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Published on February 28th, 2013 | by Dubulous

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Beast Modes: 2013 Virginia Regional Team Analysis

Hello everyone, it’s resident editor Dubulous here. When I’m not making sure articles are typo-free (if they are, it’s plaid’s fault anyway), I also like to play a bit of Pokemon. I’ve been going to tournaments since 2010 Nationals, but I’ve only just tasted some success by finishing 8th at Virginia Regionals. While I was pretty disappointed with my performance in the quarterfinals, I was thrilled to finally play a best-of-three match and to go home with some spoils. Additionally, I wasn’t too crazy about my team going into the competition, but I knew that it was good enough to take out unsuspecting players or to punish a good player for making a misplay. Here’s the team:

reuniclusamoongussmetagrosspolitoedkingdraterrakion

I built this team with the idea of having two main modes to play in: Trick Room and Rain. Since the shift to Team Preview, I’ve noticed that players tend to build a team of six that can all work well together, then base their lineup on matchups against the other team. It is a sound idea, but it’s also a playstyle that just hasn’t worked for me. I figured, why have several solid combinations when you can have two spectacular combinations? With this in mind, I wanted to find two sets of three Pokemon to form two different cores, which could then be supplemented when needed by the other core.

My main mode, or the mode I tried to use most often, was a Trick Room mode. Unless I saw something in Team Preview that could stop me from setting it up, in this mode I would lead Amoonguss + Reuniclus, with Politoed and Metagross in the back for offense. If I thought they could stop me from setting up, I’d opt to run out my rain core of Politoed + Terrakion + Kingdra, with the last member to be determined by Team Preview.

Both cores had essentially the same purpose: set up and start whacking things. Oftentimes this was enough to win, and I was able to ride it to a 5-2 record in the Swiss Round, which with my first round bye was enough to earn a spot in the Top Cut. And now on to the individual team members.

reuniclus
Reuniclus (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
– Trick Room
– Psychic
– Shadow Ball
– Focus Blast

Reuniclus is one of my favorite Pokemon to use. Anybody who knows me knows how reliant I am upon Trick Room; I’ve used it in almost every competition. This is a pretty simple idea, though, and it’s similar to what I ran during the 2011 season. In Team Preview I would look for things that would shut down Trick Room setup, most often Fake Out users and Chandelure. If I thought they couldn’t stop it, I would bring Reuniclus to lead alongside Amoonguss, use the common Rage Powder + Trick Room turn 1, then try to OHKO opponents with Reuniclus, who has pretty solid coverage with Psychic-, Ghost-, and Fighting-type attacks. Shadow Ball and Psychic both have a chance to lower Special Defense, as well, which came in handy in my match against ryuzaki in particular. Having to rely on Focus Blast’s inaccuracy against Tyranitar is a bit of a bummer, but it is a far superior option than the likes of Energy Ball and even Protect.

Unfortunately on this team Reuniclus had very little utility outside of it’s main function. Occasionally in practice I would try to bring it if I saw something I liked in the matchup, but more often than not it would end poorly.

amoonguss
Amoonguss (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Effect Spore
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
– Rage Powder
– Spore
– Giga Drain
– Protect

Everybody and their mother is familiar with this Amoonguss, so I won’t spend much time discussing the actual set. I chose Amoonguss originally in 2011 because of how scary it is with its bulk in conjunction with Spore, in addition to Rage Powder aiding in Trick Room setup. Amoonguss is nice to have on a team because its presence puts a lot of pressure on the opponent from the very beginning. Amoonguss has the ability to swing matches by itself if it isn’t accounted for in Team Preview. This helped me in determining what an opponent might bring to the battle — information I could use to get a favorable lead matchup.

As a bonus, Amoonguss also fits in nicely with the Rain mode of this team, thanks to Rain eliminating its Fire-type weakness. I usually run an Occa Berry with Amoonguss, but using Occa and Rain would be overkill. I thought a bit about Coba Berry here, but Sitrus fits nicely on it, especially since I wasn’t able to get a Regenerator version in time.

metagross
Metagross @ Choice Band
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
– Meteor Mash
– Zen Headbutt
– Bullet Punch
– Trick

One of the Bash Bros. (as I liked to think of them), I’ve heard plaid gush endlessly about the qualities of Choice Band Metagross, so much so that I just had to try it out here. I really enjoyed the sheer power behind Meteor Mash and Zen Headbutt, which came in handy several times throughout the tournament. I ended up bringing Metagross to almost all of my matches, since it also benefits from losing its Fire weakness in the rain. I consulted plaid before placing it on, and he noted to me how easy it would be to play around two Choice users in Trick Room, which I thought Trick would be able to help. Additionally it gave me another way to play around defensive threats if just hitting them couldn’t do the job. I was a little worried about the accuracies of the two moves I used most often, Meteor Mash and Zen Headbutt, but ultimately I decided that it was worth the risk. It ended up paying off for me, and I only had a few misses, none of which were particularly important.

