Reports

Published on September 28th, 2014 | by tanzying

20

Gebebo’s Twin Dragon Crest Medoroa Standard: 2014 Worlds Masters 5th place Report

This is a translation of the 2014 World Championships Masters Top 8 player Ryosuke Kosuge’s team report by Tan Zong Ying (tanzying). The original is located at Ryosuke’s blog and we would like to thank him for his permission to post this translation. Ryosuke, the 2013 Masters Runner-up, earned his invite right back to this year’s tournament, where he demonstrated his consistency as one of the game’s top players by emerging from Swiss undefeated (6-0), before losing in the round of 8 to Germany’s Markus Liu (Henrique).

Original article at http://d.hatena.ne.jp/gebebo/20140822/1408695429

Article artwork by Shawn Tang (http://aquadragontrs.deviantart.com/)

Foreword

(This is going to be a really long foreword so if you only want to see the team please feel free to skip ahead)

First of all… hello everyone!

This is the first time I’m writing an introduction for international players, but I am Ryosuke Kosuge, a Japanese Pokémon VGC player, also known by my online handle “Gebebo”. Last year, I became Champion at the 2013 Japan National Championships and Runner-up at the World Championships, and thus attended the 2014 World Championships as an invited competitor, skipping Japan’s internal qualification tournaments. However, I ended off this year with 5th at Worlds, a slightly more disappointing result compared to last year.

My Pokémon-playing history is long and I have been a die-hard fan of the series since the launch date of the very first games Pokémon Red and Green (Red and Blue overseas), but I first started taking double battles seriously in 2007 and started participating in the World Championship Series (WCS) circuit from 2010 onwards. Around this time, I began to enter offline tournaments and the like under my “Gebebo” alias. During Worlds this time, I was able to meet TanZYinG, the Singaporean player who translated my Worlds team report last year, and he told me he would translate my report for me this year, which I am very grateful for. On top of that, there were a few foreign players at the competition venue who told me “I’m a Ryosuke fan!”, making me so happy. As such, I felt the need to add a few shoutouts to this.

VGC ’14

Now leaving aside the foreword, let’s talk about this year.

The rules for this year’s competition was Kalos Doubles, a ruleset that restricted the allowed pool of Pokémon more than last year and moreover incorporated the new Generation 6 mechanic of Mega Evolution, making it very different from VGC rulesets up until now. From January to April this year, I was busy with job hunting and played Kalos Doubles between working odd jobs, but I couldn’t get into the flow of 6th Generation battle mechanics and couldn’t boast of anything more than a roughly equal win-to-loss ratio on places like Battle Spot Special. Furthermore, at the same time I was job hunting, the unofficial Kalos Doubles ruleset-using Battle Road Gloria grassroots tournament circuit was taking place. As a result, while other Japanese players were busy shaping the metagame, I was unable to play Pokémon much and thus was only able to sit down and tackle the Kalos Doubles ruleset seriously after I had found employment — which was around when the first stage of qualification for the Japanese WCS representatives, the Japan Cup, had ended.

However, also at about this time, the 3rd season of Battle Spot Special had ended, leaving friend-to-friend battles as the only method of practicing the Kalos Doubles ruleset on an actual 3DS which flustered me. Thankfully, there were many avid Kalos Doubles players on Twitter and after being taught by friends on how to use the Pokémon Showdown battle simulator, I was able to do my team testing through this alternative.

The Journey to my Team’s Completion

I had a particular conviction when building my Worlds team, which was to include a Generation 1 (introduced in Kanto) Pokémon, and if possible, make it work well.

