Reports

Published on December 9th, 2014 | by pwny person

6

Making a Splash: A Top 8 Philadelphia Report

Hello, I’m Paul Chua. Some of you may know me better as pwny person. I started playing VGC in 2010, but didn’t really have a breakthrough until 2012, where I placed top 4 in the Seniors division at my first nationals. I won Nationals in 2013, and went on to finish top 8 at Worlds the same year. Even with these accomplishments, I was pretty nervous going into the Philidelphia regional, as this is my first season in the Masters dvision. In the end, I finished top 8, losing to Wolfey in some very fun games. I’m here to give you some insight into the team I used at the tournament.

The Team at a Glance

On the surface, this team looks just like a standard rain team, similar to the ones Ray (Ray) and Sejun (pokemontcg) have been using. However, this team gives me many options other than a simple offensive rain mode, which I will explain in detail later. Let’s take a look at each Pokemon individually.

More In Depth Look at the Team

@ Leftovers

Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 204 HP / 148 Def / 156 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Perish Song
– Protect

Politoed is one of my favorite Pokemon due to its bulk, cuteness, and versatility. For this team, I felt like I needed Politoed to be slow in order to set up rain as often as possible, and to faint after other Pokemon in Perish Song. Because of the offensive nature of this team, I didn’t feel like I needed any investment in Special Attack and just went for a defensive build. The EV spread is the same as the one used by Japanese player YT (read more about his team here). The HP EVs allow Politoed to take minimal damage from hail and sandstorm, and the Defense and Special Defense EVs allow it to survive an Adamant Mawile Play Rough and a Thunder from Timid Mega Manectric, respectively.

The moveset is pretty simple. Scald is just a reliable STAB attack, and Ice Beam hits Pokemon that resist Scald, such as Salamence. Perish Song can be used to force switches, or used alongside Gothitelle’s Shadow Tag to knock out Pokemon that would otherwise cause problems for my team. Protect prevents Politoed from taking damage and allows for Leftovers recovery.

If I were to use this team again, I would definitely consider replacing Ice Beam with Encore. Due to Politoed’s lack of Special Attack investment, Ice Beam doesn’t do very much damage, even when its super effective. Encore is very useful in setting up Perish Song, locking my opponent into an ineffective move while I wait out the Perish count.

@ Assault Vest

Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 132 HP / 20 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 100 Spe
Modest Nature
– Fake Out
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Giga Drain

Ludicolo was Politoed’s rain partner. I prefer Ludicolo over Kingdra due to Ludicolo’s lack of reliance on rain, and its useful grass typing, which allows it to go ignore rage powder and spore. I didn’t really like using a fast variant of Ludicolo so I went with an Assault Vest to allow it to take some hits a bit better. I’m going to be honest here, I got lazy on thinking of a Ludicolo spread and just used the EVs Sejun Park’s Ludicolo had on his nationals team. The problem is that the Ludicolo Sejun used was for a Sitrus Berry, so i wasn’t getting the most out of it. However, I never really had any issues when I was testing with it.

The moveset is pretty much what you would see any Ludicolo have. The only move that might seem a bit out of the box is Scald instead of Hydro Pump. I’m the kind of person that is really paranoid when it comes to moves with less than 100 accuracy. I didn’t want to risk missing any attacks so I went with Scald because it does some decent damage in and out of rain and the 30% burn chance is also a nice bonus.

@ Choice Specs

EVs: 60 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 196 Spe
Modest Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Dark Pulse
– Flamethrower
– Dragon Pulse

Hydriegon is the next member on my team. The EVs allow it to outspeed Pokemon that are meant to outspeed Smeargle by 1 by 1 point (the speed stat number is 143). The HP EVs allow it to survive a Jolly Dragon Claw from a Garchomp. The 244 in Special Attack makes it so that I don’t waste the 8 evs in something that isn’t relevant. User Risky Chance showed me that 244 and 252 Special Attack  pretty much do the same thing, so investing 252 in Special attack would be a waste so invested it into other stats.

