I can’t take all the credit for building this team, though. Lamitite11 helped me teambuild a little and was especially helpful by testing all the changes and offering his input. Of course I tested as well, but he tested on Pokémon Showdown, which I tend to avoid because I find myself playing differently there.  He used it later in the 2013 April International Challenge and finished in the top 50, barely bubbling out of top 16, with it while I got disqualified for having too many disconnects. I’m pleased to note that this team doesn’t just work for me and brought success to someone else.

I know it may sound cheesy, but I’d like to thank all of Team Magma for being nice to me and offering their opinions on crazy stuff that I theorymon. They’re a great bunch of people and great battlers too, so definitely check them out if you haven’t already.

The Team

Politoed (RANA) @ Choice Specs
Drizzle, Modest
252 HP / 176 SpA / 76 SpD / 4 Spe
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power Grass
- Scald

I don’t think I need to explain why Politoed is on a RainRoom team. What I probably do need to explain however, is Choice Specs. Why Specs instead of Water Gem? The answer is simple: Choice Specs allows for multiple incredibly powerful Hydro Pumps that often 3HKOs or 2HKOs Cresselia and OHKOs pretty much anything less bulky than that in rain, provided I’m hitting at least neutrally. In fact, I’ve been relying more on Politoed for my firepower than Kingdra or even Thundurus-T just because of how powerful its Hydro Pumps are. The coverage moves are there for obvious things and of course hit hard if they’re dealing Super Effective damage, but often fall short on KOing anything bulkier than 4 HP Tornadus or Thundurus-T. I used to have Focus Blast in the last slot for Ferrothorn, but after I got PP stalled out of it twice because it missed every other turn, Scald quickly took its place. I’d say I miss having the coverage (pun intended), but Scald has proven to be very handy cleaning up weakened Tyranitar and other slowpokes without having to worry.

The EVs were lifted from Mrbopper’s team, but the idea for Choice Specs was mostly influenced by Dubulous’s use of Politoed in Trick Room. At first, I had a slightly different EV spread with 4 Defense instead of 4 Speed and a Politoed with 27 Speed IVs to underspeed Metagross and other Politoed, but Lamitie and I quickly remembered that this is only a partial Trick Room team, and thus the 4 Speed and 31 Speed IVs were more useful for outspeeding and OHKOing Metagross and the occasional Hitmontop that run 252 HP spreads.

Kingdra (Shiihorse) @ Lum Berry/Dragon Gem
Swift Swim, Modest
108 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 144 Spe
- Draco Meteor
- Muddy Water
- Substitute
- Protect

Politoed+Kingdra is pretty overdone, but I don’t think you need me to tell you that, or give you reasons why Kingdra+Politoed works; just go read Bopper’s or Biosci’s team analyses, because I’d just be parroting what they already wrote. I’d go as far as to say a rain team isn’t complete without Kingdra, and when I see Politoed without a Kingdra (or without Trick Room support), I tend to underestimate my opponent. It’s that common. However, I will elaborate on my choices for this Kingdra, named after the very cute Smogon Wi-Fi mod, Shii.

One thing I hated to do in Kingdra vs. Kingdra was gamble on the Speed tie and trust my opponent wasn’t running Timid (or Jolly Outrage… yeah I don’t know either), and more often than not, better players would attempt to Icy Wind or paralyze my Kingdra to avoid the Speed tie. I also got tired of being OHKO’d by Hitmontop’s Close Combat, so naturally this led me to make Shii fatter. This new and improved EV spread allowed her to live Close Combat about 70% of the time, as well as allowing her to live hits that I’m sure she wouldn’t have been able to otherwise and outspeed max Speed Modest Ludicolo. Obviously a more defensive spread called for a more defensive item because Life Orb’s recoil would kind of cancel out any advantage I had using my new bulky spread. For the longest time, I used Lum Berry since I heard nothing but good things from Zach and a few others about it saving them from paralysis, but after the Georgia regional I realized it didn’t come in handy for me all that often. Dragon Gem provided the boost I solely missed while allowing me to retain my relative bulk. I don’t find myself using Draco Meteor more than once per battle anyway, bar keeping Kingdra in for chip damage when it outlives its usefulness.

Thundurus-T (Hotwire) @ Life Orb
Volt Absorb, Timid
6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power Ice
- Grass Knot
- Protect

Thundurus-T wasn’t my first option. I first considered Zapdos to spam Thunders as well as keep rain up with Rain Dance, but then I realized the usefulness of Volt Absorb. With it, I can play Thundurus-T defensively despite minimal defensive investment as it resists key moves such as Thunderbolt and Acrobatics that my team has trouble with otherwise. Of course, I do have trouble keeping it healthy like this, especially with Life Orb recoil, but access to Protect (something Choice variants lack) mitigates this somewhat and Hotwire can usually last until endgame provided I don’t get surprised by Scarfed Pokemon with Rock Slide or Stone Edge like Scarf Bisharp which is apparently a thing on GBU.

I chose Timid over Modest because of other Thundurus-T. Modest is the most common nature and some people use 30 speed IV spreads for Hidden Power. Granted, my Hidden Power Ice only OHKO’s about 25% of the time, but that leaves the enemy Thundurus in kill range for Feint, Muddy Water and sometimes Giga Drain. I would like to use Modest since it would improve Thundurus’s performance in Trick Room, give me a better chance of OHKOing Tyranitar with Grass Knot in rain, and I’m sure there’s some KO’s I’m missing out on with Thunderbolt. However Timid has been far too useful in Thundurus versus Thundurus matches.

I had trouble with my third move, believe it or not. I tried Thunder, Volt Switch, Dark Pulse, Flash Cannon, Taunt and some other stuff, but eventually settled on Grass Knot. In fact, I accidentally went in to regionals with Thunder AND Thunderbolt even after I realized how dumb having two electric attacks on the same ‘mon was, but once again I found myself hardly ever using the third slot. I’m still reconsidering the third slot since I hardly ever use Grass Knot, but it has been useful when Thundurus gets left alone with Gastrodon. The other two major candidates for the third slot were Dark Pulse and Taunt. Taunt was extremely useful in stopping Amoonguss, Cresselia, Chansey and Liepard since Therian Thundurus rarely carries it; though in Cresselia’s case I usually just got Ice Beamed. Dark Pulse doesn’t really hit anything special except for Shedinja, which I’ll assume you notice I have nothing to hit it with. Luckily for me, and I’m sure for other Rain users, Shedinja is an incredibly rare sight nowadays with the omnipresent Tyranitar.

Amoonguss (OGLETHORPE) @ Leftovers
Regenerator, Sassy
212 HP / 108 Def / 190 SpD
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Giga Drain
- Protect

I’m sure you’re all well acquainted with Amoonguss for better or worse. I chose Amoonguss for one reason really: Trick Room support. Without some kind of support, my full Trick Room mode would quickly fall apart because Gallade can’t bear to take more than two special attacks or more than one physical. Under Trick Room, it becomes a huge threat, outspeeding everything and Sporing it before it can even move, and sometimes Gallade helps it out with Feint to put something important to sleep. Sometimes I don’t even have to use Rage Powder; a lot of people instantly go into AMOONGUSS SMITE MODE and unload all their heavy artillery like Psychic Gem Zen Headbutt, Draco Meteors, Specs Hidden Power Flying and Fire Punch… right into a Protect. Obviously, I have to be careful with this because some people have the gumption to double target Gallade just in case I don’t Protect with Gallade and don’t use Rage Powder. Rage Powder also makes Ferrothorn useless as long as it doesn’t have Iron Head and/or Thunder Wave since Power Whip is doubly resisted and Amoonguss is immune to Leech Seed. Giga Drain is also surprisingly helpful for chip damage as it can break opposing Kingdra’s Substitutes, KO weakened Thundurus-T and some Thundurus-I, and of course it 2HKO’s Gastrodon and is my main check for it — though the rest of my team is capable of handling it.

The EV spread was lifted from Biosci’s team in the middle of the night when I was sure he was asleep. Luckily, he hasn’t noticed that this ingenious spread that can live Metagross’s Zen Headbutt and Latios’s Psychic has been missing, so I’ve been free to sully it with my presence. I used Black Sludge for a while, but I realized that I absolutely despise Sableye and Trick Rotom-W, so I didn’t want to give them any ideas about messing with the rest of my team’s items, especially Politoed’s Specs, so I switched to Leftovers, which does the same thing, except with a longer healing animation. Sitrus Berry and Mental Herb are also some items I like to use from time to time. Sitrus Berry is faster than Leftovers, which helps me sponge hits better with Rage Powder and Mental Herb is great for Taunt Thundurus-I since it’s hilarious to Spore them after they Taunt me. However, Leftovers is the most useful because Amoonguss is usually OHKO’d or OHKO’d after chip damage if it’s KO’d at all, so Leftovers+Regenerator help me avoid the latter scenario.

Escavalier (T.R.Knight) @ Bug Gem
Swarm, Brave
- 252 HP / 132 Atk / 124 SpD
- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Substitute
- Protect

If you play on rated GBU, Escavalier isn’t exactly uncommon. The main reasons the Japanese use Escavalier are that it’s very bulky and OHKO’s Cresselia with Megahorn — I think you know how great that is considering stuff like Dark Gem Tyranitar and Helping Hand-boosted Bug Gem Bug Buzz from Volcarona fail at doing that. Its bulk is one of the main reason I chose it. I wanted a Steel-type that could take Draco Meteors and actually stand up to Thunderbolts and rain-weakened Flamethrowers while still packing a punch under Trick Room. Scizor was my first option, but it fell too quickly to Rotom, couldn’t take Gem-boosted Draco Meteors, and its Bug Bite was too weak.

The EVs are of Lamitie11′s design. They allow Escavalier to survive any Fire attack less powerful than Life Orb Hydreigon’s Flamethrower in rain, and tank a lot more special hits while still being able to OHKO Gastrodon and Cresselia with Bug Gem Megahorn. Thanks to its bulk, Escavalier doesn’t need Trick Room to be effective since it can switch in, take a few hits and KO something with Megahorn — especially when Swarm activates in the process, in which case it even OHKOs things like bulky Thundurus-I. It punishes opposing Trick Room teams by outspeeding most if not all of their Pokémon under its effects bar speed tying with Ferrothorn and losing out on Level 1 Aron. Substitute is key to Escavalier’s success, bringing itself down to Swarm range safely or just taking advantage of a double Protect when Gallade isn’t out — which gives me the opportunity to fire off more Megahorns even when Trick Room ends. I tried Swords Dance for a few battles, but it definitely wasn’t as effective as Swords Dance Scizor because once Trick Room ended it was often a sitting duck, especially if it took damage, along with being more vulnerable to burns from Sableye and some Rotom.

