Kang and Company: A Missouri Top Cut Report
Hey Nugget Bridge! My name is Michael Shropshire but I go by the name of shrop05 when it comes to Pokémon. I suspect the majority of the people reading this have no idea who I am so I’ll give everyone a quick introduction.
I’m eighteen years old, living in North Texas. I started playing competitive Pokémon this past year when I saw a good buddy of mine playing on Pokémon Showdown during class. After asking about it, he told me to hop in the doubles room on Pokémon Showdown that night and that he could teach me the basics of Smogon doubles.
I played Smogon doubles for about five months and had a blast. However, the idea of tournaments where you meet people and make friends really intrigued me. Because of this, I decided to venture over to a local Premier Challenge and test my skills there.
I met some awesome people who were very inclusive and I got second place, losing to Blake Hopper (Bopper) in the finals. I had such a good time that I decided to take VGC a little more seriously. After getting some more decent Premier Challenge finishes, I thought that going to St. Louis Regionals would be awesome.
I think it’s really neat when people have videos that accompany their team reports so my good buddy KyleCole and I thought that we would do a video team report for all the people that prefer watching a video over reading.
Brief Team-building Process
I wasn’t sure what other people would be bringing to the tournament, so my overall plan in team-building was to bring a team I felt could deal with everything I would see. I also wanted a team that I felt comfortable with. The teams that have the most success for me start with a solid Fire/Water/Grass core so I decided to use that. Then, I felt Mega Kangaskhan was such a solid pick overall that I couldn’t pass it up. Finally, I rounded the team off with two offensive powerhouses in Landorus-Therian and Sylveon.
The Team
Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Fake Out
– Return
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch
I came up with this innovative set right before the event and I’m so proud of it. Oh wait, other people used this set before me? Not much to say here honestly. Mega Kangaskhan has the speed, power and team support that I love. I personally believe that Mega Kangaskhan is still the best mega. Even after all of the hype surrounding Metagross at St. Louis Regionals.
There’s nothing fancy with the EV spread so I’ll explain why I chose certain moves. First off, I chose Fake Out over Protect which had been gaining popularity at the time when I built this team. I felt the team benefited from Fake Out more because it could allow Kangaskhan’s partner to get a useful supporting move off, such as Tailwind or Substitute. I chose Return over the much more popular Double Edge because I felt the recoil puts Mega Kangaskhan in KO range for things that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. I tend to play very aggressively with my Power-Up Punches, so I didn’t notice a lack of damage with this set because I’m so often at +2 attack.
Kangaskhan was definitely the Pokémon I used the most throughout the tournament and its consistency helped so much.
Talonflame @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Brave Bird
– Flare Blitz
– Tailwind
– Protect
The first part of the core I wanted to build around. I picked Talonflame for a multitude of reasons. First, I saw a huge spike in Mega Venusaur usage after Cybertron won APEX 2015 and Talonflame is the biggest counter to this. Secondly, Tailwind is such a good move and Talonflame is arguably the best Tailwind setter. Because of Gale Wings, it gets Tailwind up the majority of the time. Lastly, I don’t consider myself the most talented VGC player, so Talonflame offers me an easy way to get guaranteed damage off and isn’t necessarily the hardest Pokémon to use.
Once again I decided to go with the standard EV spread and moves for Talonflame. Brave Bird is a necessity, Flare Blitz is its best Fire STAB because Overheat can miss, my team benefits a lot from Tailwind and Protect helps buy some extra turns. I chose Life Orb because Talonflame has a puny 81 base attack. I didn’t really mind the extra recoil because Talonflame’s goal isn’t to stick around. It’s meant to get Tailwind up, hit something really hard, then get KO’d and let a teammate get a safe switch in.
Looking back, one change I would make to this team is adding another fire-type move on another team member. In my opinion, Talonflame is too frail to have the team’s only fire-type move. If Talonflame gets KO’d early and the opponent has a bulky steel this team often struggles to deal with it.
Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 76 SpA / 36 SpD / 20 Spe
Calm Nature
– Hydro Pump
– Thunderbolt
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect
The next part in the core is Rotom-Wash. I feel like no matter what the other team has, Rotom-Wash always has at least a decent match-up. Mega-Salamence, Mega-Metagross, Mega-Kangaskhan and Mega-Mawile are all pretty scared of this guy so I felt like Rotom was a safe but effective play. I chose the standard move-set which cripples physical attackers, while still being able to hit a lot of things for super effective damage. Rotom was one of my most valuable Pokémon from this tournament because of its ability to do a little bit of everything.
The EV spread is something that I made and I was super pleased with the results. The HP and Special Defense EVs paired with its Calm nature allow it to survive a max Special Attack Timid Charizard Y Solar Beam 100% of the time. Additionally it lives Talon’s bulky Charizard’s Solar Beam from Houston Regionals 15/16 times. The Special Attack investment allowed me to one shot standard 4 HP Talonflame with Thunderbolt. This allowed me to not have to play mind games on whether or not to go for Hydro Pump or Thunderbolt because I knew the latter would be enough. 20 EVs into speed were there to speed creep other Rotom. Lastly, the rest went into Defense because VGC’15 is such a physical meta.
I think that Rotom-Wash is the best water type in VGC’15. I like to call it the Swiss Army Knife of Pokémon because of its ability to do everything. One thing I might have changed to this set is to replace Protect with Thunder-Wave. The team has speed control through Talonflame’s Tailwind, but having alternative speed control options is never a bad thing. I don’t remember even using Protect during the tournament because with this EV spread; Rotom survived pretty much everything I wanted it to.
Aegislash @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SpA / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
– Shadow Ball
– Flash Cannon
– Substitute
– King’s Shield
The last member of the core was Aegislash. Wait what? Aegislash is a steel type, how could it possibly be a grass type? Aegislash’s Safety Goggles lets it gain all the perks of being a grass type such as being immune to Spore and Rage Powder, but still packed the punch that I didn’t feel any grass type could fulfill. Originally, this slot was filled by Amoonguss, but the night before Regionals I decided to swap it out for Aegislash to improve my Metagross match-up. I chose Substitute over Wide Guard for its third move because I felt that my team wasn’t particularly weak to any spread attack and getting a Substitute up almost always lead to a win for me.
I used the same EV spread Alex Ogloza used to win U.S. Nationals in 2014. The speed EVs almost never mattered except for when I was faced against enemy Aegislash. In the event of a mirror match-up, I would just keep clicking Substitute with my Aegislash until the opponent chickened out and went for a King’s Shield while in blade form. This would result with my Aegislash behind a Substitute awhile the opponent was not.
Not having Leftovers on a Substitute Aegislash is pretty unconventional but it felt right for this team. After taking Amoonguss off of the team, I needed something to be able to switch into Spores, something every team needs in my opinion. As a bonus I still got to use the Aegislash set that I felt most comfortable with.
Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 184 Def / 252 SpA / 72 Spe
Modest Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Psyshock
– Hyper Beam
– Helping Hand
I felt that Sylveon, with the hardest-hitting spread move in the meta, was an obvious choice for this team to power through opponents. The sad thing is, people had Sylveon checks everywhere. I used Sylveon quite often in the early stages when playing less-skilled players. As the day progressed however, Sylveon saw less action on the field. For its moves, Hyper Voice was a no-brainer, while Psyshock was there so I could knock out Amoonguss after some chip damage. Hyper Beam was there to hit something very hard if I needed to, and then there’s Helping Hand. I think Helping Hand is an awesome option to have on Sylveon even if it’s using the Choice Specs. A scenario that happened quite often in practice was Sylveon would just enter the match, but would be Knocked Out before it could do anything because of its slow speed. In order for it to serve some purpose, I could Helping Hand before getting KO’d to help its teammate out. I never got to use this option during the tournament, but the option was there if needed.
