Reports

Published on June 3rd, 2014 | by SuperIntegration

23

Gems in My Eyes: A Top 32 UK Nationals Report

Hi, I’m Sam “SuperIntegration” Bentham, and I recently finished 18th at the 2014 UK Nationals. I was 7-1 and 3rd after Swiss in a flight featuring BazAnderson, Kyriakou, Koryo, Zog, both Gini brothers, Massi, Osirus and DaFlo, and many other notable players. Unfortunately, I lost in the Top 32 due to some bad luck and bad plays on my part, but we’ll talk about that later. On to the report!

The journey to Nationals started at 8:30 p.m. on Friday. I left Oxford with Gerald de Oliveira (Geraldinho) by train to Coventry, where we met up with Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou) and Robert Kendall (Pokérob) for a road trip up to Manchester featuring huge bantz and added KFC, DoTA bashing and (very loud) Halo theme. We got into Manchester at like 1 a.m., where we met CJ Giannakos (sagaciousslowpoke) and stayed up finishing Gerald’s team and discussing Florges until 4 a.m. before the tournament the next day. At this point, the Top 16 hero from Germany, Steve Edgson (SirSmoke), appeared along with Kay Dyson (Cambria) and we finally decided to get some sleep. However, disaster struck: I took an early critical hit and suffered from insomnia as a result as Gerald went for the surprise Snore!

So yeah, I got no sleep, but in the morning (after much coaxing from Ben and Steve), and a lot more caffeine than my intolerance should allow, I was ready… for the 3.5 hour wait between registration and round 1, that is.

Anyway, it was tournament time, so I should probably talk about Pokémon!

The Team

In general, I have found teambuilding for this metagame extremely difficult due to the need to have viable options against the huge range of viable Pokémon. It’s so easy to have an auto-lose matchup against something if you’re not careful. For Nationals, I decided that it was best to play generally solid Pokémon (mostly with high base stat totals), even if this resulted in some overlapping coverage issues and some slightly bad match ups. Since I was confident in my playstyle against most players, I felt that I could play around slight issues. I thought it was better to have a slightly bad time against a few things than an auto-loss against one or two.

This specific team first came about after German Nationals (where I played an entirely different team and did not do well); I saw Markus Stadter (13Yoshi37) ruin everyone in his path with Gengar and thought the idea of a fast Ghost was amazing and so I came to the idea, why not use Sableye? We’ll run through the full reasoning for my decision to play Sableye and not Gengar later, but this was the starting point of the team. I’ll discuss the rest of the teambuilding process as we go through it.

Team at a glance:

This team looks quite unusual and, at first glance, less-than-solid. It has Sableye, three weaknesses to Fairy-type, two Ghost-types, and no Fire-type STAB. However, I was confident in my matchup against Mega Mawile, and had good ways to deal with Azumarill. Aegislash’s Flash Cannon and Tyranitar’s Assault Vest meant that I wasn’t worried about Special Attacks from Fairy-types. Also, I rarely picked more than two of Tyranitar, Sableye and Salamence, and only in about half of the battles did I take more than one. I felt, going into the tournament, that my core was Kangaskhan, Salamence, Rotom and Aegislash, and that I could substitute Salamence for Sableye or Tyranitar as needed. The double Ghost was very strong against opposing Kangaskhan teams (which I expected to see a lot of). As for the lack of Fire STAB, I felt it wasn’t entirely necessary for my team since Taunt and two Pokémon with Fire Blast covered Amoonguss, and the other fire-weak threats could be dealt with in other ways. It did work out this way; I played against six Amoonguss in Swiss and defeated five of those teams, only losing to BazAnderson.

Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 84 HP / 76 Atk / 172 Def / 20 SDef / 156 Spd
Adamant Nature
– Return
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

Kangaskhan: the queen of VGC 2014. Immediately after deciding I wanted to build around Sableye, I knew I had to use Kangaskhan, as they work extremely well together (more on this in the Sableye discussion). Kangaskhan, as well as being the most powerful and certainly one of the best Pokémon in the metagame in general, is also a Pokémon that rewards excellent play and gives opportunities for you to outplay your opponent; you can Power-Up Punch a predicted switch or you can Power-Up Punch your partner if you predict a double Protect. If you play this correctly, you are then rewarded with an absolute monster; a fast Pokémon with ridiculous Attack, priority moves, and defenses that are almost impossible to OHKO. I chose to run Protect as this gives further opportunity to outplay your opponent (and indeed, surprise them in a best of one). The point is that Kangaskhan is such a massive threat that it draws targeting, especially after a boost. It was often the case that I would have Kangaskhan and Aegislash out together, and the sheer threat of Kangaskhan would allow me to simply Protect when my opponent double-targeted, giving Aegislash a free Substitute to win the game on the spot. I don’t feel that Fake Out is that valuable on Kangaskhan; it’s best off when it’s attacking, and in terms of causing Protects and invitations to outpredict or set up Substitutes with Aegislash, the threat of Fake Out is just as good as having Fake Out. Of course this doesn’t entirely hold in a best-of-three match, but I don’t feel that Protect is an inferior option in this case – the two just play differently. I am very glad that I used Protect. The EV spread survives all Hammer Arm from opposing Kangaskhan, outspeeds Smeargle by one point, and does something relevant that I can’t remember on the Special Defense side. The remaining EVs were dumped into Attack.