Gallade (Rodrick) @ Focus Sash
Justified, Adamant
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
- Close Combat
- Zen Headbutt
- Trick Room
- Feint

I knew I wanted a Trick Room Pokémon that would actually deal damage and not just spam support moves (Cresselia), so my first choice was Reuniclus. The problem quickly became 1) Reuniclus can’t take a hit, especially from Tyranitar, 2) Reuniclus pretty much needed Life Orb to deal desirable damage, and 3) it relied on Focus Blast or a weak, non-STAB Energy Ball for coverage. If I used Energy Ball, it was walled by Ferrothorn, and I needed to be able to handle it, so I started using Focus Blast, but obviously 70% accuracy with no way to boost that is not going to cut it. Just when I was digging at the bottom of the barrel and seriously considering Flame Orb+Trick, I discovered Gallade while browsing a list of Pokémon that can learn Trick Room. Gallade did everything I could only dream of Reuniclus doing, except for being vulnerable to Intimidate and being faster, but even that was a blessing in disguise because it meant I could use it outside of Trick Room. It dented Ferrothorn, Amoonguss, Hitmontop after Intimidate, OHKO’d Chople Tyranitar (!) and just did a lot of damage to everything whenever it was on the field. I ended up changing very little about this Gallade, besides changing Fighting Gem to Focus Sash to help set up Trick Room more reliably, tinkering with the EV spread, and toying with the fourth move with moves like Shadow Sneak, Disable, Ice Punch, Magic Coat and Destiny Bond before settling on Feint.

Adamant with no investment in Speed allowed me to outspeed the multitude of Pokemon hitting 106 – 107 Speed to outspeed Cresselia and occasionally bluff having Brave with 0 IVs which was useful against some Tyranitar that would actually do me a favor and stall out Trick Room so I could outspeed and OHKO. Other EV spreads I’ve tested were mostly like 204 HP / 252 Atk / 52 Speed, hitting 107 Speed, outspeeding neutral 0 Speed Rotom-W, which was occasionally useful, but I found I preferred simply outspeeding Rotom under Trick Room because a lot of my checks to it are slower as well. I think I might’ve tried a bulkier set with Drain Punch, but that flopped because Gallade isn’t all that bulky physically and it generally just played like a poor man’s Scrafty. Justified was chosen over Steadfast because I don’t want a speed boost obviously, but I had high hopes of getting some Attack boosts off stuff like Tyranitar and Hydreigon. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten a single one yet because they’re all much more interested in using Draco Meteor or Rock Slide (though this may be a good thing because Tyranitar’s Crunch does 73% to poor Gallade).

<Lamitie11> o/
<lucariojr> \o
<CDXCIV> Lamitie11 o/\o lucariojr
<CDXCIV> http://i.imgur.com/B219e.jpg

Teammates!

Politoed + Kingdra

This is basically only used for winning matches quickly against the kind people who use their in-game team or people who flat-out don’t prepare for Kingdra/Politoed. If I do use Kingdra/Politoed against someone who knows what’s up, it’s to give the impression that I’m just another beginner running around with a Rain team and lure out Pokémon like Gastrodon for a free knockout. My version of the combo isn’t as powerful as the regular copy since I lack a Helping Hand + Dragon Gem boosted Draco Meteor to destroy my opponents with, but playing offensively with Politoed and defensively with Kingdra is sometimes enough to throw my opponent off.

Amoonguss + Gallade

This is a standard way to set up Trick Room, but isn’t all that obvious on a team with Politoed and Kingdra. Amoonguss keeps Gallade from taking more than one hit (spread special attacks like Blizzard usually don’t 2HKO Gallade anyway) and once Trick Room is up it sets to work Sporing everything while Gallade knocks heads with its STAB moves. Amoonguss can also switch out to activate Regenerator and allow Escavalier and Politoed to fire powerful attacks. Protecting doesn’t help the opponent either because of Feint, allowing me to maximize my damage output in the four turns of Trick Room.

Thundurus + Gallade

This is my other big bruiser combo that aims to just spam powerful attacks and grab surprise KO’s with Feint. With Thundurus’ relative frailty and status as a powerful legendary Pokémon that absolutely must die, I can set up Trick Room when I think its time is up and continue my roll with either Politoed or Escavalier. Shifting gears mid-game can be a huge advantage for me when everything falls into place, and it’s allowed me to pull out of some tough scrapes (see: my match with NidoRich). It can be pretty tough to do this sometimes if Gallade is targeted instead of Thundurus, but otherwise it pulls the rug from under the opponent and I win by quickly nabbing one KO after another while the opponent’s anti-Trick Room Pokémon (and by this I mean Trick Room Cresselia) are OHKO’d by Escavalier.

Threats:

Shedinja

You might’ve noticed by now, but I have nothing to hit Shedinja with. It was actually the deciding factor on choosing Leftovers on Amoonguss so I could possibly timer stall it out, which is far from desirable. However, I don’t have much choice besides switching Substitute for Toxic on Kingdra (which may not be a terrible idea, actually) or Dark Pulse over Grass Knot on Thundurus. I’m kind of surprised I haven’t seen any yet, but I suppose it’s justified because every team nowadays has something to hit it with. If you ask me though, Shedinja is one of the best anti-rain Pokemon you can find.

Sableye

Sableye is really only a threat if I leave it to its own designs. Kingdra’s Draco Meteor can OHKO Sableye at about the same rate as Focus Blast hits, Politoed and Thundurus’ Scald/Thunderbolt can 2HKO, but the rest of the team absolutely despises it. If Sableye makes it out of turn 3 without at least taking a beating, the game tilts painfully in my opponent’s favor unless Escavalier can keep its Substitute up. Luckily it’s almost exclusively used as a lead, so dealing with it is usually not that big of a deal.

Thundurus

On paper this team looks Thundurus weak, but I’m amending my threat list with this before finalizing the conclusion because I just remembered it. Thundurus is a lot like Sableye in that I prioritize it pretty heavily. Unlike Sableye however, it lacks the element of surprise because Incarnate Thundurus are usually bulky, don’t carry Protect, can’t deal enough damage and paralysis can be used to my advantage with Volt Absorb and Trick Room while Therian Thundurus are very short-lived since most of them don’t carry Protect either and lack the bulk to withstand Draco Meteor, Hidden Power and other stuff.

Ninetales

I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but Rain is mainly used to cover my Pokemon’s Fire weaknesses. In fact, for a Rain team, I’m pretty vulnerable to Fire-types — Chandelure in particular. With this in mind, it should be obvious how Drought Ninetales is a huge threat; it takes away my Fire neutrality, makes my Water moves useless (which is my main method of dealing with Fire-types) and makes me play predictably when Ninetales comes out with my Politoed active. My Trick Room mode fares fairly well here though, and it gives me an opportunity to use Kingdra in Trick Room to fire off superpowered Draco Meteors while at the same time having Politoed in my lineup. Feint helps here especially to help pick off Ninetales, which makes the match that much easier. That said though, a well-played Ninetales and a team to compliment that is an absolute nightmare for me to face.

Ferrothorn, Gastrodon and Ludicolo

These three are what most teams use just to check Rain — the exception being Ludicolo — though it’s not used in rain as often as it once was. Ferrothorn is perhaps the most troublesome of the three because half of my team can’t do anything to it besides pray for a Scald burn, but the other half checks it nicely with Megahorn and Close Combat denting or KOing it under Rage Powder support. Ice Beam Ludicolo is the most dangerous set for me, but in general Ludicolo lacks the power to become a real nuisance. Gastrodon is problematic if, and only if, I try to go into autopilot mode or forget to look over Team Preview. Otherwise, a Gastrodon on team preview means that the person is GOING to use it, which makes my job a little easier because everything on my team can handle Gastrodon bar consecutive Scald burns. If I don’t see it in the leads, I can assume that it’s going to switch in first turn if I have Politoed and/or Kingdra out.

Manual Sun

Manual sun is used like the three Pokemon I just mentioned: just to check Rain. The problem with a lot of manual sun Pokémon is that the rest of the team usually doesn’t take advantage of Sunny Day. Another problem with manual sun is that most of the Pokemon using Sunny Day are Pokemon like Cresselia and Sableye that don’t use Protect, allowing me to successfully gang up on them, switch out Politoed, and continue on my merry way. When used sparingly however, it can be pretty devastating, especially if they have a Chandelure to take advantage of Sun.

Chandelure

I’ve mentioned it a couple of times, but let me just say that I’m actually pretty scared of Chandelure. Half of my team is weak to its STAB moves, it can reverse or prevent Trick Room from going up and Trick Chandelure (and to a lesser extent Flame Body Chandelure) instantly cripples half of my team, so it can be a threat even in rain. Politoed and Kingdra do a pretty good job of getting rid of it and Thundurus can at least mortally wound it, but people who bring Chandelure against a rain team can play around them or force me to make some hard decisions. On top of all this, Chandelure is one of my favorite Pokemon, so that makes it all the more difficult to hurt it.

Rotom-W

Rotom-W falls in the same category as Thundurus since they’re both decently bulky and have moves that can wreck my team like Electric Gem Thunderbolt and rain-boosted Hydro Pump but fails to do so unless I leave it to its own designs. The main thing that sets it apart from Thundurus is that it’s more likely to have Protect and Escavalier and Amoonguss can deal with it more easily than they can Thundurus.

Georgia Regional

I’m pretty proud of my performance in this regional, sans the first and last matches. I actually ate and got a good night’s sleep, unlike a lot of my regionals where I don’t feel like eating and only get 3 or so hours of actual sleep. I did pretty well with my predictions and thinking things through except for the last match which was truly embarrassing.

Probably the best battle of the day was against Shiloh. She leads with Mesprit and Rotom-H while I lead with Amoonguss and Gallade in preparation of full Trick Room mode with Politoed and Escavalier in the back. Rotom Overheats Gallade, bringing it down to about 16 HP while Amoonguss Protects against Mesprit and Gallade gets Trick Room off but dies the next turn. Escavalier gets a sub off a predicted Protect while Amoonguss Spores an incoming Garchomp and Escavalier continually misses Megahorn. Trick Room runs out and Garchomp breaks my Substitute before getting Spored again. At this point I’m getting tired of Escavalier missing Garchomp (I kind of want it dead anyway before Mesprit comes out) so I send in Politoed to get rid of Sand Veil, but when Shiloh sees Politoed, she slams her fist on the table as her Tyranitar’s Fire Punch fails to KO Escavalier before it KOs Garchomp. The next turn things wrap up as Politoed OHKOs Mesprit and Tyranitar.

Other cool things I got to do was abuse opponents’ Trick Room and walk over anti-rain Pokémon (see my match with BSTS where Trick Room comes in handy against Tailwind Latios) and all my opponents were very social except for my other loss to some guy with a Rain team. I’m pleased to say that my only other loss in the tournament was because of a Megahorn miss, but such things are beyond my control. Hopefully I can continue this trend at Nationals!

April International

This is where my worst nightmares came to life. Escavalier was complete dead weight against Japanese players; I believe I lost every match against a Japanese player when I brought Escavalier. At the very least they didn’t use Shedinja, but if you look at my threat list, pretty much every game had something on that list. They made me think and punished me for playing like an autopilot team, which in retrospect I kind of needed because I was relying heavily on Kingdra when playing online. Otherwise, Politoed and Gallade were definite MVPs because I could KO so much with Feint and superpowered Hydro Pumps. Feint also came in handy for the F.E.A.R. users, though only one of them actually finished a match with me.

I think I’ve already said this, but I got disqualified for having too many disconnects. Some of them were on my end (since apparently I can’t get good reception even when I’m sitting right next to my router), but most of them were from people who are disgusted at being beaten so readily by Politoed + Kingdra. My final score was something like 1649, and I peaked 1700 before getting a long string of bad luck, bad matchups, and disconnects. I’m not complaining though since the CP doesn’t really affect me after missing two regionals, but hopefully next year I can get serious about CP and maybe get a worlds invite or bye (a guy can dream, right?).

