain is on the field.

Things to know about rain:

• Water type attacks do 50% more damage.
• Fire type attacks do 50% less damage.
• Solar Beam’s power is halved.
• Rain will counteract other forms of weather (Sun, Sand, Hail) upon activation of Drizzle/Rain Dance.
• Rain grants activation of the abilities Swift Swim, Rain Dish, and Hydration.

Politoed and Ludicolo are in particular the best combo for rain in the metagame because Politoed can set up the rain and give support to Ludicolo with Helping Hand and firing off Rain boosted Scalds. On the other hand, Ludicolo can create Fake Out pressure since it’s speed stat outspeeds most, if not all, of the Fake Out users in VGC once Rain is put into play. Ludicolo also has great coverage in Scald, Giga Drain, Ice Beam, And Hydro Pump. Politoed is mostly seen with either a Choice Scarf or Sitrus Berry having move options such as Scald, Helping Hand, Protect, Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, Rain Dance (Choice Scarf), and Encore. Ludicolo normally runs the item of Life Orb, though can sometimes carry an Assault Vest for extra bulk.

Kingdra (far right) is known for spamming Rain + Life Orb boosted Muddy Waters and Hydro Pumps to do an immense amount of damage while carrying another powerful STAB in Draco Meteor. Kingdra will most commonly be seen a substitute for Ludicolo, but definitely not fulfill the same role. Other moves to look out for on Kingdra include Ice Beam, Icy Wind, Scald, Dragon Pulse, and Protect. Kingdra is also somewhat viable out of rain, as Carson St. Denis (dorian06) used a Choice Scarf Kingdra

/

Sand: Tyranitar (left) and Excadrill (right) are similar to the aforementioned Politoed and Ludicolo in that they use weather in order to function to their fullest potential. These two Pokemon are great because of their abilities. Tyranitar’s ability, Sand Stream, whips up a Sandstorm on the battlefield for 5 turns, and Excadrill’s ability, Sand Rush, doubles Excadrill’s Speed stat for as long as Sand is present on the field.

Notes about Sand:

• Sand boosts the Special Defense stat of all Rock type Pokemon on the field by 50%.
• Activates the abilities Sand Rush, Sand Force, and Sand Veil upon creation.
• Replaces active Weather conditions (Sun, Rain, Hail) when the move Sandstorm is used or when a Pokemon with Sand Stream is switched in.
• Solar Beam’s power decreased by 50%.

BEWARE OF FAST ROCK SLIDES.

Tyranitar will commonly be seen with either a Chople Berry or Choice Scarf while Excadrill will be seen holding the items Focus Sash, Life Orb, or Lum Berry. Tyranitar is quite versatile, and can be run a variety of ways in terms of movesets such as Rock Slide, Crunch, Ice Punch, Low Kick, Ice Beam, Superpower, Stone Edge, Protect, Dark Pulse, and Fire Blast. Excadrill, on the other hand, is pretty cookie cutter in that it will only be seen with Drill Run/Earthquake, Iron Head, Rock Slide, Protect, and Swords Dance. The thing this duo does best is fire off fast Rock Slides, granting 2 30% chances for each of their opponent’s Pokemon to flinch.

The Defense

Mega Venusaur: This Mega Evolution is commonly seen as a bulky Pokemon with Leech Seed, Protect, Giga Drain, and Sludge Bomb. It is incredibly hard to OHKO, or even 2HKO, and can stall out whole teams with Leech Seed, Giga Drain, and Protect to an extent.

Rotom Wash: Rotom-Wash is commonly known for holding a Sitrus Berry or Leftovers with the moves of Will-O-Wisp, Hydro Pump, Thunderbolt, Protect, Thunder Wave, and Confuse Ray. Rotom-Wash has pretty good bulk with 105 base defenses and can be defensively damaging to teams which aren’t prepared for it.

The Support

Thundurus-Incarnate: Thundurus-Incarnate is a very good supportive Pokemon at the time I am writing this article,  and it is mostly because of it’s ability, Prankster (gives all Status moves +1 priority), and it’s offensive capability. Thundurus-Incarnate run Sitrus Berry for bulky builds while they can run Life Orb in order to do a huge amount of damage while still providing support. The type of support Thundurus-Incarnate grants include Speed control and Status control, which are both utilized with the moves Thunder Wave and Taunt. Thundurus-Incarnate will always run Thunderbolt or, rarely, Discharge and it’s fourth move can be Hidden Power Ice, Protect, or Swagger.

Cresselia: This Pokemon is all about support, having amazing bulk base stats of 120 HP, 120 Defense, and 130 Special Defense. It will most likely have a move of which speed control is endorsed such as Icy Wind, Trick Room, or Thunder Wave and will always carry an Ice move such as Icy Wind or Ice Beam. Psychic can be used on it, but it’s not the most commonly picked move selection. Cresselia can also run Calm Mind sets and become offensive while having Moonlight for sustainability. Cresselia is hard to OHKO, but not terribly hard to 2hko if a super effective attack is used on it. Cresselia usually run the items of Sitrus Berry, Safety Goggles, Leftovers, Kee Berry, and Rocky Helmet.

Suicune: Suicune is like Cresselia in that it has amazing bulky stats, but it also has great support moves such as Tailwind, Snarl, and Icy Wind. Suicune run Scald as an attack as well as Ice Beam for the most part. Suicune doesn’t have the best coverage options, but it’s supportive movepool makes up for that. Suicune typically carry Sitrus Berry or Rocky Helmet, but can also run Chesto Berry with Rest.

Clefairy: Clefairy is mostly known for it’s ability, Friend Guard, which reduces it’s ally’s damage taken by 25% and having access to Follow Me. Clefairy can also be a pretty bulky Follow Me user with Eviolite as an item, as it is only a Stage 1 Pokemon that can still be evolved. Clefairy usually have Follow Me, Protect, Moonblast, Icy wind, Knock Off, and Helping Hand as move selections.

Whimsicott: Whimsicott is a Pokemon that has decent coverage in Grass/Fairy, but is mainly used as a Prankster support Pokemon — like Thundurus-Incarnate. Whimsicott always carry Focus Sash with the move options of ENCORE, Tailwind, Protect, Taunt, Fake Tears, Tickle, Charm, Beat Up, Giga Drain, Moonblast. The reason I highlighted Encore there is because practically all Whimsicott carry this frustrating move and it is easy to forgot if you didn’t have any personal experience with Whimsicott yourself. Beat Up is a move used to pair with Terrakion and, because Whimsicott’s faster, will Beat Up Terrakion itself to do minimal damage while Terrakion with the Justified ability will be at +4 Attack on the first turn.

Concluding Thoughts

Nationals for Seniors will be tough, as there will be a great amount of competition to get into Day 2 and beyond. I wish everybody the best of luck, as I will be competing as well! Oh I almost forgot…

Smart Money

My Smart Money of who will win Nationals is on Michael Spinetta-McCarthy (Sir Chicken). He’s the best East coast player in my opinion and will dominate the competition at Nationals this year.

The post United States Senior Nationals Preview: The Metagame and The Players appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Editor’s Note: With the distribution of Championship Points this season, players have been playing year-round to get themselves in a favourable as possible position going into the United States National Championships. The top 40 players in the US & Canada Rating Zone will earn an invitation to the 2015 Pokémon World Championships with the top 8 receiving direct entry into the second day of the competition along with free travel and accmodations. With only one chance at the heavy amount of points granted by the National Championships for most players and no second chances if the weekend is unsuccessful, competitors are putting their all into the tournament.

I’m Gavin Michaels, otherwise known as kingofmars, and when I haven’t been going 6-2 at Regionals I’ve been keeping track of everyone’s Championship Points on a spreadsheet designed to be and easier to browse and more in-depth version of what the official Pokémon website provides.

Today I’m going to break down what everyone in the United States, Canada, and occasionally South Africa needs in order to secure their Day 1 Worlds invite. While important, I won’t be able to accurately predict what the bar for Top 8 in CP– good for a paid trip and a Day 2 invite– will be because the range is simply too massive. What I will say is, if you do exceptionally well at Nationals or if your name rhymes with Gulf Lick you might be in contention.

My analysis is going to be largely based on the program I designed with DeVon (dingram). This program assumes players with already high finishes will do better at Nationals, on average, than a person with poor results, but it also takes into consideration that a person with poor results going into Nationals can still end up doing well or even winning. Further breakdown of that can be found in this forum thread but the important takeaways are that the average and median cutoff is at 368 CP, primarily due to the large number of people that are either at 368 currently or have a Nationals finish that would put them at 368. The range is also pretty cleanly between 360 and 380, which is where 83% of the simulations fell into, with most of the other results occurring on the lower end of the spectrum. Please be aware that the cutoffs are rather arbitrary for where I start and end the groups. The bottom player in a group is generally much less safe than the top player in the group. Before we start, let’s take a look at the Championship Points payout for the National Championships:

Without further ado, let’s start it off with the people who aren’t even reading this article: the players that have their invites already locked.

Group A: Locked for Worlds | 524 (Wolfe Glick) – 400 (Conan Thompson) + Nikolai Zelinski and Jeudy Azzarelli.

Group B: The group that might have made Worlds already but they’re cutting it close | 380 (Riley Factura) – 368 (James Ball).

Group C: Hopefully everyone drops! | 342 (Paul Chua) – 332 (Alec Rubin).

Group D: People who might be really nervous Friday night | 330 (Justin Burns) – 313 (Kamaal Harris)

Group E: Day 2 is good enough | 306 (Cameron Swan) – 281 (Priciliano Garcia)

Group F: Top Cut might be stressful | 280 (Amelia Zoldy) – 268 (Sean Timmons)

Group G: Time to Top Thirty Two | 266 (Mark Hanson) – 232 (Cameron Kicak)

Group H: Banking on Resistance | 229 (Aaron Grubbs) – 220 (Stephen Morioka)

Group I: Top 16 or Bust | 217 (Tiffany Stanley) – 180 (Erik Holmstrom)

Group J: Oh god I might have to actually cut Nats | 179 (Kevin Reed) – 168 (Kayhon Tahmaseb)

As the name suggests, in order to get an invite these players might need to Top 8 Nats to make worlds. There’s a chance that they can make it in with Top 16, but a Top 8 finish locks their invite. Luckily for them, they don’t have to worry about securing their Worlds invite if they cut and can just focus on winning the title.

Group K: Oh god I NEED to top cut Nats | 166 (Colin Schoenwolf) – 82 (Matthew Crews)

The players in this group must undergo the daunting task of actually top cutting Nationals for their invite. From here on out, Nationals is a do or die event, which might play to the strength of the numerous veteran players in this group. Like the previous group, however, at least if they cut they can just focus on taking the title.

Group L: The Simon Yip Memorial Group | 80 (Manoj Sunny) – 68 (Brennen Dinofli)

As the name suggests, these players might walk away from their Top 8 set and realize that they missed a worlds invite. This is probably the least fun tier to be in, so let’s hope for the sanity of all these players that they can avoid this.

Group M: The Rest | 66 (Alex Valente) – 1 (Whoever Top 128s an International Challenge)

This group needs to Top 4 Nats in order to get their Worlds invite. While that does sound like an insanely hard goal to reach, last year’s results should prove that players in this group can absolutely get a Top 4 finish.

The post Championship Point Wrap Up: A 2015 US Nationals Preview appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

One of only two tournaments directly managed by The Pokémon Company International, the US National Championships is always a large event. Follow along with us both here on Nugget Bridge as well as the official Pokémon website for coverage throughout the weekend as players find out whether or not the work they’ve put in this season will pay off with an invitation to the World Championships or whether it will all be for naught. If they don’t place high enough in the standings for the Championship Points they need, their season will end here.

Livestream

Like last year, the 2015 Pokémon US National Championships will be streamed live on Twitch. This year the stream will expand to start from Friday morning rather than Saturday afternoon making for three fully packed days of Pokémon to watch from home! Along with the scheduling expansion we’ll have an expanded roster of casters as Jonathan Indovino (ShadyPenguinn) joins veteran casters Scott Glaza (Scott), Evan Latt (plaid), Duy Ha (Duy), and Justin Flynn (TheJustinFlynn) for the video game portion of the tournament. On the trading card game side we’ll see the return of Kyle Sucevich (Pooka), Joshua Wittenkeller (TheJWittz), Josue Rojano (Crimz), and Dylan Mayo (Exobyte).

All times below are listed in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4).

Friday, July 3

Saturday, July 4

Sunday, July 5

Main Tournament Schedule

Please remember to register for the tournament ahead of time. If you do not register online and check-in at the allotted time, you will not be allowed to enter the event. The tournament will take place over three days for those in the Masters division and two days for those in the younger age divisions. The entire tournament will use best-of-three matches to reduce the effects of luck and reward more adaptable players!

Thursday, July 2

• Check-in for VG Masters Division players will be from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Battle Boxes will be locked when players check in. Players must be preregistered to participate.
  • Players checking in during this time will receive a National Championships Battle Mat.

Friday, July 3

• Last chance check in for preregistered Masters players 7:30 a.m.
• Masters Division players will compete in Swiss rounds beginning at 8 a.m.
  • Friday Swiss rounds will be best of 3—players should take careful consideration of battery usage and charging.
  • All players with a record of 2 or fewer losses, with zero ties, will advance to Saturday.
• Side events will occur throughout the day. The full schedule will be released at a later date.

Saturday, July 4

• Junior and Senior Divisions
  • Check-in will occur from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.—battle boxes will be locked at check in.
  • Player meeting will commence at 9:30 a.m., with Swiss rounds occurring immediately afterward.
  • Saturday Swiss rounds will be best of 3—players should take careful consideration of battery usage and charging.
  • Players with 2 or fewer losses, with zero ties, will advance to Sunday.
    • If fewer than 16 players qualify for the next round, then the Top 16 players will advance instead.
• Masters Division
  • Day 2 of Masters Division Swiss rounds will begin at 8 a.m.
    • Players must report and be seated by 7:50 a.m.
    • Day 2 Swiss rounds competition will be best of 3 matches.
    • Players who advance from Friday will have their record reset.
  • A Top 8 cut will be taken at the end of Swiss rounds. The single-elimination Top 8 will be played late Saturday afternoon.
• Side events will occur throughout the day. The full schedule will be released at a later date.

