Reports

Published on September 16th, 2013 | by Enigne

14

Armed with Four Forearms: Senior Division World MaChampion Team Analysis

Hello, everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Hayden McTavish, or Enigne on the forums here and I am the 2013 Senior Division World Champion. Sorry for the delay on my team analysis – I was on vacation and having computer troubles.

Some ideas behind the team were to have multiple resistances to almost every weakness a Pokémon has, and to have no overlapping type weaknesses. I also tried to have super effective moves on many of the types that my Pokémon had weaknesses to.

The nicknames of the Pokémon (or the ones they would have had if nicknames were still visible) are included, with thanks to Unreality for inspiring some of them.

Heatran @ Shuca Berry ***Sorry He
Trait: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 44 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 204 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
– Heat Wave
– Protect
– Earth Power
– Substitute

Heatran was my most offensive Pokémon and the Pokémon I used the least at Worlds, although it helped me in countless practice battles. It was an important part of the team, providing key resistances for my team and being able to take out enemy Heatran without Shuca Berries while potentially snagging a Flash Fire boost.

The EV spread is similar to that of bearsfan092’s Heatran from the 2013 Philadelphia Regionals, with enough Speed to outspeed max Speed neutral natured base 70s and max Special Attack. I took 8 EVs out of HP to put 4 EVs into each defense, making Heatran marginally more bulky, but unfortunately that made Heatran’s HP divisible by 4. It would have been better to then use only 244 EVs in Special Attack and add 8 EVs back to HP.

Scizor @ Occa Berry ***Rock Paper
Trait: Technician
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Atk / 4 Def / 76 SDef / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature
– Bullet Punch
– Bug Bite
– Protect
– Swords Dance

Having two Steel-types was key in having the number of resistances I wanted, and gave me more flexibility in handling dragons and other Pokémon that are threats without a Steel-type to handle them. I stuck with Scizor largely because it has no overlapping weaknesses with Heatran. Moreover, the two have some synergy because of Heatran’s ability to switch in to Fire attacks or make the opponent hesitant to use Heat Wave or Eruption when Scizor and Heatran are out at the same time. Scizor in turn pressures Tyranitar, who is a threat to Heatran (and some of my other Pokémon). Scizor also has an extremely powerful priority move in Technician-boosted Bullet Punch, which was crucial if I found myself unable to use Thundurus comfortably. The moveset was fairly standard, and the EVs let me use Scizor a little more defensively if I needed to while still leaving it with offensive capabilities. The Occa Berry is to keep Scizor from being knocked out by surprise Fire-type attacks.

Rotom-Wash @ Electric Gem ***Enigne
Trait: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 248 SAtk / 4 SDef / 12 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 14 Atk / 30 SAtk
– Thunderbolt
– Hydro Pump
– Hidden Power [Grass]
– Protect

Since I already had two Pokémon with 4x resistances to Grass along with offensive options to hit Grass-types super effectively, Rotom-W seemed an excellent choice. It let me abuse the impressive synergy between Scizor and Rotom-W while providing a Ground immunity and Water resistance for Heatran, along with STAB attacks to deal with Water- and Ground-types. Hidden Power Grass helped me to better cover Gastrodon as well as other Water and/or Ground type Pokémon which couldn’t be handled by Thunderbolt or Hydro Pump, while also giving me a more accurate attack than Hydro Pump against Pokémon like weakened Rhyperior, which helped in the first match of the finals.

I basically used a 252HP/252SpAtk spread, but removed some EVs from HP to speed creep 4 speed Rotom-A. I also compensated for the IV changes caused by running Hidden Power Grass.

Thundurus @ Leftovers ***Faux Foe
Trait: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Def / 172 SDef / 16 Spd
Calm Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 Spd
– Thunderbolt
– Thunder Wave
– Substitute
– Hidden Power [Ice]

Thundurus was my secondary Electric-type, useful in that regard as a secondary counter to Gyarados (which I saw a lot of) and as a switch-in to the occasional Flying-type attack directed at Machamp. Of course, Thundurus was mostly on my team to spread paralysis, as most Thundurus are apt to do. The EV spread allowed Thundurus to survive two Rock Slides from a max Attack Jolly Garchomp and hit back with Hidden Power Ice, although if Sand were present there was no guarantee Thundurus would survive the Sandstorm damage after the second Rock Slide. I invested enough Speed to outspeed neutral natured max Speed base 80s, which also allowed me to speed creep 4 Speed Thundurus. After that, I poured the remaining EV’s into Special Defense. I wasn’t worried about having the guarantee to survive Timid Latios Dragon Gem Draco Meteors because I had Substitute to burn the Dragon Gem and lower Latios’ Special Attack should it target Thundurus with Draco Meteor, which means that the risk of targeting Thundurus with Draco Meteor is enough to discourage the act (as long as the player with the Latios knows or assumes that Thundurus has Substitute). I also didn’t need to use it for switching in on Draco Meteors because I had two Steel-types.

