Reports

Published on July 25th, 2014 | by Huy

18

Audino’s Healing Hands: US Nationals Top Cut Report

Hello friends! You may all know me as commentator Duy’s older brother, but many years ago (before my famous 0-7 or whatever at Nats 2011) I used to take pride in doing well at Nationals. The past couple of years have been particularly rough on me in terms of Nationals finishes, but I was determined to at least make it to day 2 this time. I do not have as much time to play Pokémon as I used to when I was in school, but I found a nice balance between work and play after X/Y’s release and got myself a little more established in the game than I have been the past couple of years. I’ve been dabbling here and there with all sorts of different ideas throughout the year, but one thing always stuck out in the back of my mind. Ever since I’ve started playing VGC in 2009, Trick Room has always emerged late season as the way to go to succeed. Every year, I noticed that people always write off Trick Room teams and every year, late season, you’ll see a few really well built Trick Room teams come out and go deep in Nationals or Worlds.

The beginning of 2014 was no different. If you take a broad look at the metagame, you will notice a few things that lead to Trick Room becoming a strong team option:

• 2014 is dominated by fast Pokémon such as Kangaskhan, Garchomp, and Salamence
• The relative lack of speed control means that the options you do have should be strong
• The lack of Pokémon that carry Taunt in the metagame
• An item that allowed a Pokémon to ignore most lazy teams’ “Trick Room counter” (Amoonguss)

All of these things led to me exploring Trick Room options early in the season. Cassie and I played around with Reuniclus and Chandelure as Trick Room setters but the lack of physical bulk made it a little hard to get Trick Room into play sometimes. I tried Gothitelle and enjoyed it immensely but I felt like there was a lack of support options from it. I was ready to go into Nationals with Trick Room Gothitelle, but heard that Ray had been exploring Audino as a Trick Room setter. After looking into it, I decided to put together a team featuring Audino as the setter and took it to a Premier Challenge. While the first build I took to the Premier Challenge did net me the win, something felt a little off about it. I went back to the drawing board, tweaked things a little bit, and lo and behold, I ended up at a serviceable Nationals team that I genuinely had fun with. I ended up finished Day 1 with a 7-2 record and Day 2 with a 3-3 record, putting me at 26th place, but really, you are probably here for the team, so open your ears and listen up!

The Team

Audino @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 20 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
– Encore
– Trick Room
– Helping Hand
– Heal Pulse

The key player and perhaps most interesting component of the team. After overlooking it for so many years, the bulk that Audino had surprised me. 103/86/86 is definitely nothing to scoff at. With the spread listed above Audino survives almost anything thrown its way. The lack of weaknesses and natural bulk is what drove me to pick Audino as my setter. To get a better idea of just how bulky Audino can be, here are some damage calculations:

• 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Double-Edge vs. 236 HP / 32 Def Audino: 180-213 (86.5 – 102.4%) — 18.8% chance to OHKO
• 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Hammer Arm vs. 236 HP / 32 Def Audino: 201-237 (96.6 – 113.9%) — 75% chance to OHKO
• 252+ SpA Choice Specs Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 236 HP / 252+ SpD Audino: 142-168 (68.2 – 80.7%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Overheat vs. 236 HP / 252+ SpD Audino in Sun: 169-199 (81.2 – 95.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Adaptability Mega Lucario Aura Sphere vs. 236 HP / 252+ SpD Audino: 172-204 (82.6 – 98%) — guaranteed 2HKO

Factoring Sitrus Berry into all of these calculations, Audino survives some of the biggest attacks the metagame has to offer. This natural bulk, combined with Regenerator kept Audino on the field for a long time. Being able to heal back health simply by switching gave Audino a lot more staying power than any other Trick Room option I have ever played with.