This might seem ridiculous coming from someone who is supposed to be picking Pokémon seriously with winning as the goal, but as I mentioned up above, I had been playing Pokémon since the time of Red and Green and the number one region in terms of emotional attachment to me is Kanto (On top of that, I live in Tokyo which is in real-life Kanto too). However, the now well-known team that I used at Worlds last year, the Tenchi Matou Standard, was formed out of Pokémon from Generations 2, 4 and 5 with no representatives from Generation 1. Up until last year’s ruleset, the amount of viable Generation 1 Pokémon was limited, but thanks to the introduction of Mega Evolution in Generation 6, many Generation 1 Pokémon received a fresh chance to vie for the spotlight, which delighted me. And thus, I spent a year teambuilding with this conviction in mind.

The question then was how many Generation 1 Pokémon I should actually use. The Pokémon that I immediately felt like using were none other than Charizard and Venusaur, the badass combination plastered across the boxarts of Pokémon Red and Green.

As everyone knows, this combination works by mega evolving Charizard to make the weather sunny, raising Venusaur’s Speed with Chlorophyll, and then attacking with Sleep Powder, Grass+Fire Pledges and the sheer power of Sun-boosted Heat Wave and Leaf Storm — a combination that seizes the initiative forcefully. However, this line-up was weak to many commonly used Pokémon such as Tyranitar, Garchomp, Talonflame, Mega Kangaskhan, Hydreigon, and as I was not able to build a team that complemented Charizard and Venusaur well enough to solve these problems, I gave up on this combination.

The next thing I thought I wanted to use was Mega Kangaskhan

This was for no other reason besides the fact that Mega Kangaskhan was simply strong. Kangaskhan-Smeargle-Talonflame teams, Gardevoir-Kangaskhan Trick Room switch teams… I tried out many of the well-known teams and they didn’t feel bad to use by any means, but in the end I knew Mega Kangaskhan, being naturally the strong Pokémon, would eventually end up being countered and become difficult to use. Also, I think that the Mega Kangaskhan mirror is fraught with elements of luck, and since I felt that my win rate would be unreliable I gave up on it as well.

The 3rd team I wanted to use was a Trick Room Switch team including Charizard. Tyranitar, Gardevoir, Liepard, Charizard, Mawile and Hydreigon were the Pokémon used.

This team was built as a result of wondering if a Trick Room-Thunder Wave strategy similar to my Tenchi Matou Standard team last year was possible in Kalos Doubles as well — with Charizard Y replacing Heatran, Mega Mawile replacing Conkeldurr, Liepard taking over Thunderus’ role, and Gardevoir substituting for Cresselia.

If I were to explain this team simply, the basic strategy is to send out Liepard, Scarf Hydreigon, Mega Charizard Y, and Gardevoir to prep the field with Thunder Wave and Fake Tears before sweeping through or switching to Gardevoir, Iron Ball Tyranitar and Mawile to wreck teams which looked weak to Trick Room. Due to Mega Evolution mechanics and their speeds, Charizard and Mawile could not both be present at the same time unlike Conkeldurr and Heatran, but Liepard being able to function under Trick Room provided some nice synergy.

I used a Brave minimum Speed Tyranitar with 252 EVs in Attack and Special Attack, and thanks to Iron Ball, I could counter Amoonguss (a nuisance under Trick Room) by Taunting it before it could move. It also could OHKO Aegislash, which vexes Mega Mawile, with an Iron Ball Fling, and could also fire off a wide spectrum of high base power coverage moves such as Rock Slide and Ice Beam, making it surprisingly easy to use.

I used this team only once at an offline grassroots tournament and won it (with Rhyperior in Tyranitar’s place at the time). It was indeed a team I had confidence in, but due to the risk of giving up easy losses due to the Trick Room setup falling into jeopardy if Gardevoir was interrupted even once while trying to set it up by (eg. Rock Slide), I reluctantly decided to disband this team.

My 4th team attempt was a standard Mega Venusaur team.

This is the team which a player called Noshin (@Cynthia_nosin) used to take 3rd place in the Japan Cup. The details are on Noshin’s blog.

