Reports

Published on October 25th, 2012 | by SoulSurvivor

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Korean Influences: 2013 Philadelphia Masters Team Analysis

Hello all, I am Jeudy (SoulSurvivor on the forums), and I recently got top-32 at the Philadelphia Regionals. Last year I was plagued with a series of X-1’s at Regionals only to bubble out of the prizes thanks to the tiebreaker system, so this year’s news of top cut made me ecstatic. Before Worlds I started testing quite a few things focused around Bisharp because I felt he was underrated. Then Worlds came around and Korean player Sejun Park got 6th place using a Bisharp.  Right there I decided I wanted to use a Bisharp and Hitmontop-centered team for the next tournament. Autumn Friendly came around, and I battled quite a few Korean players who seemed to run some interesting teams focused around Hitmontop and Bisharp.  After testing I made the team in-game, and ended up winning a live tournament, increasing my confidence in my team. Without further ado, let me talk about the actual team:

Team At A Glance

bisharphitmontopgarchomplatioscresseliarotom-wash

Closer Look

bisharp
Bisharp @ Focus Sash
Trait: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Iron Head
– Night Slash
– Sucker Punch
– Protect

Bisharp is pretty much star of this team. I knew since Worlds I wanted to run a team based around this guy. His unique typing made him very useful against many teams at Philly, and I expected to see many Hitmontops and Intimidate users to nab a Defiant boost. Other than that there isn’t much unique to say about this Bisharp set — it’s simply running a standard 252/252 spread.

I guess the first thing you might notice is Night Slash and Sucker Punch on the same set. This was there for many reasons. One is that I think Sucker Punch is a terrible and unreliable move when battling higher level players. The other was for baiting opponents. I always started off using Night Slash in matches. My opponent would rule off Sucker Punch’s existence on this Bisharp and then, when they least expect it, they’re getting hit by a Sucker Punch. This helped me Round 1 vs Kinderlew when he kept Substituting with Latios and Chandelure. When his Sub was gone after Night Slashes I was able to Sucker Punch his Latios for a KO.

hitmontop
Hitmontop @ Fighting Gem
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 220 HP / 108 Def / 180 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
IVs: 10 Spe
– Fake Out
– Close Combat
– Stone Edge
– Feint

Hitmontop is probably my favorite Fake Out user, and he fits this team perfectly. During Philly I used him in 7/8 of my battles, mainly to Fake Out and recycle Intimidate, and I could lead him with any member of the team (except Garchomp).

Again, I chose Stone Edge over Sucker Punch because I do not like Sucker Punch, though the only time I used Stone Edge it cost me my match against Talking Lion, and it ended up missing Round 1 on Chandelure’s Sub. Feint is there because of its ability to break Protect and Focus Sash.

I used the item Fighting Gem with an EV spread based on Wolfey’s spread, which worked well on this team, mainly because I needed the survivability. Even though I’m fond of this spread, I’m aware of his lower damage output which Fighting Gem helps with. As I said, I used him for Fake Out and to recycle Intimidate, so when I do attack it’s good to know I’ll be able to do nice damage with my first Close Combat.

The final thing you may have noticed was that I had 10 speed IVs. This actually was put there purposely. I prefer to play knowing what is going to happen. If I ran 31 speed IVs I have to worry about speed ties. Knowing I’m slower made predictions go much easier. Turns with two Hitmontops can now go one of two ways: My opponent could use Fake Out on my Hitmontop and attack with their other Pokemon, which if the other Pokemon isn’t threatening to Hitmontop, would give Bisharp a free attack, or my opponent could Fake Out Bisharp while my Hitmontop Fake Outs the opponent’s partner, resulting in a dead turn. This also made me slower than Cresselia and Metagross in Trick Room, which would allow Hitmontop to be useful instead of having to just Fake Out. This ended up not making a difference because of course I ended up battling no Swagger-based teams.

cresselia
Cresselia @ Psychic Gem
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 132 HP / 248 SAtk / 128 Spe
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Psyshock
– Icy Wind
– Hidden Power [Fire]
– Skill Swap

During teambuilding I already decided I would want a Psychic-type Pokémon to dispatch Fighting-types more easily, and Cresselia came to mind immediately. I was using a bulky Cresselia for a while, and it was working well until I noticed I was pretty Scizor weak. I went for an Expert Belt variant with Hidden Power Fire and had greater success so I kept it. It wasn’t until two days before Regionals that I had decided to make the switch for Psychic Gem which proved to be smart in the long run (KOing the only Hitmontops I faced in the tournament).

I felt this Cresselia was pretty standard. 128 speed EVs hits 121 speed, enough to outspeed the genies after one Icy Wind, while Hidden Power Fire was for Steel-types like Scizor and Psyshock OHKOs Hitmontop, factoring in Psychic Gem. I maxed out Special Attack and dumped the rest in HP.

