Reports

Published on October 22nd, 2014 | by Cybertron

32

Aaron Zheng’s 2014 Season Reflection & Pokemon World Championship Report

Introduction

Hi guys! My name is Aaron Zheng, and I’m a competitive Pokemon player. You may know me for my active online presence, my status in the community, or my YouTube channel. While I figure most of you know me by this point, I’ll still do a short introduction as I’m accustomed to doing so.

I began playing Pokemon casually in 2005 with Pokemon Emerald, and started attending VGC (short for Video Game Championships) tournaments in its first year back in 2008. I’ve grown up playing Pokemon at a competitive level, and I can’t express how much it’s changed my life. Throughout the years, I’ve had pretty good showings at tournaments, such as finishing in the Top 4 or better at nine different Regionals and winning back-to-back Senior National Championships in 2011 and 2012, but my 3rd place finish at the 2013 Pokemon World Championships is probably my most notable accomplishment to date. I’ve qualified and competed in five World Championships, and am looking to earn my sixth qualification this upcoming season. Earlier this year, I began my own YouTube channel to promote VGC and to help newer players get into the game. In June of 2014, I was sponsored to eSports organization CLASH Tournaments and their professional team, alongside professional Super Smash Bros players ESAM and ZeRo. It’s still surreal how much has happened in the last few months, especially the fact that I’m actually earning money off the game I love so much, so the least I can do it put it all back into the game (whether it’s equipment for the channel or travel expenses for tournaments).

While I originally didn’t plan on writing a report for Worlds due to my lackluster finish, I decided it would be nice to wrap the 2014 season up with a report, alongside my thoughts from the past year. As you may already know, I’ve also had a relatively strong start to the new VGC 2015 season, so consider this a prologue to my upcoming Regionals report. Let’s jump right into it!

WARNING: The first half of this report is very text heavy and focuses primarily on my story post-2013 Worlds/pre-2014 Worlds. I think it’s necessary to include, but it’s a lot, so if you’re here just for the team/tournament report. skip to around the second half of the report.

Pre-2014 Worlds Struggles

After finishing 3rd at the 2013 Pokemon World Championships, I felt like I had finally proved to myself and everyone else that I had what it took to play this game at a top level. At the same time, it’s bittersweet to come so close to a World Championship, and have it slip away just like that. I still can’t erase my semi-finals set against Ryosuke Kosuge from my head, and how I was essentially one coin-flip away from making it to the finals of Worlds. It’s hard for me to rewatch the semis and understand some of the plays I made, but the reality is that I’ll never be able to really forget about that set, and that I should rather focus on trying to get better in the game instead and maybe even make another deep run at Worlds one day. Still, I’m proud of finishing 3rd at Worlds last year, and I was really happy that I secured an invite to the 2014 World Championships as a result of my finish.

With a Worlds invite in hand already during the start of the 2014 season, I knew I wouldn’t have to take events seriously. It also gave me some more time to study, since I was a junior in high school, which I valued since I feel like I sacrificed a fair amount of time in fighting for my Worlds invite in 2013. I ended up booking my ticket to California Regionals before they announced my invite, so I attended that tournament, along with Philadelphia Regionals, in the fall, bringing my 2013 Worlds team to both tournaments. In California, I went 5-2, and at Philadelphia, I went 5-3. Those records aren’t particularly impressive, but I was frustrated since I was one game from making top cut at both tournaments. I knew I wasn’t making optimal plays, and I just felt that I was not on my game both tournaments. California was especially frustrating, since I got a really bad cold the day before and could barely stay awake, but I was still happy to see Thomas Mifflin (PBB) win with my team and I had a lot of fun seeing friends I normally only see once or twice a year.

With Thomas Mifflin, Duy Ha, and Omari Travis after California Regionals

After the fall circuit, Pokemon X/Y came out, and I ended up attending three tournaments in the winter circuit: two grassroots tournaments (APEX and NYCE4) and Virginia Regionals.  I had sub-par performances at each tournament, losing in the finals of my pool at APEX, the semi-finals of the losers bracket at NYCE4, and bubbling out with a 7-2 record at Virginia. They were good finishes, but not as good as I desired.

A Small But Significant Tangent

During the winter circuit (February, to be exact), I purchased a 3DS capture card and began posting frequently on YouTube to my channel, CybertronProductions. Why? Well, I’ve been playing VGC competitively since its very first year, and it has honestly changed my life. I genuinely want to do whatever I can do help the game grow, and I decided YouTube would be a good platform to do so. With a Worlds invite in hand, I wouldn’t have to play seriously until August, so why not?

It’s amazing to see how far competitive VGC has come since the beginning, but we’ve still got a long way to go. (For reference: we didn’t have chairs at events for years, Worlds was single elimination in 2008, Regionals was based off a lottery in 2009 and was single elimination until 2012, there was barely any coverage, no commentating/live-streaming, no Nugget Bridge, etc.)  It’s why I really appreciate Nugget Bridge and what the admins (Scott, Rushan, Huy, Paul, and Evan) here have done for the game. They’ve put in countless hours in fostering a community designed to help everyone, from beginners to Worlds-level competitors, on their own time. As a current content creator, I can truly respect that. I think competitive Pokemon has a lot of potential to become larger than what it is today, but we’ll never get there without working as a community. We’ve taken some huge steps thanks to Chris Brown and Nugget Bridge, but there’s still a lot more room to grow.

Thus, I started my YouTube channel to help out those who are interested in VGC, but don’t know where to start. When I started, the only other competitive VGC player who posted any content was Alex Ogloza. There’s a lack of quality VGC content on YouTube even today, and I wanted to offer whatever I can to the community. In the past couple of months, I’ve created over 150 videos, gained over 15,000 subscribers, reached almost 1,000,000 overall views, met some incredible Poketubers, learned a lot about maturity on the internet (especially when dealing the comments section…), and reached out to thousands of people. The numbers are nothing when compared to actual, big YouTubers, but even getting to help just one person means the world to me. Honestly, doing well at events is nice, but there’s nothing more rewarding than someone telling you that they are going to get into the game because of you. That, for me, means the most, and it’s why I love what I’ve been doing. I can promise you that when Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire comes out, I’ll put even more time into my channel and into helping others get better at the game.

After Starting YouTube

Needless to say, once I started posting videos on YouTube, pretty much all my Pokemon time was invested in creating videos. Time that I used to spend building & practicing for tournaments now went into recording content in the spare time that I had. I didn’t really mind that – I had little incentive to do well at events. But the reality is that staying on the top in this game is pretty difficult, unless your name happens to be Ray Rizzo or Sejun Park. I’ve been super fortunate in the last couple of years to have a solid performance at every level in each division. That’s why 2014 was particularly frustrating: it was the first season I’ve ever missed a top 4 at a Regional in six years of playing, and the first time since 2010 I missed top cut at US Nationals. It’s an odd dichotomy, I guess. I did not really care about events in the 2014 season too much before the actual tournament, but would feel frustrated and empty after performing sub-optimally. That can probably be attributed to my natural drive for competition and success. I was definitely frustrated because I felt like after I had finally proven myself, people were quick to dismiss me (and in all fairness, that’s perfectly fair).

Either way, to put it into perspective, I woke up the morning of Massachusetts Regionals (the tournament I had won the previous year) in April and spent the entire car ride getting Brendan’s team together, since he had a much better shot at getting the trip/stipend to Nationals. On the other hand, I threw in six Pokemon randomly into my battle box five minutes before registration ended, and dropped after my third loss to record top cut matches for YouTube. Another tournament, another disappointing finish.

After April Regionals, I decided I’d try to get my stuff together and have a solid finish at US Nationals in July, especially since I was still pretty bitter after losing in the top 16 last year. I didn’t have time to team build or practice until after school was over, and in the meanwhile, pushed hard on YouTube with daily content.

Early Summer

While I would’ve liked some free time this summer to dedicate towards Pokemon, the reality was that it was always in the back of my mind. After SATs in May and final exams in June, summer break finally started. I was very, very fortunate to land an internship with JP Morgan this summer, and my internship actually started the week after school ended, so I began working from 9 AM to 5 PM every week day in mid-June. My internship experience was amazing and gave me a first hand view of a potential career path, and performing well there was the main priority of my summer.

