Hello, I’m Ryan Gadea or The Knights of Wario Land as I go on here, and I recently finished in the top 16 at the Winter Regionals in Virginia. This is the first time I’ve ever top cut an event, and although I do have some regrets about not making farther, I’m still incredibly happy I made it that far at such a tight regional.

Generation 5 is when I started playing competitive Pokemon, and I ended up stealing teams most of the time or just not being that original before trying to put on weird spins that were okay, but nothing really that recommendable. This is what I’ve liked a lot about Generation 6 so far: Ever since the games first launched I’ve had an easier time seeing what works, trying out a ton of cool new things and learning about what threats I have to counter. Compared to VGC 2011 and the early stages of both VGC 2012 and 2013 , this new restricted metagame has started to develop much quicker and is seeing a wider variety of Pokemon, moves and items being used. I also love how much easier it is to obtain Pokemon in-game with the desired IVs and it’s forced me to think a lot more about my Pokemon team choices before I breed for them.

My team changed a ton of times during testing: from starting out as a rain team, to a standard Kangaskhan/Klefki/Talonflame/Meowstic/etc team, to what it is now. It became more developed the more I saw what was being used but I wanted to make sure that I was fully confident in what I was using, so it was finalized sometime even before the new year. Me and Cameron (Stormfront) also shared ideas regularly and he played a part in making the team what it is today.

The Team

Mienshao @ Focus Sash
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (-SpA,+Spe)
-Fake Out
-Low Sweep
-Rock Slide
-Quick Guard

Used 10/11 matches

Mienshao has always been a Pokemon I’ve turned down before because it’s “too frail” or “too slow”, but in this metagame, I found myself annoyed when testing Scrafty that its Quick Guard just wouldn’t cut it against threats such as Kangaskhan and Meowstic Fake Outs so I checked the list for other, faster Pokemon that can learn Quick Guard. Mienshao sprung to my attention because of its 105 speed, which in this metagame, where base 100 is the standard of speed to beat, puts it in a very favorable speed tier. Mienshao is also interesting in that it can’t be flinched itself with Inner Focus, so it provides extreme Fake Out pressure on the opponent. That’s where Quick Guard comes in: I can guarantee that the partner can get away with whatever it wants to, and leave threats like Kangaskhan and Talonflame sitting ducks for the turn. Rock Slide was there so that I get off some fast spread damage, and surprise Mega Charizard Y by outspeeding and often knocking it out in one hit. Low Sweep is an interesting move for this metagame considering Icy Wind is almost nowhere to be seen. This means clutching speed ties or guaranteeing the ability to out speed is only really doable with Tailwind, which I personally dislike using because of the limited turns of benefit it provides. The move still has solid 65 base power and is boosted by the same type attack bonus, which was enough to OHKO Tyranitar, deal around 50% to Kangaskhan and put some solid neutral damage on Rotom. Mienshao’s biggest weakness is still its miserable bulk, but that ended up being more of a plus for my team. When pairing up Mienshao and Aromatisse, I want Abomasnow to have a safe switch-in to the battlefield so that it can start KOing in Trick Room, so having Mienshao faint would provide the free switch in I was looking for. Mienshao isn’t really a Pokemon everyone should rush to using, but if you need a fast supporter that still provides offensive pressure, give Mienshao a second look.

Aromatisse @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Def / 24 SpA / 136 SpD
Sassy Nature (+SpD,-Spe)
IVs: 0 Spe
-Reflect
-Light Screen
-Moonblast
-Trick Room

Used 5/11 matches

This slot originally belonged to Assault Vest Slowking, but I found more as time went on that it was plain annoying how often Tyranitar had the edge on my team with it (and Aromatisse is 10x more adorable). This Aromatisse was actually donated to me by Cassie for shiny value trading a few months ago, but when I was replacing Slowking to put in a new TR setup, its potential shined: not only did Aromatisse have a better offensive and defensive typing in Fairy, but it had a whole slew of supporting moves that I needed to help out Abomasnow. Abomasnow and Aromatisse are incredibly fun to use together, as Aromatisse sets up the Trick Room for Abomasnow to flourish in, and setting up the screens that will allow it to survive more attacks. Safety Goggles also compliments Abomasnow well: she won’t be taking excess hail damage and can ignore Amoonguss completely which is often a big concern for Trick Room Pokemon. During Battle Spot testing I’ve hilariously had matches where Amoonguss will try to Rage Powder away a Moonblast from its partner, only to have Aromatisse hit the intended target regardless. The EVs are something I could’ve worked on a little bit more: it allows it to take 60% from Scizor’s Bullet Punch and survives Mega Gengar’s Sludge Bomb but I have the dual screens to not only help myself, but my allies. Unfortunately, I didn’t run into a single Amoonguss all tournament (I have to stop overhyping these mushroom Pokemon) so in hindsight, Light Clay would’ve been a better held item.

Abomasnow @ Abomasite
Ability: Snow Warning
EVS: 112 HP / 144 Atk / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature (+SpA, -Spe)
IVs: 0 Spe
-Blizzard
-Energy Ball
-Ice Shard
-Protect

Used 7/11 matches

Before Generation 6 I had relatively no interest in running Abomasnow despite seeing its success. It just always seemed to lack the kind of firepower I’m comfortable with. With the introduction of Mega Evolutions, Abomasnow was one of the Pokemon I really wanted to see obtain one for that reason, which it was thankfully granted. After seeing how much of a technical counter it could be in testing, I decided to run it full-force on my team. Abomasnow helped shape a lot of what my team became, and he was incredibly fun to use. The lowered speed of Mega Abomasnow makes it incredibly scary in Trick Room, as a perfectly accurate 132 base Special Attack Blizzard packs quite a punch (and possibly a freeze). Energy Ball is there for good neutral secondary STAB as I dislike the recoil from Wood Hammer, and Giga Drain isn’t legal for this format (even if it was, the Energy Ball Base Power buff makes it perfectly viable to use on its own). Ice Shard was there to finish off Pokemon that were weakened from Blizzard, and just provide good priority. What’s great is that opponents will freely target Abomasnow with Swagger, but if I’m able to hit through or snap out of confusion, Ice Shard just becomes even more powerful. Mega Evolving also allows me to reset an opponent’s Sand, Rain, or Sun whenever I need to, definitely helping out my team. Abomasnow and Aromatisse formed the bulk of my team’s fast mode, as the two compliment each other incredibly well. The EVs are mostly offensive-based: maxed out Special Attack for the hardest-hitting Blizzards and Energy Balls, and 144 Attack EVs so that I can OHKO Garchomp after a turn of hail damage. Abomasnow has a lot of problems against a lot of common Pokemon such as Charizard-Y and Talonflame, but against other commonly seen Pokemon like Hydreigon, Garchomp, Rotom-W, Politoed, Tyranitar, Amoonguss, Dragonite, etc., it’s a fantastic counter.

Thanks a bunch to Uncle Taint for providing me with this Abomasnow before regionals.

Garchomp @ Lum Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVS: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (-SpA, +Spe)
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-Protect

Used 6/11 matches

Garchomp is probably one of my favorite Pokemon to use: this is the third Regional I’ve used him. In Generation 5, it kinda saddened me to see Garchomp’s usage drop thanks to Landorus-T being so much better, but with that tiger genie out of the picture, Garchomp rose up again. Generation 6 has also in my opinion made Garchomp a more balanced Pokemon; with the rise of physical attackers like Kangaskhan and Mawile, it’s very nice to have Rough Skin inflicting that small but possibly crucial chip damage. Garchomp also does well against that previously mentioned 100 base speed standard, with a base Speed of 102. Its typing is also fantastic, and even with the rise of Fairy-types, it still holds strong with some great resistances and defenses. Garchomp also became a great defense against Sun teams, a fact that I wanted to emphasize even more with Lum Berry as the held item. I originally ran it holding a Life Orb, but more and more in testing I would either be massive status bait or just end up killing myself in recoil. I gave up the offensive prowess in order for better defense against Will-o-Wisp from Rotom-W or Venusaur/Amoonguss spamming their sleeping moves. Other than that, this is a pretty bread-and-butter Garchomp EV spread and move set, but it works well and is reliable enough that I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rotom-Heat @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVS: 220 HP / 60 Def / 124 SpA / 96 SpD / 8 Spe
Modest Nature (-Atk, +SpA)
-Overheat
-Thunderbolt
-Will-o-Wisp
-Protect

Used 7/11 matches

Rotom is a Pokemon I’m not entirely fond of using, but with how good it is in this metagame, I can’t turn it down. It was originally a Rotom-C,which I ditched after a week because it still couldn’t OHKO Rotom-W and it made my team even more vulnerable to Talonflame. Then it was a Rotom-W, but then Mega Manectric began giving my team problems. Looking at the formes again, I realized just how many resistances and excellent coverage Rotom-H had, so I swapped to it. Rotom-H provided good pressure even before doing anything, immediately threatening Scizor, Mawile and Gyarados, amongst others. Both Garchomp and Rotom-H form an extremely strong combination as they both pack a punch and Rotom-H avoids Garchomp’s Earthquake. Like Garchomp, Rotom-H’s moveset is as standard as you can get. Even when trying to use other options like Light Screen or Thunder Wave, I just ended up going right back the basic one. The EVs are a little bit odd, as I had a hard time choosing whether I wanted Rotom to go offensive or go defensive, so it ended up being a somewhat even split. The 8 Speed EVs are there so that it can outrun 4 Speed Rotom, which I saw a lot of in practice.

Thanks a bunch to CrimsonBlastoise for this Rotom.

Clawitzer @ Assault Vest
Ability: Mega Launcher
EVS: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature (-Atk, +SpA)
-Water Pulse
-Dark Pulse
-Aura Sphere
-Dragon Pulse

Used 9/11 matches

I had a pretty major case of “Can’t decide what Pokemon to use for my last slot” syndrome, as I cycled through a ton of viable Pokemon, including Scizor, Gyarados, Mawile, Aegislash and Gengar, but every one I tried just made my team that much more weak to threats such as Talonflame, Rotom-W, Kangaskhan and Charizard. However, after seeing Zog’s report and how he used Assault Vest Clawitzer to good effect, I decided to try it out for myself. Not only did it provide even more offensive pressure and deal solid damage to a wide variety of Pokemon, but it had rather impressive special bulk, requiring a 3HKO from Rotom’s Thunderbolt. I don’t think I would’ve been that comfortable using another Pokemon for this slot. Although I have no Steel or Poison coverage, Clawitzer provides just enough coverage and offensive pressure that I’m fine with it.

Thanks a lot to BlitznBurst for providing me with a spitback parent because I don’t have access to Clauncher in Y.

Combos

Rotom-H + Garchomp

This combo puts a lot of pressure onto common leading Pokemon such as Talonflame, Kangaskhan, Charizard and Venusaur, mainly because Garchomp is free to spam Earthquake while Rotom takes care of the rest. If I find myself concerned about setting up Trick Room, I would often go to these two for my lead, and have Mienshao/Clawitzer in the back.

Mienshao + Rotom-H

Rotom-H is pretty large Fake Out/Status bait, so Mienshao is there to make sure that it can get off its Will-o-Wisp/attacking move on the opponent unhindered. Mienshao also helps and stops threats like Tyranitar and Gyarados that sometimes give Rotom-H trouble, and using Low Sweep to assure that I can out speed and easily get the final attack off on Rotom-W and Gyarados.

Mienshao + Garchomp

A similar combo to the previous one, expect one that moves at a faster speed tier. Mienshao helps tremendously against opposing Garchomp and Salamence by slowing them down, allowing Garchomp to pick up the Dragon Claw KO next turn. Low Sweep is also tremendously helpful in dealing with Greninja and fast Talonflame, allowing Garchomp to KO them. Both also have Rock Slide, which not only deals incredibly solid spread damage, but has an increased ratio of flinching the opponent.

Mienshao+Aromatisse

When I wanted to go into fast mode, this is what I would usually lead with. Mienshao makes sure that Aromatisse is able to get up its Trick Room and/or its screens, but with this combo, Mienshao more than likely is in a sacrificial role, so that I can bring in Abomasnow safely.

Abomasnow + Aromatisse (AromaSnow)

This was my favorite combo to use. With Trick Room, Safety Goggles and dual screens from Aromatisse plus a sold STAB in Moonblast, plus hail, low base speed, and hard-hitting STABs from Mega Abomasnow, the two just compliment each other so much. The two do both share unfortunate Poison and Steel weakness, but that’s what the rest of the team is there to deal with, allowing these two to provide incredible pressure onto the opponent.

Clawitzer + Rotom-H

Two solid special attackers that cover each other very well. Clawitzer puts pressure on opposing Tyranitar, Mamoswine, Meowstic, Salamence and Hydreigon, while Rotom-H deals with Amoonguss, Gyarados, and other physical attackers.

Saturday, January 11

After a brutal 6-hour ride in the rain and traffic from Philly to Doswell (I thank my mom a lot for taking me there), I arrived at the convention center. Though a lot of people complained how the event was in the middle of nowhere, I kinda liked the quietness of the area and how the air was actually clean. I immediately met honchkro13 and FonicFrog, and we hung out at the convention center for a few hours, before we headed back to bearsfan092’s hotel room, and watched some competitive Melee, which is still a marvel and overwhelming to observe. Bears then later drove a bunch of us down to the Cracker Barrel, where Ray was talking about the kinda stupid stuff he knew people were bringing to the tournament tomorrow while everyone indulged on the gravy train.

After that we went down to Team Aqua vs. Team Flare Laser Tag which was incredibly fun, albeit kind of stupid that you had to have two hands on the gun at all times. After all of that I was exhausted and headed back to the hotel for about 7 hours of sleep.

Sunday, January 12

This is seriously giving me some horrible Newark 2011 queuing flashbacks…

After signing up in the morning I met a few more people from the forums, but then my stomach started to have this really harsh pain. It was horrible for almost an hour, and I was thinking I would have to drop out. Even at the player’s meeting table, the announcement of a Top 16 cut and 9 swiss rounds didn’t get me all that excited because I was so uncomfortable. But, realizing I’d gone this far south, it would be a waste to just stop right here, so I forced my body to forget the pain and endure the day. As the day passed on, I began to feel a lot better, so I don’t know if it was just adrenaline or that pain was all just anxiety.

Round 1: Patrick (Pd0nZ)

Me: Mienshao/Aromatisse/Abomasnow/Clawitzer
Opponent: (Mamoswine/Rotom-C)

Still recovering from that stomach pain, I came hyped into the first round. From team preview it looked almost like the kind of team I made in the first month of the metagame, instead with less Klefki and Trevenant and more Mamoswine and Rotom-C. Knowing that Abomasnow would do a ton of work against this team, I decided to lead out with Mienshao/Aromatisse, and he went with Kangaskhan/Talonflame. I Quick Guarded as both his Fake Out and Brave Bird were blocked as Aromatisse set up Trick Room. I remember getting rid of Talonflame with Rock Slide (he was running a faster Talonflame as I was able to under speed it in TR), as he switched out Kangashkan with Politoed, and meanwhile Aromatisse set up Reflect. From there I switched out Abomasnow to get rid of the rain while he ended up making a few more switches on the oncoming turns, trying to get back his rain but Mega Abomasnow wasn’t having any of that. Aromatisse set up Light Screen and provided the damage enough for Abomasnow to KO everything left with Blizzard/Energy Ball, pulling a 4-0 victory. Pdonz admitted that he hadn’t really trained with his team all that much, but I do commend him for still using rain, especially at how nerfed it has become this gen.

1-0

Round 2: Ben

Me: Mienshao/Rotom-H/Garchomp/Clawitzer
Opponent:  (Pinsir/Tyranitar)

From team preview the Pinsir scared me a lot, because I didn’t really know what moves it would be running in Mega; however, he didn’t even bring it. He led out with Lucario/Leafeon as I led with Mienshao/Rotom-H, which could threaten a good portion of his team. I protected with Rotom-H, as Lucario Quick Guarded and Leafeon immediately went for Baby-Doll Eyes on Mienshao, which caught me off guard a little bit, as Mienshao Low Sweeped the Lucario, ensuring that even if he Mega Evolved, he would still be undersped. Next turn Lucario mega evolved, as Leafeon went for Helping Hand, which scared me as I thought priority would be incoming, but it didn’t. Mienshao KO’d Lucario and Rotom-H KO’d Leafeon. As Greninja and Chandelure came in, I was scared Chandelure would be scarfed, but it turned out it was a slower, Will-o-Wisp variant, as it burned Mienshao after I got another Low Sweep onto Greninja while I protected with Rotom-H. The rest of the match was a bit of a blur to me, but I was able to bring in Garchomp safely and then KO Greninja and Chandelure, ensuring another 4-0 victory.

2-0

Round 3: Tanner

Me: Mienshao/Aromatisse/Abomasnow/Clawitzer
Opponent: (Garchomp/Salamence)

This match I just did not play that well in at all. Seeing Garchomp, Salamence, and Greninja on the field, I thought Abomasnow would have a definite advantage, so I went into the same autopilot mode that’s worked for me before. However, his Greninja got a burn off every single time it used Scald, which turned a 3HKO on Aromatisse into a 2HKO after burn damage, and he played his Meowstic cleverly, setting up Safeguard and then using Swagger on his own Kangaskhan a few turns later. He won 2-0 against me, as I learned that I needed to get off of autopilot mode and start getting even more serious.

2-1

Round 4: Lucas

Me: Rotom-H/Garchomp/Mienshao/Abomasnow
Opponent: (Rotom-W/Tyranitar)

This is the kind of team I’ve seen being used a lot on Battle Spot, and I immediately know he’s going to want to lead out with Charizard/Venusaur, so I go with the safe Rotom-H/Garchomp lead. He mega evolves and Protects with Charizard as I protect with Rotom-H. He Sleep Powders into the Protect as I go for the safe Rock Slide. Next turn he goes for Sleep Powder onto Garchomp but misses (it wouldn’t have mattered anyways thanks to Lum), as Garchomp KOs Charizard and Rotom-H Overheat KOs Venusaur. The following turns I’m able to switch out Garchomp and burn his Scarf Mamoswine, and able to safely KO both it and Scizor, I think finishing at 3-0.

3-1

Round 5: Kyle (Xicious)

Me: Rotom-H/Garchomp/Clawitzer/Mienshao
Opponent: (Rotom-W/Amoonguss)

I don’t remember exactly what happened the first two turns, but I do remember he switched out Scizor for Tyranitar, and then went for Sucker Punch+Ice Fang on Garchomp the turn after switching, while Rotom knocks out Talonflame. When switching in Clawitzer for the fainted Garchomp, he was forced to switch out Tyranitar for Scizor because of Scarf, as I went for the safer play and Aura Sphere it. I should’ve just used Water Pulse. He then switched out Scizor again for Tyranitar as I go for the Water Pulse, playing safe again, but Tyranitar lives by less than 10%. I think Kangaskhan had been burned during this time, and went for a Sucker Punch+Scarf Rock Slide from Tyranitar, but Rotom is thankfully able to live at 3 HP from 99 HP, but it gets flinched, as Clawitzer knocks out Kangaskhan. Clawitzer gets knocked out by hail damage, as I send in Mienshao, and I protect Rotom and go for Rock Slide after he goes for Rock Slide again (thankfully, Inner Focus saves me from a possibly nasty flinch), KOing Tyranitar and leaving me with my Rotom and Mienshao versus his Scizor, pretty much assuring me victory as Bullet Punch fails to knock out Rotom.

4-1

Round 6: Nathan Powell (illuminatimon)

Me: Garchomp/Rotom-H/Mienshao/Clawitzer
Opponent: (Mawile/Rotom-W)

I saw Mawile in team preview, which was one Pokemon my team can have massive trouble against, so I prepared against it accordingly, bringing the same set as last match. This was another match where I can’t really remember the specifics of it, but I remember Vivillon being Sashed and going for Sleep Powder on Garchomp, which I immediately recovered from, and then later he was able to Sleep Powder Clawitzer and disable it for the match. He also had Scarf Mamoswine, which I was able to KO with a burn plus additional damage.

5-1

Round 7: Ashton Cox (LinkYoshiMario)

Me: Mienshao/Clawitzer/Aromatisse/Abomasnow
Opponent: (Absol/Garchomp)

This was the guy I heard last match someone across the table talking about how weird it was that there was a Diggersby being used, which I’d only faced a few times before. From team preview, I saw even weirder things like Absol and Weavile, as he lead out with the latter and Charizard, as I decided to go into my slower mode that match. I went for Rock Slide turn 1 and knocked Weavile down to his Sash as he goes for Fake Out on Clawitzer, protecting Charizard. He then switched out Charizard for Diggersby while Weavile went for Icicile Crash onto Mienshao, which didn’t knock it down to its sash allowing me to KO Weavile. Diggersby next turn went for a Scarf Wild Charge onto Clawitzer, and I lived by about 5 HP, knocking it out with Water Pulse. I switched out Mienshao and brought in Abomasnow as he brought in Charizard. We both mega evolved, setting up sun, as Charizard protected and I got a Dark Pulse flinch on his Clawitzer. Abomasnow and Clawitzer were knocked out by Heat Wave next turn, allowing me to set up my hail, and that brought me to a vital prediction the next turn: seeing as how he knew Mienshao has Rock Slide, I had to predict whether or not he would Protect with Charizard and allow Clawitzer to live a Rock Slide + Moonblast, or don’t Protect and have Charizard KO Mienshao, sacrificing Clawitzer but forcing the match to go with Aromatisse versus Charizard, which I couldn’t win. I predicted the former, but he unfortunately went for the latter, sealing my fate right there.

5-2

Round 8: Nicholas Brown

Me: Mienshao/Aromatisse/Abomasnow/Clawitzer
Opponent: (Rotom-W/Cryogonal)

This was the guy that I heard apparently beat Aaron Zheng earlier in the day with Aerodactyl, so I was very interested to see what he would bring. From team preview I saw Nidoking and Cryogonal, which besides making me think immediately of Canadian user feathers, told me I should probably bring my slower mode again. He lead out with Nidoking and Meowstic as I went with the Mienshao/Aromatisse lead. Mienshao went for Fake Out on the Meowstic as Nidoking went for Sludge Bomb on the Aromatisse, which I was thankfully able to take and set up Trick Room. I switched out Mienshao next turn for Abomasnow, as Meowstic went for Swagger on Aromatisse, but I was thankfully able to break through and went for Light Screen, which saved Aromatisse from a 2HKO. Aromatisse broke out of confusion to go for Moonblast on Meowstic, as Meowstic tried to Swagger Abomasnow, but Abomasnow was able to hit both of them with Blizzard for the double KO. He then brought in Machamp and Aerodactyl, as Abomasnow broke through confusion and KO’d Aerodactyl while Aromatisse set up Reflect to save Abomasnow from an OHKO from DynamicPunch. The next turn, I broke through confusion again as Trick Room wore off, going for a +2 Ice Shard to KO the Machamp.

6-2

Round 9: Scott Immel

Me: Garchomp/Rotom-H/Clawitzer/Abomasnow
Opponent: (Meowstic/Mamoswine)

Going into this battle, my opponent was commenting on how his team had a ton of trouble with Rotom-H, and immediately I knew what I was going to lead with. Scrafty surprisingly didn’t go for Fake Out and instead opts for Stone Edge, but not before Venusaur misses Sleep Powder on Rotom as I proceeded to burn the Scrafty, leaving me free to spam Earthquake on the team. I knocked out Venusaur and Charizard the following turns, as Scrafty actually reveals it isn’t Banded like I thought, but I’m still able to KO it with more hits plus burn damage, until he’s left with just Abomasnow. I bring out Abomasnow to take care of it, ending with a 4-0 victory.

7-2

After this match, I’m extremely tense, double-checking my resistance, making sure I don’t bubble out. In what felt like an eternity, the placement rankings finally come out:

I made it into top cut! Coming from so much doubt in the morning, I’m extremely excited to make it this far. However, it’s already past like 5 PM, and my mom was thinking we would be heading home at around 4, which definitely didn’t happen (but I’m really grateful she understood why I had to stay longer). As the player meeting begins, we’re all forced onto the Battle Spot for a very late hack check, but instead of doing rated battles we chose free battles, which I’m still confused as to why. Anyways, as the sun came down, I was paired up with Derek Gazis.

Top Cut, Round 1/3

Me: Mienshao/Rotom-H/Garchomp/Clawitzer
Opponent: : (Chandelure/Charizard)

I heard from a few other people that his Kangaskhan has Facade, which I had run into a few of those throughout the day. From team preview I saw three Fire-types, which I would be absolutely paranoid of running (I’m already scared of running two Fire-types in regular matches), so I decided to leave out Abomasnow for this match. Turn 1 I’m able to Fake Out the Kangaskhan as Talonflame sets up Tailwind, as I go for Overheat onto Kangaskhan, afraid of burning it. Next turn his Talonflame goes for the Overheat onto Mienshao, which knocks it to its Sash, and then Kangaskhan got a +1 Power-Up Punch to KO Mienshao, however I’m unable to knock out Talonflame with a -2 Thunderbolt. He then switched out Talonflame for Rotom-W as I bring in Garchomp, but I’m swiftly OHKO’d by Kangaskhan’s Return, but not without getting some Rough Skin damage+damage from Rotom-H to KO the Kangaskhan. Next turn he sends out Talonflame, which gets almost 75% onto Clawitzer, as his Rotom-W misses Hydro Pump on Rotom-H as I am able to KO the Talonflame and get some solid damage onto Rotom-W. As Tailwind runs out, Hydregion and Rotom-W are both able to easily take care of Clawitzer and Rotom-H, ending the match in a 0-2 loss.

Top Cut, Round 2/3

Me: Mienshao/Aromatisse/Rotom-H/Abomasnow
Opponent: Same as before

Seeing as this was my last match of the day, I was actually able to record it:

Needless to say, I was massively outplayed. He made so many better match calls than me that I just couldn’t keep up.

After that harsh loss, I found out that Stormfront had gotten into the same situation as me, but I was a little bit relieved it was over because it had been an incredibly long day, and I wanted to get home sometime before midnight.

Pros

• Top cutting regionals for the first time
• Having a lot of excellent games, whether winning nor losing- not a terrible amount of hax for either side
• Meeting all my previous friends and making some new ones, the bond with fellow players is a really big element of what keeps me going
• The bacon cheeseburger from Cracker Barrel was fantastic
• Team Aqua vs. Flare Laser Tag needs to happen again ASAP
• Sunday was absolutely beautiful outside and I would often take breaks to go outside and get some fresh air, which was massively refreshing
• Pulling a GOLD ZEKROM from the packs I won from top cut
• Tournament staff organized the event incredibly well; not as well as Philly, but for something almost Nats-sized, I give them huge props
• Hotel was really cheap, but wasn’t all that bad

Cons:

• No saving battle videos- I can understand why this is in place in order to prevent scouting with the Mock Battle feature, but I’m wondering if there’s a way to prevent a Mock Battle on a video, because without battle videos we can only really see from notes and word-of-mouth how players played. This is really my biggest problem and the one I want fixed the most
• That stupid stomach pain in the morning, and how I had to run the whole day without eating anything
• Only two places to eat were Burger King and Denny’s without having to drive like 10 miles south
• The rain on Saturday, and how it left a massive puddle in the courtyard of the hotel, so you had to walk all the way around just to get to the other side
• Although I understand the idea of posting records, I feel like it could’ve been handled a little better- rounds took about 50 minutes because of it
• Laser tag required you to have two hands on the gun
• The questionable hack check process
• No changing the battle music- if I could use music 11 I would’ve been in the zone all day all night

Despite those complaints, I had an incredibly fun time. I’m happy I got 12th seed and 15th place, but I’m most likely going to retire this team early because I already have my mind on some bold new things, which I can’t wait to try out in future events.

Article art is done by myself, which you can check out my art blog for more.

