Reports

Published on April 25th, 2014 | by Biosci

7

Barking at the Bubble: 11th Place Utah Team Report

Hello! For anyone who has battled me or seen me battle in the last 6 months, you’ll probably recognize this team. I’ve been using this for a long while improving it and trying to get it to work as best as it can. It’s obviously not perfect and I had to make specific calls on what to use for what event I used it at. I’m too lazy to write about the other tourneys, so this is only going to be a report about the team at the Utah Regionals. Before we get to that, here’s some backstory to the event:

So for those that don’t know, I’ve been moving around a lot lately. I’ve gone from Hawaii, to New York, and now to Arizona, so I haven’t really been able to attend many Regional competitions this year. The only tournaments before this past one I’ve gone to this year were the Philadelphia Regionals and Apex 2014. I was going to make an attempt to go to Seattle Regionals after moving to Arizona, but opted to focus more on Utah since it was much closer. I saved up the money for the trip, and off I was. My dad and I left Phoenix Friday night and arrived at Salt Lake City at around 10 am. I didn’t want to leave my dog Koko behind in Arizona, so she drove up with us.

We had until 1 pm to wait until Zach and Snake flew in from Seattle, so we went to go get something to eat and checked in at the hotel where we would be staying. After all that we headed off for the airport to pick up Zach and Snake. They got to meet Koko, and we all headed off to the hotel to play some Melee and Brawl for a bit. After Snake destroyed everyone, we headed off to Culvers to get something to eat. Zach got the usual chicken in memory of his victory in his bet over Gavin, and Snake got a burger that looked like it felt the wrath of Captain Falcon’s knee. We head back to the hotel to meet up with Kobra, only to find out he went to the wrong hotel which was 10 miles away. My dad was tired from the drive up so I got the car keys from him and Zach drove us to go pick him up.

We find Kobra, then find out that Zach left his phone charger in Seattle (along with feathers‘ 3DS), so we had to make a run to a Target a few blocks away in a shady part of town. We get back to the hotel, and I brought Koko to Zach’s room to meet Kobra. She wouldn’t stop barking at him, so I had to take her away to my room when some hotel worker knocked on the door. After that it was just playing Smash and prepping last minute things on our teams until the pool was cleared out. We relaxed in the hot tub for a bit, discussing things about our teams and other things for the next day. After that, I decided I needed some sleep and went to bed.

My dad wanted me to set the alarm for 6 am, even though I knew we weren’t leaving until 8:20 am, so I got up then and got ready. Eventually I got bored of waiting and decided to go on a donut run. We looked for directions for the closest Krispy Kreme in our GPS, and it led us on a wild goose chase to the airport. Since we weren’t able to find it, we just circled back to where we found the Culvers the day before. We found a Dunkin’ Donuts and decided to get breakfast there. On our way back to the hotel, we unfortunately got delayed by a train that kept stopping and going for about 30 minutes. After finally making it back to the hotel, we found Zach, Snake, and Kobra all in the lobby ready to get going.

We got to the venue and met up with everyone. At registration, we got a little type chart DS cloth as a bonus for pre-registering. I talked to Metabou, and he showed me a little error on the type chart which showed Psychic rather than Poison resisting Fairy. I noticed I needed a notebook to take notes for today, so I went and bought a cool Latios and Latias notebook at Alaka‘s set up. After that, there was just small chit chat until the player meeting started. I’ll go ahead and get to the team for this part.

Kyoukai (Kangaskhan) (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
– Fake Out
– Return
– Sucker Punch
– Power-Up Punch

The Shiyuu showing her true fighting abilities. Going into the VGC 2014 ruleset looking at the list of megas, Kangaskhan really stood out with it’s offensive capabilities thanks to the gift of Parental Bond. Power-Up Punch is a fun new toy for it, as the attack allows Kangaskhan to not only get an attack off, but also to get a free +2 boost allowing for a player to gain huge momentum in one attack. Mega Kangaskhan is just too ridiculous not to use.

The entire set is extremely standard, so there’s not a lot to explain here. I considered other offensive options like Double Edge or Hammer Arm, or defensive options like Protect over Fake Out, but just decided that deviating from the standard wasn’t worth it.