I actually put a team together in advance for US Nationals a few weeks in advance though, and did very well in the June International with it (3rd in the US, 4th in NA, 18th overall in the world). I felt like I was playing really well and that the team was solid. Unfortunately, it was also one of the most hyper-offensive teams I’ve ever built, consisting of Gengar, Garchomp, Gardevoir, Rotom-Wash, Mega Lucario, and Pyroar.

gengargarchomprotom-washlucario-megapyroargardevoir

The team was designed to take advantage of team match-ups and hit hard with super effective attacks, as I had a way to basically 2HKO anything in the format. Unfortunately, in choosing this team, I also ended up with some inaccurate moves, such as Rock Slide on Garchomp, Hydro Pump on Rotom-Wash, Overheat on Pyroar, and most notably, Stone Edge on Lucario. Nationals was a pretty disastrous tournament for me, as I started 2-2. I didn’t feel like I played especially poorly, but my team made it difficult to win (which was an error of mine when team-building) due to its inability to make good switches and low accuracy moves.  For example, I’d often set up win conditions that heavily relied on my low accuracy moves (hit the Stone Edge on Charizard-Y and win… miss and Mega Lucario is KOed), which is never a good idea. I realized that while my team was strong, it was not a good choice to bring to a nine round tournament where anything can happen and moves are prone to missing. Teams such as the one I brought to Nationals are far too reliant on the RNG, and we all know how the dice can roll in Pokemon. Thus, I finished Day 1 of US Nationals with a paltry 5-4 record and could not advance to the second day. While it was my worst performance at Nationals yet, I did take away a few important points:

  1. Practice can maximize your chances at doing well at an event, but don’t get led into a false sense of security. Just because you play well in practice doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily translate over to real life.
  2. However: practice is still essential to doing well. I think the lack of practice I had going into events earlier on in the year definitely put me at a disadvantage. You should fully know your damage calculations, speed tiers, and what the metagame is like before going into an event. Changing Pokemon/sets last second is almost never beneficial for me personally if I’ve practiced with the other option continuously.
  3. You can control your luck factors in the game in team-building. I’ve learned this lesson over and over again, but with some Pokemon, you can afford to miss attacks (typically bulkier Pokemon that aren’t OHKOed by many attacks). Stone Edge on a Pokemon as frail as Mega Lucario is not the best of ideas. Why? Well, the reason you use it in the first place is to try and KO Fire-type Pokemon. What if you miss? They just KO you back with a Fire-type attack. That’s a trade-off you lose 20% of the time.
  4. In general, hyper-offensive with almost no bulk is a bad idea. VGC 2014 was less defensive than all the other formats I’ve played in, but if you take a look at the teams that ended up doing well, they still all contain a balance between bulk and power. Take, for example, the modified team I brought to Regionals this fall. It also revolved around offense, but Pokemon like Mega Mawile can take hits while dishing out OHKOes. Mega Lucario just… faints. Jeudy’s Worlds team is the best use of Mega Lucario I’ve seen yet, so props to him for making it work.
  5. I personally need bulkier teams to give me the option of switching. Switching to gain momentum is essential in VGC, and my Nationals team punished switches. With such frail Pokemon, most switches would result in the Pokemon switching in taking over 50% in damage, which is just unacceptable. Games are a lot easier to play when you have more options.

Building For Worlds

With a subpar Nationals performance, I took the knowledge I gained from it and looked towards the main event of the year: the 2014 Pokemon World Championships. While continuing to intern at JP Morgan, I began brainstorming ideas for Worlds.

kangaskhan-megagothitelle

I knew I wanted to use Trick Room (specifically Gothitelle), so I tested with a couple of ideas, revolving around Mega Kangaskhan and Heal Pulse Gothitelle. At one point, I was even using Choice Scarf Final Gambit Lucario, but I quickly dropped that idea…

Small note: I’ve been super fortunate to have a testing/team-building partner for Worlds the past few years. In 2011, it was Aaron Traylor (Unreality). In 2012, it was Wolfe Glick. In 2013, it was Mohsyn Bharmalm. This year, I found myself working with senior prodigy and top Spanish player Alex Gomez (Pokealex). Alex and I have grown to become really good friends, and we actually practiced a decent amount in 2013 despite working separately.

Alex and I actually ended up working together after he asked me for some practice games. I was able to win a good amount with the original version of my team, which was built around the aforementioned Mega Kangaskhan and Heal Pulse Gothitelle. Alex really liked the idea, and asked if we could work together. Of course, I accepted his request since it’s always good to have someone to bounce ideas with, especially another Worlds competitor in a different division. Alex is one of my best friends, and this team is his just as much as it is mine. He’s been super supportive throughout the years, and he definitely kept my head high in a time where I was frustrated at my results in the game. I’d like to thank him for working with me this summer, especially since I was so busy with work and social life. I’m really proud of him for his top 8 finish, and I’m excited to see how he performs in Masters.

kangaskhan-megagothitellehydreigonazumarillzapdosferrothorn

Back to the team: we originally started off with Kangaskhan, Gothitelle, Zapdos, Hydreigon, Azumarill, and Ferrothorn. The original team was pretty powerful, but not having a Fire-type Pokemon gave us some issues against Pokemon such as Mawile and Aegislash if played properly. We had a solid core, but ended up replacing Zapdos for Rotom-Heat to keep the Electric-type on our team while gaining a Fire-type Pokemon with Overheat. Hydreigon was replaced for Specs Salamence to counter the popular Modest Specs Hydreigon. Finally, after we had used basically every Azumarill set (Assault Vest, Choice Band, Sitrus Berry), we wanted to up our Kangaskhan match-up. I also wasn’t too keen about having a semi-Trick Room team without a Fake Out user. Thus, we came up with the idea of Hariyama. It had access to Helping Hand, which boosted Salamence’s Draco Meteor, and allowed Kangaskhan to pick up OHKOes with Double Edge. It also could OHKO opposing Kangaskhan and Aegislash while offering Fake Out pressure. In the end, we ended up with a really solid core of six, and I felt pretty confident about our team – it was definitely my favorite team to play with up to that point in VGC 2014.

Before I finally start with the team analysis, I would also like to thank Ansel Blume (Stats) and Tommy Yee (tylee61) for looking over the EV spreads on the team and helping me optimize them before the tournament. I really liked the spread for both Rotom-Heat and Hariyama, and I owe it to both of them. Now for the team:

The Team

rotom-heat

Rotom-Heat @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Def / 20 SpA / 164 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
– Overheat
– Thunderbolt
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect

One of the biggest issues I had with VGC 2014 format was the lack of strong Fire-type Pokemon. I tried out Pyroar at Nationals, but it was just too frail to do anything other than get one or two hits off. Rotom-Heat, in my opinion, is the best non-Mega Fire-type in the format, and it’s such a good Pokemon in general. While I obviously have an attachment to my trusty Rotom-Wash, Rotom-Heat’s typing and access to Overheat was too good to pass down. I knew Steel-types would be popular at Worlds (especially Mawile), and Rotom-Heat was my #1 answer. The EV spread is bulkier than your typical Rotom-Heat, but I knew I wanted at least enough investment to survive a Choice Specs Draco Meteor from Modest Hydreigon and Jolly Mega Lucario Close Combat, which is what it accomplishes. The moveset is self explanatory. I played around with Thunder Wave before including a Trick Room mode on my team, but Will-O-Wisp was too good to pass down. Rotom-Heat was an excellent call in a metagame full of Mega Mawile. We opted with Safety Goggles to counter Amoonguss, since a well played Amoonguss + sweeper really gave us some trouble (i.e. when paired with Mega Tyranitar). It was really fun trapping Amoonguss in with Gothitelle and essentially turning the battle into a 2 v. 1 since Rotom-Heat completely ignored Amoonguss. In combination with Ferrothorn, the team basically shut down any Amoonguss we faced, which was awesome. Speed really wasn’t necessary on this one since I wouldn’t stay in on opposing Rotom-Wash anyway.

hariyama

Hariyama @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 62 HP / 100 Atk / 100 Def / 244 SpD / 4 Spe
IVs: 0 Spe
Brave Nature
– Fake Out
– Knock Off
– Close Combat
– Helping Hand

Hariyama was one of the more unique choices on this team, and it is definitely one of my favorite Pokemon in the VGC 2014 format. Alex came up with the idea after we were looking for a suitable Fake Out user to partner up with Gothitelle. It’s the perfect combination of bulk and offense. Similar to many other Pokemon on this team, we used Modest Choice Specs Hydreigon’s Draco Meteor as a benchmark, which was accomplished with the HP/Special Defense EVs. We also wanted as much physical bulk as possible, and with 100 Defense EVs, it survives Jolly Mega Lucario Close Combat, which came into play during practice multiple times. The rest of the EVs were dumped into Attack, which still allows it to OHKO Mega Kangaskhan with no HP investment. We had 4 EVs leftover that wouldn’t go into any other stat, so we just put them into Speed to win the Fake Out war against any other Hariyama in case someone actually used one at Worlds. (Interestingly enough, Ben Hickey actually brought Hariyama to Worlds as well, albeit his set was quite different).