Lamitie11′s Thoughts on the Team

I’ve really enjoyed playing with this team and it was pretty fun to make too. I remember while building we had to come up with a way to beat Ferrothorn and some of our ideas were pretty funny and cool, ranging from Focus Miss Poltioed to Flame Orb Trick Reuniclus. I had never built a rain team before with pretty much anyone (though I had used other rain teams people had created) so it was a good learning experience to get an insight to the thought that goes into making them.

As for my thoughts on the team in general and as a whole, it’s probably one of the best teams I’ve worked on and played with in a while. It got the most usage from me during the April International Challenge, where I bubbled at 17th in the US (top 128 globally). I know lucariojr tends to like playing the Trick Room mode, but I play it a lot differently using Rain as my main mode. Politoed and Amoonguss was a favorite lead of mine. Poltioed hits really hard and Amoonguss does a nice job supporting. Kingdra and Thundurus saw a lot of usage, usually either paired with Poltioed or stored in the back to come in and clean up the mess. Speaking of Kingdra, go home you’re drunk. Muddy Water is a great move when it actually hits, but 85% accuracy is questionable. Escavalier was a man when he got used, because Megahorn hits dare I say, like a truck, but a lot of teams meant to counter Scizor aren’t safe for him. Also, the Japanese have been there and done that; so many knew how to dispose of it fairly quickly. Thundurus was a pretty big issue, at least for me, so Terrakion might have fit somewhere to remedy that, but it’s hard to say. Cresselia could be bothersome if I lost Politoed and/or Escavalier.

All in all, I think it’s a great team and it’s fun to use. It definitely gave me a lot of information for moving on. Building and playing a rain team extensively was a great experience for me because you become very familiar with what it can and can’t do. This makes playing against rain so much easier and more comfortable. It’s a little sad to see it retired but it had a great run and needs a vacation.

Conclusion

This was my first teambuild with another person. My teams usually end up goodstuff-esque or have convoluted counters or game plans that don’t work out in practice, but having another person to offer input and help test is definitely faster and more productive. Seeing as both of us were having problems with rain teams apart from the autopilot variety, the team gave us insight of how they work. At the same time I enjoyed the team because it catered to my playstyle and love for Trick Room while also using some uncommon Pokemon, which were Gallade and Escavalier who formed the bone-crushing combo that shall henceforth be known as Double Knight. In all honesty, I like the team so much that I was debating on even sharing it with you and taking it to Nationals, but I ultimately decided that using the same team for such a long time would only make me rusty. I hope you’ll try it out for yourself and perhaps be inspired to use rain in more creative ways other than just spamming powerful Helping Hand boosted water moves and Draco Meteors.

Article image created by Alex Leon for Nugget Bridge. View more of her artwork on her portfolio or Behance.

The post The Prince and the Politoed: Regional 10th Place and April International Team Analysis appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

1. Go to the Pokémon website
2. Log in.
3. Click “Edit Profile.”
4. Scroll to the bottom and select: Yes! I want to participate in all available Play! Pokémon Programs including Player Rewards, Championship Points, and Play! Points. By selecting this preference, and providing valid contact information, I am eligible to earn special prizes such as travel awards, scholarships, and event invitations.
5. Click “Save.”

The Top 16 players in Championship Points will have a bye in Bochum. Only the European rankings have been updated because no North American standings have changed since our last update. You can find the full standings here.

Masters

Seniors

Juniors

The post VGC ’13 Championship Points Update: Italy Nationals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Standings

Familiar names Katsumi from the Japan vs USA vs Europe International Friendly and 2012 Japan National Champion Satoru Masukata (huuuryu) have both qualified for Nationals in the Masters Division. To no surprise, the Seniors Division sees the return of familiar faces Shota Yamamoto and Santa Ito as they attempt to earn their fourth and fifth straight World Championship appearances respectively. Shota was the 2010 Junior World Champion and has appeared in every World Championships since then. Santa made his way into the finals of the Junior Division but lost in both 2009 and 2010. He has also played in every World Championship since his first appearance.

Usage Stats

Japan’s Top 10 placings differed a little from the worldwide stats we usually see after the International Friendlies and as a result is pretty interesting to look at! 5162 Masters placed in the rankings and this is what the top players used:

1. Cresselia

Common Teammates

2. Thundurus

Common Teammates

3. Tyranitar

Common Teammates

4. Landorus

Common Teammates

5. Scizor

Common Teammates

6. Metagross

Common Teammates

7. Latios

Common Teammates

8. Gastrodon

Common Teammates

9. Hitmontop

Common Teammates

10. Politoed

The post Results and Stats from the 2013 Japan Cup appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Raikou @ Shuca Berry
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 76 HP / 204 SAtk / 228 Spd
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Snarl
- Protect

I picked Raikou in most of my matches. It can counter Gyarados with Thunderbolt and deny the opponent’s special attackers with Snarl. I gave it a Shuca Berry to endure super effective ground type moves. Shuca Berry allows my Raikou to beat Landorus and Garchomp. I gave it only 228 Speed EVs because I thought out-speeding Tornadus was enough.

Volcarona @ Lum Berry
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 244 HP / 4 Def / 4 SAtk / 44 SDef / 212 Spd
Modest Nature
- Rage Powder
- Heat Wave
- Bug Buzz
- Protect

Rage Powder is a great move. It can make Fake Out useless and draws status attacks to Volcarona to cure with Lum Berry. Volcarona has great synergy with other teammates with Rage Powder. Also, Volcarona deals a lot damage to the Pokémon that most players use (for example: Cresselia, Tyranitar, Metagross, Hydregion, and Scizor).

Latias (F) @ Haban Berry
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 248 Spd / 80 SAtk / 156 HP / 20 Def / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Reflect
- Safeguard

I used Latias to counter the popular Pokémon that most players used. I gave her  a Haban Berry to counter dragons like Kingdra, Latios and Hydregion. My Latias can endure a Dragon Gem boosted Draco Meteor from Timid Latios with 252 Special Attack EVs. Hidden Power Fire can deal crucial damage to Escavalier and Scizor (67.8 – 81.4% damage to 252 HP / 4 SDef Escavalier and 85.9 to 101.7% damage to 252 HP Scizor). Reflect makes my team hard to break through. I chose Safeguard to protect my team from status moves — especialy sleep. I spent a lot of time on Latias’ EV spreads and moveset because she is a very important Pokémon for my team. However, I didn’t get a chance to use her in a single match at Nationals…

Gastrodon @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 60 SDef / 196 HP / 76 SAtk / 156 Def / 20 Spd
Calm Nature
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Recover
- Protect

I was afraid of rain-boosted Hydro Pump spam, so I used this Storm Drain Gastrodon to make water moves useless. I used Bulky Gastrodon with Recover to stall. My Gastrodon is bulky enough to endure Swagger-boosted Metagross’s Zen Headbutt and Gem-boosted Draco Meteor from dragons. With Reflect and Snarl, he can sponge almost any attack. I won my Top 8 battle with Gastrodon and thought bulky Gastrodon was a great choice.

Scizor @ Steel Gem
Trait: Technician
EVs: 164 Atk / 236 HP / 84 SDef / 20 Def / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Swords Dance
- Protect

My most used Pokémon after Raikou. Swords Dance Scizor is an awesome sweeper.  Scizor can KO most Pokémon with Bullet Punch after a successful Swords Dance. I also love it when my Scizor steals a berry from my opponents with Bug Bite. Taking Sitrus Berry from Cresselia is the sweetest; I knock Cresselia down and recover my HP! My Scizor can endure Jolly 252 Attack Terrakion’s Gem-boosted Close Combat and Timid 252 Special Attack Thundurus-T’s Choice Specs Thunderbolt. Scizor becomes more bulky with Raikou’s Snarl and Latias’ Reflect, so it can get more chance to use Swords Dance or power STAB attacks. Scizor is a strong sweeper that I recommend, but beware of surprise HP Fire!

Garchomp @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Veil
EVs: 76 HP / 180 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Protect

Everyone’s favorite Pokémon HAXchomp with HAXveil! I chose Substitute to threaten Sand teams. My Garchomp can 2HKO 252 HP Metagross with Earthquake and OHKO 4 HP Latios with Dragon Claw. Also, he can endure Ice Beam the Cresselia build from Ray Rizzo’s winning 2012 World Championship team. My Garchomp is pretty bulky — 252 Attack Adamant Metagross can’t break his Substitute. I used Garchomp to counter Heatran which threats its teammates.

Thank you to the people who cheered for me and thanks to my friends who had a fun time with me today. I hope to get a chance to go to Worlds next time Anyway, thank you for reading my post!

The post Amazing Haetae Power: VGC ’13 Korea Nationals Top 4 Team Analysis appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

• Masters: Sejun Park
• Seniors: “Alice”
• Juniors: Do Heun Kwon

Just one week later, the 2013 European Video Game Championship Series kicked off in Milan with the VGC ’13 Italy National Championship. For the first time, Europe saw a swiss tournament with a best-of-three single elimination top cut. Players were very excited to finally have a format that helped compensate for the variability in the game. How did things play out?

The top 4 (top 8 in Juniors) have earned themselves trips to Vancouver as well as a significant amount of Championship Points. There are two events left in the European circuit and the top 16 players at the end of it (top 32 in Juniors) will have earned an invitation to play in the World Championships. Hopefully we’ll see you folks in Bochum, Germany in two weeks!

Photo Credits: BraindeadPrimeape (Feature Image), Szymoninho (Masters Bracket)

The post Results from the 2013 Italy and Korea Pokémon National Championships appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

This tournament will probably be an interesting learning experience for many of the players who haven’t been able to play a live event with the Swiss + Top Cut format before, but I’ve never met a player who preferred single elimination over it after playing in both and I’m really grateful the European players finally get a format we’ve enjoyed in our most important events for years. I think comparing our experience on the other side of the ocean with the change in format from single elimination Regionals to Swiss + Top Cut over the last two years, the quality of play and the validity of results from Regionals has vastly improved, so I expect a similar impact here in the European National tournaments. We’ve all endured the frustration of being eliminated from a tournament due to one strange loss to Sand Veil Garchomp entering the Matrix, or to a chain of Rock Slide flinches, or more recently because we couldn’t handle that Swagger, so I’m really glad that one particularly Pokemon game of Pokemon won’t be knocking out any deserving European players this year… finally.

Another big change for Milan specifically is the addition of byes. I feel like byes going to be a little wonky later in the season with the top 16 of Milan getting byes at the next event and essentially the top 8 from the first two Nationals getting byes at the third (even though half of them won’t need to continue playing), but I love the impact byes have on Milan, with the 16(well, actually more like 18) players who performed the best in Wi-Fi tournaments getting not only a free win, but the gigantic opponent win % boost that comes with it. Players with the byes dominated the tiebreakers at 2012 US Nationals and all of the 2013 Regionals and the same will likely hold true here. I’d expect many of the players with byes to wind up at X-0 and X-1 and wind up not needing the byes, but the X-2s with byes who cut will be good enough to belong in the top cut.

