Reports

Published on August 16th, 2015 | by JHufself

16

Mad as a March Hare: A VGC 2015 Season Team Report

Hello everyone, my name is Jon Hu (JHufself) and today I’m writing about my VGC 2015 season and the team I created and cultivated from the start of the format change. However, I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself, so let’s start with the small time window before the format change.

After Worlds

As I wrote about previously, I did not have a great Worlds run although I took a lot of important lessons and made a lot of good friends from the experience. Up until Fall Regionals, I decided to just stick with my Nationals 2014 team and have fun with it. The reason for this is because I consider the Fall Regionals tournaments to be the resolution to the previous season. If the US Nationals and World Championships are the highest points in a season, then Fall Regionals is both the end of a format and the start of a new season, and thus has a tendency to stagnate. Because I put very little effort into actually making a new team, the team I took to Ft. Wayne this season was

gengar-mega mawile-mega lapras garchomp gardevoir rotom

Yes, that is a normal Rotom, and no, that is not a mistake. I really brought a normal Rotom to Fall Regionals. As expected, I didn’t really make any big splashes at Ft. Wayne due to this lazy stance I had settled into. After that came the Alpha Premier Challenges, which continued to use the VGC 2014 format up until November 21st, where it became VGC 2014 + tutors. For these events I began to mess around with the following team:

kangaskhan mawile-mega gyarados-mega gardevoir aerodactyl smeargle

The goal of this team was to take advantage of the player-conceived notions of the VGC 2014 metagame, especially the fact that most players will assume Kangaskhan is a Mega Evolution. Known as the “Dumpy Kang” team, this was an early concept that would eventually evolve into the team I used for the National Pokédex format. I attended and won exactly one Premier Challenge with this team before I had to scrap it due to the format change.

2015 – A New Format

In the days leading up to the format change, I used the Smogon Doubles ladder to test a plethora of oddities that I wanted to try out. These were mostly terrible ideas, but to give you a taste of how terrible it was, I’ll concede that I once tried to make Assault Vest Serene Grace Blissey work. After testing a good amount, including most if not all of the new Mega Evolutions, I took a shine to Mega Lopunny. There were other Mega Evolutions I leaned towards as well, like Gallade, Metagross, and Swampert, but it took too much team support to make those pull their own weight, or in the case of Metagross, I had no idea how to craft a spread that achieved what I wanted it to. With the decision made, I then began to think about how to build a team to complement Mega Lopunny. Instead of thinking logically about how to provide support for Lopunny, I came up with a thematic idea. What if I ran Azumarill next to Mega Lopunny for double the bunny power? And thus, Double Bunnies was born.

This was one of those coincidences where the thematic idea was also very workable as a team idea. Azumarill applies offensive pressure after a Belly Drum to potentially draw away attention from Lopunny, while Lopunny allows Azumarill a turn to set up due to the fast Scrappy Fake Out. With Azumarill, a redirector was needed, and because this was an idea quite similar to the “Dumpy Kang” team, I ended up transferring a lot of the members on that team to this one, and the first draft of the team looked like

lopunny-mega azumarill aerodactyl gardevoir smeargle gengar-mega

I would be lying if I said this team was made with winning as the primary goal in mind. I took it to the in-game Battle Spot ladder where it achieved moderate success, reaching just under 1800. After messing around with it there, I decided that this was the team I was going to take to every event this season. After I attended and narrowly missed cutting another Premier Challenge, I discovered that this version of the team was fairly inconsistent for a few things.

  1. I was using Teeter Dance Lopunny. At the time, it was just a way to make impatient and intolerant opponents on Battle Spot forfeit as well as being funny to watch. The animation is hilarious.
  2. Smeargle. In the early days when not everyone had a Thundurus running around, it was still pretty good if by good you mean free sleep turns. Until you missed that is.
  3. Nothing was bulky. The bulkiest thing on the team was Azumarill, and even then that’s probably not who you want your bulkiest Pokémon to be.