Sableye @ Roseli Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 236 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 19 Spe
– Foul Play
– Will-O-Wisp
– Taunt
– Swagger

Sableye was a fantastic pick for this event, and was most definitely the MVP of the tournament for me. The idea was in ways the same as Markus’ Gengar – win the Kangaskhan mirror by Will-o-Wisping it while it can do nothing back. I soon came to discover in testing that Sableye did much, much more than that. I feel this analysis needs splitting into sections, since Sableye is a utility support Pokémon and Foul Play and Swagger do so much.

On Foul Play

Foul Play is a fantastic and underrated move in this metagame. To be clear on the mechanics; it works off the opponent’s stats and boosts, but your status condition, ability and typing. This means, most importantly, that you can burn a physical attacker and do no less damage with Foul Play, lessening their ability to do damage to you while not affecting your ability to do it back.  A standard combination in testing (though I did not get to use it in the tournament) was to Will-O-Wisp an opposing Kangaskhan on the turn they Power-Up Punch to negate the burn. On the next turn, you Foul Play, OHKOing them after the burn chip damage. That would in turn mean that I get more out of my Mega Kangaskhan than my opponent, which  goes a long, long way to winning the game. It also works in conjunction with Swagger, allowing me to do damage to Special Attackers whilst covering the switch into a physical attacker (which I would do big damage to). The 19 Speed IV on my Sableye also means that Sableye undercuts minimum Speed Aegislash by 1 point, allowing me to Foul Play it in Blade Forme to make sure I score the OHKO.

On Swagger and using Swagger

The VGC community in general looks down on Swagger. I feel I should expand on my decision to play it, since I had very good reasons for using it. In the rum-up to Nationals I had a dim view on Swagger and initially had Recover in this slot, but I found there were issues with it; Sableye would sit in front of Special Attackers and not be able to do anything. It was not an immediate threat and was largely ignored as a dead slot. This was an issue, as it effectively put me a Pokémon down whenever the opponent had no physical attackers except the Kangaskhan, for example (which I would bring the Sableye to counter). After looking at options such as Captivate and Trick and deciding they were unreliable at best, I came to Swagger. It was the perfect fit: it boosts Foul Play, largely targets Special attackers, and it helps Kangaskhan get free boosts by forcing switches. The other thing going for it, as well as the legitimate reasons, is that, like it or not, Swagger wins you games that you otherwise have absolutely no chance in. In tournament play, regardless of the means, I would sooner make a play that gives a 45% chance of winning than a move with a 0% chance of winning. What this does not mean is that you use Swagger whenever you can – I used the button only when Sableye had nothing better to do to the Pokémon in front of it, or I had no other way back into the game. However, many times upon seeing a Sableye, people will switch in their Special attackers in haste of avoiding the Will-O-Wisp, and instead get Swaggered. This situation either nets me a free KO with the partner as they hit themselves, or leaves them in a tricky situation about whether to stay in and risk the confusion hit or switch and allow me to Power-Up Punch, set up a Substitute, or just get free damage.

Taunt and Will-O-Wisp are almost completely self-explanatory. Taunt supports Kangaskhan by allowing me to shut down other Will-O-Wispers (including Gengar and all Rotom forms) and also shuts down Smeargle entirely. Even if the opponent switches it still fills a role: it prevents the opponent from Protecting which eases prediction on the next turn. Prankster Will-O-Wisp is just ridiculously strong in general.

Why not Gengar?

I chose to play Sableye instead of Gengar, despite the latter’s Fairy resistance (which this team could have benefitted from) for the reason that it allowed me to Taunt other Gengar before they could move and gave me access to Swagger and Foul Play. Prankster also allowed me to run a lot of bulk as opposed to Speed, allowing me to use an item other than Focus Sash, which I do not like.

