Overview

Hello there, I’m Xenoblade Hero (also known as Xeno’s Test on Showdown, I’m usually on the VGC server) and this is my post about my experiences leading up to and at the Pokémon Winter Event, and the teams that I used.

I first found out about the Nottingham Streetpass qualifier event through word of mouth. I turned up with my sister and a couple of friends and was rather shocked to find Ben Kyriakou and Baz Anderson at what I assumed would just be a “casual” event! Thankfully I had prepared a well-built team beforehand with the assistance of the Showdown VGC Chat members and Jamie Miller, who helped me with drafting and testing a lot of the team’s synergies.

Qualifying team

Chandelure @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Overheat
- Shadow Ball
- Energy Ball
- Will-O-Wisp

This lil’ Chandelure ended up becoming the star of the show in the qualifying rounds. Outspeeding every mega form without base 150 Speed, Chandy’s Overheat unleashed huge amounts of damage on the opposition, managing to OHKO Amoonguss, whilst Heat Wave (though not yet legal) does not. Shadow Ball and Energy Ball were placed for coverage, the latter cleaning up a weakened Rotom-W and the former managing to outpace and OHKO all variants of Gengar.

Will-O-Wisp was placed for shock factor, and was also a tactical move to tackle a Mega Mawile abusing Sucker Punch. Whilst the powerful attack KOs Chandelure, the same can’t be said when it’s burned. With the heavy presence of physical attackers, Will-O-Wisp was, and is a godsend in Generation VI, especially with the accuracy increase.

Aromatisse @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 72 SDef / 180 Def
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Misty Terrain
- Moonblast
- Protect

This was my standard Trick Room setter. The spread was kindly borrowed from Jamie and it gives Aromatisse optimal bulk. A Sitrus Berry was provided to give her that extra bulk to take constant attacks. It’s much more useful than Leftovers in a fast paced metagame; if Aromatisse survives two or more turns, it’s generally done its job of setting up Trick Room and preventing status. Moonblast KOs all but the bulkiest of Scrafty immediately and has general presence against some big threats. The move is also boosted from STAB, and Fairy is resisted by very few types (something that I took advantage of in the qualifying rounds). Aroma Veil is a brilliant ability in high level play; protecting your team from moves like Taunt and Torment as well as rendering Rage Powder useless. The widespread coverage across both Pokémon on your side of the field (unlike Oblivious, which only shields a single target) is why I chose Aromatisse as my setter rather than, say, Slowbro (which my sister evilpinkdragon used rather well). It also has a much more useful typing than the similarly bulky Reuniclus, with more resistances, less weaknesses and an immunity to the omnipresent Dragon type.

Mawile @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate – - > Huge Power
EVs: 76 SDef / 252 HP / 180 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Play Rough
- Protect

The Special Defence investment allows Mawile to survive two of Rotom’s Thunderbolts the majority of the time and let loose with a hugely powerful Play Rough. My mega form of choice through playtesting, Mega Mawile requires plenty of prediction to use correctly. He can 2HKO the majority of the metagame though so it was generally worthwhile using him in almost every game I played. Sucker Punch outpaces and smashes weakened threats, the other moves generally OHKO the correct target upon impact, and his coverage deals with anything that isn’t Steel type effectively. I didn’t place 0 speed IVs onto any of my Pokémon as I wanted them to deal with threats outside of the Trick Room environment. If an opponent’s two Pokémon on the field have a speed advantage, then is the time to use Trick Room; it shouldn’t be a necessity for the team to operate.

Azumarill @ Lum Berry
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Double Edge
- Aqua Jet
- Protect

With the lack of knowledge about Rotom’s greatness at the time, I could get away with using Huge Power Azumarill as there were few that could tank its moves well. Double Edge was placed so Amoonguss could not wall the set. Aqua Jet was excellent against Talonflame in qualifying, and Play Rough is a powerful base 90 STAB move that many of the usual weather cores feared. Azumarill’s typing was exceptional for taking on Politoed/Kingdra and Tyranitar/Garchomp cores that plagued a metagame where people liked to play safe.

A Lum Berry was placed to protect Azumarill from a single Will-O-Wisp, or the effects of sleep. It also was useful in other situational circumstances, such as a predicted Swagger on a special attacker of mine. If I had more time, a dedicated spread could have been used to accurately tank Mega Kangashan, Greninja and Mega Lucario so Azumarill would be almost guaranteed to check them despite being initially slower.

Dragonite @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 176 HP / 128 Atk / 12 SDef / 192 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Protect

The speed EVs allow Dragonite to outspeed Greninja after a Dragon Dance and OHKO non-sashed variants with Dragon Claw. Weakness Policy is one of the best new items that has been released in XY and Dragonite’s Multiscale works brilliantly in conjunction as it allows him to tank most super effective attacks that aren’t Blizzard. Dragonite also highlights two vital contrasts in the team I created to keep opponents guessing; a slow Trick Room core and a faster core that can function outside of the environment. Speed control is always something I like to have on my side of the field, regardless of the opponent’s team.

Amoonguss @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 84 Def / 172 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
IVs: 0 Spd
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect

Standard Amoonguss, standard EVs, but this mushroom still causes shenanigans like no other Pokemon. Rage Powder gives Chandelure and Dragonite time to burn or set up respectively, and Spore can be used to detain troublesome opponents. Additionally, I found the added power and coverage of Sludge Bomb (*cough* Fairies *cough*) much more useful than the healing properties of Giga Drain. I cannot stress enough just how useful the combination of Rage Powder and Spore was in the tournament; if the opponent’s side of the field doesn’t include something named Talonflame, Amoonguss is easily able to switch in and assist with meddling. I also picked Regenerator over Effect Spore, despite the limited switching in doubles environment. This was because I found the 33% recovery on switch out incredibly useful; that’s usually enough to take unbanded Garchomp’s Earthquake!

Streetpass East Midlands Tournament

Round One: Xeno vs James

I can’t remember much about this battle as unfortunately I forgot to save it! I can only remember the lead matchups. Starting with Azumarill and Aromatisse, predicting Greninja as a lead, I immediately Aqua Jetted the Barbaracle’s Sturdy off, correctly predicting that it would Shell Smash behind a Mat Block. In the same turn Trick Room was set up by Aromatisse, making the speed boost from Shell Smash a sudden hindrance. With the opponent having no priority moves and not wanting to switch out and lose the boosts, I manage to dispatch of Barbaracle with the combined presence of my leads. Ultimately I believe that the match was won 3-0 but my memory of what happened after the first two turns is limited. Moral of the story is always save your battle replays!

Round Two: Xeno vs Bye

Yes, I was lucky enough to get a bye in the second round. Not many people signed up to the tournament, and there were just over twenty people competing overall so several of us ended up with a lucky bye. The timing of this was invaluable though as it got me straight to the quarter-final. Watching the other battles that were going on I managed to see EPD doing well. Kyriakou was having a heated battle that was easily the longest of the day, and it gathered the majority of the crowd. Most of my friends had managed to knock each other out by the end of the second round!

Semi-Final: Xeno vs Jake (WhiteAfroKing92)

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This is where things started to get heated. I seemingly had the upper hand from the lead matchup with two Fairy type Pokemon to combat Scrafty, but Rotom’s bulk could prove problematic. Intimidate was fired off from both sides of the field as my Mawile Mega Evolves the first turn, reason for this being I wanted to intimidate the leads and force a switch. I protect so my stats become increased and to scout. Thankfully I scouted a Will-O-Wisp coming in my direction. Scrafty used Fake Out on Aromatisse.

I didn’t want to be burned so early on so I switched to Amoonguss to soak up a Will-O-Wisp. Aromatisse and Scrafty protect. A good looking turn for me as my current matchup allows Amoonguss to detain the threats on the field.

I wanted to detain the Scrafty with Spore this turn, but Jake ends up switching to his Talonflame, so I put that to sleep instead. Stopping one of his biggest threats in the early game is a pretty big move, and he’s presented little that can take on Amoonguss so far. I finally get the Trick Room up on this turn too so both of my Pokemon can outspeed everything bar Brave Bird. The next turn I use Moonblast and Sludge Bomb on Talonflame in an effort to harm the bird before it wakes up, putting “Eddie” on about 33% health. Rotom-W, after missing last turn, manages to accomplish its goal of burning everything on the field with Will-O-Wisp.

I switch out Amoonguss for Azumarill just in case Talonflame wakes up (and so I can get a clean KO with Play Rough on Rotom). Rotom misses with a Hydro Pump, luck not being on his side currently. With Trick Room still up I manage to OHKO his Rotom with a Play Rough. Jake claimed that a critical hit mattered, so he must have been running a bulky spread on the thing. Rather unfortunate, but lucky for me as I just KO’d his Will-O-Wisper, and Mawile has much greater field presence. Kangashan is revealed, which I thankfully Moonblast, and Scrafty switches in. I fear the worst though.

Predictably, Fake Out is done on one of my Pokemon (Azumarill) and I protect with Aromatisse, gambling with the 50/50 chance of him getting a heavy attack in with Kangashan. Luckily I predicted correctly and I’m only an Intimidate worse off. However; Trick Room fades away, and I know something is going to get hurt. Scrafty protects and predicts a Play Rough heading in its direction whilst I set up Trick Room. The now Mega’d Kangashan uses Return on Azumarill, and I only just manage to survive it on 2 HP after receiving a Fake Out on the previous turn!

Scrafty and Kanga then take out both of my Pokémon in the next two turns with their presence, as Aromatisse was forced to take several turns of burn. Trick Room was still up, and Jake’s Talonflame was still asleep. The match could have gone either way at this point.

Switching in Mawile and Amoonguss as Aromatisse bites the dust, I KO Kangashan (the bigger threat) with a Huge Power Iron Head. Next turn I Sucker Punch the Talonflame, predicting a Flare Blitz from it rather than Brave Bird if it wakes up. This leaves only Scrafty on the field, which Mawile and Amoonguss detain. Unbelievably, I’m through to the final… at this stage, I’m guaranteed a ticket to London! It was difficult to take it all in!

Final: Xeno vs Ben (Kyriakou)

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Seeing Amoonguss in the lead matchup, I knew that I had to bring something that could consistently check it, otherwise my team would be in a daze. With Scizor on the preview as well I bought Chandelure with me. Mawile was there to check his Tyranitar (which could have been a Mega form along with Scizor, but Scizor didn’t see much use as its mega variant in playtesting) and Scrafty; as far as I saw it didn’t look like he had a consistent check for it but I could have been wrong. Ben chose to lead with Scrafty for the Intimidate, despite my team consisting of mostly fairies, and Azumarill. A Fake Out user with an Azumarill? I called Belly Drum.

The Intimidate on my Mawile would make its attacks pretty weak, and his physical attackers mean that I save Mawile for later to intimidate again. I use Will-O-Wisp on Azumarill, predicting the correct (Sitrus Berry) variant. He uses Waterfall on Chandelure which does half damage with a burn and -1 attack. I switch in Mawile again to replace Chandelure as I predict a switch from Scrafty on Ben’s end. He switches to Amoonguss, which troubles both of my leads.

A massive play happens here where I Play Rough the opposing Azumarill, it recovers with Sitrus Berry, and Belly Drums itself just in range for the burn to finish it off. I knew that Play Rough would 2HKO, but I didn’t think he would Belly Drum this turn. I was very lucky that I used the right move at the right time!

Scizor, surprisingly, is switched in next. My team didn’t have a lot for this guy either with my lack of fire coverage. With Azumarill and Mawile on the field, I could only pile onto Amoonguss, just to make sure it didn’t use Spore on anything. It’s thankfully knocked out with the combination of Double Edge and Iron Head.

Scrafty is now sent in, intimidating both my attackers. I made a misplay and aim a Sucker Punch at Scizor as it boosts up to +3. Azumarill flinches to a Fake Out. However; the next turn Ben underestimates Mawile’s bulk and uses Bullet Punch in an attempt to OHKO. It barely survived the attack, which allows me to Play Rough the Scrafty and OHKO it off the bat. My opponent only has Scizor left and I’m 4-1 up. What worries me though is that Scizor, if Ben predicted correctly, he had the potential to wipe out my entire team. I didn’t want a repeat of VGC’13, where he managed to sweep me with his Volcarona when I was 3-1 up!

All I can say is that from here, sheer presence won me the match. Scizor lacked spread moves so I kept chipping away at its health bar, bit by bit. When I switched Dragonite in, Multiscale meant that he couldn’t OHKO it immediately. For this reason alone, my Dragonite manages to finish it off with a well-timed Dragon Claw. I’d won the tournament. Free plushies, eShop vouchers and revenge for Nationals was served, like a well-cooked dish.

Onto the main event!

I felt that going to this tournament was quite an honour. Unfortunately my sister evilpinkdragon just missed out on qualifying after an insanely close match against WhiteAfroKing92, but she still joined three good friends and myself on a great road trip to London. There were Krispy Kremes, there were Pokemon plushies, but there was also an hour long loop of the Kalos bicycle theme that I would rather not talk about… Just about drove us all insane!

We got to London and the venue did not disappoint. Talked to a couple of guys from the Showdown VGC server before the event – even Toquill, who went and won the darn thing! After that we entered the facility where we would all commence battle (the building was like some sort of TARDIS) all of the people competing and the spectators were engulfed in this fantastic space underneath a seemingly modest shop. We all got registered, and then waited for the draws.

My UK Winter Championship Team

Spin Cycle (Rotom-Wash) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 184 SAtk / 252 HP / 28 Def / 44 SDef
Modest Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Protect

“Washing machines live longer with Calgon!”

The EV spread was a bit of a failure on my part – it was created to be able to 2HKO Bulky Mega Gengar with Hydro Pump (fearing Destiny Bond) but unfortunately that won’t exist until Pokébank! 44 SDef was to take two Sludge Bombs from Gengar and the defence was left over (but it did allow me to take Garchomp’s Rock Slides very comfortably in testing).

You could say that this is a replacement for my Will-O-Wisping Chandelure I used earlier in the qualifiers; Rotom has much more survivability than Chandy ever packed though, and the coverage moves he bought to the table were provided by the other Pokémon in my team.

The moveset isn’t very surprising. Will-O-Wisp is used to cripple opposing physical attackers (namely the omnipresent Mega Mawile and Mega Kanga, Garchomp, Tyranitar, etc). It also made Rotom seem much bulkier than it actually was when used! Hydro Pump and Thunderbolt have excellent coverage between them and the presence of both made dealing with both bulky and banded Talonflame much easier. Talonflame’s usage had hit the roof by the time this tournament started, so I’m very pleased that I had something to counter all variants. Hydro Pump also deals around 50% to standard Chomp and well over half to Tyranitar, both of which were commonly used cores. Rotom-W’s typing made him very easy to switch in multiple times during a match. Sitrus Berry added to its bulk further as Rotom isn’t generally OHKO’d. Contrary to what many people thought at the time though, Rotom wasn’t a good check to the rampant Mega Charizard that were used throughout the event; I had to rely on the presence of my other team members to get around it.

Moegami (Talonflame) @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Tailwind

“Burn a new source of light into the obscuring darkness!”

Talonflame tore through all unprepared teams, the dreadful Amoonguss and Mega Venusaur, and served as a brilliant late game cleaner. I only lead with Talonflame when sensing a lead that Talonflame can deal with, and for the other surprise that will be explained shortly. U-Turn is for pivoting on a misplay. Everything seems very standard but you may be thinking; why is Tailwind, or a fast attacker for that matter, placed on what appears to be a Trick Room team?

The answer is, my team is more of a goodstuffs than a standard TR core that relies entirely on Aromatisse to set up. Gale Wings has priority even when the room of doom is active, meaning it still has sweeping presence. And the last move, Tailwind, is the icing on the cake, and also why I didn’t invest in Brave/Quiet natures for the majority of my Pokémon. It allowed my slow Pokémon to out-speed top tier threats and gave my team members a massive advantage. Suddenly, Mawile starts to outpace that Garchomp which threatens a STAB Earthquake. Conkeldurr can get the OHKO on a Jolly +2 Kangashan which is forced to resort to Sucker Punch. The possibilities and synergy was endless.

Talonflame also seemed to operate better as a choiced attacker than Chandelure due to having a 120 base power STAB Priority move and pivoting potential.

Heavy (Conkeldurr) @ Life Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 36 Atk / 252 HP / 220 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Rock Slide
- Protect

“I am full of sandvich, and I am coming for you!”

My very own spread was used for this guy. 36 Attack was used to OHKO 4 HP/ 0 DEF Mega Kanga around 50% of the time. The rest was put into special bulk to take Mega Charizard’s and Rotom-W’s attacks very well. Life Orb was used as a trick, and it also meant that I could invest much less in attack to OHKO some threats. I was also burned many a time as opponents suspected an Iron Fist variant w/Life Orb, and I was usually burned out of this assumption. Drain Punch and Mach Punch go arm in arm with dealing consistent damage and retaining solid field presence- Mach Punch picking off weak threats and Drain Punch restoring health and allowing Conk to take more hits that would otherwise KO if he used Hammer Arm. The massive special defence investment made his overall defences extremely balanced.

Gloomtail (Hydreigon) @ Haban Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 76 SDef / 36 Def / 252 HP / 144 SAtk
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Dark Pulse
- Protect

“Quake in fear, mortals! For I am Gloomtail!”

Here’s one beauty of an EV spread! I was disappointed that the spread didn’t get used on the day, but it enabled Hydreigon to easily take any Draco Meteor and Dragon Claw coming towards it and retaliate back with a DM of its own. It didn’t matter if an opponent had speed advantage generally because Hydreigon could take hits very well. Fire Blast was my “last resort” when Talonflame was out, 2HKO’ing Amoonguss and Venusaur and OHKO’ing Mega Mawile with no investment. It also dealt with Scizor as long as something else could attack it with a spread move (in fear of Focus Sash). I considered running Stone Edge over Dark Pulse for the OHKO on Mega Charizard but I needed the more consistent damage output (and a move with 100% accuracy so luck didn’t screw me over!). I chose Hydreigon over all of the other dragons because of its important resistances to electric, grass, fire and water, all of which saw very common use and the rest of my team didn’t patch up resistance-wise.

Estus (Aromatisse) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 72 SDef / 180 Def
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Misty Terrain
- Moonblast
- Protect

“So, what do you say? Why not help one another on this lonely journey?”

This was the same Aromatisse that was used in the qualifiers. The only difference in set is that I gave Aromatisse a Lum Berry to enable a temporary status block whilst Misty Terrain is being set up. Amoonguss usage was at a massive high whilst playtesting, so I had to take extra defensive measures.

Mr Jensen (Mawile) @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate – - > Huge Power
EVs: 76 SDef / 252 HP / 180 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Play Rough
- Protect

“I never asked for this…”

I used the same Mawile set as I did in qualifying. It’s an excellent moveset and the extra special bulk was much appreciated when testing in Showdown. However, more and more players were becoming aware of Mega Mawile’s potential. How would it fare on the day?

The Tournament

I didn’t get very far… Actually, I lost in the first round! But these things happen – after all, the competition was excellent, and throughout my match I made some terrible misplays.

Xeno vs Darren

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I didn’t even entertain the thought that stall teams might be a thing in XY/VGC ’14! For this reason, I chose Hydreigon for the elemental resistances and Mawile for presence against much of his team. Using Aromatisse here would have easily won me the match, but I didn’t think I would need it as his team was generally slow paced. What a mistake I made there!

The lead matchup seemed workable. I knew that Sableye would go and burn my Mawile at the first opportunity so I wanted to save him for later; I switched him out for Rotom-W. I protected with Hydreigon to see what he was going to do next. Sableye attempted to Confuse Ray Hydreigon and Flare Blitz was used on Rotom. So far, a good matchup.

Then Quagsire was switched in. This worried me as I didn’t have much for it other than strong STAB moves. Sableye on the field meant that I had to risk a burn to switch anything in. Hydreigon attacks itself in confusion.

Next turn I realise what this guy’s team was up to. I go for a burn to put pressure on Quagsire, and in the same turn he burns and Toxic’s both of my Pokémon. The next few turns revolve around me try to take down Sableye, but it takes a Draco Meteor and Thunderbolt in separate turns whilst Recovering. From here, I do some terrible plays (switching in Conkeldurr AND Mawile so Talon got a switch in when I managed to OHKO his Sableye through burn as Hydreigon was barely doing anything with Draco Meteor).

I also underestimated Talonflame’s bulk, trying to Play Rough and Sucker Punch on a Brave Bird/Flare Blitz and not KO’ing. From here, I had nothing for his Quagsire, and he proceeded to stall me to death, switching in Rotom-W to clean up Conkeldurr. Was his team viable? I’m not sure, but I got caught completely off guard, and he’d got this far into the tournament. Disappointing for me after all this training, but only one person can go through each round, so I wished him luck in his next battle and proceeded to eat a fresh delivery of Domino’s pizza that Nintendo had ordered. Chicken and sweetcorn… Very nice.

The rest of the day overall was brilliant. I got a £20 eshop voucher and a snazzy T-shirt just for competing. Two of my very good friends (plus an adorable little brother) managed to win the cosplay competition; a complete surprise for them! It was a shame that the entire event was single elimination as a lot of the favourites were knocked out near the start. On the contrary though, it allowed lesser known players to make a name for themselves. Regardless of my tournament misfortune I had a brilliant time, and the entire day was an experience I very much hope Nintendo replicate.

Shout-outs to EPD, WhiteAfroKing92, Toquill for his well-deserved victory, Jamie Miller for helping me with teambuilding for the qualifiers, Andrew and Francis for winning the cosplay competition/the best road trip ever, and to you guys and girls for reading this.

The post Deus Ex Machina – A Nintendo UK Winter Event Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hi! My name is Brandon Ikin, but you can call me Toquill. You might know me from ‘Pokemon Showdown!’, where I often host small practice tournaments. After winning at the Northampton qualifier (getting lucky against Baz Anderson in the finals), I got an invitation to the main event. On December 7th, I participated in the Nintendo UK Winter Championships and won, which is probably the biggest accomplishment in my VGC career so far.

The Team

Buy1Get1Free (Kangaskhan) (F) @Kangaskhanite
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Sp. Atk)
IV’s: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EV’s: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Ability: Scrappy -> Parental Bond
Moveset:
- Return
- Power-Up Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Fake Out

This was the starting point, your run-of-the-mill, bog standard Kangaskhan. For those who don’t know, Kangaskhan’s Mega Evolution gets Parental Bond, an ability which lets Kangaskhan attack twice, with the second hit dealing half of the damage the first hit deals. This, paired with nice base 125 Attack and base 100 Speed stats makes Mega Kangaskhan a huge threat. The EVs are also standard. I didn’t feel the need for a Jolly Nature since things like Garchomp were still going to outspeed me, and I wanted to hit as hard and fast as I could, relying on it’s natural bulk. It was nicknamed “Buy1Get1Free” because it’s one of the cheesiest nicknames you could ever possibly give a Mega Kangaskhan. This Kangaskhan is also really good at getting critical hits on Salamence.

Bad Blood (Scizor) (M) @Lum Berry
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Sp. Atk)
IV’s: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EV’s: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Sp. Def
Ability: Technician
Moveset:
- Bullet Punch
- X-Scissor
- Swords Dance
- Protect

After realizing that Kangaskhan offers Fake Out support, I knew I wanted to have a Pokemon to set up some stat boosts to take advantage of the free turn. Quiver Dance Volcarona was out of the picture, so I tried out Swords Dance Scizor. Like Kangaskhan, Scizor is also pretty standard. I didn’t want a fancy EV spread because I felt it was unnecessary. Bullet Punch and X-Scissor are the strongest STABs Scizor can learn for the VGC 2014 season, Swords Dance raises Scizor’s Attack stat to great heights, and Protect is there because of all the utility Protect provides, primarily to allow Scizor to block an attack and have the partner Pokemon help neutralize the threat. This Scizor was bred by Ian McLaughlin (raikoo), but didn’t get used once in the entire tournament. It’s named after the Bastille album, since I love Bastille and they empower me. <3

SAILOR DAZ (Rotom-W) @Sitrus Berry
Nature: Calm (+Sp. Def, -Atk)
IV’s: 31/x/31/31/31/29
EVs: 252 HP / 44 Def / 4 Sp. Atk / 180 Sp. Def / 28 Spd
Ability: Levitate
Moveset:
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Light Screen

The next Pokemon I wanted had to be something that had good synergy with Scizor, and could support it even further. Rotom-W was a perfect fit. This is the same moveset Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) used to place 3rd at Worlds last season (Cybertron’s report), but with a much more defensive EV spread. 252 HP and 44 Def always survives Mega Mawile’s Play Rough, so that’s where I started. I had recently read tanzying‘s article that he translated from Japanese (tanzying’s article) and discovered that 20 Speed EVs on Rotom was popular to speed creep other Rotom. My Speed IV was 29, since I got some pretty bad luck in breeding, so 28 Speed EVs with a 29 Speed IV hits the equivalent of 20 EVs with a 31 Speed IV. I was running a Calm Nature to survive Mega Charizard Y’s Solar Beam, so I just dumped the rest of the EVs into Special Defense, with 4 in Special Attack for EV spread optimization purposes. Rotom-W was nicknamed after an inside joke I have with some IRL friends with sailing, and the detergent brand ‘Daz’.

