Reports

Published on November 20th, 2015 | by LightCore

24

The Other Fire Doge: A Top 8 Lancaster Report

Hey, guys! I’m back to show you all the team I used to get top 8 at the recent Lancaster Regional for the second year in a row, as well as the team building process.

I was stuck for something to use, and I was talking with a good friend of mine, Josh Lorcy (Lorcylovesyou), and he suggested a really solid core of Kangaskhan, Entei, Clefairy, Landorus-Therian, Rotom-Wash and Aegislash. We built off this core and eventually Luka Trejgut (Zephyl) told me to replace Rotom-W with Cresselia to help my rain match-up. The team went through several more set changes, and eventually I changed Clefairy to Clefable, which was a good idea because Unaware was so good in this meta game, especially with Azumarill becoming much more prominent.

So here’s the team!

The Team

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 132 HP / 164 Atk / 12 Def / 4 SpD / 196 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Protect
– Power-Up Punch
– Sucker Punch
– Return

I was talking with Josh and I told him that I loved the Kangaskhan/Entei core, as they work really well together. I went through several different variations of Kangaskhan, going through disgustingly bulky and fast and standard Jolly. This is the set that I eventually settled on.

Kangaskhan is by far the most consistent and powerful mega Pokémon available. It has an amazing damage output, and even burning it or intimidating it won’t slow it down too much due to Power-Up Punch. The amount of viable, yet very underwhelming, alternative move options is amazing. It is undoubtedly one of the most powerful Pokémon the VGC circuit has ever seen.

The move set is very standard, and there is not much I can really say about it. I chose Protect over Fake Out simply because it matches how I like to play Kangaskhan. I’m very inexperienced with Kangaskhan in general, despite having used it on my invitational team. I like being able to conserve my Pokémon, and Fake Out didn’t do that for me. My team also has problems with Trick Room and while it may seem counter-intuitive to the goal of bettering my match-ups, being able to stall out Trick Room turns helped me more than delaying Trick Room for a single turn. I like the boost from Power-Up Punch over the immediate damage from Low Kick. My team does have problems with Heatran, however, so Low Kick would have helped, but I felt that in all the matches that I had Low Kick during testing, it was never quite as consistent. Power-Up Punch also allows me to make a cool play where I could Power-Up Punch my own Cresselia, activating Kee Berry, and putting me in an endgame situation from turn one. Return is more consistent than Double-Edge and I don’t take recoil from it. Lastly, Sucker Punch was chosen over Crunch because the +1 priority helped Kangaskhan hit things that were faster than it.

The EV spread is pretty simple. The HP and Defense allow me to take a Jolly Mega Kangaskhan Low Kick. The Speed allowed me to out speed most Charizard-Y, which means I also out speed Adamant Max Speed Landorus-T by 2 points if it isn’t Choice Scarfed. After I had met all of my bulk and speed needs, I simply dumped the remaining investment into Attack.

Entei @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 36 HP / 124 Atk / 44 Def / 52 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Protect
– Sacred Fire
– Stone Edge
– Snarl

A lot of my teams had Entei on them recently, and I am still not entirely sure of the appeal to Entei. It’s such a strange Pokémon that I can’t quite explain. Despite this, it ended up being my favorite member of the team.

The spread is basically Jolly Max Speed to allow me to win mirror matches against other Entei who wanted to invest in more bulk. The slight bulk investment allowed me to survive a spread Landorus-T Earthquake, as well as a 60 SpA Rotom-W’s Hydro Pump. They weren’t calculations I was particularly worried about, but they helped for adding some general bulk. Sacred Fire is just such an amazing move, and I didn’t even use it mainly for the chance to burn. In fact, I think i went about 1/12 or 2/15 on getting burns when I used the move during Swiss. Stone Edge is a move that I was wary about using, but in my opinion, if you’re not using Stone Edge, you might as well be using Arcanine. Snarl is a move I added on because I was having trouble with Heatran, and being able to weaken it behind a Substitute was invaluable.