Sunday, July 5

• Single-elimination rounds (Junior and Senior Divisions) will be played.
  • ALL players must be checked in and ready to play by 10 a.m. or they will forfeit their first game. Players not in their seats by 10:10 a.m. will forfeit their second game, and thereby, the match.
• Junior, Senior, and Masters Division Finals (top 2) will occur sequentially beginning immediately after the TCG Masters Division Finals.

Prizes

There has been a significant prize increase over previous years with several thousands of dollars in scholarships at stake and double the trips to Worlds in each age division (based on Championship Points)! All attendees will also receive a Pachirisu modelled after the one that 2015 World Champion Sejun Park (pokemontcg) used to take his title!

• 1st: $5,000, National Champion Trophy, Nintendo Wii U 32 GB Deluxe Set, Travel Award to the 2015 Pokémon World Championships, 72 booster packs
• 2nd: $3,000, National Finalist Trophy, New Nintendo 3DS XL, 72 booster packs
• 3rd and 4th: $1,500, National Semi-Finalist Trophy, New Nintendo 3DS XL, 72 booster packs
• 5th through 8th: 36 booster packs
• 9th through 16th: 18 booster packs
• 17th through 32nd: 8 booster packs
• 33rd through 64th: 4 booster packs

More important to many of the players, however, will be the Championship Points at stake:

Side Event Schedule

Couldn’t quite make it to the next stage of the competition? TPCi is making sure you stay entertained with a variety of side events with some amazing prizing to keep you busy!

Friday, July 3

Saturday, July 4

Sunday, July 5

The post 2015 United States National Championships Coverage appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

With the United States National Championships over, we only have the World Championships left to prepare for now. You can find full results from The Pokémon Company International’s National Championships Hub. They also have full details on the top eight teams. We’ve got an overview of the Day 2 teams below:

Masters Division

1. Toler Webb (Dim)
   
2. Raphael Bagara (rapha)
   
3. Blake Hopper (Bopper)
   
4. Aaron Zheng (Cybertron)
   
5. Hayden McTavish (Enigne)
   
6. Alex Underhill (Lexicon08)
   
7. Angel Miranda (CT MikotoMisaka)
   
8. Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)
   
9. Aaron Liebersbach (Arch)
   
10. Paul Chua (pwny person)
    
11. Manoj Sunny (MangoSol)
    
12. Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom)
    
13. Kolby Golliher (Lovetrain)
    
14. Evan Bates (Veteran Padgett)
    
15. Demitrios Kaguras (kingdjk)
    
16. Anthony Jimenez (DarkAssassin)
    
17. Leonard Craft III (DaWoblefet)
    
18. Ben Irons (Benji)
    
19. Zach Dalton (Oasis)
    
20. Kevin Reed
    
21. Austin Bastida-Ramos (Syncie)
    
22. Nikolai Zielinski (Nikolai)
    
23. Chris Danzo (Lunar)
    
24. Alberto Lara (Sweeper)
    
25. Jacob Peterson
    
26. Gavin Michaels (kingofmars)
    
27. Chance Alexander (Paragon)
    
28. ames Ball (pball0010)
    
29. Bridger Snow (squirtwo)
    
30. Matthew Greaves (Picklesword)
    
31. Chuppa Cross IV (Chuppa)
    
32. Jon Hu (JHufself)
    
33. Jeudy Azzarelli (SoulSurvivor)
    
34. James Baek (Jamesspeed1)
    
35. Colten Lybbert (Rookie Slayer MLG)
    
36. Edward Glover (Min)
    
37. William Hall (Biosci)
    

Senior Division

1. Ben Piercy (Qertyk)
   
2. Carson St. Denis (Dorian06)
   
3. Luka Trejgut (Zephyl)
   
4. Jake Skurchak (Pokebys)
   
5. Stefan Smigoc
   
6. Ian McLaughlin (Raikoo)
   
7. Koby Craft (Foob)
   
8. Mihrab Samad (megachar10)
   
9. Max Simon
10. PJ Bradley
11. Dylan Salvanera (DullAce24)
12. Timothy Flanagan (6IV)
13. Kylie Chua
14. Edward Chen
15. Carson Confer (footballfreak99)
16. Gavin Gentry (Freckles666666)
17. Kade Karim
18. Abel Goodwin (YummyKittys)
19. Samuel Mowery
20. Emilio Forbes (emforbes)
21. Brendan Zheng (Babbytron)
22. Stephen Schmidt (CaptainTotodile)
23. Diego Merino
24. Joseph Nunziata (JoeDaPr0)
25. Thomas Nishimura

Junior Division

1. Aiden McKinney
   
2. London Swan
   
3. Daniel Meadway
   
4. Rami Simon
   
5. Luke Smith
   
6. Phillip Barragan
   
7. Gwen Edgar
   
8. Jacqueline Causpy
   
9. Thomas De Souza
10. James Curtis
11. Ethan Confer
12. Collin Ayers
13. Harrison Reineke
14. Jordan Schroeder
15. Calum Bruce
16. Adyson Meyer

Thanks to DaWoblefet and kingofmars for compiling teams.

The post Results & Teams from the 2015 United States National Championships appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hi there. My name is Brendan Webb, and this was my first season competing in VGC. Today I will be talking about my Top 8 placement at the 2015 Australian Nationals competition. I have never really introduced myself  to the VGC community so I will give a brief introduction about myself.

I live in Tasmania, a state in Australia. This is Australia’s third season competing officially in the VGC format and our first year having premier challenges.  My first event was a premier challenge on May 24th where I finished first. I earned my first 40 Championship Points (CP) ever and I was very proud of myself. The team I used here had issues but incorporated some of my favourite Pokemon at the time. The team has too many flaws to be consistent, and thus I have put it aside. The team was Mega-Metagross, Hydreigon, Arcanine, Gastrodon, Virizion and Zapdos. Regardles, this was my first step into building a semi-decent team.

Anyway I had wanted to use Choice Scarf Tyranitar for a few weeks leading up to Australia Nationals and had not much success incorporating it into any team I tried. This was when Aaron “Cybertron” Zheng (his YouTube channel is here and I recommend going to it, as it helps me out a lot with how I play) showed a variant of what would soon be known as the Japanese Sand team, which had the core of Sand Rush Excadrill, Choice Scarf Tyranitar and Special Mega Salamence. His team gave me inspiration and I went and started building of this core I had seen. Now I originally thought Nicholas Borghi (LightCore) thought of this idea due to Cybertron mentioning a Mega Salamence team once and I confused it with the next video I watched, which was an error on my behalf. Then I stupidly assumed Aaron made it from scratch but to my avail. A Japanese user had actually posted a picture of his team on his twitter and this was the origination of the idea, which took me a fortnight to discover. The team the Japanese user had included Assault Vest Azumarill, Rocky Helmet Amoonguss and Aegislash, so this was where the idea of the team originated from.

The Teambuilding Phase

When I tested the team, I ran Will-O-Wisp Rotom-W as like Cybertron’s version but I had a few issues with the team’s structure. I disliked how much Rotom-W would take damage before it could burn something. I did not like Amoonguss, and Aegislash was not something I was comfortable with. I felt people would start to bring ways to counter the team since it exploded with popularity after just a few days on Cybertron’s Channel. This concerned me, and I felt the best way to counter the rapidly popularized weather was to run something that was similar but had different Pokemon that performed the same roles.

I decided that I wanted to try out some other Pokemon to fill the last two options and see what I could do with Rotom-W. This is when I found my most important member of the team for Nationals – Rage Powder Volcarona. I have always liked the fire moth and this little guy made the cut for the team. I looked at what it could do and it seemed to fit better with Tyranitar and Salamence. It had key resistances to Fighting-Type and Ice-Type moves. It takes neutral damage from Ground-Type moves, but it does compound the Landorus-Therian weakness. However, as I will discuss later, with my playstyle it generally worked well for the team. I now had 5 Pokemon on the team, but in testing I found that Fairy types gave me more issues and I needed a counter to Gastrodon and Swampert (Gastrodon hurt my team terribly and I was scared it would pop up during Nats). I also needed something that checked Mega Kangaskhan and Landorus-T. Ferrothorn became my last Pokemon for the team. Rocky Helmet and Iron Barbs hurt the latter two Pokemon, and Power Whip deals with the 4 times Grass-Type weak Pokemon.

The topic of why I chose these changes came up after Nationals and addressing it here is the best course of action. Landorus-T did give the team issues, as did Heatran, and since then I have swapped Excadrill out for another Pokemon to improve this match-up. But I still believe the team I chose was preferable for my playstyle, specifically using Volcarona over Amoonguss. I also felt that Mega Kangaskhan went through the team a bit to easily, with Volcarona being a bit more insurance against the most prominent Mega Pokemon.

The Team

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Crunch
– Rock Slide
– Ice Punch
– Low Kick

Tyranitar is necessary to have part of the Sand core. It has a wonderful move pool and gets good coverage moves for a Scarf user. I chose Rock Slide and Crunch for STAB options. People have asked why I did not choose Ice Beam over Ice Punch, and I will put it plainly. The only notable Pokemon that affect the power of Ice Punch is Mega Salamence and Landorus-T. Salamence is weak to Rock Slide anyway and outspeeds Scarf Tyranitar, whereas Lando-T basically hurts Tyranitar in any way if they switch in on the same turn. Typically, I lead Tyranitar as a common lead to set up Sand but rarely leave it in against a Lando-T. I will switch to get a better match-up, which means I can switch Tyranitar back in and suddenly have the threat of Ice Punch. I plan accordingly from there. Ice Punch is the least used move and for good reason. It is mostly used for hitting predicted switches and when you switch into a 4x Ice-Type weak Pokemon. Low Kick was for Bisharp and Heatran. The reason I chose Low Kick over Superpower is that both fill similar roles, but the -1 defense can be a issue when trying to still survive a physical attack. My team runs on predictions and ability to switch, and I dislike the idea of losing more momentum with a reduced attack and defense, as -1 Def Tyranitar can be KO’d easily if my opponent does something unpredictable. Low Kick is primarily to hit Heatran, with 15% chip damage netting the KO normally.

• 244 Atk Tyranitar Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 134-158 (80.2 – 94.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 244 Atk Tyranitar Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 116-138 (64 – 76.2%) — guaranteed 2HKO

The EV spread is something a little more easy to describe as you can see. My Tyranitar speed ties with other 252 Jolly Tyranitar if I am forced to make a play based on this speed tie. The bulk EV’s are just to maximize stat points. One point lost in attack in exchange for two points in both respective stats is something I believe is more than justifiable.

Tyranitar helps with Flying-Type Pokemon, Aegislash to a degree, Mega Salamence of all forms, Ice weak Pokemon, and Heatran. To knock out Mega Kangaskhan, Tyranitar needs at least 30% prior damage on the bulky variants and around 20% for the 4 hp variety. Special Salamence is good in this case to pick up that damage.

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Earthquake
– Iron Head
– Rock Slide
– Protect

Excadrill is the apparent physical sweeper, but on the day of Nationals it was the least used Pokemon and what I now consider dead weight for the team. It was chosen for its spread Ground-Type move Earthquake, fast Rock Slides (faster than Choice Scarf Landorus-T) and Steel Coverage to hit the omni-present Fairy types like Sylveon. Protect is to scout moves, protect Excadrill from attacks for a turn, and to punish double targets. I chose Focus Sash as I wanted Excadrill to survive more than one attack. The Adamant nature and 252 Attack EV’s still give Excadrill a lot of offensive pressure. The spread maximizes relevant stats like Attack and Speed, with the remaining 4 EV’s going into Special Defense due to Excadrill having a better base Special Defense than Defense.

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
Level: 50
EVs: 68 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA (244 SpA) / 4 SpD / 180 Spe (188 Spe)
Timid Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Draco Meteor
– Flamethrower
– Protect

Special Mega Salamence is extremely good for the core. Salamence easily takes out Breloom after the sand breaks its Focus Sash (I like to lead sand and Salamence as it is pretty anti-Breloom). Hyper Voice is a good spread STAB attack, but it only picks up 2- 0r 3-hit KOs on neutral hits. Upon testing the Sand Team, I saw multiple Dragon types survive my Salamence’s Dragon Pulse. This was an issue, and I felt a way to fix this was to run Draco Meteor. This helped to KO Rotom-W, which took around 50-70% depending on their builds. Flamethrower was good for the Aegislash match up, but left the team open more to Heatran. Protect is for reasons stated above.

The changes in parentheses are the now what I run. I originally wanted to outspeed max Speed base 110 Pokemon. However, Life Orb Thundurus has a base speed of 111, which can potentially win a speed tie and KO Mega Salamence. I added one more Speed point to fix this issue.

• 252 SpA Mega Salamence Dragon Pulse vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Hydreigon: 152-180 (90.4 – 107.1%) — 43.8% chance to OHKO
• 252 SpA Mega Salamence Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 148+ SpD Rotom-W: 79-94 (50.3 – 59.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO

Ferrothorn @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Atk / 4 Def / 48 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Power Whip
– Gyro Ball
– Leech Seed
– Protect

Ferrothorn helped with many matchups and did a lot of work for the team. I used it to help with my Swampert matchup since it wrecked me in either Mega or base form. Gastrodon gave me issues when I tested without Amoonguss, as I lacked any decent way of hitting it other than neutral STABs. Rotom-W is countered horrifically by Ferrothorn. It also checks Landorus-T and Mega Kangaskhan, with both getting KO’d after they hit Ferrothorn with their Fighting-Type moves. It also helped check Fairy types and helped in the late game if all Fire types were eliminated from the game. Unfortunately, Trick Room Heatran is a thing, and it mauls Ferrothorn hard.