キリモン (Garchomp) (F) @Focus Sash
Nature: Jolly (+Spd, -Sp. Atk)
IV’s: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Ability: Rough Skin
Moveset:
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Protect

Like Kangaskhan and Scizor, Garchomp is not particularly original. Despite its lack of creativity though, I’m so glad it was on the team. If it wasn’t here I would’ve likely lost the first round and semi-finals. I used to favour Sand Veil as Garchomp’s Ability for when I face opposing Tyranitar, but as Lajos Kowalewski (Lajo) pointed out to me, in a metagame where physical attackers are running amuck, Rough Skin is very strong. I think now is a good time to give credit to my friend Dennis Moberg (Chauzu). I was struggling to get a Garchomp a day before the event, but he came to my rescue with a swagtastic Japanese one. I love you man! He nicknamed it himself, and apparently it translates to ‘Kirimon’, Kiri meaning ‘Cut’.

fab jackson♥ (Talonflame) (M) @Life Orb
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Sp. Atk)
IV’s: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EV’s: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spd
Ability: Gale Wings
Moveset:
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Tailwind
- Protect

Gale Wings Talonflame is scary in our current metagame, because with priority Brave Bird and Tailwind it supports the team and hits really hard at the same time. With max Attack and a Life Orb, it can OHKO Pokemon such as Amoonguss and Scrafty effortlessly with Brave Bird, as well as leave a decent dent in most others that don’t resist the attack. Flare Blitz wrapped things up in the dual STAB department nicely, giving me a way to hit Steel types. Protect is there for the same reason it was on Garchomp and Scizor: it’s a great utility move. The EV spread can take a 4 Special Attack Neutral Rotom-W Thunderbolt, including Sandstorm damage. I have to admit that the spread isn’t optimal, and could easily be improved; for instance, 172 HP EVs would’ve given me the same result without the Sandstorm damage, but sadly this was the only Talonflame I had at the time. He was nicknamed ‘fab jackson♥’ after the fabulous Jackson7 D.

==RAILERS== (Amoonguss) (F) @Black Sludge
Nature: Sassy (+Sp. Def, -Spd)
IV’s: 31/x/31/31/31/6
EVs: 116 HP / 212 Def / 180 Sp. Def
Ability: Regenerator
Moveset:
- Giga Drain
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Protect

Amoonguss was definitely the least used Pokemon in testing, with it mainly being there for redirection and for helping with my matchup against Rain and Trick Room. I’d also bring it to games where I felt I had a disadvantage right from Team Preview, and try to use Spore to gain the upper hand by temporarily disabling any threats. The EV spread was made by the EV doctor himself, Tommy Yee (tlyee61), and it’s a really great spread. It can take a regular Talonflame’s unboosted Brave Bird or Flare Blitz 100% of the time, and has a ton of special bulk to help take attacks overall. It’s nicknamed after the strongest miniNPA team to play in our little circuit, the Anville Railers. Great team. Amoonguss is our mascot.

Teams Played

R1 vs Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou)

R2 vs Jamie Miller (Blaze King7)

R3 vs Tyler Bakhtiari (pokeguru01)

Quarter-Finals vs Maurice Samuels (TheFear)

Semi-Finals vs Alex Monks

Finals vs Justin Miller (ThrillerMiller9)

Closing Words

I’m so thrilled to have won this tournament! I doubted myself a lot going into it, even though everyone around me said I’d place well. For winning I earned myself £500, £100 in Nintendo eShop credit and a new 3DS XL (that’s the equivalent of $817 dollars and $164 eShop credit for all of you Americans out there). I can’t finish this report without giving credit to everyone who helped me to get here, which is pretty much everybody who regularly plays on Pokemon Showdown! Also credit to pro blaze, dingram, raikoo, araluen7 and Chauzu for being a huge help in breeding my team, and DaWoblefet for proofreading this article and helping to make it as bearable as possible! Thanks so much everyone!

The post The Parent Trap – 1st Place Nintendo UK Winter Event Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

After Fall Regionals continued with Black and White 2 for one last set of events, we finally have our first Pokémon X & Y events for Championship Points over the next three weekends. While we’ve gotten a taste for XY in tournaments from the Nintendo UK Winter Event series and some grassroots events, this weekend marks the first opportunity for players to progress in the circuit through Pokémon X & Y.

Every time I’m at home on an event weekend it drives me crazy, so with perhaps the most intriguing Regional tournament I can recall coming up on Sunday I definitely suggest that everyone who can attend does so. Virginia being the first Regional of Pokémon X & Y would be exciting on its own, but Virginia always seems to be the hardest Regional on the circuit due to the Winter Regionals being so spread out, which should be even tougher this year with attendance likely increased beyond what it would have normally obtained by being on an isolated weekend. The field of attendees is so deep that you could end up with a pretty respectable Nationals-size type cut, so seeing so many strong players competing in a brand new ruleset is really exciting for our game. There are a lot of really clever players who will be given a chance to showcase their viewpoints on what works in X & Y through the competition Sunday, so it should be exciting to see who is able to break the metagame that is currently establishing itself and to see which Pokémon are better and worse than their current perceptions. I think it is particularly exciting because as much as I’d have liked to see a ruleset with fewer Pokémon restricted, I think the format this year is dramatically improved over anything we saw during the BW and BW2 era due to some of the gameplay changes on XY. The more balanced gameplay will add some extra credibility to whatever results we get here. In spite of these events occurring very early in this format’s exploration, the winners of the upcoming Regionals will definitely deserve their placements, which has maybe not always been the case with the early events in some formats.

With this being the first tournament on XY for CP, it’s probably a good time for some quick reminders for our readers. The 3DS battery life is a little shorter than we might prefer for these events. Make sure you charge your 3DS before you leave your hotel room or home, because I am sure no Regional will have nearly enough charging stations for everyone. As a nice supplement, I am told these Nyko Power Paks will vastly increase your battery life and are something we should all probably be investing in. While I don’t know if Virginia is going to have any streamed matches, players looking to attend events that will have streams like St Louis’s Regional and APEX next week should keep in mind that you can’t move a digital copy of a game to a capture card to stream, so if at all possible it would probably be a really good idea for everyone to play on a physical copy of the game if you have access to one. Move those Pokémon over and start working on that Return happiness now!

Perhaps most importantly: Download the patch to update your game to version 1.2 before you go. You need your games updated to play.

Virginia Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(Five powerful Mega Pokémon and a Regigigas that can’t get it going because of its Slow Start out of five)

Tournament Organizer: David Tuskey

Last Year’s Winner: Benjamin Rothman (Nightblade7000)

The Story

While all Regionals in the northeast tend to be full of VGC’s biggest names, Virginia’s place in the schedule and its proximity to APEX have made it the most intimidating Regional on the circuit. In 2013, Virginia was also perhaps the Regional that most made it seem like eight players was too small of a top cut for Regionals. Probably the hottest contested Regional of the 2013 season, the top 8 consisted of Ben7000, JiveTime, Andres Morales, TDS, plaid, wer, dtrain, and Dubulous, leaving out a chunk of 2013 worlds competitors in the cold because of their resistances, with Wolfe Glick at 10th, Ray Rizzo at 11, and Trista Medine at 14th, not to mention 2011 Worlds top 4/2012 Worlds top 8 finisher Matt Coyle at 12th. Expect things to be just as close this time, as most of those players will be contending for the top spots again and there are a gauntlet of other high end players trying to take the crown. One interesting change this year is that byes seem to have been quietly abolished, removing the advantage players who did well in Fall Regionals had last season, which led to some of those whiffs.

I tend to start these previews with the old guard because I think we’re still at the point where we old timers tend to be the favorites to top cut at most events, but especially as we move into a new generation, I don’t think that the reality is always going to match that expectation. Skill in this game tends to be somewhat universal regardless of ruleset, but the average player gets better every year and Pokémon is a game that requires a decent amount of specific knowledge about the available Pokémon to win at. Just like with generation four transitioning into generation five, I’d expect Pokémon XY and upcoming sixth generation titles will lead to some turnover toward the top. In 2011, the first year of Pokémon Black and White, we saw the rise of some players we take for granted as stars now like Wolfe Glick (Wolfey) and Aaron Zheng (Cybertron). For someone, the path to joining those names starts this January.

With that said, the northeast does feature the biggest chunk of people you’d probably want playing for you if you needed someone to win a Pokémon battle to save your life. All three of the biggest names in North America — 2010-2012 World Champion Ray Rizzo (Ray), 2011-12 US National Champion and 2012 Worlds runner-up Wolfe Glick, and 2011-12 Senior National Champion and 2013 Masters Worlds semifinalist Aaron Zheng — will be in attendance. It’s a little weird to be writing this, but things have sort of reversed themselves and now and Aaron is the one I’m concerned isn’t going to be taking the event seriously enough with his Worlds invitation already locked up, with Ray and Wolfe having a little more to play for after having their freebie invites last year. The former World Champion still doesn’t seem to be quite as practiced as he should be, but he’s still the best player our game has ever seen and should be a major threat to win the first Regional he’s actually needed to try in since 2010 in spite of being underprepared (please don’t use Torkoal). I think of the three players mentioned here, Wolfe is by far the most dangerous player at this event, as after a year where he could take things a little bit easier he’s put in like 300 games on the VGC ladder on Battle Spot already and will presumably be extremely prepared for this event.

What makes the northeast so intimidating is that there’s still a bunch of other former Worlds competitors to touch on before we even hit the normal favorites. Nationals runner-up and 6th place Worlds finisher Enosh Shachar (Human) was one of only a handful of players who cut three Regionals in 2013. After finally missing top cut at a Regional where he decided to use Charizard even though it was not yet time for Pokémon XY, he should do better now that Charizard can, in fact, Mega Evolve into something useful. Ben Rothman won this event last year after an impressive victory in APEX the previous week, culminating in one of the more impressive combined performances of the 2013 season, and after respectable performances at Nationals, Worlds, and the other Regionals he attended last season he’s solidified himself as one of the favorites at any event he attends. After a circuit with lower stakes last year after winning the 2012 Senior World Championships, Toler Webb (Dim) has quietly actually been very effective in his last two events, coming within inches of top cutting over Aaron Zheng in last year’s World Championships and finishing 2nd at the Texas Regional last Fall. He should definitely be one of the favorites in Virginia. The 2013 Worlds competitor I’m most curious to see the results of is Trista Medine (ryuzaki), because she seems to be in a similar spot to Ray where she hasn’t seemed to have had too much time to practice but is so good when she’s on that it might not matter very much. It’s hard to imagine any of the players in the last two paragraphs missing Worlds, so expect a giant chunk of the CP from Virginia to fall into their collective hands as they start charging toward DC.

As far as the bigger names that aren’t coming off of a Worlds invitation, Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar) has sort of started flying under the radar a little after a 2013 season that wasn’t quite up to his usual standards, but he top cut Worlds two years in a row prior to last year for a reason. I’d probably lump him in with what I said about Trista and Ray, but you’ve got to figure the dice will land on the right numbers for him sooner or later (assuming he remembers to give his Pokémon items) and he did top cut his Fall Regional this cycle. His buddy 2011 Worlds competitor Simon Yip (TDS) had perhaps the most tragic season of 2013, missing out on a Worlds invitation only because of a couple Wi-Fi tournament disqualifications, but he is one player I know who actually has been playing XY pretty regularly, which should help him take a step towards some justice. Like Matt, Danny Zollner (Dan) also had a long series of Worlds invitations broken last year after having been invited every year since 2010, and while the 2011 US Nationals runner-up is unlikely to be using something as bizarre as Zebstrika this time, he seems much more comfortable than he has in the past couple of years and should be poised to make a comeback as a result. Matt Sybeldon (bearsfan092) had been kind of quiet since winning one of the first Regionals of 2013, but he went 8-0 in Swiss in Pennsylvania and he’s been working at XY on stream a bit. Hopefully, he will finally be using a team other than PM649′s, if only because if he complains about it any more it will become a meme and we definitely don’t need any more of those. While Michael Lanzano (JiveTime) never seems to end up in Worlds, he deserves a mention in this grouping of players because he has to be around top 5 for average Regionals finish of all Masters player over the last couple of years and already has a Regionals win this year, so history dictates he should do pretty well here, too. When I think about his Regionals history, it’s a little confusing to me as he never seems to make it at the end of the year, but the CP system has mostly started reversing those trends, so maybe this will be his year.

While most of the previously mentioned players were top finishers in a variety of events during the fifth generation of Pokémon, there was a large amount of turnover between 2010 and 2011 as we shifted into new games, and I would expect that we will similarly see some new stars rising with XY. While some of the people who seem to be working the hardest on XY are old stars — like Wolfe, for instance — there are definitely some other players who seem poised to jump the top. Jeudy Azzarelli (SoulSurvivor) recently won a local grassroots tournament that contained many of the bigger names who will be attending Virginia, including almost all of the former Worlds competitors, so in spite of not really having a notable body of work beyond that win his name has to jump up on the list as one of the better dark horse picks here. SoulSur and his pals Chuppa Cross (Chuppa) and the better known Angel Miranda (Sapphire Birch) have been spending a solid bit of time working on XY, and Chuppa is coming off a NB Live tournament win a week ago, so I think they should have a pretty good shot of cutting here. I will admit, however, that after Seel in Philadelphia I think I’m more interested in what Nugget Bridge’s favorite definitely-a-cute-girl-user Birch will be using than I am in how many matches he’s going to win. While Edward Fan (iss) spent the tournament SoulSur won being some sort of crazed real life bug catcher, he’s spent a lot of time playing and streaming XY and should come into this tournament more prepared than some of his better decorated competitors. In spite of not finally buying a 3DS until like a week ago or something, what I wrote about iss is true of William Hall (Biosci) as well (except for the fixation on weird Bug-types), who’ll look to increase his point total now that he finally gets a full season on the mainland. I’d be really surprised if either of these guys didn’t at least get close to top cut, and I think if you were to think of relative surprises that could end up with Worlds invites without going super deep at Nationals these two should both come to mind.

Even with several paragraphs of players being mentioned, I can’t help but feel like I’m leaving out some important names. Jonathan Hiller (MrFox) won Virginia last year in the Senior division and will be looking for his first top cut in Masters. Cameron Kicack (Stormfront), Adib Alam (honchkro13), David Mancuso (Mancuso), Alex Valente (avdc90), Patrick Brodarick (wer), Dan Levinson (dtrain), Tom Hull (TheGr8), and Tiago Maltez (CinderellaStory) all have at least one top cut in the last year under their belts and will be looking for another in Virginia. I’m sure I’m forgetting a decent chunk of obvious contenders even before the usual “every Regional has a couple players come out of nowhere and surprise us by making the top cut” caveat because the first XY Regional is overflowing with excellent players. There are a ton of players here who will deserve better fates than they end up with, but only eight players will finish in the top cut and the competition will be overwhelming. It should be incredibly exciting to see who comes out on top of a field as strong as this one, and many of them will be back in action again next week at APEX!

The Smart Money is on…: Frankly, the smart money isn’t on anyone this time — without any larger scale XY tournaments to speak of, any prediction seems as wise as the next. With that in mind, I guess I’m expected to pick someone, and if I were setting the betting odds for this event, my favorite would be Wolfe Glick. He’s proven he’s a contender for best in the world when he’s on his game, and of all of the players who have proven they’re among the world’s elite, Wolfe is perhaps the one who seems to be working the hardest right now, so I’ll side with him. He’s also the sort of player I think will be really good in the untested waters of a new metagame. Wolfe is someone who has shown he’s plenty comfortable innovating new strategies almost irrespective of metagame, which is perfect for a situation like what we have now where much of the metagame may be too unstable to rely on. The creative players tend to come out on top early in new formats, and as someone who is both creative and consistent, this should be Wolfe’s time to shine.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

Photo by Doug M.

The post 2014 North American Winter Regionals Preview Part 1: Virginia appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This month the crew under the bridge has a visitor, Aaron Zheng (Cybertron).  Listen as he joins hosts Alan Sutterlin (Dubulous) and Matt Sybeldon (bearsfan092) as they preview the upcoming Winter Regionals, give some EV training tips, and give an overview of the grassroots tournaments held in December.  Also, there is another chance to win as they read the trivia question for January’s Monthly ‘Mon.

You can download an MP3 version of the show here. Keep tabs on the hosts by following them on Twitter at @Dubs_NB and @bearsfan092. You can follow Aaron on Twitter @CybertronVGC. Send us your questions and comments!

Note: This episode was recorded before the Virginia Regional Championships so keep that in mind if you get confused about tenses!

The post [NBR] Under the Bridge 006: Winter Regionals + EV Training Tips feat. Cybertron appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The first Regional Championship of Pokémon X and Y is over! Over 240 players attended in the Masters Division giving us our first ever top 16 cut. As the first event worth Championship Points, we finally got to see what a high level tournament could produce from the new format. Keep an eye on the site as later this week we’ll have the teams that made top cut! We saw the Swan family take over both the Senior and Junior divisions and our 3 Time Former World Champion, Ray, took his first ever Regional win at the first Regional Championship that he’s had something at stake for since 2010. Congratulations to everyone who placed!

Masters Division

1. Ray Rizzo (Ray)
2. Enosh Schachar (Human)
3. Joshua Edwards
4. Toler Webb (Dim)
5. Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)
6. Derek Gazis
7. Nicholas Peckman
8. Patrick Brodarick (wer)
9. Tommy Cooleen (Tman)
10. Hanna Coder
11. Daniel Litvin (TalkingLion)
12. Westin Lee
13. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario)
14. Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar)
15. Ryan Gadea (The Knights of Wario Land)
16. Cameron Kicak (Stormfront)

Standings after Swiss

Senior Division

1. Cameron S. (Drizzleboy)
2. Paul C. (pwny person)
3. Marc M. (Ghornet)
4. Dylan S. (DullAce24)
5. Grant M.
6. Lynden R.
7. Ryan S.
8. Kylie C.

Standings after Swiss

Junior Division

1. London S.
2. Christian F.
3. Devon S.
6. Luke S.
7. Tanner H.
8. Emma C.

Standings after Swiss

If you can fill in the blanks, please let us know in the comments!

The post Results from the VGC ’14 Virginia Regional Championships appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

With a brand new generation and format, players had very little information to go off of in the first Pokémon VGC event of the season.  These are the teams that top cut in Virginia:

Masters

1. Ray Rizzo (Ray)

2. Enosh Shachar (Human)

3. Joshua Edwards

4. Toler Webb (Dim)

5. Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)

6. Derek Gazis

7. Nicolas Peckman (Ace Emerald)

8. Patrick Brodarick (wer)

9. Tommy Cooleen (Tman)

10. Hanna Coder

11. Daniel Litvin (TalkingLion)

12. Westin Lee

13. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario)

14. Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar)

15. Ryan Gadea (The Knights of Wario Land)

16. Cameron Kicak (Stormfront)

Senior Division

1. Cameron S. (Drizzleboy)

2. Paul C. (pwny person)

Junior Division

1. London S.

2. Christian F.

Masters Top Cut Usage Statistics

(Based on the 15 teams listed above for now.)

If you have the missing team data for the top cut placements we don’t have, please do let us know and we’ll update this page!

The post Teams from the VGC ’14 Viriginia Regional Championship appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

 

The post The Comeback Begins – A Virginia 1st Place Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

As expected, the first Pokémon X & Y Regional showed us greater total Pokémon choice diversity than probably any VGC event has ever seen while also highlighting a few favorites who are the metagame’s safe picks. With three Regionals and the VGC’s most anticipated grassroots events this weekend, we’ll likely get a clearer picture of which metagame threats rise above the obvious four or so on top and a better idea of which of the many, many one-use Pokémon from Virginia’s top cut are likely to stick around. Equally interesting will be the trends in player success. Last week, we saw a top four with three of the game’s most consistent players and very nearly saw a fourth. It’ll be interesting to see if the top of the standings continue to be dominated largely by the more experienced players or if we see more turnover with the new format.

The other really interesting thing last week was that Virginia was one of the few Regionals to have 9 rounds of Swiss play and the first to have a top 16 cut. While I know people are a little confused because the TCG’s format never falls for a top 16 cut in any situation anymore and VGC doesn’t actually seem to have protocol published anywhere anymore, I think 16 was a pretty savvy choice as far as balancing having as large of a cut as is reasonable with the time constraints presented by an event that takes place only on a single day. I have to admit I’m now a little confused about where that leaves the rest of the country’s Regionals, but I think it definitely helped out last weekend in the Regional that is likely to be the biggest, allowing a bunch of deserving players into top cut (notably finalists Ray Rizzo and Enosh Shachar). Like basically all cuts that aren’t based exclusively on record, it also left a bunch of players who were probably equally deserving out based on the always abysmal opponent win % tiebreak, but I think it was definitely better than an eight player cut. Still, some of us were chatting about the format a bit on Twitter and I wish we’d wind up with a solution more like the one discussed there.

As with last week, I should probably remind people to download the version 1.2 patch on your games, as you will need to do so to play. If you have the option, I would also strongly suggest everyone to play on a physical copy of the cart rather than a downloaded one. The reason for this is that for the first time this season, it looks like all four events this weekend will be streaming at least some part of their tournaments and you need a physical copy of the game to use a capture card. APEX and St Louis will be streaming some time on Saturday and we’ll be streaming parts of Oregon and SoCal on Sunday, so if you’re at home either of those days tune in to watch some great matches!

Southern California Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(Three Pokémon that are not experiencing the blistering cold out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Karl Batdorff

Stream: Top Cut Planned on nuggetbridge2

Last Year’s Winner: Jacob Burrows (Noobly9730)

The Story

The Californian events always seem to have the strangest flow of players in and out of any area in the country. Gone are last year’s 2nd and 3rd place finishers (Biosci and Human, who will both be at APEX). Gone are last Fall’s Northern California Regional winner PBB (not playing) and 5th place finisher Phenac (going to Oregon). There don’t seem to be too many travelling players coming to replace them this time, so it is likely the players who have done well in previous Californian events will do well again here.

Jacob Burrows won the event last time and has apparently been tactically avoiding practice since his last Regional win. He’s one of those players that surprised us with a Regional win out of nowhere and then kinda went back into the shadows some, but like all good Californian players, he is part of a brother duo. The only such duo that will be intact and have both brothers in the Masters division this year is the Has, with Duy Ha (Duy) looking to build on his 120 CP and finally get back into Worlds after falling a game short four times in the three last years. His brother Huy Ha (Huy) is poised to return to the greatness he can now only achieve in even-numbered years. One of the event’s three probable attendees who played in 2013 Worlds is Alan Schambers (Metabou), who, importantly in California, is also part of a brother duo, though apparently we won’t be getting any Deagle tips this time.

The more decorated of the two remaining 2013 Worlds players is Gavin Michaels (kingofmars), who is the reigning National Champion. He traditionally hadn’t done very well at Regionals but a third place finish in Phoenix has him sitting at 3rd in overall CP going into the Winter events. With 2nd place Thomas Mifflin (PBB) idle, Gavin and 1st place Omari Travis (BadIntent) will look to continue pulling away from the field. Omari kind of fell off the face of the earth for a couple of seasons, but he immediately started dominating the field again in the fall, racking up a nearly insurmountable lead with 230 CP over three events in spite of a drop. The last 2013 Worlds competitor is Demitri, who qualified with his 2013 Nationals top 4 finish. His buddy Kamran Jahadi (kamz) will be in attendance as well. The 2011 Seniors World Champion didn’t really do anything after winning his first Masters Regional last year, but he’s always a threat when he has his hands on a strong enough team. Many of the players mentioned so far — Omari, the Has, Metabou, Gavin, and Kamz stand out — should be really interesting players to watch at this event because they’ve all proven they can be successful in vastly different formats in the past, so you’d expect an early event in a new format to favor players who’ve shown they can adapt.