So it looked bad. I cut off all of the excess and started back with Lopunny and Azumarill. I also dropped Teeter Dance during this time because I wanted to have a serious outlook on how to make the team as successful as possible, testing out various other moves that could help such as Ice Punch and Return. However, as I’ll discuss later the final version of the team still had Teeter Dance. The next team I came up with was the team I used at the Missouri Winter Regionals.

lopunny-mega azumarill mawile-mega togekiss ludicolo mamoswine

At the event, I ended up going 7-2, missing top 16 by a tiny margin. This team also had major faults that I knew about and decided to just deal with.

  1. Weakness to sun. Any matchup against sun was basically an autoloss. I fought one sun team at Missouri and lost majestically.
  2. Dual Mega with Lopunny and Mawile was very limiting. I didn’t like it, and Mawile was bad most of the time anyway.

Fun fact: That Ludicolo was running Own Tempo to synergize with Teeter Dance. As much as it pained me to change this team, which I thought was pretty good, I knew that I couldn’t continue to be weak to sun since it is a very common archetype. During this time, I continued to play on Battle Spot, even claiming the #1 spot on the BS Doubles ladder in America for a time, and I also participated in the Nugget Bridge Major, where I played some of my earlier rounds with this team. After much deliberation, I settled on a new team for use at Madison Spring Regionals.

lopunny-mega azumarill togekiss excadrill goodra chandelure

Those who faced me when I was using this team may remember that Chandelure was carrying Minimize. A cheesy move indeed, it was a good fit for a playstyle like mine, but I don’t recommend its use in the slightest. This team fixed a lot of the previous iterations’ problems. Chandelure and Goodra handled sun very well, Excadrill was a Fairy slayer as well as a nice check to Rotom formes with Mold Breaker, and the overall bulk of the team increased. Even though I had improved the team overall, I only went 6-2 at Madison, and 4-2 at the attached Premier Challenge, disappointing finishes for a team I thought to be very solid.

And so with a measly 128 Championship points at this point, I knew that to get an invite to Worlds I would need to reach bracket at Nationals, but to actually go I would need to pull another semifinals placement for the money. Since I started taking summer courses right after Spring Regionals, I didn’t have much time to make a whole lot of improvements on the team. About a week or two before Nationals, I made the final changes to the team, and the end result is to be discussed here.

The Team:

lopunny-mega azumarill togekiss excadrill arcanine gengar-mega

I piloted this team in the June International Challenge before Nationals to obtain necessary battle data to finetune it. I ended up going something like 21-9 in that affair, a fair result for a team that had never been played prior. Without further ado, let’s hop right into the team and take a look at the inner workings.

lopunny -> lopunny-mega

Lopunny @Lopunnite “Koto”
Ability: Limber -> Scrappy
EVs: 148 HP / 116 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SDef / 236 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Fake Out
– Drain Punch
– Encore
– Teeter Dance

“I have no idea what’s going on!” –Koto, Kyousougiga

What began as the central Mega for the team slowly turned into more of a tech with each iteration of the team. Lopunny is a strange Mega to consider for a primary offensive source, since compared to Mega Kangaskhan it seems to be outclassed in almost every way. So let me lay down what exactly sets it apart from the reigning queen of Mega Evolutions.

First off, I have to say that Mega Lopunny IS NOT an offensive powerhouse like Mega Kangaskhan, nor is it truly effective in that way. Lopunny’s job is to offer SUPPORT. You read that right. While Kangaskhan’s job provides momentum for the user through sheer offensive presence, Lopunny’s job disrupts the opponent’s momentum and attempts to redistribute it to the user. One of the traits that most distinguishes Lopunny from Kangaskhan is its vast support movepool, which includes Encore, Charm, Thunder Wave, Baby-Doll Eyes, Entrainment, Healing Wish, After You, and Teeter Dance. The second thing that separates them is Lopunny’s much faster base Speed of 135. While Lopunny’s 136 base Attack screams physical attacker, I think most players will find that Lopunny’s damage output against neutral targets is anywhere from disappointing to downright awful after Intimidates and burns. This is because Lopunny really likes having a Jolly nature to maximize its speed. Now that I’ve laid out why I think Lopunny should play a partial supporting role, let’s move on to what I chose to run.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first because I’m sure to catch a lot of hate regardless of what I say anyway: Teeter Dance. Teeter Dance is a move that confuses everyone on the field other than the user. It is not blocked by Wide Guard, nor is it reflected by Magic Coat or Magic Bounce, and has 100 Accuracy. Effectively, a three-way Confuse Ray. There wasn’t a specific reason to run Teeter Dance other than the fact that no matter what I tried putting there instead, Teeter Dance yielded the best results. Teeter Dance requires no real skill to use and can change the flow of battle in an instant. Did I have to confuse my own Pokémon to win? The answer is yes, a lot, and I don’t regret running it. Moving on.