This was a variation of the generic VGC 2014 spread. I moved 4 EVs from SpD into Def as it makes Terrakion’s Close Combat a 30% chance to OHKO so I can retaliate and OHKO with Gyro Ball. The Attack EVs were to OHKO 252 HP 44 Def Rotom-W. Unfortunately, I never KO’d any Rotom-W, as the metagame favors a lot more physical bulk on Rotom-W.

• 252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ferrothorn: 134-160 (74 – 88.3%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• -1 204+ Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (148 BP) vs. -1 44 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 117-138 (68.8 – 81.1%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252 Atk Terrakion Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ferrothorn: 162-192 (89.5 – 106%) — 31.3% chance to OHKO

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 44 Def / 92 SpA / 100 SpD / 20 Spe
Calm Nature
– Thunderbolt
– Hydro Pump
– Thunder Wave
– Protect

Rotom-W was a fantastic pokemon to bring to Nationals, as Leftovers Rotom-W puts in a huge amount of work against a lot of the metagame, paralyzing fast threats and then hitting for decent damage with its combination of STABs. When the team underwent testing, it lacked permanent speed control and this was a way to help remove that issue. Paraflinch is always a nasty thing to deal with for my opponents as well.

The spread was a variation of Blake Hopper’s (Bopper) VGC 2014 spread. This one survived 252 Modest Mega Charizard Y’s Solar beam 81.2% of the time while speed creeping 4 speed EV Rotom-W’s (all Rotoms were faster than that expected value at Nats. It had slightly more Special Attack to nail Landorus-T built to survive +1 Life Orb Bisharp Sucker Punch. The Calm nature and pecial bulk were very useful, and my opponents often commented on how bulky my Rotom-W was.

• 252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 100+ SpD Rotom-W: 136-162 (86.6 – 103.1%) — 18.8% chance to OHKO
• 92 SpA Rotom-W Hydro Pump vs. 164 HP / 28 SpD Landorus-T: 164-194 (88.6 – 104.8%) — 31.3% chance to OHKO

Volcarona @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Flame Body
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 228 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
Timid Nature
– Rage Powder
– Overheat
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect

The MVP of the team that carried me far throughout all of Swiss. Volcarona was definitely the most interesting Pokemon on the team. I feel Flame Body with Rage Powder is extremely undervalued in checking Mega Kangaskhan right now, with Kangaskhan lacking any good way to hurt Volcarona other than Return or Double Edge. Even then, both attacks hit Volcarona twice for a 51% chance to burn. Sitrus Berry was used to regain health. Rage Powder was why it was used as a substitute for Amoongus as it can burn while being hit, rather than Amoongus needing to not Rage Powder and use Spore to inflict status (ignoring Effect Spore shenanigans). Will-O-Wisp was a great support move against physical Pokemon. Overheat gave me a powerful Fire type STAB attack, but it made Volcarona absolute dead weight against Heatran, which I did not consider until battling a TR Heatran in Round 4.

The spread was optimal for what I considered on the team.  252 HP and 228 Defense EV’s allow it to survive Landorus-T’s Rock Slide 93.7% of the time barring a Critical Hit. Funnily enough, when I first made the spread the first Landorus-T I tested against got a Critical Hit.  I had 28 EV’s and a nature still left over, and I realized Volcarona needed just 20 Speed EV’s with a Timid nature to outspeed 252 Jolly Breloom by one point. Since I did not feel speed creeping those speed creeping Breloom was important, I placed the remaining EVs into SpA and SpD to get more overall stat points.

The Strategies

The team had multiple strategies, which means in a best-of-3 format I had many ways of dealing with multiple threats. Even though my opponent might know a certain amount of information about my team, I still had more methods of winning. I will go through and explain what each strategy did and, if it was used during Nationals, when and how it occurred.

The team has some mind game strategies designed for the Swiss rounds. Rotom-W is normally seen with Will-O-Wisp, where as Volcarona is not, so that served to throw off my opponents. If I lead these two against a Mega Kangaskhan, the obvious play for my opponent is to Fake Out Rotom-W, so Volcarona could often launch a Will-O-Wisp unopposed. This came in handy Round 6, and my Will-O-Wisp connected to give me the best momentum shift I think I had in the whole tournament.

Mega Kangaskhan was never once a threat during the whole tournament except when I faced Nathan Farrugia. He ran Power-Up Punch Kangaskhan, which became a threat once it had some boosts. However, Volcarona and Ferrothorn both dealt with Kangaskhan effectively, either burning with Flame Body/Will-O-Wisp or doing serious damage with Rocky Helmet/Iron Barbs.

Designated Lead Strategies

I know some people argue that you should pick only what you think is a safe lead against your opponents, but after playing enough games you will realize you choose certain leads for certain teams. Acknowledging this fate, I went and planned my leads for different teams so when it came to the competition, I could start planning for the late game as soon as the first turn was underway. Of course this is a “perfect world” scenario, and factors like stress can affect my gameplay and thought process.  Having these pre-planned leads can give me more time to think about what my win conditions are for the game.

Firstly, Rotom-W and Tyranitar are good leads, as they can cover a lot of types in general. Rotom-W KOs 44 HP Landorus-T and has a chance to OHKO those EV’d to survive +1 Bisharp’s Life Orb Sucker Punch. Rotom-W can paralyze other Pokemon if Tyranitar has a bad match-up just to help more in the late game.

Other possible leads combinations include Volcarona paired with Rotom-W, Mega Salamence, or Ferrothorn. I do not think I ever lead Volcarona and Tyranitar, as Fake Out hurts Tyranitar and makes Rage Powder useless.

Rotom-W and Volcarona can be good to set up Thunder Waves so my other Pokemon have an easier time later in game, but this is a very passive lead and does not have much offensive pressure. However, the Thunder Wave pressure is good against fast teams.

Volcarona and Mega Salamence can be good for having the ability to double protect on the first turn to scout. I can choose their moves from this point depending on what my opponent did and what they might do next. Volcarona helps remove Salamence’s Ice weakness with Rage Powder and gives Salamence some breathing room to make some noise (Hyper Voice).

Volcarona and Ferrothorn provide some early game defensive pressure by making Ferrothorn a threat with Leech Seed. Ferrothorn also can deal some good damage to fast Pokemon with Gyro Ball, two-hit KOing a chunk of the metagame. Power Whip also helps deal with Milotic and other Water-Type Pokemon.

My Playstyle

As the tournament progressed, I could start to see how I played. I have a strong emphasis on Dual-Typed Pokemon, including designated type cores, and I like to switch a lot in my games to better check for my opponents team. I feel most teams need a Grass type Pokemon to help against Gastrodon and Swampert. Both have excellent coverage, and my team especially hated Gastrodons since it could hit so much of my team for Super Effective damage.

Issues With the Team

Trick Room was an issue, as Heatran was the team’s major weakness. Rotom-W was the only decent check to Heatran in Trick Room. Landorus-T is an issue too, but the only when scarfed since much of the team outspeeds the Assault Vest variety. I went 7-2 in Swiss, with my losses coming in round 4 to a Trick Room Heatran/Mega Gardevoir team and round 9 to the eventual champion.

Another issue is the fact most of the Pokemon on my team have an inaccurate move. The team relies on these moves to function correctly, and this means the team has the potential to lose games due to RNG. This cost me dearly in game 3 of Top 8. Every move was there for a reason, but they made the team weak in that sense.

If you ever want to run the team, I never used Excadrill during Nationals and would recommend trying out another Pokemon that helps against Heatran and Landorus-T a bit better.

The Day Before Swiss

The day before Swiss was the main registration day, with the TCG Swiss being played in the background. There was a senior and his father in line behind me, and we talked about how this was his son’s first major event while we waited. I gave advice to the kid and tried to help him out with some strategizing. By the time we hit the start of the line, we had managed to talk about the location and our personal lives. We had a few small tournaments, and I got to meet some of the most amazing Australian VGC Players. I met Phil Nguyen (Boomguy), Nihal Noor (UchihaX96), Arvin Banerjee (EspyyVGC), and countless others. It was a really fun day, and I was feeling so excited for what Nationals would bring to the table tomorrow.

Swiss

The big day had arrived, and we starting to fill the venue at around 9:30 that morning. Registration closed a little after 10 AM. At that point, we began the grueling 9 rounds of best-of-3. matches The expected time to finish was 10 PM for the Masters division. I took some notes, but didn’t write down names of my opponent each round. I also did not write down which Pokemon I brought, as I was concerned with my writing speed.

Round 1

I gave my first opponent my notes after our battle so he could improve on his performance. In our second game, he onl yhad a Toxic Cresselia left against my Ferrothorn (which Cresselia couldn’t touch) and two other Pokemon. I do not remember any other Pokemon on his team, but I think he learned from our match and went 5-4 on the day. I was glad that I could help him! We played two games, and I won both. (1-0)

Round 2 vs Brendan Sims

This was a super intense match and I enjoyed it so much. It was definitely one of the best of the day. He ran a team of Bulky Mega Kangaskhan, Amoongus, Scarf Hydreigon, Gengar, Thundurus, and Blaziken. I remember he led off the first game with Amoonguss and Kangaskhan. The first game was really hard, as I realized my team struggled with Speed Boost Life Orb Blaziken. The game went to me in the end, with Will-O-Wisp Volcarona putting in a lot of work. Brendan came back and won the second game quite convincingly. The third was very close, with Thunder Wave Rotom-W doing the work this time around. I managed to play around my Salamence being paralyzed by his Thundurus by making a good call and switching my Volcarona into his Kangaskhan’s Fake Out, activating Flame Body. The set came down to my Rotom-W hitting a Hydro Pump against Blaziken in the final turn, and luckily it connected. I knocked out Blaziken and sealed up round 2. (2-0)

Round 3

My Round 3 opponent had Garchomp, Mega Venusaur, (presumed Mega) Kangaskhan, Gastrodon, Thundurus-I and Heatran.  I have little details, but I found out during the two games that he had a non-Rindo Berry Gastrodon. He also predicted my Salamence switch in one turn, but I had no reason to and the game was closed up. Definitely a fun sset. (3-0)

Round 4 vs Matthew Jiwa

This was a terrible match up right from the get go, with Matthew’s team including Mega Gardevoir, Garchomp, Rotom-Wash, Amoonguss, Scrafty, and Heatran. During the first game I suddenly realized I had a crippling weakness to Trick Room Heatran. As he blew through me, I had no chance to recover from Heatran’s Heat Waves. I remember the second game he double targeted my Rotom-W with Mega Gardevoir’s Psychic and a move from Heatran which got the KO. He sealed it up from there. Matt managed to get Top 16, and he had a great team. (3-1)

Round 5

I found out this player was from New Zealand, and his team was Talonflame, Scrafty, Arcanine, Metagross, Milotic, and Breloom. I mainly remember that Salamence’s Intimidate gave his Milotic +2 Special Attack due its ability Competitive. However, he had never seen Japan Sand and switched Breloom into a Hyper Voice. Needless to say, he lost that game and I closed up the second. Scrafty was a threat, and he made sure to use it well! (4-1)

Round 6 vs Stephan Lowings

This guy was friends with Brendan Sims, my second opponent, and it was a really cool match. His team was Mega Kangaskhan, Life Orb Blaziken, Sitrus Zapdos, Scarf Landorus-T, Leftovers Milotic, and Aegislash. He was a good player but did not expect support Volcarona, and I played that to my advantage. Either the first or second game I led with Rotom-W and Volcarona, with him having Kangaskhan and Milotic. He went for the predicted Fake Out onto Rotom-W, which I protected with. I then went for the Will-O-Wisp and burned his Mega Kangaskhan. He lost a huge amount of momentum and I carried the game to victory from there. His team was extremely well built, and I was scared of his Blaziken. He made some great predictions and called some of my switches. I believe I won this set 2-0, but I might be wrong. What is definitely true is that this was an awesome game. (5-1)

Round 7 vs Nihal Noor

This match was what I had been anticipating – a Sand team mirror match. I knew going into the match that this one would be difficult, as he was such a strong opponent. His team was composed of Landorus-Incarnate, Rotom-W, Amoonguss, Special Mega Salamence, Tyranitar, and Aegislash. Our set went to three games, and I won the last two. Predictions were made, and in the end Thunder Wave and Rock Slide helped seal the deal in the final turns of the last game. I could not believe I had beat Nihal, and it was an honourable game. It was a shame he missed Top Cut, maybe next year! (6-1)

Round 8 vs Nathan Farrugia

I went from battling one awesome guy to another. I met Nathan a few hours before the match and we had chatted a bit. He was a super nice guy and I really wanted to get this win. I wanted to set up my top cut position and a win would cement it here. He had a team of Landorus-T, Whimiscott, Mega Kangaskhan, Milotic, Zapdos, and Talonflame. His Whimsicott looked like an issue for my team, so I bought Sand every battle to remove the Focus Sash and hurt Talonflame as well. I know I bought Ferrothorn, Tyranitar, Salamence, Rotom-W and Volcarona to these games, leaving Excadrill behind each time. I distinctly remember how I was concerned with his well built team, and I feared a Heat Wave Zapdos. Fortunately, after the second game he had revealed all his moves and I knew he did not carry Heat Wave. This made Ferrothorn’s match up brilliant, bar the Talonflame. The first game he had his -1 Talonflame crit my Salamence on a switch which he had jokingly predicted. This set me back a bit, and I lost Game 1. He revealed Power-Up Punch in the second or third game, and I fixed that by intimidating his Kangaskhan and going on the offensive. As I predicted, he would not Sucker Punch. The battles were close, and Tyranitar did a lot of work in this set. I won after Tyranitar knocked out his last two Pokemon, sealing up a 7-1 record. (7-1)

Round 9 vs Matthew Roe

Little did I know, this opponent would be the Champion of Australian Nationals. His Sand team, my second Sand mirror of the tournament, concerned me, as Volcarona had a bad matchup. Interestingly, he brought Excadrill all three games, while I never brought Excadrill to battle. Matt liked to double Protect in both of our games so he could learn crucial information about my team. He ran a mixed Salamence, unlike my fully special Salamence, and I was worried about my Salamence being KO’d by his Draco Meteor when he both lead with Salamence in our second game. Thunder Wave Rotom-W did immense work in this game, but in the end I could not hold back his offense and lost, ending Swiss with a record of 7-2. I was convinced I would not cut, but when the results were posted I had made 9th in Swiss and would proceed to the Top Cut on the next day. (7-2)

Top Cut

This was the day that would decide how far I would go. I was ecstatic to get this far and I was contempt from what I had achieved. But did not mean I wanted to go home any time sooner, so we were paired with our Top 16 opponents.

