Teams from the VGC 2015 Winter Regionals (Week 1)
We were able to take a small look at what was happening at Europe’s Regional Championship earlier this month, but last weekend gave us a larger picture with four events happening across the United States. Here’s what made the top cut at each event.
Missouri
1st) Aaron Traylor (Unreality)
2nd) Zach Droegkamp (Braverius)
3rd) Andrew Burley (Andykins)
4th) Michael Fladung (Primitive)
5th) Jonathan Rankin (JRank)
6th) Ammar Baig (Knife)
7th) Ryan Brooker (lolfailsnail)
8th) Kyle Timbrook (TM Ruby)
9th) Jake Muller (majorbowman)
10th) Drew Nowak
11th) Justin Burns (Spurrific)
12th) Andrew Hovis
13th) Michael Shropshire (shrop05)
14th) Tiffany Stanley (shiloh)
15th) Leonard Craft III (DaWoblefet)
16th) Ken Wright (DoctorKen2k)
California
1st) Alberto Lara
2nd) William Hall (Biosci)
3rd) Alejando Jimenez (Legacy)
4th) Anthony Jiminez (DarkAssassin)
5th) Phillip Wingett (THATSAplusONE)
6th) Jobany Vazquez
7th) Nawraz Bashir (knawraz)
8th) Eduardo Mendez (JustEdo)
9th) Nathaniel Christmas (KSpam)
10th) Erik Holmstrom (Cyrus)
11th) Hayley Aldworth
12th) Alexander Ellyson
13th) Dane Zieman (agentorangejulius)
14th) Matthew Greaves (picklesword)
15th) Dylan Robison (DylanxArsenal)
16th) Tracy McLaughlin (Mack)
Virginia
1st) Karl Concepcion (Masakado)
2nd) Colin Schonewolf (RedWolf)
3rd) Alec Rubin (amr97)
4th) Angel Miranda (CT MikotoMisaka)
5th) Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom)
6th) Michael Lanzano (JiveTime)
7th) Arbin Tumaneng (Cypher)
8th) Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)
9th) Ben Hickey (Darkpenguin67)
10th) Chris Danzo (Lunar)
11th) Jared Fishkin
12th) Dan House (SharingIsCaring)
13) Dorian Nousias (crazyblissey)
14th) Junghun Yeom (ANGDE1234)
15th) Cameron Swan (Drizzleboy)
16th) Zachary Rivera
Oregon
1st) Conan Thompson (conan)
2nd) Max Douglas (starmetroid)
3rd) Rushan Shekar (Firestorm)
4th) Chris Stotts (MasterFisk)
5th) Nikolai Zielinski (Nikolai)
6th) Devin Honer
7th) Evan Feroy
8th) Demitrios Kagaras (kingdjk)
Usage Stats
| Kangaskhan | 24 |
| Landorus-T | 21 |
| Terrakion | 16 |
| Bisharp | 14 |
| Suicune | 14 |
| Heatran | 13 |
| Thundurus-I | 13 |
| Cresselia | 12 |
| Sylveon | 12 |
| Aegislash | 11 |
| Rotom-W | 10 |
| Salamence | 10 |
| Metagross | 9 |
| Hydreigon | 9 |
| Talonflame | 8 |
| Gengar | 7 |
| Rotom-H | 7 |
| Conkeldurr | 6 |
| Amoonguss | 6 |
| Zapdos | 6 |
| Ludicolo | 5 |
| Mawile | 5 |
| Gastrodon | 5 |
| Togekiss | 5 |
| Charizard-Y | 5 |
| Clefable | 4 |
| Virizion | 4 |
| Scizor | 4 |
| Weavile | 4 |
| Venusaur | 4 |
| Jellicent | 3 |
| Arcanine | 3 |
| Hariyama | 3 |
| Ferrothorn | 3 |
| Gardevoir | 3 |
| Chandelure | 3 |
| Tyranitar | 3 |
| Breloom | 3 |
| Thundurus-T | 2 |
| Milotic | 2 |
| Slowking | 2 |
| Swampert | 2 |
| Garchomp | 2 |
| Politoed | 2 |
| Scrafty | 2 |
| Camerupt | 1 |
| Cofagrigus | 1 |
| Machamp | 1 |
| Greninja | 1 |
| Emboar | 1 |
| Azumarill | 1 |
| Clefairy | 1 |
| Latios | 1 |
| Abomasnow | 1 |
| Banette | 1 |
| Volcarona | 1 |
| Blaziken | 1 |
| Kingdra | 1 |
| Sableye | 1 |
| Primeape | 1 |
| Crawdaunt | 1 |
| Crobat | 1 |
| Nidoking | 1 |
| Sceptile | 1 |
| Smeargle | 1 |
| Stoutland | 1 |
| Gyarados | 1 |
| Excadrill | 1 |
About the Author
Braverius started playing competitive Pokemon in April 2011. Since then he has been fortunate enough to compete in numerous official live events, qualifying for Worlds in 2013 and winning four Regionals along the way.