The post Who Said I Have to Leave by Four: Virginia Regionals Top Cut Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

After weeks of waiting, Pokémon Bank is finally seeing distribution outside Japan. Players in Europe and Australia are able to download Pokémon Bank now from the eShop. Those in North America will need to wait though we don’t expect it to be much longer. The free trial period has been update and will be 30 days as long as you download before March 14th, 2014. Additionally, if you use the service before September 14th, 2014 you’ll receive a Celebi! The level 10 Celebi will know Safeguard, Recover, Heal Bell, and Hold Back with a random nature that you cannot reset for.

If you’re in the regions with Pokémon Bank, just fire up your 3DS camera and use the QR code below to instantly get to its eShop page and then download Poké Transporter from within the downloaded app:

Yes! #PokemonBank is live in Europe and Australia! Download it with this QR Code using the 3DS camera: pic.twitter.com/WYIRCMikOG

— Nugget Bridge (@nuggetbridge) February 4, 2014

Not in one of those regions? Prep for its release by sorting out your boxes! Remember that only Box 1 in 5th generation Pokémon games can be transferred to Pokémon Bank and none of your Pokémon can be holding any items! Here’s hoping there aren’t any server issues and everyone gets access to the service asap.

The post Pokémon Bank Rolling Out to Europe and Australia appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hi, I’m Zach, and I recently attended the Orlando Regional this past weekend. I booked tickets for the trip the week before Christmas as an early gift from my family. I really wanted to go back to Florida, and what better time than in the dead of winter again? Last year I left Wisconsin as it was 5 degrees outside and ended up in a place 60 degrees warmer, so I figured it would be a great idea for the weather, much less the tournament.

The Team

Credit goes to Snake for most of the team. I’m pretty much a thief.

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

I saw Talonflame on the team and was super cautious since before using this team, I did not like it at all. However, it did pretty well here. It did very well in earlier rounds, taking advantage of teams that didn’t resist Flying-type attacks. U-Turn was nifty for rotating out as well, which was something I needed to do a lot with this team to try and get as many good situations early game as possible to force a quick late-game.

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Protect

I’d used this same Garchomp before, so I was decently familiar with it. Snake originally had it holding a Life Orb with Swords Dance over Rock Slide, but I think setup in this generation is usually not very good without priority moves to accompany it, so I went with the more consistent option.

Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Def / 28 SAtk / 148 SDef / 20 Spd
Calm Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect

This Rotom has the same moves and item as Snake had, but with a different EV spread. You can’t really go wrong with Rotom-W, although I felt it was the weakest link on the team. It had its purposes (especially versus Rain and Ground-types) but it wasn’t as universally amazing as it should have been.

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

When I was practicing against other Megas on Pokémon Showdown, I always noticed that I kept beating Kangaskhan because people would not play it correctly. There were a number of ineffective Kangaskhan: bulky ones, Fake Out, Facade, or even really ridiculous things like Double Edge. However, most of the time, the fatal flaw the opponent made was using Fake Out without thinking about the other possibilities, (which are usually even safer) such as eliminating coin flips and forcing a faster late game. I didn’t get much time to practice with it, but I can see why it worked really well for Snake; if you made the consistent, correct play, most of the time you were going to win the early game. A lot of people overthink Kangaskhan and want to be the prediction master or something, but I found taking the simple approach worked a lot better.

I’d thought about running Protect over Fake Out, but I didn’t really see much value in sustaining its length on the field, because sacrificing Kangaskhan wasn’t a bad thing most of the time and could allow me to gain the upper hand on the opponent. I never saw any apparent issues with the EV spread, so I was pretty okay with the really bland 252/252.

Tyranitar @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Rock Slide
- Fire Blast
- Ice Beam
- Protect

This was originally an Aerodactyl, but Snake changed it during the week to Tyranitar to deal with Aegislash and Mawile a bit better. I stressed to him that I wanted to deal with those two, and he pretty much told me Tyranitar was better over Aerodactyl in that case. I did some damage calcs with Fire Blast and was immediately set on using it. I had a dilemma of Timid vs Modest because of the benefits of each, but settled on Modest because I was a lot more afraid of Mawile than Venusaur (and Timid Tyranitar is used to outspeed Modest Venusaur). Fire Blast from Timid Tyranitar doesn’t ensure KOs on most Mawiles, while Modest gives it a very high chance to KO assuming the person isn’t running a defensive Mawile, similar to Ray’s Mawile. Rock Slide and Ice Beam gave me added coverage for things that Gourgeist had issues with mid-game, such as Talonflame and Salamence.

Gourgeist (Super Size) @ Leftovers
Ability: Frisk
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 220 SDef
Careful Nature
- Leech Seed
- Phantom Force
- Protect
- Will-O-Wisp

[10:33:17 PM] Jio Neita: gourgeist just comes out of like
[10:33:20 PM] Jio Neita: the depths of hell
[10:33:24 PM] Jio Neita: and gives you a pat on the back
[10:33:25 PM] Jio Neita: and leaves

And finally, the star of the show. Since XY was released, I’ve been trying to figure out how to use Gourgeist, and had given up on it several times until being given this team the day before regionals. Its late game is stupidly good, as it not only does well then, but it forces late game to start even earlier, putting a lot of pressure on the opponent early. I noticed before the event that the team was naturally geared to take out some of the largest threats to Gourgeist: Talonflame, Charizard, Rotom-H, Salamence, and Chandelure. I had at least three checks for each of those Pokémon, so I’d be in decent position regardless of what I had on the field next to Gourgeist.

The insane amount of physical bulk Gourgeist has in a metagame that is heavily run by physical attackers is the main reason it does so well. I put as much Special Defense on it as I could (albeit not max) but I can’t remember why I had Defensive EVs; I took it out of my box the night before and was too lazy to re-EV it. It ended up Will-o-Wisping a lot of the physical threats anyways, so I could usually rely on the burn to take care of the fact that I didn’t invest more into defense.

As for the set?

Snake: wow rot die etc
Jio Neita: wow = willowisp, rot = leech seed, die = phantom force, etc = protect

A lot of people were surprised I wasn’t running Trick Room, but I’m not sure why. I’ve never thought very highly of Trick Room in any format, and 2014 is even less of a good time to run it. It needs Protect to help force some better situations early-mid game and 50/50 out of some bad situations late game. I also was asked why I wasn’t running Seed Bomb, but that was a lot easier to answer; Phantom Force helped Gourgeist keep leverage while essentially getting a free Protect with the move. Coupled with Leech Seed and Leftovers, it made a lot of sense.

The Story

I left Seattle Thursday morning and after little sleep, a 90 minute commute to the airport, and seven hours of flying, I was in Orlando. I got in pretty late, so I had to take a cab because the shuttle wasn’t running past midnight. I ended up staying with Sam (DrFidget) and Tiffany (Shiloh) for the night since I was really bad at planning and didn’t book my own hotel room until the last minute, and knew they had room this night anyways. When I woke up the next morning, I checked my e-mail to see which hotel Hotwire gave me, only to find that to my dismay, the original transaction was never processed. So after figuring out things, I ended up getting a room at the nearby Travelodge for $39 a night, which was a pretty good deal as the room was adequate, even though the hotel itself was quite sketchy.

I didn’t sleep very well again the night before, so I napped away most of the afternoon as everyone was either flying into Orlando or wandering around theme parks. Later Friday evening, I was trying to figure out the last slot on the team I had been working on all week, and simply could not get the team to click regardless of what I put in that slot. I pretty much lost composure and scrambled around to test a ton of different things, ranging from Gavin (kingofmars)’s team to some Enosh (Human) modifications to going back to the team Harrison (Crow) originally had. I didn’t like anything I was testing unfortunately, and was getting extremely uneasy and a little on edge. I thought I would end up just winging it and trying the Charizard-X team, but amidst the chaos I saw a PM from Henry (Snake) on Skype telling me to try his team. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I asked for his team.

17 battles later, I ended up 15-2 on PS (far and away the best stretch of matches I’d had all week), which seems petty but really doesn’t tell the whole story. I was comfortable with almost all of the Pokemon on this team, and I really didn’t have to go around gathering a lot of them either. The team was super straightforward and, other than Gourgeist, was all really standard, no-nonsense stuff as well.

I really made an effort to use Gourgeist at this event during the week, so finding a team that worked insanely well with it was a godsend. Later that night, I went down to Dunkin’ Donuts in my pajamas because the site said it was open 24/7 but they lied. I was distraught so I went to bed.

The next morning, Snake traded me the Talonflame and Tyranitar and a few items I needed, and I just needed to re-breed Jolly Kangaskhan and re-EV the Tyranitar. I made a few edits to his team since I had personal preferences with a few of the mons I’d used previously, but the same six were kept. I spent some of the day aimlessly wandering around Orlando because I was a chump and didn’t go to any of the theme parks since I was worried about my team the night before. Later on, Garrett (araluen7) and TJ (PsyJ) got into town as I was finishing up the last EVs on my team. I noticed that I kept getting a handful of attack EVs on Tyranitar (which I didn’t need), and thankfully Garrett was smarter than me and pointed out that I was accidentally KOing hordes of Cubchoo.

The team finally was in my battle box ready to go at about 1:30am. When it was all done, we discussed the Araluensurance plan and tried to help TJ learn how to play 2014, and everyone chatted for a bit about things like Talonflame’s plethora of options for its 4th move (such as Fly, Taunt, and GIGA IMPACT) and we all eventually fell asleep at some point. The next morning, after persuading Garrett to not go to Dunkin Donuts for coffee, we walked over to the convention center to see a massive line outside the door. Turns out this event was pretty big after all, which was a stark contrast to 2013. Registration took about 30 minutes to get through for us, and it was another two hours before the tournament started. I met up with William (Wiretap) and a couple of his friends and talked for a while before it all started. My phone was at about 50% battery before round 1, which was unfortunate, but explains how bored I was while waiting for pairings.

Eventually, pairings went up, and I was paired with William. We’d pretty much told each other our entire teams while talking, so it was pretty awful to run into him right off the bat.

Round 1: William Collins [Wiretap] (6-3)

His four:
My four:

This one was back-and-forth the entire match with a few critical hits that I don’t think mattered in the end. I squeaked out a victory by Brave Birding his Rotom-W and started off 1-0 for the first time at an XY regional.

(1-0)

Round 2: Simon Yip [Simon] (6-3)

His four:
My four:

Two rounds in and I already had two really upsetting matchups. I was helping Simon get a flight about 12 hours earlier, so ending up pulling him was not really what I wanted to have happen. He was super tired as he hadn’t slept all night due to his flight getting cancelled and being stranded in NYC. I know we played a pretty straightforward, no-nonsense match. After he double Protected turn one, both of us attacked at almost every single opportunity. I was just barely able to outdamage him for the win.

(2-0)

[9:53:59 PM] Simon Yip: it was lunch break
[9:54:02 PM] Simon Yip: and i was garfield

Round 3: Daniel Brickeen (5-4)

His four:
My four:

I saw hard Trick Room and knee-jerk reacted leading Kangaskhan + Talonflame because I noticed he had an Amoonguss but no Fake Out users. He led Amoonguss and Slowbro and didn’t Protect either as I flinched Slowbro and KOd the Amoonguss with Brave Bird. I kept Brave Birding all the things and dealing damage and won pretty convincingly, either 2-0 or 3-0.

(3-0)

Round 4: Boanerges Pineda (6-3)

His four:
My four:

I didn’t know what to do as a lead, but I knew that Gourgeist would be able to swallow him alive if I was able to get Sableye out of the way and Salamence under control. Turn one, I remember being arbitrary Fake Outs. Turn two, I messed up by double attacking his Blastoise as he Protected and Foul Played Kangaskhan. I really made some silly plays here, as I doubled into Blastoise again but used Hydro Pump rather than Thunderbolt, because I was pretty sure Hydro Pump would finish it off if Return didn’t, but looking back on that move I’m not really impressed with the choice or the logic. Return knocked it into Hydro KO range but Hydro Pump missed, allowing Blastoise to finish off Kangaskhan with an Aura Sphere while Sableye burned the Rotom-W. The battle kept getting more and more ugly until towards the end when I managed to force a good scenario: his -2 Salamence with Leech Seed on it and his burned Rhyperior versus 2/3 health Gourgeist. I knew I would win barring a critical hit here, but right as I thought about it, Fire Blast critical hit Gourgeist, knocking it out and winning him the game. This was the only battle where Gourgeist didn’t come through on its job all day.

(3-1)

Round 5: Andrew Raborn (6-3)

His four:
My four:

I was really not too afraid of this matchup since he had absolutely nothing that could 2hko Gourgeist barring something carrying Choice Specs, so I was feeling good going into this match. I also saw the first Ferrothorn of the day and was hoping he’d bring it. He ended up Thunder Waving with his bulky, Wacan Berry Gyarados and didn’t switch too much, allowing me to pick off Politoed conveniently early and force Kingdra in versus my Rotom-W and Gourgeist. The battle ended up with Tyranitar and Gourgeist versus Ferrothorn, and we all know how that ends. We ended up talking after the match for a bit and he asked what he could have done that would have threatened me. I love hearing those types of questions, so I spent a bit of time theorying with him on how to improve his team a bit. It looked threatening to most things, but I just had a good matchup, so here’s to hoping he comes back even better next time.

(4-1)

Round 6: Kolby Golliher (6-3)

His four:
My four:

I managed to pull another person I was talking to a lot, William’s friend Kolby. I saw the Meowstic and I was super concerned about the cat doing some really unspeakable things to me, because Kolby had told me earlier that he was getting lucky today. I don’t remember the exact details, but I know Kangaskhan was fully paralyzed for three of the first four turns, and I couldn’t get rid of the annoying cat. He then began to use Swagger after everything was good and paralyzed, at which point I was seriously worried I’d lose the battle the same way I did round one at Salem.

I had one last dying hope towards the end; Kolby made a really good play by protecting Ferrothorn the turn I protected Tyranitar, forcing me to eat a Swagger if I wanted to attack it, and I knew the odds of hitting were just a slight bit better than the odds of me firing off a double Protect, so I went all in and Fire Blasted the Ferrothorn on the field next to Meowstic, which hit it and knocked it out through confusion and paralysis. Kangaskhan attacked Meowstic, knocking it out, leaving him with just his Choice Scarf Salamence with low HP in the back. He brought it in and Hydro Pumped as I Sucker Punched… or not. Kangaskhan was, once again, fully paralyzed. His Hydro Pump critical hit my Tyranitar, knocking it out from almost full health. I realized that if Kangaskhan did not move on one of the next two turns, I was doomed, so I Sucker Punched and and it hit, landing the KO on Salamence.

(5-1)

Round 7: William Siner (5-4)

His four: ???
My four: ???

I totally forgot the details of this battle, but I remember I was at table 99 and the guy was pretty chill. I knocked out four Pokémon at some point.

(6-1)

Round 8: Justin Stipe [Panko] (7-2)

His four: / didn’t see the last two
My four:

I sat down and realized this was the guy who I sat next to during two of the previous rounds who was having a really good time. I was pretty pumped to play him as the last few matches had been relatively quiet, along with the long breaks between rounds. He introduced himself as Panko on PS, a name I definitely recognized. I remembered he played with Meowstic and I shuddered, fearing the worst. I also remembered that he was not running a super bulky Mawile from playing him the night before, so I knew my Tyranitar’s Fire Blast paired with Kangaskhan’s Power-Up Punch had a relatively good shot to knock it out. I led Tyranitar and Kangaskhan, and he led Meowstic and Mawile. I used Power-Up Punch and Fire Blast on Mawile turn one, but Fire Blast missed and he nailed my Tyranitar with a Play Rough. From here on out, he absolutely demolished me with Safeguard and Swagger, and after asking kindly if I could spite KO his Meowstic and him kindly obliging, Gourgeist got one-shot by some Mawile STAB move and he took the victory handily. This was the cleanest loss I took over the course of the last two tournaments up to this point. The Fire Blast miss wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d wisely used Fake Out and not been greedy. It was my own fault I was in that situation and he took total advantage of that. Kudos to him.

(6-2)

Round 9: Matthew Bray (6-3)

His four: ?
My four:

I saw his team and realized it was far and away the most favorable matchup I’d had all day. I knew I could roll through him with Kangaskhan and Gourgeist if I didn’t make any mistakes, and ended up doing so. I remember his Rotom-C was bulky and didn’t KO my Rotom-W with Leaf Storm, and Gourgeist cleaned up most of the match. He had a shiny Greninja which was cool.

(7-2)

Top 16: Alison McDonald [Fishy] (7-2)

I pulled Alison for my first series in top cut. I played her in Swiss last year and made the play of a lifetime and she still almost brought it all the way back, so I knew I had to tread lightly here. I heard something about an Abomasnow before the battle but nothing more than the fact it was there, and that scared me a bit since everything except Kangaskhan and Talonflame was weak to one of its STAB moves.

Game 1

Her four:
My four:

I figured I’d lead Kangaskhan and Talonflame to help deal some early damage and force her hand. I knew if she led Hariyama that I’d have an upper hand and reveal one of her Pokémon right away (assuming Hariyama didn’t use Protect). She led with Chandelure and Hariyama. Turn one was straightforward; she made a wise switch into Mawile as I Faked Out Chandelure and Brave Birded the incoming Mawile. I don’t remember the turn-by-turn from here on out, but it was relatively close at the end. She missed a Play Rough on my Talonflame towards the end that might have given her a small chance, but I did still have an upper hand even if it hit. I squeaked a win out and we started game two.

Game 2

Her four:
My four:

I brought the same four again as I saw no flaw in the plan, and then about halfway through this match I saw the flaw that almost lost me this one. She wisely led Aromatisse and Mawile, and rotated things around a bit. She played very well early in the match, and her Aromatisse took some heavy damage yet still survived to get off a Trick Room, allowing for Abomasnow to start getting up in my grill very quickly. She had the game pretty close to sealed; all she had to do was hit a Play Rough on my (I think Tyranitar) on (I think a switch) and it ended up missing. I felt really fortunate here as I probably was doomed had it not missed. I felt bad taking the win that way, especially since I made the mistake of forgetting that Tyranitar needs to be faster than Mawile and Abomasnow to actually do anything to either one…

Overall, it was a really fun series. We both were pretty much just relieved and glad that we made top cut which helped calm the nerves a bit. Both of the matches were pretty intense, but we got a few laughs out of it. A series like that is what you look forward to when playing the game, regardless of how it turns out on the Pokémon side of things.

Top 8: Ray Rizzo [Ray] (9-0)

I saw this matchup was in my path once the top cut bracket was created. Everyone wants to say they’d like to have a chance to play Ray, but when the matchup actually happens, he’s probably the last person you want to pull due to his insane consistency. After getting absolutely demolished by him at Worlds, I was not too confident going into this match. I wasn’t too sure I could keep up with him, especially since I was already struggling with the 45 second timer. I knew I’d have to get a little lucky since he’s definitely a few notches above me as a player, but I was hoping that my decent team matchup could abate that.

Game 1

His four:
My four:

I was pretty sure he’d be looking to scout for information here, so I was a bit cautious on that note, as there were a few things (such as Garchomp’s item) that could have helped me if kept them a secret. I don’t really remember the turn-by-turn of the early game here, but it was a pretty anti-checkmate environment for the first few turns. I think the only out-of-place thing that happened was a Fire Blast burn on Rotom-W, which probably didn’t end up mattering. I got the game down to my Garchomp (which was Leech Seeded) and Gourgeist versus his Ferrothorn. I figured I could timer stall for the win condition and didn’t really think twice about it, but it turned out I could have easily out-damaged the Ferrothorn and won the game more quickly. I ended up going the timer route and felt a little silly after he pointed out the other option after the game, but either way I got the win.

Game 2

His four: /
My four:

I brought the same four as I saw no need for Talonflame and didn’t have much reason to bring Rotom-W either as I needed a second answer for his Salamence in any scenario. This game felt wrong all the way through, starting at turn one with me timering out of my move and having the game auto-select Tyranitar’s move. Tyranitar ended up Protecting itself as Kangaskhan Faked Out his Mawile (the move I actually chose), and Rotom-W Hydro Pumped into Tyranitar, effectively drawing a dead turn but also pretty much making me the rookie of the day. I had meant to Fire Blast the Mawile, which actually would have given me a weird situation considering it would not have been knocked out (and Tyranitar would have had quite a bit of damage on it from that Hydro Pump), so my own gaffe cancelled out a potentially stupid play. I needed a bit more time to think about that, which likely is my own fault since I’m pretty sure a bit more practice with Tyranitar in that scenario would have helped me make that decision a lot faster.

The battle remained in his favor almost the entire time as he made a solid play burning my already -2 Kangaskhan as I Protected Tyranitar (I could have gotten a free attack), and ended up putting himself in excellent position. However, the next turn I used Return on his Rotom-W; the first hit critical hit and the second hit also critical hit. I’m not sure if I can really put into words the awful feeling of guilt I had after that turn. His Rotom-W somehow survived after that but, if I remember correctly, Sandstorm damage finished it off. I ended up a turn or two later with full-health Tyranitar and Gourgeist versus Garchomp, and Ice Beamed for the KO.

This was probably the sloppiest, most undeserved game I’ve ever had at an event. It wasn’t the way I wanted to win and I wasn’t really in a celebratory mood. Kudos to Ray for being really cool about it, though; I can’t really ask for a more respectful opponent. I felt the team matchup I had was very good, but the way I played, especially during game two, proved I have a lot to learn yet. Regardless, I had to move on quickly; there was more Pokémon to play.

Top 4: Ashton Cox [Linkyoshimario] (7-2)

OH MAN. THIS WAS A GOOD TIME!
I met Ashton at 2012 Nationals at a side event. We were multi-battle partners and kicked some butt but now we had to play so that sucked.

Game 1

His four:
My four:

So we kind of knew what was going to happen as soon as this began and I really don’t have any words for how to explain that. I was worried about Clawitzer, but I got it out of the way early and, in turn, I opened the door for a fast, dirty rabbit to drop a lot of rocks on my head and my Pokémon were just not really okay with that. Rotom and Garchomp were in agony, flinching from the falling rocks from Diggersby, and it was almost over and not in my favor when Rotom decided to open its door and spray water on the fast, dirty rabbit, making it faint. I won.

Game 2

His four:
My four:

So, after almost getting destroyed by Diggersby, I was slightly concerned but realized I just needed to get my Pokemon to stop flinching. We said something about CHOMP WARS and we both brought our Garchomps so that was a good time. He made some Substitutes with Garchomp and healed them off with Leftovers because that was a pretty good set. However, I burned it at some point, which made Garchomp much less of a threat. Fast, dirty rabbit came in again from the back after I knocked out Weavile and Zapdos, and this time it did not flinch me as much as it did in the previous game. Sunday was laundry day, and Rotom-Wash opened the door to victory by washing it clean.

And on behalf of Chalkey as well, you’re welcome, Blake.

Ashton’s a really cool guy and gave me a good run for my money to boot, especially in game one. I couldn’t ask for more out of a top 4 match. Also, ironically, I defeated the guy with the longest hair in top cut to unlock achievement: GAVIN’S HAIRCUT.

FINALS: Stephen Scruggs (8-1)

After getting a call from soon-to-be-short-haired Gavin, I had to play in the finals. I knew this team from PS right when I saw it, and man was I scared of that Chandelure. It was probably the only thing standing between Gourgeist and a Champion’s Trophy.

Game 1

His four:
My four:

He led Chandelure and MY GOD I WENT AFTER IT. I wiped it clean with a Brave Bird turn two and Gourgeist happened all over the place because there was also no Liepard. This is the most stupid-sounding explanation of the battle, but I really didn’t have to think much differently after Chandelure fainted. Gourgeist ahoy.

Game 2

His four:
My four:

I brought the same four seeing no reason not to. He brought Liepard over Chandelure which I thought was a win condition until I got into a really bad position due to Encore. He had me on lock about 5 turns in with that and I dropped this one hard. Not busting Liepard’s Focus Sash was crucial, and I knew exactly what I needed to do game three.

Game 3

His four:
My four:

What did I need to do game three? Well, simply put, Tyranitar! Yes, Tyranitar – the Pokemon who does absolutely nothing here except break Liepard’s Focus Sash. I knew if I got the Liepard out of the way, Gourgeist could handle the rest assuming I had even half-decent positioning. I ended up going down with only Gourgeist remaining versus three of his Pokemon after my Talonflame suicided into Kangaskhan (burning it also, which made Steve a bit upset until he realized I had only a Gourgeist left and he had Mega evolved previously). I had already burned the Azumarill and Ferrothorn in the back and sacrificed a lot of Pokémon in order to do so, but I knew I could win the game if I landed a Leech Seed on Azumarill. I was already paralyzed, so I needed to hit through paralysis and not get flinched from Ferrothorn’s Iron Head. I flinched the first turn, and knew if I didn’t get it to go one of the next two turns I was doomed. I got the seeds the second turn, had no crits, and the rest was history. Gourgeist stole the show right when I needed it to.

This was quite a thrilling finale, and I was surprised it was as close as it was considering I hadn’t seen Chandelure during the last two games. Gourgeist ended up paying huge dividends here as it had already done most of the day and, to my enjoyment, I watched it take down its lesser counterpart to end the tournament.

Steve made some solid plays during the match, and was clearly quite comfortable with his team. I wasn’t a fan of the Facade Kangaskhan or Ferrothorn, but I guess they are solid mons in general. The Azumarill / Liepard / Chandelure trio looked like it could have been quite the play in Swiss.

So, I got a new 3DS finally and man did I want one of those since the battery life on my current one is laughable. Also, I got some cards and a hat and a brick and stuff.

I went back to the hotel room afterward with Wolfe, Mike (JiveTime), TJ, and Garrett and hung out for a few hours and talked about some really ridiculous things. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. We discussed things like Talonflame’s Flail OHKOing Mawile, Hidden Power Fire Kangaskhan, the curious case of Eelektross showing the world that it’s actually a windsock in gen 6, and how Wolfe’s microwave messes with his wi-fi. TJ and Garrett headed back home at about 2am, and the rest of us crashed.

The next morning, Wolfe, Mike and I were going to hang out but Wolfe’s shuttle abruptly showed up so it was just Mike and I wandering around for a while. I needed a t-shirt since I just had sweatshirts left so I got one for 2 bucks at a store. I also found a ballin’ sticker there that I didn’t buy because I wanted to save my 10 bucks. We ended up going to a really weak arcade afterward but at least it had mini hoops, so I was glad I saved that $10. We played a lot of games but didn’t make it to the final level which was pretty sad.

After shuttling to the airport and saying goodbye, I boarded for my five hour flight to Salt Lake City. I realized mid-flight that I forgot to do my psychology homework so I did that in the Salt Lake airport while waiting for my connecting flight and got it done… and got an A somehow. After another two hour flight, I was back to Seattle. All of the buses were pretty much done running at that point though so I had to crash at Chalkey, Gabby, and Sam’s place for the night. Chalkey and I went to QFC and bought some chicken nuggets to celebrate the victory. Not only were they chicken nuggets, but they were shaped like animals. Stuffing myself with meat shaped like other meat was definitely an appropriate way to celebrate not having to go vegetarian.

I made it back home to Redmond Tuesday morning after eating a really delicious breakfast at Pike Place. It felt good to be home after a long weekend, but I did miss the warm temperatures and fun times in Florida.