2013 Italian Nationals Predictions

It should be noted before I go any further: I expected the National tournaments in Europe to be somewhat unpredictable this year. It is Europe’s first year with a vastly improved tournament format, and I expected that will lead to better players making it deeper in the tournaments than in the past. However, since I am both not a player in the European region and because the terrible format of previous tournaments has likely caused some good players to have worse results than they deserved, I would expect some people will fly under my radar (especially because we don’t have an accurate list of everyone attending). Making things even more volatile is the fact this is Europe’s first live event of the year, so there isn’t a lot of great evidence about who is has been practicing and who has not. Don’t take it as an insult if you aren’t included or if I describe your chances as worse than you think they are unless that motivation will help you prove me wrong. Pokemon VGC is also growing again (and will likely continue to do so with the more palatable format), so players will likely come seemingly out of nowhere to do well in the National tournaments. That’s a good thing — the more the game grows, the better it is for those of us who play it.  However, I can’t write about people we don’t know yet, so don’t take there being no further mentions of anyone but established players as an expectation that big names are going to sweep all of the top cut slots, because they won’t.

Difficulty Rating:  

/ 5

(FIVE SPAGHETTI MONSTERS OUT OF FIVE)

The Story:  While I feel like this is one tournament where almost anything could happen, it would be a surprise to everyone if the players who have had a great deal of success in the past don’t have strong showings. Players who have top cut Worlds tend to be the safest bets to do well in future tournaments because of the difficulty involved with achieving that feat, and this event will have three players who have accomplished it worth noting: Matty, Flash, and Kasty. Matty seems to be the community favorite to win this event. He is the only one of the three who has the advantage of a bye from the Wi-Fi tournaments and his last two seasons were both very successful, making it to the finals of 2011 Worlds and having a respectable 3-3 record in 2012 Worlds in spite of a really difficult schedule. Flash is probably the player in the field I think is the most individually skilled after a top 4 finish at the challenging 2012 Worlds tournament, but he’s seemed to be a little reclusive since then, so I’m not sure if he’s as prepared as he was last year. Kasty rounds out the trio, and while of the three he’s the one I know the least about because he hasn’t interacted with us on the English speaking forums much, from what I can tell from last year he’s good enough that he should be able to power through most of the competition pretty easily. I’d be surprised if all three of these guys don’t top cut.

There’s about fifteen other players I think have vastly above average shots of top cutting, but most of them could put up underwhelming performances just as easily. I think the next group of players are the players who have proven they’re both solid players and that have byes to help make sure they get to the main event on Sunday. There’s a fun mix of nationalities in this group, so I’m kind of hoping most of them top cut to make things more fun on Sunday, but I’d put recent European Wi-Fi tournament winner BraindeadPrimape, Osirus, 2012 Worlds competitor DaFlo, and my powerful moderators Fatum and Baz Anderson(who I demand live up to the standard set by fellow moderator Zach in North America) in this group. I’d expect probably 4/5 of these guys will make it, give or take one person in either direction.

Most of the rest of the favorites either don’t have the advantage of a bye or don’t have a superb recent history, so while I think they’re strong enough players to cut, their odds are probably a little worse than the people mentioned before them. Bellanko is the only well known Spaniard with a bye, though I’m a little less confident in him than the people in the last section without seeing him in a live event. As usual, the Spanish Army will be there in force, with Deku, Mithos, Sekiam, and K-OS also threatening to take top cut slots. While the UK has been much maligned over the past couple of years due to the ease with which Spain has come in and won their Nationals, I think as a group they’re better than they’ve been since I started playing VGC and I wouldn’t be surprised if Koryo, El Fenomeno, and Worlds 2012 participant Kyriakou have strong performances in the first European live event of the season. I feel like I’m a little light on information about which Germans will be competing, but I know at least they will be represented by Billa, drug duck, and Picollo, who along with the aforementioned DaFlo are pretty formidable on their own.

The Smart Money is on…: Matty. I feel like I get burned whenever I don’t make the popular pick in these columns, and while I think that maybe each of the top players’ odds of winning are a little lower here than some of the players I’ve predicted to win other events  Matty’s odds are definitely the best of anyone’s here. The combination of his skill level, his Wi-Fi standing being evidence that he’s actually kept playing consistently since last season, and the bye to help make sure he gets into top cut make him the safest pick by far. Good luck!

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

I feel a little out of sorts having analyzed an event I won’t be at where I haven’t met most of the players, but hopefully you guys enjoyed the attempt. Have fun out there — I know those of you attending this have waited an awful long time for another live event, with it having been almost a year since the 2012 Nationals and 9 months since Worlds. Hopefully, the improved format is worth the wait — I think Europe is a lot stronger as a whole than it tends to be given credit for because the qualifying system in the past has sent some of the right players but also some of the wrong ones, so I expect to see a great showing this season from Europe at Worlds and some excellent matches late in the Nationals this year because of the improved format. Show us all what you’ve been practicing for!

The post 2013 Italian Nationals Preview appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

The Team

Bring out the pitchforks, for it’s a balanced Sand team! Although Regionals are over for the year, I’ve noticed that players on other forums are still asking for help on their Sand teams for the June International Challenge and local tournaments, so hopefully this will serve as a decent blueprint. While I’ve tested out ParaSpam, SandRoom, and offensive Sand, balanced Sand is the team I’ve had the most success with. I had to make several tough decisions, but for the most part, I made the right calls.

A final note: In my analysis, I may refer to “less experienced” players. I’m not trying to look down on the little guy; we’ve all been there (I had a 20% win ratio against other players back in Generation I).  However, inexperienced players do make up a good chunk of GBU competitions, and they have to be taken into account.

TwiSparkle (Cresselia) (F) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 180 HP / 4 Def / 248 SAtk / 4 SDef / 72 Spd
Modest Nature
- Icy Wind
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Helping Hand

Cresselia’s the queen of VGC for a reason; I can’t imagine building a serious team without her.  While purely offensive Cresselia aren’t too common, the moveset itself is fairly standard for an offensive variant.  Icy Wind provides valuable speed control and still has enough power to 2HKO Garchomp and Landorus formes — 2HKOing the latter even through Yache Berry. Psyshock provides a solid STAB attack which has a small chance to OHKO max HP Hitmontop and was chosen over Psychic simply for the obnoxious Amoonguss. Hidden Power Fire is the main reason I considered offensive Cresselia, as it has just enough juice to OHKO max HP Scizor and 2HKOs Ferrothorn. The last slot is the most variable, with options ranging from an unexpected Protect to Trick Room. I chose Helping Hand in order to nab unexpected KOs and to boost Excadrill’s Earthquake. The Expert Belt and Special Attack EVs enable Cresselia to land the aforementioned KOs, while the Speed allows Cresselia to outspeed Jolly Garchomp after an Icy Wind.

There are several other options I considered. Ice Beam is normally eschewed for Icy Wind on offensive Cresselia, but the extra power can come in handy. For instance,  it can OHKO 36 HP / 196 SDef Garchomp popularized by Ray, 2HKO offensive Thundurus and Tornadus, and even has a 69.5% chance to 2HKO bulky 172 HP / 252 SDef Thundurus if it lacks a Sitrus Berry.  Eventually, I decided that the speed control would be more useful. Initially, I considered Trick Room over Helping Hand to reverse opposing Trick Rooms, but in practice, this was normally a small bump to Trick Room teams. Finally, Psychic Gem is an option over Expert Belt to OHKO Hitmontop and possibly Amoonguss, but I figured OHKOing Scizor would be more important. Speaking of which…

Finn (Scizor) @ Steel Gem
Trait: Technician
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 52 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Protect

Before the tournament, I had a dilemma: I loved Metagross, but despised Meteor Mash.  If you’re using Metagross, Meteor Mash is a necessary evil in my opinion since it hits Cresselia and Scrafty hard, and Iron Head is not an acceptable alternative due to its significantly lower base power. (Game Freak, please make a physical counterpart to Flash Cannon in Generation VI.) In every regional except 2011, I used Metagross as my obligatory Steel-type because Scizor had inferior base stats, a smaller movepool, and a tendency to roll over and die to surprise Fire attacks. However, as the tournament approached, I decided to try out Scizor since its STAB attacks had more consistency. Although my team had trouble with Scrafty, I decided to use Swords Dance over Acrobatics because I heard the Swords Dance variant was able to create “win conditions”. I found out that Swords Dance Scizor was darn good, and the most popular variant among “strong players” in the April International Challenge for a reason.

The moveset itself is self-explanatory. A Swords Dance, Steel-Gem boosted Bullet Punch is absurdly strong: it has a 62.5% chance of OHKOing the bulky 36 HP Garchomp and even has a small chance of OHKOing 4 Spe Landorus-T after Intimidate! Even without a Swords Dance, a Steel Gem-boosted Bullet Punch is still useful for OHKOing Terrakion and max HP Abomasnow. While Bug Bite has poor coverage with Bullet Punch, I still appreciated the ability to 2HKO Sitrus Cresselia (a pest to all VGC players) and have a shot at OHKOing max HP Scrafty after a Swords Dance. The Speed EVs enable Scizor to outrun 4 HP Hitmontop and Metagross and Speed tie with Rotom-A after an Icy Wind. Since Scizor’s lack of bulk can be a bit frustrating, I considered a bulkier Scizor after the tournament ended,  but that’s for another time.

Discord (Tyranitar) @ Dark Gem
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Atk / 20 Def / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Rock Slide
- Low Kick
- Protect

This Tyranitar set is as uncreative as you can get, with one exception: the Dark Gem. I disliked Chople Berry because it only seemed to come in handy during Tyranitar mirrors, and searched for another item. Fellow Georgia Tech student Harrison Saylor (Crow) recommended a Focus Sash, but after some testing, I disliked it since Tyranitar was rarely OHKOed and always seemed to take a bit of damage before facing a fatal hit. I decided to test out Dark Gem after seeing a few people use it, and was impressed. It gives Tyranitar enough power to OHKO some Trick Room setters such as Chandelure and Jellicent, and KOs Cresselia without triggering its Sitrus Berry after it takes some damage. It also allows Tyranitar to OHKO max HP Chandelure after an Intimidate, which was useful since I saw some Japanese players pairing Intimidate Scrafty with Chandelure. I only missed the Chople Berry when facing opposing Tyranitar, so I’ll probably stick with the Gem in future tournaments.

The HP and Defense EVs allow Tyranitar to survive Metagross’ Meteor Mash, while the Speed is for mirror matches. I considered Fire Punch for Scizor and Ferrothorn, but I didn’t feel like giving up either of the STAB attacks and Low Kick had superior coverage. Besides, Scizor outspeeds Tyranitar anyway and both it and Ferrothorn inflict massive damage.  Otherwise, this is a bog standard Tyranitar, so there’s nothing else to say.

NEPTR (Rotom-Wash) @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 236 HP / 4 Def / 76 SAtk / 180 SDef / 12 Spd
Calm Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder Wave
- Protect

I’ll be honest:  I prefer bulky Thundurus. I was worried about opposing sand teams and Mamoswine, so I decided to gamble with Rotom-W’s Hydro Pump. In the International Challenge, I only faced a couple of sand teams and Mamoswine, so I probably could have gotten away with Thundurus. That being said, the little washing machine that could performed its job well and Hydro Pump didn’t miss too often.

This moveset is a little different from most specially defensive Rotom-W. While Thunderbolt and Thunder Wave are standard, Hydro Pump is normally eschewed for a Hidden Power. However, I needed to hit opposing Excadrill, Volcarona, and Mamoswine hard. While Gastrodon was a nuisance, I decided that I couldn’t run Hidden Power Grass in fear of one Pokémon, and Rotom-W could only annoy Dragons with Hidden Power Ice before falling victim to a couple of Draco Meteors. Protect occupied the last slot. I refused to use Will-O-Wisp due to its shoddy accuracy (even though burn is underrated) and didn’t feel confident enough to use Pain Split.