Safety Goggles is my own little tech. My Leftovers were taken elsewhere on the team, and I had found out on past teams that Safety Goggles Entei was strong in its own right. Amoonguss essentially couldn’t touch me, and it also helped me against the popular Amoonguss + Azumarill/Kangaskhan cores that had been running around recently. Unfortunately Entei didn’t pull his weight during the event, rarely ever burning with Sacred Fire, and also missing just as many Sacred Fires as it hit, most of them, however, didn’t cost me the game.

Thanks to Justin Carris (Azazel) for suggesting Entei! I instantly loved it.

Clefable @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 4 SpA / 84 SpD / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
– Protect
– Moonblast
– Follow Me
– Helping Hand

Clefable was not the next Pokémon that I added, but I’ll talk about it next due to the fact that I led it almost every single game during the tournament. I think out of 14 battles, it was my lead 12 times.

The main appeal of Clefable over Clefairy is Unaware. Unaware allows me to beat so many things in the meta game, such as Kangaskhan who are trying to plow through your team with Power-Up Punch, and Azumarill that want to Belly Drum.

The spread belongs to Leonard Craft III (DaWoblefet), which you can find in his article here. I used this because I was too lazy to make my own EV Spread for it.

Moonblast was a weird option here, as people like Chuppa Cross IV (Chuppa) and Jake Skurchak (Pokebeys) had Ice Beam here. I originally had Clefairy in this slot, but by the time I switched to Clefable I already had Ice Beam on my Cresselia and Hidden Power Ice on my Landorus, so I saw no reason to use an Ice move on my Clefable. Moonblast helped me with my Mega Gardevoir Trick Room team match-up, as it allowed me to always get off a safe 2HKO onto Scrafty. I used Helping Hand on this team because I learned in testing that being able to KO an Amoonguss with a +1 Helping Hand Return was too good to pass up. Follow Me was obviously the main appeal, as it just allowed my Kangaskhan to set up Power-Up Punch’s and completely sweep unprepared opponents.

Landorus-Therian @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 30 Def
– Protect
– Earth Power
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Stone Edge

Landorus-T was a very interesting Pokémon here. I realized as my team had progressed that I was having trouble with opposing Landorus, with no reliable way to hit them hard. This prompted me to run Angel Miranda’s (CT MikotoMisaka) Landorus from US Nationals. It worked so well throughout the day, and I absolutely loved using it in practice and during the event.

Here I’m just going to give you a direct quote straight from Angel himself, as it explains why I wanted to use it in the first place. You can find the entire Nationals report, as well as a lot of other great content over at his blog: Imouto Island

“Angel: God do I love Special Attacking Landorus-T. Special attacking ground moves are so good right now. There are a bunch of teams that have 3 Ground weaknesses and slap on Wide Guard and to “Patch up” that weakness. Well that doesn’t work when dealing with this monster! This is something Jeudy had been testing on a few different teams and liked a lot and when he mentioned this set I quickly jumped on board as this is essentially the same Landorus I used at Georgia regionals except changing the form so we could have Intimidate. Hidden Power Ice let us deal with opposing Landorus and Salamence, while Stone edge was dealt with Charizard and Volcarona which go down in one shot even with the -Atk nature.”

I did change one thing from Angel’s spread by switching the IV’s to still give me Hidden Power Ice, but I was also able to give myself one extra point in Attack. The extra point in Attack didn’t help me at all at the tournament. I didn’t use Stone Edge once all day. I essentially could have had any other move there and Landorus would have done its job just as well. Regardless, I can guarantee you that, at some point during practice, that extra point in Attack saved me a game or two.

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 180 SpA / 12 SpD / 60 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
– King’s Shield
– Shadow Ball
– Toxic
– Substitute

A bunch of my friends have told me to try and trade mark this type of Aegislash, like how Billaslash became a thing. I honestly don’t care about trademarking this with a cool new name, as it was a very situational tech that didn’t even do it’s original intended purpose.

