Reports

Published on July 10th, 2012 | by Cassie

1

HeraBoss and Friends

Since my first trip to the DC regional during the 2011 series of Pokémon, I’d been disappointed because I hadn’t gotten to stay the entire time to see everyone. So when I decided to go to Nationals this year I talked my parents out of coming along with me so that I could hang out as much as I wanted without missing out on all the fun. The team I used was actually decided before most people came to me asking for their teams, so even though the Pokemon.com article says I “counterteamed” everyone, it’s not true!! The team itself was something fun I came up with, and I should probably use this time to thank Jio for helping me make it the best it could be.

Many people haven’t seen my version of the “Drifblim team,” but if you had you would see how much I actually play this team like that one. I kept the idea of Double Ghosts just because of how great it is against people using the standard Hitmontop/x, and I did end up using it quite a bit. I’d been working on a team since the regionals were over since Huy ended up using Drifblim at his, and I was starting to get bored of using the same team for several months. Competitively, my favorite Pokémon to use was Gastrodon, so every team that I’ve tried and failed to make for Nationals had it. It was decided pretty quickly that I wanted a team that let Gastrodon do as it pleased, but along the way Gastrodon became more support for the team than anything. My Drifblim version team had a Gastrodon/Heatran core which I tried to replicate with Gastrodon/Chandelure after deciding to take a Trick Room team to Nationals. Pure Trick Room didn’t work for me, however, so I decided to go with bluff Trick Room with Scarf Heracross instead, which ended up with great success on GBU. Huy ended up using the team as well since he theorymonned it enough with me to know what to do with it. Although he didn’t top cut, he did incredibly well for not practicing with it, so I’m glad to see that the team works for others as well.

The Team:

“TheMe”

Gastrodon-Ea (Gastrodon-East) (M) @ Earth Gem
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 240 HP / 20 Def / 120 SAtk / 128 SDef
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
– Blizzard
– Protect
– Earth Power
– Muddy Water

Yeah so Gastrodon was the whole point of me running Trick Room. It can hold its own outside of Trick Room, but I felt like a lot of teams weren’t prepared for Trick Room at all. I actually chose the +SpA nature, Earth Gem, and 120 SpA EVs to guarentee a OHKO on a Metagross with 252 HP / 4 SpDef (yeah I’ve hated Metagross since I started actually learning how to play Doubles). The defensive EVs were actually something I had Jio tweak because I wanted to be able to survive both Dragon Gem Draco Meteor  from Latios and  Fighting Gem Close Combat from Hitmontop, and he ended up being able to fix it to do just that! Surf is just horrible unless you have a Water Absorb partner, and even then it’s impossible to use with certain partners. I still wanted to hit both opponents, though, so I figured Muddy Water was worth the lower accuracy. Since the team also has Abomasnow I decided I’d rather have Blizzard on Gastrodon than Ice Beam. Throughout my matches Gastrodon really clutched for me. While I feel bad that it ended up causing a lot of hax against people, it did very well.

“TheBest”

Chandelure (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 220 HP / 252 SAtk / 36 SDef
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
– Shadow Ball
– Protect
– Trick Room
– Heat Wave

Chandelure’s final moveset was probably decided about a week before Nationals — it was originally Ghost Gem with Substitute over Protect. After Huy had gotten the team from me he ended up suggesting this just because of how frail Chandelure can be. When I switched to Focus Sash the spread didn’t really matter anymore, but it was mainly to survive nonSTAB Rock Slides and some Thunderbolts. I chose Chandelure over Heatran because I absolutely love “Double Ghost” leads.

“Huy”

Sableye (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
– Fake Out
– Captivate
– Will-O-Wisp
– Taunt

Sableye was one of those Pokemon that Huy used first and showed me. From then on I was using it on almost every team so I have so many techs for it. I had played with Sableye enough before this team to know what I wanted for 3/4 moveslots. Captivate wasn’t even my idea — Jio knew I hated facing Dragon Gem Latios so one day he explained to me what Captivate does. While Captivate is a great tech, I made sure I didn’t rely on it at all, only actually using it in 3 matches. I didn’t even choose Sableye because it fit but because of how fun it was to use. It was really just a standard spread with 4 EVs in Speed to win the Speed tie with other Sableye. Will-O-Wisp was just amazing, and I used it a lot on my own Pokémon actually. The Flash Fire boost on Chandelure in Trick Room completely wrecked things and helped a ton in one of my battles with Wolfe. Heracross could utilize the Guts boost too, although I didn’t get to do that at all in any of my battles. Taunt is just great against other Trick Room teams and the Swagger Cresselia everyone was using and just made prediction easier. Fake Out was one of those things that I ended up being really happy I kept. It saved me in quite a few battles, but it also made it a lot easier for me to set up Trick Room with Chandelure or let Heracross kill something. Sableye worked out incredibly well because of the way I was using it, boosting my own Pokemon while also messing with the opposing team.