I had tried Mega Venusau teams a few times, but kept getting screwed over by Mega Kangaskhans that had accumulated Power-up Punches and had a low opinion of it. However, I had never imagined that such a team would be able to get that far (especially the Bold Salamence), so when I first saw this team it left quite the impression on me.

This year the battle time limit was shortened from last year’s 20 minutes to 15 minutes, so when I first saw this team I wondered if aiming for timeout wins by using the 3 Pokémon with recovery moves well would be possible. But reality was not so kind, and between the domestic increase in Dragon Dance Mega Tyranitar numbers and the unusual surge in popularity of Rain overseas, even winning normally became a struggle — to say nothing of trying to do so on the timer. So while this was an excellent team which I could find no faults with, I gave up on using it for Worlds.

During the time I was using Noshin’s team, Japan Nationals had just ended and the Japanese representatives, including myself, had been decided. Last year, I brought the same team I had been using for half a year to Worlds, so this time last year I had nothing but fine tuning left to do. However, this year I didn’t even have a team to use at such a late stage (June) so I was panicking hard. I dug up every single team I had used before and started to reflect on which one had suited me the best. In the end, the team I won the most with had been the Trick Room Switch team with Charizard in it, but I really could not say I wasn’t worried about using Gardevoir with its flaws, or that Charizard would have fared well against what was used in Japan Nationals with any confidence at all. However, shortly into July Sejun Park won Korea Nationals with a Rain team which resulted in a huge spike in Rain on Showdown, leading me to wonder if Charizard could make a comeback and started teambuilding from there.

I supplemented my teambuilding with the teams of other Japanese and foreign players. By the way, the usage data of various tournaments compiled by Noshin for Japan and Taroimo for overseas were invaluable references, so I’d like to take this opportunity to leave them a word of thanks.

• Japan Nationals usage data
• Showdown July usage data
• Various foreign tournament usage data

Team Details

Charizard (M) @ Charizardite Y
Ability: Blaze
Level: 50
EVs: 172 HP / 64 Def / 4 SpA / 76 SpD / 188 Spe
Modest Nature
– Heat Wave
– Overheat
– Solar Beam
– Protect

• OHKOs 4 HP / 0 SDef Mega Kangaskhan with Sun-boosted Overheat
• Survives 252 SAtk Modest Hydreigon’s Draco Meteor
• Survives 252 Atk neutral natured Garchomp’s Rock Slide (multiple targets)
• Survives 252 Atk neutral natured Mega Kangaskhan’s Parental Bond Return
• Outspeeds Smeargle which is at 139 Speed
• 11n SAtk stat value

The starting point of the team, and the Pokémon that I had wanted to build this team to use. In my opinion, Charizard’s fortes are being strong against Rain teams by changing the weather and having very high powered Fire moves under sunny conditions. To preserve these two characteristics, nearly all my EVs went into the defenses and Speed.

Let’s talk first about the reason for the heavy bulk. Investing to survive Specs Hydreigon’s Draco Meteor may be rare, but I did this because the team has nothing to switch into a Draco Meteor besides Mawile — which pretty much can never accompany Charizard due to Mega Evolution restrictions — leaving my only other switch-in option Sash Aerodactyl which was quite unpalatable. Also, I was able to get in an unexpected counterattack against opponents who expected Charizard to fall to Draco Meteor, making it easier to play. I think that all Charizards slower than Hydreigons on teams that have a few Draco Meteor switch-ins should hit at least this Special Defense threshold. The Defense threshold of surviving Parental Bond Return from Mega Kangaskhan, on the other hand, was because I could proceed to revenge kill non-bulky Kangaskhan with sun-boosted Overheat if I could survive. I might not be able to survive Double-Edge, but in a best-of-3 series I could take precautions after seeing it once, so I chose to invest this much Defense.

I originally tested 140 Speed to outspeed 139 Speed Smeargle by 1, but this became a hotly contested speed bracket and so I ended up dumping the rest of the EVs I did not know what to do with into here. I can’t actually think of a situation up until now where increasing the speed to this point paid off, but I still have some worries about how this might lead to speed ties with positive natured base 80s.