The appeal to this type of Aegislash is the move Toxic. This was put on to beat the Kee Berry Calm Mind Cresselia that have been running around lately. This would either KO Cress quick enough for my team to do other things or force Cresselia to switch out, allowing me to deal with other things on the opponents team. Substitute was a move I put on because it helped my Amoonguss match-up. The other appeal to this Aegislash is that it can 1v1 so much of the meta game. Here is a list of Pokémon that it beats in 1v1 situations:

Kangaskhan, Amoonguss, Cresselia, Salamence, Rotom-W, Conkeldurr, Gardevoir, Sylveon, Azumarill, Milotic, Scarfty, Terrakion, Zapdos, Ludicolo, Politoed, Suicune, Gothitelle, Gengar, Latios, Porygon2, Metagross, Virizion and much, much more!

The spread is nothing special. It has general bulk, and general speed to try and out speed other Aegislash.

Cresselia @ Kee Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 220 HP / 4 Def / 204 SpA / 52 SpD / 28 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
– Moonlight
– Calm Mind
– Psychic
– Ice Beam

We all know what this does; it wins games and forces the opponent’s hand on who they have to start attacking. The combination of Calm Mind, Moonlight, and Kee Berry make Cresselia the scariest thing on the field.

The spread is just general offense and bulk. It isn’t meant to survive or KO anything specific. The only thing that seems out of place is the speed IVs and along with having Investment. As many of you know, I went to a PC 2 weeks before regionals, where I got disqualified in top cut for having a hacked Cresselia that my friend had gotten for me. To avoid this, I went and got my own Cresselia from in game and this is what happened as the result. I didn’t even find out that it didn’t have a perfect speed IV until after Swiss, where Chuppa pointed it out to me.

The Day of the Event

I woke up early that morning extremely sick. Luckily I didn’t end up ruining someones DS once the tournament had started. We got there about half way through sign up, and at that point, I was just happy to see my friends.

I spent a lot of my time puttering around and talking to different people, but I eventually settled down with Ashton’s group and had some fun battles. I felt so out of place though, because everyone was using silly teams, and the closest thing I had in game to that was Kolby Golliher (LoveTrain)’s Nationals team. It was great to get to hang out with Ashton Cox (LinkYoshiMario), Luka Trejgut (Zephyl), Jeremy Rodriguez (Serapis), Cameron Kicak (Stormfront), Cameron Swan (Drizzleboy), Ben Hickey (DarkPenguin67), Sam Lubell (SammyBoy), Zach (Meadwag) and a lot of other people I can’t remember right now.

Pairings went up and I suddenly got really nervous because I realized that this first battle, depending on who I pulled, could decide whether or not I make it back to the top 8.

Round 1 vs. James Dorsey

His Team:

He Brought:    

I Broguht:    

So James showed up a bit late, and I had actually been thinking that I was going to get a round 1 win, but he barely showed up on time. I see his team in team preview and I think to myself that I have this in the bag. Me and James were having a really fun conversation about how he was new and how he threw together a team from his PC box. He leads off with Landorus and Charizard as I lead Clefable and Kangaskhan. I immediately start going for Power-Up Punches and Follow Me’s as he U-Turns out with Landorus and Toxic’s my Clefable with his Charizard. It goes like this for a few turns, with my Kangaskhan just getting more Attack boosts and eventually Quick Claw activates on his Charizard, as I knock it out in one hit revealing that it was his Zoroark. I don’t remember much else, but I do remember that the Charizard was mega and it critical hit a Solar Beam onto my Entei for about 40%.

Win: 4-0

Record: 1-0

Round 2 vs. Ben Jarrett

His Team:

He Brought:    

I Brought:    

I don’t remember much about my opponent. I did ask if his team was based off of Hibiki’s report and he didn’t seem to know who Hibiki was, so that made things a little awkward for us. I lead Clefable Kangaskhan because it gives me the best chance of powering through his team right off the bat. I knew that I would have to bring Entei in the back to deal with his Ferrothorn. I get up to a quick +2 Attack with Kangaskhan and I start start powering through his team, as he never tries to set up rain for his Swampert. I get a clean one shot onto his Thundurus with a critical hit, but I don’t think it mattered in the long run of the battle. He reveals Rock Slide on his Swampert later to try and knock out my Entei, but to no avail. It ends with his Ferrothorn left against my +4 Kangaskhan and Entei. I get the clean Sacred Fire miss but Kangaskhan KO’s Ferrothorn with a +4 Power-Up Punch.