As for the moveset, Fake Out and Close Combat are self-explanatory. Knock Off was excellent in hitting Ghost-types and Psychic-types, especially opposing Gothitelle, Gengar, and most importantly, Aegislash. Since this Hariyama is minimum Speed, it is slower than minimum Speed Aegislash. Thus, there were multiple times where I led with Gothitelle + Hariyama against an Aegislash. Aegislash would Shadow Ball my Gothitelle, Hariyama would KO Aegislash with Knock Off, and Gothitelle would set up Trick Room. It was a great attack just because of its typing, and the effect was nice in scouting items in a best of 3 and removing useful ones such as Sitrus Berry and Choice items. Finally, we opted for Helping Hand as our last move to support the big attackers on this team, namely Salamence and Kangaskhan. A boosted Draco Meteor/Double Edge was basically a OHKO on anything that didn’t resist it, which was really neat.

While I know Ray Rizzo and Wolfe Glick like the Assault Vest variant more (which is what Ben Hickey brought to Worlds, if I recall correctly), Alex and I really liked Guts with Sitrus Berry. Sitrus Berry, in combination with Gothitelle’s Heal Pulse, allowed Hariyama to survive for a long time, and it was great for baiting Draco Meteors while trapping the opposing Dragon with Shadow Tag. Guts was really neat since a lot of players mindlessly Will-o-Wisped Hariyama, and it allowed me to bait the burn on Pokemon like Kangaskhan/Ferrothorn while switching out to Hariyama and getting the attack boost. Since this Hariyama isn’t too offensive, the extra power really came in handy.

In the end, we chose Hariyama because it supported our team perfectly: Fake Out pressure, Helping Hand support for the stronger attackers, STAB Close Combat that was powerful enough to do substantial damage, great overall bulk, and a way to OHKO Aegislash. We really couldn’t find a better user for the slot, and Hariyama caught many of our opponents off guard.

gothitelle

Gothitelle @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 244 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Psychic
– Rest
– Heal Pulse
– Trick Room

When I looked at the list of viable Trick Room users this format, I knew that I wanted to build around Gothitelle. Shadow Tag is one of the best abilities in the game, and gives you a plethora of options while limiting your opponent’s. The EV spread and nature allows it to survive a Modest Choice Specs Dark Pulse from Hydreigon 100% of the time, which was, to me, the most important attack for Gothitelle to survive. The moveset and item choice is slightly different from the other Gothitelle used at Worlds, namely Sejun Park’s and Wolfe Glick’s. In fact, this Gothitelle is very similar to the Cresselia I brought to the 2013 Pokemon World Championships: they are both bulky, Psychic-type Trick Room users with Rest/Chesto Berry.

I opted for the ChestoRest set rather than Sitrus Berry or Leftovers because I was:

  1. Familiar with how it operated after using it on Cresselia last year
  2. I wanted Gothitelle to stay in the game as long as possible, and Sitrus Berry/Leftovers didn’t recover from attacks like Dark Pulse nearly as fast as Rest
  3. It gave me another way to check sleep (especially Amoonguss and Smeargle)

In the end, I didn’t regret my decision one bit. Going back to the Hariyama+Gothitelle lead, it was great getting a free Trick Room up the first turn while taking about 90% worth of damage with Gothitelle, just to heal it all back up the following turn with Rest while Hariyama OHKOed the attacker. (Specs Hydreigon, for example!) It also saved me from Amoonguss, which can give Trick Room teams quite some trouble.

Psychic was Gothitelle’s main and only means of offense, slightly stronger than its counterpart Psyshock. Trick Room was obviously what it was built around. And finally, Alex and I chose Heal Pulse as the 4th move, similar to Wolfe Glick’s Gothitelle. We felt that a well played Gothitelle+Kangaskhan or Gothitelle+Ferrothorn, in combination with Heal Pulse, created so many winning situations and our opponents often just did not have an answer. While I didn’t end up using the move at Worlds nearly as much as I would’ve liked, it was still a great choice. Sejun Park’s use of Tickle really fascinated me, and I do wish I tested that before Worlds because I feel like I would’ve ended up using that move instead, but there’s a reason why he won Worlds and I didn’t! Overall, Gothitelle was my favorite Trick Room user of 2014 because of its diverse movepool (ironic given the fact all four of my attacks were Psychic-type…) and an incredible ability, and was the cornerstone to this team.

salamence

Salamence @ Choice Specs
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
– Fire Blast
– Flamethrower
– Draco Meteor
– Dragon Pulse

With the rising popularity of Choice Specs Hydreigon (almost all which were Modest nature), Alex and I immediately looked at Salamence, which is slightly faster. While Choice Scarf Salamence dominated the format for a good amount of the season, I didn’t feel the need to outspeed anything that normal Salamence doesn’t. We chose Modest to get more damage output, and because the extra speed wasn’t necessary. Salamence + Gothitelle was one of the best leads this team had, and there were countless times where I’d be able to lock in a Choice Specs Hydreigon, and OHKO it with a Dragon Pulse while it was trapped. There was no need for a complicated EV spread. The moveset is interesting because it carries two 100% accurate moves and their stronger counterparts. As we all know, Pokemon is a game full of RNG, and we’ve all had those games where it comes down to “hit the attack and I win, miss and I lose.” Alex and I decided to mitigate the luck factor by including Flamethrower and Draco Meteor. Hydro Pump/Rock Slide/Stone Edge weren’t really that useful in testing anyway, and Choice Specs Draco Meteor + Hariyama’s Helping Hand was a OHKO on basically anything that didn’t resist it. Intimidate is one of the best abilities in the game, and since Gothitelle focused so much on the special spectrum, it was important to have a way to reduce the power of physical attacks. Overall, Salamence was an excellent call for a Worlds metagame full of Choice Specs Hydreigon (I faced three in six matches, all which were Modest), and one of the best members of the team.

ferrothorn

Ferrothorn @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 140 Atk / 116 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Gyro Ball
– Power Whip
– Leech Seed
– Protect

Of course, when you’re about to play in the most prestigious Pokemon tournament of the season, you need to have a way to check the most popular Pokemon, Mega Kangaskhan. That was exactly what Ferrothorn was designed to do. I used Ferrothorn a fair amount after Ray Rizzo won Virginia Regionals with it, and found that if I could avoid/beat its checks (Fire-type Pokemon, Pokemon that often carried Fire-type attacks like Salamence, Tyranitar, etc.), Ferrothorn could beat an entire team by itself. Rocky Helmet+Iron Barbs completely shut down Mega Kangaskhan (there were countless times where I would switch from a predicted Fake Out into Ferrothorn to get free damage off), and gave Mawile a lot of trouble as well. I would often keep Ferrothorn in the back of my team, trap and KO the one or two Pokemon that countered it, and just win with Gothitelle+Ferrothorn in the end. One of the win conditions this team had was to just eliminate any Pokemon that could OHKO Ferrothorn, and start Leech Seeding after that Pokemon is KOed, and it worked out many times. Ferrothorn, similar to Hariyama, was a Pokemon that has a great mix of both bulk and offense and could take most attacks while dishing out OHKOes and 2HKOes.

kangaskhan -> kangaskhan-mega

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 76 Atk / 12 Def / 20 SpD / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Protect
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch
– Double-Edge

Ironically, what was supposed to be the strongest member of the team was left out of multiple sets at Worlds. Alex and I decided to use Kangaskhan as our choice of Mega since it was the de-facto best Mega Pokemon going into Worlds. And the truth is, Mega Kangaskhan is still really powerful, but the reality is that all the best players in the world are going to have multiple ways to beat it. That’s why it worked really well in practice, but when it came down to the actual tournament, Kangaskhan was often a non-factor in sets. That’s not to say it was a bad call on this team: in the games I did bring Mega Kangaskhan to, it absolutely wrecked since the team supported it quite well. However, perhaps going with two Mega Evolutions would have been slightly better for this team. I removed Ferrothorn for Mega Mawile and brought it to a post-Worlds grassroots tournament, which I ended up winning. (Or even just going with Mega Mawile, as the newer version of my team runs now).

