Reports

Published on October 11th, 2012 | by crobert

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Double Dragon: 2012 Worlds Master Top 8 Team Analysis (Translation)

The following is an English translation of Jumpei Yamamoto’s worlds team article by Ren Z. (crobert). The original can be found on Jumpei’s blog. We would like to thank him for granting us permission to re-publish his work in English. Jumpei took 8th at the 2012 Pokémon World Video Game Championships, eventually losing to champion Ray Rizzo (Ray) in the quarter-finals in one of the closest sets of the tournament. He placed 2nd at the 2012 Japanese National Championships after playing Satoru Masukata (huuuryu) in the finals.

It’s been a while since Worlds, but I would like to take this opportunity to explain my Worlds team.

First I’m going to talk about my Japanese Nationals team. I based it on this team by Kage [note: Kage is a player in Japan]. I actually played against this team during SHADE Off [note: an unofficial offline tournament] sometime in March. I was really drawn in by the destructive power of Garchomp and Salamence, so I decided to start building from there.

The original concept for Kage’s team was to first spread paralysis with Calm Thundurus and then repeatedly use Rock Slide with Garchomp and Tyranitar to force hax on your opponent. Because I didn’t have a Calm Thundurus and didn’t feel I could use Ferrothorn as well as Kage, I decided to change Thundurus to Rotom-C and Ferrothorn to Scizor for a more offensive team. This makes the team into one that doesn’t abuse Thunder Wave but just keeps on attacking, which I feel is more suited to me.

That was the team I used for Nationals. I’ll list it here.

Nationals Team

Now I’m going to explain my Worlds team individually. I had almost no time to prepare for Worlds, and I didn’t know what the metagame would be like. Coupled with the fact that Worlds would be played in Best of 3 Matches (something Japanese players aren’t used to), I decided that making a new team would be difficult, so I decided to reuse my Nationals team and tweak it to fit an international metagame.

I’m going to explain each Pokémon individually.

Worlds Team

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Veil
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk / Spd 252
Stats: 184-182-115-*-105-169
– Protect
– Dragon Claw
– Earthquake
– Rock Slide

Everyone’s favourite Pokémon. This is the same Garchomp as my Nationals team. Some people don’t think Garchomp is that good, but you’ll realize once you use it that it is really strong. Because it has Focus Sash, you can focus on attacking opposing Pokémon, and if you have Sandstorm there’s always Sand Veil. Focus Sash makes it hard to switch in, but if you use it to your advantage it’s very strong indeed.

Salamence @ Choice Scarf
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
EVs: 8 HP / 248 SAtk / 252 Spd
Stats: 171-*-100-177-100-152
– Rock Slide
– Fire Blast
– Hidden Power Flying
– Draco Meteor

The second dragon. This is also the same one from my Nationals team. The Scarf is for countering Latios. I’ve heard that outside Japan there are a lot of Gem Latios, and I really wanted to be able to hit Latios first so I chose to Scarf it. HP Flying is for fighting Pokémon and Virizion. Because Worlds is a different metagame than Japan’s, I really didn’t know what to expect, so I put HP Flying on. However there weren’t many situations where I needed it. Rock Slide is for Volcarona. I heard that there were Rage Powder Volcarona overseas so I decided to use the last slot for Rock Slide, but if you really want to counter Volcarona I guess Stone Edge is also fine.

Tyranitar @ Dark Gem
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
EVs: 252 HP /196 Atk / 12 Def / 36 SDef / 12 Spd
Stats: 207-196-132-*-125-83
– Protect
– Low Kick
– Rock Slide
– Crunch

This is also from my Nationals team. The only difference between the two is my change from Iron Ball to Dark Gem. I didn’t expect a lot of Trick Room teams overseas, so I didn’t feel the need to lower my Speed. I didn’t face any difficulties changing to Dark Gem, as there were many teams using Thunder Wave but fewer using Trick Room. The fact that its Speed is 83 was a lucky coincidence (Ray’s Cresselia had 81 Speed and his Metagross had 82 Speed). This Tyranitar was originally for GS Cup, and because I needed a 4th Gen Tyranitar this was the only one I had.