I want to give shoutouts to a lot of people, but need to keep it as short as possible here:

• Chalkey, Gabby, Sam, Tiffany: for giving me a place to stay at some point during the weekend
• Jordan, Chuppa, Jio, Arash, William, Tommy, Jorm, Simon: for helping me with the small things with testing and preparing, even if it wasn’t for using that team
• Enosh, Harrison, Gavin: for the more in-depth testing and stuff, and for putting up with me Friday night
• Garrett, TJ, Wolfe, Mike: for making the weekend that much more awesome
• Tristan, Angel, Rick, Matt, Will, Collin: for the support during the tournament (and congrats Angel and Matt on top cutting again!)
• Henry: for the team, and saving the day and pretty much being the entire reason I even had a chance

The post Vacation on Gourgeist Island: First Place at Florida Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

One of the best ways of learning is to watch the best. Unfortunately, battle videos cannot be saved during live competitions but we did stream both west coast regionals this past month so we were able to get some videos up for you all to enjoy. Most of the top cut games from SoCal and Oregon also feature commentary! To be notified of new videos as soon as they’re posted, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Doswell, Virginia

• Ray R. (Ray) vs Michael L. (JiveTime)

Salem, Oregon

• [Seniors] Finn M. vs Atya S.
• Stephen M. (Stephen) vs Max D. (starmetroid)
• John S (LegendX) vs Alex S (Stempe)
• Gabby S. (JTK) vs Michael H.
• Tony C. (Chinese Dood) vs Michael H.
• Tony C. (Chinese Dood) vs Randy K. (R Inanimate)
• [Seniors] Top 8 – Lachian I. vs Henry M. (Snake)
• Top 8 – Jason W (Arti) vs Alex O (Evan Falco)
• Top 4 – Alex S (Stempe) vs Kacey T (TweenStar)
• Finals – Alex S (Stempe) vs Alex O (Evan Falco)

Long Beach, California

• Paul H. (makiri) vs Len D. (Alaka)
• Top 32 – Omari T. (BadIntent) vs Grant W. (Gdubley)
• Top 16 – Gavin M (kingofmars) vs Tiffany S (tiffyxy) [Game 1]
• Top 16 – Gavin M (kingofmars) vs Tiffany S (tiffyxy) [Game 2]
• Top 8 – Gavin M (kingofmars) vs Mike S (OmegaDonut) [Game 1]
• Top 8 – Gavin M (kingofmars) vs Mike S (OmegaDonut) [Game 2]
• Top 4 – Omari T. (BadIntent) vs Jackson D. (Jackson7 D)
• Finals – Gavin M (kingofmars) vs Omari T (BadIntent) [Game 1]

The post Battle Videos from the VGC ’14 Winter Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Last week we brought you a team report from a qualifier event leading up to 2014 Pokémon Asia Cup, but today we’ll be talking a little more about what it is! Asia’s qualification system for the Pokémon World Championships is quite different from North America, Europe, and even Australia. Only Japan and Korea have any way of qualifying outside the Last Chance Qualifier and they are done through varying means that change from year-to-year. One thing that hasn’t changed is that there has really only been one large tournament a year for them to qualify through. The 2014 Pokémon Asia Cup will not change that because it is an unofficial grassroots tournament series. However, what it will do is allow players from Asia, including countries outside Japan and Korea, more large competitive tournaments to play in!

There are eight countries involved in the 2014 Pokémon Asia Cup:

• Japan
• South Korea
• Singapore
• Malaysia
• Indonesia
• Philippines
• Hong Kong
• Taiwan

Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan

Each country held its own qualification tournaments in January and determined their top eight players to send to stage two of the tournament. This month, they will play in a 40 person online tournament to determine who will represent their countries in the final stage of the 2014 Pokémon Asia Cup at the end of March. There will be five swiss rounds followed by a top 8 cut. A total of 12 players will move to the final stage of the tournament: the top ranking player from each country and the six top ranking players who didn’t get a country-based invite.

We’ll be working to get more team reports and videos from these events for you all so keep an eye on the site and our YouTube channel!

Japan

Japanese players will seed 16 players into the final stage of the tournament. Eight of these players will be determined using an online qualifier held by R_Justice and livestreamed on his twitcast channel. The other eight will be determined using the Battle Road Gloria local tournament series.

Battle Road Gloria Schedule

The online qualifier will happen on Sunday, March 2nd, 2014. So far 56 players have registered for the online tournament with a cap of 128 set.

Korea Qualification Method

South Korea will seed four players into the final stage of the 2014 Pokémon Asia Cup using an online tournament. The schedule is as follows and the top four players will move on:

• Top 64: February 8th to 14th
• Top 32: February 15th to 21st
• Top 16: February 22nd to 28th
• Top 8: March 1st to 7th
• Top 4: March 8th to 14th
• Finals: March 15th to 28th

Finals

The 16 Japanese players, 4 Korean players, and 12 players from the other countries involved will play in a 32 person swiss tournament with 4 to 5 rounds. The top four players will move on to an elimination bracket. This is scheduled to happen most likely on March 29th and/or March 30th, 2014. The games will all be best of 3 and the winner will be considered the 2014 Asian Champion!

Still confused about the flow? Hopefully this chart from 1hko log helps!

The post 2014 Pokémon Asia Cup appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Pokémon X and Y brought us a litany of new tools to play around with when creating new teams. With new Pokémon, moves, and abilities drawing the most attention, the new items introduced to us in this generation have fallen to the wayside.  These new items bring some unique effects to the table and are still plenty unexplored and underused. My personal favorite of the newly-introduced items is Safety Goggles. Even if you have played through the main story of X and Y extensively, you could have very easily missed the Safety Goggles.

The in-game description of Safety Goggles reads “These goggles protect the holder from both weather-related damage and powder.” This more or less grants the holder the effects of the newly buffed Overcoat ability. This gives your Pokémon an immunity to the passive damage dealt by Sandstorm and Hail, grants it an immunity to the various status-inducing powders (such as Sleep Powder and Spore), and most importantly allow your Pokémon to ignore Rage Powders.

Right now, VGC ’14 has a couple of very potent threats that can be mitigated by Safety Goggles. If you’ve followed the Video Game Championships at all in the past few years, you’ve noticed that Amoonguss has been an absolute terror since it was introduced into the game. The mushroom’s natural bulk combined with access to both Spore and Rage Powder has made it a VGC mainstay and one of the biggest annoyances in the game. Another relatively new threat this year is Venusaur. With access to Sleep Powder and its Hidden Ability Chlorophyll combined with Mega Charizard-Y’s Drought, Venusaur has turned into a very dangerous sleep abuser. Both Amoonguss and Venusaur have seen extensive usage in the developing metagame, but a well-placed pair of Safety Goggles can slow them down.

Pokémon that I’ve Stuck Goggles On:

Rotom-H is one of the best users of Safety Goggles, especially because it can tilt the sun matchup in its favor. When pitted against the Venusaur / Mega Charizard-Y combination, the Safety Goggles allow Rotom-H to ignore Venusaur’s lightning-fast Sleep Powders and fire off Thunderbolts into Mega Charizard-Y while resisting almost everything that the duo can throw out at it. More often than not, you’ll be able to take down a Pokémon or two or at least threaten the team without having to fear that Rotom-H will fall asleep.

Scizor is an interesting Pokémon to use Safety Goggles with. While Scizor doesn’t deal with Sun like Rotom-H does, it utilizes the Goggles in another manner. Amoongus’ Rage Powder is a vital tool that many teams use to preserve things like Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Tyranitar. A Scizor with Safety Goggles can help play against these sorts of teams because the Goggles ignore the effects of Rage Powder. Mega Tyranitar is no longer safe to Dragon Dance with Amoongus’ protection, and it will not be able to put Scizor to sleep. Amoongus’ role on these particular sorts of teams is weakened greatly by Safety Goggles Scizor. There have been more times than I can count where an opponent assumes that their low health Pokémon are safe next to Amoongus, only for it to go down before they know it.

Why you should consider Goggles

Safety Goggles give a Pokémon an additional role that it wouldn’t normally have. The Goggles help transform Pokémon that are ordinarily not seen as Grass counters into full-fledged hard counters. We’ve seen how powerful Spore is in the metagame and this niche item is the perfect answer for it.

Next time you’re building a team and are struggling with Amoongus or Venusaur, don’t hesitate to try on some Safety Goggles and experiment. Who knows, maybe Safety Goggles are just what you need to complete your ensemble.

The post Through the Looking Glasses: Using Safety Goggles appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The sixth Manchester Pokémon Tournament took place on February 8th, setting a new attendance record for a grassroots Pokémon Video Game Tournament in the United Kingdom with a whopping 99 competitors. Players from all over the country travelled to Manchester to take part, including one player who came all the way from Italy to take part. After a shaky start due to technical difficulties, the gruelling swiss rounds began. Sadly, due to time constraints, there were only five rounds instead of the optimal seven. To compensate for this, the top cut was changed to a top 16 in order to reward more players with a record of 4-1.

Daniel Nolan (Zog) managed to go undefeated in the swiss rounds along with Andrew Parrot (Shoe) and Jamie Miller, who ended up as seeds one, two, and three respectively. After a playoff round between the competitors tied for 16th seed, it was Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson) who managed to progress and set up an epic first round of top cut clash. After some great matches featuring many of the most highly rated UK players, including last year’s winner Richard Fairbrother (NidoRich), it came down to our final two. Daniel Nolan (Zog) defeated Mark McQuillan (woopahking123) in a brilliant final match, going undefeated all day in the process of being crowned champion. Daniel is the first player to win two grassroots tournaments in the UK, with this tournament as the 10th event. He walked away with a brand new, limited edition 3DS X and both players received a copy of Bravely Default, Nintendo eShop Credit, a Pokemon Game, and a finalists trophy.

I’d like to thank everyone who came along and made this event such a success! I apologise for the slow start, but it was out of everyone’s hands at the time and I hope it doesn’t put people off travelling to future events. Stay tuned to Nugget Bridge for more tournaments!

Final Standings

1. Daniel Nolan (Zog)
2. Mark McQuillan (woopahking123)
3. Anis Haque
4. Jake Birch (WhiteAfroKing92)
5. Richard Fairbrother (NidoRich)
6. Jamie Miller
7. Chris Gibson
8. Chris Wilson
9. Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson)
10. Samuel Connor
11. Nicholas Rhodes
12. Rina Purdy (SqishyRina)
13. Samuel East (Samuel996)
14. Daniel Oztiken (Necrocat219)
15. Eden Batchelor (Xenoblade Hero)
16. Andrew Parrott (Shoe)

Challonge Bracket – Top Cut
Challonge Bracket – Swiss

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

After unexpectedly winning the 2014 Missouri Winter Regional, I knew I wanted to post a report.  I soon found out that, unlike many 2014 reports, I had a lot of matches recorded.  I thought about posting a traditional writeup, but it looked really clunky with all those videos scattered throughout.  So instead, here’s a video review.  I hope you enjoy it!

I owe a huge amount of thanks to YouTuber Bullados for stream-recording all of these matches during the tournament and allowing me to use the videos.  I also owe Wesley a ton of thanks for allowing me to use many of the pictures he and his awesome mom took at the tournament.  Last, but not least, I’d like to thank pball0100, DrFidget, and YouTuber and kick-butt VGC player Squidtepig.  I appreciate you guys for letting me use the videos you recorded, too.  You guys are awesome!  Thanks so much!

The post First Place in Missouri: At Least I’m Not Like All Those Other Old Guys appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The first major block of events in the 2014 Pokémon Video Game Championship Series have finished and it’s a good time to look back on what was used by the top players on the field so we can start preparing for the next wave of events later this year. Below, we have the teams used by Masters division players who made the top cut at each of the Regional Championships in January. Curious about Virginia? We had it in a separate article here.

St. Charles, Missouri

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 (bgt)

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 (JoseSucio)

15. Erick Herrera (Godofcloud9)

16. Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh)

Salem, Oregon

 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 Uesegi (Aravalent)

8. Sean Webb

Long Beach, California

1. Omari Travis (BadIntent)

2. Gavin Michaels (kingofmars)

3. Paul Hornak (makiri)

4. Jackson Daugherty (Jackson7 D)

5. Alberto Lara

6. Alec Wild (Pokemonmaster649)

7. Colten Lybbert

8. Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut)

9. Sam Johnson (RastaCharmander)

10. Anthony Jimenez (DarkAssassin)

11. Johnathan Mendoza

12. Luis Chamorro (religiousjedi)

13. Travis Evans (shinryu)

14. Erik Holmstrom

15. Tiffany Sera (tiffyxy)

16. Bridger Snow

17. Diego Cruz

18. Len Deuel (Alaka)

19. Tony Pan

20. Riley Factura (Gengarboi)

21. Andy Garcia

22. Eric Chan

23. Andrew Kemmett

24. Jose Ochoa (supe)

25. Kyle Loh (Mr. Fookie)

26. Daniel Claus

27. Kellen Ho

28. Jobany Vasquez

29. Kevin Molina

30. Rolland Wu

31. Grant Wheatley

32. Justin Biller

Orlando, Florida

1. Zach Droegkamp (Zach)

2. Stephen Scruggs

3. Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut)

4. Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario)

5. Ray Rizzo (Ray)

6. Matt Souerbry (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 (Pulpsock)

16. Edwin Baez (Chogy64)

Winter Regionals Masters Top Cut Usage Statistics

Notes: Data is currently out of 82 teams listed rather than out of all 88 teams. Two Pokemon are missing from this data: the Rotom who’s forme we were unsure of and one other mystery Pokemon who somehow fell through the cracks. Since it’s a little hard to see with the way the table is presented, 72 different Pokemon were used in a Winter Regional Masters Top Cut match. The Virginia teams are included with the teams from the four Regionals listed on this page in this data.

The post Teams from the VGC ’14 Winter Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Good news everyone! Nugget Bridge is proud to announce that we are dramatically increasing the prize pool for this year’s tournament circuit. This year alone we’re giving away over $1,400 in prizes to the players of Nugget Bridge’s tournaments. This is the most cold, hard cash that has ever been awarded in an online Pokémon tournament.

When we started Nugget Bridge, we wanted to give back to the community that helps us grow. As a competitive community, we believe the best way to do this is to raise the stakes on our tournaments. Tournament play is the core of our community and a major reason why we play the game. Nugget Bridge is not-for-profit, so we’re investing what money we make directly into competitive Pokémon.

We’ve already revealed the Nugget Bridge Major prizes, but in light of the massive participation in this tournament we’ve decided to double the previously announced winnings for the top players. Now, all 449 participants in the Nugget Bridge Major will be competing for over $400 in prizes. Here’s how it breaks down:

Champion: $200 + Nugget Bridge Shirt
Runner-up: $100 + Nugget Bridge Shirt
3rd/4th Place: $50

We’re also excited to reveal the prizes for our most prestigious tournament: the Nugget Bridge Invitational.

Only the best of the best qualify for the Nugget Bridge Invitational. As a part of the Nugget Bridge Circuit, it’s our equivalent to a World Championship. In order to prove your worth for the Invitational, you’ll need to place well in tournaments throughout the Nugget Bridge Circuit season. From Live Tournaments to the Coro Coro Cup to Multi-Battles, you’ll need to show your skill across a variety of formats to receive a coveted invitation to challenge the top battlers of the year.

This is no easy task, and the rewards reflect that. Players in the Nugget Bridge Invitational will be competing for the largest prize pool for an independent online Pokémon tournament ever. Everyone participating in the Invitational has proven themselves as the cream of the crop, and winning this tournament is a monumental achievement. For the Nugget Bridge Invitational, we’ll be giving out over $1,000 in prizes. Here’s how it breaks down:

Champion: $500 + Nugget Bridge Shirt
Runner-Up: $250 + Nugget Bridge Shirt
3rd/4th Place: $125 + Nugget Bridge Shirt

As a reminder, here’s how you qualify for the Nugget Bridge Invitational:

1. Place in the top 16 of the Live Tournament Circuit
2. Place in the top 8 of the Nugget Bridge Major
3. Be a member of the top 2 teams from the Coro Coro Cup style tournament
4. Be a finalist from the previous Nugget Bridge Invitational

So far only two spots have been decided, which means there are still 30 spots up for grabs. If you want to join Mrbopper and Plusle in this historic tournament, you’ll have to get out and play!

Stay tuned for more updates to the Nugget Bridge Circuit and information on how you can compete with the best of the best. Wondering when the next live tournament is? This is our schedule for the next month:

You can find all our tournaments on the Online Tournaments board. Registration for live tournaments begin an hour before the event start time.

The post Record $1,400 in Prizes Announced for Nugget Bridge Circuit appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Let me tell you a story about a super real team… To preface this analysis, I will say that the team I used was something that did not involve a huge amount of planning or time spent practicing. Instead, this team was almost entirely theory based on one of the combos from X and Y that I thought would be the most effective along with Pokemon that could support that combo well, whether that be because I couldn’t use it or because they needed a little extra help to work properly. I would say that, in practice, this team functioned similarly to my 2012 worlds team in that I had a core four (in the case of my 2012 worlds team, Garchomp, Rotom-Heat Forme, Hydreigon and Metagross; on this team, those four were Garchomp, Talonflame, Rotom-Wash Forme, and Mawile) who functioned well against almost any team and then two extra who functioned well in more specific situations where they had the potential to decimate an opponent or deal with something the core couldn’t deal with. I don’t really like this style since it restricts my usage options, but as I was left without spending much time practicing or planning I didn’t get to put together one of the more variable teams that I usually like using more. It really was a team based upon my initial analysis of what I wanted to test that I was left to use since I had run out of time, but the fact that it ended up working was a pleasant surprise. With that out of the  way, I would like to present the team that I used to finish 4th place with in the Pokemon Video Game Championships 2014 Virginia Regional.

Blakesucks Rocks (Garchomp) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Protect

Garchomp is a key member of this team and provides many important pieces. It’s primary goal is to act as a spread move user; often times to net KOs with Mawile or Talonflame, I would have to soften up one or both of the opponents first. Garchomp helped me do that. Rock Slide in particular was also very helpful in that checked Charizard and Talonflame very easily and made them hard to switch in on Garchomp. This move, along with Talonflame, made Garchomp very easy to use when dealing with the Venusaur and Charizard team cores that had become so common by the time of the Virginia regional. In fact, I often found myself leading with Garchomp and Talonflame just to make sure that I would be able to deal with Charizard and Venusaur if they came out, and that certainly worked to good effect in practice. I was using Life Orb on Garchomp so, if I won the speed tie, I would knock out other Garchomps and have an easier time knocking out Charizard and Talonflame in one hit. However, I found that my Talonflame really needed the boost from Life Orb much more and I had Focus Sash free, so I decided that it would better suit Garchomp… 15 minutes before I got to the actual registration tables. By this token, however, Garchomp seemed pitifully weak in the actual event compared to his power in what testing I actually had; so, then was the thought of him softening opponents up spawned. Regardless of whether or not he had a Life Orb, his high base Attack and Speed along with Rough Skin made him invaluable in dealing with opposing threats while forcing the opponent to deal with him in his own threatening way. The nickname was a result of me naming the Garchomp blakesucks; when Blake bred the team for me, he re-named it Blake Rocks. Go figure.

#2chompz (Mawile) @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Play Rough
- Protect

Mawile was the great offensive powerhouse behind this team. It provided strong offensive pressure and priority along with useful utility in a way that no other Pokemon could have done. I think more often than any other Pokemon I came to find my strategy relying on the effectiveness of Mawile before it even played out. Sucker Punch was incredibly useful (well, until I realized I was -2 and not -1 against Ray) and netted many surprising KOs with the sheer attack power that Mawile had. Iron Head and Play Rough were extremely powerful STAB moves to have at my fingertips and, along with Mega Mawile’s Huge Power ability, weren’t hindered at all by coverage issues. This particular Mawile was slower than most of the other Mawiles I played against, which was both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because I would out speed them if I set up Trick Room with Gourgeist, and  a curse because the opposite would occur if I didn’t. Regardless, I managed to find creative ways to handle opposing Mawiles with the combination of Rotom-Wash, Talonflame, and Garchomp. Intimidate on this particular Pokemon is incredibly useful in my opinion. I often found myself and my opponents using Mawile not mega evolving right away just so they could switch out in a bad situation and re-use the Intimidate on switch in. On of the best examples of this was Devon McCloud’s (Rigel) use of Mawile against me in round 8. He didn’t mega evolve Mawile until one of its final turns, but the way that he avoided doing this until it would be useful despite facing defeat was very impressive and definitely helped me to think of new and creative ways to use Mawile.

dollars (Talonflame) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50 EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Quick Guard
- Flare Blitz
- Protect

Once you put a Life Orb on this bird, you can never go back. Talonflame has incredible power a priority move in the form of Brave Bird and great utility with Quick Guard that brings it to a very high status in terms of its effect on this team. Talonflame’s priority led to it being effective in helping against many pokemon, from Venusaur to Kangaskhan, without having to worry about their speedy attacks and still being able to run a higher amount of bulk. I might have messed around with the spread more if I had time.  The coverage was also very useful in hitting Mawile and scoring neutral damage on many Pokemon in the meta-game, dropping 50% or more from pokemon like Salamence or Gardevoir. I was actually able to win a top 8 match almost entirely because the combination of a Brave Bird and a Rock Slide while both of my attackers were intimidate was able to knock out a Gardevoir. Talonflame also has several other uses, but I felt like my team didn’t need the speed control of Tailwind and that Roost would be ineffective, so I went with the above move set.

cash (Rotom-Wash) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50 EVs: 4 Spd / 252 SAtk / 252 HP
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect

Rotom-Wash was a vital member of my team. Safely using Will-O-Wisp on Pokemon like Mawile and Garchomp to keep them from wreaking havoc upon my team was crucial, as well as the general provision of a second Will-O-Wisp to support Florges. His Water and Electric coverage was very useful in handling Pokemon like Talonflame or Politoed, with the sheer power of Hydro Pump helping to soften opponents up. He also provided the most middling speed tier for my team, working safely in or out of Trick Room. He proved crucial in handling water heavy teams like Simon Yip’s, whom I played in the last round of swiss. He was also useful in providing pure special power ( the reasoning for max Special Attack) to a core that was entirely physical. This power made it so the opponent’s efforts to stifle my physical Pokemon proved wasted if I brought in Rotom-W to replace something. It’s defensive typing was also powerful on its own, making it stay on the field for long periods of time without falling, which is also some of the reasoning behind Sitrus Berry.

bucks (Florges) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flower Veil
Level: 50 EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Moonblast
- Energy Ball
- Protect
- Calm Mind

Here we are, Florges! Florges is the big special attacker for this team and the reason why I felt justified in running double Will-O-Wisp and Intimidate. When this team goes into Florges mode, Florges sets up several Calm Minds and is able to sweep the enemy team. Even after a single Calm Mind, Florges is able to wall almost any special attacker and with Will-O-Wisps flying around it was even able to take down physical attackers. I think the key reason that I didn’t feel too comfortable bringing it to matches on the actual day was the high number of Talonflames, who are hard to stop with Mawile or Gourgeist and often runs away in the face of Rotom. The priority Brave Bird also counters the speed control I bring with Trick Room, so sadly, my flower didn’t blossom often. In justification of my lack of use against Ray despite 4/6s of his team being weak to it; he also had Ferrothorn and Mawile, who hard counter Florges in every way. On to the reasoning, though! It’s hard to think of Florges in anything other than a pair with Gourgeist or a similar physically defensive Grass type. In this combination, Gourgeist is able to support Florges through Will-o-wisp and Trick Room, while Florges prevents non-volatile status blocking and stat reduction for Gourgeist, making it so Gourgeist is immune to even Dark Void from Smeargle. This defensive opening for Florges allowed it to set up and deal 50% or more to opposing Pokemon even if resisted after a +1 or +2 from Calm Mind. My only real gripe with Florges is its lack of pseudo-legendary status, since it can’t have a slightly higher Defense and Special Attack stat without ascending to the echelon of Pokemon like Salamence and Garchomp.

paper (Gourgeist-Super) @ Occa Berry
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50 EVs: 252 HP / 36 def/220 sp. def
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Leech Seed
- Will-O-Wisp
- Trick Room
- Phantom Force

The cutest pumpkin in North America reveals himself! Gourgeist has more of a solo presence than Florges does on this team. It provides useful defensive support with Will-O-Wisp, Shadow Force, and Leech Seed while also providing Trick Room speed control. Occa Berry is useful in that it keeps Gourgeist from being knocked out in a single blow by Charizard-Y’s Heat Wave, but I also run the risk of getting hit by an Overheat by the aforementioned Pokemon without an answer instead. Gourgeist will fall to that attack as long as it’s in the sun. Regardless of this, Gourgeist is excellent against several common physical attackers, sporting a high physical defense, while it’s HP and attack depend on size. When Gourgeist is super sized, it has a relatively high HP and attack stat while being relatively slow; perfect for a Trick Room setter, in my opinion. While his typing isn’t wonderful due to the Grass part of it, it does allow him to be affected by Flower Veil, which is very helpful in keeping him relevant throughout the game. Perhaps if I had been able to run two Leftovers items I would have done so to put one on Gourgeist, but alas, I could not. Rules are rules.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Blake Hopper (Mrbopper) for getting this ENTIRE team for me two nights before the tournament. I would also like to credit Zach for the Gourgeist EV spread, as I believe that’s where Blake got it from. Although I might have benefited more from more Defense effort values, the Special Defense definitely saved me on several occasions. Perhaps in the future I’ll be able to plan more and come up with cool things like Careful Mawile, which always looks before it leaps, unlike my pitiful Brave one. I would like to say that I think Florges definitely deserves more testing and respect on teams and I’m glad to bring it to the forefront with this particular combination, even if in the tournament itself I didn’t make the best use of it. I also think that Gourgeist probably got some deserved second looks for its viability and I hope that people can see it was something of a Kangaskhan counter now. I’d like to thank all of my opponents and friends who went to Virginia and made it a good time, and I was really glad that I went. I would type up some match reports, but I don’t think I have quite the memory to make those worthwhile. Lastly, thanks to you, reader, for looking at my team!

The post Flower Power Pumpkin: Virginia Regional Top 4 Team Analysis appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This episode of Under The Bridge is coming out a little late this month after a snafu with the first attempt, however, it is well worth the wait. Listen as hosts Alan Sutterlin (Dubulous) and Matt Sybeldon (bearsfan092) talk about all things Winter Regionals, share a helpful tip to level your Pokémon faster, and chat about the smash hit Twitch Plays Pokémon.  Also, there is another chance to win a fantastic VGC-caliber Pokémon as they read the trivia question for February’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. Send us your questions and comments!

The post [NBR] Under The Bridge 007: Winter Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This is a translation of see_miruo‘s team, who won the 23 Ganyu offline tournament with it, by Tan Zong Ying (tanzying). The original is located at Miruo’s blog, and we would like to thank him for his permission to post this translation. Miruo qualified for the National finals of the Battle Road Gloria tournament circuit with this victory and we would like to wish him the best of luck as he advances.

80 participants entered the tournament, which was divided into the preliminary group stage and a top cut. In the group stage, participants were placed in groups of 8 to 9 players and played best-of-1 sets against every other player in their group, with the best two players of each group advancing to the top 16 which was a single elimination format with best-of-1 games. Miruo took 6 wins and 1 loss to player Viera during the preliminaries, and then stormed through the top 16 undefeated to emerge as champion. The results of the tournament can be found here.

Kangaskhan Pyroar – My 23rd Ganyu Offline Tournament (Battle Road Gloria Circuit) 1st Place Team Report

Despite being the tournament organiser myself, I managed to win the event!

• Tournament results post
• Finals video

Because of that, I think I shall start off my first XY report by introducing the team that I used. As the title suggests, it’s a team that includes Kangaskhan and Pyroar. My preliminary round results were 6 wins and 1 loss, and after that I took 4 victories in the 16-man top cut to emerge as the overall winner. Incidentally, my loss in the preliminary rounds was to Viera who was also running a team including Pyroar.

Pokémon Used

Team Construction Details

For this team, the Pokémon that was my first consideration to build the team around was Pyroar.

Pyroar sightings in the current metagame have been few and far between, but I believed that it was a Pokémon that could truly demonstrate its strength in the Kalos Doubles environment, and so took the plunge and ran with it. I have stuff I’d like to say about the finer points about the rest of the team, but I would like to expound on Pyroar for the time being.  Let me start off by talking about why I used this Pokémon in the first place.