The EVs allow Rotom-W to survive a Timid Dragon Gem Latios’ Draco Meteor, while the Special Attack EVs allow it to OHKO Volcarona most of the time. Again, the 12 Speed EVs are for mirror matches.

RainbowDsh (Latios) (M) @ Dragon Gem
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 248 SAtk / 4 SDef / 248 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Protect

Sadly, this is the team member I was the least happy with. To be honest, it was a “filler” member. At first glance, Latios seems like a perfect fit for the team: it’s fast, powerful, and resists most of my team members’ weaknesses. However, it’s also horribly predictable since it normally spams Draco Meteor, and basically has to switch out afterwards. Plus, while its HP and Defense are decent, I often found myself wishing for something physically bulkier. Even with all of my quibbles, Latios was a strong member of the team, easily allowing me to gain momentum against less experienced players.

The moveset and EVs are pretty basic. Draco Meteor is a nuke that’s useful for dealing with threats such as Gastrodon (even though it doesn’t normally OHKO), while Psyshock was once again chosen for more damage against Amoonguss. I was very skeptical of Hidden Power Fire because I was paranoid about speed ties against opposing Latios. However, I only had two Latios mirror matches, and my Latios managed to outspeed one of them while the other was Scarfed, so I ended up worrying for no reason. Besides, luring in and OHKOing Scizor is priceless.

Mondo Mole (Excadrill) @ Ground Gem
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- X-Scissor
- Protect

Although Garchomp is more popular in the GBU, Excadrill is the star of serious sand teams nowadays. It wrecks in-game and it’s a wrecking ball here.  The moveset is, once again, standard! Man, who saw that coming? I used to use Magnet Rise in the third slot to take on Garchomp and Scarf Landorus-T one-on-one, but it never came in handy. So, I decided to use X-Scissor because I saw other people doing it it’s always nice to hit Cresselia, Latios, and Hydreigon for solid damage even without a Life Orb boost. It’s a bit frail for a Steel-type, despite its array of resistances, but its sheer power makes up for it.

Synergy

“Holy Mole-y!”

+

These two Pokémon encompass my all-important “fast mode”. I would normally lead with Tyranitar and Latios, then shuffle in Excadrill and overwhelm lower-ranked players with my two blistering fast Pokémon. This pair wasn’t as effective as I imagined because even inexperienced players carried several Ground resists, but they got the job done. They also shared decent defensive synergy since they resist every common spread attack except Blizzard together, although neither are too bulky on the physical side.

“TwiDash”

+

(NB staff, you can thank me for all the brony traffic I’m generating later.)

I led with this couple against opposing Intimidate users that were expecting Tyranitar or Excadrill as well as against annoying bulky Pokémon such as Gastrodon and bulky Thundurus. Thanks to Helping Hand, Latios’ Draco Meteor could demolish Pokémon specifically EVed to survive it, and I could fire off boosted Meteors once Latios’ Gem was used up. Both of these Pokémon also lured in and destroyed Scizor easily.

“Disharmony”

+

This was a solid lead combo that put immediate offensive pressure on the opponent in the form of Latios while simultaneously setting up sand.  Latios also resists four of Tyranitar’s weaknesses while Tyranitar resists several of Latios’ and has super-effective Rock attacks for Ice-types.

“Spamquake”

+

An oldie but a goodie. If these two were still around in the late game, Excadrill could fire off Helping Hand-boosted Earthquakes to destroy the opposing team with Cresselia’s help. So simple, yet so effective.

“Tricksters”

+

I planned to use this lead against textbook Trick Room teams that led with a Fake Out or Follow Me user and a Trick Room setter. Against Fake Out users, Tyranitar and Scizor would use Crunch and Swords Dance respectively.  If Scizor got Faked Out, the TR setter would be dead or barely alive and could be picked off by a Steel Gem Bullet Punch next turn. If Tyranitar got Faked Out, Scizor could OHKO the Fake Out user with a boosted Bullet Punch while Tyranitar picked off the TR user. Against Follow Me users, I would simply use Rock Slide to fish for a flinch and Swords Dance, then follow up with Bullet Punch and Crunch next turn to hopefully eliminate the opposing duo. In reality, most of my opponents were more savvy, so this lead didn’t see as much use as I expected.

Threats

Where do I begin? It hit every Pokémon on my team except for Rotom-W for super-effective damage, and could use Quiver Dance to flat-out sweep my team. (Thankfully, I didn’t see any TopMoth leads.)  Fortunately, Tyranitar and Rotom-W could take a hit and OHKO it in return with Rock Slide and Hydro Pump respectively. Excadrill could outspeed it in sand and OHKO it with Rock Slide as long as it didn’t hold a Charti Berry, which actually led to my demise in a couple of battles.

While not as large of a threat, Chandelure could still hit most of my team super-effectively while setting up the dreaded Trick Room. To rub salt in my wound, people loved to pair this up with Scrafty, another troublesome Pokémon. Fortunately, the same checks to Chandelure came to the rescue; Tyranitar and Rotom-W could switch in and OHKO it, while Excadrill outsped it as long as Trick Room was absent.

Once again, Scrafty hit most of my team super-effectively while neutering my physical attackers. To make matters worse, it’s bulky enough to normally live through Latios’ Draco Meteor and my other special Pokémon couldn’t do a lot to it. I took out this gangsta with Scizor or by nabbing a surprise OHKO with a Helping Hand and Gem-boosted Draco Meteor from Latios.

Even though this slug used to be one of my in-game partners in Platinum, I’ve grown to hate it. It screws over my sand users, and is bulky enough to live Draco Meteors once again. Double-boosted Meteors and Swords Dance Scizor came to the rescue once again.

Common Opposing Team Archetypes

Random

Over half of the teams (52.6% to be exact) I faced seemed to be composed of “random” Pokémon with little synergy. Some of the teams were in-game teams, while others had very basic strategies such as Gyarados paired with a Lightningrod user or paraflinching. In order to end these matches quickly and decisively, it was important to seize control of the battle with Latios and Excadrill as soon as possible.

Goodstuffs

The most popular competitive teams I faced were simple Goodstuffs teams. In addition to the Top 10 most popular Pokémon, these teams also loved to include Landorus-T and Scrafty. Overall, it’s hard to rate matchups against Goodstuffs since it can be so varied; however, I felt I had a handle on most of the common Pokémon, so these matches basically came down to skill.

Rain

Rain was by far the most popular weather team (excluding Tyranitar on Goodstuffs teams). While a well-built rain team can be frightening, most of the teams I faced were mostly focused on Surf spam. Fortunately, I had two Water resists on the team: Latios could drop Meteors with ease, while Rotom-W could paralyze everything in sight. Also, Cresselia could take a few hits while Tyranitar could change the weather, so I wasn’t worried about basic rain teams.

Trick Room

Trick Room is an eternal thorn in my side, and sure enough, some players attempted to twist the dimensions. I didn’t carry any really slow Pokémon or Trick Room users of my own so I had to inflict as much damage as possible on Turn 1. Dark Gem Tyranitar really helped out. The matches then turned into a waiting game, where I had to strategically Protect and try to get a couple of hits in or die. Once Trick Room ran out, I then had to quickly take control of the match so I would be in a good position even if Trick Room was set up again. This was probably my hardest matchup.

Sand

Fortunately, sand wasn’t too popular. Cresselia could hit most sand users hard with Icy Wind and roast Excadrill with Hidden Power Fire, while Rotom-W could drown the opposition with Hydro Pump. Once the opposing team was weakened, my own Excadrill could sweep in the late-game.

Sample Battle Videos

These were back-to-back battles that gave me a run for my money.

#90-96664-11726: VS ぽよん

This is an example of how I faced Trick Room teams and the always obnoxious Ferrothorn. Some solid predictions here.

#87-57354-25439: VS Cybertron

This is my second battle against Cybertron in an International Challenge; we faced each other with nearly identical Goodstuffs teams during the first International Challenge, and he won after a Cresselia stall war. I felt kind of bad because I already knew some of his Pokémon from Battle Videos (which is why I switched Scizor out of Hidden Power Fire Turn 1 and went for a double-boosted Meteor on Cresselia Turn 2), but I figured I may as well use the knowledge to my advantage. Despite the final score, he put a lot of pressure on me and could have easily turned the battle around with a bit of Swagger luck.

Statistics

Here’s a fun section for fellow stat nerds.

• Opposing team Breakdown: Random (52.6%); Goodstuffs (32.9%); Rain (9.2%); Trick Room (3.9%); Other (1.4%)
• Opposing country breakdown: Japan (42.1%); United States (14.5%); Unknown (14.5%); France (6.6%); UK (3.9%); Germany (2.6%); Australia, Costa Rica, Peru, Italy, Chile, China, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala (15.8%)
• Win Ratio (in completed battles): 86.8%
• Disconnects: 8
• Peak Score: 1847
• Biggest Rating Loss: 28 points (1847 -> 1819)
• Longest Winning Streak: 16 (Battles 53-68)
• Longest Losing Streak: 1 (Multiple battles)
• Lowest Rated Player I Lost To:  BSTS (MagmaBSTS), 1440
• Highest Rated Player I Won Against: MrZheng (Cybertron), 1818
• Lowest Rated Opponent: Kirito, 1240
• Highest Rated Opponent: Cybertron, 1818
• Average Opponent Rating: 1506, standard deviation of 76.8
• Number of trainers with less than six items on their Pokémon: 6

Miscellaneous Notes

• “Interesting” moves and Pokémon I saw included: Fly, Body Slam, and Flash Cannon Hydreigon, Micle Berry Guillotine Haxorus (Micle Berry doesn’t affect the accuracy of OHKO moves), and Rowap Berry Milotic.
• The most frustrating opponent I faced used a Trick Room team with a Minimize Chansey. After setting up Trick Room with Cofagrigus, my opponent used Guard Split on Chansey, then tried to set up Minimizes while trapping my Pokémon with Gothitelle. Fortunately, my Tyranitar was able to take out the Gothitelle, and I eventually hit the +6 evade Chansey.
• Cradily isn’t bad, as I faced a player that abused Storm Drain while boosting Cradily’s defenses. Fortunately, I managed to take it out with a (critical) double-boosted Draco Meteor.
• The Top 10 Pokémon remained the same as the last International Challenge for Masters, with Cresselia still at #1 and Latios, Scizor, and Kingdra still in the same positions. Whether this means the metagame has stabilized or grown stale is up to you, but one thing’s for certain:  Make sure you have a plan against rain!

General Advice for GBU Tournaments

Scott already wrote up an excellent article on Wi-Fi tournaments, so this should be seen as a supplement.