Every Lopunny set should be running Fake Out and Encore in tandem at all times. That combination is just too good to pass up for anything else and is the reason that Pokémon like Raichu or Liepard who run it perform their roles. The last slot was reserved for a Fighting move, and I chose Drain Punch to extend my longevity.

For the spread, I ran a complex pseudo bulky spread to make sure Lopunny wasn’t entirely useless in her base form. The Speed EVs hit 170 base, 203 Mega, which outspeeds all base 102 Speed and below in base form, while still outrunning Scarf base 70s in Mega form. This set misses out on Speed ties with other base 105s for the initial turn, but they’re so rare to begin with that I didn’t miss the two points. HP EVs gives her a nice passive damage minimizing max HP, while the Attack EVs guarantees an OHKO on 4 HP/ 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan with a Helping Hand boosted Drain Punch. One notable attack that Lopunny can take is unboosted Hydreigon’s Draco Meteor, but as witnessed throughout the competition she more than took her fair share of hits.

azumarill

Azumarill @Sitrus Berry “Honey”
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 228 HP / 236 Atk / 4 Def / 36 SDef / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Belly Drum
– Aqua Jet
– Return
– Protect

Picking on my friends is bad, got it?” –Honey, Ouran High School Host Club

A fairly standard BellyJet Azumarill, but the one thing that sticks out is the move choice of Return. Originally, I was using Play Rough, but I found Grass/Poison types like Amoonguss and Venusaur very inhibitive to Azumarill’s sweeping potential. With a +6 Return, Azumarill will cleanly OHKO nearly anything that doesn’t resist, and believe me when I say Normal isn’t a commonly resisted attack type as evidenced by Kangaskhan still dominating. Water/Normal coverage only misses out neutral coverage on a few things: The Halloween Kalos Pokémon which are both fairly uncommon, Ferrothorn which resists Water/Fairy anyways, Jellicent, and Empoleon. Return also has the benefit of 100 Accuracy over Play Rough’s 90. Lack of a strong STAB option meant I was a little more reliant on Belly Drum, but on the day of the tournament sticking with Return ultimately helped me out more than Play Rough would have.

EV spread is also nearly bog standard, but I decided to dump the leftover 44 EVs mostly into Special Defense to have a better chance at surviving 0 Special Attack investment Thundurus and Rotom. This paid off both in practice and at the event.

togekiss

Togekiss @Rocky Helmet “Kanade”
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 244 HP / 84 Def / 4 SAtk / 116 SDef / 60 Spe
Calm Nature
– Follow Me
– Air Slash
– Thunder Wave
– Protect

I’m not an angel.” –Kanade, Angel Beats!

Togekiss’s main goal is to redirect attacks from Azumarill so that it can sweep. Another role I delegated to Togekiss with was spreading Thunder Wave, especially on Water resistant Pokémon like Venusaur or Salamence so that Azumarill or other team members could get the KO. Tailwind was considered, but since Tailwind was a short lived 3 turns of Speed boosts, I decided Thunder Wave was the better option. No Togekiss is complete without Air Slash, so of course that’s here as well. Finally, Protect is here to stop a lot of unwanted damage. EV spread deviates a little from the standard as I opted to go a bit more bulky on the special side, but still handles the majority of strong attacks with ease.