Would I play Sableye again? Given that I’m not going to the third European Nationals or Worlds either, I have to say that I probably would not. It was a strong meta pick for 2014 at this particular event. I think it’s an excellent Pokémon and I do not regret playing it in the slightest, but the conditions have to be just right, and it’s very possible that in the future these same conditions will not be there.

The EV spread had enough physical bulk to survive Adamant Life Orb Talonflame’s Brave Bird. I put the rest in Special Defense since Swagger is less reliable than Will-O-Wisp.

Salamence @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dragon Pulse
– Fire Blast
– Stone Edge

Standard Scarf Salamence. I felt it fit better than Garchomp on this team due to Intimidate, extra Fire coverage (since I have no STAB), and strengthened my Sun and Rain match-ups. I played Timid instead of Modest so that I could outspeed Ludicolo in the rain. In the tournament, I didn’t actually take Salamence very much, and so maybe if I were to play the team again, I would play Lum Berry Garchomp, which is also strong against Sun, and would add a dimension to the team by allowing me to use it in combination with Sableye’s Swagger for a +2 Garchomp.

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 76 SDef / 4 Def / 20 Spd / 156 SAtk
Modest Nature
– Shadow Ball
– Flash Cannon
– Substitute
– King’s Shield

The second half of the double Ghost, and another Pokémon that works fantastically well with Sableye in helping me beat Kangaskhan teams. The EV spread is Jio’s: it survives a Mega Charizard-Y Heat Wave. The Speed EVs are used for opposing Aegislash – I don’t subscribe to the philosophy that you should be slow in order to get off your Shadow Ball second and OHKO. Instead, I preferred to Substitute in front of other Aegislash, so then if they attack me, I gain momentum as I am faster and they are in Blade forme for the next turn. This often forced them to King’s Shield, allowing me to set up another Substitute on the second turn. It’s also Sableye’s second partner-in-crime: the Swagger and Will-O-Wisp pressure allow me to get up Substitutes very easily.

Tyranitar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 204 SAtk / 44 SDef / 4 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
– Rock Slide
– Dark Pulse
– Ice Beam
– Fire Blast

I take absolutely no credit for the idea or spread for this Tyranitar – it was entirely Kyriakou’s idea. I originally had Mega Charizard-Y in this slot, but to be honest, it was a passenger – I always wanted to take Mega Kangaskhan. However, I needed to have something to change weather for Rain and Sun teams, and so I came to Tyranitar. Originally I was running Life Orb, but this seemed like a waste of Tyranitar’s natural coverage and bulk. That was when Kyriakou showed me this EV spread which is able to take a critical hit Garchomp Earthquake, or a Mega Lucario’s Aura Sphere and do massive damage back to both. With Sand and Assault Vest giving a 2.25x Special Defense boost, this Tyranitar is ridiculously bulky. Some calculations put it into perspective:

• 252 SpA Gardevoir Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 44 SpD Assault Vest Tyranitar in Sand: 68-84 (32.8 – 40.5%) — 100% chance to 3HKO
• 252 SpA Adaptability Mega Lucario Aura Sphere vs. 252 HP / 44 SpD Assault Vest Tyranitar in Sand: 168-200 (81.1 – 96.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Tyranitar: 108-128 (52.1 – 61.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO
• 252+ SpA Salamence Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 44 SpD Assault Vest Tyranitar in Sand: 46-55 (22.2 – 26.5%) — 17.8% chance to 4HKO

I was very happy with Tyranitar’s bulk, power and presence – it may not be king as it was in 2013, but it is still a very good Pokémon.

Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 100 SAtk / 4 SDef / 140 Spd
Modest Nature
– Hydro Pump
– Thunderbolt
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect

A fairly standard Rotom. The spread was originally for a Rotom-H – it is one Speed point above max Adamant Mega Tyranitar, and two above max Adamant Bisharp because I was scared of Bisharp’s Assurance.  This allowed Rotom to Overheat or Will-O-Wisp in front of the Bisharp before it got to move. On this team, I felt that Rotom-Wash was the best call to do tons of damage to opposing Rotom-Heat with Hydro Pump, and also to not have the Rock weakness that plagues the other Rotom forme. I tested the same spread and found that the extra Speed was still very helpful as it outsped and Will-O-Wisped Mega Tyranitar and also Rotom-H that were running to one point above Bisharp.

Lead Combinations

+

Kangaskhan + Sableye

Huge offensive pressure, plus annoying disruption and a way to stop Will-O-Wisp. This was a great way to lead and often resulted in my opponent needing to allow a Power-Up Punch, from which I gained a big advantage early on.