I opted for a full on support set because, let’s face it, Audino has almost zero offensive presence. Audino’s main role is to support the rest of my team and it does a mighty fine job at it. Encore and Heal Pulse are there to change game state to my favor. Encore is an attack that I think should be used a lot more than it is at the moment. With the huge amount of Fake Out (mostly Kangaskhan and Ludicolo) along with Substitute (from Aegislash) Encore gives you a great option to lock down your opponent. In Trick Room, Audino can shut down Pokémon that attempt to Protect stall Trick Room turns with Encore, or simply lock them into attacks while I switch in Pokémon that resist. Audino made the rest of my team a lot stronger and was the definitely what kept the team running. While it does not threaten the other team directly, it’s a great Pokémon with great team presence.

Mawile @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 180 SpD / 20 Spe
Careful Nature
– Play Rough
– Iron Head
– Rock Slide
– Protect

Ray’s Mawile. There is not much that needs to be said about it. Audino complements a bulky Mawile like this very well. Helping Hand makes up the lack of investment in attack and Heal Pulse keeps a bulky Pokémon around longer than intended. While the spread was taken from Ray the moveset deviates a little bit. I opted for Rock Slide over Sucker Punch in order to have a more solid answer to Charizard, Talonflame, Heat Rotom, and Zapdos. While Sucker Punch is an amazing attack on Mawile, I found that more often than not, I did not end up needing it. The threat of Sucker Punch was more than enough to force my opponent to take the defensive and allowed me to go on the offensive with Helping Hand boosted attacks. While other Mawile’s choose to forgo Iron Head for Rock Slide, I could not. With the rest of my team being so Mega-Mawile weak, I needed Iron Head to at least chunk other Mega-Mawiles. The speed EVs meant that I could play the Mega-Mawile mirror without having to worry about having Trick Room up and Heal Pulse allowed me to get the edge on other Mega-Mawiles. Not much else needs to be said about it. Once Trick Room gets set up, Mega-Mawile would tear through my opponent’s team.

Conkeldurr @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
IVs: 14 Spe
– Mach Punch
– Superpower
– Payback
– Detect

Conkeldurr is an amazingly strong Pokémon and was my MVP for the weekend. Conkeldurr’s base 145 attack along with the Guts ability makes it an extremely formidable physical attacker. A lot of players would attempt to Will-o-Wisp the Mega-Mawile slot in order to slow it down, only to catch Conkeldurr on the switch in. Catching a burn made Conkeldurr a complete monster in Trick Room. With Guts activated, Superpower could knockout anything that didn’t resist it, from Rotom to Garchomp. Anything that was weak to Superpower would fall to it (even at -1 Attack). The Sheer Force (excuse the pun) of a boosted Superpower was worth the stat drops that came with it. Even with the drop, a Helping Hand boost brings the attack back to full force and allows Conkeldurr to do some more massive damage.

There are some other choices I made with Conkeldurr that I would like to discuss, namely the 14 Speed IV and the item choice. 14 Speed allowed me to underspeed Quiet 0 Speed Aegislash outside of Trick Room and grab the knock out with Payback. While I did spend the majority of my time in Trick Room, I would often play outside of Trick Room to eliminate slow threats such as Aegislash before I set up Trick Room. Payback was an interesting decision for me to make. I waffled between Payback and Rock Slide for the longest time before deciding that the ability to eliminate Aegislash, Gengar, and Chandelure was more important to me than being able to fish for flinches in Trick Room.

Safety Goggles was an amazing item on Conkeldurr and saved me a ton all weekend. I mentioned most teams using Amoonguss as their lazy Trick Room counter before, and Safety Goggles made sure that Amoonguss did not cause as much trouble for me as it could have. Conkeldurr could ignore Amoonguss and just attack to its heart’s content without having to worry about Spore stopping it. This opened up a lot of teams that depended on Amoonguss to stop Trick Room attackers from dominating them. The biggest thing that Safety Goggles did for Conkeldurr however, was letting it attack through Rage Powder. As the metagame developed throughout the year, you could see that people started to adopt the Mega + Amoonguss pairing to protect their Mega. Safety Goggles Conkeldurr was amazing in that it could bypass Amoonguss and grab a free KO on the three most dangerous and common Amoonguss partners (Mega-Kangaskhan, Mega-Tyranitar, and Mega-Lucario).