Regardless, I loved the set and EV spread on this Kangaskhan, and it was my favorite build of the season personally. Like all the other Pokemon on this team, it had enough bulk to take a Specs Draco Meteor from Hydreigon, which was huge. In addition, it had enough Speed EVs to outspeed Smeargle and Mega Blastoise, which I knew at least one player (Randy Kwa) would be bringing to Worlds. Having a way to remove Focus Sash Smeargle before it could accomplish anything was super convenient, and locking it in with Gothitelle made things a lot easier. The rest were put into Attack and Defense. You’ve probably noticed that I don’t carry Fake Out or Return, opting for Protect and Double Edge instead. I felt that Protect was a much better call for best of 3s, especially with a more defensively built team with the likes of Gothitelle and Ferrothorn. It made it a lot easier to scout, and defend myself from faster Pokemon like Salamence or opposing Kangaskhan. Alex and I chose Double Edge over Return because we knew we would have a means of recovery via Heal Pulse from Gothitelle, and since we don’t have too many Attack EVs.

Team Thoughts

Going into Worlds, I was very pleased with the team Alex and I had constructed. In retrospect, I think Gothitelle and Mawile is a much stronger archetype than Gothitelle and Kangaskhan. Not surprisingly, Kangaskhan had a really difficult time at Worlds since so many players adjusted for her, where as Mawile continues to thrive in a format lacking ways to effectively OHKO it. Also, while moves like Helping Hand on Hariyama and Heal Pulse on Gothitelle were really fun to use in practice, neither came into play too much at Worlds sadly. Alex ended up placing in the top 8 in Seniors, eventually eliminated by Ian McLaughlin (Raikoo). Ian’s team gave Kangaskhan a lot of trouble (he had Mega Mawile and Lucario), and you’re automatically at a disadvantage when your Mega Evolution is rendered useless.

As you may know, I edited the Worlds team and took it to the opening VGC 2015 tournaments (a local Premier Challenge, PA Regionals, TX Regionals). The results were astounding. By replacing Kangaskhan for Mawile, Ferrothorn for Ludicolo, Heal Pulse for Tickle, and Helping Hand for Rock Slide, the team suddenly felt much stronger. Setting up Trick Room became incredibly easy, with two different Fake Out users. Charizard-Y was not nearly as much of an issue as it was before if I lead with Hariyama and Gothitelle. Tickle and Mawile gave me the resources to effectively OHKO any Pokemon in the format. I think this team is slightly stronger than the Worlds team, and I wish I tested Mawile/Tickle out before Worlds, but as I’ve never used Mega Mawile until this fall, I was reluctant to use an unfamiliar Mega Evolution.

Ultimately, I felt pretty confident about this team going into Worlds. I honestly did not practice that much: between my internship and going out with friends, the only games I really played were with Alex. I think practice is important for tournaments, but I don’t like burning out and losing confidence right before a tournament, so I made sure that I played enough games to understand the team but no more. Alex and I actually played multiple mirror matches, which was really interesting since we brought different lead combinations/Pokemon every time and it was a great way to conceptualize the team.

As for how the team played out in practice:

hariyamagothitelle

Hariyama and Gothitelle was by far my favorite lead, but there were so many lead options with this team. Unlike my VGC 2013 Worlds team, which essentially lead Rotom-Wash and Cresselia every match, I couldn’t find a duo as solid as last year’s leads. Thus, leading was completely dependent on my opponent’s teams and threats in team preview. For example, there were games where I could safely lead with Salamence and get a powerful attack off the first turn (i.e. when the opponent’s team didn’t have a Fairy-type or Dragon-type, when they were incredibly weak to Intimidate, etc.).

mawile-megagardevoirazumarill

The team struggled immensely against Fairy-types in general, since I didn’t have a way to effectively OHKO them and they threatened my entire team, namely Salamence and Hariyama. It also had trouble against Pokemon with access to powerful spread attacks, such as Charizard-Y. For example, a combination of Pokemon like Choice Band/Life Orb Garchomp and Charizard-Y could prove deadly if played properly, even if I were to set up Trick Room properly. My Round 1 matchup at Worlds highlights this pretty perfectly – I didn’t have a great answer to Charizard-Y, and it ran through my team.

However, I still think the team was really powerful. It was able to beat players like Sejun Park and Ryosuke Kosgue in casual games Sunday night (Ryosuke told me he did not expect Trick Room at all at Worlds, and after shutting down his Taunt from Aerodactyl, Ferrothorn was able to clean through his team). It’s just that the lack of synergy between Mega Kangaskhan and Gothitelle made it a bit more difficult to play. Overall though, I enjoyed playing with the team and it was a ton of fun building with Alex. I wish I could’ve brought the edited team that I created to Worlds, but you live and learn. Here’s how my matches from Worlds went down.

2014 World Championships

My family drove down to Washington DC Thursday afternoon. Since Brendan won Worlds last year, we had our travel expenses fully covered and a hotel room booked. Having a room right by the convention center was nice, since we had a one mile walk between our hotel/the convention center at Worlds the previous year. After traffic approximately doubled our travel time, we finally got there and I was able to meet a lot of people right away. Friday was spent hanging out with friends and watching the Last Chance Qualifier. I had tickets to the Pokemon Symphonic Evolutions Concert as well, which I attended with a lot of great people from Nugget Bridge. After a long night, I decided to call it a day.

I had a pretty terrible night of sleep that night and just wanted to go back to sleep after waking up. It was really cold in the convention center, and alongside my lack of sleep and pre-tournament jitters, I was honestly incredibly nervous going into the first round. I got there in time to watch the opening ceremony (which was kind of underwhelming when compared to the last three years). Afterwards, I realized that I carelessly forgot to charge my DS, so I went to the charging stations before the tournament started and tried to just stay focused, knowing I had a long day ahead of me. Pairings finally went up, and I saw that I was playing Christopher Arthur in the first round.

My notes for each round are very minimal, so you’ll have to bare with me. I’m basically going off memory here,  and as a result won’t be writing too much about each round. I thought this would be nice to include though, so you guys see who I faced and what each of them brought.

Round 1. vs Christopher Arthur (Koryo) 

garchompgengarcharizard-mega-yvenusauraerodactyl-megabisharp

I ran into my good friend Christopher Arthur in the first round. He’s one of the friendliest guys around in VGC, and has constantly performed well in tournaments overseas for the past couple of years. He finished 2nd at Italy Nationals this year, and I had a feeling he might be bringing the same team to Worlds. Lo and behold, when team preview went up, I saw the exact same six Pokemon he used to get 2nd there. I honestly did not like my chances when I saw his six Pokemon, as both Bisharp and Gengar threaten Gothitelle, Aerodactyl has Unnerve to shut down my Sitrus/Chesto Berry, Bisharp can absorb Intimidates with Defiant, and I didn’t have too many ways to deal with Charizard Y.

Game 1: Christopher leads with Gengar and Aerodactyl against my Hariyama and Gothitelle. Fearing the Taunt from both Pokemon, I Fake Out the Aerodactyl the first turn while Gothitelle goes for a Psychic onto Gengar to scout for the Taunt. He flinches with Aerodactyl and Shadow Balls my Hariyama, which was a sign to me that he did not carry Taunt. Of course, as I go for Trick Room the following turn, his Gengar Taunts my Gothitelle… and I instantly tilt a bit for not Trick Rooming the first turn, especially in a Game 1. Setting up Trick Room would have pretty much given me an instant lead, but I was forced to pay the consequences. After some careful switching, I manage to set up Trick Room, but he gets his Charizard-Y in safely and Heat Wave critical hits/burns my Gothitelle. I then see my win condition: if I can KO his Charizard-Y, my final Pokemon, Ferrothorn, walls the remainder of his team. However, as I go for the Double Edge onto his Charizard-Y with Kangaskhan, he outspeeds me and gets a critical hit Overheat, ending any chance of victory for me. Christopher played a really smart game and I was frustrated right from the start after not getting Trick Room up, but I felt like I had a decent grasp on the matchup going into the next games. 0-1

Game 2: I wish this game could have gone better, but the reality is that I just got smashed. Christopher opted to choose Mega Aerodactyl over Mega Charizard, and Rock Slide happened. With Bisharp in the back (an excellent adjustment by him since he didn’t bring it game 1, and I had Salamence this game), I didn’t have a good way to deal with Aerodactyl, and unfortunately, Rock Slide flinched me a total of five times, including once when I tried to set up Trick Room and another on my normal Kangaskhan, which Power-Up Punched a Gengar predicting a Bisharp switch-in (he did end up making that switch). Christopher won this game & set pretty convincingly, and I really began to doubt my team after an 0-2 start to Worlds as I realized I didn’t have that many ways to mitigate the luck factors if I wasn’t able to set up Trick Room successfully. While luck was a factor, I do think he made the better Pokemon selection both games, and I just wasn’t ready for such high level play right away. Good games! 0-2