Several other players attending this event are near the top of the CP standings after the Fall. Paul Hornak (makiri) and Matt Souerby (matt) are part of the giant tie for 4th with 120 CP after doing pretty well in NorCal and Phoenix (and actually facing off in the round of 8 in NorCal). The always innovative former National Champion Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut) is part of that group as well, so this will be a pretty important event for all of them to try to pull ahead of each other with 9 of the 15 Regionals down after this weekend. After playing in what feels like all nine of those Regionals (it’ll actually only be four) Len Deuel (Alaka) is “only” sitting at 90 CP, so he’s definitely hitting the point where it’s going to be important to start finding bigger finishes to make the investment worth it. Hayden Morrison (hakemo) finished fourth last year, but is starting this year a little behind the 8-ball with a late start. Natalie Kaspszak (maski) finished 7th in Arizona, proving that contrary to what I wrote last Fall, she actually wasn’t less likely to make top cut than her father, Dadski. Shreyas Chanchi Radhakrishna (Shreyas) and Sam Johnson (RastaCharmander) were two surprise top cuts in the last Californian event, so it should be interesting to see if they can repeat the performances. Finally, Alec Wild (Pokemaster649) was one of the first players to start showing a lot of success online in XY and was one of those early adopters that started getting emulated, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can turn that into some CP or if he peaked a little too early.

The Smart Money is on… Omari Travis. While it’d be fun to be super bold and predict someone like PM649, it’s tough to go against Omari given his season so far. I was a little surprised at how well he did to start the season, since I figured it’d be the transition into XY where he’d be able to turn it on and use the skills he’d used to do well early in the older format to rack up some points. Instead, he dominated right out of the gate even though he had some catching up to do with the previous metagame. It’s hard to imagine his motivation is at the same level as some of the other players given that he basically only needs one more mediocre finish to make Worlds already, but I’m not betting against him.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

Missouri Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(A snowstorm, a Lapras that inexplicably makes it to the finals here every year, and two cold-looking Pokémon out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Vincent Krekeler

Stream: Swiss and Top Cut planned on bullados

Last Year’s Winner: Kamaal Harris (FonicFrog)

The Story

In many ways, St Louis’ roster feels like a repeat of the Ft Wayne Regional in the fall. The Midwest tends to see a pretty reliable mix of players, and that should stay true here, with six of the eight players who cut the most recent Regional returning. Both Ft Wayne finalists, winner Wesley Morioka and runner-up Kamaal Harris, will be back. Wesley sort of flew under the radar for a while after seeming to get busier with some real life stuff since his 2010 National Championship win, but he came back in a big way winning Ft Wayne last fall. Kamaal seems to be alternating up-and-down events, finishing 6-3 last weekend after the 2nd place finish in Ft Wayne and having a three loss performance before that one. He propelled himself into the 2013 World Championships by doing well in the final two Regionals of 2013, including winning St Louis last year, so we’ll see if he can repeat the cycle here (since he’s apparently due to top cut, anyway).

The semifinalists in Ft Wayne were Andrew Burley (Andykins) and Tyler Hagan (Tyler), both of whom are also attending. Andykins sort of had his first breakout performance in Ft Wayne after being the lone 7-0 in Swiss. Tyler seems to make it to exactly the semifinals of every Regional he attends, having done so three times in a row now. Two of the other top cut finishers from Ft Wayne should be showing up as well: David Mancuso (Mancuso), who had his first top cut finish in Ft Wayne and went 6-3 last week in Virginia, and Scott Glaza (Scott), the only 2013 Worlds qualifier I believe is attending other than Kamaal. A good chunk of the other 5-2s from Ft Wayne will be showing up as well, hoping to pick up an extra win or better resistance this time to end up in the cut. Notables include Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom), Chris Wiley (IceKingz), Andy Himes (Amarillo), Keegan Beljanski (Darkeness), Matthew Carter (mattj), and Jonathan McMillan (MrEobo).

There are also a solid grouping of players who did not play in Ft Wayne’s Regional last Fall. Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh) and Blake Hopper (Mrbopper) were the semifinalists of the Fall Houston Regionals, and they’ll be among the most likely contenders to get chunks of CP here. Shiloh always seems to be one of the players who have among the best performances over the course of the season according to CP, but never seems to end up in Worlds. Maybe the extra North American spots this year will change her luck. I feel like Mrbopper wasn’t someone anyone had very high expectations for until after Nationals last year, but he’s sort of come into the limelight through online performances, has been a regular Battle Spot player, and finally has a big chunk of CP to start the season. Nico Villalobos (Calm Lava), Jonathan Rankin (JRank), and Greyson Garren (GreySong) all top cut in St Louis in 2013, finishing 2nd, 6th, and 8th, respectively. Aaron Grubbs (LPFan) is another one of the players who has seemed stronger in XY, so it’ll be interesting to see how he does in this event. The last notable as far as previous top cut finishes is probably Kevin Fisher (Uncle Taint), who finished 16th at US Nationals last year.

The Smart Money is on… Going with Blake Hopper (Mrbopper) on this one. While I tend to go with the “safer” picks with more established players, as much as the top cut in Virginia would indicate otherwise, I still think XY is going to lead to some upheaval in the ranks and this is one of the events where I think it is more likely to occur. I think this is a particularly difficult event to call, though: St Louis is absolutely full of players who have been on the cusp of greatness, but who mostly never took that last step, with the exceptions of Kamaal and Wesley. This event should come down to whoever is the most prepared in XY… the results will likely be vastly different than what they would have been in an BW2 Regional with the same players. Expect some surprises here.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

Oregon Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(Some Pokémon I saw in Vancouver out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Chris Clanton

Stream: Planned on nuggetbridge

Last Year’s Winner: Randy Kwa (R Inanimate)

The Story

The northwestern Regionals always tend to be a little shallow, evident in Vancouver being removed from the VGC circuit, but it looks like it’ll be at least a little bit deeper this year. The favorite in this part of North America is usually Randy Kwa, Canada’s best player, this event’s defending champion, and one of three 2013 Masters Worlds players who will be attending the event. He should be facing a much stiffer challenge than last year, however. The only year Canada ever had a VGC Nationals, Randy was defeated by Tony Cheung (Chinese Dood) — who also knocked Randy out of the Regional he played in but didn’t win last year in the semifinals. Another ghost of Randy’s past who will be attending is fellow Worlds competitor Stephen Morioka (Stephen), who Randy beat in the top 8 of US Nationals last year, but lost to in US Nationals Swiss and more importantly, the last round of Worlds Swiss, stopping Randy from becoming the first Canadian to make it to the VGC top cut and allowed eventual finalist Ryosuke Kosuge in instead. Hopefully, we’ll see some of these rivalries renewed this weekend!

The other player from last year’s Pokémon World Championships attending is Zach Droegkamp (Zach). While his first two Regionals in 2014 have only netted him a comparably pedestrian 100 CP, Zach won three Regionals in a row spanning the 2012 and 2013 seasons and top cut another, so it’s hard to think of someone more dangerous in a Regional than Zach. One of the Regionals he won featured a semifinal victory over Sam Haarsma (DrFidget) and his un-EVed Beartic last winter in Florida. Fidget will also be attending and looking to start stockpiling CP after falling off in 2013 after a strong start to the season. The runner-up in Oregon last year was Alex Stempe (Stump), who is another player who had a pretty steady flow of strong finishes last year but didn’t quite make it to Worlds. Alex Ogloza (Evan Falco) is in a similar boat, and I feel like he’s bubbled out of about 60 Regionals this season already, too. The last conventional favorite is graduated Senior April Hooge (Phenac), who surprised the field with some unconventional team choices and a top cut finish last fall in NorCal.

Last year’s Swiss undefeated was another surprise, Aryana Welch (feathers), who will be looking for another solid finish this year. To continue with the theme of inexplicable respectable finishes by Nugget Bridge staff members, Rushan Shekar (Firestorm) will somehow be looking to build on the 100 CP no one is quite sure how he acquired in a field where he should confusingly end up getting at least a little more. Perhaps they and Randy will be motivated to avenge their fallen Regional (RIP Vancouver). Another Vancouver native those guys seem to be high on is Max Douglas (starmetroid), who top cut Oregon last year. Most of the other 2013 Oregon top cut names are not people I know very much about, so it should be interesting to see if they can continue to build names for themselves or if this will be a chance for some new players to break in.

The Smart Money is on… Zach Droegkamp. I’m sure he’d like to have the last few events of the BW2 format back, but it’s a Regional, predict Zach. Next.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

And now for some bonus coverage!

Apex Pokémon Tournament

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(Now only four powerful Mega Pokémon but this time for sure a Regigigas that won’t get it going because of its Slow Start out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Angel Miranda (Sapphire Birch)

Stream: Finals planned on clashtournaments

Last Year’s Winner: Benjamin Rothman (Nightblade7000)

The Story

While we encourage people to host and attend them, most grassroots Pokémon tournaments don’t get too much coverage here. Apex is an important exception, and should easily be the most prestigious grassroots Pokémon event we’ve seen, offering greater cash prizes than an individual Regional and having a pretty respectable attendance of around 100 players this year. Apex is split up into eight double elimination pools, with the top two players of each pool making it into a top cut where they will try to win SO much money. Without the usual randomness of Swiss it should be a little easier to break down what is likely to happen at this event than usual, allowing me to go through by pool rather than to just rattle off a bunch of names. One thing that does continue to make things difficult to predict is late entrants, since some players who aren’t currently listed in a pool could vastly change the difficulty of some of the pools if they show up. As such, keep in mind that the pools are subject to change. I’ll look at the pools as we we have them for now, which can be found here. We’re actually missing a decent chunk of the players who were mentioned for Virginia’s Regional in this column last week, so hopefully a few of them will decide to come after all…

The first pool features last year’s runner-up Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) and a handful of players who are very interesting, but who wouldn’t be favorites in most pools. While Aaron has looked a little shaky lately, this should be a pretty easily pool for him. Other known players here mostly consist of Geoff Hamilton (PROFESSORLABCOAT), who made it into the top cut of Nationals last year, and Caleb Ryor (BlitznBurst). The most interesting player in the pool is definitely not any of those three and instead VG Tournament Planner Chris Brown (AlphaZealot). I’m not really sure what to expect from him as a player, but I’m pretty excited that someone in his position is… you know… actually playing the game, so hopefully he’ll get a few rounds in and get to get some tournament experience with XY to help guide his future decisions. With a round one win Chris would face off with Aaron round 2, with Aaron finally getting the chance to get revenge for his top 4 video not being uploaded to YouTube for approximately eight million years. Caleb and Geoff would run into each other in round 3 if they both make it, with the loser of that match facing off with the loser of Aaron/Chris in Round 4 of the loser’s bracket. Look for those matches to be exciting points in the pool in addition to the loser’s finals, though Aaron and Geoff are probably heavy favorites in this pool. However, it has recently been brought to my attention that Geoff’s team sounds like it might be a little too Geoff. So this one is pretty open.

Pool 2 is the Trista Medine (ryuzaki) quadrant, and like most other top seeds, one would expect her to have a fairly easy route to the winner’s finals. The best part of this pool is definitely the 3 seed being Shofu, because I’m pretty sure we could all die happy after watching Trista battle a YouTube/Twitch celeb. Unfortunately for that dream, the 2 seed Jiovaine Neita (jio) has a pretty good chance of blocking Shofu out of that situation. I think Trista and Jio are pretty heavy favorites here, but it should be interesting to see what happens and if some of us are underestimating Shofu.

Pool 3 is the dreaded Ray Rizzo (Ray) pool, fresh off of a Regional victory. While he’ll Stop at Nothing for another World Championship, I know he’s eager to get back in front of the camera instead, so I’m not sure he’ll be going hard if he has a shot at some face time. The 2 and 3 seeds in this bracket are top 4 NYC Elite 4 tournament finisher Ryokon and Virginia top 8 finisher Patrick Brodarick (wer). The mostly inevitable face-off between the 2/3 seeds should be particularly interesting in this pool, especially because I’d expect it to occur again in the loser’s final, but think Ryokon will be the one to make it out of the pool.

The fourth pool’s top seed is the defending champion, Ben Rothman (Ben7000). While he had an underwhelming Regionals performance, like most other one seeds I’d expect him to cruise through this pool. While Chuppa Cross (Chuppa) didn’t cut Regionals, he’s probably one of the stronger 2 seeds and I’d expect him to pose a serious threat to knock Ben into the loser’s bracket, somewhere he should be very comfortable after winning from it last year. The three seed in this pool is Codios, who had sort of a rough draw in this one.

Pool 5 is by far the most interesting of the groups so far. Enosh Shachar (Human) is a heavy favorite like all other one seeds after making it to the finals of Virginia, but he should actually be tested as early as round 3 of the winner’s bracket. At that point he could run into Solomon Croffie (Sol64), who stands out here as one of the few non-Americans in the tournament. He was 30th in European CP last year, which makes this the only pool that had more than one player with a Worlds invitation last year in it. The bottom half of the bracket features Tommy Cooleen (Tman), the undefeated from Virginia Swiss, and Jun Tumaneng (Cypher), who finished 14th at US Nationals last year. I think this is by far the most open bracket and one of the few cases where it’s actually realistic for the top seed not to make it without anything crazy happening or someone very good being added to the field through late registration, but it’s hard not to expect Human and Tman to make it through after last week.

Pool 6 is definitely most interesting for featuring the player who flew to Apex from Australia but only signed up for Pokémon, Van Gank. This is the extent of the information I have about this person, but hopefully he is ready to put up a great performance, because that sure seems crazy from the outside. The better known players in this pool are top seed Jeudy Azzarelli (SoulSurvivor), Adib Alam (honchkro13), and Tom Hull (TheGr8). SoulSur was one of a lot of people’s hipster picks to win last week, but he sort of had an off event, and honchkro looked weaker than he would have been expected from his finishes in the latter half of the BW2 format tournaments as well. I haven’t really seen much of TheGr8′s XY play either, so this may be a pool where there’s some opportunity for an upset. I’d expect Soulsur and TheGr8 to come out of it, though.

The seventh pool is another that seems a little weak based on recent performances, but it has the potential to be one of the more interesting pools. This is may be the only pool where I think the favorite may be someone other than the one seed, as it’s actually three seed Mosquito who has had the best recent tournament experience (though none in XY). I would expect the other spot in the pool to be contested by the top two seeds in the pool, Edward Fan (iss) and Luke Swenson (theamericandream38), who also faced off in the later stages of last year’s Apex tournament. Luke won that time — you may remember the hilariously overdone celebration if you watched last year’s stream — so hopefully iss will be planeing some revenge. iss is still the top rated American VGC ladder player on Battle Spot right now, so you’d think he’s the favorite for the other spot.

The final pool’s seeds feature William Hall (Biosci), Danny Zollner (Dan), and Chris Semp (pookar). In spite of being the 2 seed, Danny’s resume is by far the strongest of anyone in the pool, with three Worlds appearances between 2010-2012. He also had a solid 7-2 performance last week in Virginia. Biosci took last week off, but has looked pretty solid online. While I’m rooting for pookar to hilariously dunk Danny, pookar’s 3-5 finish in Virginia would indicate Dan and Biosci are heavy favorites here.

With Cybertron seemingly rocky lately and ryuzaki seemingly a little too busy to become as dangerous as she’ll be later in the season, I’d expect the top threats in the top cut to be the other established top seeds like Ray, Enosh, Ben7000 (who also had a rough tournament in Virginia) and some of the up-and-comers who are likely to make it into top cut like SoulSur and Chuppa. There’s a decent amount of cash on the line here, so I’d expect everyone to take it pretty seriously. With that in mind, I’d say…

The Smart Money is on… Enosh Shachar. Hard predicting this one: Ray’s heart doesn’t seem to be in it and he’s DTD with cholera or something, most of the other experienced players seem like they haven’t quite caught up to XY yet, and I’m not confident enough in any of the less established guys to risk a prediction here. The tougher pool makes this choice a little dangerous, but I think Enosh’s individual odds are the best even though this is one of those events where no one should feel like a favorite.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

The post 2014 Apex and North American Winter Regionals Preview Part 2 appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Teambuilding

For the past month before the Virginia regional I had been using a Pledge team, however with the recent New York City grassroots tournament I found out that Pokemon Showdown’s Pledge mechanics were glitched. From that point, I completely restarted my team and looked at everything that might be usable.

During my testing earlier, I felt that most matches were heavily influenced by having a good match up at almost all times so I began by making a team heavily focused on defensive synergy. This team began as Aggron, Gourgeist, Aromatisse, Talonflame, Rotom-W and Krookodile. Choice Band Talonflame was incredible cleaning up games and providing constant pressure, U-turn began putting things closer and closer to the knock out range and it was always a safe move. Choice Scarf Krookodile provided Intimidate, shut down Charizard and Talonflame, gave a spread move, and with the buffs to dark typing both offensively and defensively it became a much safer option. With these two I was able to finish off games the moment everything began taking damage and I felt safe using them both as leads and in the back with their unique typing. However, I had an issue with having Pokemon that generally sat there such as Gourgeist, Aggron and Aromatisse and I went back to building my team.

Starting again, while keeping Krookodile and Talonflame from the previous team, I began using a rain team with Politoed and Kingdra. Kingdra had poor coverage and I felt as though that would leave it outclassed by Ludicolo, so I quickly made that replacement. Another problem with rain though was the Amoonguss match up, and after seeing Amoonguss and Kangaskhan win the recent NYCE4 tournament I definitely did not want to leave myself weak to that. Beginning to look at Taunt users, I had a list of three that I was interested in: Aggron, Mawile and Chesnaught. Aggron did not have the damage output I wanted it to have, and Mawile did not have good synergy with its typing as I felt weak to Rotom-W. Chesnaught with Expert Belt was able to get the one hit KO on Kangaskhan with Hammer Arm, safely switch into Rotom-W and take physical hits very well surviving Fake Out and Return from Mega Kangaskhan.  At this point I had Chesnaught, Politoed, Ludicolo, Krookodile, and Talonflame, which left me with a weakness to flying. I needed to add an electric type and something immune to my own Earthquake. Rotom-W was another grass weakness that I did not want to risk, Rotom-C would not resist electric and that left only two Pokemon I was looking at for the last slot, Zapdos and Rotom-H. Zapdos has higher base stats than Rotom-H and both have limited moves in rain, so between the two I chose Zapdos.

With that final decision, I had my team of six.

The Team

Talonflame @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Will-O-Wisp

Politoed @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Drizzle
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 148 SAtk / 12 SDef / 20 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Encore
- Protect
- Ice Beam

Ludicolo @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Giga Drain
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Fake Out

Chesnaught @ Expert Belt
Ability: Bulletproof
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Atk / 4 Def / 60 SDef / 48 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Hammer Arm
- Taunt
- Spiky Shield
- Wood Hammer

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 248 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Stone Edge

Zapdos @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 76 SAtk / 156 SDef / 20 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def / 29 SDef
- Volt Switch
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Ancient Power

EV Spreads Explanation

Talonflame, Krookodile and Ludicolo were just 252/252/4 spreads with the idea of outspeeding and doing as much damage as possible. There was nothing that they needed to do outside of hit as hard as possible and in using them the goal was to avoid taking hits. Krookodile could be slowed down by 36 speed EVs (216 Spe) making it outspeed Choice Scarf Rotom, Choice Scarf Heracross and Mega Manectric, or 72 EVs (180 Spe) making it just outspeed Choice Scarf Gardevoir and base 130s. When it came down to it, one of the reasons I didn’t slow it down ended up being that I tested a Choice Scarf Lucario not too long ago to beat Mega Kangaskhan and with Krookodile’s speed and bulk I did not feel like it would be necessary to miss outspeeding any potential threat for such minimal return.

For Chesnaught I first invested in HP and Defense in order to survive a Fake Out Return combo from Mega Kangaskhan. I then invested in Attack to get a knock out on said Kangaskhan with an Expert Belt Hammer Arm. The special defense was used to survive an Overheat from Charizard-Y in Rain and that left the remaining EVs to go into speed and speed tie with uninvested base 70s, outspeeding some Scizor and Tyranitar.

Unlike Chesnaught, for Politoed defense was not the first priority. The Special Attack was the minimum in order to guarantee a one hit KO on Garchomp by using Ice Beam. This primarily made it a lot safer for Zapdos and Talonflame. Then, I invested in HP as HP increases my overall defense the most, and in doing so I set out to survive a Mega Kangaskhan Return at first, but then looking at other physical threats I decided that I should also put enough investment to take Mega Mawile Play Rough. The 20 Speed EVs were to avoid speed ties, including with my own Chesnaught, and outspeed bulky Mega Tyranitar that has only 4 Speed EVs. The remaining 12 EVs were put into Special Defense for general bulk and to weaken Rotom-W Thunderbolt by any amount that I could.

Zapdos first of all was intended to take special attacks. As I was making my team I realized that Rotoms would not mind using thunderbolt against me and just in general special attacks would be doing as significant amount. While I was set on using Choice Specs due, I needed to ensure that it would be able to take special hits. While I was able to outspeed and knock out most special attackers before they could become a threat by using Ludicolo in rain, Hydreigon, specifically Choice Specs Hydreigon, would have been able to put a dent on anything on my team, so I made Zapdos survive that 100% of the time as any extra damage would begin putting it into the KO range for the more offensive Pokemon on my team. Although I did not happen to face a Hydreigion I am glad that I made that choice to take special attacks well. The speed was to outspeed neutral base 70s, however I wish that I added another 8 Speed EVs to outspeed mega Tyranitar as it was something I did not consider as much as I should have in my team building. The rest of the EVs were thrown into Special Attack. If I manage to get a flawless Hidden Power Ice Zapdos, I would still hit the same important Special Defense benchmark, but I would also get the extra speed. Zapdos served its job perfectly though, so major thanks to Simon for soft resetting to get a Modest HP Ice Zapdos, it did very well.

How It Worked

Let’s start off with Chesnaught. It was definitely not something I brought often, and for good reason. I knew that there would almost always some sort of check on their team to both grass and fighting types as offensively it is resisted by so much, and with its limited coverage Chesnaught just found itself walled as often as it walled the opponent. Chesnaught was a niche pick and was meant to beat specific team compositions and provide a Taunt support option. This meant for swiss I almost completely avoided bringing it and the team’s core was mostly built upon the other five.

Wanting to keep and get lead advantages, I wanted a lot of options to switch in and out and keep my options open. Leads such as Ludicolo paired alongside Talonflame or Zapdos were able to get a KO on the first turn with a U-turn or Volt Switch allowing a switch into Politoed as I fired off a Rain and Life Orb boosted Hydro Pump on a target. Additionally using Ludicolo’s coverage I had other double target options and was also able to cover switches. Similarly, U-turn with Talonflame and Thunder from Zapdos was able to get a lot of KOs against things such as Rotom-W. That same lead also had the option to switch around a lot with U-turn and Volt Switch to keep momentum.

One of the best switch-ins on my team was Krookodile with Rock Slide and Intimidate  which minimized the threats of most physical attackers such as Talonflame. This was able to help shut down sun alongside Talonflame and was one of the best ways to slowly whittle down the HP of opponents to place everything on the opponent’s team in the KO range of high damage attacks. In fact, my main strategy was to clean up games by using Choice Band Brave Bird, Choice Specs Thunder and rain boosted Hydro Pumps once the Pokemon on their team were eventually weakened and put into the KO range. Politoed assisted with this by bringing Rain and having Encore making slow, bulky Pokemon essentially useless as they could no longer Protect or support the rest of their team and that meant that they were also threatened by a KO. Against Kangaskhan one of the options I had was to lead Politoed Ludicolo and use Hydro Pump Encore to either get a knock out with Hydro Pump or lock them into Fake Out. Offensively Politoed was able to one shot Garchomp with Ice Beam and helped me beat Talonflame.

Overall, I am more than satisfied with a second place finish, it is a step up from my usual third place finishes and it’s great to be in the finals. This also marked my tenth top cut, which has been one of my biggest goals since I began approaching it last year. I’d like to thank Snake, Metabou, Calm_Lava, lucariojr and Zach for getting me the Pokemon for my team and to thank Zach, Crow and especially Mean for helping me come up with the team.

The post It was all for chesNAUGHT: A Second Place Virginia Regional Team Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The 3rd Nugget Bridge Major has now started to take signups. If you couldn’t make it to an XY Regional this season, this is the perfect opportunity to see how you fair against the best of the best in Nugget Bridge’s biggest tournament. Who will join previous winners R Inanimate and MrFox? It can be anyone, will it be you?