At Nationals I found myself sorely wanting Tailwind a whole lot more than Thunder Wave as I faced more and more Thundurus and Landorus. So that’s one thing I would have changed going into it, but ultimately did not.

excadrill

Excadrill @Focus Sash “Simon”
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spe, IVs: 18 HP
Adamant Nature
-Drill Run
-Iron Head
-Rock Slide
-Protect

My drill is the drill that creates the heavens!!!!!” –Simon, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Aside from being a Pokémon representation of Gurren Lagann, Excadrill’s best claim to fame was usage by Randy Kwa. Similarly to how he ran it, I also happen to have a Togekiss on this team. However, a simple glance at my team composition will tell you that Togekiss is my only Ground immunity on the team. Several of the other Pokémon also lack Protect to dodge Earthquake. So I instead chose to run Drill Run, which holds other properties that Earthquake doesn’t have such as a higher base power (80 vs. EQ’s spread 75), a 12.5% critical chance, hits through Wide Guard, and has a way cooler attack animation, all at the cost of 5 Accuracy and loss of spread damage. The other moves, Iron Head, Rock Slide, and Protect are all self-explanatory. I kept the Focus Sash on Excadrill because most Excadrill being run on Battle Spot are Choice Scarf or Life Orb variants and the ability for Excadrill to take one hit and retaliate back comes to be invaluable in many 1v1 situations where Excadrill normally loses.

Out of all the Pokémon on the team, I was surprised to find that Excadrill was the least helpful, mostly due to the swarming Landorus and opposing Excadrill Sand teams. While it didn’t perform quite as well as it did at Madison, Excadrill was still pulling its weight most of the time, just not as much.

arcanine

Arcanine @Safety Goggles “Scooby Doo”
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 36 SAtk / 12 SDef / 60 Spe
Timid Nature
-Flamethrower
-Will-o-Wisp
-Helping Hand
-Snarl

“Scoob, what’s your conclusion?” “Bunny!” –Scooby and Shaggy, Scooby-Doo series

As a way to mitigate the damage against my Pokémon, Arcanine is one of the best damage managers in the format. I call it a damage manager because in addition to having Intimidate, many Arcanine run Will-o-Wisp and Snarl as moves, or have Rocky Helmet as a held item. What some people don’t realize though is that Arcanine has access to Helping Hand, which on this team is quite a boon. With it, the lack of maximum Attack investment on Azumarill is made even more negligible, Lopunny earns an OHKO on 4/0 Kangaskhan, Gengar hits even harder, and even Excadrill or Togekiss can receive some bonus damage on their STAB attacks. Since Rocky Helmet was already on Togekiss, I decided to give Arcanine the Safety Goggles to safely ignore Amoonguss, Breloom, and other Powder users. Its EV spread maximizes its HP, since Arcanine does not often take passive damage, with only poison status and Leech Seed affecting Arcanine. Speed lets it outspeed Jolly Breloom; in conjunction with the Special Attack EVs, it gets the OHKO with Flamethrower 100% of the time on it and 4/0 Bisharp. The rest was dumped into the Defense for maximum survivability.

gengar -> gengar-mega

Gengar @Gengarite “Saya”
Ability: Levitate -> Shadow Tag
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spe, IVs: 27 HP
Timid Nature
-Shadow Ball
-Icy Wind
-Substitute
-Protect

How wicked and terrible Saya is. Perhaps others would fear and loathe her; to me, however, her malevolence is irresistibly charming.” –Saya no Uta

Gengar remains the same from my last season, but I’ve replaced Sludge Bomb with Icy Wind to snipe Landorus, avoid redirection, and have another form of Speed control. Shadow Tag as usual works extremely well for my team, as having certain matchups and knowing the opponent won’t be able to switch benefitted me greatly. At one point changing Gengar’s EV spread to be more defensive was considered, but in the end the use of Substitute conflicted with any kind of defensive investment. Gengar would also miss out on OHKOs with Icy Wind if it were running anything other than 252 SAtk.

Team Performance: Leads and Matchups

Double Bunny Special – lopunny + azumarill

The team’s origin, this lead is the basic lead to almost any matchup. The main idea is to Fake Out a threat with Lopunny, who I may choose to Mega or not, while Azumarill sets up a Belly Drum. If I deem my opponent’s leads to be too threatening or if it appears obvious that they will double target Azumarill, I will instead Protect Azumarill and Teeter Dance with Lopunny. Since Lopunny plays the red herring in this duo, it’s not uncommon for her to take a lot of damage or even get knocked out in the first turn. Not knocking Lopunny out allows her to support Azumarill in future turns, while getting knocked out allows me a free switch into Togekiss or something else in the back.