Special Attack was almost uninvested in because even only 4 EVs is enough to OHKO Mega Kangaskhan with Overheat. Charizard still packs firepower even with no investment thanks to the sun, so rather than investing in Special Attack, I felt that getting attacks off was more important and thus invested in bulk and Speed instead. This is somewhat similar to how I invested in Defense for Heatran last year.

For the moves, Overheat and Protect were confirmed from the start, while for the remaining two slots I tested out various options such as Heat Wave, Air Slash, Focus Blast, Flamethrower, Solar Beam, Ancient Power and Substitute. Eventually I settled back down on the orthodox choices of Heat Wave and Solar Beam. The other options felt overspecific and/or had shaky accuracy, had little general purpose use, and would just end up reducing Charizard’s capabilities so I did not use them in the end.

This year’s runner-up Jeudy Azzarelli (SoulSurvivor) was also using Charizard, reinforcing my belief thorough the tournament that using Charizard had been the correct metagame call.

As an aside, this team’s composition had problems with Faries + Rotom-H and I wanted to face them in best-of-3s as little as possible, so before Worlds I bought a Mega Charizard X plushie from a Japanese Pokémon Center (about 2000 yen) and attempted some mindgames by letting opponents see it and hopefully making them assume Charizard would Mega Evolve into X when it was actually Y and thus not bring Rotom-H (but I don’t know how effective this actually was).

Mamoswine (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Icicle Crash
– Earthquake
– Ice Shard
– Protect

• 4/16 chance to OHKO 0 HP / 0 Def Salamence with Life Orb Ice Shard, factoring in one Intimidate
• KOs 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan with Life Orb Icicle Crash + Ice Shard
• 2/16 chance to OHKO 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Mawile with Life Orb Earthquake (multiple targets)
• Survives 252 Atk Adamant Talonflame’s Choice Band Brave Bird (and 11/16 times, one round of Life Orb recoil after that as well)

I used Mamoswine because it was strong against the Scarf Salamences, Garchomps and Tyranitars that Charizard has problems with and because when I saw the usage data for Japanese Nationals I thought that it would be very effective against the Pokémon currently in the metagame. The Megas of this team, Charizard and Mawile, tend to take some painful hits from Salamence and Garchomp, but Mamoswine being able to move before them and deal with them allows it to synergise with the Megas quite well.

As for the EVs, Attack was given maximum investment so that Mamoswine would have a high probability of taking out Salamence after being intimidated (there are Salamences out there that are EVed to survive +1 Bisharp’s LO Sucker Punch and thus do not fall to my Ice Shard but thankfully I didn’t run into any of these at Worlds). To speed tie at worst with Specs Gardevoir, Speed was also maxed out.

I was torn between Icicle Crash and Rock Slide, but went with Icicle Crash after considering the damage on Mega Kangaskhan and Gardevoir. However, this makes the previously mentioned Rotom-H + Fairy matchup difficult, so I think Rock Slide could also have been good.

previously

Hydreigon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Flamethrower
– Sleep Talk

• 2/16 chance to OHKO 4 HP / 0 SDef Mega Kangaskhan with Choice Specs Draco Meteor
• OHKOs 12 HP / 0 SDef Politoed with Choice Specs Draco Meteor
• 7/16 chance to OHKO 252 HP / 4 SDef Aegislash with Choice Specs Dark Pulse
• OHKOs 252 HP / 0 SDef Mega Mawile with Choice Specs Flamethrower

The anti-Rain slot. I used this to remove Politoeds with Specs Draco Meteor as well as to switch into Water moves with for Charizard. I was originally using a Choice Specs Rotom-W that survived Modest Ludicolo’s Giga Drain and OHKOed Scarf Politoed in this slot, but it was weak to the Hydreigons and Mega Kangaskhans that tag along with Rain teams, had an absolutely dismal participation rate against non-Rain matchups, and was just being a hindrance to the team in general so it got replaced by Hydreigon. In the past, Rain teams had preferred the use of Kingdra over Ludicolo, making it impossible for Hydreigon to be a Rain counter, but in Kalos Doubles the Fake Out-capable Ludicolo with its wider coverage is preferred and used instead, so putting in Hydreigon alone provided sufficient countermeasures.