Top 16 vs Alexander Poole

Alex had made top cut as well, and it was really cool to meet him. He was a super swell guy and we had a good talk before we started. However, I was scared after seeing Team Preview. His team was made of Rocky Helmet Amoonguss, Thundurus-I, Chople Berry Heatran, Chesto Rest Cresselia, Mega Kangaskhan, and Physical Sitrus Berry Swampert. He had a Trick Room Heatran as well, which was unnerving. This set went to three matches, and my notes show that he did not bring Kangaskhan to at least one game. His Heatran was presumed to have a Timid nature, as it out sped my Volcarona, and he ran Overheat as his Fire-Type move. This allowed me to get back into one of our games, as it meant I could make some plays with my Ferrothorn if the choice had to be made. The last few turns of game 3 were crazy, and I got so hyped from it. He had used his Chesto Berry already in the game, and he had just used Rest again when Cresselia was at low health. At this moment, I had Tyranitar at about 40% in the back, with a low health Rotom-W and full health Salamence. I took out his Cresselia’s partner, and we were left at a Pokemon count of 3-2. His Cresselia had Ice Beam, but I knew it would not KO Salamence as he had used it in the last game and it had failed to do so. However, he got a Critical Hit and my Mega went down. I was worried at this point, but I brought back in Tyranitar. I cleaned up with a Crunch and a Thunderbolt from Rotom-W, and I had now reached the Top 8.

Top 8 vs Lionel Pryce

This was the closing match of this wonderful event. My opponent and I were about to battle when we found out Phil and his opponent had American cartridges and the stream was incompatible with them, or something along those lines. As a result, our battle was to be streamed for all who were watching. His team was composed of Mega Kangaskhan, Sitrus Zapdos, Scarf Landorus-T, Life Orb Heatran, Assault Vest Suicune and Rocky Helmet Amoonguss. The first game, I led with Salamence and Rotom-W against his Landorus-T and Suicune. His Intimidate went before mine, which revealed the Choice Scarf. I thought he would Tailwind and Rock Slide the first turn, so I switched Salamence into Tyranitar to gain momentum over his Pokemon. He ended up switching his Landous-T out into Zapdos, which instantly made me afraid what it might do. I assumed Tailwind, which made me question Suicune’s role in his team make up. However, as he explained later, he brought it in to take what he assumed was an attack on his Landorus-T slot. His Suicune went for the Snarl, indicating he knew my Salamence was special and hurting my Rotom-W’s offensive pressure. I then went for the Thunder Wave on his Suicune, as it would cripple his Speed even if he had Tailwind up. I swap Rotom-W out to reset the stat drops and make a hard prediction on what he would do. Since his Suicune would not be doing anything well under Tailwind, I decided he would switch in his Landorus-T in that slot to Intimidate my Tyranitar. I Ice Punched the slot and did a good 80% to his Landorus-T switch. Unfortunately, I made some mistakes later on, and all I can do is try to get more information. I protected a few times and knocked out his Landorus-T to find out that his last Pokemon was Heatran and that he had chosen not to bring his Kangaskhan. This concerned me, as I brought my Volcarona for that very reason. The next game I chose Ferrothorn over Volcarona. I did make some good plays, but the inaccuracy of Power Whip and a Critical Hit on my Rotom-W left me behind a bit, and I made a mistake in not giving myself a chance to win by Rock Sliding. I forfeited when I realized I had no chance, as I had no issues conceding to a better opponent. He was an excellent player and he made Top 4, something he should be proud of!

I found a link for our streamed battle on DYoshiiTV‘s YouTube channel. The details will be more clear here.

Overall Experience And Closing Moments

The overall trip was incredible, and inspired me to shoot for Worlds next season. I will attend all local PC’s, if possible, and a Regional or two depending on a few factors. I made some amazing friends, and it gave me something to add to my VGC resume. I hope you enjoyed the report!

I would like to credit Sam Pandelis (ZeldaVGC), as he gave me self confidence going into the tournament, something I lacked as a player. He is a very good VGC player, and I hope he does well in future seasons.

I want to thank Thowra, as they made the amazing art to go with my report.

I also want to thank Joshua Spriggins (Nido), as he helped fix up an error with a spread of mine.

The post My Moth’s Got The Powder: A Top 8 Australian Masters Nationals Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This is R Inanimate, and today I’m writing about a team I’ve been using for the past few months. Unlike most of the other teams people are sharing around this time, this team did not have a particularly strong finish at any Regional event. While it did not get the big Regional finish I was looking for, it made up for it in the form of numerous minor successes. These range from things like reaching the top of the PS Ladder on an alt (~1730 rating, within 60 battles), to winning a couple Premier Challenges and Nugget Bridge live tournaments, to top cutting the 4th Nugget Bridge Major, and winning all my matches during the North American Regions Tournament held a couple months back. With the exception of 40 CP that was obtained from a Premier Challenge win using a Mega Metagross team in early January, all my CP has come from using this team or an older incarnation of it. As a result, this report will not directly reminisce upon any of my past tournament battles and instead will focus on the team itself.

Team History

As with most of my teams, I really don’t do much in terms of discussion with other players when building a team. I usually just use an idea I find interesting, or get some inspiration from something someone else uses, and put a lot of thought into refining it into a solid team. For this team, as strange as it sounds, I started off with my Mega Metagross team. For reference, it was:

Metagross / Togekiss / Breloom / Hydreigion / Landorus-T / Rotom-W

I often found that Hydreigon’s middling speed stat was a problem as it often made it unable to cover the weaknesses that Metagross had, dispite Hydreigon and Metagross having some strong synergize in theory. This led me to try to thing of different Pokemon to use in Hydreigon’s stead…

One of the Pokemon I found surprisingly effective was Infernape. Infernape with Life Orb was able to pick up OHKOs on Heatran, Aegislash, and Kangaskhan, three things that can be hard on Metagross to fend off, its high speed and KO potential allowed it to become an immediate threat to opponent teams. While Infernape provided some stronger offense, its defense left something to be desired for this team. I eventually just discontinued working on this team. But this led me to try to find a way to keep Infernape and Metagross as an offensive core, and build around that.

For people who ask my why I never tried to use Togekiss Excadrill again in 2015…I tried, it just didn’t work out that well. The Salamence on this team was a special Salamence, and I often found myself bringing both Metagross and Salamence to games… and mega evolving Metagross. This team was pretty short lived, but got me thinking about Mega Salamence instead. At some point I changed one of my Salamence’s moves to Double-Edge, making it a mixed set, and that is when the ball really started to get rolling.

I would consider this the starting point for this team, as it was the first team draft with Mega Salamence that I used at actual events. I kept my Life Orb Infernap and mixed Salamence from the previous team and built around that. I ended up putting in Gothitelle, since I thought that Shadow Tag and Helping Hand would be strong supportive tools for Salamence. Bisharp replaced Metagross, while the Rotom-W and Togekiss stayed from the previous team. Togekiss’ role did change to being a Scarfed Togekiss though.

This team was pretty fun to use, but I ended up getting a bit ahead of myself with this one. Bulky Electric-types, Milotic, Gengar, and worst of all, Sylveon, gave this team a ton on problems but practice matches always ended up with me somehow getting away with the win. I managed to get 2nd place at a Premier Challenge in the BC area with this team, going 5-0 in Swiss and only dropping games at the end in the finals, and was 2-0 in the Major with the team going into Winter Regionals. The team got exposed for its flaws pretty hard at Portland, as I went 4-4, barely getting any points at 64th place. The team had a lot of poor matchups that really required me to put in extra work to outplay my opponents and pull off my wins. While it is fun for me to try to outsmart my opponents every time to earn my victories, it does mean that I have to be playing constantly at the top of my game just to keep myself at level. A bad idea for Regionals when I was feeling fatigued from the drive down to Portland and just a bit under the weather at the time.

After Regionals, I knew I needed to change my team. In showing a few friends the team beforehand, they all told me the same thing: they didn’t really know what Gothitelle was doing on the team, and that it was a bit out of place. As such, Gothitelle was first to be cut, as I did agree with that sentiment.

This was the team I used in the Feburary International Challenge that occurred shortly after the Portland Regional. I gave Clefairy a try over Gothitelle, and used the tournament as a way to test its effectiveness as a support for Salamence. The Zapdos I used here was a Choice Specs variant, which I also wanted to try out. The results were a bit dissapointing for me, as I went 19-11, not even a 2:1 win ratio. I was able to get a lot of information from the battles I played, though. Clefairy worked fairly well, but it relies heavily on the rest of the team to pick up the offensive role, something I wasn’t always able to provide with how the team was built. Zapdos was a poor fit in practice. It has decent typing, and superior stats over a Rotom-Wash performing the same role… but having half my team Rock and Ice weak was an extreme liability. Also, Zapdos’s matchup against Heatran being weaker than Rotom-W’s made my issues against it a noticeable problem.

I played the February International Challenge on a 2nd cart. I transferred the team over, and tried it again for an additional 30 battles, but I replaced the Specs Zapdos with a Specs Rotom-Wash. I pretty much ended up with the same win/loss record, at 20-10 instead of 19-11 but over 60 rating points higher. I felt a lot better with this record though, as the opponents were a lot tougher and the team itself was playing better than it had with Zapdos. But a lot of glaring holes in the team still existed. I’m not sure whether I should be sad for my team that my win rate against Sylveon teams was about 50/50, or sad for Slyveon that its win rate against me was ONLY 50/50 given just how weak my team was to it.

After the International Challenge, I gave a bit of thought to how I could patch up some of the heavy weaknesses that the team had, which finally leads us to:

The Team:

I replaced my Togekiss on the team with a Kangaskhan. I was a bit worried that the team would lose its identity a bit with a situation where I would always bring Clefairy and Kangaskhan instead of using the Salamence that was the original focus of the team, but Kangaskhan was incorporated nicely into the team, and shares the spotlight for being the team’s Mega somewhat evenly with my Salamence. A few slight modifications were made for my team, which brings it to the form that it has been as since around the start of April.

Nicknames for this report were the nicknames I had during the Regions Tourney, and the Seattle Regionals. As I was on Team West Coast, the nickname theme is of characters from the Seihou Project, or the Western Project, series of shooter games.

Infernape (M) @ Life Orb ***Gates
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 108 Atk / 188 SpA / 212 Spe -> 68 Atk / 188 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
– Fake Out
– Overheat
– Close Combat
– Feint

Mixed Infernape. Fake Out Support. Infernape is an interesting Pokemon, to say the least. It can provide a lot of immediate offensive pressure with its speed and powerful STAB moves, but its Talonflame-esque lack of durability means one misstep and it’s lights-out. Sporting a faster Fake Out than Kangaskhan can often allow me to dictate flow of the battle right from the start, even if I often opt to just go in swinging with my other moves. The main selling point to Infernape lies in its speed and KO potentials. The original EV spread of 108 Atk / 188 SpA / 212 Spe allowed Infernape to easily pick up KOs against Heatran, Kangaskhan, Amoonguss, and Aegislash while still having enough to move before Garchomp. Specifically, this Infernape was guaranteed to OHKO 252 HP Aegislash with Overheat, and had a 7/8 chance to OHKO 252 HP Mega kangaskhan and a 3/4 chance to OHKO 252 HP Heatran.

Over time, I shifted 40 EVs from Attack into Speed, maxing it out. The reason for this was that I wanted my Infernape to outspeed Liepard and regular Lopunny, thus giving Infernape the faster Fake Out. Also, since Terrakions rarely respects the fact that Infernape ties it in Base Speed, I felt that being able to have a 50/50 chance to land a Close Combat on Terrakion before they can move was helpful. Especially on turns where I intend to sacrifice Infernape for a free switch in.

There are many options for Infernape’s last move, including Protect, Encore, Stone Edge, Gunk Shot, Quick Guard, Mach Punch, Feint, Heat Wave, and Hidden Power Ice. I originally had Protect when using Infernape with Mega Metagross, but then switched over to Feint for this team. Infernape used to be on a team where it was more important to try to preserve it so it could get the OHKOs it was intended for, making Protect more vital. But with this team I could more often afford having Infernape go down, so the extra offensive pressure I could apply with Feint became became more important. Punishing opponents for obvious Protects, or finishing off targets at a sliver of HP can allow me to keep up the offensive momentum that the team relies on.

Salamence (M) @ Salamencite ***Erich
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Draco Meteor
– Double-Edge
– Protect

Mixed Mega Salamence, my primary mega. This is a Pokemon that I tried for fun originally. The moveset and EV spread probably looks like I messed up somewhere, noting that at some point this Salamence had Earthquake over Draco Meteor, thus more Physical moves than Special moves dispite an EV spread of 252 SpAtk / 252 Speed, but believe me, it’s intentional. I’ve had a number of people ask me what my Mixed Mega Salamence EV spread was. It always seems to surprise them when I just tell them “It’s 252/252″.

When Mega Salamence was initially announced, one concern people had with trying to handle Mega Salamence was the unpredictability that comes with its movesets. It could be Physical, it could be Special. It could try to set up with Dragon Dance, or it could be a mixed set. In some rare occasions it might not even be Mega at all. But in practice, things sort of led to Dragon Dance Mega Salamence sets being the most popular set for it outside of Japan. Also, lot of the time you can have a good idea of what the Salamence is trying to do once you see one non-Protect move from it. A lot of the potential threat of unpredictability was lost.