The Major has also undergone some changes and to better mirror the real life competitions, the Major will now be a Swiss style tournament with a single elimination top cut. This means even if you lose round 1 (or at all) you still have a chance to be declared the Nugget Bridge Major Champion! This and more specific rules can be found in the signup thread on the forums.

As always there will be prizes for the top competitors along with the automatic Nugget Bridge Invitational invite, so bring your best!

Signup thread.

The post Nugget Bridge Major 3 Signups Have Begun! appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the VGC Winter Regional Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, which had the honor of being the biggest Winter Regional Championship with 239 players until the Southern California Regionals more than doubled our attendance. I went undefeated in the Swiss rounds and then lost in the first round of 16-person Top Cut.

The Team at a Glance

The “Core”

Before I made this team, I was using a strange Toxic-stall team that employed Hippowdon, Reuniclus, Mega-Manectric, and Gourgeist-Super.  It had been working pretty well for a while, but I came across someone on Pokemon Showdown that was utilizing Wigglytuff, Ludicolo, Mega-Charizard Y, and Rhyperior.  While I wasn’t particularly impressed by Wigglytuff, I found that the Ludicolo/Mega-Charizard Y/Rhyperior core had pretty fantastic defensive synergy.  I decided to take that group and add some modifications of my own.

Charizard @ Charizardite Y “’tilthesun”
Ability: Blaze (Drought)
EVs: 100 Def/ 252 SAtk / 156 Spd
Modest Nature
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam
- Ancientpower
- Protect

Charizard was my most utilized pokemon at this tournament, deployed in every match I played.  The complicated EV spread is designed to be faster than most Rotoms without Choice Scarf and OHKO or near OHKO Rotom-W with Solar Beam, while still surviving Rock Slides from Jolly Garchomp most of the time.  I opted for Flamethrower over Heat Wave because it hits slightly harder, allowing me to knock out things that are built to survive Heat Wave, while hitting 100% of the time and through Wide Guard.  There were a few times that I found myself wishing I could hit both of my opponent’s Pokemon, but the accuracy increase and never missing an Amoonguss that was about to shove a Spore down my throat was totally worth it.  Ancientpower allowed me to 2HKO most Rotom-H, and OHKO Talonflames and opposing Charizards.  It also was a good option for finishing off Pokemon because it gave me a 10% chance of getting all of my stats boosted by one.  This never happened at the event, but it did happen a few times in practice and it was pretty much an automatic win.

Ludicolo @ Life Orb “good fun”
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 Spd
Modest Nature
- Fake Out
- Giga Drain
- Ice Beam
- Protect

The first thing you’ll probably notice about this Ludicolo is that it lacks any Water-type moves.  Since I was using Sun on this team, most of the time Water-type moves would be weakened anyway, so I chose Protect instead to give me the opportunity to stall out a turn and grab the OHKO on any opposing Talonflames. Ludicolo was essentially my counter for any type of Rain or water-based strategies.  Rhydon and Charizard had trouble with Muddy Water and Surf, so Ludicolo would be used to knock out any opposing threats.  I invested in HP rather than Speed because Ludicolo cannot outspeed any of the Pokemon that threaten it (namely Talonflame), even when investing 252 Speed EVs. Plus, being able to Giga Drain away as much HP as possible while keeping myself pretty bulky was great.   In addition, the lack of speed was somewhat mitigated by my use of Tailwind on Aerodactyl.  It also is a good defensive switch-in on predicted Hydro Pumps and water attacks aimed at my next Pokemon.

Rhydon @ Eviolite “get some”
Ability: Lightningrod
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SDef
Brave Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Megahorn
- Protect

An often-overlooked Pokemon, Eviolite Rhydon has only 10 base HP less than Rhyperior, 10 fewer base Attack, yet is still far bulkier and is 5 base Speed slower to help take advantage of Trick Room.  This allowed me to keep most of the bulk Rhyperior’s Solid Rock Ability would afford me, and still draw away Electric-type attacks.  Rhydon was a total beast, and had amazing synergy with Charizard.  Charizard’s Drought ability automatically causes Sunny Day to be in effect, decreasing the power of all incoming water moves to where Rhydon could easily survive them.  Charizard also outspeeds and KOs most Grass-types with Flamethrower, save for Ludicolo, in order to protect Rhydon from its 4x grass weakness.  In return, Rhydon’s Lightningrod diverted all Electric attacks away from Charizard.  The moveset is pretty standard; Rock Slide and Earthquake are two powerful STABs that have really decent coverage in the current metagame. Megahorn was the best option available to increase coverage, which pretty easily OHKOs Malamar, although I didn’t see any Malamar at this event.  In hindsight, this spread probably could have been marginally more efficient if I had utilized 12 HP / 244 SDef, as 252 SDef puts me at 145.5 Def with the Eviolite boost, which is rounded down.

The Immediate Additions

After looking at my core, I saw two really huge vulnerabilities to two very common Pokemon.

The popularity of Garchomp and Kangaskhan was the reason I chose my next two Pokemon.

Salamence @ Choice Scarf “to the stars”
Ability: Intimidate
4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Hydro Pump

This is pretty much the most basic Salamence spread in existence.  I prefer Modest nature over Timid because it allows me to hit harder, which is especially important when facing down a Kangaskhan I’ve only attacked with minimal damage.  I usually did not use my Salamence against opposing Salamences unless I was certain they were not carrying Choice Scarf, because losing my Salamence to a faster one is a far too easy KO to give up in a match.  Fire Blast had the added bonus of being boosted by Sun and OHKOs most Mega-Mawiles. I used Dragon Pulse for a number of reasons, especially for Focus Sash users and Pokemon with the Multiscale Ability.  I only used Hydro Pump once this event, but it was a good coverage move to have during practice.

Gourgeist-Super @ Sitrus Berry “up all night”
Ability: Frisk
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Relaxed Nature
- Will-o-Wisp
- Leech Seed
- Phantom Force
- Protect

Gourgeist: the hardest Kangaskhan counter ever.  The 252 HP and 4 Def EVs with a Relaxed nature allowed me to survive an Adamant Life Orb Talonflame Brave Bird 100% of the time, so I dumped the rest into Special Defense to mitigate damage from Ice Beam, Dark Pulse, and other moves that could potentially be harmful to Gourgeist.  Gourgeist was one of my less deployed Pokemon at this event, but was definitely a great asset whenever he participated in battles and acted as a fantastic closer.  Once the opponent can no longer switch out Pokemon, Gourgeist is bulky enough with the Sitrus Berry to survive most attacks, allowing it to set up Leech Seed and Will-o-Wisp on opponents and then utilize Phantom Force and Protect to take damage only once out of every three turns.  Gourgeist especially came in handy when I was dealing with Mega-Kangaskhan.  The standard Mega Kangaskhan spread utilizes Return (does not effect), Power-Up-Punch (does not effect), and Sucker Punch (which only works if I use Phantom Force).  In any one-on-one scenario of Kangaskhan versus Gourgeist, Gourgeist would win every single time.  There have also been times that I could eliminate my opponent’s threats to Gourgeist and secured a win even in a three to one scenario as long as there were no critical hits or flinches.

The Final Piece of the Puzzle

I tried out a lot of different Pokemon and spreads before arriving at this one.  Two weeks before Missouri Regionals I had arrived at a sort of strange Aerodactyl.

Aerodactyl @ Focus Sash
Ability: Unnerve
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Tailwind
- Ice Fang
- Taunt

This Aerodactyl worked pretty well, but definitely left a lot to be desired.  In my playtests before starting the in-game teambuilding process, I still felt that I was pretty weak to Jolly Garchomp Rock Slides, even though my Charizard was designed to survive them. Plus, getting flinched by a Rock Slide was pretty much game over.  There were three Pokemon weak to Rock-type moves on my team, meaning anything fast and using Rock Slide could really do a number on my team.  In addition, though it was less common, I found that Hail and Blizzard spam was even more difficult to deal with, hitting four of my Pokemon for super-effective damage.

Then, the magic happened.  I went to Zach to get a breeding spitback, which is a four or five IV Pokemon that a player isn’t going to use, of an Unnerve Aerodactyl when he told me that the ones he had already had Tailwind and Wide Guard as egg moves.  I almost immediately came up with a new moveset, and it ended up being probably my MVP for this tournament.

Aerodactyl @ Focus Sash “get lucky”
Ability: Unnerve
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
- Rock Slide
- Tailwind
- Wide Guard
- Protect

This Aerodactyl was amazing.  In generation VI, moves like Wide Guard and Quick Guard can now be used on consecutive turns without failing.  If I was facing a Garchomp, I could continually use Wide Guard so that its Rock Slides would do no damage at all. Then, Mega Charizard – Y could focus all of its attention on eliminating Garchomp’s partner.  Usually the partner assumes that my Mega Charizard – Y will be either use Protect or be KOd by Rock Slide, which often led to a pretty easy KO for me.  This was especially effective when my opponent locked himself into a Choice Scarf Rock Slide.  I brought Aerodactyl to most of my later round matches, which were typically against more skilled players.

The Tournament

For once in my Pokemon-playing life I felt like I had almost gotten a decent amount of sleep the night before the event.  Almost seven hours!  Anyway, we arrived at the event about 45 minutes before registration ended and walked right to the front of the pretty long line because we all pre-registered.

After a pretty long wait and the players meeting, the pairings were up and I went to meet my first opponent.

Round 1: Josh Cosentino

I used:

Glad to see a name I didn’t recognize in the first round, I was still pretty wary considering my track record of nearly losing to Choice Band Bibarels in round 1.  He said that he had been practicing with FonicFrog and bearsfan092, so I assumed he would be a reasonably capable opponent.

He sent out Clawitzer and Dragonite, I led Salamence and Charizard, which I Mega Evolved turn 1.  I was relatively certain that his Dragonite would be a Weakness Policy set, but I went ahead and Dragon Pulsed and Solar Beamed at the Dragonite and Clawitzer anyway, knowing that I probably would be able to pick up the KO on Dragonite with either Charizard or Salamence the next turn if he attacked or had Extremespeed.  Weakness Policy activated, and then he used Dragon Dance with Dragonite and Water Pulsed at my Charizard, dealing about 40%.  I Dragon Pulsed again, a bit surprised that he didn’t have Extremespeed, and used Ancientpower to pick up the KO on Clawitzer. He sent in Amoonguss and Charizard (Mega Evolved immediately) and I was reasonably certain I had the game, taking out Amoonguss with Flamethrower and Dragon Pulsing the Charizard.  He continued to Heat Wave with Charizard and managed to take out my Charizard and Salamence. Eventually, I finished his Charizard off with a Rock Slide from Rhydon.

2-0 Win

Match Record 1-0

Round 2 Brent Wessel

I used:

Another player I didn’t know, he led Cloyster and Klefki and I led with Salamence and Charizard.  I Mega Evolved, his Klefki Thunderwaved my Charizard, my Salamence Draco Meteored his Cloyster, which survived with a Focus Band.  He didn’t seem to be aware that move order was determined at the beginning of the turn, so my Charizard Flamethrowered and knocked out his Klefki while his Cloyster Rock Blasted and knocked out my Charizard.  I sent in Rhydon and he sent in Mawile.  I’m not certain what happened after this, but I know I ended up with Rhydon at about 15% HP and a Gourgeist that had already disappeared for Phantom Force against a Greninja.  My Rhydon used Protect, Greninja used Mat Block, and Gourgeist dealt about 50% with Phantom Force, because it hits through protecting moves.  The next turn he used Surf to take out Rhydon and I disappeared for Phantom Force again.  He revealed Blizzard on Greninja, so I’m assuming he had no Dark Pulse, but Phantom Force KOd him the next turn.

I asked him after the match why he had a Focus Band on Cloyster, it turned out that he accidentally bought the wrong item in the Battle Maison the night before at 3am.

1-0 Win

Match Record 2-0

Round 3 Jonathan Neville (TM_Gold)

I used:

The first person on my schedule I knew of; I had seen him cosplaying as Giovanni at every Regional and Nationals I had attended.  I knew that he had made top cut US Nationals in 2013, so I was pretty sure he was a solid player.  From team preview it looked like Charizard and Aerodactyl would be really effective at stopping anything he could be using, so I led with them.  He led Mamoswine and Amoonguss, the former of which I was assuming was holding a Choice Scarf.  His Amoonguss used Rage Powder, while I used Wide Guard and blocked the incoming Rock Slide from the definitely Choice Scarfed Mamoswine, allowing Charizard to pick up an easy turn one knock out with Flamethrower on Amoonguss.  The next turn I was relatively certain he would switch out Mamoswine and protect with Yanmega to get the Speed Boost buff, but I used Wide Guard just in case, and made what probably wasn’t my best move of the day and used Flamethrower on Mamoswine instead of Solar Beam.  He switched out to his Rotom-W and Protected his Yanmega, so the turn was pretty much neutral, save for about 35% damage on his Rotom-W.  I expected an incoming Thunderbolt from Rotom-W and knew I could pick up the knock out on his Yanmega with a Rock Slide from Aerodactyl the next turn, so I chose to switch Charizard out for Rhydon.  Surprisingly, his Yanmega reveals Ancientpower directly into Rhydon, Aerodactyl’s Rock Slide picks up the KO on Yanmega but misses Rotom-W, and Lightningrod diverts the Thunderbolt aimed at Aerodactyl.  He brings in his Mamoswine, and very intelligently he chooses to Icicle Spear my Aerodactyl and scores enough hits to knock it out. His Rotom-W Hydro Pumps my Rhydon and I tank it pretty easily with about 30% HP remaining.  Rhydon uses Rock Slide and scores a critical hit on Mamoswine for about 50% damage, but again misses the Rotom-W.  I bring in Charizard now that there is no fear of Rock Slide from Mamoswine.  At this point I know that I have Gourgeist in the back, so I just need to knock out his Mamoswine and I will win the game.  I think he chose to Icicle Spear to knoc out my Rhydon, while I Solar Beamed at his Mamoswine to knock it out, and his Rotom-W knocks out my Charizard with Thunderbolt.  This leaves me one-on-one with Gourgeist against Rotom-W. I set up Leech Seed and Phantom Force until the life is slowly drained away from his Rotom-W.

1-0 Win

Match Record 3-0

Lunch Break

We went to Cracker Barrel.  I ate vegetables.  They were okay.

Round 4: Joseph Brummet (lucariojr, eventual 13^th place)

I used:

Another player I knew of, but had never played before.  He had two Rock Sliders and a Rotom, so I selected Charizard and Aerodactyl as leads with Rhydon in the back. I chose Salamence because he would be able to score at least decent damage on any of his Pokemon, and would only be threatened by anything if Trick Room was up.  He led Garchomp and Gothitelle, so I used Wide Guard to block the incoming Rock Slide from Garchomp and targeted Gothitelle with Flamethrower.  He used Rock Slide and Protect, so it was an insignificant turn.  The next turn he decided to Rock Slide again. I continued to Wide Guard and pulled off the Flamethrower. His Gothitelle ate its Sitrus Berry and set up Trick Room.  I went to switch out my Charizard for Rhydon when I realized that he had a Shadow Tag Gothitelle.  I don’t remember what happened much after this, but I know that at some point he switched out his Gothitelle for Tyranitar, which allowed me to bring in Rhydon with one turn of Trick Room remaining.  There was a lot of shuffling after this, but as far as I remember I knocked out his Mawile with Fire Blast from Salamence, Tyranitar with Earthquake, Gothitelle with Flamethrower, and Garchomp with Dragon Pulse.

2-0 Win

Match Record 4-0

Round 5: Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario, eventual 3^rd place)

I used:

I recognized his name from the Virginia Top 16 group, and knew that he was using a Choice Scarf Diggersby, which definitely looks like an attractive option when playing against my team.  He led Diggersby/Weavile and I led Aerodactyl/Charizard.  Turn one I used Protect with both of my Pokemon to scout what he would lock himself into with the Choice Scarf and block the Fake Out coming from Weavile.  To my delight, Diggersby used Rock Slide.  I use Wide Guard to block Diggersby’s Rock Slide, and went for Flamethrower on Weavile but he used Fling to throw a King’s Rock at my Charizard, so I flinched and it was an insignicant turn, although now I knew he did not have a Focus Sash on Weavile.  I continued to Wide Guard and I think he switched Diggersby into Clawitzer.  His Weavile used Icicle Crash to break Aerodactyl’s Focus Sash, and I scored the knock out on Weavile with Flamethrower.  At this point I think he brought in Charizard, which Mega-Evolved into Mega Charizard Y.  I don’t remember the details of everything from here on out, but I knocked out his Charizard with either Rock Slide or Ancientpower. I definitely used Draco Meteor on Clawitzer, who retaliated with Ice Beam to knock out my Salamence.  Ludicolo faked out Diggersby, and my Charizard knocked it out with Solar Beam, and it ended with I think a one-on-one of Ludicolo versus Clawitzer at ~50% health, which Ludicolo outsped and knocked out with Giga Drain.

1-0 Win

Match Record 5-0

Round 6: Justin Doonan

I used:

Apparently he only started playing a few months ago, but was having a great tournament.  This match was recorded, you can watch it here (match begins around 6:40)

2-0 Win

Match Record 6-0

Round 7: Matthew Carter (mattj, eventual winner)

I used:

The eventual winner of the tournament, I felt really prepared for most of the things he could have possibly thrown at me. This match was recorded, you can watch it here (match begins around 2:30) 

3-0 Win

Match Record 7-0

Round 8: Blake Hopper (mrbopper, eventual 5^th place)

Blake and I were the only undefeated players going into the eighth round of Swiss.  The tournament organizer told Blake that we could intentionally draw if we wanted to.  We both knew that it would ensure that there was no way we could miss top cut if we did, so we decided to do it.  No further comment.

4-4 Draw

Match Record 7-0-1

Round 9: Joseph Darby (eventual 14^th place)

I used:

I was certain I was in Top Cut at this point, but decided to play and do a bit of scouting against a possible future opponent.  I had never heard of him, but he was 7-1, so he was definitely a solid player.  I don’t remember too much about this match, but I know I led Charizard and Rhydon, while he led Rotom-H and Gyarados.  I used Ancientpower on Gyarados and his Rotom-H missed Will-o-Wisp on my Rhydon.  He used Dragon Dance with Gyarados, but I scored a critical hit on his Gyarados, knocking it out before it could do anything. Some things happened, and the match ended up with my Charizard facing his Tyranitar at about 40% health in the Sun.  My opponent decided not to stall out the Sunny Day with protect and I knocked out his Tyranitar with Solar Beam.

1-0 Win

Match Record: 8-0-1

Top Cut

I was pretty exhilarated at going undefeated in Swiss and emerging as the top seed going into Top Cut.  Unfortunately I was also completely exhausted. It was something like 8PM by the time we started the Top Cut matches, so we had all been playing for more than eight hours at that point.  This was my first Top Cut ever, so I was pretty unsure of how things would turn out.

Round of 16: Leonard Craft III (DaWoblefet, eventual 8^th place)

All I knew about my first Top Cut opponent was that LPFan was really unhappy about their match in Round 9, where a Meowstic apparently Swaggered his Pokemon, who hit itself in confusion five out of six times. I was wary about Meowstic because I don’t run Safeguard and generally hate getting Swaggered in practice, but it was the game I had to play.

Game 1

He used:
I used:

He led with Salamence and Kangaskhan, and I led Aerodactyl and Charizard.  I double Protected to block Fake Out and scout a potential Choice Scarf.  He used Fake Out with Kangaskhan and Rock Slide with Salamence.  I definitely didn’t think my Charizard was safe, so I switched it into Gourgeist and used Wide Guard with Aerodactyl.  To my surprise, it was actually a mixed Life Orb Salamence that used Flamethrower right at my Gourgeist.  Thankfully, Gourgeist barely survived. I don’t remember much after that, but I played myself back into the game with some Tailwind and Rhydon magic, but I definitely missed an important Rock Slide on his Kangaskhan. His Rotom-H managed to knock out my Rhydon from a pretty questionable damage range. It ended up with my Charizard and Gourgeist against his +4 Attack Kangaskhan and -2 Sp Attack Rotom-H with a Tailwind blowing behind me.  Surprisingly, my Gourgeist was faster than his Rotom-H with Tailwind up, so I managed to burn his Kangaskhan with Will-o-Wisp, which allowed me to survive a Sucker Punch the next turn.  Unfortunately, his Rotom-H proceeded to hit my Gourgeist with Overheat, otherwise I definitely would have won.  The last turn was possibly decided on damage rolls, with his two Sucker Punches leaving me at 41 HP, enough to maybe survive a -4 Rotom-H Thunderbolt depending on his spread.  I knocked out his Kangaskhan with Flamethrower.  I knew that I would be able to pick up the knock out on Rotom-H if I survived the Thunderbolt, but I did not.

0-1 Loss

0-1 Match

Game 2

He used:

I used:

I was really confident going into this round that I had gathered enough information to take the next two games.  I had left Salamence off of the field because I was afraid of facing another Choice Scarf Salamence, so this time I made sure to bring it because it would do well against his Life Orb Salamence.  Ludicolo would pair really well with it, giving me Fake Out support and countering his last lead perfectly.  He chose to lead Rotom-H and Meowstic.  I thought he would Quick Guard turn one with Meowstic, so I chose to Giga Drain at Meowstic instead and Hydro Pump his Rotom-H.  This ended up being a bad decision, because Meowstic just went ahead and Swaggered my Ludicolo the first turn.  Hydro Pump connected, dealing ~70% damage to his Rotom-H, which proceeded to Thunderbolt at Ludicolo.  Ludicolo hit itself in confusion.  Meowstic Swaggered my Salamence, which hit itself in confusion.  Rotom-H used Thunderbolt and paralyzed my Ludicolo, which hit itself in confusion.  I probably could have salvaged the game if I had been more focused, but I was already angry about my Pokemon’s inability to move, and Meowstic’s Charm had shut down my Rhydon’s offensive capabilities pretty well.  I totally lost my focus this game and got into a situation where I would be able to take the game with two Rock Slide critical hits, but that was about it.

0-4 Loss

0-2 Match Loss

Wrap-Up

Overall, I had a really great day with a lousy finish.  The length of the tournament day, from a 10am registration time to an 8PM Top Cut start, was definitely a bit longer than I was mentally prepared to handle, and it started getting to me in my last few matches.  My team’s makeup required me to play really well every round if I didn’t want things to spiral out of control.  My nerves at my first ever top cut, complete exhaustion, and lack of focus in the Top 16 definitely got to me, and I feel that I played very poorly in both matches.  Hopefully I will be able to come up with another quality team for spring regionals.

Big thanks go out to a bunch of people: mrbopper for trading me the spitbacks I needed to build my team and helping me with the conceptual part of the teambuilding,  Zach for trading me the Unnerve Aerodactyl spitback and accidentally giving me one of the most important parts of my team,  Andykins for helping me with the conceptual teambuilding process and being a good practice partner, honchkro13 for trading MrEobo the flawless shiny Ditto that moved breeding along a great deal (and MrEobo for trading me that Ditto),  and finally Kyomen for driving me to the event.  Also a big shoutout to GreySong for providing me with a few great feel-better hugs after I was eliminated from Top Cut.

The post Wide Guarding to the Top Cut: St. Louis Masters Undefeated Swiss Team Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Forums and Facebook posts have been completely up in arms about a recent occurrence in the Winter Regionals: the instance of players intentionally drawing, or IDing, during Swiss rounds. For those who haven’t seen it, what this basically comes down to is two players consenting to declare the match a tie rather than playing the match, with the judge’s approval, and moving on from there.

Let me begin with a simple request: if you’re only reading this to see my side, then either affirm your own beliefs or look for holes in my arguments to bash me in the comments, I strongly suggest you skip down to the last paragraph. If you actually want to have a coherent discussion on Nugget Bridge forums, or just read about a few misconceptions, continue.

I have two goals with this article: the first is to address misconceptions about intentional draws that players should be aware of before bashing others, and the second is to offer my two cents regarding a solution.

Misconceptions About the Intentional Draw

The reason that this is wrong is that the rules state otherwise, and players should know better

I want to state up front that I’m conceptually against legalizing intentional draws. I think they don’t serve the purpose they are intended to do well enough to keep around, and I have read from others that, despite enforcement being inconsistent, the Tournament Organizer Chris Brown (AlphaZealot) intended them to be against the rules.