EV-wise, I started off using the template spread that dropped Speed and survived Jolly 252 Attack Garchomp’s Dragon Claw, but as I was fine tuning, I started to frequently run into Hydreigon mirrors in my Showdown games and practice battles with friends, outspeeding some times and getting outsped others, until finally I scrapped all my Defense and maxed out Speed. Salamence and Garchomp, who could outspeed Hydreigon, could be KOed by Mamoswine’s priority, but it was important for my own Hydreigon to be able to win Hydreigon mirrors since Mamoswine could not outspeed and KO those. As a result, I lost not a single Hydreigon mirror after that (though I might have been simply lucky), so I don’t think there is any other Specs Hydreigon EV spread that feels as safe as this one.

I quickly decided on the cookie-cutter moves Draco Meteor, Dark Pulse and Flamethrower, but was quite lost as to what the last move should be. I personally wanted to use Focus Blast, which would allow me to hit Mega Kangaskhan and Hydreigon hard in situations where I didn’t want to lower my Special Attack, but in my friend battles I lost to a Kangaskhan and Smeargle without being able to do anything, so as the barest of countermeasures I put Sleep Talk on. I didn’t encounter any Smeargles at Worlds, but I did win some friend battles when Sleep Talk called Draco Meteor and it hit the opponent’s Mega Kangaskhan, so having it did me no harm, I think.

previously

Mawile @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 92 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Play Rough
– Fire Fang
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

• Outspeeds Mega Lucario at 181 Speed under Tailwind

Anti-Fairy and Intimidate slot. This too was a different Pokémon previously. At the beginning I wanted an Intimidator and something that could get rid of enemy Hydreigons for sure, so I had been using a Scarf Salamence. It had been serving me well, but my friend Pukumaru (@puku_oyakata) was going to participate in the LCQ and we had been tweaking our teams together. He was using an Assault Vest Wigglytuff which was rare in Japan, which just happened to match up so well against my team that I lost many best-of-3 sets to him straight up.

Well, I thought, this really sucks, and bade Salamence farewell in order to be able to exterminate the incredible thorn in my side, Wigglytuff. I searched for a Steel type which is strong against Faries and came up with the three choices of Aegislash, Mega Mawile and Scizor, but among them only Mega Mawile was strong against both Hydreigon and Mega Kangaskhan so it won out by process of elimination.

Aerodactyl, which I will mention later, had Tailwind, so in order for Mega Mawile to KO stuff under Tailwind I invested EVs in Speed to the point where it could outspeed Mega Lucario. Even outside Tailwind, it was able to move first and do lethal damage to Azumarill and opposing Mega Mawile and Tyranitars who did not invest in Speed, leaving me impressed with the power of a speedy Mawile. The remainder was used to nearly max out Attack with the rest going into bulk.

Play Rough and Sucker Punch were no-brainers. Protect was actually Substitute at first, but being unable to Protect when Mamoswine or Garchomp wanted to fire off Earthquakes was out of the question so Protect it was. For the last slot, I was undecided between Rock Slide and Fire Fang. Rock Slide would be able to hit Rotom-H hard, but because I didn’t outspeed maximum Speed Talonflame under Tailwind and I at least had Sucker Punch for Rotom-H, I used Fire Fang since opposing Ferrothorn and Mega Mawile would become difficult if I chose Mega Mawile (instead of Charizard). I used Mawile because Wigglytuff was being problematic, but Mawile under Tailwind happened to be quite strong, so I am grateful to Pukumaru, without whom I might not have been using this Pokémon.