Win: 2-0

Record: 2-0

Round 3 vs. Nicholas Seman (Spooty)

His Team:

He Brought:    

I Brought:    

I got to talk with Nick a lot, and he was a really cool dude. He also just so happened to have one of my teams worst match-ups, which scared me a lot. I really thought that he would try to set up Trick Room turn one, so I lead my anti-Trick Room lead of Clefable and Aegislash. I do know, however, that if he leads offensively with Heatran and Gardevoir, that I’ll be in a horrid position. He leads exactly as I expect him to and I go straight for the Moonblast onto Scrafty and  King’s Shield with Aegislash to stop a potential Knock Off into that slot. I called his moves correctly, as he Protects Gardevoir and goes for Knock Off into my Aegislash, which lets me get a free Moonblast onto his Scrafty. Judging by the damage Moonblast did, it was definitely Assault Vest. He pulls a few more switches, and reveals some really cool moves like Shadow Ball instead Psychic on his Gardevoir, as well as Flash Cannon over Substitute on Heatran, which was a huge relief because I knew that I wouldn’t have to deal with Heatran behind a Sub. His Abomasnow reveals Focus Sash and his Heatran turns out to be slower than my Aegislash. At this point, the game is over and I remain undefeated going into round 4.

Win: 3-0

Record: 3-0

After the match, we both signed the match slip wrong and he received the win. We went and got this fixed, however we would still have to play our opponents for this round, meaning I would play against a 2-1 player, and he would play against a 3-0 player.

Round 4 vs. Emily Flanigan

Her Team:

She Brought:    

I brought:    

I don’t remember what really happened this round. I know that I sat next to her in the last round and she got beat by my friend Matt Hazen (theamazinhazen). It was clean game, and unfortunately I do not remember what happened during the battle besides what is in my notes. She showed that her Landorus was Assault Vest, and her Zapdos ended up being Choice Scarf with Hidden Power Ice. Virizion revealed Helping Hand at some point, which was extremely cool. Heatran has Substitute and Leftovers, which had scared me at first, but it didn’t end up doing much to my +6 Special Defense Cresselia after Entei had Snarl’d it down to -6 Special Attack. The game ends and I’m able to one hit KO her Heatran.

Win: 3-0

Record: 4-0

So we got everything settled with the TO, and I was out up to 4-0 and Nick was put up to 3-1 as he had just won his “pair up.”

Round 5 vs. Stephen Brown III (Pyromaniac720)

His Team:

He Brought:    

I brought:    

I had been talking a lot with Stephen prior to the event, and I knew some information about his team, like how his Salamence had Rock Slide and Fire Blast, and how his Raikou had both Snarl and Light Screen. He leads rain as I lead my anti-rain. He predicts a Follow Me turn one, and double Scalds into my Clefable, as I go for the safe double Protect. I don’t remember what else happened in this battle, but I know for the majority of it, it was me walking right into his predictions.. It eventually comes down to his Ludicolo against my +3 SpD Cresselia which brings the game down to timer. On the last turn, I needed to go for a risky play and Psychic his Ludicolo instead of going for Moonlight, because if burn had taken my HP lower than Ludicolo’s, I would lose the match. It goes down to timer and the screen says that I won, which felt amazing after such a crazy game. I did end up dealing Stephen his only loss in Swiss, which felt pretty good, but unfortuantly my going x-2 stopped Stephen from potentially getting first seed, so I feel a bit bad about that.