Sylveon’s EV spread was quite simple. I maxed out its special attack just to hit things as hard as possible. Then, I gave it 72 speed EVs to out-speed the musketeers under Tailwind. The rest I dumped into physical defense to bolster its awful base defense. If the opponent is at -1 attack, Sylveon easily survives a Double Edge from Adamant Mega Salamence which leads me into my next Pokémon choice…
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Earthquake
– Rock Slide
– Stone Edge
– Superpower
The best non-mega of the format hands down. I didn’t mind if people assumed this was a Scarf Landorus because it’s still so hard to stop. I felt that my team could use Intimidate and required another Pokémon that would out-speed the base 100 speed tier. I chose the standard move-set for Scarf Landorus, except I opted for Stone edge over U-Turn. I chose this because I noticed a weakness to Thundurus and Zapdos and Stone Edge is a damage roll to KO both of these Pokémon. Also, I’m always really scared to actually use U-Turn. VGC’15 is the meta of random Scarfed Pokémon with Hidden Power Ice are used to counter Scarf Landorus-Therian. I often would get caught cold before I could even U-Turn out.
Shoutouts!
- KyleCole: You’ve been my best buddy when it comes to Pokémon and I’ve had a blast doing random things with you. Whether it’s Skype calls, team-building, or just messing around you are always hilarious. For those who haven’t heard of him you should definitely check out his YouTube channel.
- Finally: Thanks so much for getting me involved in the Pokémon community and thanks for being such a good friend. I’m going to miss you a lot when we part ways next year for college.
- Texas VGCers: You know who you are. I was incredibly nervous going to my first few events but you guys made me feel at home.
About the Author
shrop05 I started out playing smogon doubles when XY first came out but picked up VGC a few months later because the idea of real life tournaments interested me a lot!
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Blazing Forward! A Malaysian Regionals 2nd Place Report →
No Tournament Report ;-;
Sorry for the lack of report from the tournament itself
#nonoteswag
I like the team
I was there to. Only went 4-5 though (stupid RNG). Anyways, congrats on making top cut and nice looking team.
Excellent work dude, team looks really solid and is very adaptable!
I feel like I’m looking at one of those statistics on the Pokemon website with the 6 most used Pokemon.
Congrats on the success though.
Why do these boring teams keep making it to the front page? We know why you picked this team, we know the meta. Kinda pointless.
5 of your pokemons literally come from the PGL’s top 12 used pokemon list…. which does make this article less interesting. Other than that, it is a good article for the new players who want to start play VGC.
Maybe it’s, because others don’t write reports?
With Protect being more and more popular on Kangaskhan, Stone Edge being a choice because of Wide Guard and Safety Goggles on Aegislash to avoid getting spored by Amoonguss in Trick Room – this report is kinda cool, because it’s not that common to see even some adjustments on popular Pokémon.
Or maybe it’s just – the ones with rare Pokémon don’t write reports because they don’t want or they weren’t successful.
Also, no matter what, these reports do a great job of snapshotting the meta and it’s changes. Just like people have used the 2013 reports to become successful in this meta, people can potentially use these reports to get a grasp on future metagames as well.
how dare you scumlord not use INNOVATION. get out of here, only TRUE POKEYMON PLAYERS should be up here! ur just a tryhard who uses OP POKEMON
<3 u shropshire
The reason this is pointless, is becauae you make it so. Everyone has a unique view on each pokemon. Regardless how common these pokemon are.
Because this is a website about competitive Pokemon, not a website about unique snowflakes. We publish teams that do well. In many cases, that’s about playing well in the metagame with strong Pokemon. We have a lot of players who don’t know the meta. These teams help them learn that. These are also good teams to start out using. You can’t break the meta unless you know the meta.
I have little patience for those who deride other players’ contributions while contributing nothing of their own.