By running a Mixed Mega Salamence, I can bring back some of that lost unpredictability. People may try to Will-o-Wisp and Intimidate my Salamence to negate it as a physical powerhouse only to be screamed at instead for guessing wrong. On the other hand, trainers who think that they are safe because Hyper Voice deals about 40% to their Pokemon can get a very rude awakening when they see Salamence go in for the kill with a Double-Edge. While using a Mixed Mega Salamence has an extra layer of surprise on it, it doesn’t need to rely on surprise to be successful against opponents. Having both Hyper Voice and Double-Edge makes it extremely easy for Salamence to attack relentlessly, and drive right through opposing teams if given a slight bit of momentum. It’s a pretty entertaining set to run, and I know a number of other players have adapted a similar Mixed moveset for their own Salamence, so give it a try.

Bisharp (F) @ Focus Sash ***Muse
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Sucker Punch
– Iron Head
– Assurance
– Protect

Sashed Bisharp. Intimidate Deterrent. Standard Bisharp fare, or at least it was until Bisharp got pulled back a year and had to retake 2014, for assuring reasons. The Life Orb on the team is held by Infernape, so naturally the Focus Sash falls to Bisharp. The insurance that Focus Sash provides allows me to play Bisharp a bit more aggressively than I’d normally be able to, which can allow me to sieze momentum in battles. Bisharp is slower than most of the Pokemon on my team so I found Assurance to be a better fit than Knock Off. While Knock Off is still a solid move, I was just a little tired of hitting things and activating Sitrus Berries, simultaneously healing the opponent and weakening my own Knock Off.

These days, there are a lot more Pokemon that aim to outspeed Bisharp, which makes life tough for our metallic hero. I’d say that Bisharp has two, maybe three, solid roles for the team and has become a bit difficult to use aside from those roles. Roles being:

1. It works well as a way to deter Intimidate users and can punish them hard when they feed Bisharp a +1 boost.
2. Bisharp is effective at harassing Trick Room setters, often being able to do a heavy amount of damage to them, if not just flat out KO them before they have a chance to set up anything
3. Strong priority, which helps on a few occasions like facing against Rain.

As such, Bisharp is my least used Pokemon on this team, but in a similar way to how it was my least used Pokemon on my 2013 team, it forces opponents to react to it when they see one on Team Preview.

Clefairy (F) @ Eviolite ***Hirano
Ability: Friend Guard
EVs: 156 HP / 252 Def / 100 SpD
Bold Nature
– Icy Wind
– Protect
– Helping Hand
– Follow Me

Friend Guard Clefairy. Redirection Support. A shoutout to Crow, for being one of the first few players who had tried to use a Clefairy at an event, and to CT MikotoMisaka and Mancuso for reaching T4 and finals, respectively, acting as a proof of concept of Clefairy’s effectiveness. It was a Pokemon that I had considered using in the past, but didn’t really explore much until the successes it had Winter Regionals mentioned. This Clefairy has a simple EV spread which allows it to either survive Aegislash’s Flash Cannon or Life Orb Bisharp’s Iron Head when Clefairy is at full HP due to Eviolite. It’s 4 moves are pretty straightforward as far as being a Supportive Pokemin goes. Follow Me for redirection support, Helping Hand to increase power, Protect to keep itself on the field longer, and Icy Wind as a way of speed control that my team woefully lacks. But let’s face it, that stuff isn’t why Clefairy is here. Let’s talk about Friend Guard.

Friend Guard reduces the damage that Clefairy’s ally takes down to 75%. Another way to look at it is that it improves the durability of Clefairy’s ally by 1.33x. A Sitrus Berry, often considered one of the best items in VGC, improves a Pokemon’s durability by 1.25x, and only as long as the berry actually activates. Having Clefairy on the field is sort of like giving a slightly more effective Sitrus Berry to your ally, provided Clefairy stays on the field. Mega Kangaskhan with Sitrus Berry? Mega Salamence with Sitrus Berry? Think about those for a moment. Yeah, Friend Guard is a pretty amazing thing.

The boost can often turn 2HKOs into 3HKOs, leading to a number of situations where I can just Protect with Clefairy, and even if my opponent doubles into my other Pokemon, it will survive. Then I can just redirect attacks away and further extend the staying power of my attacking Pokemon. The only drawback is that Friend Guard is tied to Clefairy, and Clefairy will have to rely on its partner 99% of the time in order to get any damaging done towards the opposing team. What a friend.

Rotom-Wash @ Choice Scarf ***VIVIT
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 44 HP / 252 SpA / 212 Spe
Timid Nature
– Thunderbolt
– Hydro Pump
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Rain Dance

Scarf Rotom-W. Surprise Utility. If there was one Pokemon that could really catch opponents by surprise, it would be this one. It was originally a Specs Rotom-W, but I changed it to a Scarfed one in order to help my matchup against Pokemon like Greninja. The EV spread puts Rotom-W at 146 Speed, allowing it to outspeed Scarf Base 80s, Mega Sceptile, and most importantly; Adamant Scarf Landorus-T. It can punish people for making lazy, luck-fishing plays like trying to deal with Rotom-W by flinching it with Rock Slides, and is a relatively solid Pokemon to clean up in late-game situations. While the lack of HP EVs does make this Rotom rather frail, it’s typing still makes it relatively easy to switch in on resisted attacks.

Rotom-W’s moveset is mostly self-explainatory, so let’s just talk about the move that is interesting. Rain Dance. Rain Dance is here as a specific tech to Charizard Y, much like placing Rain Dance onto a Choice Scarf Politoed. I added it on as Rotom-W’s 4th move as I found that the team would quickly fall against teams using both Charizard Y and Heatran that just overpower my team with Sun boosted Fire moves. By having Rain Dance, I could stifle the opponent’s offensive presence which could open up an opportunity to deal some damage to my opponent, or set up in the case of Kangaskhan.

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite ***Milia
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 132 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 116 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Return
– Sucker Punch
– Power-Up Punch
– Protect

Protect Kangaskhan. Backup Mega. No surprises at all that when I added a Kangaskhan onto the team, that it would be one that has Protect and Power-up Punch to go along with Clefairy. A lot of Pokemon that Mega Salamence tends to struggle with are Pokemon that can be dealt with by the use of Mega Kangaskhan. Pokemon like Sylveon, and Bisharp are often in danger of being swiftly taken out by Mega Kangaskhan’s attacks, while Pokemon like Rotom-W, Cresselia, and Suicune will often lack in offensive strength and gives Kangaskhan opportunities to strengthen itself with Power-up Punches. It’s EVs allow Kangaskhan to hit 135 Speed after going Mega, thus outspeed Breloom. Attack was maximized, and the remainder was added into HP for some non-specific boost to its durability. Retrospectively, it apparently will survive a +2 Flash Cannon from Aegislash, guaranteed. That’s cool.

Overview

Is anyone surprised that my team ends up being a high offense team held together by a Redirection Pokemon? The Pokemon may be completely different to what I successfully used in past years, but the concepts that the team runs by are definitely in line with past years. Let’s look at a few key features of the team:

Mixed Offense

The Infernape and Salamence on my team run both physical and special attacks and are able to hit decently hard on both sides. As such the team effectively has 3 Special Attackers and 4 Physical Attackers. This makes the team more flexible when dealing with things like Intimidate or Assault Vests that are used weaken one type of offense. Also, for Infernape and Salamence, it means that cutting Special Attack by using Overheat/Draco Meteor doesn’t stop them from keeping up their offensive presence. They’re also both Naive nature, hence the report title.

Redirection

As always, redirection is a big part of keeping my team alive. Clefairy’s role on the team is to try to buy enough time for me to put myself into a sweeping situation. It’s presence makes it a lot easier to stall my way through Tailwind or Trick Room, and often times it’s good for me as long as I can get it to sit around for a couple of turns. Redirection isn’t always about preventing damage however. Being able to take a Thunder Wave or Swagger for the team is extremely helpful in the effort of trying to remove status users. Clefairy also stops dumb gimmicks like Guard Split, Psych Up strategies, Heal Pulse, Simple Beam, etc.

Dual Mega

In 2015, a lot of teams have gone back to using a single Mega Pokemon. There’s a lot more variety in non-megas that can be used to create a strong team. But, for this team, I’ve decided to stick with a dual Mega strategy, using both Mega Salamence and Mega Kangaskhan. The two are able to complement each other well on the team, covering a wide variety of matchups effectively. Salamence acts as a sort of “fast mode” for the team. It attacks endlessly with double Flying moves, and is a complete terror for Fighting-types and Amoonguss, that may be used against Kangaskhan, to play against. Opponents who use more bulky teams, that are able to deal with Salamence’s onslaught may find themselves facing a Kangaskhan instead. With Power-up Punch and Clefairy support, teams that try to go defensive against me will instead find themselves facing a +2 Kangaskhan without enough firepower to break through Redirection/Friend Guard. Pokemon like Rotom-W, Cresselia, Suicune, Milotic, and bulky Thundurus, who are often a good match against Salamence will struggle at stopping Kangaskhan from setting up and rolling over their teams at +2.

Lack of Luck

If you look at the movesets, there are only two moves on the team with any secondary effect (that isn’t 100% chance to activate). There’s also only a small handful of moves that aren’t 100% accurate. As such, the team doesn’t generate very many luck factors, positive or negative, for itself. This means that the team can focus more on playing the game, and not “playing” the game. While it wasn’t an active decision to make the team like this, it certainly helps in making the battles I play with it a lot cleaner. Forcing me to rely on solid decision making, and a bit less on weighing odds.

High Speed

3 of my Pokemon have 170+ speed stats. The ones that don’t have Priority moves, or are Clefairy, who doesn’t really attack. The team uses that initial advantage in speed to try to go on the attack as soon as possible instead of utilizing speed control tactics in order to gain an advantage. As stated earlier, Clefairy’s presence on the team also acts as a way to disrupt the opponent’s ability to control Speed in the game or to take advantage of it.

Sample Lead Combinations

Here are a few examples in terms of Lead combinations that I used with my team:

/+

Infernape/Clefairy + Kangaskhan

This trio is used to try to set up a simple Kangaskhan sweep. Clefairy and Kangaskhan have been proven on teams to be a deadly combo against those unprepaired, as teams without a strong amount of spread moves or Intimidate can find themselves quickly overwhelmed by a +2 or +4 Kangaskhan.

More often though, I have a lot of situations where I can lead Infernape and Kangaskhan. Infernape can threaten Fake Out, and also be a threat with its STAB move KO potential, which leaves a number of opportunities for Kangaskhan to get off a Power-up Punch. If I’m worried about helmets, or swinging into Protect, as I often am… Infernape is usually the victim of Power-up Punch boosting action. Once Kangaskhan is at +2, it isn’t too difficult to switch out or try to sacrifice Infernape in order to bring in Clefairy to support the sweep.

Infernape + Salamence

This is a lead set up that often feels the most conservative on my team. I drop the opponent’s Attack, I have Fake Out pressure, and I have some strong immediate offense that isn’t hindered by the opponent’s Intimidate. Rotom-W and Clefairy also have a pretty easy time switching in for either of my leads.

Clefairy + Salamence

Redirect + Spread move set up. Clefairy covers for Salamence while it screams relentlessly at the opponent. The duo gives me a decent amount of control over the opponent, such that I can either try to go for KOs, or try to leave things at low HP to clean up after Clefairy is taken out.

/+

Infernape/Salamence + Bisharp

This is sort of a go-to lead in order to handle Trick Room set ups. Very few Trick Room users will be able to handle taking an Overheat/Hyper Voice followed up by an Assurance, allowing my team to have the ability to stop Trick Room from ever going up, and putting me in a big advantage in a battle.

Threats

No team is without their fair share of threats. But, a good team should be one that is aware of its own weaknesses, and can prepare in order to overcome any adversary. Keeping the list as single Pokemon threats, divided into categories, I try to look out for the following:

Bulky Electrics

My team has no Electric resistances. Bulky Electric-types can stay around on the field for a while against most of my team and deal out consistent damage or safely perform supportive roles. Kangaskhan does match up strongly against them though.

Strong Spread Moves

Clefairy can only act as a damage buffer for so long against the likes of Sylveon, Mega Gardevoir and Charizard-Y, who have hard hitting spread moves. As such it is important for me to be able to handle these Pokemon quickly, to minimize the amount of damage I’ll be taking. Otherwise I’ll lose out on the damage trade, fast.

Ghosts

It’s a bit difficult to describe, but Ghost-types often exist in such a way that trying to deal with them can be a bit awkward for my team.

Mawile

A special shoutout to Mawile, as it is one mega that has a strong matchup against both my Salamence and my Kangaskhan, along with having the ability to overpower and OHKO Clefairy in a single hit. Unless I manage to Intimidate Mawile, it has the ability to OHKO 5/6 of my Pokemon

At an End of Naive Ideals

While the team has gotten a large number of small scale victories, it fell flat at the two Regional events where I used it. I have a bad tendency to believe in the strength of a single team a lot longer than I should.  Going into US Nationals, I continued with using the same team. The following changes were made to my team in preparation for the biggest event of the season, in chronological order:

Infernape: Naive -> Hasty Nature, EV Spread changed to 4 HP / 60 Atk / 188 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Clefairy: Bold -> Calm Nature, EV Spread changed to 156 HP / 220 Def / 132 SpD

When playing using my team before US Nationals, Pokemon such as Timid LO Thundurus, LO Heatran, Mega Gardevoir and offensive Mega Gengar were seeing a decent amount of usage. For Infernape, switching to a Hasty Nature allowed it to survive attacks like Modest 252 Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice, LO Thundurus Thunderbolt, or Mega Gengar Sludge Bomb when it is at full HP. Clefairy’s EV spread was changed to allow it to take LO Heatran Flash Cannon, or Mega Gengar Sludge Bomb, at the expense of being unable to survive Mega Metagross Iron Head — a shift in matchups to something I felt more comfortable with for my team.

Rotom-W: Speed Stat – 149
Mega Kangaskhan: Speed Stat – 140

A slight amount of speed creeping. Rotom-W’s speed was increased in order to put myself ahead of kingofmars’ Landorus-T, which I knew was Jolly and a bit faster than 146. 149 also put Rotom-W ahead of Mega Aerodactyl or Mega Alakazam, however unlikely those would be to show up. Mega Kangaskhan’s speed hit 140 to be ahead of Smeargle.