Double Fairy Standard – azumarill + togekiss

If I feel generally safe from spread moves I bring in the fairies, since Togekiss can redirect to allow Azumarill a setup opportunity. This lead could be considered the converse lead to the Double Bunny special, since pretty much the same principles apply to Togekiss as they did to Lopunny, but replace Fake Out with Follow Me and Teeter Dance with Thunder Wave. Thunder Wave is especially important against Pokémon like Suicune, Salamence, and Venusaur that resist Aqua Jet so this is another reason I would lead these two.

Luck+4: Dancer Class Exclusive Skill – lopunny + togekiss

Usually if a team has no immunity to Thunder Wave, I use Togekiss as a lead to spread the paralysis love while Lopunny provides the confusion end of the bargain by Dancing. It’s usually topped off with Air Slash spam with just a pinch of Encore locking. The end result is a lot of salt. Not an ideal offensive lead, but the amount of free turns given by all of these attacks stacking with each other often lends me a big advantage regardless of the opponent’s move choices.

The Mystery Gang – gengar + arcanine

The name of this lead comes from the obvious pairing of a ghost and Scooby-Doo. It was a perfect naming opportunity. This lead is my answer to Amoonguss + Gardevoir, seeing as Arcanine can Snarl to decrease the threat of Gardevoir while being immune to Amoonguss while Gengar will lock the two of them in and get up a Substitute on the first turn, where Gardevoir presumably Protects or Trick Rooms. Amoonguss generally has a rough time doing anything in the time that it is trapped here, while Gardevoir will just faint to a Helping Hand boosted Shadow Ball. This lead also performs well against Landorus and Salamence leads, as a Helping Hand Icy Wind will OHKO the standard sets, even when spread.

Mega Mystery – gengar + lopunny

Truly the most bewildering lead combination of them all, this lead has me leading both of my potential Mega Evolutions. While for the most part I will choose to Mega Evolve Gengar for the Shadow Tag, occasionally I will Mega Evolve Lopunny. Just like last year’s Sableye + Gengar combination, this combination performs similarly, where Lopunny provides the disruption and Gengar takes advantage of board position. An added synergy bonus results from when Lopunny Teeter Dances next to Gengar’s Substitute, as Substitute will allow Gengar to avoid getting confused.

I will now discuss the inherent flaws of running such a team, which became apparent in Day 2 Swiss due to the skill level of the player pool being drastically higher than what I am used to playing.

thundurus + landorus-therian

The Double Genies lead is not a lead combination I normally have problems with. That is, if the player piloting the genies isn’t playing proactively and is instead reacting to my moves. By now, many players will have noticed that a team along the lines of Kangaskhan, Thundurus, Landorus-Therian, Sylveon, Heatran, and a Bulky Water, otherwise known to me by the name “Battle Spot Special” appears regularly in every competitive VGC 2015 environment. It is a fairly solid team that is as good as it is common when it is being handled by an experienced player. Wolfe Glick (Wolfey) and Gavin Michaels (kingofmars) come to mind as some of the players that used “Battle Spot Special”-like teams at Nationals. Other than that, it is apparent to almost anyone looking that my team is indeed torn apart by this combination, should I let them erase my win conditions.

talonflame

It wouldn’t be a Jon Hu team without a glaring weakness to the big bird himself. Outprioritizes Azumarill? Check. Hits my whole team for unresisted damage? Check. Has Quick Guard, Tailwind, and other moves that can hamper the effectiveness of my Pokémon? Check, check, and check. I only fought one in the entire tournament, and it definitely took the game pretty handily.

jellicent

This thing caused me grief throughout the whole season due to my choice to run Return over Play Rough. The only way for me to reliably KO it was with Gengar, a Pokémon who in turn is weak to Jellicent should they choose to run Shadow Ball. It was generally bulky enough to take a lot of abuse from my side of the field and often carried Trick Room or Will-o-Wisp to further stop my progress.

azumarill

Ironically, Azumarill is also a rough matchup for this team, as it will often have multiple opportunities to set up its own Belly Drum and sweep with it. Arcanine and Gengar, while efficient at checking Azumarill, cannot do much if the Azumarill is paired with a Follow Me user. I also tend to forget that most Azumarill run Play Rough, an unfortunate force of habit for running Return for the majority of the season.