Firstly, let’s consider it from a typing perspective. Pyroar is a Fire/Normal type. In Kalos Doubles, Fire types are usually used for their ability to hit Steels super effectively and resist Fairy type attacks. More on the first point in particular: the metagame is currently full of Steel types such as Mawile and Aegislash, and I believe that having no way to deal with them would make winning a difficult matter. In other words, it could be said that in the current metagame, teams carrying Fire types are a relatively normal state of affairs, but what about the Fire types being used in the current metagame?

Arena offline tournament (Battle Road Gloria Kanto region qualifiers) results post

http://pokemonarena.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-32.html

Usage counts (115 participants)

• 42 Talonflame
• 17 Charizard
• 7 Rotom-H, 7 Chandelure
• 3 Torkoal

Hibu offline tournament (Battle Road Gloria Chu-Shikoku region qualifiers) results post

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hiroshima_off/20140201

Usage counts (47 participants)

• 15 Talonflame
• 11 Charizard
• 7 Chandelure
• 3 Rotom-H

I decided to consider the tournaments that acted as qualifiers for the Battle Road Gloria circuit. Naturally, there are other Pokémon at the forefront of usage, but I have left out the non-fire typed ones. Let’s take a look at the Pokémon with high usage counts individually.

Talonflame

Rather than its Fire typing, this Pokémon tends to leave a much stronger impression with its Gale Wings-boosted Flying type attacks. Equipped with an offensive item, priority Brave Birds are excellent at softening up the opponent during openings and mopping up worn-down does during the endgame alike. However, against Mawile and Aegislash, as a user of (effectively) the only physical STAB fire attack in the metagame, it frequently struggles due to things like Intimidate and King’s Shield going off. There do exist some Overheat-running variants though, which would perhaps patch this flaw up a little.

Charizard

Attention-worthy and on the rise in usage recently, is none other than the excellently endowed ability-wise Mega Charizard Y. With its Drought ability counteracting other weathers and boosting its special attacking firepower, it is a rather self-contained Pokémon compared to the other Mega Evolutions and performs very well. This Pokémon can bring down Steel types with ease.

Chandelure

Its usage is not really all that high, but the Ghost and Fire attacks fired off from its impressive special attack stat are certainly a threat. With the Infiltrator ability granting its attacks the ability to pierce substitutes, it performs well as a counter to Substitute Aegislash.

Rotom-H and Torkoal, too, are able to perform their roles to a certain extent when facing down Steel types, I dare say. However, a flaw exists with all these Pokémon.

The first thing that troubled me about these Pokémon was the Rock weakness. Rock Slide is a particularly strong move in double battles. If Pokémon like Talonflame and Charizard, found in so many teams, are caught in the deluge, they suffer fatal damage. In particular, when taking Rock Slides from faster opponents, between the chance to flinch and the increased critical hit rate in XY, even people who have made specific adjustments to withstand the attack often find things not going according to plan. And, a wielder of this attack happens to be none other than the Pokémon said to top the usage counts in this metagame, Garchomp. Furthermore, thanks to Garchomp’s Ground typing and often-carried Earthquake, Fire types have a really hard time dealing with it.

With this in mind, Fire types do seem to be in a rather tight spot. However, the Pokémon I used this tournament, Pyroar, solved all these problems for me. First of all, with a Life-Orb boosted Overheat, it manages to KO Mawile, Aegislash and company, assuming stantard spreads. So far, no difference from other Fire types. In fact, one might say that it is a little inferior in comparison to Chandelure and Charizard Y. However, this Pokémon has a higher base speed stat than Garchomp and is able to strike first with a Life Orb-boosted Hidden Power Ice.

In the Kalos Doubles metagame, the so called “top meta Pokémon” Garchomp is king of the usage statistics. Pokémon that can achieve this feat without the use of a speed-boosting item or move are scarce. I then made the judgement that conversely, Pokémon that were able to achieve this possessed the ability to be a contender in this ruleset. In an environment that suffers from a dearth in speed control, the original speed stat becomes especially important.

I’ve rambled on for quite a bit, but in essence the thought process goes something along the lines of “Gotta take care of Mawile and Aegislash quickly -> use a Fire type -> Garchomp is everywhere and makes my life miserable -> a Fire type that can outspeed and smack Garchomp hard would be perfect -> PYROAR SHO STRONG“

Delphox also exists and satisfies these requirements, but taking super effective Sucker Punches and Shadow Balls from the Steel types it wants to handle worried me so I decided not to use it. On the other hand, Pyroar, with its Normal typing, takes at best halved damage from the frequently seen special attacking Aegislash and so pins it down really well.

After grasping the nature of Pyroar and deciding to use it, I went about looking for Pokémon that complemented it well. I arrived at two possible candidates, Kangaskhan and Mawile, who have an above-average matchup with other Pokémon though they cannot boast of the same against opposing Mawile, Aegislash and Garchomp. Kangaskhan and Mawile are rather strong against opponents who simply swing firepower around to their hearts’ content, so I basically aimed to create a team that utilised the power of a high BST Mega, like many teams currently out there.

I was dithering over which Mega to use all the way up to the day before the tournament, but since I had Pyroar Life Orbed, I decided to go with Kangaskhan which allowed me the use of the well-known tactic within Kalos doubles, “Fake Out + Nuke”. The line-up ended up becoming rather standard, so even with a Pokémon like Pyroar in it, it felt easy to use. The rest of the Pokémon were used to deal with stuff that the Kangaskhan-Pyroar combination had trouble handling.

• Filling the Intimidator role, the Choice Scarfed, Stone Edge-totting Charizard Y hunter: Salamence
• The Steel and Fairy-resist and solution to opposing Trick Room, Kangaskhan and Mawile: Aegislash
• The relatively stable counter to opposing Tyranitar, who appears in both physical and special forms and gives the rest of the team a hard time: Azumarill
• The Fairy STAB-wielding Dragon counter that synergises well as a lead with Kangaskhan: Gardevoir

I played around with substituting other major Pokémon in such as Garchomp and Rotom-W, but the above four were what I settled on in the end. Given that I managed to win the tournament with them, I think the line-up is pretty good.

Truth be told, even though I used Pyroar, it was actually my fellow player Viera who noticed that Pyroar might actually be good and was considering a team built around it. It looked silly at first glance and I was in two minds about whether it actually worked well. But this was Viera, after all, and I was confident that if he of all people had spoken well of it, it couldn’t be all that bad, so I gave it a shot and it indeed ended up exceeding my expectations. Besides Viera, Inoseno was another player who had been considering a Pyroar team, and his build helped me to complete mine as well. It was thanks to them that I managed to grind my way to a championship with Pyroar this tournament and for that I am grateful.

Team Outline

This is a Kangaskhan and Pyroar-centric beatdown-style team. It plays something along the lines of using Pyroar and the other Pokémon to take out things Kangaskhan has trouble with. Because the other Pokémon are able to hit hard as well, the team can carry on fighting even after Kangaskhan has been worn out from repeated Double-Edges.

Besides Kangaskhan + Pyroar, this team is also capable of combinations such as the often seen Kangaskhan + Choice Specs Gardevoir, and the consistent combination of 2x Fairies + Pyroar, so there are a great variety of options that I can elect to lead with. Also, even though compatibility-wise Kangaskhan and Pyroar happen to have a shared Fighting weakness, every other Pokémon on the team takes at most halved damage from Fighting type attacks, so I was not worried about that at all.

As for Gardevoir and Azumarill, the last two spots I filled on the team, I had been testing major metagame Pokémon such as Garchomp and Rotom-W from the start but always felt that they opened up holes in the team, so I finally decided that no matter what I used there was bound to be some flaw and used these Pokémon, which I was most confident in handling well.

Individual Analyses

Kangaskhan

What I require from this Pokémon is the brute force that comes with its Mega Evolution. It’s probably possible to infer its strength from the usage statistics of tournaments alone. I used Double-Edge, and the extra firepower widened the range of things I could take out as compared to when I used Return. Because of the existence of recoil, it is perhaps a little questionable whether Double-Edge actually helps me win the damage race, but since a fainted opponent can’t damage me back, I think that depending on the situation it can end up to my advantage.

I also ran Power-up Punch, which is an excellent coverage attack on Kangaskhan, but when leading with Kangaskhan I would often go with Fake Out -> Double-Edge and almost never attacked with Power-up Punch.

I shall now press on and explain how the other Pokémon deal with stuff Kangaskhan cannot KO/counter, starting with Pyroar.

Pyroar

It might not be exaggerating to say that I built this team just to use this Pokémon.

Whatever Kangaskhan has trouble with, this Pokémon’s role is to take it down with Overheat and Hidden Power Ice. But although a Life Orbed Overheat KOs Aegislash and Mawile with a decent margin of safety, Life Orbed HP Ice will just barely miss the OHKO on defenses-uninvested Garchomp on the lowest damage roll (Note: 1/16 chance). Factor in the significant amount of Focus Sashed Garchomp, and the possibility that Garchomp may survive to return fire with Earthquake means that care must be taken in such situations. Possible ways to deal with this include chipping it a little first, perhaps with Fake Out, before going for the kill with HP Ice.

I used Hyper Voice as my third attacking move. This was originally Snarl, but Hyper Voice was good at racking up damage on opponents and was a better match with my playstyle and the team’s steamrolling concept. Being able to chip decent-sized chunks of HP off even Fire-resisting Pokémon such as Rotom-W and Gyarados is one of Pyroar’s defining characteristics. In the actual tournament, Pyroar really managed to shine, doing things such as outspeeding and sniping unwary Garchomp and taking out the Pokémon beside the opponent’s Steel type on the field with Hyper Voice while flaunting its Fire typing (Note: presumably threatening the Steel type into taking defensive measures).

Incidentally, Pyroar’s gender ratio is skewed in favour of female and I had to spend quite some effort on breeding a male one. I looked it up and it is apparently a 1:3 male-female ratio but I somehow felt it was more similar to the (1:7) ratio of the starter Pokémon. The male looks so much cooler anyway so I didn’t mind the effort.

Gardevoir

This Pokémon was included towards the end of the team-building process. It wasn’t so much of a counter, but more of a “do stuff I kind of want to do” slot, so I boosted its damage output by having it wear Choice Specs. I wanted a Pokémon other than Pyroar who could lead alongside Kangaskhan, and Gardevoir was a perfect fit for the role.

Even though, as previously mentioned, its item is Choice Specs, I didn’t invest a lot of EVs into special attack, but diverted them into bulk instead. The popular Gardevoir variants out there are 252/252 in special attack and speed, and Scarfed or Specsed, but these are all OHKOed by a Life Orbed Talonflame Brave Bird. I could have attempted to remedy this by including an Intimidate user in the team, but it isn’t as if I would have reason to bring Salamence to every battle, so I invested in bulk all the way up to the point where I would be able to withstand a Choice Banded Talonflame Brave Bird. This way I had a build that could stand on its own better. Also, to gain the initiative against Tyranitar which threatened much of my team, I invested enough in speed to be able to outrun 252 EV neutral natured Tyranitar. This took up almost all my EVs, and I dumped the rest into special attack. The resulting performance it showed me left me with nothing to criticise. Being able to survive attacks that 252/252 spreads could not made it quite easy to use, and I feel that this was definitely the correct EV distribution to use.

Azumarill

This Pokémon, like Gardevoir, was also a late addition. Things like Garchomp and Rotom-W were originally contenders for this position, but I ended up bringing Azumarill in order to beef up my countermeasures against the often-used Tyranitar. The Tyranitar sets in use span an incredibly diverse range from Mega Evolving Dragon Dancing physical attacker to special moves only. Even Garchomp often has Ice Beam to fear, forcing it to play conservatively. Rotom-W has a nice type match-up, but after considering the flinches from Rock Slide and Dark Pulse and Hydro Pump and Will-o-Wisp’s accuracy woes, I just couldn’t convince myself that it would cut it. In particular, I considered boosting Hydro Pump with some sort of offensive item, but since Gardevoir already had dibs on the Choice Specs, that too was a no-go.

Therefore, I put in Azumarill, who had caught my eye and is able to resist all of special attacking Tyranitar’s attacks, and playtested. It added a priority attack, which the team lacked, and dealt with Rhyperior well using its 4x super effective moves in place of Kangaskhan and Pyroar, who even though could hit it super effectively obviously didn’t have enough firepower to take it out. Furthermore, the Rotom-Ws that plague Azumarill are taken care of by Kangaskhan and Gardevoir, so there is some good synergy there.

Azumarill itself had attracted much attention even before XY was launched due to its newly-received Fairy type, but it doesn’t seem to be used much now in the current metagame, and being able to throw it onto a team and use it was indeed a good opportunity.

Salamence

The team’s only Intimidate user, whose speed I boosted by Choice Scarfing it. Salamence gains many advantages from holding a Scarf, such as escaping from the highly contested 100 base speed tier and getting the jump on the originally faster 130 base speed Pokémon, but after everything is said and done what I wanted Salamence to do for me was counter Mega Charizard Y. Recent tournaments have seen a rise in usage of Charizard, and there are also those bulk-invested ones that a Rock Slide not at full power (Note: due to the 75% modifier on spread moves) doesn’t KO. So I used Stone Edge to be able to OHKO those as well. Other than that, it also outsped and took chunks out of troublesome Pokémon with diverse movepools like Mega Manectric, and overall helped my team with its speed issues. Also, the Dragon type nuke that is Draco Meteor was also perfect for mopping up the opponent’s remnants during the endgame.

I didn’t think too much about the EV spread and used 252/252 special attack and speed, but it handled well without problems.

Aegislash

Another currently popular Kalos Doubles Pokémon, with a typing that excels equally in offense and defense. I used the Leftovers Substitute set, which I simply felt to have the best specs. Substitute provides opportunities to checkmate the opponent, and provides a layer of insurance against the drawbacks of Stance Change. It blocks the opponent’s otherwise consistent Fairy and Dragon type attacks. I led with it during the finals of the tournament. With the good coverage of STAB Shadow Ball, it can also be used in the opening to wail on the opponent — truly, a Pokémon of many capabilities. In this team, I often used it to help deal with the offensive pressure exerted by opposing Kangaskhan and Mawile.

Using Substitute to dodge enemy Sucker Punches and strike back safely is a very advantageous manoeuvre. Substitute Leftovers Aegislash is a reliable Pokémon that has come to be used in many other teams, and being able to use this team and learn a different way of playing Aegislash was a big accomplishment.

Conclusion

Opportunities to use rarely-seen Pokémon in this metagame were few and far between, but this time Pyroar sure helped me out a lot. The time I spent the previous day fine-tuning everything really paid off. This tournament was not only my self-organised tournament, but also the Battle Road Gloria Kyushu qualifier tying into a nationwide tournament, so I was happy to win it. The feeling was truly Glorious!

I shall work hard in order to not disgrace the title of Kyushu representative at the National finals.

It’s been a late first blog post about XY content, but I’d like to thank the readers who have been following my blog up till now.

The post Kangaskhan Pyroar – 23rd Battle Road Gloria Kyushu 1st Place Team Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

A very good day to you readers on Nugget Bridge! My name is Maxie and I hail from the tiny island of Singapore in Asia.

Before I jump into my team report, I guess I should provide a brief introduction of myself, since this is my first time posting on Nugget Bridge.

I’ve been playing competitive Pokémon since Generation 4′s HGSS era. I played doubles exclusively, but I was also really terrible player back then! I joined the local Singapore community for Pokémon (where I first met member TanZYing) just as it was starting. As the community grew, I participated in more and more mini-tournaments of ours with varying levels of success. The XY Asia Cup Spring Qualifiers was my first time getting first place in a major tournament.

I joined the Pokémon XY Asia Cup Spring Singapore Qualifiers which was held on January 11th, 2014. It was an unofficial grassroots tournament to determine Singapore’s representatives for the upcoming Asia Cup in March. The top eight players for this tournament would move on to participate in a Wi-Fi tournament against players from other Southeast Asian countries.

I went into this tournament not expecting to top cut, but decided to just give it my best and treat it as practice for my VGC ’14 team. Somehow, I went undefeated in six rounds of Swiss, making it to the Top 8. By this point, I was equal parts elated and nervous, and I was hoping to at least make it to the Top 4. I played to the best of my ability, and emerged champion. I was so thrilled!

I definitely couldn’t have done it without my team, which surprisingly had only two weeks of playtesting behind it. I was really satisfied with how well my team played out and the amount of control it afforded me over my opponent. Please remember, my team is designed to be reaction based rather than relying on a core of four Pokémon to win games.

The Team

Mawile (Darla)

Item: Mawilite
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Intimidate → Huge Power
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Attack, 4 Special Defense
- Play Rough
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Protect

With the introduction of Mega Evolutions, several Pokémon have risen to the foreground of competitive play. Any successful teambuilding process will take into account all the new Mega Evolutions, which was my first step to creating my team.

I knew the two most popular Mega Evolutions dominating the metagame during the Asia Cup qualifiers were Mega Kanghaskhan and Mega Mawile, so I chose to use Mawile to beat Mega Kanghaskhan, since Mega Mawile resists Mega Kanghaskhan’s STAB Return as well as its priority Sucker Punch. Mawile also forces Mega Kanghaskhan to resort to using Power-Up Punch or Hammer Arm in order to damage it. Mega Mawile also scores a 2HKO on Mega Kanghaskhan easily before Kanghaskhan can KO it. I ran a standard Mega Mawile set, albeit with a Brave nature instead of the usual Adamant nature because I wanted to use it in Trick Room. This way, I could turn Mega Mawile’s weakness of low speed into an advantage during the battle.

Mega Mawile has, I would say, one of the best typings in the whole game. Mawile received a new Fairy typing this generation. Fairy is a great anti-metagame typing because it is immune to Dragon attacks and resists Fighting, Dark, and Bug-type attacks. Mawile’s Steel-typing further complements its Fairy typing, giving immunity to Poison-type attacks (which would normally hit Mawile for super-effective damage) as well as letting it take neutral damage from Steel attacks. This leaves Mega Mawile weak to only Fire and Ground attacks, both of which are fairly obvious and easy to predict.

On top of all that, Mega Mawile has significant bulk after Mega-Evolving. Both of its defensive stats are doubled and the Huge Power ability doubles Mega Mawile’s Attack stat. Huge Power combos well with Mawile’s Intimidate, as Intimidate has no use in battle after switching in. Intimidate support was also another reason why I chose to run Mawile, nerfing opposing physical attacks (which are more common than Special attacks this meta).

The EV spread is blandly standard, investing in HP to complement its bulky defenses as well as Attack for maximum damage output. The remaining 4 EVs I put into Special Defense as Mega Mawile’s Special Defense is lower than its Defense.

The moves are standard as well, running dual STAB on Mega Mawile. Iron Head hits other Fairies, Rock-types and Mega Mawiles, and Play Rough beats Dragons, Dark and Fighting-types as well as hitting neutral on many common Pokémon. I chose Sucker Punch for Mawile’s third coverage move as I needed the priority attack in case Trick Room failed. Sucker Punch can also be used to OHKO Mega Gengar and Chandelure and to hit Scizor for neutral damage (which otherwise resists both Iron Head and Play Rough). For the last move, I ran Protect, since a Pokémon as threatening as Mega Mawile was bound to draw a lot of attacks, as well as to guard against the obvious Fire and Ground-type moves as I mentioned above.

While a Brave Nature with 31 IVs in speed might seem weird, this Mawile was actually given to me by my friend. I decided to go ahead and use it since the 31 speed IVs allowed me to outspeed other Brave-natured Mega Mawiles outside of Trick Room, while still underspeeding Adamant Mawiles during Trick Room.

Chandelure (Caius)

Item: Colbur Berry
Nature: Quiet
Ability: Flash Fire • IVs: 31/0/31/31/31/10
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Special Attack, 4 Defense
- Flamethrower
-  Energy Ball
- Trick Room
- Protect

I needed a Pokémon that could set up Trick Room and handle opposing Mega Mawiles. After perusing the list of Trick Room users available for VGC ’14, I picked Chandelure, an old favorite of mine. Chandelure resists both of Mega Mawile’s STAB attacks and complements my own Mawile’s Fire weakness with the Flash Fire Ability, which powers up Chandelure’s own Fire-type attacks. 252 HP, 252 Special Attack, Quiet-natured Chandelure was the standard Trick Room spread, so I started with that.

Next, I knew that Mega Mawile and Mega Kanghaskhan’s Sucker Punch would OHKO my Chandelure, and Mega Kanghaskhan would KO it through Focus Sash, so I used an old favorite item of mine from VGC ’12 for Chandelure: Colbur Berry. This would allow Chandelure to survive both of their Sucker Punches, and then KO Mega Mawile back with Flamethrower. This also lets Chandelure beat Bisharp.

Quite obviously, the one gimmicky thing about my Chandelure is that it didn’t carry Shadow Ball. My team was having trouble against Rotom-W, so a week before the tournament I decided to drop Shadow Ball for Energy Ball. Shadow Ball was a 3HKO on bulky Rotom-W, while Energy Ball 2HKOs it. I decided to go for the risk, thinking that any extra bit of damage I could get on Rotom-W would help my team KO it faster. I also made the decision during playtesting that Shadow Ball didn’t hit anything super-effectively other than Gengar, and during the tournament, I never even felt the need to use Shadow Ball on Chandelure.

Gardevoir (Irydii)

Item: Mental Herb
Nature: Quiet
Ability: Trace
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/11
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Defense, 4 Special Attack
- Psyshock
- Moon Blast
- Trick Room
- Safeguard

While Chandelure could be reasonably bulky against the right opponents, it still had a myriad of weaknesses which meant it could be OHKOd. Therefore, I needed a backup Trick Roomer, in case it was unsafe to bring Chandelure in. This slot was originally filled by Malamar, with an Adamant nature and an EV spread of 252 HP, 180 Atk and 96 Special Defense, holding Safety Goggles to beat Tyranitar and Amoonguss. However, Malamar was entirely too frail, even with the defensive EV investment. Plus, Swagger effectively cripples Malamar, due to its Contrary Ability. After my Malamar got OHKOd by a Timid Hydreigon’s Draco Meteor, I decided to drop it and look for a replacement.

One of my friends jokingly suggested Gardevoir, and I gave it serious consideration. Gardevoir was able to beat all the Pokémon that Malamar was supposed to beat: Scrafty, Amoonguss, and Tyranitar. On top of that, it wasn’t weak to Fairy-types and had better utility and coverage. Gardevoir’s own Fairy typing was a blessing, because it removed some of Gardevoir’s former weaknesses and gave it an immunity to Dragon moves, most notably Draco Meteor. Unfortunately, this left me with a weakness to Steel.

I ran 252 HP and 252 Def for maximum bulk, which allowed Gardevoir to survive many hits which would normally beat it: Choice Band Talonflame’s Brave Bird, Scrafty and Tyranitar’s Crunch, Mega Scizors unboosted Bullet Punch, Life Orb Gengar’s Shadow Ball, Mega Kanghaskhan’s Return, and more. Gardevoir’s Quiet nature reduced its 80 base Speed to a usable number for Trick Room (81 Speed) and boosted its Special Attack to enable Gardevoir to use Moonblast to OHKO Pokémon with a weakness to Fairy, such as Hydreigon, Scrafty, and Greninja. Garchomp takes 89-105% from my Gardevoir’s Moonblast, and it’s Earthquake is a 3HKO on Gardevoir in return, to illustrate how effective this EV spread can be.

Psyshock was used for hitting Venusaur and Amoonguss and OHKOing Gengar. Safeguard was used to block opposing Spores, Dark Voids, and Will-o-Wisps, which my team hated. Lastly, Gardevoir had Trace, which was fun for exploiting my opponent’s abilities. During the tournament, I managed to Trace Intimidate and Solar Power when sun was up.

I ran Mental Herb on Gardevoir to block Taunts and Encores which would stop Trick Room. Unfortunately, it was never used at all during the whole tournament.

Tyranitar (Theralion)

Item: Weakness Policy
Nature: Brave
Ability: Sand Stream
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/10
EVs: 252 HP, 88 Attack, 72 Defense, 96 Special Defense
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Ice Beam
- Protect / Fire Blast

I daresay many of my victories could not have been possible without this beast. The EV spread for Tyranitar is an old VGC ’13 spread, modified with a bit of Attack shifted to Defense for more bulk against Garchomp’s Earthquake since I had Weakness Policy to boost my attacks.

This Tyranitar was originally chosen to counter Garchomp, since I noticed Garchomp was rather common in the metagame. I ran Ice Beam on Tyranitar just to hit Garchomp. An unboosted Ice Beam was 82.6-97.8% to Garchomp, which would KO it after some chip damage. If Garchomp hit Tyranitar with Earthquake, Tyranitar would only take 72.4-85%, which triggered Weakness Policy. Tyranitar would then revenge KO it with Ice Beam.

This Tyranitar set is decently bulky to take most super-effective non-Fighting hits except Mega Mawile’s STAB attacks, and Tyranitar also has a wide enough range of weaknesses to trigger Weakness Policy every time.

At +2, Tyranitar gains enough power to OHKO most things that don’t resist it, and in Trick Room can be very scary. Protect was necessary alongside both of it’s STAB moves, to provide Tyranitar with longevity and to scout moves. I did consider dropping Protect for Fire Blast to hit Mega Mawile, but ultimately decided to trust in the rest of my team to deal with Mega Mawile.

Tyranitar also counters Talonflame, another popular metagame Pokémon right now. The Sandstorm that Tyranitar provided was crucial to checking Sun and Rain teams, as well as breaking Focus Sashes and Multiscale.

Smeargle (Smaugol)

Item: Focus Sash
Ability: Moody
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Speed, 4 Defense
- Dark Void
- Fake Out
- King’s Shield
- Quick Guard

Smeargle’s purpose on this team was to help get Trick Room up. Its mere presence on the field would threaten the opponent with Fake Out or Dark Void. Unfortunately, almost every opponent I fought carried Safeguard or Misty Terrain, so my opportunities to use Dark Void were limited.

Everyone knows Smeargles usually carry Dark Void, since it is the only Pokémon which can learn that dreadful move in this metagame. Seeing Smeargle during Team Preview would force my opponent to immediately attack Smeargle or set up Safeguard, which created an opening for my own Pokémon to set up Trick Room, which was the main reason for Smeargle’s presence on my team, really. It was literally a “Hit Me” sign.

Dark Void and Fake Out on Smeargle are self-explanatory and standard support moves, so I’ll just move on to King’s Shield and Quick Guard. Originally I ran Protect on Smeargle, but realized that there were other alternatives to Smeargle such as Spiky Shield and King’s Shield. King’s Shield was the choice for me as it reduced Attack by 2 stages for physical attackers who touched it, which was significant for demoralizing the opponent and giving my team more bulk, especially in a metagame infested with physical attacks. Smeargle, as a Pokémon which practically invited my opponent to beat it up, was perfect for baiting my opponents into a King’s Shield.

Unfortunately though, this left Smeargle completely susceptible to Taunt. In hindsight Mental Herb would have been a better item on Smeargle rather than Focus Sash, since Smeargle was sort of a suicide lead for me. However, Focus Sash did come in handy several times when I wanted Smeargle to survive.

The newly buffed Quick Guard was my choice for the last slot. It blocked Brave Bird from Talonflame, as well as Sucker Punches and Bullet Punch, which could be damaging for my team. No one expects Quick Guard from Smeargle so it always worked for me.

I had opted to run a level 50 Smeargle rather than a level 1 Smeargle, as I wanted it to be able to survive Mega Kanghaskhan’s Fake Out or outspeed threats to my Trick Roomer.

This brings me to my last point: Moody. Since my Smeargle was level 50, it could make use of the stat boosts from Moody. Moody came down to random luck. If Smeargle got the wrong boosts, it wouldn’t change the game for me. If Smeargle was lucky, though, the right boosts were a godsend.