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Shout out to sylveon for doing absolutely nothing for me the whole day
Only 2 Rain teams and weather a lot less of a thing so far in VGC 15. Worked well for me tho hehe
5 Charizard Y
3 Ttar
2 Politoed
1 Abomasnow…..
Gotta love all those those Mega-Meta/Hydregeon/Thundurus/Terrakion/Landorus/Bulky Water teams in Missouri.
Also, shout out to Mega-Banette and Primeape.
Khan is still ruling, huh? Hope it shifts to Mega Mence and Megagross.
Khan is still ruling, huh? Hope it shifts to Mega Mence and Megagross.
Khan is still ruling, huh? Hope it shifts to Mega Mence and Megagross.
I’m loving the diversity here over what we got last year!
Last year, we can only use little pokemons.
Some thoughts here since doing this on Twitter is horrifically slow:
It does my heart good to see that Banette :’)
Am I the only one who had to double check that Primeape? I actually did a double take, and I run stuff like Heracross .
That primeape team is ridiculous
some fixes for the article:
Biosci had mega gardevoir not regular(2nd socal)
Mack had mega gengar not regular(16th socal)
redwolf had mega swampert not regular(2nd virginia)
exciting results here. not really surprised at kangaskhan being the most used mega. It’s the most consistent mega of the bunch and easiest to fit on teams. I’m not really super impressed by any of the megas this format and don’t think they are that much more powerful than regular pokemon this format(kangaskhan included). I personally see kangaskhan as something that will most reliably take me 9+ rounds hence me choosing it over something like salamence/mawile which I more often use at smaller events.
Conan gets style points fo sho for using Weavile. Hope you do well in Seattle as well.
Kind of off topic, but my friend Dylan has used Weavile in every tournament he’s attended.
It’s to be expected that regionals have a lot of team variety, but the sheer number of stuff being used is a bit overwhelming, and does make me feel like this’ll be an always varied meta. Mega Metagross being used this much surprises me with Bisharp/Landorus checking it and the loss of the Steel resists, I always thought its time to shine in the meta was for later if Bisharp/Landorus’ usage were to tone down but I guess I was wrong.
Also have to wonder how this is the second event in which Sceptile makes top 8…
3rd actually.
Eh might as well spill some thoughts
I also think Kangaskhan is overplayed. Before the season, I think I expected Mence to be the most played because of its speed and because I expected it to be using a special set with Draco / Fire Blast / Protect / filler for the longest time, but I think Physical one-move is better and that says a lot about how iffy the special set is. I thought Metagross would be the “safe” call like Mawile was last year, and it pretty much lived up to that. I missed the redirection with it (was using Clefairy all week before in practice), but I think it was still bulky enough to take the hits it needed to and KO enough things. Back to the Kangaskhan being overplayed thing, though, I think there’s probably a group of 6-7 megas that are very playable right now and 5-6 more that are definitely worth a look, although won’t ever see usage above 10%. If you had to ask me to tier them, I’d put Kangaskhan / Metagross in A, Charizard / Mawile / Salamence / Venusaur in B, Gardevoir / Gengar / Tyranitar / Sableye(Banette) / Scizor in C; that’s 11(12) right there, a lot more than you could say about last year.
Suicune was really good in 2013, I’m not sure why it’s just now getting looked at. People were stuck on the silly Calm Mind Rest stuff for most of 2013 when it was used, not sure why the bulkier sets weren’t used. I agree that it’s a bit overused this year, but it’s a matchup nightmare for certain teams, especially hyper offensive ones…and you’ve gotta be able to shut those down in a Bo1 setting.
you like your dog so i’m not gonna say nothin bad about it.
Entei is a poor man’s Arcanine, have never seen a really good reason to use it in practice. I get that its stats are higher, but it does pretty much nothing better from what I can see. Doesn’t really surprise me it didn’t cut a single Regional.