Karyo Ten (Gardevoir) (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Trace
EVs: 116 HP / 60 Def / 92 SAtk / 44 SDef / 196 Spd
Modest Nature
– Psychic
– Moonblast
– Taunt
– Will-O-Wisp

The Strategist leading the team to the best path of victory. Ruby and Sapphire was the first generation of games where I started paying attention to how things worked in Pokemon, and I’ve always liked Gardevoir as a Pokemon. I never cared enough to use it before, however, since it was pretty frail, weak offensively, and in a speed tier just awkward enough to not have enough merit to use. In this generation, however, Gardevoir was given the god-like typing of Psychic/Fairy. Gardevoir’s abilities Trace and Telepathy were always good as well,  which made Gardevoir even more appealing. Another point in Gardevoir’s favor is that it has a fairly decent offensive movepool as well as a plethora of support options. Overall, Gardevoir was another Pokemon that I really wanted to try out this year.

As opposed to my Kangaskhan set, my Gardevoir set stands out from the usual one. When I first made the team, it was initially a Choice Scarf Gardevoir, but after getting bodied by Talonflame repeatedly I decided to go for a different approach. I looked through Gardevoir’s movepool for something to help out against opposing Rotom, and Taunt seemed like a really interesting option to stop Will-O-Wisp, Thunder Wave, and Reflect and Light Screen. Taunt also helped to  shut down Prankster Pokemon, especially if Gardevoir Traced their own Prankster from them. Will-O-Wisp was another move that stood out to me. In a format where many of the main attackers are physically based, it seemed like a really good move in theory. I found that it paid off a lot in practice as well. I debated between using Moonblast or Dazzling Gleam, but just never got around to testing Dazzling Gleam. Psychic tended to be a better attack than Psyshock against everything except Amoonguss, and Taunt already crippled Amoonguss.

When making my spread, I wanted to keep enough Speed to outspeed 0 Speed EV Meowstic and max Speed Tyranitar by 1 point. The defensive portion of the spread left a lot to be desired, since I’m not really good with this sort of thing. Gardevoir had enough Defense to take an Life Orb Talonflame Brave Bird 81% of the time, as well as enough Special Defense to take a Shadow Ball from Simon’s 172 SpA EV Aegislash almost 70% of the time. I debated between using Lum Berry and Safety Goggles, which completely shut down Amoonguss, but Lum Berry was always a nice thing to have when the opponent was armed with Swagger or Thunder Wave so I ended up using the Lum Berry.

Duke Hyou (Mamoswine) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
– Ice Shard
– Icicle Crash
– Earthquake
– Protect

The powerful Duke carving his name on the battle field. With this year’s increased use of Intimidate, Will-O-Wisp, and Rotom-W and -H, Mamoswine has gotten a lot less of the spotlight this year. That’s not to say, however, that it’s completely useless. Having priority that can OHKO Garchomp and Salamence with a Life Orb boost is really nice to have. The Ground-type coverage also helped out for my Aegislash and Mawile match ups. Getting Intimidated really ruined the amount of work that Mamoswine could put into one battle, though, so you always have to be careful using it.

Most of this set is standard. I preferred Icicle Crash over Icicle Spear just to be able to secure a specific amount of damage as opposed to an amount of damage decided upon by the RNG. Not having to worry about an enemy Sitrus Berry as much was also nice, and the flinch chance could be useful as a last ditch out in a match if my other options were exhausted. I had Focus Sash on Mamoswine for the longest time, but when I started messing with the sixth slot on my team I switched the item to Life Orb.

Ouki (Noivern) (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Frisk
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
– Draco Meteor
– Flamethrower
– Super Fang
– Tailwind

The monstrous bird takes flight once again. This was a slot that I messed with a lot during the course of the last six months. I had Talonflame here for the longest time, but I just felt the slot could be used for a Pokemon that helped my team more than Talonflame did. I tested Mega Pinsir, Aerodactyl, Mega Charizard-Y, Salamence, and then finally Noivern after Werford mentioned it to me. After some testing, I fell in love. Noivern helped out with my double-Dragon match up and gave me important coverage on Ferrothorn. Although Flamethrower is not an OHKO on Ferrothorn, the coverage was still very much appreciated. I could’ve very easily gotten the same performance from Salamence in this slot, but I just didn’t have lots of time to test it out in the last week before Regionals.