politoed
Politoed (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
– Hydro Pump
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Focus Blast

The other Bash Bro. was definitely the most important Pokemon on my team. It plays crucial roles in both modes of my team, and as a result I brought Politoed to 100% of my matches. Politoed is obviously one of the best and most-used Pokemon in VGC, but it’s rare to see ones sporting Choice Specs. It’s surprising, too, because it performs really well. 0 Speed Politoed underspeeds most of the biggest metagame threats, and Rain-boosted Choice Specs Hydro Pump does silly amounts of damage to just about everything. Because Politoed is able to operate in Trick Room, I was also able to lead it against Tyranitar without really worrying about whether or not Rain would go up. Another benefit of its low Speed was that it could bluff a defensive spread, until it fires of its Hydro Pump nuke. I liked leading Terrakion with Politoed, as I found that a lot of opponents feared Terrakion’s offense more than Politoed. If it hits, as it did for me in Virginia, it’s usually enough for me to be able to dictate the flow of the rest of the battle, and ultimately this was how I won a lot of my battles. The rest of the moves didn’t really matter too much, but they’re necessary for coverage.

kingdra
Kingdra (M) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
– Draco Meteor
– Hydro Pump
– Ice Beam
– Protect

This is a Rain team, and if you’re using a Rain team but not using a Kingdra, you’re probably not using your team right. It’s almost stupid how good Kingdra is if you can keep the Rain up, which isn’t hard to do at all. This is a pretty typical, standard, boring, incredibly effective Kingdra, and there’s not too much to say outside of that.

terrakion
Terrakion (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
– Close Combat
– Rock Slide
– Protect
– Taunt

Terrakion is another staple of my teams. I used this exact Terrakion on my Philadelphia Regional team, and it did so well that I decided to use it again. I just love what it can do, and I love how much pressure it puts on opponents. One of my favorite things to do is to bait Fake Out with Terrakion, only to use Protect and let my partner do what it needs to do. I’m amazed at how consistently this strategy works, but it just goes to show how big of a threat Terrakion is. It warrants mentioning again how valuable it is to be able to pressure almost any set of leads with Terrakion, which is why I was able to lead it with Politoed to great effect.

Focus Sash is, in my opinion, the only item to use on Terrakion because it’s fast enough to be able to almost always fire off two Close Combats. It’s also nice because with Focus Sash I don’t have to worry about the defensive drops that come along with Close Combat. Protect, Close Combat, and Rock Slide are all staples on any Terrakion set, and with good reason. The fourth slot, however, can go to a number of different moves. I considered using Quick Attack here just because I only have one other priority move on the team, but in the end I decided to stick with Taunt. It’s a move that you don’t often see on Terrakion, but it can be devastating to unsuspecting teams. It was also the only answer I had to Trick Room in Rain mode, which is a little bit risky considering how important Speed is to Kingdra. However, the presence of either Metagross or Amoonguss in Rain meant that Trick Room going up was not the end of the world, and Taunt is unpredictable enough anyway that it usually worked out.

Closing Remarks

Though this was my best ever finish at an event, I felt like this was one of the weaker teams I’ve played with. This team relies very heavily on momentum; I found that games were usually decided within the first few turns, which meant that I had to nail the lead matchup or I was in some major trouble. If I was ever knocked on my heels, I was usually unable to swing it back in my favor. It’s also very apparent how to beat this team after seeing it once, which makes it undesirable for best-of-three play. (Now, before this event I hadn’t made it to a best-of-three round, so that thought didn’t really occur to me in constructing this team). Andres proved this by thoroughly stomping me into the ground during our match in the quarterfinals; our first match was somewhat close, but in that game he got a feel for how I played my team. Sure enough in the second match I fell behind from the very beginning, and I could not turn the tables at all on him. Before I knew it, my run was over. I’m grateful for the opportunity to finally make it to the Top Cut round (and for the bye I needed to break the tiebreakers), and I hope to use this event as a learning experience moving forward.

Article image created by feathers for Nugget Bridge. View more of her artwork on her tumblr or Nugget Bridge forums thread.


About the Author

is a producer and editor for Nugget Bridge and a recent graduate of Penn State. A television/pop culture enthusiast and sports connoisseur, Alan started playing VGC competitively after attending Nationals in 2010.



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