Cresselia @ Psychic Gem
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
EVs: 92 HP / 248 SAtk / 168 Spd
Stats: 207-*-140-138-150-126
– Protect
– Psyshock
– Icy Wind
– HP Fire

Again this is from my Nationals team. The only change is from Trick to Protect. Its goal is to manipulate speed with Icy Wind, then take out Hitmontop and other Fighting-types with Gem Psyshock. I could have used Expert Belt instead, but I wanted the extra damage from Psyshock so I decided on Gem. With Gem it could also do 50% to Gastrodon, so it worked out in the end. HP Fire is for Ferrothorn, Scizor, and Metagross. There weren’t a lot of Ferrothorn or Scizor, but it’s definitely good to be able to do damage to Metagross. In fact you can 3hko Metagross if it’s not too bulky. If it’s something like Ray’s, though, it’ll survive. The purpose of this Cresselia is to manipulate the opponents’ Speed with Icy Wind. At first I wanted to have Grass Knot against Tyranitar, but because of my Metagross build I am forced to have Protect. However, Protect on Cresselia is very hard to predict and there were many times where it came in handy.

Metagross @ Choice Band
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Atk / 180 SDef
Stats: 187-181-150-*-133-90
– Explosion
– Meteor Mash
– Zen Headbutt
– Hammer Arm

I changed the Scizor in my Nationals party to Metagross and added Explosion as a surprise gimmick. I heard that overseas there were a lot of difficult Pokémon like Zapdos, Hitmontop, Latios, and Thundurus so I chose Metagross who has very high base stats. Regarding Choice Band, while I was discussing the best-of-3 format with many people including huuuryu the consensus was that surprise gimmicks won’t work as well in them. However, I thought that Choice Band Explosion Metagross would be a good fit because I personally enjoy gimmicks like these and figured I just needed to keep it hidden during game 1, then use it effectively past game 2. As long as Metagross hits targets it would normally do decent damage to, you won’t reveal Choice Band, and from there you can Protect + Explosion in game 2 (although I only pulled this off in about two games).

Lastly, I wanted to do something about Swagger Thundurus, which I figured would also be popular overseas. In general for Cresselia + Metagross you would set up by Swaggering Metagross, but I decided to get rid of the opposing Thundurus quickly by Gem Psyshock + Choice Band Zen Headbutt in turn one. This actually took down many Thundurus. Especially since there were many players relying on Thunder Wave + Swagger Thundurus, as soon as you got rid of Thundurus their team collapsed and you were in a very good position. I chose Hammer Arm over Earthquake because if you lock into Earthquake it would severely limit my partners.

Rotom-W @ Sitrus Berry
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
EVs: 236 HP / 88 Def / 180 SpDef/ 4 Spe
Stats: 155-*-138-125-165-107
– Thunder Wave
– Will-o-Wisp
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power Grass

I changed the Rotom-C to a Rotom-W with a bulky support build. There used to be a lot of these, but they seem to be overtaken by Choice Specs builds lately. Because of the bulk and Sitrus Berry, it can survive two hits of most attacks while spreading Thunder Wave or Will-o-Wisp. About Will-o-Wisp, if you don’t want Salamence and Garchomp facing Cresselia then you’re only left with Metagross and Tyranitar. Neither are very fast meaning your opponent will be hitting you first, so I decided to use Will-o-Wisp which can damage opponents in addition to Sand. This also stops physical attackers like opposing Metagross and Tyranitar which made it easy to use. However, that’s only if it hits. There were many instances where it missed, so I wouldn’t recommend using it unless you also ran Gravity or something. Also I didn’t use Hydro Pump because this is a support build, and I didn’t need any power. If you have only Thunderbolt and Hydro Pump then Gastrodon will completely stop you so I decided on HP Grass. I saw many Gastrodon so that came in handy.

So that was my team for Worlds. I’ve actually only used it about three times after making it, and I’m surprised that it did so well. As well, I was really surprised that Ray’s team was so similar to mine. Although the team concept was completely different, we used identical Pokémon except he had a Hydreigon instead of a Salamence. His Garchomp with its Haban Berry really caught me off guard and worked out for him since it survived the Earthquake in the final turn. Also, the Garchomp/Hydreigon vs Garchomp/Salamence super dragon matchup in game 2 was on purpose. I wanted to do that as soon as I saw Garchomp/Hydreigon in game 1. Fortunately the crowed seemed to have fun. Ray and I were also smiling.

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

About the Author

crobert is Nugget Bridge's Japanese correspondent. His fluency in English and Japanese helps keep the English-speaking Pokémon community informed about the going-ons in Japan. He is also an accomplished battler placing highly at both the 2012 Ontario Regional and Canadian National tournaments.

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