Win: 1-0

Record: 5-0

Round 6 vs. Adam DeMarchi (Hawkstar)

His Team:

He Brought:    

I Brought:    

This battle starts off for me badly right away. Turn one, I predict him to switch out Sylveon into Amoonguss and to Protect Bisharp, as I call his play correctly and Sacred Fire and Earth Power into the Amoonguss, expecting to pick up a free KO. However Sacred Fire misses and I blow the surprise of Special Landorus. The game essentially goes like that for a while, me predicting his moves but coming up just short. It ends up with my Clefable against his Sylveon locked into Hyper Beam. At this point I can timer stall, but I need to hope for either a double Protect, or for him to miss Hyper Beam, as neither of them happen and I lose the game. It really stunk because I felt like I had the advantage from turn one on the predicted switch, but the game just got away from me from that point, with him playing well and just not giving me any space for any of my predictions to even matter. Even if I could have called his moves correctly, there wasn’t anything I could do about it at that point.

Lose: 0-1

Record: 5-1

Round 7 vs. Paul Chua (Pwny Person)

His Team:

He Brought:    

I Brought:    

This was the first time that I have had the opportunity to battle Paul in a real competition since Virginia Regionals 2013 where he destroyed me because I had no idea what I was doing. So naturally, I was excited to get to try myself against Paul again.

This game starts exactly how I thought it would. Paul makes some smart switches and U-Turns around with Landorus, reading into every one of my plays. I eventually get it down to a 2v2 of my Kangaskhan and Entei both in the red left against his full HP Heatran and half HP Kangaskhan. Here, all Paul needs to do it Earth Power into my Kangaskhan, and he has the guaranteed win against my Entei. I knock out his Kangaskhan with my own by going for a Power-Up Punch. I say to Paul that the only way I can win is to hope he misplayed and went for Heat Wave and that he misses. And what do ya know, he does miss. The game is mine right there, as I land a Power-Up Punch and a Stone Edge onto his Heatran for the game. It stunk that it had to end like that, but I was discussing the game with Jeremy and Patrick afterwards and we all agree’d that Paul misplayed and payed for it. That’s just how the cookie crumbles, and it’s the game we choose to play.

Win: 2-0

Record: 6-1

Round 8 vs. Kazi Rahman (AwakenedCity)

His Team:

He Brought:   

I brought:    

This was a rematch from round 2 of the NY/NJ Invitational, and I was excited for it. I don’t remember much about this set, except for the fact that Aegislash did its job amazingly. It set up a Substitute and was able to Toxic stall Kazi’s Milotic and Kangaskhan. It also really helped that Milotic’s Scald didn’t break my Aegislash’s Substitute. Another really cool thing was that it showed our 2 Kangaskhan’s speed tied, which I found really funny considering that I went with a really strange speed stat on my Kangaskhan. He also showed in this battle that his Kangaskhan had Low Kick, his Milotic had both Icy Wind and Ice Beam, as well as his Aegislash being Life Orb’d. Good game to Kazi. It’s a pity that we didn’t get to see Darmanitan in the Top Cut.

Win: 2-0

Record: 7-1

Round 9 vs. Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)

His Team:

He Brought:   

I Brought:    

I was excited to get to play Wolfe. As many of you remember, there was a massive wait and then a repair for some of the players, but fortunately for us we were able to stay where we were. A lot of my friends asked me if I was scared going into this match due to how high-caliber Wolfe is compared to me, and I wasn’t at all. This is the point of going to events, to battle people better than you and to try and improve on your skills, so I was ecstatic when I saw I had the chance to battle one of the people who I admired since I had started out as a novice in 2012.