“HuyFieri”

Abomasnow (M) @ Ice Gem
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 140 HP / 116 Atk / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
– Blizzard
– Giga Drain
– Protect
– Ice Shard

Abomasnow was one of those Pokémon I brought over from my previous team just because of the sheer power of Ice Gem Blizzard. I didn’t get to use it at all at Nationals until I played Wolfe, but it did great when I did. I actually liked the idea of being able to double Blizzard with Abomasnow and Gastrodon if I ever wanted to, and seeing as Reuniclus wouldn’t take Hail damage it seemed like it’d be my best choice to deal with other weather teams. Abomasnow was my go to Pokemon when I saw things like Togekiss because it murders it when Trick Room is up. The spread wasn’t too complicated; I really just made sure Abomasnow could survive nonSTAB Rock Slides and put in some Attack EVs so that Ice Shard would actually do some damage.

“BabbyHuy”


Reuniclus (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Def / 196 SAtk
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
– Trick Room
– Recover
– Energy Ball
– Psychic

Before Reuniclus I had actually used Cresselia for a while. My problem with Cresselia was the Hail damage and its lack of offensive pressure. I couldn’t deal with that on this team because Sableye already didn’t provide offensive support, so having those two on the field at the same time would be a pretty bad situation for me. It was actually the last Pokémon I brought to this team because I felt like I needed another Trick Room user who would be more reliable, while also helping me with my “Trick Room bluff” strategy. Energy Ball was there to handle nonRindo Berry Gastrodon because it OHKOs 252/252 Calm. I had a really hard time deciding between Psychic and Psyshock just because of the OHKO on Virizion. I ended up sticking with Psychic because it OHKOs the Japanese spread for Conkeldurr and OHKOs Hitmontop. That’s also the reason behind the 196 SpA EVs. Defensively, I did my best to ensure all Super-Effective attacks would be a 2HKO if they weren’t gems. Reuniclus was my favorite to use during Nationals just because nobody has looked at it much since last year, and it made the team look 100% Trick Room.

“DrJanItor”


Heracross (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Guts
EVs: 60 HP / 252 Atk / 196 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Megahorn
– Close Combat
– Stone Edge
– Rock Slide

Heracross was definitely the MVP of my team. Before I had it on my team I was testing Conkeldurr because it’d work great in Trick Room. I had actually just thrown this on instead to see if it’d work, and I guess with my playstyle it fit perfectly. I went from not winning at all on GBU to barely losing. I had gone with Adamant 252 Attack because I wanted to guarentee a OHKO on Specially Defensive Cresselia while also doing as much damage as possible to the Physically Defensive one. Heracross could also OHKO pretty much any other Psychic Pokémon I came across, including Latios and Latias (which were Pokemon I REALLY disliked this year). Stone Edge was able to OHKO Zapdos, so I decided to have that there in the offchance that I would need it. Rock Slide was pretty great — if it didn’t miss it could OHKO Volcarona. The sheer amount of damage Heracross could deal to the “Standard” Pokémon of 2012 is what drew me to it. The Speed EVs were there to outspeed neutral base 125s, so I just dumped the rest in HP. The first thing that comes to mind when playing a match is “How Heracross weak are you?”.

Overall, I’m really happy about how well my team worked together. I hadn’t been all that great with Team Preview, so I ended up practicing a fairly large amount on GBU to see what leads I could come up with. Usually I tried to go with two leads I was comfortable with and then use whatever seemed useful in the back, which ended up being a great strategy.

My Usual Leads:

  

Reuniclus/Heracross was probably my favorite pair of leads to use, especially against the better players. One of the reasons it worked so well was because it looked like obvious Trick Room. Depending on the other team I would either go for killing something with Heracross and Trick Rooming with Reuniclus or just attacking with both of them. I actually didn’t get Trick Room up much unless it was late game. The two had problems with Chandelure and Volcarona to an extent, but I was actually able to handle that weakness pretty well by switching in my own Chandelure if needed.

Sableye/Heracross were by fair the easiest to use as a pair just because of how much I had practiced with them. My normal strategy here was to Fake Out the threat and kill the partner with Heracross. I usually didn’t get to use this pair unless I felt like the other player wouldn’t be able to stop me or if the other player already knew what my team was (i.e. against Wolfe). One of my favorite things to do with this pair was to Will-O-Wisp my own Heracross for the boost if I really needed it. I never actually got to do so at Nationals, but it was a ton of fun on GBU. This pair had the same problems against Chandelure and Volcarona, but in the matches I played with those Pokemon I did just fine.

Another one of my favorite lead pairs, Sableye and Chandelure! The idea of “Double Ghosts” was stolen from Huy’s Sableye/Drifblim pair he used at Regionals, but these two worked just as great. The only match I remember using the two was against Wolfe in our second match, where I actually got Trick Room up and Will-O-Wisp’d it for the Flash Fire boost. I almost had a guarentee Trick Room setup with the two, unless the opponent lead with Tyranitar. Sableye was amazing support for Chandelure, powering it up and helping it survive by Captivating or Will-O-Wisping the opponent’s Pokémon. Avoiding the initial Fake Outs from opponents was just too good to pass up.