Record: 0-1 (0-2)

Round 2 vs. Jon Hu (JHufSelf) 

garchompgengar-megamawile-megalapraschandelureumbreon

Discouraged by a round 1 loss, I knew I would have to win all five games to make it into the final 8. My round 2 opponent was Jon Hu, who rose to fame with his breakout tournament at US Nationals, where he finished in the Top 4 overall and used really eccentric Pokemon choices such as Mega Gengar, Sableye, and Lapras. I was thus not surprised to see many members of his Nationals team on his Worlds team, as Garchomp, Mega Gengar, Mega Mawile, and Lapras returned. The Chandelure was definitely not a Pokemon I wanted to face. Umbreon had to stick out the most though, as I’ve never played a competitive one in VGC, so I was really curious to see what Jon had on it. His team checked Kangaskhan really well, and I actually ended up not bringing it at all in this set. I knew that Ferrothorn could run through his team if I eliminated Chandelure early on, so that was my game plan for all three matches. Jon’s team was quite interesting: he had the ability to lock in Pokemon with Mega Gengar, which also ran Substitute, and his Umbreon was super annoying with a moveset of Snarl, Yawn, Helping Hand, and Moonlight.

Game 1: The first game plays out pretty perfectly. Jon leads with Umbreon and Chandelure while I lead with Hariyama and Salamence. While I forget about Umbreon’s Inner Focus (oops!), I’m able to pick up a quick KO on Chandelure on the second turn of the game, allowing my Ferrothorn to come in and instantly have a field day. I almost lose the game as he reveals Helping Hand on Umbreon and Shadow Balls my Ferrothorn with Mega Gengar. He gets a critical hit too, but Ferrothorn was clutch and hung on with just a bit of HP, which was enough for me to take game one. 1-0

Game 2: Game 2 was pretty crazy. Jon ended up bringing both Mawile and Gengar, and despite choosing to Mega Evolve Gengar and not Mawile, I was still demolished by his normal Mawile. I lead with Hariyama and Gothitelle against his double Ghost lead of Chandelure and Gengar. Predicting a double Shadow Ball into Gothitelle, I decide to just try and eliminate the Chandelure from the start again with a Psychic and Knock Off. Right after I lock in my moves though, I realize my mistake – I should have used Trick Room instead of Psychic. Indeed, he actually goes for a Heat Wave/Shadow Ball, which fails to KO my Gothitelle due to it’s special bulk. I pick up the KO on his Chandelure once again, but now that my Hariyama is trapped by his Mega Gengar’s Shadow Tag, normal Mawile comes in. I switch Gothitelle out the following turn to Intimidate the Mawile, but Jon makes a great play by going for a Protect with Gengar and a Rock Slide with his normal Mawile, which actually does enough to put me in Sludge Bomb KO range. The following turn, he picks up two KOes with Sludge Bomb/Play Rough as neither of my Pokemon can switch out/carry Protect. At this point, I have a very weak Gothitelle and a full HP Ferrothorn left. Jon is able to pick off Gothitelle and his Umbreon in the back is able to continuously Yawn me, and Ferrothorn faints after multiple Helping Hand boosted Shadow Ball. 1-1

Game 3: I was slightly on tilt after game 2 because I didn’t attempt to set up Trick Room on the first turn, which would have given me a major advantage. I don’t remember game 3 too well sadly, but Jon played incredibly well, conserving his Chandelure by leading with it but switching out early on. In the end, I have a weakened Rotom-H and Ferrothorn against an Umbreon, a damaged Garchomp, and a damaged Chandelure in the back. Jon read my Protect and Protected with his Garchomp as my Rotom-Heat protected, so I know that the only chance I have at winning now is going for a double Protect while Ferrothorn tries to KO Garchomp. Fortunately enough, I get the double Protect, and Rotom-Heat is able to outspeed and KO the Chandelure Jon had in the back. A super, super close call and I’m saved from an 0-2 start at the World Championships. 2-1

Record: 1-1 (2-3)

Round 3 vs. Matthias Hellmoldt (Tyvyr) 

garchomphydreigonmawile-megavaporeonrotom-heataegislash

I was definitely relieved after game 3 of the previous set, but I still was not playing well and I needed to step my game up at this point if I wanted any chance of making the top 8. My next opponent was Matthias Hellmoldt, who became the first German player to top cut a World Championship with his Top 8 finish in 2013, losing to eventual World Champion Arash Omatti in three games. His team looked relatively standard, and seeing Hydreigon gave me some peace of mind since I had my Specs Hydreigon. The Vaporeon definitely stuck out though, and I knew it could give my Salamence/Rotom-Heat some trouble if played correctly. Sadly, I don’t remember these games very well, but I’ll do my best to recall them.

Game 1: Matthias leads with his Hydreigon and Vaporeon, with Mawile and Rotom-Heat in the back. I believe I switch out my Salamence into Hariyama while Gothitelle successfully sets up Trick Room, and I slowly clean through his team. I find out that his Vaporeon carries a Rocky Helmet, which was super interesting since Jon Hu has his own Rocky Helmet Eeveelution the previous round. I end up winning in a pretty clean game. 1-0

Game 2: In game 2, Matthias leads with Hydreigon and Mawile. I think his Mawile Protects on the first turn while I Draco Meteor his Hydreigon, which picks up the OHKO despite his Haban Berry. I learn that his Garchomp also has a Lum Berry after attempting to Will-o-Wisp it with Rotom-H. I think this game actually came down to a Rotom-Heat vs. Rotom-Heat war, but with mine clearly in the lead, Matthias forfeits and I win the game/set. 2-0

Record: 2-1 (4-3)

Round 4 vs. Alex Ogloza (Evan Falco) 

politoedludicolokangaskhan-megazapdosaegislashhydreigon

After a much better set than both Rounds 1 and 2, I regain some confidence and finally feel like I’m playing the way I should be playing. In Round 4, my opponent was none other than 2014 US National Champion Alex Ogloza. I knew Alex was using a relatively standard Rain team since he played Ray Rizzo on live stream in Round 2. I was actually really hoping they would feature our match on stream, but unfortunately, they ended up not choosing us. I felt really confident about my match up since Hariyama/Gothitelle ensure a Turn 1/Turn 2 Trick Room, and Kangaskhan can hit five of his six Pokemon for large damage.

Game 1: So Game 1 starts off perfectly, as I lead with Hariyama and Gothitelle against his Hydreigon and Ludicolo. He Fake Outs my Hariyama, and I set up Trick Room successfully as Gothitelle survives the Choice Specs Dark Pulse. The next turn, I Close Combat and Rest while Ludicolo does negligible damage. Unfortunately, by setting up Trick Room, I actually cause my own demise towards the end of the game as my own Kangaskhan Double Edges into his Kangaskhan’s Protect and his Ludicolo is able to burn my own Kangaskhan with Scald. I really blew this game, assuming he still carried Fake Out over Protect on his Kangaskhan and walking into a Protect, giving him a chance to come back. It’s definitely frustrating when you give up valuable information and have such a good lead but still lose the game. Lots of credit to Alex, though, for figuring out his win condition and executing it flawlessly, there’s a reason why he’s national champ. 0-1

Game 2: I don’t remember games 2 or 3 very well to be quite honest, but both of them involve a crucial prediction with Salamence, which I brought to both matchups. I think it was Game 2 where I predicted him to switch into Aegislash and Fire Blast that slot, picking up a ton of damage against it as I call the switch correctly. I end up winning this game, forcing a game 3. 1-1

Game 3: In game 3, I figure Alex is going to stay in with his Hydreigon this time as it faces up against my Salamence, and I just go for the Dragon Pulse. As I expected, he does not switch out and I pick up the KO on his Hydreigon instantly, which gives me a huge lead that I don’t give up for the remainder of the game as I take both the game and the set against a super strong opponent. 2-1

Record: 3-1 (6-4)

Round 5 vs. Markus Liu (Henrique) 

azumarillmachampmawile-megarotom-heatvenusaur-megahydreigon

While not Germany’s Markus Stadter, I faced an equally formidable opponent in the 5th round, Markus Liu. Markus placed in the top 8 at the World Championships as a Senior last year and was having quite the performance as a first year Master. I felt relatively confident going into match, after bouncing back and winning three sets in a row. Markus’s team was full of threats though, and I was not pleased about that. He had two Fairy-type Pokemon in Azumarill and Mega Mawile (hint: this team does not like facing Fairies) and Choice Scarf Machamp, which is a huge threat to my entire team, other than Gothitelle. Looking back at my set with Markus, I do not know what I was thinking during some of my Pokemon decisions. He also played an excellent set and his Machamp was one of my favorite Pokemon/sets from VGC 2014.