In conclusion, this team has a number of glaring, gaping holes, which appear to be quite obvious to more experienced players. In Day 2, rarely would I have an opponent that would ever change their leads due to the fact that they reasoned any other lead would result in an autoloss should I decide to lead Double Bunnies. As a player who has mostly concerned himself with improving his punish game this season rather than his pressure game, I have yet to obtain the amount of wisdom necessary to consider myself among the top level of VGC players. However, I feel content using Double Bunnies to net myself a Top 32 at US Nationals 2015, a team I poured much effort and time into to make work to the best of my ability. With that, I would like to thank the following individuals:

  • Adib (Adib), for being a great Theorymon partner and convincing me to use Arcanine (eventually). Good luck with your last few classes of college!
  • Kaston (Chronos), for providing me the Arcanine I used in competition. I hope we can continue to interact despite that dirty Round 9 elimination set on Day 1.
  • Chris (Icekingz), for giving me some much needed practice before Nationals. He recently started his own Youtube channel, check it out if you’re interested!
  • My close personal friends, squirrelboy1225, Zefrin, Quill292, and Truthwalker for going with me to the event and for the endless fun (and salt) we have during our Theorymon sessions.
  • The commentators, for making rewatching all of my losses on stream a lot more manageable because you put a smile on my face with what you have to say about my team.
  • Anyone who I had the pleasure of facing in battle, be it Day 1, Day 2, or even the Multi-Battle Side Event! You’re all wonderful people.

Will I use this team again at the next Regionals, after the end of the season? That remains to be seen, but I will continue to try my hardest to make up for my lack of presence this season. And so, I will leave you until the time comes again for me to spout nonsense about the next big happenstance. Good luck to all of the Worlds qualifiers! I’ll be watching this year, so do your best!


About the Author

started his competitive career in 2010 at that year's Nationals LCQ. He has always been interested in using favorites to win, and has a very unhealthy obsession with confusion moves. When he's not playing Pokémon, he's probably playing Fire Emblem.



16 Responses to Mad as a March Hare: A VGC 2015 Season Team Report

  1. Jhoqk says:

    very nice team report, and it was a blast seeing the Teeter Dance Lopunny on stream. Good job on your season overall, but on a scale of 1-10, how much salt did you collect with this team?

  2. Interesting team and great report. 

  3. LithiumAcid says:

    Love the nicknames <3

    LOL at the poor soul who googles Saya no Uta, thinking it's an anime

  4. Adib says:

    LOL at the poor soul who googles Saya no Uta, thinking it’s an anime

     
    Yeah Jon kinda tricked me into doing that when he first mentioned it months ago as the (then) new name for his Gengar. I have many regrets.
     
    Anyways, that was a great read, Jon. Congrats again for making Top 32 at US Nationals! It was pretty fun and surprisingly educational watching this team develop throughout the season. This team is definitely a very “Jon Hu” team. As arrogant as it might sound, I’m also a little happy to have been able to help out a little here. Even if it did take me a freaking month to get you to realize that Arcanine was god on your team. Too bad it couldn’t show its stuff on stream :(
     
    I know a lot of people don’t like Teeter Dance, but as much as I hate it, I think it actually makes sense on this team because of Shadow Tag. You may have started with double bunnies as the focus, but Shadow Tag feels like the real danger behind this team. This team reminds me a lot of your 2014 team with confusion, double Fairy, weakness to Talonflame, and Mega Gengar where you trap and confuse things, only, well, x3 with Teeter Dance now. Great. Mega Gengar + Arcanine is also just so good at trapping and weakening stuff that you can eventually just sit there and fire off Helping Hand Shadow Balls everywhere. Shadow Tag with a +6 Azumarill is also pretty terrifying. This team is pretty annoying to deal with if you don’t have Thundurus and/or Landorus-T.
     