Similar to the Battle Subway, winning in the Global Battle Union is all about consistency. You’ll be playing for countless battles against players of all skill levels, and you really don’t want to have your Rating drop by 30 points due to luck. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Use high-accuracy moves. While moves such as Meteor Mash can be rationalized in some cases, all GBU tournaments are best-of-1 matches against mostly inexperienced players, so you’ll be kicking yourself when you lose games you “should” have won due to a Meteor Mash or Hydro Pump miss. I’m not saying you have to stick to 100% accurate moves, but try to limit the amount of inaccurate moves. I ran several 90% accurate moves and Hydro Pump, and ended up regretting it at times. Since you’ll be playing so many games, you really don’t want to gamble.
• Have a fast mode, but don’t build your team with it in mind. Despite all my talk of inexperienced players, you shouldn’t have problems with them most of the time. However, they can catch you off guard with unexpected moves and are more prone to use luck-based moves and items such as OHKO moves and BrightPowder, so you’ll want to end the matches quickly. Rain by far has the best fast mode due to their nimble and powerful Swift Swimmers, while Sand has powerful Earthquake users to end the battle. Keep in mind that your fast mode doesn’t have to be limited to fast Pokémon; for instance, basic Trick Room strategies can destroy unprepared teams. The key is just to hit hard and fast. Don’t dwell too much on this, though; you should be primarily worried about beating seasoned players who will give you a run for your money!
• Keep foreign trends in mind. Back in my GBU Rating mode days, I mostly faced Japanese players, so I had to keep their trends in mind while battling. Keep in mind that you’ll be facing plenty of Japanese and some Korean players in these tournaments, so picking up on a couple of their trends will go a long way.
• Don’t multitask; pay attention to your game. Unlike Regionals, where your attention is simply on Pokémon, there will be a million things to distract you at home. Don’t get sidetracked by your other electronics; focus on the game. I almost lost two games due to carelessness. The first time, my opponent had a paralyzed Amoonguss and Hitmontop, and I kept paraflinching with Rock Slides. I worked on a document for a little while, and the time limit ran out in the meantime, so my Pokémon performed random moves and I lost control of the battle. In another battle, I didn’t notice my opponent’s Electivire had an Air Balloon, so I wasted my time Earthquaking with Excadrill. I barely managed to win both battles, but learned a valuable lesson: Always focus on your matches!
• Know when to fold it. I’ve noticed that several players, such as myself, have had final Ratings lower than their peak scores. As you can see above, my peak score was 1847, so I would have tied with ryuzaki for 6th place among North American players and landed in 13th place overall if I had known when to quit. If your goal is to get a high Rating, just know when to put the game down when you feel you’re at your limit so that you won’t kick yourself after losing later matches. There’s no shame in taking a break or stopping early for the day.

GBU Events: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Potential

In which I wax philosophical about Pokémon.

At the moment, TPCi seems to be experimenting with online tournaments due to the low amount of Championship Points (CP) on the line for North American and European players.  As a result, some players see GBU tournaments as “Regionals lite” or just a way to let off steam. Personally, I see a lot of potential in online tournaments. I won’t lie:  Regionals are more fun since you can socialize with other fans and can simply focus on playing the game. They are also much more rewarding. However, it’s important to remember that there are plenty of roadblocks that prevent players from attending Regionals. I’ve talked to multiple players that have had to travel for hours to Regionals, and even faced someone who drove seven hours from New Orleans at the recent Athens Regional. I’m sure there are more than a few Junior and Senior parents that are disgruntled over the fact that Regionals take place on Sundays, while college-aged Masters have to deal with finals right after Spring Regionals. Finally, those of us who can only attend one Regional a year are at a severe disadvantage now that CP is a deciding factor in Worlds.

This is where GBU tournaments can pick up the slack. While some areas still lack reliable Internet access, they provide an equalizer. Distance is no longer a concern because players can play from their homes or local Wi-Fi areas. Time is less of an issue since GBU tournaments take place over several days. Fatigue would also be less of an issue, since some players would no longer have to drive for hours before the tournament. It also provides a way for nervous beginners or socially awkward players to ease their way into competition, as playing online can be less nerve-wracking than facing a big-name player in real life. The GBU is also very competitive at high levels. Hop on for a quick Doubles match in Rating mode and I guarantee you’ll keep running into standard teams. Eventually, I could see Wi-Fi tournaments as a supplement to Regionals as long as a “best of X” limit is instated in order to balance things out.

Unfortunately, we’re not there yet.

The Issues

The biggest issue of all are the dreaded disconnects. While disconnects have drastically fallen due to TPCi’s changes and the one-hour “time out” period introduced in Black/White 2, they still exist. There are unintentional disconnects, but there will always be players that drop games in order to save their Ranking, and the current Rating system supposedly allows a few disconnects to go through. This needs to be stamped out for good.

Of course, it’s hard to blame high-rated players from disconnecting due to the atrocious Rating system. Although the Rating mode of the GBU states that players will be paired up against those with a similar Ranking, anyone who’s actually played on the GBU will tell you that this isn’t the case; no matter what your Ranking, you’ll constantly be paired up against players in the 1500s. If you win these battles after a certain point, you’ll only receive a little boost; this is understandable, although spending over 10 minutes for 2-3 points is rather absurd. The real problem comes when you lose, as you can receive up to a 30-point loss and be forced to spend over an hour catching up. There are plenty of reasons you might lose to a lower-ranked player: What if they’re a good player that just started out? What if you have a poor matchup? What if your opponent simply gets lucky? Unfortunately, the Rating system doesn’t take these factors into account, and your Rating will take a massive hit even if you’ve been consistently winning. The current Rating system also rewards those with more time on their hands; while everyone plays the same number of matches in Swiss rounds, the number of matches on the GBU are restricted only by the player’s time. This means that when comparing two players of equal skill, the player with more time will likely have the higher Rating, making time a problem.

Finally, it’s also silly that some players are playing for points on the line in International Challenges while others don’t have this pressure, especially since Japanese players have Japan-only GBU tournaments. (Yes, I realize that tournament structures across the world are different). While some players are fighting tooth and nail for points, others simply view the tournaments as upgraded Friendly battles. I realize that not everyone attends Regionals in order to win, but at least the players that play for fun can’t “steal” your wins with disconnects. (This applies to  players in all countries – I’ve seen disconnectors from around the world.)

The Solution

Of course, only a couple of tweaks are needed in order to turn GBU tournaments into more “legitimate” qualification events for Western players.  First of all, CP should be removed from International Challenges. These tournaments should only be for bragging rights and there should be separate Play! Pokémon tournaments for Western players based on region. Ideally, they should be structured like Regionals, with Swiss rounds and a best-of-3 Top Cut, in order to minimize the discrepancies involved between real-life and online play. Obviously, the amount of CP should be increased as well. Disconnects are still a sticky business since there will always be legitimate connection problems, but the current system that allows players to get away with several disconnections should be abolished. Of course, TPCi can only do so much; we as players have to respect each other as well!

I’m not naive; setting up proper online tournaments will obviously be a lot more complicated than the basic plan listed above. However, I feel that just an online Swiss-style format instead of a Ranking system would make GBU tournaments more respectable because it would turn from “Who has more time to kill?” to “Who has more skill?”.

Closing

If you actually read my wall of text, thanks for sticking with me all the way to the end! I probably won’t be able to make Nationals due to money issues this year (though I’ll try), but I’ll be participating in the June International Challenge to show I’m not a one-hit wonder. Have fun, and good luck in all of your matches!

The post Versus the World: An International Challenge – April Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Vancouver, British Columbia

• Round 2: Randy K. (R Inanimate) vs Bryan Q.

Athens, Georgia

• Round 3: progpass vs Ryan T. (Tan)
• Round 5: Joseph B. (lucariojr) vs Travis S. (MagmaBSTS)
• Round 6: PsyJ vs Obsidian
• Top 8, Game 3: Scott G. (Scott) vs Ryan B. (lolfailsnail)
• Top 4, Game 3: Jerry W. (Sabaku) vs Ryan B. (lolfailsnail)

Foxborough, Massachusetts

• Round 1: Tom H. (TheGr8) vs Sam H. (DrFidget)
• Round 2: Mr Rock vs Jiovaine N. (jio)
• Round 4: Jeff F. (Shinkou) vs Enosh S. (Human)
• Round 5: Aaron Z. (Cybertron) vs Codios
• Round 6: Jeff F. (Expert Evan) vs Julian S.
• Round 6: Jiovaine N. (jio) vs Arbin T. (Cypher)
• Round 6: Kristian M. (Mosquito) vs Gabby S. (JTK)
• Round 8: Sevrah vs Joe P. (sandman)
• Top 8: Nico V. (Calm Lava) vs Matt C. (EnFuego)
• Finals, Game 1: Aaron Z. (Cybertron) vs Ben R. (Nightblade7000)
• Finals, Game 2: Ben R. (Nightblade7000) vs Aaron Z. (Cybertron)
• Finals, Game 3: Aaron Z. (Cybertron) vs Ben R. (Nightblade7000)
• Seniors Top 8, Game 3: Jonathan H. (MrFox) vs Henry M. (Snake)

Salt Lake City, Utah

• Top 4, Game 1: Duy H. (Duy) vs Paul H. (makiri)
• Top 4, Game 2: Paul H. (makiri) vs Duy H. (Duy)
• Seniors Finals, Game 3: Zach T. (Technoz) vs Daniel C. (KermitTheFrog14)

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The post Battle Videos from the VGC ’13 Spring Regionals appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Oh how wrong that was.

I knew I had to at least top cut to “ensure” my invite. I told people that the floor would be between 300-320 earlier in the year to get into worlds. Most people replied with something along the lines of “I think you’re trying too hard” while others were basically laughing at the prospect that it could take 300 points to get into worlds with such a small amount of events.

Welp.

I ended up really getting into teambuilding mode about 5 weeks before regionals. I had a lot of free time before this regional, so I found it easier to get a team together and keep my focus while doing so. I ended up putting together a Perish Trap team inspired by the one that GreySong was running with a 92-4 record on GBU, so I was brimming with confidence that it would work. A little over a month before regionals, I was set.

Yeah, no. That never happens.

Sure enough, it fell apart on me about two weeks before regionals after a pretty disappointing run of 31-19 in 50 matches on GBU against similar competition to the 92-4 run. I was sort of frantic, and although I knew I could at least have a chance with Perish Trap, I felt too uncomfortable with the prospect of certain combos pretty much instantly beating me. I also felt moderately comfortable with Collin (TheBattleRoom)’s team, but I didn’t have enough overall practice with some of the Pokémon on it to a point where I felt comfortable trying it at this point — even though I did end up building 4.5/6 of the mons on it (he changed Latias to Latios at the last minute before regionals). So I went back to the drawing board and tried to crank out a team with familiar concepts and good synergy; something I could feel was consistent enough for me to use against any team I saw, and something I was comfortable enough with to not have to do damage calculations in the middle of my battles which would completely disrupt my train of thought.

I ended up making a team that was basically an edited version of the team I used in the March International Challenge.

1st Place (North America) March International Challenge Team

Togekiss @ Sitrus Berry “Airbus”
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 84 DEF / 4 SATK / 158 SDEF / 12 SPE
Calm Nature
- Follow Me
- Air Slash
- Flamethrower
- Thunder Wave

Breloom @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 ATK / 252 SPE
Jolly Nature
- Mach Punch
- Bullet Seed
- Spore
- Protect

Thundurus @ Electric Gem “ORLF”
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 164 HP / 8 DEF / 48 SATK / 252 SDEF / 36 SPE
IVs: 31 / 2 / 30 / 31 / 31 / 31
Calm Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt
- Hidden Power Ice

Kingdra @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP / 248 SATK / 248 DEF / 4 SDEF / 252 SPE
Modest Nature
- Muddy Water
- Draco Meteor
- Hidden Power Grass
- Hydro Pump

Tyranitar @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 108 ATK / 20 DEF / 116 SDEF / 12 SPE
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Protect

Excadrill @ Ground Gem
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 36 HP / 252 ATK / 4 DEF / 4 SDEF / 212 SPE
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Protect

This team was… well… solid conceptually, except you’ll notice that the Tyranitar and Kingdra had some… problems. Yeah, let’s just say I threw this team together after the tournament already started and did it as fast as I could just so I could get going quickly. Turns out Kingdra had 248 Defense EVs instead of Special Attack… whoops. TheOnceler apparently put EVs in the wrong stat, so WELP DEFENSIVE KINGDRA HAPPENED. I actually just found this out when I was writing the article, but now I know why I missed so many KOs. Also, I grabbed the wrong Tyranitar and threw a sash on it thinking it was Jolly 252/252. At least it wasn’t as bad as DEFENSIVE KINGDRA.