Bisharp: Item changed to Safety Goggles, EV spread changed to 100 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 148 Spe

This was the last change I made, and the biggest one. My Bisharp no longer had a Focus Sash. Instead it had Goggles in order to improve the team’s match up against Amoonguss reliant teams such as the Gardevoir Amoonguss archtype and the Japan Sand teams. The EV spread takes out a sizable amount of speed from Bisharp in order to improve its durability. There is no reason for Bisharp to remain at 122 Speed stat, as any Pokemon around that speed area will ensure to creep themselves past that number, and having 122 just to tie other Bisharps is irrelevant. By reducing Bisharp down to 109 Speed, it provided enough durability for Bisharp to take a hit in various situations including: 252 Mega Salamence Flamethrower, 252+ Mega Gardevoir spread Hyper Voice, -1 252+ Excadrill LO Earthquake, and -1 252 Tyranitar Low Kick. Goggles on Bisharp was a bit of a secret tech for the team, as it was very easy for me to hide what item Bisharp had. In practice, the number of times I had Bisharp go from full HP to zero, was no more than 5 times in over 100 battles, and I had a lot of situations where I could bluff having a Focus Sash and pressure my opponent out of a position where they had a win all but locked up.

Unfortunately for me, my team once again fell a bit short of the mark. After a strong 5-0 start to Day 1, I ended the day going 6-3, missing Day 2 and subsequently eliminating me from contention for a World’s invite. While the number of invites expanded by 2.5x times this year, it seems that so did the competition level of high end players. Thus my performance throughout the season was inadequate. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit dissapointed that I’ll be sitting out as a spectator this time for 2015 Worlds, but it would be truly naive for me to believe that the impossible request of an invite to Worlds from the NA region every year would be an easy task. This marks the end of my 2015 VGC Season. Good luck to those competing in Boston. See you guys in 2016 (or Fall 2015).

The post Following a Mix of Naive Ideals: A 2015 Season Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Howdy folks, my name is Joseph “lucariojr” Brummett (often misspelled at events as ‘Burmett’ or worse), and in this report, I’ll be going through my team. I don’t remember most of my matches at this point and I don’t see much reason to go into too much detail about my weekend.

Team Preview

I’ll say upfront that this team was heavily inspired by someone else’s team that I saw on another regionals stream. In fact, it’s the same six Pokémon as the guy used, but whose name I can’t remember at the time of writing. I didn’t have anything better to run to be quite honest, and the team looked really solid, especially since I was hearing some good things about Rhyperior and Cresselia at the time. It also catered to my play-style of having two separate modes to one team and it fulfilled my somewhat misguided desire to use Mega Charizard Y (who doesn’t love the fact that Charizard is top tier now?), so I decided to run with it after looking at it in a teambuilder. I happened to have 4 out of the 6 Pokémon already as well, so that definitely helped things since I was planning the team the Wednesday before the regional.

While I did use a team preview screen as a reference, I didn’t have any prior knowledge of any sets because the stream quality at home is lousy apparently. I did see Super Fang Scrafty for a brief second, so that’s pretty much the extent of how hard I netdecked it. Going into making the sets, I knew:

1. Heatran’s damage output is dumb even with the sun, without a Life Orb, in my opinion. So it gets the Life Orb. This is the logic some Aegislash run on nowadays as well.
2. Expert Belt Venusaur is kind of poor as well, so Venusaurite is the next best thing. I don’t think highly of double Mega Venusaur & Charizard otherwise.

With these two decisions, it pretty much cemented every other set.

The Team

Charizard “Gertha” @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 164 HP / 4 Def / 136 SpA / 204 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 30 SpA / 30 SpD
– Heat Wave
– Solar Beam
– Hidden Power Ground
– Protect

I wanted this Charizard to have a bit more Special Attack than I usually use. Normally I run Modest with no investment, but since it’s not using Overheat, it needs the investment to work. With Terrakion going out of style, all I really need to watch out for is Rock Slide from Landorus, and after it has been intimidated it allows Charizard to survive. I don’t recall going too in-depth with these EVs, honestly, but it did what it needed to do. The Hidden Power Ground here was a requirement to avoid my Sun lead being completely walled by opposing Heatran. The nickname comes from a character created by Jim Henson, often described as “an ugly battle-axe” and “a bitterly sarcastic dragon”.

Venusaur “EarlSinclair” @ Venusaurite
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 188 HP / 252 SpA / 68 Spe
IVs: 30 Def, even SpA
Modest Nature
– Giga Drain
– Sludge Bomb
– Hidden Power Ice
– Protect

The Speed investment allows it to outspeed Scarf Landorus-T in sunlight and has respectable bulk in Mega form. Using an offensive Mega Venusaur definitely caught some people off guard throughout the day and is probably my favorite way to use it. Ultra-defensive Venusaur has a tendency to just kind of sit there, do nothing and die in vain if it happens to take a little too much damage. In comparison, offensive Mega Venusaur is much more efficient at killing the various Fairy and Water-types that are around, as well as Landorus-T. The nickname is that of the dumb father figure of the sitcom Dinosaurs.

Heatran “MiamiHeatran” @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 44 Def / 212 SpA
Modest Nature
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power
– Substitute
– Protect

The defensive EVs allow Heatran to survive Mega Salamence’s Earthquake the majority of the time, but it isn’t the Heatran I was planning on bringing anyway. The Life Orb definitely allowed Heatran to pull its weight as well, but by round 2 I discovered I was using the wrong Heatran. I had wanted Timid and a faster spread, but as you can see, I actually ended up using Modest with no investment. This almost cost me in a round where I had to face a Bisharp, because contrary to what you might think of a team with two Fire-types, a Ground-type and a Fighting-type, this team doesn’t really like Bisharp. Or maybe I just don’t like Bisharp personally. It owes me money.

Thinking back on it, I actually had a chance to correct this since a judge said something about my itemless Heatran before registering, so I had a chance to correct it, but didn’t. Oh well. Otherwise, there wasn’t much difference since it had the right moves anyway, though in hindsight Substitute probably wasn’t the best move on a hyper offense Heatran. The nickname comes from that one basketball team in Florida.

Cresselia “☆Estelle☆” @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpA
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 4 Spe
– Ice Beam
– Psychic
– Trick Room
– Helping Hand

The EV investment allows Cresselia to survive Bisharp’s Knock Off and helps KO Landorus-T and Mega Salamence. Cresselia’s Special Attack investment hits some decent benchmarks, but it’s usually helped by any Fake Out damage Scrafty provides, allowing it to pick up knock-outs it otherwise wouldn’t be able to. I didn’t use Helping Hand much if at all, so maybe that slot could’ve been put to better use. The 4 IVs in the Speed stat weren’t ideal, but I remember it helping me outspeed and KO something before a Modest Aegislash could intervene. The nickname comes from a British actress/rapper.

Scrafty “Dr. Teeth” @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Fake Out
– Drain Punch
– Knock Off
– Super Fang

A very basic set and spread that does exactly what it aims to do. I usually used Fake Out on key targets like Landorus-T and Mega Salamence to get them into range for both Cresselia and regular Venusaur to pick up the necessary knock-outs. Super Fang was useful to get loads of damage off and weaken stuff like Mega Venusaur. In tandem with Knock Off, it meant that Scrafty had a lot of utility even when it got burned, which is a problem I had with Scrafty last season, though I didn’t find myself using it as often as I thought I would. The nickname comes from the Muppet of the same name.

Rhyperior “Vinny” @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 244 HP / 158 Atk / 108 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Rock Slide
– Earthquake
– Drill Run
– Protect

I think Rhyperior is overhyped. Do I like it? Yeah, it’s got great dual STABs for the metagame and it’s a beefy monster; the defensive EVs here helping Rhyperior survive Amoonguss’s Giga Drain and bulkier Water-types’ STAB moves in sunlight. But it’s either carrying the team or being complete dead weight, with the option to leave it on the bench often a favorable one against some teams. It seems like there’s absolutely no in-between. I tried to conserve it in some games, which was probably a mistake given the nature of the Weakness Policy, so maybe I’m just playing it wrong. It was definitely fun to use though and it definitely did pick up some hype knock-outs on Milotic’s after a Weakness Policy boost, so maybe Rhyperior is like Captain Falcon in Smash Bros? Anyway, I think I’d rather give it another item if I were to use it again, but oh yeah we don’t have any Gems to slap on it, do we? Forget I said anything, then. The nickname comes from a character in the animated movie Atlantis.

Overall

With respect to the team as a whole… I think it has a pretty bad match-up with the sand and Mega Salamence core that’s going around on Battle Spot right now and was the team that Angel Miranda used to beat me in both round 2 and top cut. I also don’t particularly care for the Kangaskhan matchup since nothing really OHKOs it, though it’s most certainly playable. I think my Salamence and sand match-up is playable as well, since my round 2 game was incredibly close and my first game of my set with Angel went smoothly more or less, so I think I can attribute my loss to me losing my nerve in the second game of our set. After the first round of Top Cut I knew I would have to fight him again, so I went over my notes and formulated a little game plan to follow, which I promptly abandoned after getting flinched with Scrafty and failing to pick up a critical knockout.

It’s really easy to get out-led with this team and things can go downhill very fast, as is the case with teams with more than one ‘mode’, I think. I think the attitude I went into regionals with helped a lot as well, as a lot of my opponents that had nice teams simply second guessed themselves one turn and kind of went on tilt because of that, sometimes visibly. A prime example of this is one of my opponents with a solid Gothitelle and Mawile team, switched in their Mawile turn two into a very dangerous position and was promptly roasted by Heatran. I’m not going to dismiss my opponents (you guys had cool teams!!) but staying calm and taking time to make smart moves really helps. Hmm, maybe I should take my own advice when I’m in top cut…

Anyway, I can’t really go into detail about my matches at this point because I didn’t record them and I only have team preview notes. Sorry if anyone wanted to read my disjointed play-by-plays. However, I do want to give shout-outs to Toler Webb, Caleb Ryor, Bryce Stewart, Roarke Tholen (you’re a horrible smash teacher, by the way), and Nicholas Peckman. It was great meeting you guys there!

Thanks for reading this report! Hopefully you enjoyed reading about the team and my thoughts on it.

The post A Sight for Venusaur Eyes: A Georgia Top 8 Team Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey, I’m Whitney Johnson and I’m relatively new to the whole competitive Pokemon scene. I’ve been playing since good ol’ Red and Blue but didn’t get into competitive battling until the release of X/Y when I found out that there was a regional tournament fairly close to where I live. After having some success in 2014 (cutting at the Kansas regional to finish 6th) and a fairly lackluster 2015 season prior to the Kansas regional (with 2 top 64 regional finishes) I was ready for a strong performance at my home regional.

While I had a really disappointing finish (4-3) at the Premier Challenge the day before the Regional in Overland Park, it gave me some good practice, and helped to calm some nerves going into the main event. I made one change overnight and was ready to go.

The Team

Togekiss @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 228 HP / 164 Def / 116 SpD
Bold Nature
– Air Slash
– Follow Me
– Tailwind
– Encore

I started the team with Togekiss and Kangaskhan, because I liked Togekiss’ ability to eat the fighting moves aimed at Kangaskhan like nobody’s business, as well as the Tailwind support allowing me to run a slightly bulkier Kangaskhan anyways because I could set up Tailwind to make up for the lack of speed investment. I decided to use Encore over Protect or Roost because prior to building this team I had been using a team featuring Whimsicott where Encore was able to lock down games for me. I knew that it would be unexpected on Togekiss which would help for baiting Protects or other similar moves that I want to lock my opponent into, and with the pressure Kangaskhan put on the opponent I was able to set up a free Tailwind on the double Protect, and then Encore the opposing Pokemon that Kangaskhan couldn’t KO on turn 2. The EV spread on this Togekiss survive Jolly 252 Mega Metagross Iron Head and Timid 252 Life Orb Thundurus-I Thunderbolt.

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 76 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Fake Out
– Double-Edge
– Low Kick
– Crunch 

Originally I had Power-Up Punch and Return on this Kangaskhan, thinking I could Power-Up Punch my own Togekiss on turn 1 when I predicted a double Protect, but that just didn’t ever pan out in practice and so I decided to go for the more immediate power offered by Double-Edge and Low Kick. Nearly everyone who looked at this team for me prior to Regionals had something to say about not using Sucker Punch. The thing that Crunch does is prevents end game Ghost type stall fests. With Tailwind support I didn’t feel like I was ever losing much due to not having the priority, and since I made the team with the main goal being to be able to navigate through swiss I was able to exploit obvious predictions that my opponents had to make assuming I had Sucker Punch. The EV’s outspeed +1 Mega Salamence under Tailwind, this also puts her above max speed base 70s for nailing Bisharp and being able to beat the common weather abusers once I get Tailwind up.

Hydreigon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Earth Power
– Fire Blast

Choice Specs Hydreigon hits like an absolute monster, and it’s speed tier is another that can really take advantage of Tailwind. It’s another Pokemon that greatly benefits from Togekiss’ Follow Me thanks to Togekiss being immune to Dragon types and 4x resisting Fighting types. Obviously the shared Ice weakness is unfortunate, but I guess I can’t have everything. The moves are pretty straight forward, and I opted for Fire Blast over Flamethrower because Earth Power hits all of the relevant Steel types for the same damage, and Fire Blast is able to OHKO Amoonguss variants that are EVed to survive the Draco Meteor.

Ferrothorn @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Atk / 84 Def / 12 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Power Whip
– Gyro Ball
– Leech Seed
– Protect

While the team started out as being focused around Mega Kangaskhan and a supporting cast to help her sweep opposing teams, once I added Ferrothorn it really turned into a “remove all fire types and win with Leech Seed” type of team. Originally I just added Ferrothorn to the team to help against Sylveon and as a second Dragon resist, but man does this guy just do work. He was a premier check to Rotom-W last season and he still functions as a great way to 2HKO (shaky accuracy aside) the bulky waters in the meta. I went with Rocky Helmet because switching him in to take a Fake Out from Kangaskhan was fantastic, and Rocky Helmet directly won me a match when Ferrothorn was 1v1 against a Conkeldurr, but I’d probably stick to lefties most of the time, as keeping Ferrothorn around for extra turns is in general going to be better than a little extra chip damage. The EVs survive Jolly Terrakion Close Combat and Modest Zapdos Heatwave 100% of the time, with the rest in attack which is enough to 2HKO Sitrus Suicune 100% of the time.