• A boost to defenses helps in survivability, while a decrease in defenses wouldn’t matter too much since Smeargle is already frail. The same theory applies for Evasion boosts.
• A +2 Speed outside of Trick Room helps me get Dark Void off, while a decrease in Speed in Trick Room was beneficial as well.
• Attack increases did nothing, but at the same time Attack drops were inconsequential as well.
• Accuracy boosts make Dark Void 100% accurate, but accuracy drops could be detrimental. If Accuracy dropped, I still could use Quick Guard and King’s Shield.

To sum Smeargle up, it was either invaluable in a match, or complete deadweight, depending on the opponent’s team and how Smeargle was played.

Hydreigon (Malkor)

Item: Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Modest
IVs: 31/0/31/31/31/11
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Special Attack, 4 Defense
Moveset:
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Dark Pulse
- Protect

I tried many Pokémon for this last slot of an offensive attacker. Clawitzer’s damage was disappointing, Azumarill and Talonflame left my team too weak to Rotom-W. Using Roserade to nuke Rotom-W was an idea, but Roserade would be walled by Mega Mawile since I didn’t have access to a Technician Roserade with Hidden Power Fire.

I thought long and hard for a Pokémon which could nuke both Rotom-W and Mega Mawile because my team couldn’t handle these two Pokémon very well. There was no Pokémon which could learn both Grass and Fire moves, so I ultimately decided to just put my faith in Hydreigon, which happened to have Levitate to cover my own Mawile’s ground weakness.

While Hydreigon didn’t have a legitimate answer for Rotom-W, Modest Draco Meteor did 85-100% to a 252 HP Rotom-W, which was good enough for me. Even on the lowest damage roll, Rotom would be left with 15% HP which my Chandelure, Mawile, Tyranitar, or Gardevoir could easily take care of. Flamethrower dealt 94.2-112% to Mega Mawile, with a 68.8% chance to OHKO it. I opted for Flamethrower over Fire Blast (although Fire Blast would guarantee a KO), since I didn’t want to lose a match because Fire Blast missed.

Dark Pulse was for STAB and hitting those annoying Meowstics, which had a high chance to OHKO unless the Meowstic had invested in max Special Defense bulk, which was unlikely due to the prevalence of physical attacks in this metagame. Protect was for scouting moves and buying time for setting up Trick Room.

I definitely couldn’t run 252 Speed on my Hydreigon since I was using Trick Room, so I invested in HP for bulk instead. The HP investment paid off, letting Hydreigon survive non-Life Orb Garchomp’s Dragon Claw, Choice Band Talonflame Brave Birds, and even a mixed Salamence’s Draco Meteor. The HP investment definitely paid off for me.

Hydreigon was also a good anchor in case I had to fight outside of Trick Room, since Hydreigon wasn’t as slow as the rest of my team.

Countering Luck

I wish to take a moment to address the issue of luck, the bane of many competitive players. I first learned about this in an article published in the Smog magazine, “Minimizing the Effects of Luck in Pokémon Battles”. I will briefly sum up the article and how I applied when teambuilding and playing during the tournament, which was vital to my first place finish.

Everyone knows that you can’t control when bad luck happens (and I myself received my fair share of it during the tournament), but bad luck is preventable.

For example, (as stated in my Hydreigon’s entry above) I chose Flamethrower over Fire Blast even though it was not a 100% guaranteed KO. In doing so, I eliminated any possibility of my Fire attack missing. Even if Flamethrower got a low damage roll (and it happened during my Quarter Finals match), I had a contingency plan, i.e. Tyranitar could finish Mawile off. Plus, 94% damage is still better than 0% damage. If I had used Fire Blast and missed, I would have lost the match.

Likewise, in battle, you can reduce chances of missing by not taking unnecessary risks. Let me illustrate with an example. In my sixth swiss round vs. Low Kit Meng, I had a chance to KO his Liepard with my Mega Mawile. Rather than go for the super-effective Play Rough and take the chance of it missing, I opted to use Iron Head as I knew Liepard was still frail enough to be knocked out.

Similarly, Mega Mawile’s Play Rough and Iron Head are both 2HKOs on Mega Kanghaskhan and that is why I always opt for Iron Head against Mega Kanghaskhan, despite it having less power than Play Rough, unless of course it is in KO range of Play Rough or you’re banking on the attack drop from Play Rough to trigger (highly unlikely). This is how I avoid turning a 2HKO into a 3HKO.

I hope from these examples of mine, that you have been able to learn about how to mitigate hax and use this knowledge to become a better player. Cheers!

That concludes my team report, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this report as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. I sincerely hope that you were able to take something away from this report!

Article image created for Nugget Bridge by ryuzaki. See more of ryuzaki’s artwork on deviantART.

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Nintendo UK have announced another tournament series for UK players, this time taking place throughout March and April. Beginning on 1st March and running until 5th April, there will be a number of qualifier tournaments at various GAME stores around the country, with some events taking place in shopping centres with no specific location mentioned at the moment. There are currently no known prizes for regional tournament winners, other than an invitation to the London grand final on 26th April, although travel stipends will be available to winners to make their way there.

If you manage to win a regional tournament, you’ll get to play in the finals in London where you have a chance to win some great prizes, perhaps the most important of which is a First Round BYE at this years United Kingdom Pokémon Video Game Championships National Tournament in May for the winner and runner-up. Other prizes are a week-long trip to Tokyo, Japan for two and lots of other goodies.

United Kingdom National

Along with this announcement, Gordian Knot Games have announced that the United Kingdom National Event will take place on 24th-25th May, in Manchester, England. The venue is Event City, situated across the road from the Trafford Centre. You can discuss it on our forum thread.

Event Page

UK & Ireland Pokémon Nationals
24th & 25th May, 2014
Event City
Phoenix Way,
Barton Dock Road,
Urmston,
Manchester M41 7TB

Nintendo UK Event Information

There are four divisions for this tournament, with differing prizes for each:

Ultimate Pokémon Expert - The winner of the prestigious “Ultimate Pokémon Expert” title – a category open to those aged thirteen years or older – will earn themselves a week-long trip for two to Japan, the birthplace of Pokémon. They’ll be able to immerse themselves in the Pokémon world by visiting the Pokémon Center and also explore all of the sights of Tokyo. Recommended for seasoned Pokémon players the “Ultimate Pokémon Expert” title will test your Pokémon skills to the limit. The first and second place winners in the Ultimate Pokémon Expert category will receive fast track entry to the second round of the official Play! Pokémon UK VGC event this Spring.

Junior Expert - Younger Pokémon Trainers (12 or under) itching to compete can enter the “Junior Expert” category. In this competition, a weekend trip for the whole family to Alton Towers theme park with hotel stay is up for grabs, for whoever comes out victorious. The first and second place winners in the Junior Expert age category will receive fast track entry to the second round of the UK Pokémon Video Game Championships event this Spring.

Ultimate Team - The “Ultimate Team” competition is exclusively for two family members (one aged 16 or older, and one 12 or under) who want to team up and take on other families in a four-player Double Battle. Successful teams will have the chance to win a £250 Nintendo UK Online Store voucher and a group trip for four to one of the world’s best gaming shows: EGX London 2014. This event takes place in Earls Court London, from 25th – 28th September and offers visitors the chance to play the biggest games before they are released.

Pokémon Apprentice - New enthusiasts can enter the “Pokémon Apprentice” title; where complete newcomers to Pokémon X and Pokémon Y can battle it out to receive a mega bundle of Nintendo 3DS games up to the value of £300.

Crucially, you can only enter one qualifier tournament and one division. So, you’ll have to choose whether you want the chance at single player glory and the shot at a holiday and Nationals Round One BYE, or whether you’d like to play as part of a team with a sibling to win some vouchers and a visit to a great gaming show. Lastly, there is the opportunity for newer players who aren’t confident of winning one of the tougher tournaments to enter the Apprentice event.

Entering a Tournament

Sadly, the entry process of the qualifiers is not great. Think back to the early VGC Days in Europe, in 2009, or if you’ve been around as long as some of us (me), the Battle Master event in 2004 — where you can only gain entry to the tournament via a random selection process. You can enter at this link. You’ll need to enter some of your personal information and choose which division you are entering, along with choosing two qualifier tournaments you can attend. You will receive an e-mail no later than two days prior to the event stating whether you have gained entry or not and only one of your two choices can be the event you go to, which will again, be randomly selected by Nintendo UK based on popularity of each event. I assume a lot of players will miss out, so best to enter the two you can definitely make as soon as possible and get training.

• Registration Link
• Terms and Conditions

Tournament Rules and Format

All tournaments (bar the team-tournament) will use the official Pokémon Video Game Championships 2014 season rules, opting for the Flat Battle and infrared process used at the previous Nintendo UK events. Tournaments will be single-elimination format, with each qualifier having a maximum of 16 participants, thus four rounds of battles to determine the winner. The team tournament will use a more specialised set of rules with players using pre-set Pokémon and borrowed consoles from Nintendo.

List of Qualifiers

• Bullring, Birmingham – 1st March
• GAME Churchill Square, Brighton – 1st March
• GAME Murraygate, Dundee – 2nd March
• Intu Eldon Square, Newcastle – 8th March
• GAME Hamleys, London – 8th March
• GAME St. David’s Centre, Cardiff – 8th March
• WestQuay, Southampton – 15th March
• GAME Meadowhall, Sheffield – 15th March
• GAME Castle Street, Banbury – 15th March
• Bluewater, Kent – 22nd March
• GAME Back Of The Inns, Norwich – 22nd March
• GAME Victoria Centre, Nottingham – 22nd March
• Intu Trafford Centre, Manchester – 29th March
• GAME Westfield Stratford City, London – 29th March
• Intu Braehead, Glasgow – 5th April
• GAME Cribbs Causeway, Bristol – 5th April

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Hey, it’s me, Zog! You might remember my report from a couple of months ago, I’m #3 So Should Probably Try Harder, where I played in the Nintendo UK Winter Championship. It was a great day out in the capital, but the absolutely brutal best-of-one single elimination format left no room for mistakes in a tournament stacked with quality players.

This time, I headed out to play in Manchester Tournament #6, the UK’s biggest annual grassroots tournament and an all-round heap of fun. Organised by Chris Barton (Havak) and the rest of the amazing staff, the Manchester Gamerbase tournaments have always been the best of grassroots Pokémon, with the best competitors in the UK flocking to play for piles of goodies and a pretty glass trophy, but most importantly a good time. Though we’ve been stricken with venue closures over the past couple of years, the team’s worked hard to keep the tournaments alive, and Manchester #6 gave a great show for their efforts!

So, now for my story! A bit of a warning, it’s a little longer than my last one but I promise it’s a good read. Let’s begin! In a slightly dodgy seaside town in the North of Wales, there lived a Zog…

A Team Forged in the Fires of Mount Doom

Now, I had pretty much no idea what I’d be running on the Saturday until the Thursday came. So, after an amusing excursion to a Neolithic-style stone circle wherein we conducted a sort-of-pagan ritual involving rum, Jagermeister, grass-flavoured vodka and some truly disgusting spiced tomato juice (And a cameraphone, of course), myself and besties Andy Perrott (Shoe) and Jack Treble (Rebel) decided to have a go at some teambuilding. We put some sweet combos together and, over a few episodes of Archer, me and Andy gave it a go on Pokémon Showdown. After several hours had passed and it occurred that we hadn’t lost a single game between us, we realised we’d created one sexy monster of a Pokémon team.

It did everything I could ever want a team to do: my playing style in everything has always been to go for extreme power and maximum efficiency. And probably the most important thing for me is to be able to come back from anything, and never give up! So most of the teams I’m comfortable with involve Pokémon with massive stats (Alternatively “STATS!”) that have complementing resistances and can easily switch with each other, and then come back from a bad start. By our powers combined, we’d made a team that worked perfectly, and on its first draft too. So here it is!

They’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: Returning Team Members

There are some Pokémon that I just like too much. So they came back from my London team, in style. Oh yeah, and while I’m at it, if you aren’t well-versed in… ’90s electronic music, you might have missed how my last report was named after my favourite album art ever, Fatboy Slim’s You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. Just… getting that out there.

Satisfaction- Benny Benassi

“Push me. And then just touch me. Till I can get my. Satisfaction.”

Garchomp (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Attack / 252 Speed
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Protect

I love my Garchomp. I’ve brought her to almost literally every game I’ve played since X and Y, and with good reason: forget Mega Kangaskhan, Garchomp is the best Pokémon in the metagame. It never goes down without doing anything, and can cope with pretty much whatever the opponent throws at it. On top of that, it has a great typing that means I can switch it into things easily.

On the downside, as I said in my last report, I still think there’s only one way to let Garchomp do its best, and that’s by running the standard set. Though that might sound like Garchomp is a boring Pokémon, I really don’t think it is. With Sand Veil thankfully irrelevant, and because its moves do such varied things, and how it provides a check to some of the most dominating offensive forces in the game, Garchomp’s all about what you do with it so it’s loads of fun to play with and against. Plus, I think people only think it’s boring because everyone knows its most popular moveset. If you know the game, you should know what every Pokémon can do, anyway.

You might notice that I’ve changed its item from an Expert Belt into a Lum Berry. This was literally an on-the-train-there decision, and made to give me a real answer to the popular Charizard-Y/Venusaur lead that Havak had given me trouble with in London. However, it ended up helping against something I’d forgotten entirely, as you’ll see later.

Setting Sun- The Chemical Brothers feat. Noel Gallagher

“You’re the devil in me I brought in frooom the coooooold.”

Charizard (M) @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Solar Power/Drought
EVs: 100 HP / 252 Special Attack / 148 Speed / 4 Defense
Modest Nature
- Overheat
- Heat Wave
- Solar Beam
- Protect

Setting Sun is my other shiny I brought back to play with. He didn’t see much action at all in London though, since I was running Mawile back then, and it had a better matchup against all but one of my opponents. Though he was an unusual spread in London, when everyone was using timid with maxed speed for some reason, this set’s since become pretty popular, so I wasn’t expecting anyone at all to be surprised by its bulkiness: probably a testament as to how strong Charizard-Y is even if your opponent guesses what you’re doing. I mean, come on, overheat even one-hit KOs stuff that resists it.

I brought Charizard-Y when I needed some game-controlling power, especially against slower teams. If my opponent’s team had too much initiative and used faster Pokémon, I didn’t pick him, basically. So, in the end, he was picked as my mega roughly half the time, and won me the game every time he was.

Forgive Me – Infected Mushroom

“Can you show me one more time?”

Amoonguss (M) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 204 HP / 124 Defense / 4 Special Attack / 172 Special Defense / 12 Speed
Sassy Nature
- Giga Drain
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Protect

In the testing phases, Amoonguss was actually something I didn’t tend to bring at all, and he felt like the team’s sixth wheel, if you will. Most of the time the opponent’s team carried too much firepower for him to be useful, especially on rating battles, with half of the people online seemingly having a vendetta against it. But, after Forgive Me’s usefulness in London, I decided to… forgive him (sigh) and make a UK metagame call, and bring him anyway: a decision that would later prove invaluable.

The only thing that’s been changed is that his Sitrus Berry’s gone, making way for a Black Sludge. Though I didn’t like it initially, it worked out well, since the games I brought Amoonguss to were the slower-paced games where his purpose was to hog the field and put things to sleep, and the choice of Sludge let him do his job better than if I’d kept the berry. As for the Sitrus Berry? Well…

New Kids on the Block: Honestly Could it Mean Anything Other Than New Team Members?

The old team needed a bit of a spark added, so with Andy’s help we gave it a new spin with these guys!

Bar Bar Bar – Crayon Pop

“Get… set… readyyyy… GO!”

Azumarill (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 212 HP / 4 Defense / 36 Special Defense / 4 Speed
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Aqua Jet
- Belly Drum
- Protect

If you’ve hung around the internet long enough, or met anybody who has and is even remotely weird, you will have encountered South Korean pop music. It’s as glossy and fake-looking as Nicki Minaj’s bottom, yet as the many fans of either can tell you, that doesn’t matter. Crayon Pop are one such girl group. Their musical act consists of wearing striped horse-riding helmets and coloured tracksuits, then jumping around a lot. While this might sound like what I imagine a posh scouser does at the weekend, it’s surprisingly alright. Their totally sweet but weirdly gym-friendly smash hit Bar Bar Bar is like a protein shake made of blended Peeps, or a crossfitter in a frilly dress who can actually lift properly. Whichever you find closest, Bar Bar Bar represents everything Azumarill brings to the table: terrifying power, in a sweet little package.

Far better than its usage stats outside of Japan would seem to indicate, I brought Bar Bar Bar to nearly every game, and she proved her worth tenfold. The fact I only needed to use Belly Drum, like, twice would indicate how strong she is without it. She’s trained specifically to activate Sitrus Berry after a belly drum, everything else basically being a case of “Let’s just have as many stats as possible”. Bar Bar Bar was one of my favourite new additions, and was great friends with the next new member of the team…

GAL-O Sengen – Policeman

“…Yeah. GAL-O Sengen.”

Manectric (M) @ Manectite
Ability: Lightningrod/Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Special Attack / 252 Speed
IVs: Something even, I don’t have a clue Attack / 30 Defense
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power (Ice)
- Protect

A deeply tanned Super Saiyan suddenly appears from inside an electric sunbed, smirking directly at you and revealing an impossibly chiseled torso and some shockingly nice hair. It’s no wonder this thing has Intimidate…

He’s brash, he’s blingy and he gets all the girls. But beneath the surface, GAL-O Sengen’s just another lad, and he needs his mates there to shine. Mega Manectric’s one of the weaker mega evolutions, but he’s got great stats for an electric type and the valuable Intimidate, which really makes things easier for his teammates. His best asset is his speed, which lets him attack basically whatever he wants with classic electric/ice coverage. Probably worth noting is how I opted out of using a fire move: I think it’s best to be able to choose if you want to switch out after using an electric move, and with Charizard-Y on my team, I’ll probably just pick him if I need a good fire move. Hidden Power Ice is extremely important for Manectric, and he can’t properly function without it.

My favourite way of using GAL-O Sengen, and one of the first combinations we came up with before testing, was to have him out alongside Azumarill, protecting her from electric moves with Lightningrod. Though Andy’s initial incarnation used a Modest nature, I switched to Timid nature to ensure he could outspeed Greninja, Noivern, scarf Smeargle and max speed Talonflames. It only worked out against one of those things, though. So like most things with bleach-blond hair and angst, in the end, it didn’t even matter. Eheh. That was bad.

Heads Will Roll – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

“Off, off with your head, dance ‘til you’re dead”

Aegislash (M) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Attack / 252 Special Attack
Quiet Nature
- Flash Cannon
- Shadow Ball
- Shadow Sneak
- King’s Shield

Aegislash. It’s really weird. I’d stayed away from using it, simply out of not being bothered to breed one, but since James (Ninjames), aside from actually owning a freakin’ huge sword and full suit of armour (The helmet looks like Robocop’s but better, wow), had also bred me one hex-perfect, I thought I’d give it a go. And it’s so, so good.

The ghost typing, priority, and inherent mind games associated with Aegislash were exactly what I needed to round off the team. Weakness Policy is far and away its best item in my opinion, and this is my favourite (albeit pretty obvious) set for it. Again like Garchomp and Mawile, Aegislash does exactly as well as how you play it, so it’s all about judging your opponent and predicting what they might do.

And so, within the space of about 10 minutes (or one episode of Zap de Spion), myself and Andy had come up with a beautiful team.

A Mostly Expected Journey

Literally one day passed, during which I remembered I still hadn’t trained up our team. So, with the deadline looming overhead, I decided it was time for serious business. Donning a (let’s call it ceremonial) dragon costume and hopped up on far too many cups of Chinese tea, I forfeited bedtime, put some ridiculous trance music on the stereo and set to work. I’m not even sure entirely what I got up to, to be honest. I think there were weights involved? Piri-piri sauce? Eating loads of seaweed? Getting hooked on those videos of people with like seven DSs lined up in a row and they’re trying to find shinies? Only God knows the rest. All I can remember properly is abusing James, because who cares if you spent sixty quid or whatever last week on Domino’s and going to see that rubbish Frankenstein film, and yes I appreciate that we’re going on an expedition to Africa in a few weeks and you need to save money for it and that but come on mate, this is Pokémon we’re talking about.

Soon, the morning came, so I met up with my brother Adam, Jack and Andy and we all got on the train. It was a fun train journey, and until we got to Crewe everything was going to plan. Bizarrely, we ended up running back and forth between two platforms and through a train which we then realised wasn’t actually our train, a situation not helped in the slightest by incorrect boards and the man on the PA sounding exactly like Droopy the dog, and consequently being unintelligible. So we found a small amount of respite in looking at a mural with a house on it that looked weirdly like a smirking face (the station hated us, ah tell thee) and waited twenty minutes for our train, which it turned out had been delayed. On the next leg of the journey I cloned the team to give to Andy, making sure that I’d re-nicknamed everything and swapped out the shinies, so if we ended up playing the same people, they wouldn’t realise we had the same team. This’d cost him a game and top cut at Nationals last year, when Bellanko smartly noticed that Andy had the exact same team I’d beaten him with earlier in the day. Eventually, we arrived in Manchester, and headed through the city. I was convinced that TV21, the venue, was next to the bus station, so led the boys through the unusually long lobby and out the other end. At this point I realised that I had in fact led everyone into the court in which the buses turn around, so we all had to run through the bus concourse and out onto some actual pedestrian land so Adam could check Google Maps and see where we were. It turned out that, with ten minutes left to register, the venue was actually quite a way away so we had to run there and make sure we were able to register.

In case you were wondering at this point, funnily enough, yes, I did manage to register in time. The queue started in the bar area and ominously twisted and turned deep into the building’s bowels, setting the scene for the biggest ever basement-based UK Pokémon manfest. I had a chat with people, gave a guy my spare shiny Clawitzer so he had a full team, and got myself a rum and coke with the free drink token from entering. The place was heaving with people, with 99 competitors, loads of spectators and the air a thick 50/50 mixture of anticipation and perspiration. There were a few issues that the staff couldn’t really help with there being so few of them, but they all worked hard to keep things going and soon round one was on the boards.

Round 1 vs Daniel Oztekin (Necrocat219)

vs

DJ2W-WWWW-WWW5-CUHQ

After a while of being stuck in the hallway with the rest of the kettled trainers, I was ready for a game. Incidentally Jack had been matched with foodking in the first round, losing because he didn’t know that Clawitzer’s Aura Sphere hit Cloyster super effectively. He’s still in training, so baby steps I suppose. His previous tournament had been a 2-5 run at last year’s nationals, running a divecats team in which, amusingly, the Purrloin had Limber, which was entirely my fault. If any of you don’t remember, divecats relied entirely on abusing Prankster, so the cats could use Assist and disappear first thing in the turn with Shadow Force, then reappear last thanks to holding Lagging Tail. Instead, this Purrloin disappeared last, then reappeared last, meaning it basically just got KOed failtastically every single game. In case you’re wondering where I’m going with this paragraph, and where my Round one is, that’s exactly what I was thinking at the time: there were just too many people in the area to conceivably get everybody sat down for matches, so they were being played in batches upstairs, and mine was one of the last ones to get done. Eventually, Necrocat219 found me, so we went upstairs to play the first round.

With literally nowhere else to sit, we settled down next between a fire door and a pretty big statue of a xenomorph from Alien, and get ready to play. I’ll begin with a disclaimer that this match was very long, so don’t expect a play-by-play: watch the video, I do have other things to do, you know. I lead with Garchomp and Azumarill to his Scrafty and Venusaur. He quickly switched out Scrafty for Aegislash and I noticed that it and Venusaur were sporting the awesome nicknames of Lunar Clock and Black Lotus respectively. Touhou and Magic: the Gathering being possibly the most alpha-nerd things of all time, I knew I’d be in for a fight. That, and the fact that my team contained a grand total of zero counters to Mega Venusaur. I was in a tricky situation already, and had to switch into Amoonguss and fish for flinches with Rock Slide, playing the long game. Stuff happened, favourite 2hus were discussed (Komachi all the way, just saying) and I managed to make a comeback by going in for the KO with Charizard’s Overheat on Venusaur, and putting everything to sleep with Amoonguss, who actually healed 100% of his health back with Black Sludge, to give you some idea how long this game was (21 turns). Towards the end, I was put in a tight spot when his Aegislash used Rock Slide (!), landing a necessary critical hit on Azumarill and a flinch on Amoonguss, but I managed to seal it with my own Garchomp right at the end. An extremely difficult game to begin the day, and it’s no wonder that Necrocat219 went unbeaten for the rest of swiss and on to top cut.

1-0

Round 2 vs Matthew Friar

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Things were beginning to pick up, and the second round was announced in a lot better time than the last. Fairly quickly, Matthew found me and we went upstairs and got a table to play at. It was his first tournament, but you couldn’t tell from how he was playing.

Leading Charizard and Amoonguss to his Klefki and Blastoise, I go all in and Heat Wave/Giga Drain Blastoise, worst case scenario being a Fake Out on Charizard and a Safeguard from Klefki. He Fake Outs Amoonguss, and Heat Wave KOs Klefki regardless of the Light Screen it set up. Next he brings in Talonflame, so I predict the Brave Bird and switch in Aegislash, while Overheating Talonflame because I’d already totally forgotten about Light Screen (this becomes a theme), so it survives on a very low amount of health. From that point I’m in a good position, and basically play the safe moves to make sure I come out winning. Good game!

2-0

Round 3 vs Jake Birch (WhiteAfroKing92)

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Now, let me just say, this is one of the most alcoholic Pokémon matches I’ve ever played, and one of the funniest. Jake was legitimately playing in full drunken monkey mode, except instead of pretending to be drunk to psych out the opponent, he was five pints down and cracking open the second bottle of wine of an eventual five, therefore breaking the laws of physics to be playing at all let alone so well. I cannot comprehend how he managed, given the fact I tend to be gone after two glasses, never mind that much. The only explanation is that the bar was secretly serving shandy and melted cider lollies then calling it booze, but if I’m honest it probably wasn’t. Anyway, he drank so much he quite literally wound up in Satan’s Hollow, so there you go.

After engaging in Bantyranitar for longer than it took most people to finish, it seemed appropriate to actually play our game. As I’ve been informed by my brother’s friend Christopher who lost to him last round (And would again in top cut), Jake leads with Blastoise and Smeargle to my Manectric and Azumarill, something I’m not too happy about. Smeargle is probably my least favourite Pokémon in the metagame, and it left a mark on this tournament worth thinking about. After doing the classic double-protect lead, next turn I find out the hard way that Manectric doesn’t actually outspeed scarf Smeargle, when I could’ve sworn it did. But thankfully, Dark Void misses Azumarill and gives me a better chance at winning. GAL-O Sengen meanwhile gets hit by a Water Spout which ruins his hair so badly he faints. After I put Blastoise to sleep, Jake switches his Hydreigon into a seemingly obvious Play Rough, which I’m going to put down to the wine, and Play Rough critical hits Blastoise, which fortunately Jake didn’t notice because he was laughing too much. Finally, Aegislash goes down, and it’s a win for me. Top game, top lad! It’s no surprise that he goes straight to top cut. Time to get another drink!

3-0

Round 4 vs Samuel East

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Regrettably, I totally derped here and forgot to save the battle video, but it was a good one. Samuel managed to find me in the busy basement, so we went upstairs and caught a seat next to the Miller brothers, who’d unfortunately been matched up together. I can’t remember exactly what happened, other than my Aegislash being critical hit in the first turn by a Salamence Fire Blast, and going on to one-hit KO said offending Salamence and then Mega Kangaskhan with Flash Cannon thanks to Weakness Policy. Basically, I was risky with Aegislash and it paid off. Good game!