Moveset is pretty standard, Dragon Pulse was chosen over other options such as Earth Power because when testing, I never found a use for it and I had a feeling that i might need a time to do damage consistently compared to Draco Meteor with the Special Attack Drop.

@ Mawilite

Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
– Iron Head
– Play Rough
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

Mawile is the Pokemon I chose as my mega. Its ability, Huge Power, when it mega evolves is really helpful because it allows Mawile to do even more damage. It also does well against the common Pokemon people use such as Garchomp, Hydreigon, and Kangaskhan. As you can tell, the EVs for this Mawile are very standard. As Mawile was my only physical attacker, I felt like I needed it to do as much damage on the physical side as possible. The moveset is also pretty standard as I saw no need to run anything unusual such as Rock Slide.

@Safety Goggles

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 76 SpA / 156 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
– Thunder Wave
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Roost

Zapdos, in my opinion, is the best Electric type Pokemon you can have on a rain team. It is very bulky but also has a decent amount of offense. The EV Spread is really old. I was struggling to think of a Zapdos spread and I didn’t like using a Bold one. In the end, I decided to go with Human’s spread from his rain team from long ago which can be found here. It pretty much accomplished the only goal I wanted it to do, survive a Draco Meteor from a Choice Specs Modest Hydreigon, so I went with it. The moveset is also very basic. Thunderbolt for STAB, Thunder Wave for speed control, and Roost in order for it to survive for a longer time. I chose Hidden Power Ice over another attack such as Swagger because I was worried about not being able to hit Garchomp if a scenario were to end up like that.

Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 244 SpD
Calm Nature
– Trick Room
– Psyshock
– Charm
– Protect

Gothitelle is the last Pokemon on my team. It helped me set up Perish Song or disrupt my opponent’s strategies with its ability. The EV spread allows it to take a Choice Specs Hyderigon Dark Pulse and the remaining EVs were put into Defense to make it a little tankier on the physical side. The moves are also self explanatory. Trick Room for speed control,Psyshock was chosen over psychic just so that i can hit Assault Vest Pokemon harder. Charm is there to cripple physical attackers. One notable thing about this is that my Gothitelle is faster than Mawile outside of Trick Room. This can help me a lot by outspeeding a Mawile and charming it which leads to my Pokemon surviving an attack I normally wouldn’t. Protect is there to stall out my own Trick Room if I wanted to, but mostly I used it to stall out Perish Song turns if it was going on.

Conclusion

In the end, I enjoyed this team. This has to be, in my honest opinion, my favorite team I have ever used out of all 4 years of playing VGC and I am glad I got to share this team with you guys! The many different options the team has is part of what makes it fun, causing your opponent to wonder which mode you decide to bring into the match. Other people have also used similar versions of my team and have achieved better results than I have, such as Kamz and TheBattleRoom getting 2nd at their respective regionals.

So with that being said, I would like to give a few thank yous to people who have helped somewhere along the journey of becoming the person I am today:

• Eric1999: You were the best team building partner I could have asked for. The ideas you give me for my teams always help my team and you are very supportive of me. Hopefully we can meet one day in person, and I am very glad to have met you. 🙂
• Cybertron: My match against you in 2012 was one of the best matches I ever had and I still haven’t forgotten it. That was motivated me to keep playing Pokemon. Your YouTube videos also help me in coming up with cool ideas and become a better player.
• LudiImpact: Thanks for being a great friend and also telling me how good my team was. You are always very positive when it comes to me in these events, and that always makes me happy.
• My parents: Thanks for actually putting up with me and actually bringing me to these events. You guys are also very positive and always tell me to not worry about doing bad and to just have fun, which has always helped me whenever I get flustered from a loss.

This is all from me for now! I hope you enjoyed reading this report as much as I had writing it. Have a nice day!

About the Author

pwny person

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