Reports

Published on April 30th, 2015 | by shrop05

31

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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