Thundurus was fairly standard, but I was able to use it in nonstandard ways, which made it a deciding factor in my LCQ matches against Shota Yamamoto. In the first game I was able to paralyze my own Cresselia, which blocked a Spore from his Amoonguss that turn and allowed my Cresselia to move first in the Trick Room he had set up during the next few turns. In the second game I was able to Thunder Wave his Metagross to eliminate its Lum Berry before he Swaggered it, which considerably lowered the odds of it sweeping my team. I’m sure I’m not the only person to think of these shenanigans, but they were incredibly useful as surprise factors for a Pokémon that was reasonably standard. Thundurus was able to burn Lum Berries in several matches, which paved the way for Cresselia and Machamp to confuse Pokémon that previously had a way to stop confusion.

Cresselia @ Psychic Gem *** Zen Grape
Trait: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 204 SAtk / 4 SDef / 20 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 5 Atk
– Psyshock
– Ice Beam
– Safeguard
– Swagger

I apologize to those of you who dislike Thunder Wave and Swagger. I originally had Calm Mind and Hidden Power Fire in the last two move slots, but a few days before Worlds I decided to try a set with Safeguard to block Spore, which my team had trouble with, as well as Thunder Waves and Swaggers. It worked fantastically in some games, but I was worried about it having a move that was potentially useless in other games and left Cresselia as deadweight more often than Calm Mind did, so I sacrificed my ability to hit Scizor with Hidden Power Fire to have Swagger, which gave me something to do against the plethora of special attackers in the game (especially if they were paralyzed). It also gave me the potential to boost the Attack of Scizor and Machamp, although I was rarely in that position, as I was hesitant to use Safeguard if it didn’t disrupt the opponent’s strategy.

Parafusion is one of the most despised combinations in Pokémon, and I recognize that it is frustrating to play against (after all, I ran Safeguard on Cresselia). However, I think it is also a highly viable strategy, and though I didn’t run it to frustrate people, I don’t believe that an allowed combination should be neglected because it can be annoying. When a Pokémon is confused and paralyzed it only has a 37.5% chance to attack, not far from the 33% chance a Pokémon has to wake up and attack after having been asleep one or more turns. This means that a Pokémon that is paralyzed and confused has about the same chance of attacking as a Pokémon has of waking up after sleeping only one turn. The difference (as I have experienced it) is that a Pokémon waking up after being asleep just one turn tends to surprise the player who put the Pokémon to sleep, thus giving a slight advantage to a player attempting to attack through sleep. However, often players will approach attacking through paralysis and confusion as something that should be successful more than it really should, thus giving a slight advantage to the player using paralysis and confusion. Paralysis and confusion increase the odds of winning and ensure that a player can often have a chance to win even if their team is largely countered.

I am glad to say that paralysis and confusion rarely gave me inordinate luck (except against Pokealex1999, whom I would like to apologize to), but Pokémon does have a luck factor and I believe that strategies which can drastically improve odds of winning are highly viable.

The Special Attack EVs combined with Psychic Gem allowed Cresselia’s Psyshock to OHKO 252 HP /0 Def Hitmontop, not the most common Pokémon in 2013, but one that still occasionally shows up and provides a good mark for a semi-offensive Cresselia to hit. The Speed let it outspeed 4 Speed Rotom-W, and the rest of the EVs went into bulk, where I maximized HP, put 4 EVs into Special Defense, and put the rest in Defense. I didn’t use a defensive Cresselia because I liked having the flexibility of having it in the back or switching it out without worrying about it potentially being stuck as a last Pokémon with no offensive capabilities. Ice Beam was used because Icy Wind is vulnerable to Substitute Latios which Dim beat me with at Nationals in 2012) and destroys any illusion that this team might have of carrying Trick Room. I used Psyshock because many Pokémon run special bulk over physical bulk, although had I realized Iron Fist Conkeldurr had such power and potential to be frequently used, I might have run Psychic.