So this team did well, but I felt Tyranitar / Excadrill / Kingdra were not optimal and Thundurus was just there to deal with stupid Taunt-able and Thunder Wave-able things. I remade the team a bit, putting some familiar faces on while adding a couple of twists. It was all stuff I wanted to try out at an event, and it all fit well on a team: Latios, Chandelure, Breloom, Togekiss, Mamoswine, and Bisharp.

I noticed some glaring weaknesses to Trick Room, but it was something I could at least harass with Breloom / Togekiss and Substitute Chandelure. The Latios didn’t do anything really regardless of what I ran on it (surprise, surprise), but everything else worked pretty well together.

However, with the issues with Trick Room and with a general lack of bulk, I felt uneasy about the team. It felt too openly bad to getting an unlucky game. It relied on not getting critical hit, which is a hard thing to do for 6 straight Swiss matches and 3 best-of-three series afterward. Considering how many times I was critical hit compared to my opponent (over 2.2x as much) in the International Challenge in March, I was concerned about this and wanted to at least have one more team ready to go. I went back to basics, and thought about things I knew I could use consistently well and knew would stand a chance in every matchup. Then I thought about last year, and how I won the regional while being hands-down the most confident about my team’s core than I’ve ever been at an event. So I took the team from last year, and decided to fix it:

2012 Madison Regional 1st Place Team

Mamoswine @ Focus Sash
Ability: Snow Cloak
EVs: None
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Spear
- Protect

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 ATK / 252 SPE
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Low Kick
- Fire Punch

Hitmontop @ Fighting Gem
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 44 HP / 252 ATK / 212 SPE
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Wide Guard

Volcarona @ Charti Berry
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 44 DEF / 212 SATK / 252 SPE
Modest Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Heat Wave
- Bug Buzz
- Protect

Zapdos @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 220 HP / 252 SATK / 36 SPE
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power Flying
- Heat Wave
- Protect

Amoonguss (Lv49) @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Effect Spore
EVs: 252 HP / 4 DEF / 252 SDEF
Sassy Nature
- Giga Drain
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Rest

Yeah, the whole un-EVd Mamoswine is probably well-known by now, but that’s what I ended up winning with. There were obvious flaws in the EVs as I was still not that good with spreads and stuff back then. However, the concept worked well and ended up being the key to winning that. So if I could win with a not fully optimal team, what about winning with a pretty much fully optimal version of the team, or at least being able to perform consistently enough to top cut and give myself a good chance once in top cut? All I needed to do was get those 70 CPs and it was pretty much set for worlds, so I decided it was best to put effort into calcing, testing, and tweaking the team rather than continue with the other Togekiss / Breloom team (which I did flirt with using a bit until the Wednesday before).

2013 Madison Regional 3rd Place Team

Zapdos @ Choice Specs
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 88 SAtk / 8 SDef / 164 Spd
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Heat Wave
- Volt Switch

When I saw the spread on Zapdos from last year, I died a little inside. I only outsped Jolly Tyranitar, and the HP was just there because HP is a thing that makes you bulky, right? Well, that couldn’t be the logic any more, so I ended up calcing this out a bit more and finding that Sitrus just wasn’t going to do the trick. I needed heavy damage on Metagross, which minus Volcarona my team has issues handling. I put Specs on it after seeing it do well for jio a while back, and put enough speed on it to outspeed Excadrill outside of sand, because people see my Tyranitar and expect me to provide the sand because WEATHER IS EVERYTHING OBVIOUSLY.

Anywho, I wanted this Zapdos’ priority to still be offense, but I wanted its spread to actually survive hits I needed it to survive. The first thing I put in was the Speed, as I didn’t want to have to deal with Rotom-W and Cresselias outspeeding me in any circumstance. Also, outspeeding Excadrill outside of sand only requires two more points than Rotom-W’s speed tick, so I decided to go with 141 to do so. With what I had left over, I wanted to find a number that ensured a KO on Metagross with a Volt Switch + Thunderbolt (saw this to be a necessity when testing with only 4 Special Attack EVs). I also wanted to be able to OHKO standard crappy 252 HP / 4 SpDef Rotom-W with a Helping Hand Thunderbolt, and this gave me just enough Special Attack to do so. Finally, I wanted to be able to knock out the bane of my team’s existence, Suicune, in one shot (ask Stephen how necessary this was!), and this spread OHKOd 81% of the time, and 100% of the time with one turn of sand damage. All in all, this Zapdos did so much more work than it did last year, and was probably the MVP this time around. I used it in all 6 Swiss rounds and in all but one match in top cut, and it was consistently solid every time.

Amoonguss @ Chesto Berry   “Wumbo Jet”
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 212 HP / 108 Def / 188 SDef
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Protect

This shroom has been on every single regionals team I’ve ever had, and it just got better along the way with Regenerator’s release after fall regionals. It was basically my anti-gimmick device. If anyone wanted to go hard with a gimmick (besides bog sun, which was only a concern in Boston), they’d get sentenced to 1-5 turns of sleep. Things like standard single-track minded “weather teams”, Shuckle/Chansey (this doesn’t even deserve credit but still), Trick Room, and anything that the opponent used that was basically relying on matchup were not having fun against Amoonguss. Sometimes you’ll see a team that would be good in Singles, but is used in Doubles with a mindset that what wins in Singles also wins in Doubles. This isn’t true at all, but people build teams with “weather” and “Trick Room” being their goal rather than covering their bases and worrying about how they play rather than who they play. This is something Amoonguss punishes hard, and is part of the reason why I haven’t lost any really “bad matchups” at a regional in a while.

It obviously also does well against higher-level play. Rage Powder is a huge help for this team, as it can lure away Close Combats from Tyranitar and priority from Mamoswine as opponents try to hit it hard or pick off sash. Spore helps punish anyone who sets up Trick Room in order to control Volcarona or Tyranitar’s speed, and Giga Drain makes sure that Struggle isn’t its main damage after a taunt while letting it have a restorative move. I ran Protect over Rest because I felt that it was getting targeted too hard on this team to not run Protect and battles were ending too quickly for Rest to become a thing I needed anyway. I kept Chesto on for sleep wars, and it did end up helping in Top 8 against IceKingz.

Hitmontop (M) @ Fighting Gem   “Extra Leg”
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 156 HP / 156 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 188 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Wide Guard
- Helping Hand

I ended up getting sick of dying to Cresselia Psyshocks after Biosci constantly pointed that pretty fatal flaw out, so I just made this one survive a Psyshock while still going fast and still doing solid damage. It took hits decently enough for me, and still did its thing against other Hitmontops, none of which went faster than me. I want to provide damage calcs here, but I explained the general lack of need for those on Hitmontop’s spread in the Fort Wayne article. Other than the Psyshock thing, Hitmontop is a pretty simple concept on this team, and I figured I’d just keep it down to earth and not make any drastic changes. The only even slightly big switch was Helping Hand over Sucker Punch, and that’s simply because Zapdos was doing enough damage to Jellicent / Chandelure now, so I wasn’t as afraid of either. It did its job to help its teammates both offensively and defensively, and did it well enough on its own offensively, and that’s exactly what I needed from it.

Volcarona @ Bug Gem   “Muffins”
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 68 HP / 20 Def / 212 SAtk / 4 SDef / 204 Spd
Modest Nature
- Bug Buzz
- Heat Wave
- Protect
- Quiver Dance

I decided to switch up the item on Volcarona because I felt Charti Berry was just not needed with Nightblade7000‘s spread (which I did tweak a bit but the concept of this is his). Bug Gem allowed for a OHKO on Cresselia with a Helping Hand from Hitmontop. I think I stressed out too much on beating Cresselia and Metagross, since it was always an issue for me with this team, but Volcarona does well outside of that too, obviously, and ended up being a solid choice once again. I felt I was less reliant on Quiver Dance this time around (only used it once all day), and less reliant on Lum Berry in return, but it was still a consistent source of damage and a decent defensive pivot with Tyranitar (Bug, Fighting, Steel).

Mamoswine @ Focus Sash   “DAT SWINE”
Trait: Thick Fat
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Icicle Spear
- Protect
- Ice Shard

After being asked questions like, “Does your team even lift, bro?” countless times, Mamoswine started lifting this offseason and got some EVs to show for it. I actually did my EVs this time, and it ended up giving me 3rd place instead of 1st…so as you can all see, if there’s anything to be learned from this, EVing your mons is not good and if you want to win, you shouldn’t do it.

All jokes aside, this was just the typical Swine business. Come in, mess up the metagame, and put the team in a good position to take the match (if not take it himself). I felt it was a solid enough switch against Thunder Waves and HP Ices or Ice Beams from Thundurus or Cresselia, respectively. It seemed like a longshot to use Swine again successfully, but the more and more I talked with Crow about the metagame, the more and more it appeared that it was still a viable option. I again went with Sash over Life Orb, although I did test Life Orb and Icicle Crash after a good conversation with Ray. It ended up being too slow to both improvise on Life Orb damage and take any massive hits from things it was trying to knock out, and Icicle Crash ran into too many Substitute Thundurus, Yache Landorus-T, and had equal KO hits with EQ on Shuca (and non-Shuca) Metagross, aforementioned Landorus-T, and Garchomp. Also, Spear didn’t add to the agony of trying to hit Garchomp.

Tyranitar (M) @ Choice Scarf   “Less Haste”
Trait: Sand Stream
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Rock Slide
- Low Kick
- Ice Punch

ScarfTar doing ScarfTar things. The only differences were the 8 EVs out of Attack and into Defenses because 185, not 186, was the actual KO stat on a few mons, and why not just give it a tiny bit more bulk if the attack isn’t doing anything? Also, Ice Punch over Fire Punch was just to deal with Garchomp better and have a more accurate move to finish off Ice-weak things, such as Zapdos, Salamence, and Dragonite, with something other than Rock Slide. Plus, I gave approximately 0 cares about Scizor, which was what I used it for in the past since I only fear Acrobatics on it — which for some odd reason no one uses anymore.

The surprise factor wasn’t there as much, but I did use it to mindgame people because I was using a “different Tyranitar”. This was true, but it wasn’t really that different, just RNG’d my own this time rather than using the timeless JhenMohran.

Overall, I really did like the team. It went back to basics, covered me well against things I felt would be a threat in general, and most of all was something I was incredibly comfortable using. I did this at Fort Wayne as well, not so much at Florida, but regardless, it’s a great regionals team. It’s consistently good, can play both aggressively and conservatively, and allows me flexibility in a best of 3. It was the right choice because I needed a good amount of CP rather than going in too far over my head trying to take the win and nothing else. I needed to keep the worlds invite in perspective here too.

2013 Madison Regional Round-by-Round Recap

I’ll give a quick rundown of what I remember from regionals. I didn’t take any notes all dayy, so I’m going completely off of memory and Stephen’s matchup pictures (We all appreciate the picture more than you can imagine! Thanks again Stephen!).