From a moral standpoint, the question of whether or not to ID is obvious. The problem with IDing is not that it is expressly forbidden in the rules; some judges, independent of how the written rules are interpreted by the players, are inconsistent in deciding whether or not this is okay. The reason IDing is an issue, from a moral standpoint at least, is that the only scenario in which a player can gain an advantage by IDing is one in which most other players don’t follow suit. By its very nature, it is a tactic that depends on other players playing a certain way, and manipulating that. If everyone IDed, then we’d have draw tie breakers the same way we do win/loss tie breakers, and the tournament would function as per usual, and no unfair advantage would be had. So for right now, with most players believing IDs are illegal and not doing it, there is no doubt that there is a possibility of an unfair advantage (more on the specific term “possibility” later).

But from a legality standpoint, things get debatable. The rules forbid playing that goes against the spirit of the game in ways such as bribery, and also clearly states that a player who selects run will have that match marked as a loss. But the interpretations of these statements have been argued back and forth; for example, one forum post commented that the IDs in question received full consent and did not involve bribery, and did not actually play the match and use the double-forfeit option, but instead directly went to the judge. Furthermore, the aforementioned comment directly from Chris Brown is not in a public and widely accessible manner, and at this point is merely heresay from the grapevine.

Most players assume their IDing comrades should know better. But in some cases, they don’t. I think that most, if not all, of the people who IDed during this last weekend strive to be in good standing with the community, and logically would not have done this had they seen the act from the perspectives voiced through social media in the time after the event. Granted, I don’t believe ignorance is an excuse in many scenarios, but I also don’t believe the players strictly speaking believed they were cheating, and should not be treated to the same harshness. From the ones that I’ve talked to, players not only had direct consent of each other, but also direct consent of the head judge at the time. They did everything they could to double check that the idea they had was, in fact, legal. And a judge’s rule is final, whether we like it or not – the judge could have (and, depending on your viewpoint, should have) said no at any time.

For this to be treated with the severity that it has been given so far, the first step is a firm and explicit ban on IDs, with no room for misinterpretation. In any other situation, while the player’s actions are of course in a gray area, the fact remains that it is the tournament organizer and judges’ responsibility to ensure that all players are informed of the rules and acting in accordance with them, and the fact that this even happened begs for change in the written clarifications we have.

Players who do this inherently gain an unfair advantage

If you have a smart phone, I strongly recommend a paid app called Debate Mobile, which can show you the possible win/loss ratios of a tournament, given a certain number of swiss rounds and number of players. For those that don’t have it, I’ll skip to what you’ll find by looking at it: the Oregon Regional Championships that just passed were a perfect example of why it is not a hundred percent accurate to assume IDs give an advantage to the players that use them.

In a tournament of 128 players with seven rounds of swiss, the overwhelming odds are in favor of a single 7-0 score, and seven 6-1 scores, with no chance for a 5-2 score or below to make top cut. Players who go for an ID after one loss will be 5-1-1, making them automatically below the top 8 top cut that is standard for this size of a tournament. The only way for someone with an ID on their record to guarantee top cut in these circumstances is to never lose, at which point there was little point in IDing in the first place. The match that person avoided with an ID almost would have been better off as a loss. I think, on some level, some players who ID know this, and do this not to gain an advantage but rather to avoid having to play (and affect the outcome of) a friend, which is a whole other discussion.

A tie is its own separate category of the ranking system, meaning that a 5-1-1 will always go above a 5-2, but will also always go below a 6-1, the same way a Bullet Punch is always faster than a Dynamic Punch regardless of individual speed, but will always be slower than an Extremespeed. In this way, a tie in many instances is a safe middleground that will never be the best thing a player can do. A player at 5-1 going into the final round of a Swiss will be better off risking the match and trying to win if the goal is to guarantee top cut; playing it safe means being higher than certain people, but never high enough to matter. That is, of course, assuming conditions are similar enough to the example above.

The Missouri Regional, on the other hand, definitely saw some influence with IDing, due to the nature of the top 16 top cut. Most players will still make it, but people on the bubble who relied on resistances will be forced just below where they need to be if a potential loss of another player was recorded as a tie instead. This is a possibility that I cannot deny, and the part that builds my argument that, for the sake of the most fair tournament possible, every tournament should know in advance whether or not this okay, and it should not be left up to the head judge presiding over a specific regional.

Why This Matters, and What You Can Do

I stand by what I said before about being conceptually against the use of this; from what more informed players know, the absence of the intentional draw should be the originally intended format. But the way the Pokemon community as a whole has addressed the issue as a whole is far more unsportsmanlike than the instance itself; shaming people over Facebook statuses and posts doesn’t make the issue better, but merely makes some players feel worse. Whether they should feel guilty is up to you, and I won’t contest that.

But if you really want to do something about this, don’t waste your time ranting on the internet where no one in power will see it. I strongly encourage you to write to TPCi, and let your voice be heard in a constructive and assertive but still polite manner. Explain to them why having rules consistently enforced the same way, and more clearly spelled out in an accessible way for that matter, are important ideals. Share your side of what happened, and ask them to change things for the next set of tournaments (it’s not like we’ve never seen TPCi change the format mid season before).

This all comes down to one of the most fundamentals of being a Pokemon master: if something isn’t working, complaining doesn’t do any good – you have to do something to change it. Complaining doesn’t fix teambuilding issues, it doesn’t fix prediction issues, and it won’t fix this. For all of us to be better trainers, we have to face our problems head on rather than complain and shame someone for our own satisfaction.

The post Regarding Intentional Draws, And The Issues Around It appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

With four of the first set of XY Regionals down, only Florida is left until Spring. As typically expected of the final event of this part of the season and of a Regional taking place on an isolated weekend, the competition looks to be fierce this week, so anyone coming down to Florida expecting the event to have a shallow field like last year is likely to be in for a nasty surprise. What might wind up being a bit of a surprise is the attendance after last week. I think most of us expected Virginia would be one of the higher attended Regionals after its seemingly impressive numbers on the first week of XY, but we ended up with Missouri’s Regional being slightly larger than that and California’s Regional being so much larger that it actually ended up having more rounds than Nationals did in 2012. I’m not expecting Florida to be nearly as large as California was, but I’d imagine it’ll have a similar turnout to Missouri and Virginia, which I think is a really heartening increase in attendance that we’ll hopefully continue to see more of, thanks in part to the vastly improved game in XY.

I don’t have anything too out of the ordinary for community news that can’t wait until the Regionals retrospective next week, so I guess I’ll just remind everyone to patch your game to version 1.2 if you haven’t already, think about purchasing one of those battery packs if you haven’t already (my 3DS was definitely on its last leg during top cut last week), and to come down and join the fun in Florida if you’re close enough to attend!

Florida Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(Five Pokemon flying far away from the blistering cold out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Heidi Craig

Last Year’s Winner: Zach Droegkamp (Zach)

The Story

Last year, Florida was an event with very few known players, including a couple of which made the Regional seem even more disparate by not having very strong events. This year, however, we should see a completely different story. Some of the bigger names from each of the other Winter Regionals are flying down to enjoy Southern Florida and try to earn some extra Championship Points, so Florida may well have gone from the second or third weakest Regional to the second or third strongest Regional in the span of a year. Last year’s champion was Zach Droegkamp (Zach), who was starting off his 2013 season very similarly to some of this year’s hotter players like BadIntent and Wesley Morioka, both who have had two appearances in the finals. Zach won over Rick Guerra, who we haven’t seen too much of outside of Florida beyond a top 32 loss at US Nationals to the eventual champion, kingofmars. I’m not completely sure if Rick is going, though I do know that Zach’s semifinals opponent, Sam Haarsma (DrFidget), is. Both Zach and Sam had events they’d like to improve on in Seattle last week, going 4-3 and 4-2-1 respectively, so like many players attending Florida they’ll be motivated to get some redemption here.

It’s hard to have a Regional finish without it being compared to how much better the Northeast Regionals are, so this should be a fun opportunity to see how this event may mimic the National Championships for once. Many of the top players from the northeast, midwestern, and western players will be vying for the Regional win this time.  Obviously, the biggest name out east is the three-time World Champion (and now first-time Regional Champion) Ray Rizzo (Ray). I feel like every time I write about him in one of these previews I comment on how unprepared he seems, but as his Regional win last week indicates, Ray reads the game so well both in and out of battles that it just doesn’t seem to matter. One of his Swiss opponents last week was Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar), whose reward for getting through a difficult schedule with an 8-1 record was having to play eventual finalist Enosh Shachar in the round of 16, which he ended up losing. I think Matt’s situation is one of those that reminds us that no tournament’s format is going to create perfect justice, but I think his odds are much better in Florida. Trista Medine (ryuzaki) had a mediocre run in Virginia, but turned around and had a pretty good run at APEX so she seems to be getting more comfortable with XY and is likely to be one of this event’s main contenders. Simon Yip (Simon) and Dan Levinson (dtrain) only have 12 CP combined this season after top cutting together on their trip to Toronto last season, so we’ll see if they can finally get it going this year after their Slow Start.

The group of players coming to Florida who played in St Louis last week are headlined by Wesley Morioka (Wesley), who finished second after winning the previous midwestern Regional in Ft Wayne. Wesley is also the player with the most CP attending the event, currently sitting at fourth overall with 230 CP. What may be more surprising to most of the people reading this is that another player attending this event who played in St Louis last week is tied for second-most CP of the players who will be attending (and tied for seventh overall by our count): Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario). He’s sort of come out of nowhere, but a top four finish in St Louis and top 16 finishes in both Virginia and Ft Wayne have him in excellent CP position right now, though he’ll need to make it to the top eight to increase his point total because of the best finish limit. The two other players I know are attending who top cut in St Louis are myself and Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh), who will hopefully get some extra CP because I can’t help but notice she’s in the familiar position right now at two spots out of range for the World Championships.

While there are fewer big names from California attending (probably because they have Disneyland so they lose half the appeal), we will be seeing appearances by at least three players from that area who have nice chunks of CP. Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut) is in that three way tie for 7th with a couple of other competitors, though it’ll be a little easier for him to increase his point total than Ashton because he is currently counting a top 32 finish. Len Deuel (Alaka) has attended like 60 Regionals or something already, but something strange always seems to happen to him. This time it was going 8-1 in Swiss, losing only to his flight’s 9-0 finisher and eventual tournament semifinalist Paul Hornak (makiri), then losing in top 32 for a nearly irrelevant sum of CP. Matt Souerby (matt) was one of the big surprises of Fall Regionals (picking up 120 CP over two events) but he’s yet to make a mark in XY. Apparently XY streamer Tiffy is also attending the event, who made it to the top 16 of California’s Regional last week before joining the ranks of people who had unfortunate run-ins with kingofmars.

In spite of only having approximately twelve players attend it, two of which were mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, Oregon is also sending a decent chunk of players. In addition to Zach and DrFidget, runner-up Evan Falco will be attending Florida. He’s the third player in that 7th place tie with Ashton and Suleski, so it’ll be interesting to see who breaks free. Like Suleski, he is counting a top 32, so just making the top cut would lead to a point increase for him. One of the favorites to win Oregon was Stephen Morioka (Stephen), who surprised most of us by not making it into top cut this time. He’s still sitting in 10th overall with 170 CP after two Regionals thanks to a win in the Fall, so with any CP at all here he should shoot up the standings a bit. JTK was amid some controversy in Oregon because of the intentional draw in her 5-1-1 9th place finish. I can say from experience coming that close to top cut and missing it is pretty heartbreaking, especially because I don’t think she’s ever been in one before, so hopefully she’s able to recover and get in this time. Aryana Welch (feathers) had a rougher road in Oregon after going undefeated in Swiss the year before, but maybe she’ll be able to turn it around in Florida.

Harrison Saylor (Crow) always seems to finish top eight at Nationals and then go back to his secret lair until next year. Here’s hoping he actually manages to show up and collect some CP so he can make it to a second Regional this year and finally get the spot in Worlds he tends to deserve every year. DeVon Ingram (Dingram) made a pretty big splash by finishing second in his first event in Masters last Fall, though he’ll be facing stiffer competition here, especially considering I think most people are expecting him to use a team very similar to one that was showcased heavily on stream last weekend. Jason Fisher-Short (Fish) and Mike Papagianis (skarm) are both playing in their first events of the season, but as a 2010 Regionals runner-up and Worlds participant respectively, they seem to have all the qualifications needed to excel this season. David Mancuso (Mancuso) started off the season with a chunk of points by top cutting in Ft Wayne, but has had a tough time adding to his stash in XY. Garrett Cresenzi (araluen7) and Patrick Donegan (Pd0nZ) stand out for players who could do well but don’t have a top cut finish for me to reference as proof. Angel Miranda (Sapphire Birch) could be a pretty big threat, but since he managed to make it to the top 8 in Virginia’s TCG event I’m assuming he’s going to be using his millennium rod to convince people he’s a girl or something while playing card games instead.

Outside of a handful of players like Wesley and Ray, I feel like this is a field compiled almost exclusively of players who have had a finish or two this season that was at least a bit below what they were hoping for, so Florida should be a Regional where a lot of players are desperate for some redemption. I think a good chunk of us are attending more for the vacation than the Pokemon tournament, but I’d be really surprised if a lot of these players didn’t care much more about this event than they’re letting on…

The Smart Money is on…:  Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar). While I joked a bit about the northeastern guys self-promoting a bit, I do actually buy into the hype, so I’m expecting one of them to come out on top. I think with Ray having gotten one win this season already, Matt and Trista are the two most likely to win… and I didn’t want to predict Trista over Matt because he’s bigger than me and I’m going to see him in a couple days. Hopefully predicting him doesn’t curse him like usual, though…

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

The post 2014 North American Winter Regionals Preview Part 3: Florida appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

January saw the first tournaments worth Championship Points using Pokémon X and Y as well as the largest grassroots tournament yet! Read below to see who placed where at each Regional Championship and Apex. Over the next few days we’ll also have videos up from these events and compile a list of the teams players used along with tournament reports!

Apex 2014

1. Jun T. (Cypher)
2. Jeudy A. (Soul Survivor)
3. Michael L. (JiveTime)
4. Trista M. (ryuzaki)
5. Lunar
6. Edward F. (iss)
7. Solomon C. (Sol64)
8. Adib A. (honchkro13)

Full Top 32

St. Charles, Missouri

Masters

1. Matthew Carter (mattj)
2. Wesley Morioka (Wesley)
3. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario)
4. Greyson Garren (GreySong)
5. Blake Hopper (Mrbopper)
6. Scott Glaza (Scott)
7. Greg Johnson
8. Leonard Craft III (DaWoblefet)
9. Keegan Beljanski (Darkeness)
10. Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom)
11. Jonathan Rankin (JRank)
12. Tyler Hagan (Tyler)
13. Joseph Brummet (lucariojr)
14. Joseph Darby
15. Erick Herrera (Godofcloud9)
16. Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh)

Standings after Swiss

Seniors

1. Jacob W. (Thank Swalot)
2. Mackenzie K. (Aubrey)
3. Ian M. (Raikoo)
4. Lucas M. (Vapor)
5. Koby C. (Foob)
6. Nathan C.
7. Charlie S.
8. Mark G. (Sieg Balicula)

Standings after Swiss

Juniors

1. James R.
2. Jack F.
3. Matt M.
4. Samuel M.
5. Emma M.
6. Enzo R.
7. Jacob M.
8. Jeremiah S.

Standings after Swiss

Salem, Oregon

Masters

1. Alex Stempe (Stempe)
2. Alex Ogloza (Evan Falco)
3. Tony Cheung (Chinese Dood)
4. Kacey Traver (KTween)
5. Michael Hutchinson
6. Jason Wynja (Arti)
7. Hajime Uesugi (Aralevent)
8. Sean Webb

Standings after Swiss

Seniors

1. Henry M. (Snake)
2. Aaron N.
3. Adam M.
4. Dylan S. (DullAce24)
5. Avery C.
6. James D.
7. Ben B.
8. Lachian I.

Standings after Swiss

Juniors

1. Macaria W. (babbyfeathers)
2. Charlie M. (babbysnake)
3. Theo Y.
4. Elsian A.

Standings after Swiss

Long Beach, California

Masters

1. Omari Travis (BadIntent)
2. Gavin Michaels (kingofmars)
3. Paul Hornak (makiri)
4. Jackson Daugherty (Jackson7 D)
5. Alberto Lara
6. Alec Wild (Pokemaster649)
7. Colten Lybbert
8. Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut)
9. Sam J. (RastaCharmander)
10. Anthony J. (DarkAssassin)
11. Johnathan M.
12. Luis C. (religiousjedi)
13. Travis E. (shinryu)
14. Erik H.
15. Tiffany S. (Tiffyxy)
16. Bridger S.
17. Diego C.
18. Len D. (Alaka)
19. Tony P.
20. Riley F. (gengarboi)
21. Andy G.
22. Eric C.
23. Andrew K.
24. Jose O. (Jose)
25. Kyle L.
26. Daniel C.
27. Kellen H.
28. Jobany V.
29. Kevin M.
30. Rolland W.
31. Grant W.
32. Justin B.

Standings after Swiss (A / B)

Seniors

1. Emilio F. (emforbes)
2. Luis M.
3. Dylan Q.
4. Damian C.
5. Eli C.
6. Alexander D.
7. Julian L.
8. Andrew B.

Orlando, Florida

Masters

1. Zach Droegkamp (Zach)
2. Stephen Scruggs
3. Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut)
4. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario)
5. Ray Rizzo (Ray)
6. Matt Souerby (matt)
7. Stephen Morioka (Stephen)
8. David Brickeen
9. Ian Packer
10. Michael Shaw
11. Alison McDonald (Fishy)
12. Ryan Luu
13. Brian Jens
14. DeVon Ingram (dingram)
15. Richard Colina
16. Edwin Baez (Chogy64)

Standings after Swiss

Seniors

1. Ian M. (Raikoo)
2. Marc M. (green hornet)
3. Luke L. (Mudkip421)
4. Rebecca B.
5. Dylan S. (DullAce24)
6. Andres M.
7. Zachary P.
8. Nouri Z.

Standings after Swiss

Doswell, Virginia

Masters Division

1. Ray Rizzo (Ray)
2. Enosh Schachar (Human)
3. Joshua Edwards (General Josh)
4. Toler Webb (Dim)
5. Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)
6. Derek Gazis
7. Nicolas Peckman (Ace Emerald)
8. Patrick Brodarick (wer)
9. Tommy Cooleen (Tman)
10. Hanna Coder
11. Daniel Litvin (TalkingLion)
12. Westin Lee
13. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario)
14. Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar)
15. Ryan Gadea (The Knights of Wario Land)
16. Cameron Kicak (Stormfront)

Standings after Swiss

Senior Division

1. Cameron S. (Drizzleboy)
2. Paul C. (pwny person)
3. Marc M. (green hornet)
4. Dylan S. (DullAce24)
5. Grant M.
6. Lynden R.
7. Ryan S.
8. Kylie C.

Standings after Swiss

Junior Division

1. London S.
2. Christian F. (cassiebro)
3. Devon S.
4. Caleb K.
5. Jordan S.
6. Luke S.
7. Tanner H.
8. Emma C.

Standings after Swiss

The post Results from Apex 2014 and the VGC ’14 Winter Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hey everyone!  My name is Jackson Daugherty, but I go by Jackson7 D on here.  Although I play Pokemon constantly, I do not post on Nugget Bridge very often.  That beng said, I am proud to say I have made some great friends through this website both online and in real life.  This is my second year playing competitive Pokemon, and my first year playing in the Masters division. I did not have much success last season, but this year I managed to place fourth in the 2014 Long Beach Winter Regional, and I had a lot of fun doing it.  Here is my team!

The Team

Pam (Blastoise) @ Blastoisinite
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 SAtk / 124 HP / 132 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Fake Out
- Dragon Pulse
- Aura Sphere

Mega Blastoise.  As all of you know, all three of the original Kanto starters received Mega Evolutions this year.  While Charizard(Y) and Venusaur became offensive and defensive behemoths respectively, Blastoise seemed to have been left awkwardly in the middle.  Although it may not have the same crazy stats or typing that the others have, it can do great things in this meta that set it apart from the all the other megas.  With the Mega Launcher Ability, Dragon Pulse and Aura Sphere are both much more powerful moves.  Dragon Pulse is my favorite move on Blastoise, mainly because of its great coverage.  It is able to KO Garchomp while not taking much damage from any of its attacks.  Aura Sphere was almost exclusively for Kangaskhan, although it also KOs 252HP Tyranitar in sand 93.7% of the time.  Fake Out is another great move on Blastoise because it is fairly unexpected.  The few Blastoises I faced before Regionals were all Water Spout attackers used in Trick Room, mainly with Aromatisse.  At the tournament, not a single opponent played as if they expected Blastoise to be running Fake Out, expect for BadIntent, who knocked me out.  Hydro Pump was probably a bad choice, as the extra power compared to Water Pulse is not that much.  Considering how little I used my Water STAB, Water Spout may have been a better option than both, although finding a Blastoise with 4 egg moves was not worth the trouble for me. Ironically, I had more KOs with Fake Out than Hydro Pump during swiss.

Blastoise was used in every single match of the tournament for me, and was used as a lead in most games.  For me, it was the perfect combination of power, bulk, and creativity that players look for.  I’m obligated to say that Blastoise was suggested to me by my great friend and winner of Seniors at the tournament, emforbes.  I named it Pam after the HR director in the cartoon Archer, who is fat and awesome, much like Blastoise.

volcanoes (Rotom-Heat) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 100 HP / 252 SAtk / 156 Spd
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Overheat
- Protect

Rotom-Heat has slowly become more and more popular, and for good reason. It is a great counter against both Charizard-Y and Talonflame, two very common Pokemon. The one Pokemon Blastoise had the hardest time dealing with was surely Amoongus, so Rotom was an ideal partner.  For this reason, I wanted a powerful Rotom that would outspeed my Blastoise, so Amoonguss would be KOd and Blastoise’s attack would never be redirected.  This spread was given to me by the man who was largely responsible for Rotom-Heats popularity in 2014, the great Pokemaster649.  Will-O-Wisp is a great move that has been spoken about enough, and it only missed once the entire tournament.  I originally ran Light Screen over Protect, but Light Screen was almost never used so I decided to ditch it.

Rotom worked great the entire tournament, and I brought it to many of my matches, especially towards the end of swiss.  Its name comes from the mini-NPA league that has been going on through Showdown!. “The Cinnabar Volcanoes” are clearly the league’s best franchise.

Mr. Rager (Amoonguss) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 232 SDef / 20 SAtk
Sassy Nature
- Giga Drain
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Protect

Amoonguss was an easy choice, as it had fantastic synergy with both Blastoise and Rotom.  Both Blastoise and Rotom were threatened by opposing Rotom-Wash, and I often brought Amoonguss in the back if I ever saw one.   Due to a lack of time and my own inability to breed pokemon, I had to borrow an Amoonguss from fellow SoCal player KobraTail.  To this day I do not know what EVs he had on the thing, as the spread here is what I was using online.

This Amoonguss is no different than most; its only job was to take attacks, spread sleep, then heal back its health with Regenerator.   There are many reasons not to use Amoonguss this generation, such as the popularity of Meowstic or the lack of good Trick Room setters, but I firmly believe it is still a great Pokemon.   Amoonguss was only used in about half of my matches, but when I was used it, Amoonguss was usually the Pokemon most crucial to my team on the field.   The nickname is a poor attempt at a pun from the Kid Cudi album.

ROCK HALL (Tyranitar) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Rock Slide
- Protect
- Dragon Dance

Looking at the team, it was clear I needed a physical attacker.  Although Dark-type coverage is, in my opinion,  less useful now than last year, Rock-type coverage is as great as ever.  As Tyranitar is such a versatile pokemon, I wondered for a while what I should run on it.  Since Blastoise and Amoonguss could do a good job giving Tyranitar time to set up, I thought Dragon Dance would work very well.  At plus one Speed, Jolly Tyranitar outspeeds most of the metagame, namely Charizard Y.   Dragon Dance can instantly shift the momentum of a match in your favor, which is what I liked so much about it.  When I looked at what people usually did to counter Dragon Dance Tyranitar, I saw that it often involved status moves such as Will-O-Wisp.  Lum Berry ended up being a fantastic item for my Tyranitar, as it took many people by surprise and allowed to me to set up.  Lum Berry also further improved Tyranitar’s possibility as a counter to Sun, because I saw many Venusaurs chose to Sleep Powder Tyranitar rather than attack it during practice.

Tyranitar was fantastic at the tournament.   Dragon Dance proved to be an amazing move, creating win positions that otherwise would be impossible.   The EVs are super standard, as I saw no reason for them not to be.   Tyranitar was named after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, which I grew up nearby.