Virizion is something we saw a few of in Missouri top cut in a Metagross-stricken field. I think that says a lot about how much potential it has.
Jellicent is only okay on certain teams. Don’t just throw it on your team. It probably won’t be good. It had the 2nd lowest win% on my team for what it’s worth. It’s okay and does its job on the right team, but it’s not the best thing ever. Would definitely not use my stream games as an example of how it usually performs.
Mawile is something I don’t understand this year. After I KOd one on a switch with my non-item-boosted Thundurus-T I’m scared to ever try using it. Maybe a good mon for someone who doesn’t like switching a whole lot, but man it just can’t take a neutral hit this year.
Never tried Latios or Abomasnow, nothing to say about them
Swampert was garbage for me in practice but also can’t say much about it since I only used it for a day or two
Conkeldurr is solid. I’m not sold on it being a staple because of the speed and the Sylveon issues, but I think it’s an interesting choice this year and should be pretty good throughout the year.
+1 for the one using mega Sceptile!
I’m really glad to see that Mega Metagross had a strong showing at Regionals. It was something I tried using a decent amount before Regionals, but always felt that the team I had was missing one or two things that I just couldn’t fix without a large overhaul to the team. It’s nice to see that it was successful in both a way I was using it (Bulky Adamant), and in ways I wasn’t (Substitute Set). It gives me some hope about it, and some motivation to try to get it to work for myself again.
I’d like to note, even though M-Kangaskhan was on my team I used it 0 times throughout swiss. M-Venusaur ended up being the better matchup, with Heatran + Suicune + Lando-T, almost every time. In addition, Aegislash didn’t gain much traction.
M-Kangaskhan DID pull it’s weight though — helped me pull off clutch performances vs Erik Holmstrom, where I needed both the power of M-Kangaskhan AND the typing of Venusaur to take out that pesky Gastrodon.
All things considered, it was a great first regional and I’m delighted with my performance.
Wonder if Mega Gallade will ever actually work out. Im working on making a team with him right now actually
Virizion FTW
After reading scott and zach’s posts I just wanted to make some commentary about team stuff. Since im not writing a report or anything and will probably bench the team, one of the reasons why I was extra salty about missing cut was because of my teambuilding for VA. I’m not a top player and I’m aware of that, but with my six of Mega Venu/Arcanine/Suicune/Terrakion/Hydreigon/Aegislash it was one of the most sound teams I’ve come up with from scratch, taking elements from a previous team and aaron’s apex team. I think with more experience I wouldve been able to give Ben a better fight in round 8 but otherwise can’t complain too much.
One thing i really valued in teambuilding was a strong grass type and I was considering virizion for a while, and while it didnt work for me I’m glad a couple people made it work. There really aren’t too many options other than Ferrothorn, venusaur, virizion, breloom, abomasnow as far as offensive grass types go, but it’s obviously not a team requirement as I had been so insistent on during building.
Suicune was definitely my MVP of the tournament. I used a chesto/rest set that I actually probably only got to use once. SUicune was crit many times sadly.
I definitely underestimated mega metagross, but I was impressed by the ones i got to catch on the stream replays in top cut for st louis. I still think the fire types being almost staple gives it issues along with sucker punches, but it looked strong despite those facts.
anyway i was kinda just rambling but those are my thoughts/experience and i’m excited to read a couple of these team reports in upcoming weeks!
That feels when you see your team you’ve been working so hard on make top cut. It so hard to be original :'(
I was the one who topped with Mega Sceptile. Went 8-0 day 1 before losing 2-1 to the guy that won the event.
Camerupt represent!
It finally happened. Banette made top cut.
There are some interesting teams here… especially the Primeape-Crawdaunt-no-mega team. But also a couple of interesting choices on some of the other teams, like Mega Sceptile, Mega Banette (?!), Cofagrigus, Emboar that I never had expected to see do well.
One thing I am a little surprised about is the lack of Gyarados. It has become one of my favorite Pokemon in this new format on Battlespot where I think it does insanely well because of pokemon like Heatran, Metagross, Landorus, Terrakion being popular.
And as the stats indicate in this team compilation, the legendaries that have been allowed back into the format are dominating the game. Bring out your Mamoswines to kill those genies and Heatrans already!
Cofagrigus is surprisingly good I’m surprised more people don’t use him. Checks a lot of common physical threats.
Fun as always to run a mega-less team without legendaries and making top cut makes it all worth it even though I made some moveset flaws.