Anyway, let’s get the thread on track about the player’s team please.
Hot stuff Shrop I really like how you use Aegislash and have built all of my subslashes that way since I first saw the video. Good job man
This response makes me legitimately angry. People work hard on these articles and what you are saying not only discredits their success at the tournament they went to, but the effort they put in to write this up so that people like you could read more and learn more about VGC. As someone who frequently writes articles, I know that if I received these sort of comments on the articles that I take time and effort to write, I wouldn’t write any more. I certainly don’t write articles for my own benefit. Do you think these articles just appear out of thin air or something?
That being said, congratulations on your success at St. Louis, shrop05. I like that you used Substitute Aegislash because that was a strong set from 2014 that hasn’t seen much popularity. Good luck in the rest of the season.
Interesting team report, and congratulations on top-cutting what was your first ever regional!
) and if you don’t mind, I’d be interested to know exactly how useful and how much it came into play for you. I will assume it had its moments where it made a difference in a battle, but I’m generally curious.
I think its a fair assessment to say that the team is very much standard and in keeping with what is common on Battle Spot and the wider meta in general, but I don’t think that’s necessarily something that should go against you. I think its a sign of maturity to concede that the Pokemon you chose are good at what they do and build a team probably very much in the knowledge that everyone will be ready for. But, the team itself is still effective, and you proved this on the day.
I like how you also considered changes you would make on reflection with the team, and I think many of them were well constructed arguments, particularly the one about the lack of fire type moves in general which you felt should be addressed. I think particularly in that case your consideration is entirely justified, because fire type moves seem to be a necessity in the meta at the moment. I think Talonflame at the time was a valid meta-call because of Venusaur getting a spike in popularity, but the kamikaze nature of it meant you had to probably try to conserve it if you knew a bulky steel was going to be about. I had a similar issue with the team I used that had Infernape, and I’ve tried to improve this in subsequent teams, but 24 move-slots seems very few in general these days! I’d have liked to see how you’d go about making these changes in an updated version of the squad, perhaps you’ve done it since and are using it potentially at the upcoming regionals, in which case your within rights to keep whatever you’ve done under wraps.
I am very much intrigued by the Goggles on the Aegislash that make up your ‘FWG’ core (as an aside, when I was editing, I was wondering whether you lost your marbles when I read that, but I think your explanation of why it fulfilled the criteria was actually an interesting conceptual idea
As an aside, I think its just as important to highlight teams that are in keeping with the meta on this site as it is to show those that bring forward innovative ways of using various Pokemon, new sets on common Pokemon and so on. It should help to reinforce to us what exactly are the common, underlying threats that we will still face, rather than lull us into the notion that everything is specialized.
Once again though, congrats!
i feel like you just want every winning team to be the one that discovers the pachirisu or torkoal of the format and you’re probably just setting yourself up for disappointment.
standard pokemon are standard for good reason; and even this team, as was mentioned uses some interesting choices; such as stone edge on landorus, which kills char-y through aegislash’s wide guard, a very common pairing.
if you want to see the breakout pokemon of the year see success, your best chance is doing it yourself. but criticizing people just for playing what works? that’s just grimerty
i feel like you just want every winning team to be the one that discovers the pachirisu or torkoal of the format and you’re probably just setting yourself up for disappointment.
standard pokemon are standard for good reason; and even this team, as was mentioned uses some interesting choices; such as stone edge on landorus, which kills char-y through aegislash’s wide guard, a very common pairing.
if you want to see the breakout pokemon of the year see success, your best chance is doing it yourself. but criticizing people just for playing what works? that’s just grimerty
Great job as usual man! see you in KC!!
good team shrop! glad you did so well man
In response to me using very standard mons at St. Louis, I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m not one of the elite players in the United States. Because of this, I feel that I need to give myself the best shot of winning in every tournament. For me that means bringing general goodstuffs that I feel will be successful against the majority of the field. I chose to write an article because reading team reports on NuggetBridge is how I got better at VGC. Reading explanations on how to use the best pokemon in the meta and why they are the best pokemon helped me rethink my thought process when team building and when playing. I feel that people who are in a similar situation to what I was in can benefit from articles like these.