BettrCallSal (Salamence) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 Atk
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Hydro Pump
- Flamethrower
- Dragon Pulse

This is a very standard Choice Scarf Salamence. My team lacked immediate speed and Intimidate support. Plus, Blastoise was my only solution of dealing with Garchomp, so Salamence was an obvious choice. Fire coverage was great, giving me a second option (other than Rotom) to hit Steel-types like Mawile and Scizor for super effective damage.  This Salamence also originally ran Stone edge to OHKO Charizard Y and Talonflame, but I could not find a Salamence with six flawless IVs.  I doubted I would ever use Hydro Pump, and I never did.  One of things Salamence was best at was being an excellent switch-in.  Despite being a generally frail Pokemon, having Intimidate paired with many great resistances made my team much more defensively sound.  I chose a Timid nature so I would not be outsped by any other Choice Scarf Salamence, and as I already had lots of other Pokemon with special attacks, all the speed I could get was fantastic.

Salamence was very helpful to my team when I chose to use it, although that was not as often as the other Pokemon seen above.  The nickname is a reference to Saul Goodman, the greatest lawyer in TV history.

(Aegislash) @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 244 Atk /  12 SDef
Brave Nature
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
- King’s Shield
- Shadow Sneak

Aegislash is is a very fascinating pokemon.  It has so many things going for it: an amazing Ghost/Steel typing, excellent stats, and a very unique ability.  However, not being able to change forms and still be protected from status is a huge weakness, especially on a team without Safeguard, like mine.  The reason I chose to put it on my team was because it provided me with another physical attacker that  worked well with Tyranitar, and also could be paired well with Blastoise and Amoonguss and still set up a Swords Dance.  Shadow Sneak was also my only priority move, although the power has always left something to be desired.

Whenever I considered replacing Aegislash, the Pokemon that came to mind most often is Scizor.  Scizor has a stronger priority move , and keeps its bulk when you are attacking.  However, Aegislash provides an often crucial Rock resistance that Scizor cannot give.  Aegislash was brought into one game in Swiss, and one best-of-three games in Top Cut.  It surprised me how successful Aegislash was in both matches.  Regardless of how much I used it or how well it did, it added a fun and creative element to my team.

The Tournament

Now on to the tournament!  The day started out with me and my dad driving to the Long Beach Convention center, where we saw a line larger than anything I had ever seen at a Pokemon tournament.  Luckily, I found emforbes and Jonas who still had not chosen their teams for the day. We managed to make it through the line and register, but that was just the beginning of the waiting.  This tournament had over 500 people in Masters alone, and apparently the staff were not prepared for it.  They were all working very hard and were really kind, but the sheer number of people made it very difficult to stay organized.  Although the players meeting was scheduled for 10:00, we did not start battling until well after 1:00.  Before then, I spent most of my time playing Flappy Bird with Emilio, Jonas, and Alec.  Swiss eventually did start, but it was a long day and I only took a few notes, so here are the highlights.

The tournament staff split the competitors into 2 flights, each with around 250 people.  The original plan was that each flight would have a top eight cut, but late in the day it was switched to each having a top 16.  Round one  I played Tiffany (who later battled kingofmars on stream).  She was very nice, and gave me a great resistance as she went 7-2.  My only loss during swiss came round 3, against this guy with a handlebar moustache named Greg.  Greg sure loved Klefki.  There was a very unfortunate first turn paralysis on my Salamence against his Garchomp, a pretty unfortunate rock slide flinch, and a bunch of swagger hits, but I’m sure if I had defeated him I probably would have lost to a much better opponent later in the day. My closest match came against a guy wearing an N cosplay, because of a horrendous turn one where his Haxorus OHKOd my Rotom with Earthquake. Tyranitar managed to turn it around for me.   Almost all of my opponents were really cool people. I especially remember two of my opponents, Jeremy and Brad, who I spoke with throughout the rest of the tournament.  In the end, I was 8-1, and the 4th seed in ‘Flight A’.  On to Top Cut!

Top Cut

I had never cut a tournament before, so I was already overjoyed.  Top Cut also started way later than expected.  Emilio actually managed to win the Seniors division an hour before I even began to play.  My round one opponent was a guy named Rolland, who was at his first tournament.  His team, however, had every Pokemon I despised.

Game 1: As soon as I saw his team, I knew this would be difficult.  I led with Blastoise/Tyranitar, and he led with Rotom/Chandelure, which he ended up doing every game. I switched in Amoonguss for Tyranitar and used Fake Out on Rotom, while he hit Blastoise with an Energy Ball from Chandelure. I remember that he was using a Choice Scarf Rotom. The match came down to my Amoonguss and Tyranitar versus a sleeping Garchomp, Rotom, and a low HP Kangaskhan in the back. I knew if I could get a Dragon Dance off I have a great chance of winning, so I Rage Powder and Dragon Dance.  He gets the first turn wake up on Garchomp, and KOs both of my Pokemon.  Lose

Game 2:  The game started out differently as I led Blastoise/Rotom with Amoongus and Salamence in the back.  He decided to bring Gyarados this game, which ends up holding a Wacan Berry.  This game was also very close, but Rotom survived his Gyrados’s Waterfall late in the game, giving me the edge. Win

Game 3:  This time, I led Blastoise/Amoongus against his same lead.  I Rage Powder and Dragon Pulse while Chandelure uses Overheat and KOs my Amoonguss much earlier than I had hoped.  In turn two, I was very lucky; Salamence’s Draco Meteor gets a critical hit and KOs his Rotom-Wash.  The rest of the game is smooth sailing.  Win

Top 16 vs Bridger

The only thing I knew about this guy was that he had just beat Alaka the last round, so I knew he would be good.  His team looked ridiculous  which caught me a little off guard, but I knew if I didn’t overthink it I could win.

Game 1: He leads Charizard/Mr. Mime, as I lead Blastoise/Tyranitar.  My goal this game was to set up Dragon Dance with Tyranitar and sweep. His Mr. Mime caught me off guard when it used Trick Room, and I was even more surprised to find out that his Charizard was very slow: much slower than my Blastoise. This game was close, but he managed to take it. Lose

Game 2: I was more prepared for Trick Room this time. I led Blastoise/Aegislash with Amoonguss and Tyranitar in the back.  I allowed Trick Room to be set up and managed to KO Mr. Mime with Aegislash and bring in Amoonguss safely. Win

Game 3:  I brought the exact same Pokemon and my opponent brought in Mr. Mime and Scrafty.  Blastoise OHKOd  Scrafty with Aura Sphere and the rest of the game went well. Win

Top 8 vs Alec (Pokemaster649)

Alec was by far my most difficult opponent up to that point, and I am very sorry to say I did not take very good notes.  There was a huge gap in between the Top 16 and Top 8 games, because the tournament staff wrote down every remaining competitor’s team of Pokemon on a piece of paper. It was nearly midnight, and I was very tired.  I will try my best to explain the matches.  After speaking with Alec online, I know he remembers well what happened.

Game 1:  I lead Blastoise Rotom with Tyranitar and Amoonguss in the back.  He leads Manectric and Amoongus, which surprises me because I expected to see Kangaskhan. Amoonguss was a key player this match; I switched it in on turn one and began putting his entire team to sleep. He revealed that his Manectric was running Flamethrower, which was very important in Game 3. By the end of the match, I had not lost a single Pokemon. Win

Game 2:  This game went much worse for me than the first match. I led Blastoise/Tyranitar while he led Gyarados/Kangaskhan. On turn one, Alec predicted that I would switch in Salamence for Tyranitar, and he uses Ice Fang instead of Waterfall. The match goes downhill from there, as my opponent makes one good prediction after another. Lose

Game 3:  He led Manectric/Gyarados versus my Blastoise/Rotom. I only remember the end of this match. He had a Manectric and Gyarados locked into Waterfall, while I had Rotom and Amoonguss.  Amonguss Rage Powdered and managed to survive Manectric’s Flamethrower and redirect Gyarados’s Waterfall. Rotom KOd Gyarados with Thunderbolt, and Rotom then beat Manectric on timer.  GGs Alec.

Top 4 vs Omari (BadIntent)

Omari had gone undefeated in swiss, and already had a regional win and a second place finish under his belt this season.   I was incredibly excited to play someone with his level of skill, but also really nervous.  It was around 1:00 in the morning, which not only meant that I was tired, but also meant that it was my birthday!  I’m not going to go into too much detail about my first battles as a 16-year-old because they were all on stream. I was outplayed for most of the time in the first and third games, but I did manage to take game two.  You can see our battles on the stream archive below.

In Conclusion

So that’s my story!  I hope you enjoyed it, if you think any part of my team was interesting, feel free to try it out.  Before I end this report, here are some shout outs, as there is absolutely no way I could have done this all by myself.

Tman: Thanks for being an awesome friend by helping me make this team. Your advice before regionals really helped.

emforbes, KobraTail, and TechnoZ: Thank you guys so much for helping me get my team in game by the event.

Sam (RastaCharmander): Thanks for being my good luck charm rounds eight and nine. (He was sitting next to me for both games and also won both of his matches.)

Also, one last shout out to all of the Volcanoes: truthwalker, Sabaku, and captain HeroOfTheWinds.

The post Blast Off! A Top 4 Southern California Regionals Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

We’ve been waiting for information about this season’s online tournaments for quite some time now as Championship Points from the events were the factor in who did and didn’t make the World Championships in 2013. We might be a bit closer to that information as the Japanese Global Link has just revealed some information about the test tournament they announced mid-2013.

The Pokémon X & Y Test Tournament will take place from the evening of Friday, February 21st to Monday, February 24th. As mentioned last year, anyone who met the minimum number of battles to be included in the standings of the 2013 Global Showdown and weren’t disqualified will be eligible to play. You must have your Pokémon X or Y card registered to the same Global Link account that was used for the 2013 Global Showdown. Additionally, sign-ups will open on January 31st to allow the first 10,000 participants to join in as well.

The Pokémon Company apologizes for the delay in the tournament. The ruleset will be announced at a later time, presumably when the page for sign-ups goes live on January 31st.

The post First Details About Pokémon X & Y WiFi Test Tournament appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This is R Inanimate. Some people may know that before playing in the Video Game Championships, I played a lot of Battle Frontier, and Battle Subway. In a single attempt of playing Triple Battle Maison, I managed to reach a 1000 Win Streak for the first time ever. You may wonder why I’d report about a single player acheivement for a competitive VGC site. Well… have you ever had a situation where you hatched a Pokemon with flawless stats, but the wrong ability? Have you thought about fixing the ability, but were turned away by the steep 200BP price tag on Ability Capsules? This is a team that can go on long runs through the Battle Maison, with a consistant and simple win condition. After Battle 50, each trainer defeated will reward you with 7 Battle Points. Going on run of 100 or 200 wins will net you roughly 1000BP. More than enough for most of your battle item needs. And with that, lets get on to the team.

The Team:

Greninja (M) @ Life Orb ***Samidare
Trait: Protean
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Hasty Nature (+Spd, -Def)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Grass Knot
- Mat Block

Life Orb Greninja. Mat Block Support, High-Speed Offense. Leads on the Left. Yes, I know that its Nature isn’t optimal for what I am trying to do, and that a Timid nature would work a bit better, but this still gets the job done. It’s role is pretty self explanatory. Open battles with Mat Block, then go on the offense. Holding a Life Orb in combination with the automatic STAB gained from Protean allows Greninja to dish out respectable amounts of damage, often netting an OHKO when hitting opponents on their weaknesses. Although Mat Block only blocks damaging moves and has no boost in Priority, Greninja is usually fast enough to pull off Mat Block for the team before the opponents can move, and the opponent Pokemon will very likely go for damaging moves due to the presence of…

Lv 1 Aron (M) @ Berry Juice ***Aron Zheng
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: Champions don’t need to train, they just need to win
Rash Nature
- Endeavor
- Protect
- Toxic
- Sleep Talk

Lv 1 Endeavor Abuse Aron. AI Abuse. Leads front and center. The moment I was told that the Battle Maison does not scale levels up to 50 if under-leveled was the moment I decided I would try to revive my old 4th gen AI Abusive strategy. The idea here is that Aron is KO’d by any non-Poison damaging attack, and thus triggers the AI’s tendency to drop any thoughts of support or setup to go in straight for the KO that they see in front of them. However, due to Sturdy and Berry Juice, that “KOable” target will actually takes 3 hits to go down. Factor in Mat Block and Protect, and this Aron will often command the attention of the opponent’s pokemon for at least a good 3 or 4 turns, but by that point I’ll have a commanding lead.

Aron’s moveset is pretty basic if you are familiar with L1 Endeavor strategies. Its survivability is all in its item and ability, and its damage output is in Endeavor, which will reduce the opponent’s HP down to Aron’s current HP of 12. Toxic is used for targeting Ghosts, and crippled Pokemon. My last move is Sleep Talk, in case Aron ever gets put to sleep, but honestly I’ve never gotten to successfully use it. The one time Aron got put to sleep, it woke up immediately causing Sleep Talk to fail.

Garchomp (F) @ Focus Sash ***SHARK ATTACK
Trait: Sand Veil
EVs: 4 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Swords Dance
- Protect

Focus Sash Swords Dance Garchomp. Leads on the Right. A simple moveset. Greninja and Aron were originally used as a lead pair in Double Maison before I tried it out in Triples. It didn’t take me any time at all to decide that I wanted to run Garchomp as my third lead. Mat Block extends across your entire party, regardless of where Greninja is placed on the floor. With Mat Block and the Aron distraction, Garchomp is almost always able to get off a free Swords Dance boost at the start of the battle. A +2 Atk Garchomp with an active Focus Sash makes quick work of its side of the field while the opponent scrambles to take down Aron. In situations where all the opponent’s Pokemon are wiped out, and they only have one Pokemon remaining, they will always send it out on my right, and thus facing against my +2 Atk Garchomp.

Tyranitar (F) @ Choice Scarf ***Nabata
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Iron Tail

Choice Scarf Tyranitar. Weather Changer. Tyranitar makes a pretty good partner to Aron and Garchomp on the team. Hail can be very hazardous to my leads, as it neutralizes both Sturdy and Focus Sash if left unchecked. Tyranitar can get rid of the Hail, and in turn hit hard against those that set it up. Although it isn’t the fastest thing on the board, Choice Scarf Tyranitar’s speed is still decent enough to deal with a lot of threats. Rock Slide isn’t the most reliable of moves, but Tyranitar is usually good at knowing who to pick fights against, as I seldom run into situations where missing a Rock Slide or two would be a run ender. The boost in Special Defense from the sand also makes it pretty easy to switch it in on Special Attacks, even if they are super effective ones. No, I don’t use Iron Tail. Ever.

Gyarados (F) @ Choice Band ***HaiteiRaoyue
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 164 HP / 196 Atk / 4 Def / 76 SDef / 68 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Return

Choice Band Gyarados. Intimidate Support. Switch Option. Since Gyarados is immune to Garchomp’s Earthquake, and resists Greninja’s Surf… it makes something that Aron can switch out to, without causing me to lose one of my own Pokemon in the crossfire. This is the only Pokemon on the team with a non 252/252 EV spread, although there isn’t anything particularly special about its EVs. It’s pretty much a copy of the EV spread I was using for the CB Gyarados I was using in VGC battles post-Worlds. Return as the fourth move since I wanted a strong reliable neutral move to use against Pokemon that resist Waterfall, namely Grass and Water Types.

Aegislash (F) @ Spell Tag ***Hakurouken
Trait: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Iron Head
- Shadow Sneak
- Sacred Sword
- Swords Dance

An Aegislash. Priority Attacker. Switch Option. I would say that Aegislash is a bit of a filler Pokemon for this team, though it does have its role. Due to having high defenses before a Stance Change, it can survive a few hits even in situations where I have to make a tough switch. Its immunity to fighting also helps act as a Switch option for Tyranitar, and in some cases Greninja and Aron. Aegislash is my only Pokemon with Priority attacks, so it is one of the few Pokemon I can use to act before some of the faster Pokemon in the Battle Maison that can give me some trouble.

Overall:

This Triple Battle Maison strategy is a all about having control over the opponent AI, and having them do what you want/expect them to. While I’d like to say that the team has a lot of fallback plans and stuff, it really actually does not. After all, I managed 1000 Wins on my first run in Triple Battle Maison, so I haven’t done much thinking on replacement team members or refining of EVs, items or movesets to allow myself to have backups to my backup plans. Losing the advantage provided by Greninja’s Mat Block, and Aron’s pseudo taunt and redirection can cause things to spiral out of control without some quick thinking, and possibly a few risky moves on my part to keep myself in the game.

Strategy:

The team’s basic strategy is as follows:

Turn 1:
Greninja uses Mat Block
Aron uses Endeavor
Garchomp uses Swords Dance

followed by:

Turn 2:
Aron uses Protect
Greninja and Garchomp Attack, KOing all 3 opponent leads (usually, Surf + Earthquake)

Or…
Alternate Turn 2:
Greninja KOs a Pokemon with Grass Knot/Ice Beam
Garchomp KOs a Pokemon with Dragon Claw
Aron uses Endeavor to drop the 3rd Pokemon to 12 HP

The alternative strategy leaves you at 6-4, with one of the opponent’s Pokemon in easy KO range, but since Aron doesn’t use Protect for this, it keeps your options open for the following turn.

Usually after pulling off a successful first few turns, and gaining a 6-4 or 6-3 lead, it is very difficult for the CPU opponents to pull a comeback, of which it is a matter of taking out the opponent’s remaining Pokemon in a low risk fashion.

This is all fine and all, but the real merit of a team is knowing when your go-to strategy will certainly fail.

Threats

A very quick way you can lose is by getting caught off guard on turn one, causing the regular setup to turn into a disaster. Nothing like losing Greninja to Choice Scarf Manectric, because you thought you would be faster. And in turn, leaving Garchomp and Aron exposed. It’s not that big of a stretch for the opponent to happen to have a Pokemon with Blizzard. Similarly, it would be foolish to try to use Mat Block when all three opponent leads are packing priority moves. I’ll try to simplify things down to specific examples in this section.

Threats to Greninja

Pokemon faster than Greninja and can KO it (placed on Center, or Left)

This section includes: Jolteon, Electrode, Choice Scarf Manectric, Choice Scarf Darmanitan, Choice Band Aerodactyl, Choice Scarf Terrakion, Accelgor, and Choice Scarf Pinsir.

Manectric will always hold a Choice Scarf unless used by a Roller Skater.
Darmanitan will always hold a Choice Scarf unless used by a Chef?
Aerodactyl will always hold a Choice Band unless used by a Roller Skater.
Pinsir will always hold a Choice Scarf.

While these Pokemon are able to KO Greninja, they’ll have to decide between attacking Aron and Greninja, so it isn’t always a guarantee that Greninja will be taken out. As such, it is always important to weigh in the options, and decide whether it is worth risking sacrificing Greninja on the first turn or not.

Quick Claw

Specifically look out for Leafeon, and Ursaring. Assess the situation to make sure you’ll be fine even if Greninja is taken out by a Quick Claw’d attack.

Threats to Aron:

Priority Users

There’s a fairly large number of Pokemon with Priority moves. To name a few that are very common to see with them past Battle 40 include: Arcanine, Dragonite, Abomansow Hariyama, Lucario, Carracosta, Muk, Scizor, Conkeldurr Dusknoir, Articuno, Spiritomb*, Bisharp*  Toxicroak*, Shiftry*, Honchkrow*, Kangaskhan’, Ludicolo’, Infernape’, Medicham’, Mienshao’

* These Pokemon only have Sucker Punch. While they use it more often than they did in the past, they don’t fully commit to trying to use it against you, opting to only attack with Sucker Punch on Occasion
‘ These Pokemon have Fake Out. Strangely enough, despite it being able to OHKO Aron, and only usable on turn one… they DON’T always use Fake Out. In fact, they are more likely to use a regular damaging move instead of Fake Out for a turn.

Don’t be afraid to use Mat Block even if there is one priority user in play on the opponent’s side. A number of the Pokemon may instead use something like Earthquake instead of their priority move, and a similar situation had caused me to lose a battle in Double Maison. It’s better to just let Aron take a hit, in order to preserve Greninja and Garchomp’s health from various spread moves, or things like Lucario deciding to want to KO Greninja with Aura Sphere instead of Aron with Extreme Speed. Usually, if the opponent has two priority users, or two Pokemon faster than Greninja, I’ll use Protect with Aron on the first turn.

Mold Breaker

For obvious reasons. Since Mold Breaker is an announced ability, try to prioritize in KOing them, and not letting Aron have all three of its “lives” taken out in one blow.

Swagger

It’s no god. Be on the look out for any Mandibuzz or Absol, as they can often be a pain with trying to spread confusion to your party. Though usually it doesn’t change the game plan of Mat Blocking and using Endeavor.

Pokemon that will not try to attack Aron on turn one

For whatever reason, there are some Pokemon that will decide to instead use set up moves, or even use Protect instead of attacking at Aron. A list of the common ones are:

Feraligatr, Haxorus, Volcarona – These Pokemon will use Dragon Dance or Quiver Dance respectively. Feraligatr can be OHKO’d by Grass Knot. Using Endeavor on it will activate a Liechi berry and possibly Torrent, so that is unadvised. Haxorus can be KO’d by Dragon Claw, but not Ice Beam due to Yache Berry. Volcarona will still be slower than Greninja even after a Quiver Dance.

Meganium, Venusaur – These two Pokemon have no damaging attacks that can harm Aron, so there is a high chance that they will use Protect on the first turn. As such, avoid using Endeavor on them on the first turn. There is also a Cresselia that has Toxic which is also unable to harm Aron.

Tentacruel, Cradily, Shuckle, Roserade, Mismagius, Eelektross – Theses Pokemon do have damaging attacks against Aron, but still may try to use Protect instead.

Victreebel – This Pokemon will use Solar Beam

Rough Skin/Iron Barbs

So just Druddigon, Ferrothorn, and Garchomp. This is just to make a point of awareness, as it will disable Sturdy if you activate these abilities.

Multiple Ghost Types

Aron isn’t going to do much if it can’t hit anything. This sort of situation will likely happen against Hex Maniacs or Psychics, as they run a heavy amount of Ghost and Psychic type Pokemon. In these cases, it’s best to just switch out to Tyranitar, while still using Mat Block of course.

Snow Warning

Either Abomasnow, or Aurorus will be what you are looking for. When Snow Warning occurs, it is best to switch either Aron or Garchomp out for Tyranitar immediately, in order to preserve Aron’s Sturdy and Garchomp’s Focus Sash.

Threats to Garchomp

Froslass, Cryogonal, and Weavile

They are faster than Garchomp, and can do a ton of damage with Blizzard or Ice Punch, respectively. Weavile is especially a problem since it is also faster than Greninja, so you can’t stop it with Mat Block. Cryogonal can be OHKO’d by a Dragon Claw, but Froslass and Weavile run Focus Sash. If Froslass or Weavile are placed on the far right, it’s better to just switch out to Tyranitar.

Starmie (on far right)

Starmie is similar to the previously mentioned Ice Pokemon. The difference is that if Starmie is in the center, it can be OHKO’d by a Grass Knot.

Togekiss (on far right)

Garchomp can’t hit Togekiss. Enough said.

Intimidate

In some cases, its better to just switch out Garchomp instead of trying to counteract a large amount of Intimidates.

Bastiodon

Bastiodon has Wide Guard, and isn’t afraid to use it at times, even with Aron’s presence. After a close call where Bastiodon’s Wide Guard nearly cost me the battle, I’ve learned that they are a high priority target to be taken out.

Threat Trainers:

Trainers in the Battle Maison each have a set list of Pokemon they can use. Trainers with the same trainer class often have similar Pokemon selections to others of the same class. Here are a few types of trainers that you should watch out for in the Battle Maison.

Scientists/Roller Skaters

These two trainer classes are the most likely ones to come with Pokemon that are faster than Greninja. Fortunately, beyond that, their Pokemon tend to be easily handled by Garchomp, due to having a fairly large bias towards Electric type Pokemon. So while you may have to do a bit of maneuvering at the beginning, it will often be smooth sailing once you get past that.

Veterans

Even with this sort of team set up, the Legendary Pokemon teams of Veterans are something to watch out for. The biggest issue when facing them is that all their Pokemon may be running one of four different movesets. In particular, watch out for Choice Scarf on Entei or Terrakion.

Punk Guy Puck

He only runs Pokemon that can have Intimidate. This can sometimes create situations where Garchomp is lagging behind on offensive pressure, which can give the opponent an opportunity to try to do something. Plan accordingly.