I call his lead and I lead one my two anti-Azumarill leads. Turn one I expected him to switch his Amoonguss out and to Protect Azumarill, because he didn’t watch to potentially lose his Amoonguss turn one to a Helping Hand Sacred Fire, or to potentially have his Azumarill burned by a Sacred Fire in case I expected the Protect from Amoonguss. I go for a Moonblast and a Sacred Fire into the Amoonguss slot, and he brings in Kangaskhan, which I was ecstatic about. I get off some damage from Moonblast as I miss Scared Fire, again. This next turn I call his Fake Out Belly Drum, and I go for the double Protect because it is my safest play and stops and other shenanigans. Next turn I expect him to Protect Azumarill and attack into Entei with Kangaskhan, as I go for the Follow Me, he wins what I find out to be a speed tie, and gets a crit Double-Edge onto my Clefable, and after Sitrus Berry I’m left around 30%, as on that same turn I miss Sacred Fire onto his Kangaskhan for the second time. From there there isn’t anything else I can do. I eventually pick up the KO onto his Kangaskhan, but by that point it’s too late for me to come back into the game, and I drop to 7-2 for the second year in a row. Looking back on this set, I maybe should have lead with Kangaskhan instead of Entei, as that would have eliminated some of the luck factor in this match, but I have to give it to Wolfe for playing phenomenally and joking around with me during the match.

Lose: 1-3

Record: 7-2

I started jumping around when I find out that my resistance would be good enough for me to make Top Cut again, and Luka just wouldn’t stop hugging me. I get in at 10th seed, although they do a repair for the 7th-10th seeds in top cut and my opponent changes from Tommy Coolean, to Joey McGinly, so I was pretty happy that I wouldn’t have to face a friend in round 1 of cut.

Top 16 vs. Joey McGinley (JoeJM)

His Team:

Game 1

He Brought:   

I Brought:   

Game one was pretty stressful of me. It resulted in me making really safe plays, and it just didn’t fit with my play style. My leads were awful, but I was able to pull myself into a good position. A lead of Entei and Landorus-T was a bad idea. He ended up being able to put my Clefable to sleep, which was a problem. I was able to put myself into a winning position, and he forfeited the game as to not reveal any extra information. While I was in a good position, the game still ended 4-2 in my favor, so while it may seem like I had a pretty clear-cut advantage, it was not the case at all.

Win: 4-2

Record: 8-2

Game 2

He Brought:    

I Brought:    

This game we both made some good adjustments. I don’t think I had revealed the move set on my Landorus during game 1, which I feel is the reason he lead with Heatran and kept it in on turn one. Turn one I got a clean KO through Shuca Berry onto the Heatran slot with Landorus, instantly putting me up 4-3 without any damage taken as his Azumarill goes for Belly Drum. From that point on in the game, it’s essentially making safe plays and not giving up any major ground. He revealed during this game though, that he had a Jolly Landorus, where if I had gotten a bit unlucky, and the set went to a game 3, could have been very useful information. I think the point in the game that sealed it up for him, though, was when my Kangaskhan took the -1 Superpower from around 50%, allowing me to KO Landorus. The game was over at this point because all he could do was attack my Clefable while I used Follow Me and KO’d everything with Return.

Win: 2-0

Record: 9-2

Top 8 vs. Jonathan Hiller (MrFox)

This was the match that I had dreaded all day. Last year during Philly in round 4, Jonathan had absolutely destroyed me. He had a clean 4-0 with no damage taken on his side. I didn’t want to face him at all, and now my fears had come to fruition.

His Team:

Game 1

He Brought:    

I Brought:    

I had a lot of information going into this set from having watched his streamed match earlier. Turn one I go for a Helping Hand Scared Fire to one-hit KO his Amoonguss as his Scrafty goes for a Knock Off onto my Clefable. From there it’s just me slowly taking down Pokémon while I’m trying to figure out as many damage calculations as possible. I was able to figure out that Moonblast from Clefable can one-hit KO his Scrafty from full health, and other information like a Helping Hand Sacred Fire can knock out his Aegislash from full, as well as the fact that it carried Substitute. We also were able to figure out that my Clefable and his Aegislash speed tie and that my Clefable takes 80+% from a Flash Cannon. I had known this calculation in my head, and that meant he was Modest with Max Special Attack, as well as a Modest Nature with only 4 Speed EVs, which I found very interesting for a Substitute variant.