4-0

Round 5 vs Rina Purdy

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Again, I totally derped and forgot to save the video. Thanks Rina! After my mum and dad came to visit and drop off some suncream and a headtorch that I’d left at home and will be needing in a few weeks, and to give Adam the mysterious package he’d ordered, myself and Rina head upstairs to play our game, and sit on the weirdest bar seating I’ve ever encountered. It was just a standard pub bench, except it was facing the wall with only about a foot of legroom and right in front of a cabinet containing a shirt that said Robocop on it for some reason. Since my dog is the only person I know who’ll happily sit facing the wall, I’m calling that weird. I give Steve the Salamence a little stroke, since he’d recently returned from getting lost at Stansted airport, where he was described in the lost and found as simply “Blue toy with coloured bow tie. Dragon?”. The poor little mite.

So, I lead with Aegislash and Amoonguss to Gardevoir and… Kecleon! The first turn goes pretty bizarrely, with Kecleon Shadow Sneaking right into my Weakness Policy, and Gardevoir going down straight away to a boosted Flash Cannon. In hindsight, I should’ve realised that Kecleon was carrying a Choice Band and played accordingly, but then I remember that I’d actually had a fair amount to drink so I would’ve been in a state of Kecleon-induced shock, as should everybody else in the room. After a few sloppy plays, I get back on form and clean up with my Garchomp and Charizard. It ends with dragon vs dragon: Satisfaction on Steve. Because my favourite dragon is faster, that means it’s better, so I rather harshly kick Steve back into the proverbial airport lounge whence he came. Thanks for the game!

5-0

Afterwards, Rina shows me her obscene amount of shinies (How can one person hatch so many? How?), and I’m happy knowing that four of my five opponents ended up top cutting, and myself and Andy have finished swiss unbeaten in first and second seed- how’s that for proving a team? There’s been a little bit of a mixup earlier in the tournament, so being first seed I have to wait until 16^th seed is decided, from a 4-man mini-tournament, amongst the contenders being Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson… wow who’d have thought) and Lee Provost (Osirus). In the meantime, I watch Andy’s top 16 match with Christopher, where unfortunately Andy gets frozen by Christopher’s bizarre defensive special Dragonite, with game-changing consequences. I later learn that Conall (KillerConall) gave him the strange Dragonite, and am not surprised in the slightest. Though sad that Andy lost to a freeze, I wish Christopher the best and quickly learn that, as I’d suspected, Baz is the one to come through in 16^th seed. Well, it’s time to get comfortable by the projector.

Top 16 vs Baz Anderson

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Now, just let me say, games like this are why I play Pokémon. Pokémon at the highest level, with cash and prestige on the line, is one of the most intense experiences in gaming. Every turn feels like time slowed down, and every move has to be a master plan or you’ll choke. So, you might have an idea how hard this was. I don’t think a play-by-play can reflect the tenseness as well as watching the battle, so I’ll only tell you that by turn one I thought it could possibly be over, by turn two I thought it was probably over, and the rest you’ll just have to watch. Also, do bear in mind my complete Dory memory: I totally forgot Tailwind was even a thing, which is why Manectric goes down. Worth noting as well is how this is probably the only match in tournament history to involve the full extent of Stance Change’s behaviour. You learn something new every day, don’t you?

It’s a shame I had to play Baz relatively early, but the game was incredible and it was better knowing he had adventure awaiting later at the gates of Satan’s Hollow. Yeah, that’s a thing in Manchester. Don’t buy their tequila, it’s like a fiver a shot. You’d get more if you licked a hobo’s armpit (Please, never do that). Somewhere around now I get my knickers in a twist because I can’t read my own watch (Hilarious in hindsight) and think it’s coming up to twenty past eight, when it’s actually an hour earlier. But time is genuinely running short, and it’s becoming clear that I’ll be hard-pressed to make it onto the last train in time.

Top 8 vs Richard Fairbrother (NidoRich)

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Now, this was a good match. NidoRich was currently the holder of the Manchester tournament title, winning it last year while I’d gone down in the top cut after making a risky move against Justin Miller (Which funnily enough happened again the other month in London). So, it was the two past Manchester winners, in a grudge match in the top 8: whoever won had a chance at being the first to win two events.

I lead with my Manectric and Azumarill Lightningrod combo to his Gothitelle and Rotom-Heat. I made sure he was using Shadow Tag and not Competitive, and protected Manectric while using Belly Drum to his Reflect, which Rich predicted but couldn’t do anything about since I protected on the Overheat. I keep pounding at him with Aqua Jet and my Aegislash, and eventually get the win. Fortunately for me, I already knew the trials and tribulations of Gothitelle from playing it myself, so I was able to capitalise on that hard. Rich played well, but I think it was basically decided on my good matchup and experience with Gothitelle. If you don’t need to switch, you don’t need to worry about Shadow Tag!

Top 4 vs Anis Haque (El Fenomeno)

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Anis was on a roll today, having somehow top cut despite forgetting his Kangaskhan’s mega stone for more than half of his battles. It’s a tough game, but I manage to pull through by playing unpredictably. You’ll probably get the idea by this point, so I’ll leave it to the video. A fine match with one of Pokémon’s finest gentlemen!

Final vs Mark McQuillan (woopahking123)

After a testing string of top cut matches in quick succession, it’s time for the final. Everything feels quite surreal, firstly because wow I’m in the final again, and secondly because of rum. I’ll leave it to the video, so you can enjoy that gut-wrenching first turn without me spoiling it. Of all the times for that to happen, it had to be the final. Also, check out that self-targeting. And yes, I did completely forget about Tailwind, both times it was used no less. To think, I had absolutely no idea why the crowd was “Oooooh”-ing the Moody speed drop, and was like “What but I outspeed him anyway”.

Good game, Woohpahking! Your username might still be spelt wrong, but it’s only been a year since you literally strolled into the Manchester #5 Juniors division final (Two competitors in Juniors, like fifty times that in Masters, this happened), and you’ve potential to get really good.

And now, with the time approaching twenty five to nine… It was time to get home intact.

There and Back Again (Gandalf Why Couldn’t You Call the Eagles)

Time was running so thin, I had to pick up my prizes and after some quick photos which were probably ruined by the fact that years of ironic duckfacing has left me incapable of not duckfacing in photographs (it’s a hard life), myself, Jack, Adam and Andy had to properly run across the centre of Manchester with several bags full of swag. Somehow, we all ended up running and singing, or rather shouting, the terrible Sonic the Hedgehog song “Escape from the City”, which would’ve been the single lamest thing in the world if it wasn’t so funny. “Rolling around at the speed of sound”? Christ almighty. Anyway, we managed to make it onto the train right on the minute, and found out that ironically it’d been delayed for twenty minutes anyway, so we simply took the good seats. Up until now, I’d never taken the last westbound train from Manchester, so I was used to jolly Yorkshiremen and their flat caps on their way home for fee an’ chee. Wonder why I made a scouser joke earlier? Yes, the train was full of drunken scousers. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being from near Liverpool, and I don’t intend to peddle a stereotype (Even if the only prominent scouse trainer did steal my phone once), but this was something else. A girl who couldn’t even stand up straight came up to Jack, stroked his face, and said “Sorry I thought you were someone I knew”. Some old guy threw up on a chair and passed out on his hands and knees in the aisle, while his mate loudly proclaimed “Yeah he’s alright just let him settle”. There was a guy repeatedly shouting “Cor who wants a dirty kebab?!” in a weird voice, as if it got funnier every time he said it. People were fighting and popping balloons and my God, it was dreadful but hilarious. There was even another old bald guy sat with his very young East Asian wife, who’d been struck with the most awful attack of hiccups I’ve ever seen, and for a whole leg of the journey just sat there laughing and making really bad one-liners at every one while she was trying to tell him to “shu-*hic* u-*hic*p it’s not *hic* fu*hic*ny”. Adam buried his face into his bag trying not to laugh, and Jack had to help by holding a water bottle between his legs as a distraction and excuse for in case he laughed. Jokes as cheesy as “Does Chester Zoo even have chimps?” “Not any more, they’re all here” were uttered. I don’t know if this is abnormal or not for the last train through Knutsford, since my experiences do tend to be on the stranger side (See: the “Naked Superman with Socks in his Mouth” story from Comic-Con), but this was without a doubt the weirdest train journey I’ve taken in some time. And one of them involved someone dressed as Neo from the Matrix pretending to bullet-time on the Los Angeles subway, which would’ve been funny if he didn’t look like he wanted to stab someone. Probably the highlight though was having to run to change trains, and noticing that Jack had disappeared. “Where’s that knob head gone?!?!” “He’s over there on… that vending machine…” “Oi! What are you playing at?” “Getting a Yorkie…” *Jack produces a… raisin-flavoured Yorkie and my previously-quiet brother chips in* “…It’s not even the good one!”. Lovely times.

All in all, great day out! Winning was just the icing on the cake, really. So happy about going unbeaten, too, and being the only person to win it twice. Topping with Andy was great as well: we’ve both held the record of best-performing brit at Worlds for at least a couple of years each, so I loved seeing him back on form.

Shoutouts:

• Huge thanks to Adam, Jack and Andy for coming with me! And to everyone on the staff, and everyone who helped me to get my team ready! Also totes amazing thanks to Adam for the beautiful contents of the mystery package: Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff magnets and a t-shirt! For me! Incredible.
• Love you all, Pokémon people! So good to see you all! Except Kyriakou, pffft moving house isn’t that important, get on my level!
• Thank you for the prizes, Nintendo UK! I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that prizes went down this year because of the very nice Winter Championship but please don’t try to scale them back when the tournaments are still growing, the prizes keep things exciting and it’s not nice having to beat the other finalist for the only console. Please take it back to consoles for finalists, with some more stuff for third and fourth!
• I was the only top 4 player to not be using Dark Void Smeargle. People have really strong opinions on him being legal (hehe that rhymed), and while personally I still believe he’s bad, he could certainly be called “cheap” because he’s harder to defeat than he is to use. I definitely stand by my opinion that Smeargle should top cut, but shouldn’t ever win a tournament. Watch my games, and you’ll see that Dark Void gives an early advantage, but as soon as it wears off, Smeargle’s close to dead weight, which is what balances him out. So, I’d say I agree with TPCi in unbanning Dark Void.
• In fact, the name of this report is a bit of a cheeky dig at Smeargle users. There’s a famous quote by Nietzsche, the only philosopher edgy enough to be read by Seto Kaiba. “Battle not with monsters lest you become a monster, and if you stare into the abyss it stares back at you”. I think he was trying to say that you become what you do, and if you do nothing you become empty. And since abyss and void mean nearly the same thing, and since Dark Void Smeargle is like… a totally empty autopilot, I think using it degrades your ability to play to your best. …Pretty cool name, right?
• Glad you lot enjoyed Satan’s Hollow! It had Baz written all over it when he mentioned going out in Manchester, so I had to tell him about it. Will join you sometime I don’t have a train!

Lastly, I just have to point out how Pokémon tournaments in good-quality bars are like, the best thing ever. Yes, it’s obviously a lot more adult-oriented than an official VGC. But at the same time that obviously makes it better! If everyone remembered to wash then it’d be toootally perfect.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading! Sorry it was a little long, but I tried to keep it entertaining. Look forward to the next Pokémon event! With luck I’ll see you there.

Artwork created by Sephirona and used with permission. Check out more of her work in her thread.

The post When the Void Stares Back! First Place at Manchester #6 appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Learning the Type Chart

Have you ever landed a Fire Gem-boosted Overheat on an enemy’s Scizor before? It feels great doesn’t it? Now have you ever used Overheat on an enemy’s Scizor only to have them switch into a Chandelure? That feels bad, real bad. My name is Kevin Fisher, also known as Uncle Taint, and I would like to share my 16th place US Nationals team that was built around forcing my opponents to make plays similar to this one.

I began building the team months ago. When I had started, there was only one pokemon that I knew I wanted to play with: Gyarados. I had faced Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh) at the Winter Regional in St. Charles Missouri, where her Gyarados mopped the floor with my Trick Room team and I realized the way I played Pokemon really needed to change. At that point, I had been playing Pokemon competitively for over a year and had built only Trick Room teams. It was going to be tough, but I decided to build a team without Trick Room and this Gyarados was going to help me.

Using the Atrocious Pokemon

My good friend Matt Siebert (el_scorcho) sat down with me and we began building a team around Gyarados. Looking at its stats and abilities, I really felt it was under-appreciated. It has awesome Hit Point, Attack, and Special Defense stats as well as a very interesting base 81 Speed stat which allows it to out-speed a lot of very important Pokemon. Pair all of this with one of the best abilities in the game, Intimidate, and you have a very strong physical sweeper with support options. So why don’t more people use Gyarados? Stumble upon his typing, Water/Flying, and things start to go south for this giant scary serpent.

Water/Flying typing has some really interesting interactions. The Grass and Ice weaknesses become neutral, which is nice, but it takes double damage from Rock type moves and quadruple damage from Electric type moves, both extremely important in the current Metagame. For quite a few players, these weaknesses alone are enough to overlook Gyarados, but I was determined to make it work. I began team-building in a new way for me. I decided to start with Gyarados and work my way backwards through the type chart defensively. This method landed me at Gastrodon, which had Water/Ground typing, allowing it to resist both of Gyarados’s biggest fears.

Gastrodon then was set to be Gyarados’s best friend (Besides the Storm Drain thing, more on that later). Gastrodon had problems with Grass types, which Gyarados would have to take neutral damage from. I found answers to Grass types in Chandelure, Scizor, and Breloom. Breloom’s quad-weakness to Flying was the only type I did not have a particularly strong answer for. I chose Breloom because Spore was too good of a move to pass up, not to mention how hard it hits with Bullet Seed and Mach Punch. I decided the best way to give Breloom defensive coverage would be to just give it a Focus Sash, because it rolls over and dies to a lot of attacks. I then put what I described as a “mandatory dragon” on my team, Latios, and the team was ready for battle.

Playing a New Style

I started practicing on Pokemon Showdown. At first I felt very disorganized with the team. I was accustomed to having a very simple goal with my team: set up Trick Room and knock them out as fast as possible. The more I played, the slower my pace became. Up until that point, I believed that if I was not knocking out a Pokemon in one hit or at least hitting it super-effectively, I was playing the game wrong. This team became all about switching and protecting a lot while paying attention to the opposing team. Most of my Pokemon were pretty difficult to knock out without hitting them super-effectively. If I could get my opponent to use their gem-boosted moves on a resisting Pokemon or double target a protecting Pokemon I could easily bring momentum in my favor. Playing in a very passive switch style allowed me to very effectively scout the enemy’s team for Pokemon with tricky held items like Choice Scarf, particularly terrifying Hidden Power types, or if a player was targeting a specific Pokemon because it posed a large threat.

The team was working great and I particularly liked how it played out, but I quickly found myself in a pretty big dilemma. I was essentially playing a team of five Pokemon because I never had a reason to use Latios. My team, excluding Gastrodon, felt like it would run out of steam in really long games. So I decided to try out Latias and use it to prepare for especially long games.

The Important Color Synergy

Shortly after putting Latias on the team, I realized I could have all of my Pokemon in a form of red. Thus, my red colored team was born. I decided to do some calculations and get some specific EV spreads put on them after getting a decent feeling for all of them.

The team was performing great but it still did not feel right. Latias wound up being just as much of a dead weight as Latios was, but I was content with this because my win percentage was right around 60% on Pokemon Showdown with about 80 matches played. Matt then pointed out that many players had been using Togekiss with Breloom and doing extremely well. I really did not want to have a team of 5 color-themed Pokemon and then have Togekiss  there to ruin it all, but then I began to realize what Togekiss can do. My team inherently was begging for Follow Me support, a way to control Speed, a move to hit Fighting types super-effectively, and a way to survive in the late-game. Togekiss did all of these things better than I could have ever imagined. So I let it join the team not only because it would be the MVP of my team, but also because I learned it’s shiny had a little red tint to it and little red triangles. My win rate shot up to 75% over 130 games and I knew that not only was I getting better at the game, that my team was complete as well.

Behold! The first (to my knowledge) in-depth team analysis of a mono-color team.

Red Team

Chandelure (F) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 160 Spd / 252 SAtk / 96 HP
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def / 30 Sdef / 30 Spd
Modest Nature
- Overheat
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Heat Wave

I decided to step away from Trick Room in a big way. I feel as though Choice Scarf is an important part of the Metagame, it gives certain Pokemon new and interesting styles. Choice Scarf Chandelure definitely was not a new thing whenever I started to use it, but I feel like I made a very solid EV spread for it. The speed EVs put Chandelure’s Speed stat at 120. With a 50% boost in Speed from the Choice Scarf, Chandelure would hit the very important 180 Speed stat. This allowed Chandelure to out-speed and demolish positive Nature maximum investment base 110 Pokemon like Latios and the base 111 Genies. As for the other stats, I just decided to maximize investment in Special Attack and dump the remaining EVs into Hit Points. The biggest thing to note about this Chandelure is that it comes equipped with Hidden Power Rock. My team was having problems with Volcarona, before I had this move I would just lose a match if Volcarona was able to Quiver Dance. The opposing Volcarona would have to invest at least 196 EVs into Hit Points to survive. Hidden Power Rock also helped give Chandelure great coverage, being able to hit the genies, Ninetales, Salamence, and Togekiss super-effectively. Chandelure was quite possibly the most important defensive switch-in on my team. It could come in to take a Flash Fire boost from someone targeting Scizor and Breloom. Chandelure could also be an amazing switch for Fighting type moves, which were commonly used against my team for neutral damage. It could also be used to tank Ice type moves for Togekiss and Grass type moves for Gastrodon. There were three important types it could not cover, however. Flying Gem Acrobatics from Tornadus would always OHKO Chandelure. Thunderbolts from various Electric types would deal significant damage. Thirdly, it would be hit super-effectively from rock moves being aimed at Togekiss and Gyarados. Despite the problems caused by these three types, Chandelure was the source of some of my greatest plays with this team.

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Spore
- Protect

The main use for Breloom was the move Spore, which I believe to be one of the most, if not the most, important moves in the Metagame at this point. Breloom was also the source of the only Fighting-type move on my team and hit surprisingly hard with Technician-boosted Mach Punch, so it naturally fit well on the team. I was not too proud of the EV spread on Breloom, however. At first, I had calculated it to out-speed neutral nature, no investment Suicune. There were two glaring problems with this spread. The first was the fact that very rarely (or never at all) would anyone pass up training a Suicune in Speed. The second problem was that opposing Brelooms were faster than I was, and this was a huge issue. I decided that holding a Focus Sash and needing to win the Breloom speed wars were good enough reasons to pass up having EV investment in Hit Points. As for being a defensive switch-in, Breloom didn’t do anything too amazing. Breloom was okay with switching to cover Rock type moves for Chandelure, Gyarados, and Togekiss, rarely used to cover Dark type moves for Chandelure, and most commonly used to take Electric type moves for Gyarados and Togekiss.

Gyarados @ Water Gem
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 68 HP / 252 Atk / 188 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Dragon Tail
- Earthquake
- Protect

Here is the big guy that started it all. I had initially wanted to use a Choice Band. I think it is a very solid item on Gyarados because it likes switching often to intimidate and it already has a monstrous base 125 Attack stat. The problem I had with using Choice Band was Gastrodon’s ability, Storm Drain. I did not want to be locked into using my only STAB option and having it unable to do damage because Gastrodon would redirect it. Storm Drain wasn’t a gigantic hinder on the team if I used Water Gem with Gyarados. Gyarados could still get one strong hit off from it’s Waterfall and I could sometimes use it to boost Gastrodon, which was on the team mainly to stay in for long periods of time. What had started it all with Gyarados was the use of the move Dragon Tail. Dragon Tail is a move that has -4 priority (just one priority tier above Trick Room). The move itself has a base damage of 60, and forces the Pokemon it hits to switch with a random teammate. This effectively stops Trick Room dead in its tracks, unless you’re playing Enosh Shachar (Human), but more on that later. The Speed EVs I invested in Gyarados put its Speed stat at 125, allowing it to be faster than positive Nature, maximum investment Tyranitar. This allowed Gyarados to demolish almost any Tyranitar before they could even consider Rock Sliding Gyarados. I decided to max out the Attack stat, and dump the remaining EVs into Hit Points. Gyarados has amazing defensive switch capabilities. It could be used to neuter physical attackers in general, and not only to cover Chandelure’s Water and Ground-type and Scizor’s Fire-type weaknesses, but to tank those types of moves hoping to hit another teammate neutrally.

Scizor @ Steel Gem
Trait: Technician
EVs: 166 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Swords Dance
- Protect

Scizor was the Pokemon I had to be most careful with. During my course of practice, I ran into countless numbers of Pokemon using Hidden Power Fire. Pair that with my choice of using Swords Dance and I had a Pokemon that made huge plays, rarely not going in my favor. Scizor is huge bait for Fire type moves, and Chandelure loved this fact.

Gastrodon (F) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 128 HP / 128 SDef / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Protect
- Recover

Gastrodon was quite possibly the most effective sweeper on my team. I do not believe that Rindo Berry is very effective on Gastrodon, and I did not want to have a one-use item on it because I wanted to use it for longer games. All of these decisions lead me to using Expert Belt. The moves Ice Beam and Earth Power have great type coverage, so it was a very strong fit. Using Expert Belt, Gastrodon was able to deal significant damage to many dangerous Pokemon. Gastrodon could one-hit KO a Metagross with maximum Hit Point investment 68% of the time, and many common Ice-weak Pokemon were two-hit KOs. Pair these facts with the bulk investment and the move Recover, Gastrodon became a monster. The EV spread on Gastrodon I was not too proud of. I made an arbitrary spread for it and forgot to recalculate it later. This did not slow Gastrodon down in the slightest. Speaking of being slow, one might notice that I decided to use a Modest nature rather than a nature that would give it a deficit in speed. I made this decision because I wanted to know whether my Gastrodon would out-speed other Gastrodon, rather than leave it up to the chance of a speed tie. I could use this knowledge to adjust my play, such as knowing whether or not I needed to stall out someone using Trick Room. Not only was Gastrodon a monstrous sweeper, but it was also an awesome defensive switch-in. It was crucial to use as a switch to resist Rock, Steel, and Fire, but most importantly as an immunity in Electric, Gyarados’s worst fear, and Water type moves, which would give huge momentum in my favor because of Storm Drain.

Togekiss (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Spd / 76 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Air Slash
- Tailwind
- Follow Me
- Roost

I was very indecisive about Togekiss at first (Mostly because it wasn’t as red as my other Pokemon). Togekiss quickly became the MVP of my team. The main thing about Togekiss that made it so amazing was it’s bulk paired with the move Follow Me. Togekiss could redirect all of my other Pokemons’ biggest fears and allow them to take care of the threats. Another amazing use for Follow Me is to redirect Swaggers, Beat Ups or other partner-targeting support moves of my opponent’s Pokemon. Tailwind was another crucial move for my team as a whole. Most of my Pokemon are on the mid-range or slower side of the Speed spectrum. Tailwind allowed me to make up for my lagging Pokemon. Air Slash was simply the obligatory STAB option, while Roost increased Togekiss’s longevity. The EV spread I used for Togekiss was simply the one that Wer (Need to have a link here) made for his top-eight team at the Sandston, Virginia Regional. This spread allows Togekiss to redirect Fake Outs from Hitmontop and survive Draco Meteors and Ice Beams with relative ease. Another move that Togekiss took surprisingly well was Overheat from Ninetales in the sun, which I did not think would be relevant at US Nationals, but I was very wrong. Togekiss was probably the worst defensive switch of the team, but it’s support more than made up for this fact. After Tailwind was put up, Togekiss could use Roost to recover lost HP from opponents using their Gem-boosted moves and also to take away it’s Ice and Rock type weaknesses before it could get hit with them. All the while Togekiss’s partner would be taking care of the Ice or Rock threat. Togekiss was the Pokemon that put my team over-the-top and I would like to give huge thanks to Wer for creating the EV spread and to Matt for suggesting I use it.

How Red Team Performed in Indiana

To begin with, I almost did not make registration. It was past registration time by a few minutes and I told the judge not to worry about getting me in, but they waited for me and I barely signed up in time. So after coming to terms with not playing in the tournament and then suddenly playing in the tournament, I did not have high expectations for myself right out the door. This fact greatly helped my actual performance, I believe.

Round 1: Jordan Becks

My opponent tells me that he’s not very good and that he is only playing in the video game because he missed out on top cut of the card game. So naturally I come in to the match with high hopes of winning this round.

Team Preview: Chandelure, Latios, Krookodile, Bisharp, Haxorus, Zoroark
My team (leads first): Chandelure, Gastrodon, Scizor, Breloom
His leads: Haxorus, Krookodile

So with the opening turn I had Chandelure and Gastrodon out for good type coverage and to feel around his team a bit. Somehow Zoroark managed to slip my mind in the team preview and it could have went terribly for me. I chose to switch Chandelure out for Breloom to take the Crunch from Krookodile while Gastrodon Ice Beamed the Haxorus, which KO’s it in one hit, but not before landing a Dragon Claw on Gastrodon.

The score was now 4-3 in my favor.

He switched in Latios for the fallen Haxorus and we went into turn two. I switched Breloom in for Scizor because Krookodile’s Crunch had actually gotten the defense drop on it, also Scizor could resist any Dragon type moves from Latios and Crunch from Krookodile. For Gastrodon, I Ice Beamed the Latios and hoped to chip away at it a bit. The Latios used Shadow Ball and Krookodile uses Outrage on Scizor. Shadow Ball had me confused for a bit, but when Gastrodon landed its Ice Beam on the Latios, it was revealed to actually be Zoroark. For turn three, I chose to keep both of my Pokemon out. I had Scizor Bullet Punch the Zoroark for the KO and Gastrodon Ice Beam the Krookodile for the KO as well, not before Krookodile gets an Outrage on Scizor again, however.

4-1

I already knew what his last Pokemon is, and I knew I was in an awesome position to finish the game off as he sends in Latios. For the final turn, I chose to Bug Bite the Latios for the KO and Recover on Gastrodon while the Latios lands an Ice Beam on Scizor.

4-0

Afterwards, I felt great winning my first round, but I knew things were only going to be more difficult. I didn’t let the victory go to my head and focused on the next round.

Round 2: Derek Perkins

My opponent this time told me that he isn’t looking to win and that he was just there for fun. He also mentioned that he was not involved with, nor even heard of, any online forums like Nugget Bridge or Smogon. Going in to this game, I had high hopes for myself again, this time letting it go to my head a bit…

Team preview: Breloom, Togetic, Conkeldurr, Regice, Cradily, Chandelure
My team: Chandelure, Togekiss, Scizor, Breloom
His leads: Chandelure, Togetic

The team preview was not helping my ego at this point. I saw Regice on the team and assumed this would be an easy victory and I would soon learn that it wouldn’t be. The opening match-up is very awkward, but I have the upper hand. On the first turn, I went with Chandelure’s Hidden Power targeting his Chandelure, just in case his Togetic decided to use Follow Me. With Togekiss I used Follow Me, hoping he would Shadow Ball my Chandelure. The animations start and his Togetic uses Helping Hand. My Hidden Power went off and dealt decent damage to his Chandelure. He opted for the Shadow Ball and completely wasted a turn since I chose to follow me. Turn two I expected my Hidden Power to KO his Chandelure, so I chose that again, setting up Tailwind with Togekiss. He Protected his Chandelure and Tri-Attacks my Togekiss for little damage, and although I was more terrified of getting one of the three statuses, none of them landed. The game is going exceedingly well for me at this point, so I get a bit ahead of myself. I Hidden Powered again and went with Air Slash from Togekiss, forgetting to use Follow Me. His Togetic uses Follow Me and tanks the Hidden Power and Air Slash quite well while his Chandelure KO’s mine.

3-4 in his favor.

I had a bad turn, but I wasn’t going to let it get me down. I sent in Scizor. I Bullet Punched Chandelure to clean it up, using Air Slash on it as well just in case the Bullet Punch didn’t do it. The turn starts and he uses Follow Me. I’m now on a one-way trip to Tiltville. His Fire Gem Boosted Heat Wave wrecked my Scizor, but I finished his Togetic off.