Conclusion:

1000 Wins in one run. 1000 Wins with my only run. As stated earlier, the team isn’t fully optimized yet. Feel free to try out other combinations of Pokemon with Greninja, Aron, Garchomp as the leads. You should have yourself a respectable reserve of BP, and be easily able to afford Ability Capsules in no time.

Article image created by feathers for Nugget Bridge. View more of her artwork on her tumblr or Nugget Bridge forums thread.

The post Would you like an Ability Capsule? 1000W-0L Triple Maison Team Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This is an analysis of the Perish Trap Rain team by the Japanese player YT (Twitter account and blog) who used it to achieve 1st place on the Showdown VGC 2014 ladder under the player names igrek and Showme. He also used it at the 15th Pokémon Arena Off which is a major grassroots event in Tokyo where he finished in the Top 16 out of 109 players. This particular Arena event also served as the Kanto region qualifier for Battle Road Gloria which is an unofficial national tournament for Japan leading to the unofficial Pokémon Asia Cup Spring 2014. The article has been edited and re-posted with permission from the original author. The original article is available on his blog here.

Team Details

Politoed @ BrightPowder
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 204 HP / 148 Def / 156 SDef
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Scald
- Perish Song
- Hypnosis
- Protect

This is a bulky Politoed which is used to set up both rain and Perish Song. The HP EVs ensures that the actual in-game HP stat will be 1 less than a multiple of 16 which serves to minimize hail and sand damage. Defensive EVs allow it to survive a Play Rough from an Adamant Mega Mawile on the physical side and a Thunder from Timid Mega Manectric on the special side. The actual EVs necessary are less than the listed values but the extra EVs were put in for more bulk.

On its moveset, I chose Scald because it is a solid STAB attack with 100% Accuracy with the bonus of possible burn for the opponent. I found Sleep to be more useful for the team so I gave it Hypnosis as opposed to other moves such as Ice Beam and Encore. Perish Song is to have a backup singer aside from Gengar and Protect is to stall out turns to advance the perish count.

For the item, since both Sitrus Berry and Leftovers were already taken by other team members, I needed something different. The defensive EVs ensure it can survive a Thunder from Mega Manectric, therefore it’s not necessary to give it Wacan Berry, so I gave it Bright Powder to slightly increase turn the odds in my favour.

Kingdra @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Muddy Water
- Hydro Pump
- Protect

The EVs are very standard. I chose Timid nature as opposed to Modest since this team can’t risk a speed tie loss against an opposing Kingdra. The role of Kingdra is essentially a backup win condition when Perish Trapping is not viable. In this case the team plays very much like a standard Rain team with high base power moves chosen to increase the chance of OHKOs. I gave it Life Orb since Choice items are incompatible with the team concept but I still needed increased power and the flexibility that Protect offers. Indeed, Kingdra in rain tends to draw a lot of hate so being able to Protect allows for smoother playing.

Gengar @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 188 HP / 20 Def / 44 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Perish Song
- Shadow Ball
- Substitute
- Protect

HP EVs are adjusted to minimize hail and sand damage. Defense EVs did not have any particular goals but it allows Gengar to survive a Crunch from an Intimidated Tyranitar and one hit of sand damage. Special Attack EVs are the least required to achieve a 13/16 probability of OHKOing a Chandelure with 252 EVs invested in HP and 4 EVs in Special Defense. Special Defense ensures it will survive a Hydro Pump from Politoed in the rain, and finally 252 Speed EVs ensure fastest Perish Song.

Perish Song is a self-explanatory move choice and Shadow Ball allows it to hit Ghost types which can now switch out of Shadow Tag due to the mechanic changes in this gen. Substitute is very useful to have in many situations, for example when Gengar has already Protected the previous turn or when faced with a Gengar mirror match and you predict the opponent will Protect. Finally, Protect is also a clear choice which helps stall out turns.

Gothitelle @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 236 HP / 188 Def / 84 SDef
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Reflect
- Psybeam
- Protect

HP EVs are adjusted to minimize sand and hail damage exactly like Politoed and Gengar. Defense EVs have no particular objective but it allows a high probability of surviving a Crunch from Adamant Mega Tyranitar. Special Defense EVs along with Sitrus Berry recovery allow Gothitelle to survive a focused hit in the rain from Modest Specs Kingdra’s Hydro Pump and Modest Politoed’s Hydro Pump.

Trick Room is to support Amoonguss and Perish Song from Politoed. Reflect allows the team to survive longer. I chose Reflect over Charm since its effects remain in place even if the opponent leaves play either by switching or fainting. Gothitelle also needs an attacking move since it is vulnerable to Taunt. I chose Psybeam due to the possible confusion bonus, but other choices such as Psyshock (which has synergy with Scrafty’s Crunch) and Psychic (high base power) are also viable. And finally Protect is there for reasons outlined in previous paragraphs. Since Gothitelle must remain in play in order to activate Shadow Tag I gave it Sitrus Berry to maximize chances of survival.

Amoonguss @ Eject Button
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 236 HP / 68 Def / 204 SDef
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Protect

HP EVs makes actual in-game values divisible by 3 which optimizes Regenerator recovery. Defense EVs have no specific targets but the Special Defense EVs allow it to survive a Heat Wave in the sun from a Timid Mega Charizard Y. The moveset is very standard and needs no explanation. For its item I gave it Eject Button since I can use its effect to send in either Politoed which sets up rain or Scrafty which can Fake Out next turn for easy perish count gain. In addition, Eject Button cancels the switching effect from opposing Volt Switch and U-turn.

Scrafty @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Atk / 44 Def / 116 SDef / 4 Spd
Careful Nature
- Fake Out
- Drain Punch
- Crunch
- Protect

Attack EVs allow Scrafty’s Crunch and Mega Gengar’s Shadow Ball together to take out a Careful Trevenant with 244 HP, 156 Defense, 108 Special Defense EV investments taking Sitrus Berry recovery into account.
Defense EVs lets Scrafty survive a Brave Bird from Adamant Talonflame and Special Defense EVs allows for surviving a rain-boosted Hydro Pump from Specs Kingdra. The EVs are actually more than necessary for these targets but I added them for the extra bulk. Also apparently this Scrafty has a 75% chance of surviving Dazzling Gleam from Timid Gardevoir, so this is a very solid spread.

Fake Out is to stop various opposing Pokémon where the order of importance is outlined in the next section. I chose Drain Punch for its Fighting move because the healing effect has synergy with the team concept. Crunch is for attacking Ghost types.
Protect is for reasons written previously but one can use Detect instead if worried about Imprison. Using Protect along with Scrafty’s bulk allows for more than four instances of Leftovers recovery.

Playing the Team

The standard opening for this team is Scrafty and Gengar followed by Gothitelle and Politoed in the back. For the first turn Fake Out an opponent with Scrafty and Perish Song with Gengar while Mega Evolving. The order of importance of the Fake Out target is as follows: first target any possible disruptions to Perish Song. Secondly, any possible OHKO threats. Thirdly, any Pokémon with high damage potential, and at last all other threats.
For the second turn Protect both Pokémon to gain perish count. Third turn switch out both Pokémon to remove perish count and next turn Protect with both.

This selection is chosen when the opponent either has a Pokémon with Fake Out, Greninja, or a Taunt user such as Liepard. For the first turn the usual play is to Protect on both Pokémon while Mega Evolving and Rage Powder + Perish Song on the following turn. Proceed to play as in the previous case.

Dealing with Threats

Against Trevenant, Gourgeist, and Chandelure, focusing on the opponent with both Scrafty and Gengar will take them out so the standard selection is OK. However caution is needed against Scarfed Chandelure.

When faced with an opposing Gengar or Sableye, send out Gengar first. Keep in mind to play flexibly to win this matchup.

For Aegislash, you must correctly predict whether it will use Shadow Ball, Substitute, or King’s Shield. If you play correctly you will be able to win.

Do not try to Perish Trap against Volt Switch and U-turn users. Instead you can win by simply hitting hard and playing well.

Achievements

This team achieved 1st place in the Showdown VGC 2014 ladder playing as igrek and Showme.

This team also ranked in the Top 16 of the 15th Arena Off.

The post Top 16 with Perish Rain at Tokyo’s 15th Arena Off Tournament appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The Manchester Pokémon Tournament is set for its sixth tournament in five years! With sponsorship and help from Nugget Bridge, StreetPass Manchester, and Nintendo UK, this tournament’s purpose is to bring the UK Pokémon community closer together, while providing practise and a more active competitive scene before the VGCS Nationals and Worlds in the Spring/Summer. There are some great prizes to win and the chance to meet a lot of gamers with similar interests to yourself more than once a year. The event will take place on Saturday, February 8th, 2014 with sign ups beginning at 11:00am.

Tournament Format

The tournament will run a Swiss and Top-Cut format:

Rounds of Swiss: 6 (Best of One Game)
Top Cut Cut-Off: 8 (Best of Three Games)

Schedule

11:00am – Sign Ups Begin
11:45am – Sign Ups End
12:00pm – Swiss Rounds of Battles Begin
16:00pm – Swiss Rounds End ; Lunch Break Begins (Roughly)
17:00pm – Top Cut Begins ; Best of Three Games
20:00pm – Tournament Ends ; Awards Ceremony and Photographs
22:00pm – Venue becomes no longer event specific

Rules

The tournament will use the current Pokémon Video Game Championship Series Rules, which you can find in full here. Please make sure to read them carefully as there will be team checks upon registration.

Prizes

1st Place

• A Champion’s Trophy
• A Nintendo 3DS XL Fire Emblem Edition
• A copy of Bravely Default
• A copy of Pokémon Typing
• £30 Nintendo eShop Credit

2nd Place

• A Finalist’s Trophy
• A copy of Bravely Default
• A copy of Pokémon Typing
• £30 Nintendo eShop Credit

3rd & 4th Place

• £20 Nintendo eShop Credit

Event Page

Please register your interest on the official event page which you can find here. You can also join in the discussion on the forums.

Venue

TV21
10 Thomas Street, Northern Quarter
M4 1DH
Manchester, United Kingdom

It is at the request of the venue that you do not bring your own food or drink inside and please do not leave any rubbish behind. If you’re found guilty of any of that, you will probably be asked to leave and thus be disqualified from the tournament. The venue does nice food which you can order to be brought downstairs to the tournament room at any time, however, there will be a lunch break where you’re able to go and get food upstairs or outside – as long as you eat it outside of the venue. Every participant will receive a free drinks voucher upon entering, which covers a spend up to around £4 and does include alcohol for those of you with photographic proof of age. Thank you for understanding.

The post Manchester Pokémon Tournament #6 appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello everyone! My name is Leonard Craft III, but you might know me better as DaWoblefet from the Nugget Bridge forums. After confirming my assumptions at last year’s Winter Regional that all the best VGC players were from Nugget Bridge, I joined up with this awesome website and continued to try to improve my battling skill.

It’s Saturday morning the day of Missouri Winter Regional and, because I’m too young and cheap to pay for a hotel room, my brother Koby (Foob), wakes me up at 4:00 in the morning to get ready for the two hour drive down to St. Charles. After scarfing down a sausage biscuit and a banana, I quickly realize why my mom made me drive. After three almost-accidents with deer, we end up at the convention center half an hour before they even open up. We sit around in the car for a while, until we notice a couple of TCG players going inside, so we go in and claim some comfy chairs before anyone else has a chance to take them. After a bit, I’m starting to pick up some StreetPasses, and attempt to clear them out, but then a huge wave of players starts showing up. I’m definitely not complaining, and by the end of the day I have 14 more Puzzle Swap Panels completed.

As I am going through the StreetPasses, I say hi to my first Nugget Bridge members of the day, Blake Hopper (mrbopper) and Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom), two Magmas. I’m super impressed that Blake actually addresses me as DaWoblefet, and we exchange pleasant conversation that I do not remember. Greyson Garren (Greysong), the only Nugget Bridge player there that I played last year, was helpful in introducing me to some of the other Nugget Bridge players, including Joseph Brummet (lucariojr), who had fun making his Lucario plushie play Find Mii II. I also finally got to meet up with Pat Ball (pball0010). He’s really fun to hang around with, and was also handy for recording Battle Videos on his phone. I’m still wandering around when I meet up with Mario C, a guy I hung out with last year. He’s very easy to talk with, and was kind enough to let me have a couple warm-up battles against him. It looks like my persistence paid off, and I’m glad he’s joined up with Nugget Bridge now!

During these initial introductions, I get to skip to the beginning of line and lock up my Battle Box early since I preregistered, and use my extra time to snap a couple pictures of the event. The room where we were was huge! Considering there were 239 Masters just for VGC and probably more for TCG, the large room size was definitely appreciated.

Me standing next to the big Mewtwo sign

Generic convention center shot, used with permission by Wesley Morioka

I continue to hang out with the Nugget Bridge players, and after talking about Dark Void Smeargle, the blue pentagon hacking, and Tyrantrum, I notice Matthew Carter (mattj) in his infamous Link shirt. he seemed like a pretty cool guy and I hung out with him for a while. The line is slowly starting to decrease in length, and I help someone with a last-minute Life Orb and teach his Pokemon a couple TM moves. You could tell he really appreciated it, and I was glad to help someone out. However, I could not, for the life of me, find Scott! Anyways, the list goes up to make sure everyone’s here, and we get seated. A roar of excitement goes up from the crowd as it’s announced that there will be a top 16 cut due to the large number of Masters. Personally, I’m stoked, as I know I have a better chance of making Top Cut now. The pairings go up, and I’m thrilled I’m not facing Greysong or Scott round one. But before we get into that…

The Team

After practicing for a while on Showdown with a team of Rotom-W/Choice Scarf Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y/Garchomp/Meowstic/Mega Scizor, I knew that a team like that wouldn’t perform very well at Regionals. It didn’t have a very good way to handle Mega Kangaskhan, lacked Fake Out support, and had a huge Trick Room weakness. After hearing things on Showdown about how Rotom-H counters so many Megas, and that Salamence was a good metagame call, I came up with a Amoonguss/Rotom-H/Salamence core and worked from there.

Egg (Amoonguss) @Black Sludge
Nature: Calm (+Sp. Def, -Atk)
IV’s: 31/30/31/31/31/31
EV’s: 172 HP / 172 Def / 164 Sp. Def
Ability: Regenerator
Moveset:
-Rage Powder
-Spore
-Giga Drain
-Protect

I have used Amoonguss on almost every one of my teams since last Winter Regionals, so I was definitely comfortable using this marvelous mushroom. Even though it gained some new enemies, like Mega Charizard Y and Talonflame, it still pulled its weight at the tournament, redirecting attacks with Rage Powder and giving me some extra turns by putting Pokemon to sleep. I know some people have been using Sludge Bomb over Giga Drain, but I appreciate the recovery more, in addition to hitting Rotom-W for solid damage. Although I usually make my own EV spreads, Ansel Blume’s (Stats) suggestion proved to be superior to my original 252 HP / 116 Def / 140 Sp. Def. His spread takes Special attacks better in addition to recovering a greater percentage of HP with Giga Drain, Black Sludge, and Regenerator. Anyway, the main attraction of the EV spread is that it takes max Attack unboosted Talonflame’s Brave Bird or Flare Blitz 100% of the time. I wish I could have gotten lower Attack IVs than what I had but, luckily, Amoonguss never was Swaggered during the event.

Bring↓DaPain (Salamence) (M) @Life Orb
Nature: Timid (+Spd, -Atk)
IV’s: 31/31/31/31/31/31
EV’s: 20 HP / 68 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Sp. Atk / 164 Spd
Ability: Intimidate
Moveset:
-Draco Meteor
-Flamethrower
-Rock Slide
-Protect

I actually got the idea for a mixed Salamence from my friend Chris Nelson (HeroOfTheWinds) after seeing him use it against me on a team with Mega Houndoom. I didn’t like the idea of having a Scarf Salamence in this metagame, although I did like it last generation because of its ability to OHKO standard Latios. This generation, I absolutely adore the Life Orb version. Unlike the Choice Scarf set, which doesn’t even get the OHKO on 4 HP MegaZard Y with Rock Slide, my Salamence’s Rock Slide can OHKO Zog’s bulkier version 100% of the time. Now, you might wonder why I ran a Timid Nature, when with Hasty or Naive, I wouldn’t need any Attack EV’s. After a lot of calculations, we determined that I actually lost more bulk when I put the extra 68 Attack EVs into the defensive stat that was being lowered. Anyway, Draco Meteor and Flamethrower provided great coverage, and with the Life Orb boosting all of my attacks, it dealt a lot of damage to a lot of stuff. The speed EVs allow Salamence to outspeed Adamant Garchomp by one point, and subsequently outspeeds all neutral-natured base 100s.

Bread Burnér (Rotom-H) @Leftovers
Nature: Modest (+Sp. Atk, -Atk)
IV’s: 31/0/31/31/31/31
EV’s: 180 HP / 4 Def / 252 Sp. Atk / 4 Sp. Def / 68 Spd
Ability: Levitate
Moveset:
-Overheat
-Thunderbolt
-Will-o-Wisp
-Protect

Rotom-H was easily the MVP of this team. Whether it was outright walling teams, burning physical attackers, or simply racking up chip damage on the opponent, Rotom-H was essential to my team. Many people use Rotom-W in this metagame simply because Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) used it in Worlds last year. I’m certainly not denying his success with that form of Rotom in that metagame, but for VGC 14, Rotom-H simply does more. It’s a hard check to Mega Mawile, resisting its STABs and being able to burn it or usually OHKO it with Overheat. Mega Charizard Y can’t touch it unless it runs the obscure AncientPower, unlike Rotom-W who is either OHKOd by Solar Beam or just barely hangs on. In addition, its Rock-type weakness is somewhat nullified thanks to Will-o-Wisp, my Intimidate, spread move power reduction, and players like Ray Rizzo opting to go for special Tyranitar. While I think special Tyranitar is a better metagame call, Modest and Timid Natures further weaken Rock Slide’s power, so that’s a plus for me! However, my Rotom-H is weak to faster Rock Slides, as it flinched at least seven times total during the tournament. Leftovers is absolutely crucial for Rotom-H, often recovering more HP than Sitrus Berry would in a match. The EV spread isn’t a masterpiece, with it having a somewhat arbitrary speed to get the jump on slower Rotom and Gyarados, in addition to being one point faster than my own Gyarados. The Attack IVs are 0 to further reduce confusion and Foul Play damage, though it actually ended up being pure luck that I obtained a flawless one like this! I had traded off my first Rotom to Beau Berg (Oreios) for use as a breeding parent, but when we traded back, there was a communication error and from the sound of things, I thought Rotom got deleted and my trade fodder got cloned! So, I haphazardly threw my hexflawless Ditto (thanks Toquill!) and another Rotom spitback together, and managed to pull a flawless baby on the first egg. Cool, but also ironic, because I had just spent four days prior getting my hexflawless Salamence.

Anger Issues (Kangaskhan) (F) @Kangaskhanite
Nature: Jolly (+Spd, -Sp. Atk)
IV’s: 31/31/31/18-19/31/31
EV’s: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Ability: Scrappy –> Parental Bond
Moveset:
-Frustration
-Power-Up Punch
-Fake Out
-Sucker Punch

Standard Mega Kangaskhan, with Jolly for more speed. And yes, you saw that correctly; I am using Frustration. Many of my opponents asked why I used that move over Return, and it’s simple: Pokemon are tools and could never be our friends it gave me something to joke about. This is the first event I’ve gone to after joining Nugget Bridge, so Frustration gave me a way to break the ice, or cleverly insert it into the conversation as I’m describing a match or something. Anyway, if you’ve played VGC 14 at all, you know that Mega Kangaskhan hits like a truck. Once I properly disable any opposing threats to my Kangaskhan, it is used to quickly clean up games. The match where Mega Kangaskhan shone most brightly was my round 7 match where, after burning two of his physical attackers and putting his Mega Manectric to sleep, Kangaskhan just needed one Power-Up Punch and it was good game from there.

A misconception among newer players is that Mega Kangaskhan is too powerful and that because it’s so good people shouldn’t use it because it’s not original or whatever. While it is definitely strong, it will not win games by itself. You can burn it, Intimidate it, Charm it, outspeed it, or send in something that outright walls it like Aegislash or Mega Mawile to easily take care of Kangaskhan. Despite its popularity, there are ways around it. If your team doesn’t have an answer to such a popular Pokemon then, in all honesty, you’re probably also losing to teams that don’t have Mega Kangaskhan.

Restriction (Meowstic) (M) @Sitrus Berry
Nature: Timid (+Spd, -Atk)
IV’s: 31/1/31/27-28/31/31
EV’s: 204 HP / 36 Def / 4 Sp. Atk / 116 Sp. Def / 148 Spd
Ability: Prankster
Moveset:
-Quick Guard
-Safeguard
-Charm
-Swagger

Super epic Meowstic. The nickname is appropriate, as it stops the opponent from doing anything. Prankster is a great Ability on most Pokemon, but if you’re looking for the best Prankster Pokemon in the format, Meowstic is my favorite. Priority Quick Guard stops any Fake Out, and also sets up mindgames with the opponent, giving them hard choices, for example, when deciding to use Brave Bird or Flare Blitz on Talonflame. In addition, Quick Guard outright walls opposing Liepard and Sableye, with Foul Play being a lovely 4HKO on it 72% of the time with an Attack IV of 1 (which is equivalent to 0 at level 50). Safeguard, especially coming off of my faster Meowstic, blocks Prankster Swagger, Thunder Wave, and more as well as burns and sleep from non-Prankster Pokemon, including our good friend Smeargle. Charm is clutch on Meowstic, allowing it to severely weaken physical attackers, often forcing switches. Lastly, Swagger was added to increase my odds against Special attackers, Malamar, and for the Safeguard Swagger combo with Kangaskhan and Gyarados.

The speed EVs invested actually are for that very combo; turn one, I can Fake Out + Safeguard, then turn two, Mega Evolve and go for a Swagger + Sucker Punch to catch something off guard. In addition, since there wasn’t really a defined speed number for Meowstic before Winter Regionals, I felt like I could get the jump on other Meowstic a good majority of the time for the first Safeguard. As for the other EVs, 204 HP / 116 Special Defense allowed me to take a Modest Life Orb Salamence’s Draco Meteor 100% of the time, while the reduced HP allows me to only take 10 damage from Sand/Hail instead of 11. The Defense EVs are more for generic bulk, but after a Charm I survive pretty much every physical attack in the metagame. The 4 Special Attack obviously does nothing, but wouldn’t do anything anywhere else either. Speaking of doing nothing, people may question why I didn’t run an attacking move on Meowstic or, for that matter, dual screens or Fake Out. It’s simple, really – those moves are inferior. Most Taunts come from Liepard and Sableye, which are both blocked by Quick Guard. Dual Screens is better accomplished by Klefki, and Fake Out is just so bad on Meowstic that I didn’t even bother testing it. Meowstic usually tries to stay on the field for a long time, and having a move on it that only works the first turn seems like such wasted potential to me. However, Trick Room and Helping Hand are cool options to try out on it.

Tugboat (Gyarados) (F) @Gyaradosite
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Sp. Atk)
IV’s: 31/31/31/0/31/31
EV’s: 148 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 Sp. Def / 100 Spd
Ability: Intimidate
Moveset:
-Waterfall
-Ice Fang
-Earthquake
-Protect

The first five Pokemon came really easily to me, but the last Pokemon was a tough choice to make. After evaluating my team, it came down to Garchomp or Gyarados. Daniel Cardenas (KermitTheFrog14) helped me make the decision, and although Garchomp is a strong Pokemon with a Rock-type resistance that would have proved useful to my team, Gyarados has Intimidate and a good typing, and was able to function well both in and out of its Mega Evolution. The item was also a toss-up, but the ability to Mega Evolve won over the immediate power of Choice Band. Plus, it meant I could take an incoming Thunderbolt if the situation ever arose, which happened in practice a couple times. I invested enough bulk to take two Solar Beams from Timid Mega Charizard Y as regular Gyarados, which also happened to have enough bulk to survive a Life Orb Thunderbolt from max Special Attack Rotom as Mega Gyarados. The speed is fairly generic, which accomplishes a little bit of speed creeping on the Rotom forms (I beat 52 Spd Rotom with this spread). Waterfall, Ice Fang, and Protect were given, but the last move, like the item, was a toss-up. In the end, I decided that Stone Edge was too risky of a move, Taunt’s usefulness was overlapped by Meowstic, and at least with Earthquake, I had an option against opposing Rotom in my Mega Evolution, as well as another spread attack.