I had the least practice with these two, but they were extremely useful when facing opposing Heat Wave users. I tended to start out with Chandelure and immediately switch out into whatever could tank what I predicted they would try to hit it with. It seemed like a bigger threat than Heracross to most people, so it helped a lot in letting Heracross do as it pleased.

Threats:

The things I considered “threats” to my teams were things I knew I had to get off the field immediately or risk having some big problems later on. I tended to have a problem with Fire-types (most notably opposing Chandelure and Volcarona) and Tyranitar. In my Swiss matches I lost to things because I overthought my opponents’ moves and completely forgot Crobat was base 130 Speed, so I didn’t lose to my threats. I’m actually having a hard time coming up with threats because I was able to play around those pretty well.

I consider Tyranitar a threat  because it can be extremely hard for me to handle if I somehow lose Sableye and Heracross, which is entirely possible because of how often those two are my leads. I did end up losing my first game against Wolfe because I was locked into Rock Slide against Tyranitar, so it is definitely scary to play if the opponent conserves it. I didn’t like bringing Abomasnow against Sand just because of how easy it was to KO it with all the Super-Effective moves, so once I lost Heracross against Tyranitar I had to hope I could get the time to slowly kill it off with the 4 Special Attackers on my team.


Chandelure and Volcarona were probably the scariest Fire-types for me to face, and I did end up facing them both at least once during Nationals. My first match I only won because my Chandelure somehow won a speed tie, while my battles with Wolfe had us both trying to be conservative about our Chandelures because of how threatening they were to each other. Heracross dealt with Volcarona to an extent, but if Rock Slide missed I’d have to rely on my Chandelure to deal with it or hope it was Male so that I could abuse Captivate.


While I tried to tech in as much as I could to handle Genderless or Female Pokémon, I did have to work around them quite a bit. The two Zapdos I faced at Nationals didn’t actually get to hurt me much, but I definitely saw them as something to fear. Rotom-W was another thing I was scared of to an extent, the sheer power it has was enough for me to worry about what it was doing. Kingdra (if it was Female) in Rain gave me a hard time on GBU, even though I didn’t see any at Nationals. I definitely tried to keep an eye out for these Pokémon because I knew if I lost my techs for them I was done for.

Playing against:

Rain teams usually didn’t give me very many problems, and I usually lead Reuniclus Heracross or Sableye Heracross, depending on whether or not they had Swift Swim users. The rest of my team I chose pretty much always depended on what other Pokémon they had. I didn’t like leaving Sableye (especially since its EVs were made to deal with Rain teams) on the sidelines unless they were using all Female Pokemon, so Gastrodon and Abomasnow usually ended up being the 4th Pokémon for me to bring.


Sand teams generally scared me because of all the Physical attackers, the boost for Rock-types, and the fact that Excadrill could outspeed Heracross in Sand. I normally led Heracross and Sableye no matter what, so that I could hopefully take down Tyranitar. I didn’t like the idea of bringing Abomasnow in the back unless I felt like they had enough Ice/Grass weaks for it to be worth getting Trick Room up so it could destroy. I tended to bring Gastrodon in situations like this, but really it depended on what I thought they’d bring that decided the back two.


I was probably the most prepared for teams like this, and if you didn’t know already this is what Scott brought to battle against me at Nationals. I ended up leading Reuniclus and Heracross because I knew if I brought anything different he wouldn’t think I was trying to set up Trick Room. In the first turn I figured he’d think I’d Protect or something on Heracross while Trick Rooming with Reuniclus. Instead I Rock Slided to OHKO Volcarona and ended up flinching his HP Flying Zapdos, then proceeded to Psychic the Zapdos for the KO. He sent out Metagross and Gastrodon, but during the end all I really remember is OHKOing Gastrodon with Energy Ball and OHKOing Metagross with Earth Power. I was definitely the most prepared for the Japanese-like Standard teams, and my battle against Scott played out a lot like how my GBU matches went against similar teams. I guess this is a mix of both Goodstuffs and Trick Room, but I tended to treat them both the same. If I was slower I set up if needed, but normally just played outside Trick Room and did just fine. Against full-on Trick Room teams I’d normally just Taunt them and wreck from there.

My experience at Nationals is one I’ll never forget, and the team I got to use was incredibly fun, so it was nice to see it go so far! I feel like the team relies heavily on being familiar with it which is why I played with it so much beforehand. It also requires a pretty good level of prediction because it’s incredibly important to keep some things alive as long as possible. I ended up sacking Pokémon a lot because they had nothing else they could do for me, which seems like a foreign concept to a lot of people who HAVE to have that 4-0 to be happy. I’m glad to see all the hard work Jio, The Wolf, and Huy put into me to teach me how to play paid off! I look forward to making more unique teams for next year.

Article image created by Dozz for Nugget Bridge.


About the Author

is known for being the Pokemon supplier for a lot of Nugget Bridge users, and has just recently proved she can battle as well by making Top Cut in 2012 Nationals. Although she lost to the eventual Champion, she placed 29th overall.



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