I was going to use Dragon Pulse on Noivern, but then after running damage calculations for it I opted to run Draco Meteor instead. Dragon Pulse misses out on the OHKO on Garchomp and the other Dragons, so I had to go with the go to nuke Dragon move Draco Meteor. I needed Fire-type coverage for Steel-types that were annoying to face, so Flamethrower was a given. Super Fang was really nice in that I could drop Pokemon down to half HP and then guarantee a KO with Mega Kangaskhan, Mamoswine, or Lucario. Super Fang also allowed Noivern to do meaningful damage to Fairy-type Pokemon. Tailwind wasn’t used a lot, but helps a good bit against Rain and Sun match up.

Tou (Rotom-Wash) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 108 SAtk / 44 Spd / 104 SDef
Calm Nature
– Thunderbolt
– Thunder Wave
– Hydro Pump
– Will-O-Wisp

The trusty lieutenant assisting in the battle field. Rotom is just one of those Pokemon that if you aren’t using in the VGC 2014 metagame, you’d better have a really good reason. Rotom-W showed a strong presence at the World Championships in 2013 with its strong bulk and ability to spread burns, and this year the Will-o-Wisp accuracy buff from 75% to 85% makes it even better. The offensive variants definitely got hurt by the Hidden Power, Thunderbolt, and Hydro Pump base power nerfs, but defensive versions are still as strong as ever. I was close to changing Rotom-W to Rotom-H, but doing so would make my team weak to opposing Rotom-H.

The moveset for Rotom-W was easy to decide on, with the exception of the last slot. I had toyed with many different moves, from Protect to Reflect, but decided to change to the move to Thunder Wave at the last minute. I used Reflect for the longest time, but I didn’t regret the change to Thunder Wave during practice and at Regionals, since Thunder Wave helped with my Mega Charizard-Y and Salamence match ups.

I made the EV spread a long time ago, but I still faintly remember what I designed Rotom-W to take. I needed Rotom-W to take a Timid Charizard-Y Solarbeam, so I started there. From that I wanted to Speed creep other Rotom-W, so I gave it 44 Speed EVs. This actually outspeeds Adamant/Modest 252 Speed Tyranitar as well, which was a nice bonus. The rest was just dumped into Special Attack. I toyed with the idea of giving Rotom-W Safety Goggles, but opted to use the extremely helpful Sitrus Berry instead.

Shin (Lucario) (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
– Aura Sphere
– Flash Cannon
– Vacuum Wave
– Shadow Ball

Started from nothing to aspire to do great. I’ll just flat out say this: I only used this as a strong gimmick that could completely shut down Mega Kangaskhan on the opening turn, as long as it wasn’t absurdly bulky. Lucario gets OHKOd by a lot of the common threats in the metagame and can barely take neutral hits. Lucario was just very situational, but when it worked it worked amazingly. I was extremely close to switching Lucario to Aegislash and regret not doing so a bit, but as they say hindsight is 20/20.

I used Choice Specs Lucario instead of any other boosting item because it was the only item that 100% secured the OHKO on 4 HP Mega Kangaskhan. Aura Sphere and Flash Cannon were the two main STABs, not much to explain there. Vacuum Wave was nice on occasion to knock out faster threats that were at low health. Shadow Ball was only there for filler just in case I found myself locked into a one on one against Aegislash. Pretty straight-forward set overall.

The Tournament

And with that, I’ll get to the event itself. I took notes on the players I played, but not notes about the battles themselves, so some of the details might be fuzzy/incorrect.

Round 1: Ash Li, 4-4

They used:

+

I Used:

I was relieved to see a name I didn’t recognize as my first opponent of the day, but I still knew not to take things lightly when I saw the Team Preview screen. The game started out with my Kangaskhan/Gardevoir against his Aegislash/Rotom-W. I Faked Out his Aegislash and Taunted his Rotom-W as he went for a Will-O-Wisp. Gardevoir served its purpose, so next turn I just went for a Power-Up Punch on Rotom-W and Taunted the Aegislash as he Substituted and Volt Switched with Rotom-W to Mawile. Kangaskhan Sucker Punched his Aegislash and activated its Weakness Policy, but luckily the second hit from Parental Bond finished the job. If I recall correctly, I landed the Will-O-Wisp on Mawile as Kangaskhan ate a Play Rough with no problems. Ash sent in Mamoswine, and I was relieved that he didn’t bring Talonflame. From there Gardevoir went down to an Iron Head, but +3 Kangaskhan and Rotom-W cleaned up and secured the game.