Hydreigon @ Haban Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Def / 84 SpA / 140 SpD
Modest Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Fire Blast
– Protect

While most Hydreigon that did well at Nationals carried an offensive item (Choice Specs, Life Orb, etc) I opted for a bulkier Hydreigon. The spread, along with the Haban Berry, allowed me to survive every Dragon-type attack (including Choice Specs Draco Meteor from Hydreigon) that could be thrown at Hydreigon and retaliate back with its own Draco Meteor. While most Hydreigon tend to carry enough speed to outpace Smeargle I decided that on a team with Trick Room support and a large amount of options to dispose of Smeargle, I did not really need the Speed investment. The bulk combined with Audino’s ability to control speed with Trick Room, boost Hydreigon’s attacks with Helping Hand, and keep it healthy and protected with Encore and Heal Pulse made Hydreigon a huge player for me at Nationals. While it might not hit as hard as I would have liked, the bulky Hydreigon contributed in the games that I chose to bring it in.

Wash Rotom @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
– Thunderbolt
– Volt Switch
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Hydro Pump

Wash Rotom was chosen simply to mitigate the Heat Rotom issues that I had. I bounced between a bulky Wash Rotom and a Choice Specs Wash Rotom and decided on Choice Specs simply for the offensive presence. Audino was already offensive dead weight on my team and I did not really want to have two pure support Pokémon on my team. This worked out well, however. Choice Specs Rotom gave me the option to hit something hard with Volt Switch on the way out and allowed a free switch on the Trick Room turn to any of my Trick Room attackers. Outside of Trick Room, stacking the Choice Specs boost with Audino’s Helping Hand allowed it to nab a huge amount of KO’s including Gardevoir and Standard Kangaskhan. The moveset is straightforward, and the EVs could use a little bit of refining, but Wash Rotom definitely put in a lot of work.

Aerodactyl @ Lum Berry
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Rock Slide
– Sky Drop
– Taunt
– Protect

The last Pokémon on the team is one that didn’t work as well as the rest of the team. Aerodactyl gave me something with Taunt support in order to deal with Smeargle , Amoonguss, and Prankster Pokémon slightly better, and gave my team a sort of fast mode where I could just spam Helping Hand Rock Slides. The Lum Berry was more useful than Focus Sash for me because I almost never let Aerodactyl take a big hit. Lum Berry allowed me an extra turn to deal with Spore or Dark Void and was nice to shrug off a burn or two. Sky Drop was there so I could eliminate a threat so my heavy attackers could play a 1-on-1 game. Sky Drop with Audino also allowed me to pull off the end-game Sky Drop loop if I wanted to. (Fast Aerodactyl picks up a Pokémon with Sky Drop while Audino Trick Rooms. Next turn, Aerodactyl is the slowest on the field so the opposing Pokémon gets released last without attacking while Audino reverses the Trick Room and Aerodactyl becomes the fastest on the field for the next turn. Rinse and repeat). Aerodactyl was by far the weakest Pokémon on the team for me, but Taunt proved to be invaluable in certain matchups.

How it all comes together

This team is a little different from teams that I’ve built in the past in that it is a lot more fluid in how it functions. With my Hail team from 2012 and my Trick Room Mewtwo team from 2010, I relied on a ‘Core 4’ with 2 techs in back to swing matchups that would normally be difficult for me to handle. This team is different in that there was no core. The team centered around bringing 3 Pokémon that were right for the matchup and placing Audino in front or in back depending on when I felt like I needed Trick Room to be up. In the rare cases that I thought I couldn’t start get Trick Room up, or did not need it, I had a good group of bulky attackers in Rotom, Hydreigon, Mawile, and Conkeldurr that could get the job done. Audino plays next to all of my attackers very well. Helping Hand changes many attacks that are otherwise 2HKOs into OHKOs and Heal Pulse keeps them on the field for a long time. Speed control allowed me to keep up very well with Rain teams and between Mawile and Conkeldurr, teams focused around Kangaskhan were easily taken care of. The hard hitting Dragons had to deal with Mawile and bulky Hydreigon. The team had enough offense to deal with the random ‘bad teams’ and Taunt allowed me to avoid rolling dice against Swagger and Confuse Ray teams. At its core, this team had the tools to do a lot of different things well, and it certainly did a great job for me at Nationals.