Skill Swap was mainly filler. I was talking to my friends trying to get the last slot on Cresselia filled, and we decided on Skill Swap as it can be useful if I came across Gastrodon (which I was expecting, but didn’t run into the whole tournament), and Skill Swapping Swift Swim away would help me against Rain teams. Looking back on the tournament I should have just kept Sunny Day, which would have helped me immensely against Jio in Round 8. Also looking back I should have used Cresselia more often. I ended up only using him twice the whole tournament.

garchomp
Garchomp @ Haban Berry
Trait: Sand Veil
EVs: 172 HP / 68 Atk / 12 Def / 172 SDef / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Dragon Claw
– Earthquake
– Substitute
– Protect

My original team had Scarf Salamence on it to help me against opposing Dragons, and after looking at Jumpeis runner-up Nationals team and top cutting Worlds team I realized that Garchomp can work well with both Salamence and Cresselia. Though the Salamence didn’t survive for my Regionals team, the Garchomp did. I was going to go for a standard 252/252 spread with a Focus Sash. However, Bisharp was using my only Focus Sash, so I went with Dim’s spread with extra HP. I wanted most of my Pokémon to survive Draco Meteors mainly because my only Steel-type (Bisharp) was a Pokémon I wanted to “preserve”.  Basically I didn’t have a Draco Meteor sponge like Heatran, Metagross, or Ferrothorn, so if I knew I could survive a Draco Meteor without switching out, bulky Garchomp was a plus for me. Other than that this is another pretty standard Pokémon that had excellent synergy with the Levitating side of my team. He also served me well against Sand, although I really don’t have trouble with Sand as it is.

rotom-wash
Rotom-W @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 236 HP / 88 Def / 180 SDef / 4 Spe
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
– Thunderbolt
– Thunder Wave
– Hidden Power [Grass]
– Will-o-Wisp

Well it’s two days before Regionals. I was pretty much ready with Thundurus and Volcarana in my last slots, but after a few test runs on GBU I began to see the major holes this team had after I lost who knows how many battles. One of those holes was that it was way too weak to Rain. Thundurus’ Thunder Wave isn’t really a counter to Rain, it turns out. I began reading Jumpei’s translated article and thought to myself. “Wow, that Rotom looks really cool,” and I needed something quickly. Though I had no prior experience of using a Calm Rotom, I talked to Biosci and received the Rotom and my eventual last Pokémon, Latios. After an EVing session I took the team to GBU.

This Rotom was perfect for my team. With it, I went from barely winning to hardly losing. Bisharp was the star of the team, but for Regionals Rotom was the MVP. I decided to keep Rotom’s set the same, and during GBU practice I found out it survives Dragon Gem-boosted Draco Meteors from Timid Latios. Will-o-Wisp saved me at Regionals, although it missed every time against Dim (though it didn’t really matter anyway). Having another way to to control Speed instead of having to bring Cresselia was also great. Hidden Power Grass was for Gastrodon, and Thunderbolt was the standard STAB. If anyone hasn’t used this version of Rotom, you should try it out.

latios
Latios @ Dragon Gem
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 108 HP / 132 Def / 220 SAtk / 4 SDef / 44 Spe
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Draco Meteor
– Psyshock
– Hidden Power [Ground]
– Protect

If you haven’t noticed, the Pokémon in this analysis are listed in the order they were added to the team, thus Latios was my last Pokémon. Originally, I had Volcarona in this slot to pair with Hitmontop, but in my effort to be less rain weak I scrapped Volcarona completely. My options were to bring back Scarf Salamence or a Dragon-type whose usage has dropped recently. I went with the latter.

I knew most Pokémon were EV’d to survive Latios’ Timid Gem Draco Meteor, so I went with Modest nature. The EV spread is pretty unique to me. With it, it survived Jolly Garchomp without Intimidate support and Sucker Punches from Hitmontop. Now the Speed EVs look odd at first, but it hits 137 speed for reference. My idea was to speed creep the speed creeps. I knew a lot of people would EV to outspeed base 80s, but just in case some people decided to speed creep +based 70s, I went up to 137 Speed just in case. The rest was dumped into Special Attack. I didn’t really need 252 SAtk EVs as I hit 195 SAtk (12 higher than Timid Latios and enough to ruin the day of people EVing to survive Timid Latios).

Hidden Power Ground was a bit of an odd decision. If I could’ve seen the future, I would have went for Hidden Power Fire, but I choose Hidden Power Ground as it was able to damage both Heatran and Metagross. Of course I didn’t run into any Heatran at Regionals, but I did fight six Scizor and one Ferrothorn. The rest is all standard.

Also as a note it turned out I mistook Biosci’s Latios for Modest. After the tournament I learned it was Timid. If I knew this it would’ve been 252/252, but the EV spread still did exceptionally well.

Closing Comments

In the end I was happy with how my team looked. It’s a very fun team to use and was pretty solid as far as synergy is concerned. I could go on with the different lead possibilities, but for reference I used Hitmontop+Bisharp in a majority of my matches (Hitmontop plus anyone works well), there was also my double Dragon (Latios+Garchomp), and Garchomp with any of my Levitaters worked well too. I’m very proud of this team and encourage anyone who wants to try out Bisharp to give it a shot. After realizing I wouldn’t be able to make top cut, I kind of gave up during the tournament, but the team is definitely stronger than that.

As a closing I’ll give some shoutouts. First I’d like to thank all the excellent traders and breeders here at NuggetBridge. If it wasn’t for user Biosci, I wouldn’t have gotten the Pokémon I needed so quickly, and Ditto bred half of the original team.  Cybertron gave me the idea to run Psychic Gem, and of course if it wasn’t for Sejun Park, I would have never used Bisharp. I’m also going to give a shoutout to everyone on Nugget Bridge. Everyone is pretty cool and being able to meet you guys IRL makes VGC what it is. I’m looking forward to seeing you all again at Nationals!

Article image created by feathers for Nugget Bridge. View more of her artwork on her tumblr.


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