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

I don’t have a lot to say about Terrakion, as it’s pretty standard and was the least used Pokemon on my team. Personally I think Focus Sash is the best item to give him, due to his frailty and since so many run Lum Berry anyways you’re going to be fairly safe from status already. As far as the 3rd move goes I picked Taunt because without it I had little hope of keeping Trick Room from being set up, although since this team has little priority the case could be made for Quick Guard.

Nidoking (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 52 Atk / 252 SpA / 204 Spe
Naive Nature
– Sludge Bomb
– Ice Beam
– Earth Power
– Rock Slide

This slot was originally a Choice Scarf Rotom-W as a way to out-speed and KO Choice Scarf Landorus but after missing a Hydro Pump at the Premier Challenge for a loss I started looking for a more reliable way to handle the flying lion. Choice Scarf Nidoking fit the bill nicely, as he deals with both Choice Scarf Landorus and Assault Vest Landorus. Nidoking outspeeds and OHKOs both, which is fantastic. Sludge Bomb and Earth Power are it’s move that receive Same Type Attack Bonus, which help deal with Fairies and ground weak Pokemon like Aegislash and Terrakion. I went ahead and ran mixed with Rock Slide for hitting Charizards in a pinch and for that juicy spread attack. The EVs allow it to outspeed Adamant Landorus with maximum Special Attack and the extras dumped in Attack for extra damage on Rock Slide.

Battles

Unfortunately I didn’t take clear enough notes and had a lot of life between the tournament and my writing of this piece, so I don’t have a complete war story. I was lucky enough to be featured on stream once during swiss and once during top cut so I do have those battles if you want to check it out.

In Round 7 of Swiss I played Andrew Burley (Andykins) which you can watch here:

In this match I feel like I made a big mistake in not bringing Terrakion, because not having Taunt left me with only Air Slash flinches as a way to keep Trick Room from getting set up. On turn six I had a chance to make a great play but didn’t go for it. I thought that Scrafty was in Air Slash KO range so I went for that when I should have either predicted the Fake Out and gone for an Encore or targetted down Cresselia with another Air Slash and hope for another flinch. Either play would have given me a better chance to stay in that match.

My Top 4 match versus Michael Garret (YungstrMIKEY) hasn’t been uploaded to youtube yet but can be seen here starting at the 44:00 mark.

In game 1 Nidoking showed exactly why he got me that far getting the KO against Landorus for a 1 for 1 trade, which I’ll take any day of the week. Other than that Ferrothorn really carried the game. Had I been thinking I would have not gone for any Power Whips once I was down to a 3v2 just to keep the information and try and mis lead my opponent into thinking I didn’t have it. For Kangaskhan since I had the game wrapped up I just went with Fake Out to reveal as little as possible, for whatever that was worth.

In game two I choked away to game at the end by not being 100% sure on damage calcs thinking I was safe to use Dark Pulse to pick up KOs. The game could have also gone a different way had I put some more speed on my Togekiss as well, but I feel like the extra bulk served me better throughout the day so I can’t complain about that too much. All I can is do is make sure I’m more aware of potential damage rolls so I can make more informed plays.

Game 3 was very frustrating. On turn 2 I correctly predicted the Fake Out onto my own Kangaskhan and went for Encore on his Kangaskhan while Togekiss was fully paralyzed. That on top of my Kangaskhan getting paralyzed by the Thunderbolt was just a lot of bad luck, and Togekiss decided to go ahead and be fully paralyzed 2 more turns in a row which really hurt. I was pretty salty over all the hax that went against me that game, but I had games throughout the day where it was the other way around and since my motto is to never apologize for hax because it’s a part of the game we play I have to accept when it doesn’t go in my favor either. Instead of focusing on that game and blaming the RNG I have to think about how had I played game 2 better I never would have been in that situation anyways. Moving forward, I definitely think I’ll want to be packing some Prankster Taunter to help to mitigate that.

Closing Thoughts

• Huge thank you to Mattj for helping keep an eye on my brother while I was battling, that helped me focus more on my battles not having to worry about losing him somewhere.
• Thanks to Jessica for cosplaying with me, and in general putting up with my Pokemon obsession.
• Shoutout to Tehfatpanda for suggesting Nidoking the night before when I was fed up with Rotom missing Hydro Pumps, Nidoking was exactly the ‘mon I needed and he earned a special place in my heart that day.
• Thanks to Reddit user Demoyon for constantly looking over changes I had made and giving me good practice battles.
• Shameless plug to my practice community /r/PokemonLeague3DS. You guys got me into competitive battling and have been a great asset for team building ideas and practice.
• All in all taking 4th at my home regional is a great accomplishment and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

The post Kings and Kahns: Kansas Regional Top 4 Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This is Team Rocket Elite and my partner is R Inanimate. Together we are Schrodinger’s Cat! We won the VGC Multi Cup Tournament side event during the 2015 US National Championship and we would like to present our winning combination.

The inspiration for our team dates back to after the Multi Battle tournament during the 2014 US Nationals where I started to wonder how the move Assist interacted with each team during a Multi Battle. I immediately tested it and found out that it worked exactly how I wanted it to. However, it was too late to field the team in the tournament (and we had slept through registration anyways). Unwilling to wait an entire year, we ended up showing off a prototype of our eventual team at Worlds that same year and we were happy with the results.

Just before the 2015 US Nationals, a top prize of a pair of Wii U’s was announced for the VGC Multi Cup Tournament so we knew that we had to sign up. Leading up to US Nationals, R Inanimate and I threw around a few ideas on what upgrades we wanted to make to the team. One of the obvious upgrades was changing out Incinerate for Heat Wave on Mega Houndoom. We used Incinerate last year because Heat Wave was not available on a Blue Pentagon Houndoom. Initially, we were not sure how seriously we wanted to take the tournament. It was not until we were both eliminated on Day 1 of Nationals and heard about how many other Multi Cup competitors intended to use an Assist Liepard team that we really decided to put effort into the team.

Team Rocket Elite’s team:

Liepard (F) @ Wide Lens ***Anshin’in
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Def / 52 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Assist
– Encore
– Sunny Day
– Protect

Liepard is one of the two MVPs of our teams. Assist normally chooses a move at random from all of the moves known by other Pokemon on your team and has Liepard perform the selected move. Due to Prankster, Liepard will use the selected move at +1 Priority. Assist will not select a move from the moves Liepard knows and will not select certain restricted moves even if another Pokemon knows that move. Assist will still select moves from Pokemon that have fainted.

Some of the more important restricted moves that can not be selected by Assist are Destiny Bond, Detect, Protect, King’s Shield, Spiky Shield, Nature Power, Focus Punch, Thief, Follow Me, Rage Powder, Transform, Bounce, Dig, Fly, Dive, Phantom Force, Shadow Force, Sky Drop, Roar, Whirlwind, Dragon Tail and Circle Throw. Keep in mind that this is not a complete list. For the most part, restricted moves are unusual and poor at straight up offense.

My team takes advantage of how Assist works by setting up Smeargle and Amoonguss so they only know restricted moves and Dark Void. This means that Assist has no choice but to select Dark Void and let Liepard use Dark Void at +1 Priority. On top of that, Dark Void has a respectable 88% accuracy due to Wide Lens. Liepard using an Assist plus Dark Void combo like this is known as a Void Cats strategy.

We also take advantage of another feature that is unique to Multi Battles. In a normal Double Battle, Assist can select a move from any of your other Pokemon so all of the Pokemon on your team are limited to using restricted moves. However, in a Multi Battle, Assist does not select moves from your partner’s team. This means that only my team is limited to using restricted moves while R Inanimate’s team can use any move that he wants. This lets R Inanimate provide offensive power to go with my Dark Void support.

Protect is used for defending against Fake Out and for scouting countermeasures to our team. It is also useful for stalling out Safeguard and potentially blocking an attack from an opponent that just woke up.

Sunny Day combos with R Inanimate’s Mega Houndoom. Our goal is to set up a Mega Houndoom with 2 stages of Special Attack boosts and fire off Heat Waves that are further boosted by Sunny Day and Solar Power. The damage output from this set up is no joke as you will see later on.

Encore is used as another way of locking down our opponents. In particular, I can target opponents that think it is a good idea to Protect or Fake Out in front of Liepard. I can also Encore other non-damaging moves to buy time for R Inanimate’s team to defeat our opponents.

Liepard is given enough Speed EVs to be faster than Taunt Thundurus which tends to be slow and bulky. The low amount of speed investment usually means other Liepard are faster than mine. Priority attacks almost always come in the form of physical damage so Liepard is heavily invested in Defense and HP EVs. Liepard survives Brave Bird from 252 Atk Adamant Life Orb Talonflame and usually survives if Talonflame holds a Choice Band instead. The Defense investment also means Liepard is better able to absorb hits from the +2 Priority attacks Extremespeed and Feint.

Smeargle (M) @ Choice Scarf ***Pascal
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 72 HP / 100 Def / 84 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Follow Me
– Destiny Bond
– Dark Void

For Assist to be able to call up Dark Void I need to bring a legal Pokemon that knows Dark Void. The only Pokemon that can perform this role is Smeargle. Smeargle also acts as a back up Dark Void user in case Liepard is knocked out. Follow Me and Destiny Bond are restricted moves that can not be selected by Assist and Smeargle uses these moves to support R Inanimate’s team. Transform is a good fourth move to have but we ran out of time before we could put it on Smeargle. The EV spread comes from a Smeargle we already had on hand since we just needed one with max speed.

Amoonguss (M) @ Mental Herb ***Indolent
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 244 HP / 188 Def / 76 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Rage Powder
– Protect
– Nature Power

Rage Powder, Protect and Nature Power are also moves that can not be selected by Assist. Amoonguss’s role is to sit around and use Rage Powder to redirect damage away from R Inanimate’s team. In Link Battles, Nature Power turns into Tri Attack. Amoonguss has no Special Attack investment so Tri Attack does not do much damage. It is used as a last report when we have no better means of dealing damage. If we get lucky, Tri Attack can freeze an opponent to bail us out of a tough situation. The EV spread comes from a preexisting Amoonguss that is just generally bulky.

Salamence (M) @ Salamencite ***DragonBullet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
– Double-Edge
– Hyper Voice
– Draco Meteor
– Protect

Filler team member #1. Bringing Salamence means we have abandoned our Liepard strategy since Salamence knows moves that can be called by Assist. In the end, Salamence never saw battle.

Greninja (F) @ Life Orb ***VGCwithMATS!
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Ice Beam
– Dark Pulse
– Rock Slide
– Protect

Filler team member #2. Greninja also knows moves that can be called by Assist. Like Salamence, Greninja was unused.

Talonflame (F) @ Choice Band ***Tsukihi
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 20 Def / 4 SpD / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Brave Bird
– Flare Blitz
– Sleep Talk
– Quick Guard

Filler team member #3. Like the other filler team members, Talonflame knows moves that are select-able by Assist. Sleep Talk, Quick Guard and priority Brave Bird act as anti-Void Cats techniques. Brave Bird can OHKO opponent Liepard unless their Liepard almost fully invests in HP and Defense EVs. Even if their Liepard survives, it will be very close to being knocked out. The EV spread here comes from a Talonflame we already had on hand so this Talonflame is actually too slow. Talonflame needs 220 Speed EVs to be faster than 252 Timid Liepard. Talonflame’s Quick Guard can be used to block Prankster Assist Dark Voids while Sleep Talk can be used if Talonflame falls asleep due to Dark Void. In the end, Talonflame was also not used in battle.

R Inanimate’s Team:

Houndoom (M) @ Houndoominite ***Crimson Dead
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
– Heat Wave
– Dark Pulse
– Protect
– Nasty Plot

+2 252 SpA Solar Power Mega Houndoom Heat Wave

• vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Kangaskhan in Sun: 288-339 (135.8 – 159.9%) — guaranteed OHKO
• vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence in Sun: 156-185 (91.2 – 108.1%) — 50% chance to OHKO
• vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Terrakion in Sun: 156-185 (93.4 – 110.7%) — 62.5% chance to OHKO
• vs. 220 HP / 92+ SpD Cresselia in Sun: 195-231 (87.4 – 103.5%) — 25% chance to OHKO
• vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Suicune in Sun: 127-150 (61.3 – 72.4%) — 98% chance to 2HKO after Sitrus Berry
• vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Blissey in Sun: 184-217 (50.8 – 59.9%) — guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 SpA Solar Power Mega Houndoom Dark Pulse

• vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Heatran in Sun: 204-241 (103 – 121.7%) — guaranteed OHKO

A cat’s best friend is a dog?! Mega Houndoom is Liepard’s primary partner and the offensive core of the team. Since my team has little to no offense, R Inanimate’s three Pokemon need to beat all six of our opponent’s Pokemon. If everything goes according to plan, on turn one Liepard uses Dark Void to put both opponents to sleep while Houndoom uses Nasty Plot to double its Special Attack. On turn two, Liepard uses Sunny Day while Mega Houndoom unleashes a powerful Heat Wave that OHKOs almost all Pokemon that do not resist it and even some Pokemon that do. Even if our opponents survive the onslaught, they need to get lucky to even wake up and attack back. Each turn after this, we repeat the process of sending our opponents to sleep and blasting them with Heat Wave until we win. Dark Pulse is used to target down bulky Water or Dragon Pokemon that may not be knocked out by Heat Wave or as a single target attack to get around Wide Guard. Also, since Mega Houndoom uses special attacks, it is not susceptible to Intimidate which would reduce the damage output of a physical sweeper.