1-0

Round 2: Michael Burgos, 5-3

They used:

+

I Used:

Looking back at this battle, I beat myself up over a lot of it. I added Noivern to specifically help out with my double-Dragon + double-Steel match up, but decided not to bring it for some odd reason. I ended up paying for that mistake badly. On the opening turn, he switched out his Salamence into Aegislash and Protected his Garchomp as I went for the Moonblast and Fake Out on Salamence. I assumed he would’ve brought Mawile to this game instead of what ended up being Charizard, so I Power-Up Punched the Garchomp, thinking that with this being a perfect chance for Mawile to come in, he would switch. Instead, Garchomp stayed in and Aegislash took out Gardevoir, which flinched while going for a Moonblast. The game just went downhill from there, and ended with Charizard cleaning up late game. I had a good bit of regrets in this game, but all I could do is learn from it and press forward.

1-1

Round 3: Erin Comption, Did Not Finish

They used:

+

I Used:

I saw the Mienshao in Team Preview and thought that this was the start of the Mienshao swarm, just like during my practice on Battle Spot. Luckily, it would be the only one I saw all day. I was super cautious the first few turns due to the threat of a High Jump Kick, but the Mienshao turned out to have Drain Punch instead. I find out thanks to Frisk that the Gardevoir has an Assault Vest as well. The battle goes on, and the Mienshao is able to snag two critical hit Knock Offs, OHKOing Rotom-W and Noivern, and also avoids a few Will-O-Wisps. The battle ended with my 60% HP Kangaskhan and 100% HP Gardevoir against his 50% HP Gardevoir and 100% HP Blastoise. Kangaskhan got the KO on Gardevoir while getting taken down by Blastoise, but Gardevoir sealed the game with three Moonblasts.

2-1

Lunch break

We ended up getting a lunch break that would last close to two hours, so Snake, Zach, Metabou, Kobra, and I had my dad pick us up to go to In-N-Out for a bite to eat. Metabou got to meet Koko, and she sat in his lap all the way there.

I got my usual nausea from being nervous so I didn’t really eat much beyond the fries until the car ride home.

Round 4: Chalkey Hornstein (Chalkey), 6-2

They used:

+

I Used:

I managed to get Chalkey in the pair up since he was 3-0 at the time and I was 2-1. At the Team Preview screen I noticed his team was fairly similar to what Mrbopper used at Kansas City from some pictures I saw on Facebook, but other than that I didn’t know much about it. I figured a double Protect on the opening turn was highly likely, so I Power-Up Punched my Gardevoir and targeted Mawile with Will-O-Wisp. He didn’t double Protect at all, possibly thinking Gardevoir had a Scarf or Specs, and went for a Tailwind with Aerodactyl and an Iron Head from Mawile onto Gardevoir. Gardevoir took the Iron Head with ~20% HP remaining thanks to the burn and the Attack drop from a Traced Intimidate. The next turn I switch Gardevoir out for Rotom-W to take the Iron Head and conserve Gardevoir for later, while Kangaskhan got Sky Dropped. I know that Mawile is doing close to no damage to me, so I double into Aerodactyl with a Power-Up Punch and Thunder Wave in an attempt to stall out Tailwind. He switches out Mawile for Garchomp to get KOd by a +3 Return and Aerodactyl went down to a Thunderbolt. Chalkey forfeited at that point seeing no way out. He was in a really rough spot after not Protecting Mawile on the first turn, as he let me get momentum in my favor right off the bat.

3-1

Round 5: Kendrick Udy, 4-4

They used:

+

I Used:

I got into a pretty good position at the lead match up, and carried momentum from there. After I KOed his Kangaskhan by the second turn, Gardevoir, Rotom-W, and Mamoswine were able clean up. I was worried he might’ve cycled around more with the Salamence, but he only sent it in when it was his only Pokemon left.

4-1

Round 6: Eric Abraham Mendez (EricOfficially), 5-3

They used:

+

I Used:

We talked before the battle, and I found out that he’s EricOfficially on the forums. It was nice meeting you! At the Team Preview screen I saw the Pokemon that I worried about playing the most: Scizor. Scizor and Ferrothorn were the two Pokemon that pushed me to want a Fire-type move more and more, and with Noivern’s Flamethrower I felt a little more at ease. After looking back on this match up, Noivern is actually really good against everything on his team except for Gardevoir. The first few turns I was able to hit around his Protects and put myself into a position where Noivern and Mamoswine in the back just cleaned up. Kangaskhan went down at one point, but Noivern and Rotom-W secured the last two KOs.