+

Aegislash + Sableye

This is almost exactly the same theory as Sableye and Kangaskhan. These leads allowed me to set up Substitutes and pile on the pressure with Sableye’s distruption and Aegislash’s sheer power.

Anything + Anything (within reason)

Honestly, the above two combinations are good so often that I didn’t really notice any other patterns, apart from that of course you should use your common sense. Leading Salamence + Sableye into a Dazzling Gleam user is just stupid, for instance.

Weaknesses

This team has no big holes that I’ve found, however, as with any team there are some slight difficulties facing certain Pokémon.

+ /

Amoonguss + Setup

I know it sounds odd given what I’ve already said about seeing six in swiss and beating five, but this team doesn’t enjoy Amoonguss and another setup Pokémon, especially if it’s Aegislash or Azumarill since Sableye can only Taunt one at a time and Rage Powder is annoying. If I were to play this team again, I’d consider Safety Goggles Sableye to help get around this.

Rotom-W

No Grass coverage made Rotom-W slightly difficult – I tended to deal with it by chipping it down to Return range, or gaining a Power-Up Punch on a predicted Will-O-Wisp and then knocking it out with Return.

Tyranitar

If Kangaskhan has been knocked out or otherwise threatened, opposing Tyranitar can be difficult, especially if they are Specially oriented or mixed.

Klefki

This thing renders Sableye almost useless with Safeguard, but it also simultaneously necessitates that I bring Sableye just to Taunt it. If Sableye was Taunted, it could still Foul Play Kangaskhan for decent damage. It was also hard to KO, since I did not have Fire STAB. I did not think about Klefki as I did not expect to see many; ironically enough, it was one of many contributing factors to my loss in the Top 32.

The Tournament

There are a lot of games I can’t really remember much from, so I’ll only discuss the games I can remember. I’d also like to say that throughout the tournament my opponents were excellent sportspeople, never failing to be polite and pleasant in both victory and defeat, and I’d like to thank you all for making this tournament so enjoyable (and my apologies if I don’t remember our game well).

Round 1: Marcel Kapelle (Massi)

( )

Yeah. Not the ideal round 1 opponent. Neither of us were very happy about this, but that’s the nature of tournaments I guess. I remember getting a burn on his Mawile early on, but then misplaying and overpredicting a switch into Salamence, which resulted in my Tyranitar Ice Beaming into a Mawile. After that I was in trouble; the crucial turn was as follows. My 2/3 HP Kangaskhan and full HP Sableye were up against his Burned Mawile and Rotom-H, and he had his Amoonguss in the back. I reasoned that I couldn’t reasonably be sure he’d go for the Will-O-Wisp since he’d seen Taunt on Sableye and as I was already 4-2 down. I thought the only way for me to win was to attempt the Swagger and Power-Up Punch the Rotom. It came off and his Play Rough missed, which simplified my job significantly for the rest of the game. I’m not sure what would have happened had the Play Rough not missed, but the Swagger hit was pretty important for me after I’d misplayed earlier. I did feel sort of guilty, but you have to go for these things: I had a 0% chance to win the game in that position if not for it (as discussed in the team analysis).

Round 3: Jade Batchelor

(

This looked like a Trick Room team, as I surmised in Team Preview. I’d heard Jade talk about Mega Heracross with Kyriakou previously, so knew I could expect it. I led with Aegislash and Rotom, with Kangaskhan and Sableye in the back, as I wanted to be able to smash the Aromatisse to stop it setting up Trick Room if she led with it. This came to pass, as she led Rotom-H and Aromatisse. On turn 1 I simply Thunderbolted and Flash Cannoned the Aromatisse while Rotom-H protected from the Hydro Pump, and the free 4-3 lead was enough to give me the win without further incident.

Round 5: Barry Anderson (BazAnderson)

( )

I hit the dizzy heights of Table 1 and immediately have to play Baz. Wonderful. He also happened to have three of the most hated Pokémon for my team to face: Azumarill, Amoonguss, and Talonflame. He also had Raichu to support them. Also wonderful. In any case, bad matchup or no, Baz outplayed me in this game, managing to force my Sableye out so it could not Taunt while bringing in Amoonguss for a free Belly Drum with Azumarill, by which time the game was pretty much over.

Round 7: Lee Provost (Osirus)

( )

Honestly, this game is only worth talking about because of the remarkable amount of luck involved. I can’t say who would have won if not for the three Draco Meteor misses in my favour… I was glad to see Lee make it to Top Cut anyway, both because he’s an excellent player and because this was a truly horrible game.

Round 8: Daniel McCarthy

( )

Ironically enough, at 6-1, this was my easiest match of Swiss. I realized early on that his bulky Talonflame did not have Flare Blitz, so after his Fire Fang Mawile was safely burned I was able to set up Substitutes with Aegislash (which were hard for him to break) and won the game from there.