Win: 3-0

Record: 10-2

Game 2

He Brought:   

I Brought: I forgot to write it down but it was probably along the lines of:

This game went a lot worse for me. It was full of misplays and bad damage calculations on my end. I remember, towards the end of the battle, it was my Landorus and Entei left against his -1 Mega-Salamence and Aegislash. I Protect Landorus, expecting him to Double-Edge and King’s Shield, I call the play right, and I get a free Stone Edge off onto his Salamence, however at -1 the damage roll wasn’t in my favor and he hangs on with a fraction of his health. I go for the Snarl this turn to pick off Salamence and weaken Aegislash, as I go for a double Protect and fail it, expecting his Salamence to Double-Edge again. He however goes for Earthquake this turn, which I was pretty confident that I could survive, but I end up going down to the Earthquake and he goes for double King’s Shield with Aegislash. Next turn I take a Double-Edge, and he goes down to recoil with my Landorus.

Lose: 1-0

Record: 10-3

Game 3

He Brought:    

I Brought:    

This is a game that I felt pretty comfortable going into. Turn one he expects a Helping Hand Sacred Fire into Amoonguss, so he Protects Amoonguss and Double-Edges my Entei slot. However I expected a play along those lines, so I Protect Entei and Moonblast into the Salamence, which was a misplay on both of our parts. After that turn happened, we both regretted the turn. He could have gotten a free Spore off, and if I hadn’t Protected Entei, yes I would have taken a lot of damage, but his Salamence would have went down earlier. Eventually, the game comes down to my Cresselia and Landorus left against Thundurus and Salamence, with both Amoonguss and Aegislash in the back. I knew I had the win because of how low health his Amoonguss would be coming back in. On this turn, he goes for a Swagger onto my Cresselia, and I hit myself in confusion, as his Salamence gets a Dragon Dance off and I do a solid 90% to the Thundurus. This had lost me the game as far as I was concerned. However, the game came down to Amoonguss and Aegislash left against my Cresselia. I expected him to Protect Amoonguss, and Substitute Aegislash, but I think to myself “There’s no reason for him to go for that play, he wins by clicking Spore.” As he goes for the Protect Substitute. I could have Calm Minded here, and I’m pretty sure I would have had the win. Shadow Ball does too much, and I can’t Recover to enough HP fast enough before timer declares Jon the winner.

Lose: 1-1

Record: 10-4

I was pretty upset at my performance. Last year I had gotten Top 8 at this event, before losing to Aaron Zheng. I wanted to improve upon my performance from last year, to prove to myself how much I had come since last year. Unfortunately that did not happen, and it looks like I still have some room to improve, but I plan on having even better showings at Winter Regionals. Here are some shout outs!

• Luka (Zephyl) & Jeremy (Serapis) for helping me practice and just being amazing friends. As well as the rest of my practice partners Jake (Pokebeys), James Baek (Jamesspeed1), Jake (Jhoqk), Josh, Chance, Kolby (LoveTrain), and everyone else in the Skype Group chat: Regional Champs in the making (Only 2 of us won Regionals)
• Chance (Paragon) and Riley (Spaff) for getting me off my tilt the weekend before the event.
• Josh (Lorcylovesyou) for helping me with the original concept of the team, and editing it to better fit the meta game. As well as Chuppa and Jake (Pokebeys) for using the same six as me, but with different alterations.
• Leonard (DaWoblefet) for being an awesome support crutch, as well as just being an over all great friend. Thanks again man.

I hope you enjoyed reading, and I’ll be back next time with another team report. Peace!

About the Author

LightCore LightCore is a 15 year old Master who is looking to go all the way. I have had a pretty pathetic past but I think that the Masters Division is my time to shine. I constantly try to balance practice with my swimming practice and Boy Scouts. I'm currently going for my Eagle rank and are working on my Eagle Scout Service Project

Related Posts

Memoirs of a World Champion: by 2015 World Champion SHADEviera →

Blazing Forward! A Malaysian Regionals 2nd Place Report →

Top 4, Top 4, We’ve Never Used This Team Before →

Singing in the Rain: A 3rd Place Singapore Nationals Report →