Machamp @ Sitrus Berry ***Oh Dear, I
Trait: No Guard
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Atk / 100 Def / 80 SDef
Adamant Nature
– DynamicPunch
– Protect
– Stone Edge
– Wide Guard

It is often difficult to justify using Machamp in a metagame that includes Iron Fist Conkeldurr. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely aware of Conkeldurr’s power (which lost me one of my Swiss matches), and Conkeldurr’s slightly better Hit Points, Defense and Attack paired with access to Mach Punch boosted by Iron Fist certainly give it advantages over its four-armed counterpart, especially since Conkeldurr has access to Wide Guard as well. However, Machamp and Conkeldurr are still quite close in overall bulk, and Machamp has quite an ability of its own in No Guard, which, along with countering Sand Veil and Minimize, eliminates the accuracy drawbacks of Stone Edge and DynamicPunch.

DynamicPunch becomes a reliable 100 base power STAB Fighting attack that confuses the opponent if it fails to KO. This means that Machamp has an incredibly effective balance between offense and support. Offensively, he is able to provide pressure with a powerful Fighting-type attack, which is difficult to switch into even with a resistance to Fighting attacks, because the Pokémon switching in will then become confused (unless it’s a Ghost-type). This also means that outside of Ghost-types that can handle Stone Edge, it is extremely hard to wall a Machamp, because even if Machamp can’t do much damage to a Pokémon, it can still confuse it. Cresselia isn’t a counter but merely a check to Machamp. Because Machamp can prevent a Pokémon from attacking 50 percent of the time after hitting it with a DynamicPunch (and has access to Wide Guard), he is viable in a supporting role as well. Therefore, he isn’t stopped cold by Intimidate. Where DynamicPunch makes Machamp truly devastating, however, is in abusing paralysis. Because paralysis quarters a Pokémon’s speed (effectively a drop from +0 speed to -6), Machamp is able to outspeed Pokémon at up to 299 speed when they’re paralyzed. If opposing Pokémon are paralyzed, Machamp’s major flaw, its low Speed, is covered and its DynamicPunches are even more threatening. Even if DynamicPunch doesn’t deal much damage to some paralyzed Pokémon, it still sets up a parafusion combo before a Pokémon can attack. To make matters better, Machamp has fantastic synergy with Thundurus, able not only to take out Rock- and Ice-types that threaten Thundurus, but also to use Wide Guard in blocking the Rock Slides, Blizzards, and Icy Winds that threaten Thundurus while it spreads paralysis. I’ve used Machamp before on a team with no speed control (not intentionally!) and he has still done exceptionally well, but what made him World Championship caliber was paralysis support.

Stone Edge is no longer Stone Miss, which means that Machamp has the most reliable Rock-type attack in the game, and therefore is an effective Volcarona check. The increased critical hit ratio is also helpful in handling Intimidate.

The one drawback to using Machamp is that attacks never miss Machamp. This means that Will-O-Wisp is a huge pain for Machamp, and Rotom-Wash can usually opt for Hydro-Pump over Thunderbolt when attacking Machamp.

Although Machamp’s lack of Mach Punch is certainly not beneficial, it gives Machamp the ability to run Wide Guard and Protect, something Conkeldurr can’t do without forfeiting its priority, its main STAB move, or its coverage move. If Conkeldurr is without one of those three moves, then Machamp is an equally viable choice (if not a better one).

The EV spread let Machamp always survive Zen Headbutts from Adamant max attack Metagross and Psyshocks/Psychics from Timid max Special Attack Latios. It had 80 Special Defense instead of 76 with 4 Speed, because the Machamp I was using at the time I came up with this spread had a 30 special defense IV. Also, it was just as useful to have no Speed investment since Machamp often operated under the opponent’s Trick Room.

Conclusion

Worlds was one of the best experiences in Pokémon that I’ve ever had, and I appreciate the way the community welcomed someone that very few people knew before Worlds. I apologize that this is so much later than the other champions’ reports and I hope it is still interesting. Thank you for reading this.

Article image created by icepick for Nugget Bridge. View more of his artwork on his deviantART.

About the Author

Enigne

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