Reports

Published on March 16th, 2015 | by IoriYagami

24

2013 Buddies’ Reawakening: Malaysia Asia Cup Qualifiers 3rd Place Report

Greetings, readers!

I’m Eugene Tan from Singapore, and this is a report on the Malaysia Asia Cup Qualifier that was held on 24th January 2015 at Kuala Lumpur. This team may be familiar to some of you, as it is very similar to the one I used at the 2013 Last Chance Qualifiers in Vancouver. Without further ado, let’s go into the team building!

Cresselia (Luna)@ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 216 HP / 60 Def / 36 SpA / 184 SpD / 12 Spe
Calm Nature
– Psychic
– Ice Beam
– Skill Swap
– Thunder Wave

Despite the introduction of hard hitters like Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Charizard X/Y, I believe Cresselia is still a great Pokemon in the current metagame. The moveset is the same as the one on my VGC 2013 Cresselia, except I switched Psyshock for Protect

The EV spread went through a massive overhaul. HP was placed at an even number to allow Cresselia to eat its Sitrus Berry immediately after getting hit by Super Fang. With that amount of EVs invested, Cresselia is capable of surviving Choice Specs Hydreigon’s Dark Pulse with over 50% health after Sitrus Berry recovery. It also survives a Life Orb Knock Off from Bisharp. The Speed EV allows Cresselia to outspeed my Heatran by 1 point, allowing me to Skill Swap Levitate onto Heatran so it can avoid Ground-type attacks. The remaining EVs are dumped into Sp. Attack to give Cresselia some offensive presence.

Important Notes on Skill Swap

As Wolfe Glick explained in his 2012 Worlds report, Skill Swap’s potential is nearly endless. In VGC 2015, Skill Swap’s viability stretched to a greater length, giving Cresselia the ability to steal useful abilities like Parental Bond from Mega Kangaskhan, Competitive from Milotic, Contrary from Serperior and Pixilate from Sylveon. After stealing Parental Bond from Mega Kangaskhan, I have the option to use Psychic and Ice Beam twice to double my chances of dropping an opponent’s Sp.Def and freezing them respectively. It may seem useless to steal Pixilate from Sylveon, but on many occasions it turned a potential OHKO into a 2HKO on my Pokemon that are weak to Fairy-type attacks. And don’t forget, Skill Swap is still capable of stealing older abilities like Intimidate and Storm Drain from other Pokemon to make Cresselia almost untouchable when battling against physical attackers and rain teams respectively.

Cresselia’s nickname was taken from a DotA hero called Luna Moonfang.

Heatran@ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Intended EVs: 244 HP / 148 Def / 44 SpA / 4 SpD / 68 Spe
Actual EVs: 236 HP / 148 Def / 44 SpA / 12 SpD / 68 Spe
Modest Nature
– Protect
– Substitute
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power

Heatran fulfilled one of my team-building criteria of having a strong Fire-type attack. The moveset remains the same as the one on my VGC 2013 Heatran.

The EV spread was designed to allow Heatran to take a Close Combat from Infernape and still having enough HP to create a Substitute. That amount of bulk also allows Heatran’s Substitute to take two Rock Slides from an Adamant Landorus-T. 44 Sp. The Attack investment allows Heatran to 2HKO a Shield-forme Aegislash with 252 HP / 4 Sp.Def, and the remaining EVs were dumped into Speed.

However, I had to modify the EV spread on my in-game Heatran as it had 30 IVs in HP and 29 IVs in Sp.Def. The spread was change to give Heatran an odd number for its HP value to better take Super Fangs and to create more Substitutes.

Gastrodon@ Rindo Berry
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 244 HP / 108 Def / 68 SpA / 88 SpD
Bold Nature
– Muddy Water
– Earth Power
– Protect
– Recover

Once again, Gastrodon is there to help to cover up Heatran’s Water weakness with Storm Drain, while boosting its own Special Attack. My luck with Muddy Water’s secondary effect remains the same though it didn’t matter much in most of my tournament matches. There’s nothing much to say about Gastrodon.