Top 32: Lee Watson (Redemption003)

I remember feeling my heart sink at Team Preview. Sun is one of my worst matchups, and he also had Klefki with Safeguard and Venusaur, which meant I had to bring Sableye for Taunt… but once Safeguard had gone up my Sableye was almost dead weight, while his Klefki was still able to do good damage to Kangaskhan with Foul Play. Klefki proved hard to KO due to my lack of Fire STAB. In addition, he had Scrafty as an answer for my Tyranitar (which I have to bring to counter Sun) and a Kangaskhan, too.

Game 1: I remember missing several Will-O-Wisps and also making several sub-optimal plays in this game: I was a little nervous in my first ever Top Cut match. After missing a double Will-O-Wisp on his Garchomp whilst already in a tough situation, I was completely lost, but decided to keep playing to learn information anyway, since he was not taking notes, while I was. I saw my Kangaskhan outspeed his Charizard twice; this would turn out to be important later. I assumed that I was faster, since most Charizard I had seen either ran close to max Speed or not much at all – not to the tier I was at.

Game 2: I don’t remember too much from this game, except that he didn’t bring Charizard so I was able to set up a Substitute with Aegislash and hide behind it for most of the game before winning on time.

Game 3: I led badly in this game and very quickly end up in a worse position. However, I managed to pull it back to a situation where my +2 Kangaskhan was at about 1/2 HP alongside Sableye at full health against a Taunted and Swaggered Rotom-W within Foul Play range, and his Charizard, which had just Protected. I reasoned that as we’d both seen my Kangaskhan outspeed Charizard on multiple occasions, his only win condition was to switch to Venusaur to try and predict the Sucker Punch. So, I Returned and Foul Play, only to learn the hard way that it actually was a speed tie, as Heat Wave scored the double KO. It is possible to argue that using Return was a mistake as it was still possible for the speed tie to occur; however, if he’d predicted Sucker Punch correctly I would have lost anyway, so I think with the information I had it was correct to Return. That said, I’m still not sure, so if anyone has any feedback on this situation I’d love to hear! These were very good games regardless.

So ended my adventures in Manchester, and my chances of going to Worlds this year since I won’t be attending Milan. I’d be lying if I said I’m not bitterly disappointed about going out at the Top 32 stage, only a few wins away from Worlds, but I am still proud of the way this team performed in Swiss.

Thanks

There are a good many people without whom I would either not be playing this game, or would be a good deal worse at it than I am. It’s likely that I’ll forget at least one person, so forgive me if you feel you should be mentioned here and aren’t! In no particular order, thank you:

• To Ben Rothman (Ben7000), for backing me and my play since just before UK Nationals last year, and being a great training partner whenever I needed it.
• To Jonathan Evans (Ezrael), for tolerating my use of Swagger!
• To Oliver Valenti (Smith), for taking me on in the NPA as a relative unknown and giving me the chance to develop my game and improve for this season. We’ll get a Rollouts team picture at Worlds someday!
• To Toler Webb (Dimsun), for lending me half my Pokémon for both German and UK Nationals, and for letting me bounce ideas off you over Skype all the time.
• To Manoj Sunny (MangoSol) for repeatedly calling me an idiot in practise until I improved!
• To Markus Stadter (13Yoshi37), for being patient whilst I questioned him about both Gengar and Sableye.
• To Zach Droegkamp (Zach) and the rest of Buncha Bulls for backing me prior to day 2. Sorry I couldn’t bring Bulls a European win!
• To Jiovaine Neita (Jio) for your friendship, and help with building and breeding all through the season.
• To Steven Edgson (SirSmoke), for constantly overestimating my abilities and playing games with random teams for me to test against on demand until 1 a.m., as well as being an all-around awesome friend.
• To Toby Bundy, for your constant encouragement throughout Swiss and before top 32.
• To Emma Cartwright, my wonderful girlfriend, for her constant emotional support and interest despite not being at all interested in competitive Pokémon.
• And lastly, to Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou) for being my best friend these last 18 months and teaching me everything I know about this game in the first place. From “Ice Gem Ice Punch Weavile 4 Worldz” to top cutting a Nationals is something I couldn’t have done without your constant help.

That ends my team report. I may not have made Worlds, but I’ll be back all the stronger in 12 months time! See you all around!

About the Author

SuperIntegration SuperIntegration is a relatively new UK VGC player. He played in Season 2 in the NPA in only his first VGC season, prior to making the top 32 of UK Nationals in 2014.

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