Game 1: Game 1 plays out pretty perfectly for me. Markus decides to lead with his Choice Scarf Machamp, which threatens my team immensely since it can pick up OHKOes on Kangaskhan and Ferrothorn with Close Combat. He also leads with Rotom-Heat. As you can tell, a pretty perfect matchup for Gothitele and Hariyama, as Rotom-Heat can barely touch either, and I was guaranteed to get a Fake Out/Trick Room off on the first turn. After Machamp goes down, there is not very much Markus can do for the Mega Kangaskhan and Rotom-H I have in the back. I believe I win this game 4-0, which gave me a lot of confidence going into the next two games. 1-0

Game 2: Markus makes an excellent adjustment this game, leading with Azumarill and Hydreigon with Mawile and Machamp in the back. I don’t remember this game very well, but I decide not to lead with Salamence or Hariyama, and Gothitelle has a real tough time against both of his leads. Markus preserving Choice Scarf Machamp in the late game was also really smart, as it was able to OHKO my Kangaskhan in the end of the game while I was not able to do anything. His decision to threaten my Gothitelle from turn 1 with his leads paid off, especially as he had Machamp to clean up the game in the back. 1-1

Game 3: Unfortunately, this was a pretty heartbreaking game for me. Markus decides to stick with his Hydreigon/Azumarill lead while I lead with Hariyama/Gothitelle. My plan was to set up Trick Room the first turn, then switch Gothitelle into Ferrothorn the following turn. On the first turn, I Fake Out his Azumarill, which flinches, and his Choice Specs Hydreigon Dark Pulses my Gothitelle, which survives with a sliver of HP… just to flinch. I hadn’t even considered the flinch as a possibility, and that just threw my entire game plan off. I figure I still have a shot later on since I manage to have both Kangaskhan and Hariyama in against Hydreigon and Azumarill. I know his Azumarill does not have a Sitrus Berry, so Double Edge can actually KO it, while Hariyama can pick up a KO on Hydreigon. However, as Kangaskhan Mega Evolves, Hydreigon moves before it and gets yet another flinch with Dark Pulse. Both of Markus’s Pokemon stayed in that turn and did not Protect, so I could have turned the game 3-2 in my favor, but with Mawile and Machamp in the back, it was basically a lost cause after the first turn. My chances of top cutting Worlds end with a hearbreaking loss. In perspective, I played this game really poorly. For example, I figured he would lead with Hydreigon/Azumarill as he did the previous game, and instead of bringing Salamence, which directly counters Modest Specs Hydreigon, I lead with Hariyama. Leading Salamence would have allowed me to pick up a free KO AND safely set up Trick Room. I’m honestly not sure I would have been able to win even if I had set up Trick Room. I didn’t think my game plan fully through, and with Markus’s smart adjustment after game 1, I paid the price. 1-2

Record: 3-2 (7-6)

Round 6 vs. Wonseok Jang (Krelcroc) 

kangaskhan-megasalamencetyranitar-megazapdosaegislashamoonguss

Still depressed about my elimination from top cut contention, I tried to keep my spirits high and at least finish with a 4-2 record. I ran into 2012 Korean National Champion Wonseok in the last round, which was actually super exciting for me. For those that don’t know, Wonseok was a huge inspiration to me back in the 2012 season after he won Korea Nationals. I adapted a bunch of his winning team for my own US Nationals team that summer, and ultimately ended up winning, so I owe a good amount of my success that season to him. I also had the opportunity to hang out with him more after Worlds this year, which was super exciting because his English is great and he’s a really funny guy. He qualified for Worlds this year through a Top 4 finish at Korea Nationals. His team looked pretty standard to me in team preview, and I knew Hariyama/Rotom-Heat would have a field day against his two Mega Evolutions and his Aegislash/Amoonguss. My notes for this set are nearly non-existent, so you’ll have to bear with me.

Game 1: Wonseok leads with Zapdos and Aegislash in the first game, and I am able to bait the turn 1 attack with Aegislash to KO it instantly with a Hariyama Knock Off. His Zapdos reveals Volt Switch and Choice Specs, while Aegislash reveals the Weakness Policy (fortunately not activated since I managed to pick up the KO with Knock Off). While his Amoonguss definitely scared me, Safety Goggles Rotom-Heat came in clutch here, with the ability to switch into Spores and Will-o-Wisp Tyranitar before it set up with Dragon Dance. Knocking out Aegislash early on was essential, allowing me to overwhelm him with offensive, especially as Amoonguss was essentially dead weight for Wonseok. 1-0

Game 2: I didn’t even write down Wonseok’s Pokemon in my notebook for this game, so I honestly can’t remember a single thing. I think he decided to switch from Mega Tyranitar to Kangaskhan this time around, but the combination of Salamence/Hariyama/Rotom-Heat was just too much too handle and I’m able to close out my last game at Worlds with a win. 2-0

Record: 4-2 (9-6) // Ranking18th Place

With a final record of 4-2, I played 18th in the world, which was actually my second worst performance at Worlds (31st in ’08, 17th in ’11, 8th in ’12, 3rd in ’13). However, this World Championship definitely felt more difficult than in previous years, and the rankings for all the 4-2s always feels so arbitrary since they’re determined by opponent’s win percentage. Unfortunately, all my opponents lost their last match, which meant that I fell from the middle of the x-2 pack to the bottom. I do not think I played my best that day, and Christopher and Markus definitely played better sets than I did. The reality is that you have to play near flawlessly (and get a little bit of RNG on your side) to make it into the top cut, and I didn’t do that this Worlds.

After Swiss was over, I went on to watch the top cut matches. Alex made it into the Top 8 of Seniors, so I cheered him on, but he unfortunately ran into what was basically a direct counter to our team, and he was eliminated. I then watched the SEJUN TRAIN roll through in the quarter-finals and semi-finals.

Now for a short interlude of pictures…

Picture Time

VGC reports barely ever have pictures anymore. Here’s a collection of some awesome photos taken over the weekend.

With Singapore’s Wei Wen

Most casual photobomb…

With Taiwan’s Tsau Che Ming

With Raúl Arias

The Worlds team!

With Deku/Sekiam, Spanish Team 2014!

With Daniel Norton

With On The Bubble’s Kenny Wisdom

With judge/TO Nic Freda, he’s the man!

With Miguel Vicêncio

With 2014 UK Semi-Finalist Kelly Mercier-White

2010 World Champion Shota Yamamoto

We take this photo at every event now

So many champions in one photo

Ryosuke Kosuge!

Luca + Eloy <3

Brendan with his MVP from 2013

The champ, the hero

Selfie with the champs before the Finals!

Brendan’s interview pre-Junior Finals

Sejun celebrates his World Championship

“SEJUN TAKE A SELFIE WITH ME”

CT ZeRo made a surprise visit!

With a Japanese Junior

Couldn’t have asked for a better friend/teambuilding partner

Post event shenanigans with some cuties

Unpacking the goods at home

5 different Worlds badges

Closing Thoughts

Ultimately, I had a great time at Worlds, despite my final ranking of 18th place. Sadly, all of my opponents lost their last round, so my resistance tanked between rounds 5/6 and I dropped all the way down to one of the lowest 4-2s. I have to be completely honest with you, I really wanted to make it back to the Top 8, and it was bittersweet coming so close but missing out. I wanted a shot at redemption after last year’s loss, but I didn’t even get a chance to fight it out. However, top cutting Worlds is certainly not an easy task: you have to play incredibly well, avoid bad matchups, and get lucky throughout the day. I don’t think I played my best that day, and the players who were in Top 8 certainly did. I’m fortunate enough to have top cut two World Championships already, and coming close this year is just more motivation for the upcoming season. I think at the least, I’ve regained my passion for the game, which was just what I needed. It was great to see so many new names make it up to the top (seriously, shoutouts to all of the top 8: Sejun, Jeduy, Collin, Markus, Dayne, Lee, Miguel, Ryosuke) and of course,  I was ecstatic to see Sejun Park finally take home his first World Championship.