2-3

Now I sent in Breloom and he sent in Regice. Surely I couldn’t mess this up; Breloom could KO the Regice in one hit… I hoped. Turn four I went with the Protect on Breloom, expecting his Regice to Protect and Chandelure going for the Breloom KO. Togekiss uses Air Slash to finish off Chandelure. Everything went according to plan, except his Regice used Ice Beam on Togekiss.

2-2

Derek threw out Cradily, and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. Spore could shut down both of the Pokemon easily. For turn six I Spored his Regice, fearing the Ice type, and used Roost on my Togekiss to bring it back up to full health. His Regice was sound asleep while Cradily used Ingrain. Things are looking up for me, for now. Turn seven I opted to Spore the Cradily, only to have it consume its Lum Berry. Togekiss aimed at Cradily with Air Slash, Cradily then Stockpiled up and my heart falls into my stomach. Regice is still napping, luckily. I went for the same turn again, except using Air Slash on Regice. Cradily went to sleep and Regice woke up, only to be flinched. I decide it is time to start shutting these Pokemon down. I Mach Punch the Regice, only to punch into a Protect. Togekiss Air Slashed Cradily for next to nothing while it sleeps undisturbed. Panic mode: engage.

Turn ten I played the exact same turn as last time. Mach Punch doesn’t KO and I’m pretty upset. Regice used Ice Beam on Breloom, activating the Focus Sash, and then froze it as well. Going in to turn eleven, I was for a one-turn thaw. Of course, that didn’t happen, Breloom decided to faint to Regice’s Ice Beam instead. Cradily wakes up and uses Stockpile, I’m accepting my fate at this point.

1-2

Togekiss had to bring it home and it was not looking good. Togekiss is at full health, but so is his +2 Special Defense Cradily while it is Ingrained, his Regice hung on for dear life. For turn twelve, I was on autopilot. Togekiss used Air Slash at Regice, it Protected, I facepalm, Cradily attacked with Giga Drain. I realized it didn’t have Ancient Power and I began to think I might have a chance. Turn thirteen, I finally took out his Regice and Cradily is still Giga Draining it’s little heart out for around ten percent of Togekiss’s max HP. This was where the stall war begins.

1-1

We had about five minutes left in the round and the status was my Togekiss versus Derek’s +2 Special Defense Cradily. Air Slash lands on Cradily and deals around one-eighth of its max HP and it flinches. I learned earlier in the day that when time is called, the first thing that is checked for a tie-breaker is the percentage of Hit Points remaining for each Pokemon, with my recovery method being Roost, I can secure the win. This realization gave me my second wind; I just needed chance and spot-on predictions on my side.

Turn fifteen rolls around and I was still Air Slashing away, causing a flinch again. My opponent was getting quite upset. Sixteen, same play, same outcome. A judge began to watch us as we’re freaking out about the flinches. Cradily is setting at around seventy percent HP and I’m around the same. He has Ingrain and Giga Drain on his side, however. I continued to assure my opponent that he has the win in the bag, hoping that he’ll just spam whatever move to make the game move faster. Togekiss Air Slashes and Cradily flinches. At this point, I was beginning to feel genuinely guilty for the terrible luck I am enabling and benefiting from.

Cradily was down to about sixty-five percent HP and I choose to keep playing the Air Slash lottery. This time I failed to get the flinch and Cradily got a Giga Drain off. Turn eighteen, Togekiss Roosted and Cradily Giga Drained for a bit more damage and Hit Points. Turn Nineteen, Cradily and Togekiss were hovering at around eighty-five percent HP with about two minutes left in the round. Togekiss Air Slashed and Cradily Giga Drained. One minute, thirty seconds. Turn twenty, Togekiss goes for the Air Slash again and Cradily Giga Drains. One minute left. I act like I’m just spamming clicks and go for Air Slash again and he Giga Drains. Cradily is up by about ten percent Hit Points. Thirty-five seconds on the clock. I acted like I’m thinking hard about my next move until the timer gets down to five seconds. He called me out for timer stalling as soon as I click my move. Cradily Protected, predicting an Air Slash! Togekiss Roosted up to max Hit Points and Cradily finished at around ninety-five percent HP after Ingrain and I claimed the victory, albeit barely. Talk about nerve-wracking.

Despite my narrow victory versus Derek, I was still pretty upset with myself. Various misplays put me in a terrible late-game situation that I should not have even won. After beating myself up a bit (and a bit of inner celebration), I felt prepared for round three.

Round 3: Maria Gutin

Having mixed feelings about my play last game, I’m completely prepared for my next challenger, hoping to change the feelings from mixed to good. I’m not entirely sure, but I do believe Maria said that she was not affiliated with Nugget Bridge, if I’m wrong then I’m very sorry if you’re reading this and I don’t have your Nugget Bridge alias posted Maria!

Team Preview: Chandelure, Terrakion, Sableye, Swampert, Cresselia, Ludicolo
My team: Gyarados, Togekiss, Scizor, Gastrodon
Her leads: Chandelure, Terrakion

For this game, I was feeling she would be going for a bit of Trick Room. So I passed on bringing Chandelure, bringing instead Gyarados for Dragon Tail support and Gastrodon just in case Trick Room goes up. Scizor made an appearance on the team to take on Terrakion and Cresselia, which could have given my team big problems. For my opening turn, I Protected Gyarados because I knew Terrakion was going to Rock Slide and I set up Tailwind with Togekiss. All went according to plan and Chandelure switched out for Cresselia. Turn two, I didn’t want Togekiss taking another Rock Slide because it already ate its Sitrus Berry, so I switched it out for Gastrodon. With Gyarados, I went for the Waterfall on Terrakion, hoping for the KO.

I immediately wanted to punch myself in the face. The turn started and Terrakion Protected, then I realize that everything turned out way better now that Gastrodon is going to be redirecting the Waterfall to it anyway for the Special Attack boost. Cresselia Ice Beamed Gyarados for respectable damage. Turn three, I was fearing Trick Room with Tailwind up so Gyarados used Dragon Tail on Cresselia. Gastrodon with +1 Special Attack was itching to ruin that Terrakion’s day, so I went for the Earth Power. She switched Terrakion out for Swampert so Earth Power didn’t hit too hard, sadly. Gyarados’s Dragon Tail connected before Cresselia can do anything; therefore it prevented a Trick Room. Cresselia went out for Terrakion again.

Turn four rolls around and all Pokemon except Gastrodon Protect, which went for the Earth Power. Turn five, I was not ready for Gyarados to get beat down yet because I need him for Intimidate and Dragon Tail support, so I switched him for Scizor while Gastrodon Earth Powered Swampert, expecting Terrakion to Protect. Terrakion used Rock Slide, however, and Scizor took an Ice Punch from Swampert. Scizor came out for Gyarados for a quick Intimidate and a Ground immunity. Gastrodon Recovered. Terrakion Protected and Swampert attempted to Earthquake, but hit only Gastrodon for negligible damage.

I realized I was playing a very dangerous switching game, losing Hit Points on my Pokemon fast. So I decided it was time to start dishing out some damage. Gyarados Protected again, waiting for Gastrodon to KO Terrakion, but the Earth Power activated Terrakion’s Focus Sash, sadly. Terrakion attempted to throw another Rock Slide but Gastrodon avoided it. Swampert switched out for Cresselia. Coming up on turn eight, I was in a rough position offensively. My Gastrodon needed to Recover and my other Pokemon were hurting quite a bit and no KO’s have been issued. I switched Gyarados out for Scizor again and Gastrodon Recovered. Terrakion went for another Rock Slide, dealing negligible damage to both of my Pokemon and Cresselia Psyshocks Gastrodon for another tiny chunk of damage. Turn nine and neither my opponent nor I have scored a KO. I Bullet Punched the Terrakion for the KO and Gastrodon Protects from a Cresselia Psyshock.

4-3 in my favor.

Chandelure steps in for the defeated Terrakion. I go for a double switch, Scizor out for Gyarados and Gastrodon out for Togekiss, a very strong turn because Chandelure whiffs a Shadow Ball at Togekiss and Cresselia Psyshocks Togekiss for just a bit of damage. I believe I am finally in the position to go on offense fully. Gyarados Waterfalls Chandelure for KO while Togekiss uses Follow me to pull another Shadow Ball and Psyshock.

4-2

By turn twelve,  it appeared the game will be going to time before the end. Swampert came in for the fallen Chandelure. Gyarados Waterfalled Cresselia for chip damage and Togekiss used Roost. Cresselia Ice Beamed the Togekiss and Swampert Ice Punched Gyarados. Not being in any hurry, I switch Togekiss out for Scizor and Gyarados Waterfalls Cresselia some more. Ice Beam went for Gyarados and Ice Punch went for Scizor this time. I Bullet Punched the Swampert for the cleanup, but it Protected and Gyarados continued to Waterfall Cresselia. Cresselia used Hidden Power Fire on Scizor and KO’ed it.

3-2

Time was called and I put another victory under my belt. I felt quite good about my performance, now starting to believe I can go the distance. But then, for the first time that day, I was paired against a Nugget Bridge member.

Round 4: Cassie “Cassie” Fordyce

Cassie let me know that she is an admin for Nugget Bridge and I instantly knew I have a rough battle ahead of me. But on the other hand, I was almost halfway through the tournament without a loss, so I was not entirely worried about losing.

Team preview: Reuniclus, Gastrodon, Metagross, Abomasnow, Chandelure, Scrafty
My team: Gyarados, Togekiss, Gastrodon, Breloom
Her leads: Chandelure, Scrafty

Pretty similar strategy as last game on my side. I picked Breloom over Scizor in the match-up to deal with Scrafty and Gastrodon better.

I opened turn one with the Follow Me and Dragon Tail. Scrafty used Stone Edge, and I cried a little inside. Chandelure switched out for Metagross, who then got Dragon Tailed into Abomasnow. Already by turn two, the game wasn’t looking so awesome for me. I Roosted Togekiss to heal up and remove the Ice/Rock weaknesses while switching Gastrodon in for Gyarados. Gastrodon took a Stone Edge and Blizzard, while Togekiss froze. A feeling of doom rose over me. I attempted Roost on Togekiss, and it thawed! I switched Gyarados in for Gastrodon in the meantime, predicting a grass move of some sort from Abomasnow. Scrafty exited the battlefield for Metagross and Abomasnow continued to Blizzard, this time freezing Gyarados! Remember that feeling of dread? It was back again. Togekiss attempted to Air Slash Abomasnow, but a Meteor Mash from Metagross and Blizzard were too much for Togekiss and it tapped out for the first time this tournament. Gyarados amazingly thaws and lands a tasty Earthquake on the two opposing pokemon. I began to fear my luck was going to catch up with me before the end of the tournament.

3-4 in Cassie’s favor.

Breloom came in after Togekiss and made an attempt to Spore Abomasnow while Gyarados attacked Metagross with Waterfall. The opposing team Protected and Gyarados fell to hail damage and Breloom’s Focus Sash broke.

2-4

Gastrodon stepped (squiggled?) in for Gyarados and Earth Powered Metagross for the KO, but not before it knocked out Breloom. Scrafty stepped in for Abomasnow and immediately fell asleep, thanks to the doomed Breloom.

1-3

Abomasnow came out ready to do work, and work is exactly what it did to claim victory for Cassie. I wasn’t really bummed at all about this match, I was outplayed by a great player and she was extremely nice about it. She openly invited me to become an active member in the Nugget Bridge community, which is why I’m even writing this article in the first place! So a big shout-out to Cassie for kicking my team’s teeth in and being really nice about it.

Round 5: Alex Moy

For this battle, I believe my opponent was running a bit late, so I did not get a chance to speak with him much about himself. The previous battle put my feet back on the ground and gave me a bit of tunnel vision, therefore my note-taking skills took a hit for this battle.

Team preview: Tyranitar, Scizor, Zapdos, Garchomp, Cresselia, Hitmontop
My team: Togekiss, Gastrodon, Scizor, Breloom
His leads: Cresselia, Zapdos

Going in to team preview, I breathed a sigh of relief. I’m not saying his team was not good, he just happened to be using Pokemon that I understood very well. I knew if I was careful around the Tyranitar and Cresselia, I could take the match handily. Therefore, I brought Scizor to see if I could scout Alex’s team out a bit and pin his Scizor counter. I wouldn’t be leading with Scizor, however, because I wanted to prepare for a Hitmontop lead and did not want to be Intimidated. Togekiss is a natural at making Hitmontops very sad, so she was an obvious choice. Gastrodon was paired with Togekiss, simply because Gastrodon has solid type coverage against this team and I could use Follow Me to scout potential Hidden Power Grass or Energy Ball. Team preview started to run into the last seconds so Breloom was hastily chosen to clean up whatever Gastrodon could not one-hit KO, should Scizor fall to an unexpected turn of events.

I’m pretty happy with my match-up for turn one so I surprisingly decide to go on the offensive right out the door. My plan was to have Togekiss set up Tailwind while Gastrodon worked on Zapdos with Ice Beams. His Cresselia cut my Tailwind boost in half, however, by using an Icy Wind, while Zapdos let out a Hidden Power Ice on Togekiss. Gastrodon’s Ice Beam dealt enough damage to activate Zapdos’s Sitrus Berry.

Togekiss had done all it could do for now, so I switched her out for Scizor to threaten Cresselia. Gastrodon launched another Ice Beam at Zapdos, aiming to KO. His Cresselia threw another Icy Wind and Zapdos used Hidden Power Ice on Scizor before fainting.

4-3 in my favor.

Tyranitar stepped in for the fallen Zapdos. I decided to let Gastrodon keep bringing the pain and use Earth Power on Tyranitar while Scizor Protected to scout for Hidden Power Fire or Fire Punch. His Cresselia attempted to Thunder Wave Scizor and Tyranitar caused a Rock Slide, dealing a bit of damage to Gastrodon. Feeling pretty confident in Scizor’s safety, I let him loose. He took aim at Tyranitar with Bullet Punch, but he Protected. Cresellia landed a Thunder Wave on Scizor and Gastrodon Recovered to full Hit Points. Scizor was now paralyzed, but I reasoned that as long as he didn’t fail to move too many times we were still in a pretty good situation. Scizor Bullet Punched once again for turn five and landed the KO on Tyranitar. Cresselia continued to spray the Icy Wind and Gastrodon chipped away at Cresselia with an Ice Beam.

4-2

Garchomp was now in with Cresselia as the last two defending Pokemon. Garchomp does not scare me in the least, as long as  his Sand Veil does not get out of hand. I obviously made an attempt to Ice Beam his Garchomp. With Scizor hovering under fifty percent HP, I decide to use Protect  just in case he didn’t Protect with Garchomp. Sure enough, Garchomp Earthquaked and Cresselia used Psychic on Gastrodon, getting the Special Defense drop and putting Gastrodon at critical HP. Garchomp fell easily to Gastrodon’s Ice Beam, however, and leaving Cresselia all by her lonesome.

4-1

Cresselia made an attempt to finish Scizor off with Icy Wind on turn seven, but Bug Bite on turns seven and eight took Cresselia down.

4-0

This battle felt great for me, but I wasn’t going to let it tilt me. Not yet anyway…

Round 6: ?????

This round, I embarrassingly sat in the wrong seat up until the round almost started. I had to hurry to my correct seat and forgot to write my opponent’s name and the team preview. All that I remember is that he was a male.

My team: Breloom, Togekiss, Gastrodon, Scizor
His leads: Ludicolo, Politoed

I picked quickly because I was running a bit late. I just grabbed a few Pokemon I knew were good against rain teams. Normally I bring Chandelure to bait in Water moves for Gastrodon, but it didn’t happen this game.

Turn one I was prepared for my Breloom to eat an Ice Beam from either Ludicolo or Politoed, or even both. I chose to Protect Breloom while Togekiss set up Tailwind to put the team up to speed with Ludicolo. Ludicolo Ice Beamed Togekiss and Politoed used Surf, buffing Ludicolo with its Absorb Bulb. Now it was time for Breloom to start doing work. He put the Ludicolo to sleep and Togekiss Roosted to heal some damage and take less damage from Politoed’s Ice Beam. Turn three I decided to go offensive, which seemed really early for me so far. Breloom Bullet Seeded the Politoed for the KO and Togekiss Air Slashed the Ludicolo, only to have it switch into Metagross.

4-3 in my favor.

One Pokemon down, though Politoed wasn’t much of a threat to my team anyway. He sent out Dragonite. I felt like Breloom needed to start Sporing things. Togekiss used Follow Me and Breloom attempted to put Dragonite to sleep. Big mistake. Dragonite threw Thunder Togekiss’s way, then Metagross Zen Headbutted Togekiss to near-fatal. Breloom landed the Spore on Dragonite. Not wanting to have Togekiss eat another Thunder, I switched into Gastrodon and Breloom went for the Spore on Metagross. My opponent wasn’t buying it. Metagross Protected and Dragonite woke up in time to blast Breloom with a  Hurricane and activate its Focus Sash. Turn six, Metagross Zen Headbutted into Breloom’s Protect while Gastrodon threw an Ice Beam into Dragonite’s Protect. Breloom sacrificed himself for the greater good and Mach Punched the Dragonite to break its Multiscale, should it have it as its ability. Gastrodon went for the KO on Dragonite, but not before Breloom fell to Dragonite’s Hurricane. Metagross just stood around using Protect as half of the field got wiped.

3-2

I knew Ludicolo is his last Pokemon, so I sent out Scizor. Scizor used Bug Bite on the sleeping Ludicolo for the KO. Metagross tried its hardest with an Earthquake, but deals negligible damage. Gastrodon cleans up Metagross with Earth Power for the win.

By this point I had learned that any players with two losses or less would be making the top-cut of 32. I have one loss under my belt and three more matches to play and I start to think that I actually was going to make it to top-cut relatively easily. I should have spent my time between games six and seven preparing my face to make another visit with the floor.

Round 7: Richard “TheAshAttacks” Ashby

Richard sat across from me and we chatted it up for a bit. He told me he was just using Lajo’s team, which I had no idea who Lajo was or what the team was. We go into team preview and I was nowhere near as prepared as I should have been for the trashing this team was about to deliver me.

His team: Ninetales, Cresselia, Heatran, Thundurus, Amoonguss, Scrafty
My team: Togekiss, Gyarados, Gastrodon, Breloom
His leads: Ninetales, Thundurus

In team preview I saw Ninetales. I had a lot of experience playing with and against Ninetales and it never went well for any Ninetales involved, so I got a bit cocky going into battle. I saw potential for Trick Room with Cresselia and Scrafty, so I lead with Togekiss-Gyarados to put a stop to that. Breloom came to put everything to sleep and Gastrodon came to sweep.

I saw his leads and was unconcerned. I hoped that Gyarados would bait the Thunderbolt from Thundurus as I switched Gastrodon in for it. Togekiss set up Tailwind to get some momentum. Ninetales burned a Fire Gem-boosted Overheat on Gastrodon and dealt rather decent damage. Thundurus did Thunderbolt, but not at Gastrodon and dealt considerable damage to Togekiss. I figure that Ninetales is going out for a switch or is going to do little damage so I choose to ignore it. Gastrodon Protected (I’m so paranoid about Grass Knot on Thundurus) and Togekiss Roosted to heal up. Thundurus used Thunderbolt on Togekiss for neutral damage and Ninetales attempted to Power Swap Gastrodon. I knew I absolutely need to keep Gastrodon alive so I had Togekiss use Follow Me while Gastrodon tried to Recover. Ninetales Protected and Thundurus paralyzes Togekiss. I was not prepared to lose Togekiss either, so she tried to Roost, only to be Taunted by Thundurus. Ninetales Power Swaped Gastrodon before its Ice Beam connected with Thundurus. At this point, I was way too far on tilt to even think about what Power Swap does. Turn five came around and I was in tunnel vision. Togekiss used Air Slash on Ninetales and Gastrodon used Ice Beam on Thundurus. Thundurus landed his Thunderbolt on Togekiss and Ninetales used Solarbeam on Gastrodon. I was pretty visibly upset at this point. Somehow I managed to forget that Ninetales learned Solarbeam and now was playing like garbage. Togekiss barely hung in there, but Gastrodon was done for.

3-4 in Ashby’s favor.

I lost the most important offensive and defensive Pokemon on my team in this matchup and I know things are going to fall apart fast. Out came Gyarados for Gastrodon. Gyarados Protected while Togekiss proceeded to faint at the hands of Thundurus’s Thunderbolt. Ninetales Solarbeamed on Gyarados’s Protect.

2-4

Breloom reluctantly stepped up. My only hope was to Spore Thundurus and hope Breloom didn’t get Taunted by Thundurus for some unknown reason. Gyarados Protected again hoping for the 50/50 chance to succeed and also for Thundurus to attack it. Breloom gets Taunted and Overheated, Focus Sash activates. Last hope. The only play that I think could possibly have brought me out of that situation would be to Bullet Seed Thundurus for five critical hits and then proceed to sweep with Gyarados. That didn’t happen.

0-4

Welcome to my worst defeat ever. Ashby took down all of my Pokemon without switching his lead Pokemon and barely taking damage. I have no idea what his other two Pokemon were. I didn’t feel the need to drag myself down further by asking him. All self-hate aside, I was pretty excited to lose to such an interesting team, even though he didn’t make it. Surely things couldn’t get worse…… Right?

Game 8: Srihari ”Thadenvy” Yenamandra

I wasn’t going to let my previous game get me down. I watched the replay a few times between rounds and learned where I messed up. Talking with my opponent and people around me, my opponent said his name on Nugget Bridge’s forums is Thadenvy. I should have kept my mouth shut. See, I played Thadenvy multiple times on Pokemon Showdown and even sought his help in team-building after I couldn’t beat him multiple times. He knew everything about my team. I then introduced myself under my Nugget Bridge name and thought it was cool because we talked a lot on Showdown. Then I immediately face-palmed. I look at and tell him that he was probably going to win. He responds with “Yeah your team is pretty predictable.”

Team Preview: Rotom-C, Volcarona, Weavile, Salamence, ?????, ?????
My team: Chandelure, Togekiss, Gyarados, Breloom
His leads: Weavile, Volcarona

What team preview said to me is that he will open Fake-Out and Volcarona. I finally got to destroy a Volcarona with the Hidden Power on Chandelure! Or so I wanted him to think. I switched Chandelure into Gyarados to drop Weavile’s Attack, expecting the Night Slash on Chandelure. He instead switched Weavile out for Salamence. Togekiss set up Tailwind and took a super-effective Hidden Power from Volcarona. Gyarados attempted to Waterfall the Volcarona, but Rotom-C switched in. Togekiss went for the Air Slash on Salamence, it switched out for Weavile. Now I didn’t have to worry about a Focus Sash on Weavile. Next turn, Togekiss avoided Weavile’s Fake-Out by switching out for Chandelure. Gyarados Protected itself from Rotom’s Thunderbolt. Expecting him to KO Chandelure before it can even move, I immediately switched Chandelure back to Togekiss and Gyarados out for Breloom to avoid a Thunderbolt. He instead Protects both of his Pokemon. Turn five Breloom Mach Punched at Weavile and Togekiss Air Slashed at Rotom-C, only to fall to Rotom’s Thunderbolt before it can attack.

3-3

With Weavile out of the way, I sent Chandelure out. Thadenvy sent out Salamence. Breloom attempted to Spore Salamence only to have it switch into Volcarona and Chandelure began spamming Heat Wave. Rotom-C Protected itself for now. Breloom Spored at Rotom-C, just in case it tried to switch to Salamence and Chandelure continued taking its only offensive option. Rotom-C fell to Heat Wave.

3-2 in my favor.

Salamence returned. Chandelure fired off one more Heat Wave, almost KO-ing Volcarona but leaving it with a burn. Salamence used Draco Meteor on Chandelure and took it down easily. Volcarona woke up in time to fire off a Heat Wave of its own and bring Breloom to one Hit Point. Breloom, deciding there wasn’t enough sleeping going on, put Salamence to sleep. Volcarona fell to its burn and I sent in Gyarados.

2-1

Two turns of Bullet Seeds and Waterfalls later, Gyarados and Breloom brought home the win!

Afterwards, I felt a little bit bad for bumping Thadenvy out of top-cut, but I knew it had to be one of us. I just walked off and tried to gather myself before the last round. Again, being at the verge of losing top-cut only to come out on top left me with very little stress for round nine.

Round 9: Jimmy “Team Rocket Elite” Kwa

I sat across from Jimmy and we didn’t talk much. I believe we were both ready to get this final round out of the way and figure out which of us would be moving on to top-cut.

Team preview: Aerodactyl, Politoed, Kingdra, Togekiss, Breloom, ?????
My Team: Chandelure, Togekiss, Gastrodon, Breloom
His leads:  Togekiss, Breloom

I knew quite a bit about Aerodactyl, because it is one of my favorite Pokemon. I knew it had an extremely fast Taunt and was no pushover offensively either. I chose Chandelure and Togekiss for the leads because I could switch into Gastrodon if Politoed-Kingdra were out. I would chase off Togekiss-Breloom pretty well, and Aerodactyl couldn’t take out Chandelure before it was taken down. Opening turn Chandelure threw out a Heat Wave and Togekiss sets up Tailwind. Kingdra and Politoed came in to battle now. Going in to turn two, I felt like I already had momentum in my favor. Gastrodon came in for Chandelure and Togekiss Air Slashed Politoed in an attempt to get some damage and possibly a flinch in. Kingdra used a Life Orb-boosted Muddy Water and dealt negligible damage to Togekiss and gave Gastrodon a Special Attack boost. Turboslug is now primed. Politoed flinched. Turn three I’m expecting a Draco Meteor on Gastrodon and I’m not thrilled at the idea of switching into either of my Pokemon in the back, so Togekiss continued to use Air Slash. Kingdra Protected and Politoed switched out to have Togekiss take the Air Slash for it. Togekiss prepared for a Draco Meteor and used Follow Me, his Togekiss did the same. Gastrodon Ice Beamed the opposing Togekiss and froze it while Kingdra stepped out for Breloom. I knew he was going to expect another Follow Me, therefore I double-targeted on his Breloom. Togekiss’s Air Slash landed activating Breloom’s Focus Sash, but Gastrodon went to sleep. With Gastrodon being extremely susceptible to Bullet Seed, I brought Chandelure back out. Togekiss made an attempt to set up Tailwind again, but took a nap instead. His frozen Togekiss swapped out for Kingdra. Turn seven and neither of us have scored a KO. It seemed the first to lose a Pokemon will forfeit all momentum. Hoping he would expect another Gastrodon switch-in for Chandelure, I kept it in to use Heat Wave and switch Togekiss for Gastrodon instead. Nevertheless, Kingdra uses Muddy Water and buffs Gastrodon again, but KO-ing Chandelure. His Breloom Protected itself.

3-4 in Jimmy’s favor.

I sent in Breloom to put Kingdra on my other Pokemon’s level. Breloom Mach Punched at Jimmy’s Breloom in hopes of getting the KO while waiting for Kingdra to burn its free Protect. Gastrodon Earth Powered at Breloom as well, just in case. Kingdra Protected as planned and Jimmy switched his Breloom for Togekiss. Breloom aimed to put Kingdra to sleep, but not until after Kingdra brought it to Focus Sash with Draco Meteor. Gastrodon finished off Togekiss with an Ice Beam.

3-3

With one of his Pokemon at one Hit Point and the other two asleep, I’m in a pretty awesome situation. Breloom came in for Togekiss and immediately fell to Mach Punch from mine. Gastrodon Earth Powered Kingdra as it napped.

3-2

Politoed was now in as Jimmy’s last two Pokemon. Bullet Seed from Breloom took care of it easily though, and Gastrodon cleaned up Kingdra with another Earth Power.

3-0

*I tried to contain myself as best as I could after I saw the victory screen. Probability helped me win that battle and it didn’t make me feel good, but this is the game we play. I realize it is much easier for me to say in this position, but all I can do is keep on playing.

-* I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to handle explaining games full of probability issues.