5-1

Round 7: Johnathon Mendoza, 5-3

They used:

+

I Used:

I was talking with DrFidget at the table right next to me before the match, each of us asking if we knew each other’s opponents. We had no clue who either of us were playing, but when my opponent sat down he said “Oh, good to see you again.” DrFidget looked over at me and chuckled. I later remember that I met him at a local tourney at the Arizona TCG State Championships, so sorry about that.

Anyway, we started the match, and Gardevoir Traced Prankster from his Meowstic. I got caught by his Quick Guard as I tried to Fake Out his Charizard and Taunt his Meowstic, and he ended up getting in a free Dragon Dance. I was definitely back pedaling at the moment. I knew I had to sacrifice one of my Pokemon if I wanted the momentum to swing back in my favor. I knew Kangaskhan was going to be key to this match up, so I swapped it out for Rotom-W. The washing machine almost got OHKOed by Flare Blitz, but Sitrus put it at about half HP. Gardevoir took a Swagger without issue thanks to its Lum Berry, and fired a Psychic off on Charizard to bring it down to about 10%. I was now able to pressure the Charizard with Rotom-W and Gardevoir. I figured Gardevoir might be the bigger threat for him, so I just went for the Taunt on Meowstic expecting Charizard to Flare Blitz it this turn. Instead, Charizard took out Rotom-W with Dragon Claw after his Meowstic set up Reflect. Now his Charizard was pressured by a possible Fake Out from Kangaskhan, so I accounted for a possible Protect or switch and Power-Up Punched and Moonblasted the Meowstic. However, rather than take the hit Meowstic got switched out to Tyranitar, only for it to get nuked into oblivion. Charizard also switched out into Aegislash, which kind of hinted to me that his Charizard didn’t have Protect. Meowstic came back in and Quick Guarded my Sucker Punch and Taunt once again. Aegislash got a critical hit Flash Cannon on Kangaskhan, which leaves Kangaskhan able to take only a few more turns of sand.

The battle wound down with my 100% HP Mamoswine and 7 HP Kangaskhan against a 100% HP Aegislash in Sword Forme and a 10% HP Charizard. I had Kangaskhan Fake Out Charizard and Mamoswine Earthquake, since Kangaskhan would go down to sand that turn anyway. As I suspected earlier in the match, his Charizard lacked Protect, so it was KOed by Fake Out. Aegislash, however, threw up a Kings Shield and avoided the KO from Earthquake. I saw he tried to Substitute earlier in the game and Reflect had one more turn left. I used Earthquake with Mamoswine just in case he went for the Substitute, but he went for a Wide Guard instead, revealing his set to be Kings Shield/Substitute/Wide Guard/Flash Cannon (o_O). The match ended three turns later when he attempted to be cheeky and go for a Substitute as Mamoswine Earthquaked for the game.

6-1

Round 8: Zach Droegkamp, (Zach) 6-2

They used:

+

I Used:

I looked at the match up and died a little bit on the inside. I spent the whole weekend with Zach talking with him and telling him about my team, so to get paired down to have to play him was not ideal for me. The match went down to his Gyarados and Aegislash against my Kangaskhan and Gardevoir. I know his Gyarados had Thunder Wave, and to prevent that I went for the Taunt with Gardevoir in the hope of stopping it. Gyarados ended up going first and getting the Thunder Wave off on  Kangaskhan. The battle just went downhill from there, as my best answer to Mega Venusaur was crippled and I couldn’t do anything to recover. I later found out that the Gyarados actually Speed tied with Gardevoir, so had I won the Speed tie I would’ve still had a fighting chance. Sadly that’s how it all ends, but at least losing to a friend took some of the sting off.

6-2, 11th place

It was a pretty good run overall. It was nice to meet everyone and get to hang out for the weekend. Luckily I didn’t need to worry about placing high enough to get a stipend for Nationals, since kingofmars is taking me as his guardian, so hopefully I’ll see you guys there. Until next time!

About the Author

Biosci Hi

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