The EV spread was designed to take an Adamant Mega Kangaskhan’s Double Edge. 68 Sp. Atk EVs allows Gastrodon to OHKO 252 HP / 4 Sp. Def Heatran with Earth Power. The leftovers were put into Special Defense.

Lopunny (Praline)@ Lopunnite
Ability: Limber —> Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Fake Out
– Low Kick
– Protect
– Return

Mega Lopunny is the BEST counter to Mega Kangaskhan. Yes, the best of the best. Terrakion is commonly used to check Mega Kangaskhan, but there are three reasons to pick Mega Lopunny over Terrakion. The first is that she has access to Fake Out, Allowing her to beat Kangaskhan’s own Fake Out. Secondly, unlike Terrakion, Mega Lopunny has access to Scrappy, and thus Ghost-types cannot switch into its attacks in anticipation. Finally, unlike Terrakion, Mega Lopunny avoids speed tie risk when facing an opposing Terrakion thanks to her blazing Base 135 Speed after Mega Evolution. Low Kick was selected to deal with Mega Kangaskhan consistently. High Jump Kick is a no-go for me due to the risk of missing and taking 50% recoil damage upon missing. Here are some damage calculations for some of Mega Lopunny’s moves.

• 252 Atk Lopunny Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 176-210 (83 – 99%) — guaranteed 2HKO (guaranteed OHKO after Fake Out damage with lowest damage roll)
• 252 Atk Lopunny Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 176-210 (97.2 – 116%) — 81.3% chance to OHKO (guaranteed OHKO after Fake Out damage)
• 252 Atk Lopunny Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 204-240 (103 – 121.2%) — guaranteed OHKO
• 252 Atk Lopunny Low Kick (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 102-120 (61 – 71.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• -1 252 Atk Lopunny Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Gyarados: 170-204 (100 – 120%) — guaranteed OHKO
• The EV spread is just a generic 4/252/252 spread to maximize Mega Lopunny’s damage output and to outrun many Pokemon in the game.

Important Notes on Lopunny

During some practice matches, there were a few times where I didn’t Mega Evolve Lopunny to retain its Limber ability. This was to prevent paralysis from Thundurus-I’s Thunder Wave. In such situations, I would always eliminate Thundurus before Mega Evolving. Therefore, having Limber as an ability for her regular form was really useful and important to my game plan.

Lopunny’s nickname was taken from an annoying boss from the game Bravely Default, who wears a pair of bunny ears.

Granbull (Spike)@ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Atk / 76 SpD
Adamant Nature
– Play Rough
– Super Fang
– Rock Slide
– Ice Punch

Granbull was selected to deal with opposing Conkeldurr, which Cresselia cannot counter consistently as most Conkeldurr hold Assault Vest these days. Granbull was the Pokemon that caught most players off guard because many players do not know what Granbull is capable of. With move tutors being re-introduced in ORAS, Granbull’s movepool expanded further with the elemental punches and Super Fang.

Play Rough is there for obvious reasons. Close Combat was replaced by Super Fang as Close Combat was never used in practice. Super Fang allows Granbull to cut the target’s HP in half, which gives me an option should Granbull be burned. With Intimidate and Super Fang, Granbull functions as a decent support Pokemon in my team. Having both Rock Slide and Ice Punch may seem iffy due to the mutual coverage between both moves, but the choice of which move to use is often dependent on the situation. Rock Slide deals with Talonflame while Ice Punch is used to threaten Landorus-T and other 4x Ice-weak Dragons.

Cresselia, Heatran and Gastrodon easily form the main core of my strategy. However, in certain situations, Granbull is there to provide Intimidate support to reduce damage from Fighting-type Pokemon and threaten them with Play Rough. With that, essentially all of Heatran’s weaknesses (barring special fighting moves like Aura Sphere and the rare Vacuum Wave) are eliminated by my other Pokemon, which made Heatran my most-used Pokemon in this tournament.