As for the team I brought to Worlds, I’d like to once again thank Alex, Ansel, and Tommy for the help with constructing the team and perfecting the EV spreads. I think most of you know at this point that I’ve slightly edited the team to adjust for the metagame, and I’ll be posting a report on that shortly. (Personally, I believe now that Mawile is much better of a Mega Evolution to partner up with Gothitelle and Trick Room. There’s obviously not very much synergy between TR Gothitelle and Kangaskhan, and I feel as if I shouldn’t have been so stubborn to stick with Kangaskhan for Worlds.) The updated team is super, super, super powerful, and I’m excited to write about it soon, but the Worlds team was also really fun, especially with Ferrothorn and Hariyama as unique Trick Room attackers.

The social experience at Pokemon tournaments is always amazing, and Worlds was no different. There are too many people to list, but it was great seeing everyone again. I actually attended the Pokemon Symphonic Evolutions Concert the night before Worlds, which was an amazing experience (who knew Pokemon music could make you so nostalgic and emotional?) as well. I had a ton of fun with the Germans especially (shoutouts to 4018), a group I haven’t gotten to interact with too much until this summer. Sunday night with everyone was especially fun, and I’ll cherish the memories and games from that night for the rest of my life. I see players like Sejun and Shota once a year, so it makes those times that much more special.

I really rediscovered my love and passion for the game Sunday night at Worlds. For those that don’t know, it’s become a tradition now for all the players to come together in the open gaming room the last night of Worlds and celebrate the end of the season with games and Multi-battles. It’s the one time in the year that we get to interact with the international players, especially the Korean and Japanese players, and it’s an absolute blast. Sejun Park, Shota Yamamoto, and I began doing this in 2011, and it’s grown into something amazing in the past few years. I think as Scott put it in one of his “What We Learned” articles last year, at the end of the day, only one of us is crowned World Champion. The rest of us have to wait a whole year for another shot at the title. Do we get depressed about our losses? No! We come together and play the game we love and cherish with some of the most amazing people in the world. And despite the fact that we don’t speak the same language, Pokemon is more than enough to unite us.

As cliche as it sounds, Pokemon has done so much for my life. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be playing it competitively for, nor am I not sure if I’ll ever win a World Championship title. But I know that for as long as I play this game, I’m going to do whatever I can to help competitive VGC grow. I plan on doing many more guides once OR/AS come out, alongside battle videos, and hopefully I can find more time to write articles for you all since I always have so much to say but so little time to actually write it all out. I guess I’ll continue playing too…

I’m glad to have experienced the 2014 season as a whole. I think that success can often blind you, especially when it comes repeatedly, and I took away a lot both as a person and as a Pokemon competitor from my sub-par finishes this year. To be honest, I lost a lot of passion for the game competitively towards the middle of the season and really wanted to just stop playing and focus fully on helping the game grow through YouTube, but after Worlds, I realized that prospect is just ridiculous and that there’s no reason why I can’t do both.

Thanks for sticking with me up until this point, this report was a lot but I appreciate if if you read all of it. Thanks especially to those who have supported me throughout the years, especially in this past season. Being one of the more public players of VGC can work both ways. I love that I get to help so many people, it’s honestly a humbling experience. But it can be tough too, dealing with scrutiny, criticism, and sometimes, just plain hate. However, the pros far outweigh the cons, and it’s the community that keeps me around to this day. Thanks to Nugget Bridge for the amazing work it does, to the international community for making Worlds a blast every year, to all the fans online who support me continuously, to the people who come up to me at tournaments and tell me I got them into VGC, to all my friends who make each tournament so much more fun outside of the actual Pokemon games, and to TCPi for giving us a way to take our love for Pokemon to the next level. I’m honored to be part of such an incredibly and accepting community, and some of my best friends have come out of playing VGC.

This season (and Worlds) was full of ups and downs, but I’ve learned so much and I’m excited for what the future holds. I guess this report ended up being half about Worlds and half about my feelings towards the game in general, but I hope you enjoyed the read and the pictures. Stay tuned for another report on the start of my 2015 season, including my win at Philadelphia Regionals two weeks ago and my 4th place finish at Texas Regionals last weekend! Until then, I’ll see you next time.

Until next year.

 


About the Author

is a five time Worlds qualifier ('08, '11, '12, '13, '14), a three-time Regional Champion, and a two-time National Champion. Aaron also placed 3rd at the 2013 Pokemon World Championships. He is sponsored by CLASH Tournaments and aims to promote competitive VGC through his YouTube channel, CybertronProductions. Aaron is currently a senior at Trinity School NYC.



32 Responses to Aaron Zheng’s 2014 Season Reflection & Pokemon World Championship Report

  1. woopahking says:

    So glad I’m in this article

  2. GradyOppelt says:

    Very inspiring

  3. ScottMtc says:

    I too have had your problem this season. Not enough Bulk >.< Can’t switch
     
    Also: top players, please stop saying that top 20 in the world is “lackluster”. I think going 4-2 at Worlds is excellent, especially considering that standings are determined by the stupid Opponent Win % thing.

  4. Evan Falco says:

    Your dragon predicts games 2 and 3 were godly XD

    Anyways, good job man. Glad to see such an amazing comeback after some unfortunate luck throughout the beginning of the 2014 season. I think the fact that you can still focus so much on Pokemon after the luck you had in the semi finals of Worlds in 2013 really attests to your mental fortitude. I’d be a complete mess if that happened to me. You’re off to such a great start! I hope we see you in Worlds again this year.

  5. Really took your time to make this report, will take hours to finish reading ^.^ 

  6. Kinderlew says:

    “I had a pretty terrible night of sleep that night and just wanted to go back to sleep after waking up.”
    LOL no kidding

  7. R Inanimate says:

    I had the pleasure of getting to play against your World’s team when you were doing a streamed battle queue (is that still happening?). While I knew the team had a lot of TR aspects to it, I wasn’t sure exactly how fast the Kangaskhan was. Good to know that it was EV’d specifically to be faster than Timid Blastoise.
     
    It’s nice to see that you were able to manage to find a team that worked well for you by the end of the season. A fairly solid run at worlds, followed by huge successes with your post-worlds version during PCs and Regionals, probably helps in adding Trapping, and Trick Room back on the board of the many many things you need to have a good answer to in 2014 VGC.
     
    Heat > Wash

  8. KellsterCartier says:

    I love you Aaron.

  9. Kirisoul says:

    Wow, this is the best report I’ve ever read.
     
    I’ve been following your games/youtube channel since watching your set in world’s last year, and I definitely learned a lot. I know how busy collegeapps are, and I was pretty amazed that you still had time to dedicate to pokemon.
     
    I was actually sitting next to you in your third loss at Mass. regionals (I was a little shy, so I didn’t say hi). Reading that you threw that team together in five minutes felt very real to me. I remember reflecting on how difficult it must be to juggle being such a reputable player w/school and social life. 
     
    Still, this report was very well written, and I’m happy you rekindled your love of the game despite the rough season. Best of luck on all your collegeapps, and I’ll be looking forward to your coverage of ORAS in a month :)

  10. Pokealex says:

    First of all, i’m really glad to have worked with you and being a really good friend with you.

    Second, it was sadly that you couldn’t make top cut with that loss against Henrique that you didnt deserve, but oh well it’s pokemon, even managing to get a 4-2, overall was a great ran.

    Thirdly, It should be me the one who said couldn’t have asked for a better friend/teambuilding partner…

    Four, love you dude <3

    HARI MEANS FUERTE!!

  11. albus says:

    Very nice read.

  12. Bopper says:

    Great read. Hoping to make one of these as well. Congrats on going well at regionals and worlds!

    And as usual, can you sign my butt?

  13. Arbol Deku says:

    What a great post/report my hoodie man. You deserve what you did on all your pokemon-carrer long!

  14. Pokester says:

    It took me almost an hour to read this, believe it or not. I can see why you took the time and effort to do everything, I really loved reading it and definitely laughed a couple of times (the most casual photobomb lol). Once again, great read, congrats on everything that’s happened so far, and good luck in the rest of the upcoming season! 🙂

  15. Souldewz says:

    Lovely read, always great reading and learning from your Pokemon experiences. Congratulations on all of your amazing achievements and can’t wait to see what you achieve this season as well.

  16. JHufself says:

    Hey that’sa me in the photo!