Common Leads

   +   

Meowstic + Rotom-H

This was by far the safest lead of my team, and I used it when I wanted to play more defensively at the beginning. Charm + Will-o-Wisp could neutralize physical threats in a hurry, and Thunderbolt usually did a good job of chipping away at Pokemon, setting up KOs for later.

   +   

Meowstic + Kangaskhan

I used this lead when it appeared that the opponent had very little way to check Kangaskhan. If I managed to set up Safeguard and Swagger, opponents usually just fell apart. This is what you would consider to be the “fast mode” on my team.

I could list all the other lead combinations I used, but that’d be super boring. Besides, I don’t have a specific lead pair that I always go with. Choosing your leads can sometimes be the most important factor in the game, so going on autopilot and haphazardly choosing the same two Pokemon every time will make it hard for you to win consistently. Every Pokemon got to lead at least once during the tournament (except for poor Amoonguss lol), but these leads are notable because they came up most often.

Tournament Report

Round 1 – Vs. Colten Hedrick

Team Preview: Wigglytuff / Gengar / Rhyperior / Aerodactyl / Charizard / Liepard
Brought: Rotom-H / Kangaskhan / Amoonguss / Meowstic

Ironically, this team looks very similar to the one I had to face in round one of St. Charles last year. However, with Wigglytuff being Fairy-type now and Charizard being able to Mega Evolve, I knew it wouldn’t just be a straightforward match. He opens up with his Wigglytuff and Liepard as I lead with Rotom-H and Meowstic. The situation looks good for me as I Quick Guard to block Liepard shenanigans and Thunderbolt the Wigglytuff for some chip damage. However, he reads this well enough and makes a switch to Rhyperior to eat up Thunderbolt and has Liepard use Snarl. However, I’m still not very concerned, and immediately burn Rhyperior while Liepard locks Meowstic into Quick Guard with Encore. Judging by the damage output from Rock Slide, I can tell this burn is going to be huge. Next, I get Amoonguss in and put Liepard to sleep, while I continue to maneuver my Pokemon around to get the advantage. Eventually, my Mega Kangaskhan gets a Power-Up Punch off and it’s good game from there. After the match, he told me his Wigglytuff was actually being used for its Ability, Competitive, and was holding an Assault Vest.

Me squaring off against Colten Round 1

Win 3-0, Record 1-0.

Round 2 – Vs. Trae Hurd

Team Preview: Aerodactyl / Cryogonal / Amoonguss / Rotom-H / Krookodile / Scrafty
Brought: Meowstic / Salamence / Rotom-H / Kangaskhan

When I first see the team, I think “That’s the one guy who beat Cybertron at Virginia!” While I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, if two people are using the same team like that, then I know it won’t be an easy match. After the battle, he said he was friends with Calm Lava, but wasn’t on Nugget Bridge. From Team Preview I figure Gyarados is too risky to bring with Cryogonal, especially since I’ve never faced one in practice, and that Krookodile would likely be Scarfed like Human‘s was. I lead similarly to last game with Meowstic and Rotom-H against his Krookodile and Scrafty. Here, I misplay by assuming his Scrafty will go straight for a Crunch instead of having Fake Out get blocked by Quick Guard, but end up taking the Fake Out damage while also having Rotom flinch to a Rock Slide. I don’t remember the next few turns, other than I burned Krookodile and some switching occured. Then, a critical couple of turns took place. My full HP Mega Kangaskhan and Salamence were facing down his burned Krookodile and full HP Scrafty. I figured my best move was to go straight for the KO on Scrafty with a combo of Frustration + Draco Meteor to prevent it from doing a ton of damage to Mega Kangaskhan. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work out so well for me, as he gets a double flinch with Rock Slide, and Drain Punch leaves MegaKanga with about 35% of its health. Next turn, I foolishly think that I won’t get flinched again, and pay for it by having only Kangaskhan get off an attack while Salamence is unable to move, meaning Scrafty gets a free KO and leaves it at about 75% health. At this point, my Pokemon are simply too worn down to win, and he wins without me seeing his last Pokemon. Still, I can’t really blame the match on hax. Because I was letting him continually spam Rock Slide on my Pokemon, I wasn’t doing anything to minimize the risk of getting flinched.

Loss 0-3, Record 1-1.

Round 3 – Vs. David Hart (D++)

Team Preview: Scrafty / Rotom-W / Salamence / Kangaskhan / Liepard / Talonflame
Brought: Kangaskhan / ???  / ??? / ???

I’m pretty sure I let my loss from last game get to my head, as the words from Cybertron’s 7 Tips to Win a Regional echoed in my head: “you can only afford to take one loss and still guarantee Top Cut”. I let my thinking go where it shouldn’t have, and made terrible misplays like double targeting into Protects and letting Liepard get a free OHKO with Foul Play on my +2 Mega Kangaskhan. There really isn’t any other way to describe the match other than he just outplayed me. However, despite the loss, he gave me some good advice that helped me later, saying that if you try to predict your opponent too much without knowing their skill level, you could easily end up at a large disadvantage.

Loss 0-2, Record 1-2.

Lunch Break

This lunch break was a godsend. Not only did it let me get some more food into my system and recharge my 3DS XL’s battery, but it also helped me to calm down and reevaluate my situation. At this point, my brother was 3-0 in Swiss for Seniors, and things were looking solid for him to make Top Cut. However, just because my record wasn’t as good as his, giving up was not an option. After eating, I laid back and rested for about 20 minutes on the floor, then went to go chitchat with the other Nugget Bridge players. Talking with them, I learned that two losses could still probably make Top Cut. Also, I knew that at 1-2, I probably would be facing someone who wasn’t necessarily the greatest player. Before I see the pairings for next round, I say hello to who I think is Scott, but is actually Kappy. He kindly points me in Scott’s direction, and after one sentence I recognize his voice from the Worlds commentary.

Round 4 – Vs. Brian Krzyzanowski

Team Preview: Ferrothorn / Hippowdon / Aegislash / Conkeldurr / Gyarados / Gardevoir
Brought: Gyarados / Rotom-H / Kangaskhan / Amoonguss

Taking a look at his team, it appeared like it was a hard Trick Room team with Gardevoir as the setter. On top of this, the only Pokemon that could really touch Amoonguss was Gardevoir. Rotom-H would also do a lot of work, so I figured this wouldn’t be a very difficult battle. I decide to lead with Rotom-H and Gyarados to potentially OHKO Gardevoir right off the bat. Interestingly enough, he leads with Ferrothorn and Hippowdon. Remembering David’s advice, I decide to just go for a straightforward Waterfall and Overheat, which works out marvelously as I pick up the OHKO on Ferrothorn and deal a little over half to Hippowdon while he misses a Stone Edge (though I doubt it would have KO’d Gyarados after Intimidate).  He goes ahead and sends in Gardevoir. Judging by how easy the last turn was, I simply burn Hippowdon and try to go for Waterfall with Gyarados as his Gardevoir outspeeds and OHKOs it first with Thunderbolt. Still, there’s very little he can do as I send in Kangaskhan and Mega evolve for an easy KO with Frustration on Gardevoir, while his Hippowdon switches out to his Conkeldurr and takes a -2 Overheat, which was enough chip damage to allow me to OHKO it with Frustration the following turn. Next, I merely Power-Up Punch Hippowdon while he uses Slack Off, revealing that he didn’t have Protect on his Hippowdon (the other moves were Stone Edge, Earthquake, and Crunch). As Frustration KOs Hippowdon, I ask if Gardevoir had Trick Room, to which he replied, “No, Gardevoir is fast. Why would it need Trick Room?” By his expression though, I think he was just annoyed I beat him.

Win 3-0, Record 2-2.

Round 5 – Vs. Alex Thomas

Team Preview: Manectric / Articuno / Kingdra / Rotom-W / Klefki / Absol
Brought: Meowstic / Kangaskhan / Amoonguss / Salamence

In our conversation prior to the match,  he brought up he had just lost to Mega Kangaskhan and Amoonguss pretty badly. Looking at his team, I could see why.  It was pretty obvious that Klefki was going to be using Rain Dance, and you could tell what he was planning to do with that. So, I lead with the #1 Klefki counter, Meowstic, and Kangaskhan, while he starts things off with Rotom-W and Klefki. From turn one I have the advantage as he Swaggers and Will-o-Wisps straight into my Safeguard and Kangaskhan gets off a Power-Up Punch. From here, I simply KO the Rotom-W and Swagger Klefki as it sets up Rain Dance for the Kingdra that’s coming in. Sucker Punch KOs Kingdra and Klefki uses Thunder Wave on Kangaskhan even though Safeguard is still up. He exclaims, “My Klefki doesn’t have any attacking moves!” when I ask why he used Thunder Wave. Frustration OHKOs his last Pokemon. Alex is very frustrated right now, much like my Kangaskhan. He starts talking about how nobody is original and how everyone uses the same Pokemon. From here, I decide to actually agree with him to help him get some of that frustration out of his system, because unlike Kangaskhan, it isn’t going to benefit him. We talk about Showdown, and I tell him that originality without preparing for the big threats just won’t get you very far. I tell him about Wolfey and bring up Human’s Chesnaught. Gradually, his mood softens. I give him a pep talk, saying not to give up just because of a couple losses or a couple Pokemon. I’m glad I did, because it may have very well been him not dropping that gave me enough resistance to land 16th in Swiss. Plus, it felt good to help cheer someone up.

Win 4-0, Record 3-2.

Between rounds four and five, I was hanging around Greysong and another one of his friends. Like me, his friend was at 3-2, and Greysong was giving him solid advice: don’t look at your situation as “only one more loss and you’re out”, but rather, just keep going one round at a time. Though I didn’t tell Greysong at the time, this really inspired me to do well and it told me that I could still Top Cut.

Round 6 – Vs. Shelby Wroczynski

Team Preview: Doublade / Garchomp / Dragalge / Tyranitar / Talonflame / Flygon
Brought: Gyarados / Rotom-H / Kangaskhan / Salamence

Shelby and I had actually talked prior to the Swiss rounds starting, and she seemed really nice. Looking at the team, I didn’t see much that was threatening besides Garchomp. I decide to be a little cocky and say, “Oh, Eviolite Doublade? That’s pretty cool.” It seemed to impress her a bit that I could call that straight from Team Preview, but she didn’t look intimidated or anything. To fix that, I led with Salamence to get its Intimidate off on her Doublade and Dragalge, and threw Rotom-H in there for good measure. Now, I didn’t know much about Dragalge other than the Adaptablity Ability is still unreleased for it, so I went straight for a Life Orb Draco Meteor from Salamence, which OHKOd it, and burnt Doublade with Rotom-H.  Now, in hindsight, I might have been able to OHKO Doublade with Overheat, but I totally blanked and forgot it doesn’t get more Special Defense until after evolving. Anyway, Sacred Sword comes out, doing next to nothing to Rotom-H. She replaces Dragalge with Tyranitar. From here, my memory is a bit fuzzy, but my notes say that the Tyranitar had Rocky Helmet, which I remember activating when I used Power-Up Punch on Tyranitar, and that I forgot to Mega evolve Kangaskhan. Anyway, it somehow ends up with her Flygon and severely weakened Doublade against my Rotom-H and Gyarados. However, her Flygon was faster than my two Pokemon. I knew that Ice Fang would OHKO, but my Gyarados simply refused to stop flinching from Rock Slide! Rotom wasn’t helping much either, missing a Will-o-Wisp and flinching like mad. However, I refused to lose from flinches twice, and Mega evolved to Mega Gyarados for the first and only time during the tournament. FINALLY I hit the Flygon with Ice Fang, OHKOd, and clean up from there.

Win 2-0, Record 4-2.

After this match my brother came up to me and told me some great news. He went 5-1 in Seniors and made 2nd seed in Swiss! I was so proud of him, and it encouraged me to keep doing well. I knew that my opponents from here on out would be far more difficult though, especially considering that Scott, who I considered to be one of the best people participating, had the same record as me. Luckily, I do not pull Scott’s name as the pairings go up!

Round 7 – Vs. Steven Walders

Team Preview: Mienshao / Manectric / Garchomp / Meowstic / Tyranitar / Venusaur
Brought: Meowstic / Rotom-H / Amoonguss / Kangaskhan

I didn’t know this guy, but his Team Preview looked incredibly solid. I decide to lead with my safe leads and go with Meowstic + Rotom-H as he brings out Mienshao and Manectric. I didn’t really see much risk with going for a Quick Guard + Will-o-Wisp to block Fake Out and neutralize Mienshao. I get even better than that, as his Mienshao reveals Quick Guard, and his Manectric Mega evolves and uses Overheat on Meowstic, activating the Sitrus Berry. Next turn, it was so obvious he had to switch out Manectric that I target it with Will-o-Wisp, expecting a Garchomp switch-in. Quick Guard blocks the Charm on Mienshao, and he does in fact Volt Switch out to Garchomp… but of course, Will-o-Wisp misses. I slam my fist on the table, scaring the Grimer out of Scott’s opponent who was right next to me. I immediately apologize, and Scott says he could relate to the Will-o-Wisp miss on the switch-in. Anyway, I didn’t panic, and get Amoonguss in while he brings in Mega Manectric again, while I actually do get the burn on Garchomp. At this point, I look at my situation, and deduce that all I need to do is put Mega Manectric to sleep, send in Kangaskhan, and wipe through his remaining Pokemon. That’s exactly what I did too, with Amoonguss’ boss EV spread allowing it to take the Overheat from Mega Manectric perfectly and shut it down with Spore.  At this point, he just can’t win, with his Pokemon falling left and right to Mega Kangaskhan’s Frustration. After the match, he asks for advice, and I tell him High Jump Kick was better on Mienshao than Drain Punch for the ability to OHKO Mega Kangaskhan.

Win 4-0, Record 5-2.

Round 8 – Vs. Sean Flowers

Team Preview: Garchomp / Rotom-W / Talonflame / Salamence / Scizor / Sableye
Brought: Meowstic / Salamence / Rotom-H / Kangaskhan

The match was partially recorded by the awesome videographer Pat Ball, so I won’t jabber on for too long about this match. Basically, I felt that the Pokemon I brought were the ones I needed. Even though Kangaskhan got KOd early on, I wasn’t done yet by any means. I’m not going to lie, after I got the Sableye paralyzed, the Garchomp burned and at -6 Attack, and still had 3 Pokemon left, my first thought was timer stalling. So, I played the clock. However, I’m happy to say that despite the timer running down to 0 like I planned it, I was able to end the game before the timer did. Still, I didn’t need the timer in this situation, because even with a critical hit, Salamence could not have been KOd by a burned Garchomp’s Dragon Claw.

Win 3-0, Record 6-2.

Round 9 – Vs. Aaron Grubbs (LPFan)

Team Preview: Amoonguss / Garchomp / Manectric / Kangaskhan / Rotom-H / Gyarados
Brought: Rotom-H / Meowstic / Amoonguss / Kangaskhan

This was my first Nugget Bridge player match of the day , and the winner of this match would decide who makes top cut (D++ joined after Regionals took place). Stakes are high. Aaron seemed flustered, and when asked why, he said he got haxed out of his last match. His team preview looks very strong, so I decide to go with my safe leads Meowstic and Rotom-H, while he leads Manectric and Gyarados. I was so close to clicking Charm + Thunderbolt to get a free OHKO on Gyarados regardless of his Gyarados’ speed, but in the nick of time I remembered that Manectric’s Lightning Rod would have none of that. Thankfully, I change my moves up and switch in Amoonguss to take the Waterfall. Judging by the damage it did, I deduce his Gyarados is Choice Banded. He switches Gyarados out, but I don’t quite remember why. I do know that I end up Swaggering his Rotom-H, and it hits itself twice before just barely not getting the KO on Meowstic with Overheat. It was at this point in the match that my glasses’ lens popped out, probably due to the intensity of the battle.

It’s hard to see with the shadow, but this is when my glasses’ lens popped out.

It all comes down to my +2 Mega Kangaskhan and Rotom-H versus his Rotom-H and Charmed Garchomp. I Protect Rotom-H as his Garchomp goes for Rock Slide. He ends up getting a critical hit on Mega Kangaskhan, and more importantly, the flinch. Now I can’t KO his Rotom, which goes for Overheat… but misses. It was huge, to say the least. He goes for the same play again, but this time, Garchomp’s Rock Slide neither crits nor flinches, meaning Frustration gets the KO on his Rotom-H, and my Overheat puts LPFan’s Garchomp well within Sucker Punch KO range. You could tell LPFan wasn’t too pleased, and for good reason. I really wish we could have both gotten into Top Cut, because Aaron still played really well. In any case, we said our good games, and I knew that because of Aaron’s great resistance, I would indeed make it to Top Cut.

Win 2-0, Record 7-2.

I am super proud of myself for coming all the way from 1-2 to 7-2. I go over and talk with the Nugget Bridge crowd, where pball, mattj, LatiosIsCool, and others congratulated me on not giving up. Sadly, when I go to share the news with my mom and brother, my brother told me he lost in top 8. At this point, it was getting late, so Mom decided to book a hotel room for the night.

The final records go up, and I look to see my name… at 16th! I had no idea that I was that close to being one under top cut like last year! Anyways, I’m glad I hadn’t celebrated too early, and look at the first seed – some guy named Keegan Beljanski who I had never heard of. I go around asking who he is, and bump into Keegan himself, who introduces himself as Darkeness. Later, the top 16 are called over to do hack checks and fill out some sort of sheet where you had to write out all the info on your Pokemon. I remembered reading about these things from 2010 and stuff, but because I haven’t participated in anything before 2011 (and that was the 2011 Nationals Seniors LCQ without any competitive battling experience), it was new to me. Speaking of being young, everyone else who made it in seemed to be older than me (I’m only 16), so I knew I would be up against experienced players.

Top 16 – Vs. Keegan Beljanski (Darkeness)

Team Preview: Gourgeist / Charizard / Rhydon / Ludicolo / Aerodactyl / Salamence

Before team preview, Keegan seemed pretty confident. I think he was a bit too cocky, though, because he kept saying Mega Charizard Y sucked, which gave away that he was using it. Of course, he had every right to be confident – he managed an 8/0/1 streak in Swiss, and was now playing somebody who had never cut an event before.

Game 1

He leads Mega Charizard Y and Aerodactyl against my Salamence and Kangaskhan. We both go Mega, with my Kangaskhan’s Mega evolution surprisingly going before his, which revealed his Modest Nature. I make an obvious play of using Fake Out and reveal my gimmick move, Rock Slide, as he double Protects. Knowing that there is no way in the wonky world of walruses that he’s staying in with Mega Charizard Y, I look at his potential switch-ins and decide that Gourgeist is the most optimal. I predict correctly, and the sun-boosted, Life Orb Flamethrower from Salamence does not KO! Yay! However, it does knock Gourgeist’s health down to high red, and it heals up with a Sitrus Berry. Unfortunately, I don’t make the same kind of play with Aerodactyl, and I Sucker Punch into a Tailwind. At this point, my memory gets a little fuzzy, but I do remember that I manage to get Mega Kangaskhan up to +4 by hitting a Rhydon. He burned my Kangaskhan, effectively giving it +2 Atk, and I take a turn to scout Rhydon’s Ability and discover it has Lightning Rod. I also recall KOing his Rhydon with Rotom-H’s Overheat, and that Keegan thought it wouldn’t KO while I was pretty certain it would. It comes down to a bit of a prediction game, with me needing to call when Charizard won’t Protect so Sucker Punch can KO. Once I do that, I take the game.

Game 2

The last match was a bit too close for my liking, so I go for my safe leads, Meowstic and Rotom-H, as he leads with Salamence and Ludicolo, both Pokemon that I did not get to see last game. I knew that he wouldn’t want to get caught playing into a Quick Guard, so I decide to straight-up Swagger his Ludicolo. Salamence hits with Hydro Pump as I infer that it’s Scarfed, while between the confusion damage and Thunderbolt, Ludicolo loses half of its health. However, I outspeed the Ludicolo with Rotom-H, so I know I can KO next turn with Thunderbolt, provided the Salamence doesn’t KO me first. I decide that since I’m up one game, if I take some risks and they pay off, the game is mine. I Swagger Salamence, knowing that between Hydro Pump accuracy and the confusion chance, I’ll likely not get hit. I assume correctly, and as Salamence hits itself in its confusion I use Thunderbolt on Ludicolo – but I forgot that it had taken the confusion damage prior, so it survives! I’m kicking myself so hard for not using Overheat, but then Thunderbolt paralyzes his Ludicolo. Hax makes up for my misplay, and confusion damage KOs Ludicolo. I feel just terrible for that happening, as I wasn’t counting on Thunderbolt paralyzing or Ludicolo hitting itself in confusion – it was my own mistake. From here, Salamence’s Rock Slide puts huge pressure on Charizard, and my Mega Kangaskhan got some Power-Up Punches off, so I win, 4-0.

Match 2-0

Despite losing that way, Keegan took his losses like a man. I originally apologized for the hax, but Keegan dismissed it, saying that I used Swagger on purpose and that I knew what I was doing when I used the move. I really did admire his attitude towards the whole situation. Anyway, I’m excited I beat the first seed in the tournament, moving on to top 8.

Because our match finished so quickly, I had a little more time to hang out with pball and the others before my top 8 opponent was announced. When I saw I pulled mattj though, I was overjoyed! Out of all the people still in top cut, mattj was the one person that I wanted to battle because I knew his team from watching his channel on YouTube. Therefore, the “surprises” like Scarfed Abomasnow, Feint Mienshao, and Hammer Arm Kangaskhan weren’t going to catch me off guard. However, in hindsight, I should have used this knowledge to prepare leads before team preview.

Top 8 – Vs. Matthew Carter (mattj)

Team Preview: Talonflame / Zapdos / Chandelure / Kangaskhan / Abomasnow / Mienshao

Game 1

I don’t remember all that much about Game 1, other than I switched Salamence out of Choice Scarfed Abomasnow’s Blizzard to Rotom-H, and realized that besides that Pokemon, I have no other Ice resists on the team. Lovely. Anyway, it comes down to a very crucial turn where mattj says, “I have a 90% chance to win here.” I’m confused, then understand that he is talking about Hammer Arm potentially missing, leaving us with 2 Jolly Kangaskhan staring each other down. I know from his YouTube channel that despite Hammer Arm, his Kangaskhan has a bog standard EV spread of 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP, so it’s going to come down to a coin flip, and likely a high damage roll for me. However, I don’t need to check what kind of damage roll I get as he wins the speed tie (like he should after the Hammer Arm miss) and takes the match.

Game 2

Like Round 8, pball was kind enough to record this match for me. I actually made the commentary on the video after Regionals ended, so I apologize if I sound bad or if the content was bad, as this was my first time ever recording over a battle. I wish we could have just directly saved our Battle Video, as that would have saved a lot of hassle later on.

To go off on what I was saying in the video, after the critical hits occurred, my only chance of winning would have been to use Overheat + Swagger on Mega Kangaskhan in an attempt to KO it. Chandelure would have also had to hit itself in confusion. This alone only gave me a 25% chance to win (the odds are good I could have KOd Kangaskhan if it hit itself in confusion), and even if I had pulled it off, I would have had to play perfectly the rest of the game and probably get many more Swagger hits.

Match 0-2

Final Place: Top 8

Well, I’m out! Yet for some reason, I wasn’t upset that the critical hits happened. Maybe it was because luck was on my side in my matches against LPFan and Darkeness, so I deserved to have luck turn against me. Maybe it was because I had seen mattj’s team beforehand, so I was too confident and didn’t make the correct choices with the Pokemon I chose. But I think the real reason I lost was because mattj’s team and skill level is just that good – even without the crits, it would not have been an easy match. I’m also happy that even though my plays weren’t working in my favor, I still feel like they were the correct plays and that I did not lose due to me making foolish mistakes like my Round 3 match. It also helped that Matt is super understanding and encouraged me both during and after the match, saying on Facebook that, “Your team was solid and you played solidly… you have every reason to be proud.” He’s a great guy, and it’s super cool that he won the whole tournament. Congratulations on your Regionals win mattj!

Conclusion

I loved this tournament! Considering the amount of people that showed up and that both TCG and VGC were being run on the same day, the tournament went along pretty smoothly. I had a great time hanging out with pball and mattj, listening to Scott (trust me – this guy knows what he’s talking about), and in general matching Nugget Bridge usernames to faces. To end this report, here’s a group picture of all those who stayed til the end, graciously provided by Wesley Morioka.

From left to right: styrofoameon, ?, GreySong, mattj, Welsey, ?, pball0010, me, Amarillo, Scott

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

The post Synergistic Frustration: Top 8 Winter Regionals Team & Tournament Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.