Aerodactyl @ Focus Sash
Ability: Unnerve
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Rock Slide
– Taunt
– Tailwind
– Protect

• 2HKOs 252HP / 4 Def Rotom-H with Rock Slide (multiple targets)

Speed controller, Taunter, and part of the so-called Aero-Zard duo. Also, difficult-to-handle Rotom-H would not be allowed to use its Sitrus Berry due to Unnerve, which allowed me to force it from the field with two Rock Slide hits or Rock Slide + Overheat. In Japan which does not play best-of-3s, Pressure would have been useful to check for the presence of Choice Scarf on Salamence and Zapdos, but in a best-of-3 as soon as the information was confirmed once Pressure would become an almost useless Ability for the next game. In a best-of-3 situation I think Unnerve is the only option. The EVs are a simple 252/252 due to Focus Sash.

I was originally running Smack Down as the attacking move with Rotom-H in mind, but in spite of Mamoswine being around, almost all of the Garchomps sent against this team were Sashed. In order to break those and attack both targets, as well as create desperate comeback attempts with flinches, it was changed to Rock Slide. Taunt was for anti-Trick Room, and Tailwind, the reason for using Aerodactyl, boosted the whole team’s speed. I was split between Wide Guard, Sky Drop and Protect for the last move; any of them would have been useful, but because I disliked the possibility of Fake Out + something dropping Aerodactyl before it could get its Tailwind up, I chose Protect.

previously

Garchomp @ Choice Band
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 60 HP / 44 Atk / 4 Def / 148 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Dragon Claw
– Rock Slide
– Earthquake
– Sleep Talk

• OHKOs 0 HP / 4 Def Garchomp with Choice Band Dragon Claw
• Survives 252 SAtk Modest Gardevoir’s Choice Specs Dazzling Gleam (multiple targets)
• Survives 252 SAtk neutral natured Politoed’s Ice Beam
• Survives 252 SAtk neutral natured Pyroar’s Life Orb Hidden Power Ice
• 11/16 chance to survive 252 SAtk Modest Gardevoir’s Moonblast
• 16n-1 and 8n-1 stat value for HP (to minimise Weather and Burn damage)

The Kangaskhan check. This slot was the one I racked my brain the most over and I only decided on it the day before I left Japan. At the stage where the above five Pokémon were decided, two types of teams felt difficult to handle. The first type contained the Mega Kangaskhan-Bisharp line-up, because Bisharp prevented me from carelessly spreading Intimidates and both were able to ignore my Tailwind speed control with Sucker Punch which was annoying as well. The second type were dedicated Trick Room teams.

Switch Trick Room teams don’t have the requirement of setting up Trick Room from the get-go, so Taunt can easily defend against those, but the kind of teams that go “I AM going have my Trick Room” right from the start reliably disrupt Aerodactyl’s Taunt with Fake Out, Rage Powder etc. and allowing them Trick Room made winning difficult. Therefore I was using a minimum Speed Rocky Helmet Amoonguss to counter these two team types at first. The irony and a sense of fatedness hit me when I realised I was using both Mamoswine and Amoonguss just like last year’s Champion Arash.

However, I realised Amoonguss was the wrong choice for the slot due to it having practically no synergy with Aerodactyl’s Tailwind and it making Rotom-H even more threatening than it already was. So the next thing I tried out was a Scrafty with Fake Out and Quick Guard. One might think that with an extra Intimidator, Bisharp would become even more deadly, but being able to block Sucker Punch with Quick Guard and moreover being able to Intimidate Kangaskhan allowed Scrafty + Charizard to check Kangaskhan + Bisharp. Also, Fake Out improved my defenses against dedicated Trick Room, and after trading Fake Outs I could Taunt the opponent, so I found this solution rather nice. Furthermore, I was also using a gimmick where Scrafty was holding a Lum Berry, would outspeed Mega Kangaskhan under Tailwind with its Speed stat of 85, and together with a Swagger from Aerodactyl would be able to OHKO Mega Kangaskhan with a Swagger-Lum Drain Punch. This was all very strong, but made the whole team Fairy-weak and resulted in a dubious win rate against Gardevoir. This, combined with the fact that a Scrafty that has been Indimidated even once has unbearably low damage output, stopped me from using it in the end.