The EV spread allows Granbull to take some hits from Special attackers with help from Assault Vest, and the Attack EVs allow Granbull to net some potential OHKOs on Pokemon like Conkeldurr and Garchomp. Rock Slide is also a guaranteed OHKO on Talonflame with the attack investment. I could have dropped some Attack EVs for more Sp. Def, but the additional Attack points were pretty useful.

His nickname (yes, I went through the trouble to breed a male Snubbull just for this) was taken from the bulldog from the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Thankfully, the word “spike” is no longer a censored word in ORAS which allowed me to use the name Spike. It was spelt as Spyke in X/Y due to the word being censored.

Virizion(Midori)@ Lum Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Close Combat
– Leaf Blade
– Protect
– Quick Guard

Previously, Zapdos occupied this slot, but I replaced it after I had issues with Chansey. Virizion also dealt with Calm Mind Suicune, Rotom-W, and most other Water-type Pokemon. Additionally, adding Virizion to my team fulfills my team building criterion of having 3 Physical attackers and 3 Sp. Attackers. Lum Berry was chosen as the item due to one reason. DARK. VOID. SMEARGLE.

I could have chosen Double Kick for my last move to eliminate Smeargle, but I felt Quick Guard was more important. It protects Mega Lopunny from the priority Brave Bird of Talonflame and priority Thunder Wave from Thundurus after Mega Evolving.

The nickname for Virizion is basically green in Japanese. Just so you know, I have a huge obsession with the colour green.

The Battles – Swiss

Match 1 vs Daud Adnan

I was pretty surprised that Cresselia outsped Bisharp, which netted me a KO with my Mega Lopunny and Cresselia double targeting it. Bisharp had low speed (and therefore most likely high or even max HP), so Focus Sash is definitely weird on it. The interesting move from my opponent was a Moonblast from Whimsicott. I was really surprised that it OHKOed my Mega Lopunny. At the very end, I knew Talonflame would faint regardless of whichever target it chose, so I went for a double target on Mega Kangaskhan. He made a very bad play in double targeting my Heatran with Brave Bird and Drain Punch which resulted in his Mega Kangaskhan regaining very little health, allowing my Gastrodon to defeat it and clinch my first victory in this tournament.

Record: 1-0

Match 2 vs Brighton Lim

Brighton is a Malaysian whom I befriended on Facebook a few years ago. After all this time, we finally met in real life. Brighton made the common mistake of not maxing out his Mega Kangaskhan’s happiness, which explains his extremely low damage on Gastrodon despite having +1 Attack. Luck was not on my side despite me having a bigger advantage when he was down to Scizor and Landorus-T (Rock Slide flinches and Bullet Punch’s critical hit on my Granbull with -2 Attack). Thankfully, at the very end, Gastrodon managed to execute Muddy Water and finish off his Landorus-T before he forfeited the match. Good game, Brighton. It was great to be able to see you in real life!

Record: 2-0

Match 3 vs Poh Yu Jie

Yu Jie, the only Singaporean who qualified for the World Championships through LCQ last year in the Senior Division was my third opponent. I didn’t feel good winning this match due to a terrible misclick of him using Helping Hand on his Pokemon which was switching out. This match would have been a better one if not for that misplay.

Record 3-0

Match 4 vs ???

I’m sorry but I can’t remember the guy’s name. I kept my Lopunny in her regular form to prevent paralysis from Thundurus and he actually went for a Thunderbolt which actually gives him a slight advantage. He also made quite a few great moves to stop my Cresselia from giving Levitate to Heatran and KO it with Earthquake. The freeze was unfortunate for him and I managed to steal Pixilate from Sylveon which saved my Virizion from being knocked out by Hyper Voice. He would have won if he went for a Sucker Punch and Shadow Ball on my Virizion after the stat drops from Close Combat.