Weaknesses

Going into Nationals I knew that the team had a couple of weaknesses that could be exploited if I did not play perfectly. I could have changed my team around in order to deal with them better, but I felt like I was familiar with this team enough that maybe I could ignore them and still be okay. While I did way better than I expected at Nationals, the losses that I did take were because I chose to ignore the weaknesses I had which included:

Mega-Venusaur

This was a huge mistake on my part. I knew that Mega Venusaur could give me huge problems because of how bulky it is. I had no reliable way to take it down other than to just go at it hard with Mega-Mawile or Hydreigon. I had banked on most Mega-Venusaur running Leech Seed or Synthesis instead of Sleep Powder. I was wrong. 3 of the 5 losses I took at Nationals were because I chose to ignore Mega-Venusaur in my team building.

Azumarill

This weakness was not as bad as my Mega-Venusaur weakness, but a well placed Belly Drum would run through my entire team. In order to combat this, I more or less had to hope that the opponent would lead Amoonguss and Azumarill. I could then Sky Drop the Amoonguss and score a clean KO on Azumarill with Wash Rotom. If they did not, I had to do a lot of maneuvering to get around it.

Notable Matches

I’m not going to do a full rundown of all of my battles but I want to take a look at some of the battles that I remember from the swiss portion of Nationals.

Ashby (Round 4) – Gothitelle/Scrafty/Mawile/Ludicolo

Ashby and I played a really back and forth match that I thought I would have lost for sure. Ashby led Gothitelle and Scrafty into my Wash Rotom and Audino. Right off the back I was in a huge hole as he had my Audino locked in with Shadow Tag while Scrafty Taunted it. Audino had to Struggle for a few turns while I stupidly Volt Switched Rotom-W out for Mawile. Ashby manages to Charm Mega-Mawile down to -6 and I was ready to give up at that point. Once Audino’s taunt ended, Mega-Mawile somehow manages to make a comeback (without critting anything at -6) through a flinch and a couple of well-timed Heal Pulses. This was the most ridiculous match I played all weekend and was incredibly fun.

Yellowbox (Round 7) Gyarados/Zapdos/Garchomp/Kangaskhan

This was the only match that I have ever gone to time in at an event. I don’t remember much of this match other than Audino being the reason I was able to buy enough time for a timer victory. I caught his Garchomp with Encore while it Substituted twice, allowing me a chance to gain a little bit of momentum with my other Pokémon. The last few turns were intense. In the end, my Conkeldurr and Hydreigon held on in the red against his full health Garchomp behind a sub and allowed me to pull out a victory via timer.

Final thoughts

Overall, I had a ton of fun with this team over the course of a few tournaments. It helped me get a feel of what exactly is needed in this metagame and while I didn’t do as well on day 2 as I wanted with a 3-3 finish, I feel that it wasn’t necessarily the team’s fault but rather a few decisions I made concerning the team along with some questionable in-game decisions on my part. I felt like every one of my matches was at least winnable, which has not really been the case with a lot of the teams I tried this past year. Every loss I took, I can go back and identify what I did wrong and what can be changed the next time I end up in a similar situation. All in all, I had an amazing run and a ton of fun at Nationals ending up with the most successful finish I have had since 2010. While I know I probably could have done a little bit better, I am still proud of my finish and hopefully proved that I’m probably not as washed up as most people thought I was. (Also that I’m better than Aaron ‘CT Cybertron’ Zheng).

About the Author

Huy is a grizzled Pokemon veteran. Having played competitively since RBY, he picked up VGC in 2009 and never looked back. He has played in 3 World Championships (Second only to Ray Rizzo) and has placed in the Top 10 in all 3 while managing to secure Top 8 in 2. He is the only American in the world to have won two Customized Worlds DS'es.

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