The 3rd choice I tried was a Scarfed Smeargle. I threw this in carelessly half-thinking “this is so irritating, I’m just going to put everything to sleep.” The moves were Dark Void, Transform, Fake Out, and Topsy-Turvy. But on the contrary this made me weaker to Kangaskhan, so after about 2 practice battles with friends in I immediately replaced it.

At this point I composed myself for once and looked over the state of the metagame, and realised that out of all the Japanese and overseas tournaments, the only person who had delivered results with dedicated Trick Room had been Ash (note: Brisbane Regional winner). Thus, predicting a low number of people using Trick Room and pressed for time as I was, I abandoned trying to counter it. In reality, I played zero Trick Room teams in Swiss and the only one I fought in Washington, DC was Aaron Zheng’s during the casual battles after the competition had ended.

Consequently only Kangaskhan-Bisharp was left for me to see to, so I decided on Garchomp, who was strong against this pair, and yet not weak to Rotom-H either. Wanting to survive unforeseen attacks from Scarfed Gardevoir and OHKO opposing Specs Hydreigons, I used the Choice Band Garchomp set which was well known in Japan. In Top Cut against Azumarill, I was unable to knock it into KO range of Rough Skin with Earthquake’s damage and lost, but there were occasions such as me surviving Politoed’s Ice Beam and winning so I think this spread was the correct choice. The moves are standard with the addition of Sleep Talk. It was meant to counter Smeargle but I think it’s up to the user’s preference.

Team Name

By the way, this year’s team’s name was also taken from a certain nationally popular manga, “Dragon Quest – Dai’s Great Adventure”.

Twin Dragon Crest (双竜紋) = Hydreigon and Garchomp, the two Dragons I used.

Medoroa (メドローア) = Charizard and Mamoswine, the powerful Fire and Ice-typed Pokémon I used.

It’s really interesting if you get it and an impressive manga series anyway so please go ahead and read it if you have the chance!

Conclusion

…that was what I had to say.

I’ve written about almost every last thought I had about Kalos Doubles and this has gotten very long, but my sincere thanks go out to those who have read this all the way up to here.

I ended up getting 5th place, but as someone who went to Worlds with less experience in Kalos Doubles than others, I could not conceal my shock at getting through Swiss undefeated (lol).

Also, having an extremely meaningful time interacting and battling with the overseas players after the competition ended made me feel like Pokémon was a truly remarkable thing and so much more than a mere game, and made me want to go to Worlds again next year. However, I let that invitation slip away this year and now have to fight my way through the domestic qualifiers. Also, I’m starting work next year and don’t know whether I’ll be able to take time off or not, so I can’t make concrete plans for Worlds 2015 (Of course I’ll go for sure if I can get my leave), but becoming the Pokémon World Champion is one of the long-held dreams of my life so I’ll be back on the stage that is the World Championships again someday!

Lastly, a word of thanks to the people who supported me, as well as those who helped me refine my teams. Unlike last year, it was definitely not my efforts alone that propelled me to 5th in the world. My humble thanks go out to everybody who collaborated with me. The people I have gotten to know through playing Pokémon will remain treasures for a lifetime even if I should quit playing, but I have no intention of quitting for a long time yet so I continue to look forward to your companionship!!!

The End

About the Author

tanzying is a VGC player hailing from the tropical island of Singapore. Previously involved mostly in translating Japanese VGC blog articles for the rest of the world, organising official VGC events and friendlies with other countries for Singapore has come to be his primary role.

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