Round 1: Bye

He was a strong opponent, coming in undefeated, but I sat down on that chair and I was not budging. I checked and double checked the registration and round sheets the staff posted, went back and sat down, and didn’t leave the area when warned not to. Bye couldn’t handle that strategy and ended up going down hard in a hasty victory for me, making me 4-0 against him all time. GG WP.

1-0

Round 2: Christopher Hough

I came into round 2 cold again which I wasn’t too crazy about and pulled someone that, at the very least, knew the game well. He told me he made his team on the fly and didn’t get much practice with it, but in team preview I knew that if that was the case, he at least had a good feel for building it. I remember a Jellicent / Gastrodon lead, and I expected Trick Room from what I saw in team preview. I vaguely remember the exact turns of the battle, but I do know I got 3 Rock Slide flinches with two of them being pretty important, especially because his Marowak head Earthquake over Bonemerang. This would have probably knocked me close to death last turn if not completely knocking me out. The Jellicent / Gastrodon was a Surfing duo that actually gave me some trouble because I locked into HP Flying on Zapdos, expecting the Marowak switch in that never came when I wanted it to. I ended up winning 2-0 with my Tyranitar at full health and Amoonguss (iirc) at about 1/3 health. Quite a bit more of a challenge than I expected round 2, but thankfully I could pull out the win.

2-0

Round 3: Hannah Azok

I just got back from lunch break and the pairings were posted, so I ran to the table, not even checking who I was playing, and ended up figuring “oh a random, probably fluked to 2-0.” Hah, I was wrong. I feared Tornadus more than anything going into this tournament, as I was 3x weak to flying with Zapdos and Tyranitar being my only resists. Terrakion has never been friendly to this team either, as Hitmontop is the only safe check to it and Garchomp tends to avoid moves quite often… so I was pretty nervous, but I figured I could work my way around it. Turn 1 I switched Hitmontop into Tyranitar to take an Acrobatics and… a critical hit happens, knocking Tyranitar down to abour 20% health (the Tornadus was Prankster because I didn’t see a boost after Intimidate). This really hurt, as I knew that Rock Slide from Terrakion could probably knock it out now. After some pretty unpredictable turns for both of us, it ended up being Garchomp + Escavalier with a Tornadus in the back vs my Zapdos and Mamoswine. I Ice Sharded the Garchomp and landed it, knocking it out (it was about half health), and Thunderbolted the Escavalier which switched into Tornadus. After Escavalier got sent back out, I just Thunderbolted and Earthquaked to victory from there. That was a fun match, considering we both had to think through everything as we both admittedly didn’t like our team matchups.

3-0

Round 4: Andrew Burley (Andykins)

First opponent that I both knew of and knew had a team ready. I didn’t recognize the name at first, but it turns out it was Andykinz, who I’d played on Pokémon Showdown before. While I had played him, I didn’t have any idea what he was running before the match, so I was on guard a bit more heavily. The battle ended up going back and forth, and I had a very small advantage when I avoided a Zen Headbutt that likely would have removed that advantage. I ended up playing pretty conservatively down the stretch trying to hold onto what I could, and he made two good moves to pull the battle close again. He had one last dying chance to knock me out, and missed another Zen Headbutt. It was pretty hard to tell how the game would have gone had the first one landed because it was earlier in the match, but I likely would have had it even if the second one landed. I just feel bad winning like that though, so I was pretty upset at the RNG in general for ruining that one early on. He played me well, and I knew I had a pretty good chance of seeing him in top cut (assuming we both made it) based on the team and how he was playing.

4-0

Round 5: Kristen Beno

Bog rain finally happened. I was waiting for it for quite some time, because I heard that everyone and their mother was running it. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Kristen at tournaments before, but never ended up playing her and didn’t know of anyone that had, so I was unsure what to think going into the battle. It was pretty standard rainy stuff in team preview and I figured at the very least I’d get a scare, if not a full-fledged long battle. I led Mamoswine / Zapdos against Politoed / Thundurus-T. Zapdos took out the Politoed, Mamoswine took out the Thundurus-T (after it put a good dent in Zapdos though), and I sort of cruised from there on out. Pretty unfortunate lead situation, but I figured she’d lead the Thundurus-T as most teams did against me in practice. In a best of three, I’d have been pretty scared games two and three, but thankfully my familiarity came in handy here and helped me get a more comfortable win against someone who appeared to know what they were doing. Phew, now I at least had a chance of top cutting, just had to win one more to ensure it.

5-0

Round 6: Kamaal Harris (FonicFrog)

And then, you know, I pull Kamaal in Swiss for the second time this year. I felt I had a somewhat manageable matchup, but was not a big fan of Excadrill. He led Excadrill / Tyranitar and I remember I was pretty much out of position there (I think I led Zapdos / Hitmontop). Turn 3 I brought it back to even calling the Gastrodon switch in and double attacking and knocking it out, but the combination of Excadrill, Tyranitar, and Cresselia along with excellent plays by Kamaal (and a superb Low Kick on Cresselia by me) were too much after being down early, and he managed to pull off a decently comfortable victory. As much as I did try to win that match, I was hoping I wouldn’t simply to avoid a conundrum where I could have potentially knocked him out of top cut if things unfolded wrong, which I didn’t want to do at all. Thankfully this was not the case, and I was glad to see him top cut a second time in a row. The year of the (Fonic)Frog has been long overdue.

5-1

Round 7: Samuel Reinke

Cory and I were doing the math before the round and figured that unless someone had a ridiculous resistance, we both were going to make top cut. However, I wanted to make 100% sure, so I went into this round like any other this day. After talking for a bit while waiting for the round to start, I saw on Sam’s trainer card that he was from North Dakota. I hadn’t heard of the guy before, but major props for coming that far and doing so well at a regional. I was even more impressed when I saw the mystical ARMALDO on his team, which was mostly bog rain, but the Armaldo-style loveable type of bog rain. I got a decent lead and was up 4-2 until Armaldo happened. I ended up losing Amoonguss and Zapdos leaving Tyranitar and Mamoswine left over. I thankfully managed to take out the thing in 2 Rock Slides while surviving a Bug Bite, but that was pretty darn close for how it was before the Armaldo went into hero mode. I was impressed and sort of concerned about seeing another Armaldo, or having to play him in top cut at all, because I had absolutely nothing that beat it once he had rain up.

6-1

Either way, I took the victory by a hair and had a top cut spot sealed. I went to check the attendance sheet, and it turns out I was playing…

Top 8: Chris Wiley (IceKingz)

Before I go into detail, I want to just say that this was possibly the best top cut series I’ve ever had and could be even better than versus Stephen in Fort Wayne finals. Kudos to Chris for one intense but fun series, and for making top cut for the first time and playing like you’ve been there before. Well done.

I don’t remember too much about the first battle, but I do know I got beat pretty bad by Musharna and Jellicent. I did a lot of item scouting and tried to see what I needed to do in order to take out the bigger threats either before OR after Trick Room was up. I ended up finding out his Amoonguss had Focus Sash, but I couldn’t do anything about the Abomasnow either way because I was in a bad spot when it Ice Gem Blizzarded all over me. I clawed back into the battle at the end, but he managed to shut me down with a couple of good maneuvers because Trick Room was up late in the match. He took the win, and onto battle two we went.

Heading into this match, I figured it was sort of a hilarious destiny for me to lose here, considering I really persuaded him to end up going to this regional. I was stunned by how hard I got beat the first match, and while I knew I had a chance in this one, it’d be mostly an uphill battle. I ended up Amoongussing through the match pretty well, and managed to squeak out a close victory after not bringing Volcarona and instead bringing Tyranitar, which helped me deal with Jellicent a lot better. The game lasted quite a long time nonetheless, but I sealed it by a small margin. Game three was going to be one interesting match…

I wasn’t at all sure what to expect here. I knew he’d have to change up the Musharna / Scrafty lead from games 1 and 2, but I didn’t know what he’d go with considering he had a few different options. I assumed that he might go for either Scrafty and Jellicent or Amoonguss and Jellicent, so I led Zapdos and Hitmontop, hoping to Fake Out the Amoonguss before it Rage Powdered and put a dent in the setup. He led Amoonguss and Jellicent, and I took charge early, but he clawed his way back in after I failed to realize that his Politoed was Choice Specs right away. I thankfully was able to hit Rock Slides down the stretch, but that was one of the better comebacks I’ve seen regardless. Before the last turn, we shook hands, because it just came down to the Rock Slides hitting, and I acknowledged that even if I missed that, I wouldn’t be the least bit upset. I thoroughly enjoyed that series. I was extremely drained afterward, though, as it lasted a little over an hour, so going straight to my next match was something I was not looking forward to… and against Stephen no less, who I’d need all of whatever was left of my focus for.

Top 4: Stephen Morioka (Stephen)

So, another rematch from the Fort Wayne fall regional. I was drained heading into this match, but did my best to try and bring it together for the round. I knew that Stephen was ready as usual, and his team showed it. I honestly don’t remember the sixth mon because he brought the same four to both matches. I ended up getting demolished by Tyranitar and Excadrill early in game 1, and got outplayed to oblivion late in the match. He sealed the victory pretty quickly, and took the first game more handily than I expected. I felt I played decently at the start, but lost focus for one turn and he took complete advantage of that, beating me 4-0 in the first match.

The second time around I had a plan similar to the one I had in top 8 of Fort Wayne against a similar unfavorable matchup — more Hitmontop + Volcarona mind games. I made two good plays turns one and two and needed to not get flinched, and didn’t, so the battle looked good right away. However, he made two excellent plays afterward, bringing it back to even. It stayed really close down the stretch, Volcarona ended up taking out most of his team, but Suicune ended up being the real difference maker. It did burn two of my Pokemon with Scald, but only one burn really mattered, and he would have had a similar chance of winning regardless. I tip my hat to him for playing those matches so well. I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised about him defeating me, but doing it in such convincing fashion game 1 and pulling off a hasty comeback game two was something I didn’t see coming. I’ve always enjoyed playing against Stephen, and again, this is a situation where I’m pretty content going down, because he needed the championship points and outright earned the win.

Finish: 8-2, 3rd Place

I signed a waiver form, got my trophy, playmat, and binder (Chris got the hat earlier!), and headed out to Chipotle with tad38, macle, and Wiretap. We checked in on the other regionals, and then Tad walked back to his dorm while we drove back to my house, which was actually agonizingly longer than heading to the regional because everyone was sleeping and I was nearly doing so as well but had to somehow drive. We got back, Macle headed home, and I got into bed quickly but couldn’t fall asleep since everyone wanted to talk about regionals and stuff, and then I just couldn’t fall asleep anyways. Oh well, everyone got home just fine, and it ended up being a great weekend. Sleep is an afterthought on the Sunday after an event anyways!

This was probably my favorite regional thus far and I’m looking forward to doing this again next year. Before that comes though, Nationals will soon be upon us, so I’m hoping to have another team ready to go. Probably a lot more of a relaxed feeling going into Nationals now, but I’ll end up playing hard anyways knowing how that always ends up happening.

Hope to see everyone again in a couple months!

The post A Different Face, but the Same Old Story: March International Challenge and Spring Regional Report appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Additionally, we’d like to thank everyone involved in the stream as well — especially Robert M. (Sephazon) for putting it all together! Don’t forget to check out his YouTube channel!

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