    It was great meeting everyone at Worlds, and you’re no exception Aaron! I’m glad you remembered our match so well, so don’t say you didn’t remember it well, and it’s definitely one of the more memorable matches I had that day. Looking back, I could have tried for the double Protect as well and tried to Yawn your Rotom so that Chandelure could knock out Ferrothorn, but I think I was caught off guard by your Rotom’s double Protect first.
    For my first Worlds experience, everything kind of overwhelmed me. The amount of people with high level playing was something I obviously expected, but to actually be in the tournament was another deal entirely. And to think you’ve been to this kind of event 5 times! Simply amazing. Hopefully we’ll see each other at the next Worlds, wherever that may be.

  17. FlashSentry says:

    Congratulations so much Aaron!. This is a great and inspiring article! Nice to see that you are doing so good this season! I wish you the best of luck at your future events :D!!

  18. joej m says:

    You might have been washed up leading up to worlds, but since worlds you been heating up and now you are on fire.
     
    Really great read :)

  19. tlyee61 says:

     Tommy Yee (tylee61)

     
    :^)
     
    thanks for the shoutout nonetheless! it’s been great seeing you at the past few events and hopefully you come out to the best coast for college ;D

  20. Boomguy says:

    Thank you for writing up a season story it was a great pleasure to read it and be inspired even the best can have it bad as well.  Even though it wasn’t the result you wanted overall, you did manage to play well enough to beat quality opponents.  You will surely win a worlds championship one year.

  21. ncappa777 says:

    This is an absolutely excellent report, sweet read. I’d like to see more like this in the future where people sort of reflect more on the journey as much as they do the team, because really that’s half of the fun. I know people probably tell you this every day but you’re easily one of the most influential people in the VGC community at the moment. You seem to do a great job with all of your content on da youtubes and make a really great ambassador for the game as a whole, probably really playing quite a role in legitimising Pokemon as an esport (especially because of the growth that the game has experienced this year). Best of luck for this season, great run at worlds/autumn regionals, and keep up the amazing content, guys like you (and some of the other poketubers around the NB community) bring in so much good publicity to the game. 

  22. Scott says:

    Did we not get a commentator + Coobertron picture this year??? Thank god I’m making a sick cameo in the back of that 2013 pic, we gotta work on that next year…
     
    Thanks a lot for writing the report, Aaron. It was a good read, and I enjoyed it feeling a little more like the warstories of the old days. Even though I think if I tried to load this on my phone it might actually have exploded.
     
    I can relate to some of the early 2014 struggles, as much as I ribbed you for it over the season. I think we were sort of in similar situations there. You had your Worlds invite locked up and it made more sense for you to focus on YouTube and school, so there wasn’t much point in going as hard as you did in 2013. In my case, my time tends to be a lot better spent administering NB and working on content here than playing myself, and while I didn’t know for sure I was commentating until near the end of the year(which also takes prep time), I was pretty sure I would be, so I didn’t really have my foot on the gas all year either and was a little leery about eliminating people for no reason. I didn’t have quite as tough of a run during last year’s regular season as you did (though I didn’t top 4 either since I lost in top 8 twice), but I think the experience we both had there was that not needing CP doesn’t make losing feel any better when you’re as competitive as both of us are, especially after we were 2-3 going into Nationals in 2013 and with your Worlds finish last year. I am glad to see you finishing back where you should be this year. I think this year will work out a lot better in both cases, since you’re getting yourself going hard again and I think in my case the days of me playing in events are probably going to need to start ending.
     
    I appreciated your summary of your Nats team. Too many players blame the game for RNG — usually, there is more going on than just getting bad rolls by chance. It often comes down to battling and/or teambuilding, as the latter case was the factor this time. We all have to try to be mature enough to figure out what factors we can change to optimize our odds if we want to be successful.
     
    I enjoyed your Worlds team a lot. While I very much prefer the version from Regionals, you guys had some cool stuff here like the Chesto Rest Gothitelle and Hariyama in general I thought was really clever, and the team as a whole is really smart and seems like it could have gone further with just a couple battles going a little differently. I actually ended up watching your Worlds team video for a starting point because one of my friends wanted a TR team, so I definitely liked the team a lot. I did make some small changes… Mawile being the big one… which amusingly ended up with it being pretty close to what you ended up with at Regionals outside of you adjusting a couple sets better and less lazily than I did.
     
    One last note: I particularly enjoyed the A Small But Significant Tangent section. I appreciate the shoutout to us and Chris there, and it is pretty strange to think of what VGC might be like right now without those people, you, Alex, and Justin on the visual medias, and a few other key staff/contributors on NB like Zach, the editors, feathers in particular, and some of the bigger name regular contributors here like Randy, Ray, and you again. I appreciate that you still write here even though you’re doing stuff on your own. I think you’re kind of my ideal contributor scenario because you do reports and some other articles here when it makes sense and help build the game on your own when you want to make other content that might not be as suited for the way Nugget Bridge is doing things right now, which also gets you a little different audience than what we reach here. You’re doing a lot of good for VGC right now, man, and I appreciate that you’re both doing what you can to build the game on your own and helping us do the same here.

  23. Amarillo says:

    You are an excellent writer, and this reminds me that I need to finish my own Season Report haha. Congrats on the Worlds run and thanks for popularizing Gothitelle, I have had a lot of interesting games against it recently ;3

  24. Ibito says:

    Great report and article, Aaron! I have enjoyed it from the starting words to the closing pictures, through the team report.  Very good job. Wish you have achieved a better result, but its a good run overall: it’s Worlds. 
     
    I can’t add too much to what other people have said here, but I really wanted to stop by and put some words of appreciation, since I think they are completely deserved. And not only because of this article, but for every piece of content and activity you have put into the community. Despite not being a VGC player at all, since my time and duties have not allowed me to attend any official event yet (sadly), I have enjoyed reports like for a long time and I’ve been following some of your YT content with the feeling that this game and this community keeps growing higher and higher every year, taking the competitive and social side of Pokémon to a really big stage, if it isn’t happened yet. That’s great. In fact, I’ve been playing the VGC ’14 format despite knowing I wouldn’t attend any event in 2014 either, but when you like competitive Pokémon and you see all of this… movement, it simply makes you want to play it. That’s why I wanted to continue training and that’s why I keep looking forward to attend to an event the next year (hopefully I’ll finally do), and meet some of my spanish fellows also, once and for all xD   
     
    You are big, mate. Keep it up. 
     
    PS: how can you simpy don’t want to play or assist to a VGC event after reading reports like this, seriously :)

  25. Such a great report. I can totally understand why its 3 months after worlds and this only just got finished. 
     
    As soon as I saw your team report on Youtube, I thought it was such a clever idea that you and Alex Gomez came up with. Trick Room Gothitelle sounded so deadly-you lock your opponents in and you outspeed them with slow, bulky but powerful Pokemon. I think my first thought was “isn’t Mawile slower?” when seeing your team…but its Kangaskhan, its just powerful. I’m a tiny bit surprised you didn’t finish a bit better (maybe top 10), but when you look at the field you were up against, I think you shouldn’t be surprised if anyone finishes anywhere. 
     
    I started watching your videos probably around March, and I think they’re a testament to how good a player you are, with some of the predictions you make and such. It definitely showed me how much more interesting VGC is to, say, Smogon singles (just my opinion), and got me into that metagame.  
     
    Just wanna finish by saying well done in Philly/Houston regionals, and good luck for the rest of the VGC 15 season. You’re probably more than half way to qualification, which can’t be bad. 

  26. Arcade says:

    Reading a very well written and in depth article by one of the most well-known and skilled players in the game is always a treat, this one especially. Even though I’m more underground than the black market and have been trying to get into a tournament or league(which I found one happening near me that I can reach both time and distance), I still try to give it my all and watch high level play with starry-eyes. There’s no doubt Aaron, that you are a consistently amazing player and can only cheer as you qualify for Worlds and give a great show. I could say more, but honestly, everyone else already said everything possible and in better detail and with more knowledge, it’d be repetitive. I just thought a smaller player should also show their appreciation alongside the admins and other high-level players.

  27. Cybertron says:

    Thanks a lot to everyone for the comments! it means a lot to see a lot of familiar and new faces alike in the thread. Hope you all enjoyed reading the article as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  28. LaeiteaIvan says:

    Great report! I am still halfway in reading though.
    I just wanted to comment a little typo? I think
    In the Hariyama section, you wrote, “Knock Off was excellent in hitting Ghost-types and Dark-types,”
    But I feel like it should be Psychic-types, not dark.
    I may have misinterpret the context, so ignore me if I did.

  29. Cybertron says:

    That is correct! Thank you. Fixed!

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