To the rest of the commenters, thanks for your kind words! It really means a lot:]
To be honest, I was a little disappointed at a glance at the team members, but after reading your report, I really love the thought that you put into each member. I thought what you said about Goggles Aegislash was not not only hilarious, but brilliant, as it is a great reminder that in this game, innovation is not only in what Pokemon you use, but in what moves you use and what items you use as well, along with how you use those Pokemon.
Congratulations on your Top Cut, and thank you so much for writing this article.(we should probably be saying this more often)
P.S. I’ll watch the video on a night that isn’t draft night 😛
One of the reasons I decided on goggles aegi was because of my offensive playstyle. I tend to do best with very offensive teams and the majority of viable grass types in this meta are very passive (amoonguss, ferrothorn, venusaur, and even ludicolo, breloom, and virizion don’t hit hard enough for me). Putting the goggles on aegi made it a pseudo grass type that offered the offensive presence that I wanted and allowing me to use a mon that I am very comfortable using.
This past season I used the standard leftovers substitute set, however, I noticed that the added recovery didn’t mean too much because most of the games that I play end in less than 8 turns. Of course in games when my opponent had zero powder using mons, aegi’s item was useless but it is something that I think was necessary to have. It just seemed to really fit my playstyle.
bop dash thele it is
shoutouts to Shrop05 for the crisp lord squad. bop snackwrap…
SHroP05 wins again. Classic.
sweet team. I love the hyper offense nature of it. all the haters about it being standard should pipe down.
Anyone can make a standard team but without someone able to string all those components together no team is ever gonna shine.
And the builds on some pokemon such as the Aegislash are definitely something that most people wouldn’t quite consider so mad props for the creativity there.
Also shoutouts to shrop05 and all the Doubles players here from the PS! Room
I just needed to add that Goggles on Aegislash doesn’t really give it any properties of a Grass-Type Pokemon than it does to any other Pokemon. Don’t know if you were being sarcastic or what but I cringed a bit when I read that. Aside from ignoring Spore and Rage Powder, it gets no Grass STAB or resistances, so it really isn’t a FWG core.
Most of the perks of grass in FWG are the support. If you are telling me that he can ignore 2 of the best support moves in the game, that is some great support. in this format you need to ignore amoonguss and breloom. They are just too good to ignore
P.S. Great report shrop, I liked the way you had an interesting take on some standard mons. Surprise factor best factor
I was saying that throwing Goggles on something doesn’t make it a Grass type.
I think everyone including the author knows that, and I have no clue why everyone is taking that line so seriously. The author implied that they decided that the actual resistances and weaknesses of a grass type ended up not being what they wanted as part of the usual FWG core they use, but what they did like about the FWG is that each of those types get specific and unique advantages like fire’s immunity to burn and grass type’s immunity to powder moves. They changed their mind about certain aspects of the FWG core during the team building process, that’s what makes it a process.
No one thinks goggles makes something a grass type, but having a way to switch in two spores and ignore rage powders is definitely a reason to use a grass type that can be substituted by giving something safety goggles. Don’t take the line so literally.
I find it funny how the simplest report we’ve had in a while is getting the most flak.
Though if there’s anything I can pick up from here, I kiiinda want to change my Aegislash to the same one used here. I do find myself in Aegislash mirrors a lot, and with Breloom getting popular lately (though might die down a bit with Talonflame coming back into action for a while), I think SubGoggles would be the correct play for my own team instead.
Only thing I was wondering was why Sylveon didn’t have enough Speed to outspeed max M. Salamence under Tailwind, but other than that, this team looks alright.
Oh and ScarfLando 4 lyfe