Reports

Published on September 3rd, 2015 | by shihhan0718

5

Boston, The Dream: A 2015 World Championship Senior Division Top 8 Report

This is a translation of 2015 World Championship senior division Top 8 finisher Tsai Chien-Chien’s team report by shihhan0718. The original is located at his blog.

Hello Nugget Bridge! This is Chien-Chien Tsai again. I finished first in Championship Points in Southeast Asia this year, and I was greatly honored to represent Taiwan at the 2015 World Championships. This is the first time that Taiwan’s sent a player to Worlds, and I was extremely happy to make it to top eight. I’ve got a lot of things to say and a lot of people to thank, but that’s not the point of this report—maybe I’ll discuss that next time. Here’s my team!

Team Building

After I played at the Singapore National Championships, I was very familiar with the Gardevoir/Amoonguss combination. I was planning to use it again at Worlds, but I noticed a metagame shift to teams that countered the duo. This bothered me for a while, and I was considering using a different team. But I couldn’t come up with anything better; I had used the pair all season long. As such, I decided to find ways to make it stronger instead.

One big counter to Gardevoir/Amoonguss is Steel-type Pokémon holding Safety Goggles, such as Aegislash, Escavalier (through Overcoat), and Ferrothorn. Heatran is the most common and best way to deal with these Pokémon, and becomes even better with Speed control, giving it the ability to fight Kangaskhan and Landorus-Therian. However, Heatran is very weak to rain teams, so I decided to add the odd choice of Sunny Day Suicune. Suicune gives great Speed control in the form of Tailwind and can also OHKO Salamence, a big threat to this team. Therefore, I had the following four Pokémon:

Originally, I had Choice Scarf Hydreigon and Assault Vest Landorus-T in the final two slots, but I found that I was very weak to opposing Gardevoir. I played around with using Imprison to shut down Hyper Voice, but my Gardevoir was too slow to make it work. In the final week before Worlds, I switched out Hydreigon for Gengar and moved the Choice Scarf to Landorus-T on the advice of my friend Sayha.

Gengar @ Focus Sash
Timid | Levitate
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
– Shadow Ball
– Will-O-Wisp
– Icy Wind
– Protect

My team is fairly slow, so I chose Gengar to add some fast offensive pressure. Gengar has Shadow Ball instead of Sludge Bomb to deal with Aegislash. Icy Wind and Will-O-Wisp are very common and very good supporting moves, so I won’t go over them in detail. I was planning on using Sludge Bomb in the last slot to deal with Sylveon and Breloom, but I knew that Gengar would be double targeted often due to its Focus Sash, so I chose Protect to take advantage of those situations.

Suicune @ Sitrus Berry
Bold | Pressure
252 HP / 20 Def / 212 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Tailwind
– Sunny Day

When I built this team, the Japanese sand team was very common, and Suicune was the best counter to it. However, it wasn’t so common at Worlds, and Suicune had a terrible experience facing off against Swagger Thundurus. However, it still brought an incredible balance of bulk, Speed control, and weather control. Sunny Day was a great move, allowing me to surprise Steel-types bathing in the rain. The EVs allow it to outrun Adamant Landorus-T after Tailwind and OHKO Mega Salamence.

Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Modest | Telepathy / Pixilate
252 HP / 124 Def / 100 SpA / 4 SpD / 28 Spe
– Hyper Voice
– Psychic
– Trick Room
– Protect

Gardevoir is the Mega Evolution I believe in the most. I modified the EV spread from my old team. Although a Bold nature made Gardevoir very bulky, it kept eating critical hits. Therefore, I decided to use a Modest nature and a new EV spread instead. The HP and Defense EVs allow it to take a Talonflame’s Brave Bird, while the Speed EVs allow it to outspeed Bisharp by two points. With all the extra Special Attack, I ended up with a much more offensive Gardevoir.

I want to quickly thank my friend Mitiru, who drew the picture below to cheer me up while I was playing in day two Swiss. In Taiwan, it was midnight while Worlds was going on, so I’m really grateful that she stayed up overnight to cheer me on.

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Adamant | Intimidate
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
– Superpower
– U-turn
– Rock Slide
– Earthquake

This is a very common Landorus-T, so there’s nothing to really say about it. It’s so standard, and yet still so powerful. The only I’d like to note is that Intimidate really helps offset the loss of bulk on my Gardevoir.

Amoonguss @ Rocky Helmet
Relaxed | Regenerator
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
– Sludge Bomb
– Spore
– Rage Powder
– Protect

Amoonguss is one of the best teammates for Gardevoir. Generally, all it really has to do is use Rage Powder and redirect attacks away from Gardevoir. Once Trick Room goes up, it can just spam Spore. I chose Sludge Bomb over Giga Drain to hit Breloom, as it’d otherwise be quite a pain for the rest of my team.

Heatran @ Safety Goggles
Modest | Flash Fire
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
IVs: 4 Spe
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power
– Ancient Power
– Protect

Heatran plays a fairly simple role: it resists almost everything that opponents throw at Gardevoir while hitting the Steel-types that Gardevoir can’t. I had been using a fast Heatran with Life Orb at Premier Challenges, but I decided to lower its Speed to gain more of an advantage in Trick Room. It’s also slower than Suicune, allowing for some nice Sunny Day plays. The 4 Speed IV allows it to outrun Jolly Mega Kangaskhan in Tailwind. I chose Safety Goggles to deal with opposing Amoonguss and Breloom, but I didn’t run into a single one at Worlds, so it was mostly a useless item. Ancient Power (instead of Flash Cannon) gave me a great surprise option against Mega Charizard Y, and most of my opponents seemed really caught off guard by it.

Those were my six Pokémon for the World Championships. Honestly, I don’t think this team was amazing. I had to rely on Hyper Voice against Thundurus and Milotic, but Swagger and Maranga Berry made Gardevoir’s job difficult. That’s also the reason why I lost in top eight. Regardless, the team brought me to Worlds and gave me a great experience. I think I’ll never forget this tournament.

Unfortunately, due to the Battle Competition screen, I have no Battle Videos to share. Really sorry about that.

Conclusion

I don’t know if you guys noticed it, but I titled the article “Boston, The Dream”. That dream doesn’t belong just to me, but to all the players back in Taiwan. I was just the one lucky enough to have the opportunity to use it. Through Taiwan Nationals, Singapore Nationals, and finally Worlds, I relied on the support of other players and the Taiwan Pokémon VG community. I’d really like to thank all of you guys.

After Worlds, I went the the Pokémon Symphony. I remember that the last song was “Friends, Fight, Finalize”. For me, the 2015 season has ended, but I’m sure that the friends and the fights will continue. This might have been Taiwan’s first year at Worlds, but I’m sure it won’t be the only year. We’ll see you guys next year—let’s all try our best!

About the Author

shihhan0718 A VGC player from Taiwan, a small country located in east Asia. Trying to develop competitive VGC community in Taiwan, so that one day Taiwanese players can compete with other great players from all over the world on the stage of world championship.

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