    Good luck next season! I’m especially looking forward to see how you do in Ft. Wayne with your new team hahaha

  5. This team was probably my favorite to watch on stream. The bunny skills are real :o

  6. R Inanimate says:

    I’m pretty sure when people say they hate Teeter Dance, it’s more on the side of fearing it, as opposed to thinking it is a bad move. The ability to cause confusion status to all targets is terrifying, as it can get around things like redirection, and puts up a bit of mental pressure on the opponent as they decide whether it is better off if they try to brave through confusion rolls, or try to switch out and reposition themselves. More so when you are facing an opponent who is able to find a good balance between trying to perform disruption shenanigans, and trying to manufacture some actual offense in order to get a W. When I saw the team when you were on stream, I’m pretty sure the first thing that came to mind was “Yeah, that’s a very ‘Jon Hu’ team.”. For better or worse, it feels like the team doesn’t lose gracefully on stream. Then again, it also doesn’t win gracefully either.
     
    It may be a playstyle that can cause a lot of aggrivation, but at the end of the day, if you are able to win with consistancy against a wide variety of players, dispite the luck factors involved with your team, you kind of have to respect it.
     
    I’m interested to see what sort of thing you will try next year. A bit hard to top off a team with bunnies partying hard, dancing to a sick drum beat.

  7. Architeuthis says:

    Really cool team. I’m pretty sure I ran into you on battle spot a couple months ago; the teeter dance salt was real.

  8. ThunderPunch says:

    Love the team Jon.
    Great report!

  9. Quill292 says:

    Won on stream yet?

  10. squirrelboy1225 says:

    Oh baby, I’m famous.

  11. Thanks for the report, I learnt a lot about Lopunny =3

  12. DumbJokes says:

    Those were some pretty cool teams! Thanks for all the info on Lopunny.

  13. JHufself says:

    Very nice team and report, and it was a blast seeing the Teeter Dance Lopunny on stream. Good job on your season overall, but on a scale of 1-10, how much salt did you collect with this team?

     
    Scale of 1-10? Maybe 7.8/10 too much salt. As for an actual response, I only fought maybe 3 or 4 people in person who got really salty.
     

    This team was probably my favorite to watch on stream. The bunny skills are real :o

     
    “bunny skills” is a maybe a misleading term. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your comment though!
     

    I’m pretty sure when people say they hate Teeter Dance, it’s more on the side of fearing it, as opposed to thinking it is a bad move. The ability to cause confusion status to all targets is terrifying, as it can get around things like redirection, and puts up a bit of mental pressure on the opponent as they decide whether it is better off if they try to brave through confusion rolls, or try to switch out and reposition themselves. More so when you are facing an opponent who is able to find a good balance between trying to perform disruption shenanigans, and trying to manufacture some actual offense in order to get a W. When I saw the team when you were on stream, I’m pretty sure the first thing that came to mind was “Yeah, that’s a very ‘Jon Hu’ team.”. For better or worse, it feels like the team doesn’t lose gracefully on stream. Then again, it also doesn’t win gracefully either.
     
    It may be a playstyle that can cause a lot of aggrivation, but at the end of the day, if you are able to win with consistancy against a wide variety of players, dispite the luck factors involved with your team, you kind of have to respect it.
     
    I’m interested to see what sort of thing you will try next year. A bit hard to top off a team with bunnies partying hard, dancing to a sick drum beat.

     
    Oh, I already have plans for Fall Regionals my friend. You might be right about the Teeter Dance hate, but it doesn’t change the fact that some players will choose to shoot the messenger so to speak.
     
    I’ll finish this post off with some additional thoughts that didn’t make it into the report. For those who were paying attention, I went x-2 at every tournament it was taken to other than Day 2 Nationals. At in person events, it was also very entertaining to see the different faces of people when they first see Teeter Dance, varying from raised eyebrows to visible discomfort, and I thank those individuals for their reactions to the madness. I LOVED playing this team, and I have no regrets piloting it at various events to mild success.

  14. Nucleose says:

    Great report! Very happy I got paired upwards against you even though I was nervous but had taken control of that after letting it ruin my set with Randy. Your personality and team put me in a good mood and the “welp, here goes nothing” nature of our slugfest second round was unforgettable and some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing this game at a tournament. Never change, Jon!

  15. IceKingz says:

    As always, your teams never fail to shake things up!  I loved battling against it and watching it put in work on stream!

  16. Chronos says:

    Great report Jon. You may have beaten me with my own Arcanine, but it was a fun (if weird) set and we can continue to interact. Let me know if you need any Pokemon or a practice partner in the future.

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