Record 4-0

Match 5 vs Justin Teh

With Whimsicott in his team, I knew paralyzing his team was the most important thing to do due to Tailwind. I also used Psychic on Aegislash to scout for Leftovers recovery. If Leftovers didn’t not trigger, I would assume the Aegislash was holding the Weakness Policy and I’d play more cautiously. I also went for Earth Power on Aegislash fearing that he might use Wide Guard. Mega Lopunny’s Low Kick was a critical hit on his Aegislash and KOd it. Justin also made a very bad play of Earthquaking his own Milotic. Gastrodon is easily the star of this match thanks to Storm Drain and Rindo Berry, which prevented Milotic from getting the KO with Hidden Power [Grass].

Record 5-0

Match 6 vs Ryan Loh

This match with Ryan Loh was a pretty good one. Things got really terrifying when his Landorus-T racked up two Swords Dances. I knew I wouldn’t let Landorus-T stay in the match for too long. Due to some bad predictions, Talonflame was able to pick up the KO on my Mega Lopunny with Brave Bird. At one point, Cresselia did her job of stealing Parental Bond from Mega Kangaskhan and dropped Kangaskhan’s Sp. Def twice with Parental Bond Psychic.

Record 6-0

Match 7 vs Akil

Akil is another brilliant player running a few unorthodox choices like Technician Hitmontop and Safety Goggles Greninja. I was very aware of his Hitmontop not having Intimidate and played very carefully to avoid any potential KOs on my Heatran and Mega Lopunny from a Technician-boosted Mach Punch. He chose to keep his Gyarados in its regular form to avoid the potential KO from my Granbull’s Play Rough. Thankfully, the power was strong enough to bring its health down to a small amount, and Gyarados was eliminated by hail. Once Gyarados was out of the way, the game was pretty much over and I won my last Swiss round.

Record 7-0

The Battles – Top Cut

With me getting 7 wins straight, there was no doubt that I’d top-cut. From here onwards, the matches will be best of three, single elimination.

Top 8 vs Theron Ho

Game  1

Right from the start of the match, I already had the advantage because I know Theron’s team pretty well. That Sylveon belongs to me and was loaned to him, and I know its EV spread. With Scrappy, I was able to Fake Out Theron’s Mega Gengar and, once again, stole Sylveon’s Pixilate with Skill Swap which easily gives me the advantage right from the beginning.

Match Record: 1-0

Game 2

I brought Granbull for the previous match and, knowing that he would probably use Bisharp for this match, I brought in Gastrodon instead. The match ended pretty quickly.

Match Record: 2-0

Top 4 vs Ryan Chiam

Game 1

I have to admit that I didn’t really deserve to win this game. I struggled through most of the match. At the very end, I noticed Ryan Chiam didn’t go for a Sucker Punch on my Heatran and I assumed that he forgot that Steel no longer resist Dark, and I went for the KO on his Mega Kangaskhan instead of creating a Substitute.

Match Record: 1-0

Game 2

This is the only match in this tournament where I didn’t bring Heatran. That burn from Suicune’s Scald took away a lot of my momentum, and I had to sack my Mega Lopunny. Without Mega Lopunny, I couldn’t deal with Mega Kangaskhan, and in the end I lost this match. Ryan Chiam broke my undefeated streak in this tournament.

Match Record: 1-1

Game 3

It was clear that Ryan Chiam had a sharper edge over me after he knew about my Skill Swap shenanigans. Plus, I made a grave mistake of not bring Virizion and Gastrodon for this match and I had a lot of trouble dealing with his Suicune. With a +2 Sp.Attack and +2 Sp.Def Suicune standing strong in front of me without my Virizion and Gastrodon, I knew the game was pretty much over. I lost this game eventually.

Closing

After a horrible performance from the previous two Premier Challenges (5-2 for the first one and 3-3 for the second), I was finally able to achieve an outstanding result by placing 3rd in this tournament. Going back to my old playstyle made a huge difference. If you want to do well in tournaments, I recommend you always play with a team that you are comfortable with. Thanks for reading this report!

About the Author

IoriYagami Eugene is an avid Pokémon player from Singapore and he started competitive battling since Year 2007 and started playing VGC since Year 2011. He is the winner of VGC2012 tournament held at Singapore. Outside of Pokémon, enjoys play other games which includes DotA 2 and fighting games like King of Fighters and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.

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