All of the Masters get to take an hour break before top-cut begins. My hour was actually spent just pacing about waiting for it to start. I finally get to my seat, and there is a white box that projects our matches onto the screens at the spectator’s area. I was pretty excited at this point; I had quite a few friends rooting for me, and now they can watch things unfurl.

Top 32, Game 1: Geoff “PROFESSORLABCOAT” Hamilton

Geoff and I did the normal pre-game discussions and I just couldn’t be happier. I finally top-cut a tournament and have already done infinitely better than I had expected. I was not going to be upset at all if I lost to Geoff, but I definitely was going to make him fight for it.

Team preview: Cresselia, Heatran, Exeggutor, Sableye, Ninetales, Gastrodon
My team: Chandelure, Togekiss, Breloom, Gastrodon
His leads: Exeggutor, Ninetales

As soon as I got into team preview I saw Ninetales and I wanted it KO’ed as soon as possible. I’m now going to take a break from typing out these battles and actually let you watch one! Please excuse the quality, it was captured on a phone.

So there was game one. I was feeling pretty good after that victory and was hoping I could use my momentum to carry me through game two.

Top 32, Game 2:

My team: Chandelure, Togekiss, Breloom, Gastrodon
His leads: Gastrodon, Ninetales

Turn one of this round I was pretty confident in Togekiss’s ability to survive an Overheat from Ninetales, eat its Sitrus Berry, and then survive an Ice Beam (Hope for an Earth Power) from Gastrodon. Togekiss used Follow Me and Chandelure used Hidden Power on Ninetales. Togekiss survived the Overheat and Ice Beam as expected. Turn two, Chandelure repeated of turn one, only to hit a switching in Cresselia. Togekiss healed itself up and Gastrodon KO’ed Chandelure with its Ground Gem Earth Power.

3-4 in Geoff’s favor.

Breloom came out to stop Cresselia from setting up Trick Room. Breloom succeeded in putting Cresselia to sleep, while Geoff’s Gastrodon switched out for Heatran and Togekiss lands an Air Slash on it. While Cresselia slept, I didn’t want his Heatran setting up Substitute so Breloom went for the Mach Punch, in hopes of bringing its Hit Points low enough to stop it. Heatran still manages to get Substitute set up. Gastrodon came in for Togekiss to deal with Heatran and Cresselia was out like a rock. Turn five I expected Cresselia to wake up or for Heatran to use Heat Wave. Breloom Protected, but so does Heatran. Cresselia woke up to use Psyshock and Gastrodon Earth Powers, both smacking into Protect. Breloom was at full Hit Points so I knew I could get one Spore off. I chose to put Cresselia to sleep and Earth Power Heatran again, but Heatran ate a Shuca Berry. Turn seven Breloom made an attempt to finish off Heatran, but it Protected. Cresselia woke up in time to finish Breloom off, but then took a bit of damage from Gastrodon’s Ice Beam.

2-4

Togekiss and Breloom were pretty low on Hit Points at this point, but I knew I couldn’t let Heatran get a Substitute set up. I decided to go full-offensive against the Heatran. It used Heat Wave, and I proceed to lose game two.

0-4

Top 32, Game 3:

Going in to game three, I realized it is time to bring Gyarados around and put Geoff’s Heatran in it’s place. I passed up bringing Chandelure and take Gyarados instead.

My leads: Togekiss, Breloom
His leads: Ninetales, Exeggutor

Right out the door Exeggutor was a giant threat. In game one I was caught off guard by his Exeggutor having Chlorophyll and not Harvest, but in game three I was feeling very savvy to his team. My plan was to put Exeggutor to sleep while Togekiss took the big hits it had taken in the previous matches. Instead he double-targeted Breloom for the KO and Togekiss set up Tailwind.

3-4

Losing a Pokemon on turn one doesn’t happen very often for me, but I wasn’t going to let this setback get me down. Gastrodon was in. Gastrodon attempted to use Earth Power on Ninetales, but Cresselia comes in for it. Exeggutor landed a Psyshock on Togekiss. Two turns of Life Orb damage and an Air Slash from Togekiss took Exeggutor down.

3-3

Geoff threw out Ninetales and turn three began. Gyarados used Waterfall on Cresselia in hopes of weakening it and betting on Ninetales using Protect. Ninetales instead decided to Overheat on Togekiss. It survived and Roosted back up to health. Cresselia tried to whittle down Gyarados with a Psyshock in the meantime. With my Water Gem gone, I decided to start using Earthquake. Togekiss Roosted back up to full health just after Gyarados slammed down an Earthquake, KO-ing Ninetales. Cresselia Skill Swapped Gyarados and Intimidated my team.

3-2

Heatran came out as the last offensive presence on Geoff’s team. Completely forgetting about the sun still being in effect, I continued to use Waterfall, which was pretty moronic considering I could be hitting Heatran for x4 weakness and still hit Cresselia because she no longer had Levitate. Togekiss set up Tailwind and Geoff’s Pokemon attempt to take down Togekiss, but fail. Gyarados and Togekiss eventually cleaned up Heatran and Cresselia and we advanced to the next round!

Top 16, Game 1: Enosh “Human” Shachar

Going into the round of sixteen I started to believe I could go all the way. I had my friends’ support and I played well on the monitors. I had momentum. Then I learned the name of the person I was playing. Not even a week before this tournament I watched Enosh battle Kamaal H. on Nugget Bridge’s Tuesday Night Fights. Knowing about his performance there, I was quite sure I was in for an extremely difficult battle.

Team preview: Abomasnow, Scrafty, Rhyperior, Rotom-W, Misdreavus, Cresselia
My team: Gyarados, Togekiss, Chandelure, Breloom
His leads: Rotom-W, Abomasnow

I took a look at team preview, made a double-take, and then stared in disbelief. This year’s competition was nothing like US Nationals the previous year. The only thing I could efficiently point out was Trick Room, the rest I was going to have to play by ear.

Going off of Trick Room, I chose my general lead for it, totally forgetting to bring Gastrodon. When turn one started, I’m already in trouble. Rotom-W was so ready to make my entire team miserable, and I failed to bring any efficient switch-ins for this matchup. I started by trying to take care of Abomasnow so I can bring Breloom around. Enosh saw this coming a mile away and Protected. Rotom Thunderbolted into Gyarados’s Protect as well. I was not ready to give up on Gyarados just yet, so I switched out for Chandelure and ate Rotom’s Thunderbolt. Togekiss managed to safely Roost before Abomasnow unleashed a Blizzard. Chandelure began using Heat Wave and landed a burn on Rotom but Abomasnow Protected itself from it, as well as Togekiss’s Air Slash. Turn four Chandelure Heat Waves again, Abomasnow switched out for Misdreavus, however. Togekiss Roosted yet again, but Chandelure fell to the Thunderbolt of Rotom.

3-4 in Enosh’s favor.

Breloom cames out in hopes of scaring off Rotom. Breloom used Bullet Seed at Rotom, but it switched into Scrafty. Togekiss Air Slashed the Misdreavus and it flinched. Turn six Breloom switched to let Gyarados Intimidate Scrafty while it burns its Fake-out. Togekiss continueed to Air Slash the Misdreavus, but this time it set up Trick Room. Now I was in a really bad spot. I made an attempt to Waterfall Scrafty, but Enosh sent Rotom in to take the hit and be KO’d. Misdreavus Pain Split Togekiss and then Togekiss Roosted again.

3-3

I may have gotten a KO, but it was on purpose by Enosh and I was not in a better position because of it. Abomasnow came back in as we started turn eight. Gyarados was looking to take Misdreavus down, but it instead switched to Scrafty. Abomasnow set up Substitute, but it got shut down shortly after by Togekiss’s Air Slash. Expecting a Blizzard, I protected Gyarados and Air Slashed the Scrafty. Abomasnow finally got the Substitute up. A few Drain Punches and Blizzards later, my team was all knocked out.

0-3

Top 16, Game 2:

I have another video! Hooray for my fingers!

Once again, with the forgetting of the Gastrodon. I didn’t really realize it at first, but after reevaluating this series I realized how much each of my other Pokemon depend on each other defensively. If I failed to bring Pokemon that can switch well with each other or if I played against a player that is absolutely better than me, this team will definitely lose. Many people who watch Enosh and I’s game two point out the “unlucky freeze” that occurs. I don’t attribute this to the reason why I lost this game like quite a few would. My failure to completely understand my team and use it within the intended methods was the reason I lost that series. The fact that Enosh is one of the top players around might have had something to do with it too.

Closing Statements

I’m not upset with myself in the least for my loss. It allowed me to learn much more about my team and myself. Not only that, but I get to have some pretty awesome bragging rights in my group.  I just wanted to thank everyone I’ve missed so far in this article. El_Scorcho for helping me build the team. All of my friends who supported me back home and all of the friends I met at the event who supported me. As well as my Poke-Poke teammates. I had an amazing time and hope to meet up again in the 2014 circuit.

Article image created by The Knights of Wario Land for Nugget Bridge. See more of his artwork on Tumblr.

The post Don’t Super Effective Me Bro! US Nationals Top 16 Team Analysis. appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

With the completion of Season 2 of Rating Battles on the Pokemon Global Link, the rankings of the top twelve most used Pokemon in each format have been released, as well as extensive data about each individual Pokemon. While simply getting accurate data about the usage of the top 12 Pokemon on Special Battle Spot, as well as the type of data on all Pokemon we received last generation would have been helpful in its own right, these statistics are by far the most detailed I have ever seen in Pokemon. Each Pokemon is listed with its most common moves, ability, items, and natures, as they were in Generation 5′s Global Link. What is new is that each Pokemon is now also listed with their ten most common teammates instead of six, as well as a bunch of new information on two totally new tabs. One tab includes the 10 moves each Pokemon used most frequently to score knock outs (rather than in matches it won like the text suggests, judging by the lack of non-attacking moves) and the 10 enemy Pokemon the Pokemon in question defeated most frequently, while the other new tab shows the Pokemon who most frequently defeated the Pokemon in question and the 10 moves they cumulatively used most commonly to do so.

I think this information should be really valuable to players when teambuilding because it offers a lot of relatively objective data about what is happening in rated battles. What Pokemon are successfully countering common threats? What enemy Pokemon are players selecting common Pokemon to counter for them? What items, moves, abilities, and natures are players using on their Pokemon? These questions are all answered by this data. There’s far too much to export into an article, so I encourage players to check out the data themselves on the Pokemon Global Link website by logging in, clicking Rating Battles, changing the drop-down menu option to Season 2, clicking Special Battles, and viewing the data on the bottom of the page.

One thing that is easy to present in an article are the 12 most common Pokemon in last season’s Special Battle Spot competition:

#1 Garchomp

#2 Rotom-Wash

#3 Kangaskhan

#4 Talonflame

#5 Salamence

#6 Mawile

#7 Tyranitar

#8 Aegislash

#9 Charizard

#10 Gardevoir

#11 Meowstic

#12 Manectric

Expect a more detailed write-up from me in the near future comparing these stats with the data from Winter Regionals top cut and Showdown’s usage stats, but here are some fun bonus facts from the data for now:

• The top 12 features seven Pokemon capable of Mega Evolving. Four of those Pokemon are generally considered by most players to be the game’s strongest Mega Evolutions in the cases of Kangaskhan, Mawile, Charizard, and Manectric, all of which held Mega Stones over 95% of the time they were used. The other three Pokemon who can Mega Evolve from the top 12 — Tyranitar, Gardevoir, and Garchomp — are much more frequently seen using other items, with Tyranitar having only a 14.3% chance of holding Tyranitarite, and Garchomp and Gardevoir combining for less than a 10% rate of holding their respective Mega Stones.
• As you might expect compared to the data from North American Regionals, the data here has some Pokemon that tend to be more common in Japan at a much higher rate of usage. Given that Japan is by far the region with the most players participating in Battle Spot, especially at high ratings, I don’t think this is very surprising. Obvious beneficiaries include Aegislash, Gardevoir, Meowstic, and Mawile, with Amoonguss finishing meaningfully higher in North America than it did here. It’ll be interesting to see how data from European Nationals looks in comparison to the isolated North American data and the heavily Japanese-biased Battle Spot data.
• With that said, the top of the data is incredibly similar. #1 on both lists is Garchomp, #2 is Rotom-W, #3 is Kangaskhan, #4 is Talonflame, #5 is Salamence, and Tyranitar is #6 in North America and #7 in the Battle Spot stats, so the top of the metagame seems to be pretty well defined, with regional preferences filling out the slots below, at least for now.
• It shouldn’t be surprising at this point, but 88.3% of Garchomp used Rough Skin. It’s funny to think back that only a year and a half ago at 2012 Worlds, most of us thought Sejun was crazy for using it over Sand Veil…
• What may be more interesting about VGC 14′s most common Pokemon is that no item on Garchomp reached 20% usage, with five different items finishing between 9% and 19% usage. Flexibility is clearly something players value in an environment with item clause, especially now that the type gems aren’t available.
• Talonflame is a Pokemon that a lot of players have strong opinions about. While we’ll continue to debate its usefulness, getting objective data on the way people are using it will be helpful for team building. Unsurprisingly, Life Orb and Adamant are both the most common choices of Talonflame players, though Choice Band is at a respectable (and probably underplayed) 23.5%. What is a little more surprising is Sharp Beak and Sky Plate combining for 12.1%…
• I feel like most people would guess that Gardevoir’s most common item — probably by far — would be Choice Scarf. That assumption is apparently incorrect, with Choice Specs being used 34.2% of the time and Choice Scarf being used only 29.9% of the time. This doesn’t feel reflective of my experiences to me, at least with the players I was playing with at the end of the season, but I guess I’ll have to start questioning my assumptions about Gardevoir a little. Sitrus Berry was next at 20.0%.
• The data does a pretty good job of suggesting counters. The top 4 Pokemon who defeated Mawile? Garchomp, Rotom-W, Charizard, and Talonflame. For Kangaskhan, the top 5 includes Garchomp, Mawile, Aegislash, Talonflame, and …other Kangaskhan. The data doesn’t lie in this case. If anyone reading this finds themselves struggling with specific Pokemon, look at the stats under the “When you lost” tab.
• If I would have told you while I was casting in Vancouver that Tyranitar’s second, third, and fourth most common attacking moves in generation 6 would be Dark Pulse, Fire Blast, and Ice Beam, I might have been thrown off the stage, but here we are. It’s really interesting to me how some of the most powerful Pokemon can adapt to new metagames. In the case of Tyranitar, adapting to use its coverage instead of power to get around Intimidate and the buffed Will-o-Wisp.
• Smeargle’s most common item was Focus Sash at 75.9%. Choice Scarf was only used 18.4% of the time. While I think almost everyone thinks Dark Void should have stayed banned, it’s fun to see Transform at its 5th most used move.
• Meowstic’s second most common move at 63.9%? Swagger. Swagger is god.

The post Stats for Season 2 of Pokemon Global Link Competition Released appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Today, Nintendo announced that they will be discontinuing the Nintendo WiFi Connection for all Nintendo DS and Wii games starting May 20th, 2014. This includes every Pokémon title on those platforms. If you have any Pokémon you’ve lent to your friends, it’s recommended you get them back some time within the next three months!

Relevant Pokémon Titles Affected

Nintendo DS

• Pokémon Black Version
• Pokémon Black Version 2
• Pokémon Diamond Version
• Pokémon HeartGold Version
• Pokémon Pearl Version
• Pokémon Platinum Version
• Pokémon SoulSilver Version
• Pokémon White Version
• Pokémon White Version 2

Wii

• Pokémon Battle Revolution

The Wii Shop and DSi Shop will remain open for use for the foreseeable future. For a full list of affected titles, read the official Nintendo announcement.

The post Nintendo Discontinues Online Support for DS & Wii Titles Starting May 20th, 2014 appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This is a translation of Arue’s team, who placed in the Top 4 at the 5.5th Bibu Offline Tournament with it, by Tan Zong Ying (tanzying). The original is located at Arue’s blog, and we would like to thank him for his permission to post this translation. The 5.5th Bibu Off acted as the Chushikoku regional qualifier for Japan’s unofficial Battle Road Gloria tournament circuit. 47 players took part in this tournament. Arue topped his round robin preliminary group at 6 wins and 1 loss, and won his Top 8 and Top 4 matches before losing in the semifinals to the eventual winner of the tournament.

This team report was published on Arue’s personal blog. Given that most Japanese team reports are posted through similar individual channels instead of large communal platforms, the tone of this report and many others are much more casual than many of the team reports Nugget Bridge usually publishes. I have, to the best of my limited ability, attempted to recreate the tone that Arue conveyed in his original post.

The article artwork is my own.

Originally posted at http://ameblo.jp/rei-arue/entry-11763145931.html

So, top 4 it was. I guess I was in the same league as everyone else in the top 4 except the winner.

In the morning, I tore through my group in the preliminaries 6-1 and advanced. Since I recorded all the battle videos, I’ll just list them here instead of writing about the battle contents myself.

Preliminaries

Herega-san

GL6G-WWWW-WWW5-4R3Z

Kuro-san

KC8W-WWWW-WWW5-4R4L

IXI-san

4BAW-WWWW-WWW5-4R52

Onaki-san

VCBW-WWWW-WWW5-4R5D

Hashidamu-san

B2PG-WWWW-WWW5-4R5J

Ryou-san

65UG-WWWW-WWW5-4R6C

(TanZYinG: One video seems to be missing)

Top Cut

1st Match: Suraili-san

GDNG-WWWW-WWW5-4R6U

2nd Match: Marou-san

PBPG-WWWW-WWW5-4R89

Semi-Finals: The Winner

Blanked out and didn’t save the video

I won my matches with Kanga Talon Chomp and Gardy.
But I feel my skills are still not good enough…
Well, so much for the battle videos.

So, on to the Team Details

Kangaskhan @ Mega Stone
(the usual, Rotom-outspeeding spread)
- Fake Out
- Return
- Power Up Punch
- Sucker Punch

In all honesty it would probably be better to change this but in the end I couldn’t think of anything so I just used the spread with the damage rolls I was familiar with.

Smeargle @ Focus Sash
100 HP, 84 Def, 252 Spe, rest in SDef
- Fake Out
- Dark Void
- Follow Me
- Encore

I fine-tuned its endurance by using a 16n-1 HP.
In my opinion this spread is good for both Sashed and Scarfed versions.
Of course, if it has Transform then HP and Speed is the way to go.
I mean, it’s not as if this is some crazy weird spread or anything but you can’t possibly go too wrong with Smeargle, can you?

(TanZYinG: When I asked Arue for permission to translate this article, he very kindly offered to write additional details on what I thought overseas players would find interesting. He ended up writing an entire new blog post on playing Smeargle which I have translated and appended to the end of the article. To my knowledge, Arue ladders and livestreams on Battle Spot Special regularly with Smeargle, and I believe what he has to say on the subject of Smeargle is worth a read!)

Talonflame @ Life Orb
(the standard spread)
- Brave Bird
- Taunt
- Quick Guard
- Tailwind

Garchomp @ Choice Band
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Dragon Claw
- Poison Jab

199 Garchomp.

TanZYinG: The 199 Garchomp is a well known alternative/anti-metagame Garchomp set in Japan created by Arue himself, which is designed to win the Garchomp mirror match by surviving up to a Life Orb-boosted Dragon Claw even if it loses the speed tie, and OHKO in return with Choice Band Dragon Claw. The set is Jolly, Choice Band, 124 HP / 44 Atk / 84 Def / 4 Sdef / 252 Spe with Earthquake / Rock Slide / Dragon Claw / Filler. Details can be found in this blog post. Similar to Smeargle, Arue also wrote a new blog post on the subject of his experiences with the set, which can also be found at the end of this article.

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Adamant
252 Atk / 180 Spe / 4 Def and SDef / rest in HP
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Stone Edge
- Crunch

Adjusted to outspeed Modest Scarf Gardevoir. As for the spread’s other reasons, I couldn’t cut back on attack so Adamant it was for sure, and then since it would be switching in and out quite often to Intimidate things I wanted it to be as bulky as it could be (with whatever EVs I had left to spare).

I didn’t have any particularly problematic issues with this.

Gardevoir @ Choice Specs
(TanZYinG: Nature unspecified by author)
252 HP / 116 Def / 20 SDef / 60 Spe / rest in SAtk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast (not needed!)

To be frank, the last moveslot was superfluous. This is a Specs Gardevoir spread that feels very similar to 199 Garchomp.

• HP and Def – survives CB Talonflame’s Brave Bird
• HP and SDef – survives positive natured Aegislash’s Shadow Ball
• Speed – Outspeeds neutral natured 12 Speed EVs Rotom

Bulky Rotoms usually run 4 Speed, and because of that there might be stuff that tries to speed creep it so I made mine outspeed 12 Speed Rotom. That’s what I felt was best.

I think this is a team that can handle all the currently existing standard teams, but in the end I lost because I made mistakes while selecting Pokemon in preview.

There were other incidents like Hammer Arm critical hitting right after an Intimidate, but really, the way I blanked out at team preview was unacceptable. Therefore I must say that I didn’t lose because of hax; the tournament winner was simply stronger.

So as I said, I believe this is a team that can deal with standard teams well. I wonder if I should write a little on the reasons behind using Krookodile?

With Salamence, there were a number of concerns I had:

• No way to hit Gardevoir well
• Being weak to Dragon
• Being neutral to Electric
• Being weak to Rock Slide
• Being neutral to Sucker Punch

Krookodile dealt with all of these issues for me so I chose to use it instead.

Above all, Ground types are obviously strong in the current metagame. Also, with its Scarf it had the ability to create lucky breaks with Rock Slide flinch shenanigans. Those were my considerations.

Incidentally during the semi-finals if I had just gotten a single flinch off I would have been able to win, which was kind of what I was secretly hoping for.

I’ll probably get asked something like how did I deal with the popular Rotom, so I’ll answer in advance:

How many of those Rotoms actually outspeed Smeargle?

I rest my case.

Up until the very last moment I was dithering over whether to put things like Zapdos or Aegislash in Krookodile’s slot, but I think the decision to go with Krookodile ended up going well.

Well, what else is there to say, I wonder… With Krookodile being able to avoid the negative aspects of Salamence, I think it can really shine depending on the team it is in.

Oh also in case I get asked how I dealt with Trick Room teams,  Marou-san (Note: in the battle videos above) was using Trick Room, so watch that and leave a comment if you still don’t understand.

If there are any other questions as well please feel free.

Encore on Smeargle

Question asked by komaaru in the comments section:

With regards to Smeargle’s moveset, I would have thought you would want to use Dark Void against slower opponents, so what situations were you considering when you decided to use Encore?

Arue’s answer:

Thanks for commenting.

Dark Void itself is a move with imperfect accuracy. Because of that I didn’t want to use it if it could be avoided so I added Encore to increase my options.

It opens up the number of plays you can make. For example, against Safeguarding opponents or Aegislash using Substitute or King’s Shield, you can just Encore them.

In situations where Dark Void missing may well mean losing the game, I believe using Encore to lock down the opponent’s options is a strong play.

Most of all, even in the rare case where a Lum-holding Pokemon protects in front of Kangaskhan and Smeargle in order to dodge the Fake Out, you have the option of locking it into Protect on the next turn.

Those are my reasons.

Further Points

TanZYinG: As earlier mentioned, Arue took my input on what additional details would interest foreign readers, and produced new blog entries on Smeargle and 199 Garchomp. With regards to Smeargle, our exchange went something like this:

Arue: If you could please tell me what foreign players found interesting about the article I will be happy to provide more details.

TanZYinG: Right now not many foreign players have read this report, but if I had to guess what they would be interested in if they had it would be Smeargle. Over here, many players seem to have the conception that “Sleep turns are random, Dark Void’s accuracy isn’t perfect, et cetera et cetera, there are many reasons why Smeargle is an unreliable Pokemon.” When two Smeargle teams including yours placed in the top 4 of the Bibu tournament, there was surprise as well as doubts over whether it was merely because opponents were insufficiently prepared to counter it. So, if you could elaborate further about Smeargle (especially with regards to how you handle it in battle) it would be a very useful insight.

Arue: I’ve gone and written a new post on it!

Further Points on Playing Smeargle

Originally posted at http://ameblo.jp/rei-arue/entry-11783259472.html

It seems that players outside Japan have a negative impression of Smeargle, so I guess I’ll write an entry on it. In particular, I want to talk about how to handle Smeargle in battle.

Firstly, I’ll say this: if you have any kind of team or playstyle that loses if Dark Void does not hit, please throw it away. Smeargle’s role is that of reducing the damage its partner on the field has to take, so you must not allow yourself to be reluctant to let Smeargle be knocked out if necessary.

Also, an important thing is to properly anticipate which Pokemon your opponent will choose in order to counter Smeargle, and send Pokemon of your own which do well against those Pokemon. People build their teams and choose their Pokemon while considering what kind of opposition they are likely to face, and I think that the necessity of being able to deal with the Kangaskhan-Smeargle lead combination is something most people agree on.

Naturally, when considering common holders of Lum/Chesto berry that are also faster than maximum speed Smeargle, Garchomp comes to mind. Therefore, it is important when making decisions in battle to go ahead and Fake Out things you suspect are carrying Lum Berry while Dark Voiding, even if you would rather not do so because of Rough Skin or Iron Barbs. In the case of Iron Barbs (Ferrothorn), after it Protects, forget about Dark Void and all its associated risks and simply shut it down with Encore.

Against a Trick Room setup involving a Fake Out user and Trick Room user, you can also use Smeargle’s Fake Out to stop the Trick Roomer while boosting up with Kangaskhan’s Power-up Punch to apply pressure on them the following turn. If they then Protect, there’s no need to use Dark Void anymore. Lock them down with Encore, rack up the Power-up Punches. Checkmate.

However, in the end I feel that the easiest way to play Kangaskhan + Smeargle is to have them in the back and eliminate the Scarf Salamences, Lum Garchomps, Scarf Gardevoirs and whatever else the opponents bring to counter them. They will be able to operate much more easily that way.

In this way, when thinking about how to win during the team building stage, isn’t putting Smeargle, who learns every single move, complements the team well and simultaneously forces opponents to be wary of Dark Void into the team a good thing after all?

Experiences with 199 Garchomp

Originally posted at http://ameblo.jp/rei-arue/entry-11783242961.html

http://ameblo.jp/rei-arue/entry-11710407587.html
For the details of the spread please see the link above.

So let me write about my thoughts and miscellaneous impressions while actually using this.

When considering how easily Garchomp is able to operate in an environment, I think the question to ask is how popular Gardevoir is in said environment.

To tell the truth, I still entertain the notion of going for easy wins by using DisQuake or putting a Scarf Gardevoir alongside Garchomp sometimes.

The concept of spread damage was to win the exchange in the damage race by means of Smeargle, Kangaskhan, Talonflame and others — it doesn’t matter even if the opponents survive because if they do they fall into CB Garchomp’s KO range — and after that send 199 Garchomp (who due to the Choice Band has more firepower than normal Garchomp) to mop everything up in one hit and get the job done.

Garchomp’s strong point and main reason for its use lies in its 102 base speed outspeeding the popular Mega Evolutions (Kangaskhan, Charizard etc). Against Perish Song teams and Rain teams, I would use Tailwind to recover Garchomp’s speed advantage and regain the initiative.

Factoring all of these in, I designed my spread.

However, is it possible for me to say that within the context of the current metagame, 199 Garchomp is still a strong Pokemon? Personally, I don’t think so at all. The reasons being Gardevoir’s rise to prominence, Aegislash’s Wide Guard, and the increase in usage of Tailwind Talonflame. I suppose the decreasing frequency of Garchomp mirror matchups also count as a significant factor.

Those are the points that I can give.

Which is why in my opinion, for the sake of future metagame considerations, this set should be treated as a relic from the past.

From now on in my teambuilding, I expect that I will focus more on Garchomp’s 102 base speed as its primary selling point, rather than trying to anti-metagame so much with it.

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