Houndoom’s Unnerve ability is a key anti-anti-Void Cats technique. If R Inanimate suspects our opponents are using status restoring berries he delays Mega Evolving Houndoom so that Unnerve prevents Lum or Chesto Berries from activating. Mega Evolution goes before all attacks so when Houndoom Mega Evolves the berries immediately kick in and wake up our opponents just before Liepard hits them with another Dark Void.

The EV spread is designed for Mega Houndoom to take advantage of its base 115 speed to outrun threats and hit them as hard as possible.

Rotom-Wash @ Choice Scarf ***Life Spring
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 20 HP / 252 SpA / 236 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def
– Thunderbolt
– Hydro Pump
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Sleep Talk

Rotom-W is one of the two Pokemon that R Inanimate frequently chooses to clean up should Houndoom ever faint or be forced to switch out. Rotom-W can fight off both Choice Scarf Landorus-T and Mega Salamence which are very dangerous if they can not be put to sleep since they are faster than Mega Houndoom. Sleep Talk is for fighting other Void Cats teams and allows Rotom-W to try and attack even while sleeping.

Aegislash (M) @ Life Orb ***Dream World
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 4 Spe
– Shadow Ball
– Flash Cannon
– Shadow Sneak
– King’s Shield

Offense is king on R Inanimate’s team which makes Aegislash a good fit. Aegislash is the second Pokemon that R Inanimate tends to favour as back up to Houndoom. I focus on raining down Dark Void and Rage Powder on our opponents while Life Orb Aegislash dishes out heavy damage without needing to constantly go back to Shield Forme. Ideally, Houndoom has defeated enough of our opponents that there is not much left for Aegislash to clean up. Shadow Sneak is useful for taking out opponents that have already lost 99% of their HP to one of Houndoom’s Heat Waves.

EV spread is designed to focus on high Special Attack based offense while putting the rest into bulk.

Sylveon (F) @ Choice Specs ***Fanelia
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 28 HP / 156 Def / 92 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Modest Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Sleep Talk

Sylveon is another Void Cats countermeasure through the use of Sleep Talk and Hyper Voice. The EV spread is once again from a Sylveon we already had on hand. Sylveon was not used very often.

Aerodactyl (M) @ Choice Band ***VisionTuning
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Rock Slide
– Sleep Talk

Aerodactyl is a countermeasure for opposing Liepard plus Mega Houndoom teams. Aerodactyl is faster and OHKOs 4HP Mega Houndoom with Rock Slide after Mega Houndoom takes damage from Solar Power. If Liepard puts Aerodactyl to sleep then Sleep Talk is still an option. Aerodactyl was not used very ofter either.

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite ***Buddhist
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 156 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Return
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

Kangaskhan is supposed to be an alternate Mega to use in place of Mega Houndoom but in the end was unused.

Team Preview

We always lead with Liepard and Houndoom. I have Smeargle and Amoonguss in the back while R Inanimate brings two other Pokemon that he feels like they work best against our opponents. This is usually Rotom-W and Aegislash. Bringing Aerodactyl or Sylveon is also possible if we faced a Void Cats team but we never did.

Anti-Anti-Void Cats

The official Multi Battle rule set disallows communication between partners so R Inanimate and I had to prepare preset counters to what we predicted other players might try to do to break our combo. At the actual tournament, enforcement of the rule turned out to be inconsistent. We ended up letting our opponents decided whether to allow communication during battle since we were prepared to play either way.

Fake Out + Safeguard

The counter to Fake Out is Protect. It sounds straight forward but knowing when to Protect in a Multi Battle where you can not talk to your partner can be more complicated than it seems since your partner may be expecting you to take action rather than defend. I always use Protect against a Fake Out user. If it looks like our opponents are planning to set up Safeguard as well, R Inanimate tries to sneak in a Nasty Plot since the Fake Out is likely heading towards Liepard. After that, I have the option of using Encore to lock down my opponents or set up a Sunny Day so we can set our opponents on fire. For the most part, Fake Out users are slower than Mega Houndoom and get OHKO’d by Heat Wave which forces our opponents to regroup and gives us time to stall out Safeguard.

Lum and Chesto Berry

As mentioned earlier, Houndoom has Unnerve before Mega Evolving. This prevents our opponents from using status healing berries until we already have our combo going and Mega Houndoom is launching out high power Heat Waves. At this point, the Pokemon with the status healing berry may not survive long enough to attack even if it does wake up. Furthermore, since the berries will trigger as soon as Houndoom Mega Evolves it is possible for Liepard to use Dark Void in between the berries activating and the opponents actually getting to attack.

Sleep Talk and Magic Coat

Against Sleep Talk and Magic Coat we bank on our opponents being too aggressive towards stopping Dark Void instead of realizing how dangerous Mega Houndoom is. Choice locked Sleep Talk Sylveon was sort of used earlier in the VGC season so we expect Sylveon to be a prime Sleep Talk candidate. Our game plan is to do a first turn Protect against Sylveon to scout for Sleep Talk. We also hope that Sylveon’s partner uses Protect to avoid being put to sleep while Sylveon deals with our Dark Void user. After Sylveon reveals its plan, Houndoom has hopefully snuck in a Nasty Plot while Liepard locks down Sylveon’s partner with Encore. Furthermore, Sylveon may be choice locked into a non-damaging move giving us free time to set up.

Taunt

For Taunt to be threatening, it needs to be on a fast Pokemon with the Prankster ability. Taunt Thundurus are usually slower and bulkier so we EV’d Liepard to be faster than them. Whimsicott and fast Taunt Thundurus are problems that we just need to deal with if they show up. In the end, we never fought a fast Pokemon with Prankster Taunt.

Insomnia, Vital Spirit, Sweet Veil, Magic Bounce

These abilities are largely on Pokemon that were not that threatening. We made a call that we would not see them and we were right.

Quick Guard

R Inanimate’s team probably should have something with Feint to deal with this. It does not. Fortunately, we never faced this since we did not have solid answers to Quick Guard.

Battles

Round 1: Schrodinger’s Cat vs Typhlosion .Rek (Devan / Ian)

Battle video: 4HDG-WWWW-WW2B-KV82
In our first game we managed to get Dark Void to connect on both opponents while Houndoom used Nasty Plot. However, there was a disconnect so we had to redo the battle. Next time our opponents lead with Fake Out Lopunny and a Toxic Orb Gliscor. Liepard Encore locked the Lopunny’s Fake Out to buy time for Houndoom to use Nasty Plot and start Heat Waving. Liepard missed a Dark Void on Scarf Typhlosion near the end of the battle so we ended up losing Houndoom and Liepard but Aerodactyl and Amoonguss were able to clean up. W 4-0

Round 2: Schrodinger’s Cat vs Team Scrubadub Dub (Devin / GTiffy)

Battle video: FWNW-WWWW-WW2B-KVMW
On turn one and two we successfully performed our full combo of Dark Void and Nasty Plot followed by Sunny Day and Heat Wave against Cresselia and Thundurus leads. However, Cresselia barely survived, woke up and used Thunder Wave on Houndoom. While Liepard did put an incoming Mamoswine to sleep, Houndoom got fully paralyzed then missed a Heat Wave which prevented us from getting rid of Mamoswine. I just kept up a sleep and Encore lock on our opponents while R Inanimate switched in Rotom-W to deal with Mamoswine. Rotom-W and Aegislash managed to clean up without needing Houndoom to come back. W 6-0

Round 3: Schrodinger’s Cat vs Team M (Evan / Ev)

Battle video: NZSG-WWWW-WW2B-KVNM
One of our opponents this round had an XY game card so they ended up getting disqualified. We decided to play this exhibition game against them anyways. Our opponents lead Suicune and Kangaskhan so we Protected on turn 1. Suicune did not want to go to sleep and Scalded Houndoom into critical HP while Houndoom set up Nasty Plot. I could no longer put up the sun without knocking out Houndoom with Solar Power damage. We ended up using a combo of Dark Void and Heat Wave to just get in as much damage as possible. Even without the sun and Solar Power +2 Heat Wave did a lot of damage. Suicune eventually took out Houndoom and an opponent Gengar dodged Dark Void to knock out Rotom-W with Energy Ball. We set up Aegislash with Amoonguss support to finish off a lone Suicune after Gengar went down. However, Suicune gave us a scare when it turned out to be Safety Goggles Suicune and nearly knocked out Sword Forme Aegislash. W 4-0

Round 4: Schrodinger’s Cat vs Team 5-3 (Ninten / Beau)

Battle video: NZAW-WWWW-WW2B-KVZL
Our next opponents lead with Weavile and Cresselia to perform Fake Out and Safeguard as their Dark Void counter while Liepard used Protect and Houndoom went for Nasty Plot. Liepard Encore locked Weavile while Houndoom attacked to take it out. However, Landorus-T came out next which was a big problem due to Safeguard. Liepard continued to stall out Safeguard while Rotom-W came it to deal with Landorus-T. When that failed due to Rock Slide flinches, R Inanimate tried to use Aegislash. Liepard used Encore on Cresselia to prevent another Safeguard as the first Safeguard wore off. After that, Liepard focused on using Dark Void while R Inanimate wiped out Ninten’s team and then Beau’s team. We did not lose anyone, but it was a tough match. W 6-0

Quarterfinals: Schrodinger’s Cat vs PUCL’s Powerhouse (Maximus / Scron)

Battle video: 2F9G-WWWW-WW2B-KVPU
This battle was a mess due to a critical error I made in battle. We lead the usual Liepard and Houndoom against Aegislash and Klefki. Klefki switched for Gyarados while Liepard used Dark Void and Houndoom used Nasty Plot without going Mega. Our opponents thought they were okay until their berries did not kick in. They then realized that they forgot about Unnerve. We did not know Gyarados had a Lum Berry so we went on the offense with Sunny Day and Heat Wave. Gyarados survived the Heat Wave and woke up but fortunately only ended up using Dragon Dance. I decided to continue using Dark Void to put the opponents to sleep. This was the critical error I made. Gyarados was very dangerous right now so I should have guaranteed a lockdown with Encore instead of gambling on Dark Void. As you might have guessed, during the next turn Dark Void missed Gyarados and it knocked out Houndoom with Earthquake. For the first time this tournament, we trailed in Pokemon count.

R Inanimate sent in Rotom-W to try and fix things. I lockdowned Aegislash while Rotom-W finished off Gyarados. Mega Venusaur replaced Gyarados and Aegislash switched for Chandelure. Liepard continued to use Dark Void in desperation to keep Mega Venusaur sleeping while Rotom-W knocked out Chandelure and Aegislash and even heavily damaged an opponent Rotom-W. However, it was at this point that my luck ran out and Liepard got a double miss with Wide Lens Dark Void. I lost Liepard here and our Rotom-W took a lot of damage. I sent in Smeargle for more Dark Void shenanigans. Our Rotom-W knocked out the opponent Rotom-W while Smeargle missed another Dark Void on Mega Venusaur. Mega Venusaur took out Smeargle in response so I could no longer use Dark Void for the rest of the battle.

Mega Venusaur also defeated our Rotom-W without any trouble while my Amoonguss constantly used Tri Attack via Nature Power. Tri Attack did not do very much damage but it let me fish for status effects and kept the healing from Giga Drain in check. R Inanimate sent in Aegislash which got put to sleep via Sleep Powder. Eventually, Aegislash woke up and attacked with Life Orb Shadow Ball which, along with the Tri Attack chip damage, managed to defeat Mega Venusaur. The last target was a Klefki. Amoonguss used Rage Power while Klefki went for Swagger. We got the luck rolls we needed and knocked out our final target. Somehow, we won. W 2-0

Semifinals: Schrodinger’s Cat vs Satellite Has More Channels (+MajorBowman / Andross)

Battle video: KVHG-WWWW-WW2B-KVSA
We used the same leads as always while our opponents lead Sylveon and Mega Salamence. We were afraid of Sleep Talk so we used Protect with both of our Pokemon on turn one. Sylveon used Magic Coat! That was not Sleep Talk but it was just as dangerous. Salamence made a mistake and used Protect on turn one. We suspected that Sylveon was either choice locked or would just use Magic Coat again due to fear of Dark Void and we were right. As a result, Liepard was freely able to lock Salamence into Protect with Encore while Houndoom set up with Nasty Plot. Salamence switched out for Landorus-T but we already had our combo in place. Liepard put the sun up and Houndoom OHKO’d both Sylveon and Landorus-T. From there we continued our offensive with Heat Wave and Dark Void. Houndoom did eventually go down due to a Mega Salamence that did not sleep for very long and Solar Power damage but Rotom-W cleaned up after that. W 4-1

Finals: Schrodinger’s Cat vs Sunnyshore Chargers (ZAKI / EnFuego)

Battle video: 2JVW-WWWW-WW2B-KVT9
Liepard and Houndoom lead into Togekiss and Kangaskhan. Kangaskhan attempted to use Fake Out on a Protecting Liepard while Togekiss set up a Safeguard. Houndoom used Nasty Plot to once again prepare for running over our opponents. Next turn, the sun went up again and we knocked out the opponent Togekiss and Kangaskhan with a single Heat Wave. Thundurus and another Kangaskhan came in which forced us to use Protect while Thundurus showed off Swagger. Kangaskhan retreated for a sacrificial Amoonguss while I had Liepard lock Thundurus into the non damaging Swagger. Houndoom broke through confusion and launched a Heat Wave to bring us up 6-2. Confusion prevented Houndoom from Protecting to waste the last turn of Safeguard so Houndoom got knocked out next turn. At that point we mostly had the game in hand. Sylveon came in and Hyper Voice plus Dark Void let us bring home the championship! W 5-0

Assist plus Dark Void lock down is not exactly a fun strategy for our opponents to face but it is something we wanted to try in at least one tournament. We especially wanted to use it after hearing all the buzz around Void Cats and anti-Void Cats just before the tournament. We certainly never expected to end up winning the tournament! A big shout out to TPCi for providing a Wii U to each of the winners and a New 3DS to each member of the second place team (so R Inanimate could trade his Wii U for one of their New 3DSs). After winning, will we ever use Void Cats again? No one will know until they look inside our Battle Box to find out!

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