Reports

Published on August 5th, 2014 | by Zog

9

Happy Go Unlucky – Zog’s Chronicle of the Battle of Legends

Well, hello again. It’s me, the artist currently known as Zog. Yeah yeah, I know, I said I wasn’t playing Pokémon any more. I lied, whatcha gonna do?

As you might’ve guessed, there had to be something a little out of the ordinary to make me want to play Pokémon again. That came in the form of something that’s more than a little nostalgic to me: an all-out online tournament with uber-powerful legendary Pokémon! It’s enough to make your inner seven-year old glow with glee. Or in my case, my inner seventeen-year old.

You see, I haven’t been able to break the legendaries out since way back in 2010, when I was but a wee hobbit in the shires of the early Pokémon scene. The last time I was able to use babby’s favourite behemoths, I was still the slightly weird kid who loved beetles, who’d spend all evening avoiding everything with my dog then get into school and copy everyone’s homework. In some respects, I suppose I haven’t really changed. But 2010 was a wild year for me and over the span of three months I left a clueless hobbit on an adventure, found myself wanting something for one of the first times I could remember, then rather appropriately wound up on the other side of the world aimlessly scrabbling around in volcanic rubble, yet somehow less lost than I was beforehand. Lord of the Rings, if Frodo had accidentally smacked a sea turtle in the face. That completely crazy and impulsive journey across America shattered many of the illusions my young self had let people hold in front of me, and in a way it’s to thank for a lot of the ways in which I’ve turned out. Lovely, dark and edgy backstory right? So it’s only befitting I came up with a lovely, dark and edgy team for this lovely, dark and edgy waste of time.

Look at Me Now… All Up On The Interweb

So, the Battle of Legends tournament. The rules: anything goes. Except that new diamond thing, which is rubbish anyway so it doesn’t really matter. This means pick absolutely whatever you want, and that’s alright by me. But, since I’m so sexy and everything, I have to win in style. So I came up with something so suave and ninja-like, you’re definitely going to struggle to keep your pants on. …no, really it is pretty cool.

Loaded – Primal Scream

“We wanna be free! We wanna be free, to do what we want to do! And we wanna get loaded.”
Scizor (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Attack / 4 Speed
Adamant Nature
– Bug Bite
– Bullet Punch
– Superpower
– Protect

Loaded is my one-shot answer to Darkrai in all of its forms. I hate hate hate people using Darkrai and its constant 80%, 30%, 30% chances, since basically all it does is throw every game down to the random number generator. If you want that kind of game, please, just go play bingo and get out of my sight. Just be aware, I watch the Jeremy Kyle Show. Foxy Bingo’s Vernon Kay antics have turned me against the variety of luck-based games the world has to offer. Please don’t be part of the problem.

Superpower offers clutch damage against the inevitable hordes of Arceus and Kangaskhan while Bullet Punch offers that final cry of defiance in the face of a stat-boosted Xerneas, one of the format’s several defining artiodactyls. Speaking of which…

Hold Your Colour – Pendulum

“So kiss me… ‘cause I know who’s up against the wall.”
Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: I don’t actually know because I’m pretty sure I did it wrong / 252 Speed
Modest Nature
– Moonblast
– Dazzling Gleam
– Geomancy
– Protect

(Thanks to dingram for trading me this one!)

Xerneas. When it hits the field, someone’s back is against the wall. No matter how hard he sings it, though, Rob Swire can’t make me kiss him. He’s really not my cup of tea, as it happens. Though even if he were to suddenly became 1: female and 2: really fit, I’d still be put off by his later crimes against drum and bass. Does that make me picky? …anyway where was I…

With Geomancy and a Power Herb, Xerneas is able to double most of its stats in one turn, something no other Pokémon of its calibre can do. That’s very scary. After using Geomancy, it one-hit KOs pretty much everything in the game, often even with its spread move, Dazzling Gleam. If the opponent doesn’t have anything that can take down a +2/+2/+2 Xerneas, they’re basically going to lose. They’re going to have to pack that, and something that can stop it from setting up in the first place. Such as…

Lady – Modjo

“Lady, I just feel like, I won’t get you, out of my mind.”
Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Inner Focus/Parental Bond
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Attack / 252 Speed
Jolly Nature
– Double Edge
– Fake Out
– Sucker Punch
– Low Kick

Oh look, I’m using pretty much exactly the same Kangaskhan as everyone else ever does. I told you I was special. As quite obviously the best mega in the game and the only Fake Out user worth having in a legendary metagame, Kangaskhan was a really obvious pick. Low Kick hits things. So does Sucker Punch. Kangashan hits things. Something like that. God, it’s so boring.

It has Double Edge because I couldn’t be bothered raising its happiness for Return. If I’m going to give a Lady daily massages and lovingly feed her EV-reducing berries, then I’d rather she was a human being, not a kangaroo on a computer screen.

Sa’eed– Infected Mushroom

“I hope I can chill and stay the same, stop the bleed inside and feel again, cut the chain of lies you’ve been feeeeeding my veins I’ve got nothing to say to yooooou!”
Landorus-T (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Attack / 252 Speed
Adamant Nature
– Earthquake
– Stone Edge
– Superpower
– U-Turn

Scarf Landorus! How I’ve missed you. I totally did this one wrong though. He was supposed to have Rock Slide and Knock Off and yeah I forgot; screwed that one up. However, the golden tiger will always be one of my favourite Pokémon to use. Even if I’m fully aware of the real life golden tiger’s horrific genetic heritage, Landorus hasn’t let me down yet. Though who knows, thanks to generations of inbreeding he’s probably got the life expectancy of a kid playing chocolate Russian Roulette. Moderately below average, since the “live round” is only a chocolate with chilli sauce instead of caramel. It’s not actually dangerous. That was a joke.

I literally only used Landorus because I like it and you can basically slap it on anything and it’ll beat people. I put absolutely no care whatsoever into any of my teams and pretty much always use the first thing I think of. You may be noticing this by now.

Hypest Hype– Chase and Status Ft. Tempa T

“Every time I go to the rave, everyone knows gonna be at Next Hype!”
Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Attack / 252 Speed
Jolly Nature
– Close Combat
– Rock Slide
– Quick Attack
– Protect

I kind of like my shiny Terrakion, and wanted to use it to beat normal-type Arceus, which basically everyone ended up using since it’s the most boring and consistent Pokémon in the game (that should’ve stayed banned it’s so boring). If I wanted to play Goat Simulator, I’d go and hang out with 12-year olds. That’s all I’m saying. If anyone takes issue at my dissing of Goat Simulator, then I tell them, here’s a chocolate bun, go and sit in the corner and play your Game Boy. That’ll shut them up.

Hypest Hype, incidentally, is one of my favourite stupid-rave tunes and the only one that gets regular club play. Chase and Status may be the definition of middle-of-the-road UK dance music, but they’re alriiiight really and I am kind of going to see them. On a beach. This track with Temps is a bit of a classic though, and indeed like the other kind of Red Bull makes me go so mental I once raved so hard all of the numbers got knocked out of the face of my watch. Whoops. And now I wear a broken watch as a bracelet, because yeah it totally symbolises the broken and subjective nature of time. I definitely don’t say that to rationalise breaking my watch because I was slam dancing to Tempa T and accidentally hit my friend in the face with it. I assure you that was not the case. It was opposites day.

This brings us to the team’s crown jewel…

Donker Mag– Die Antwoord

“I wanna feel free, I wanna feel, please, but I can’t feel pleased if I’m feeling guilty”
Giratina-O @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 64 HP / 252 Attack / 4 Defense / 176 Special Defense / 12 Speed
Adamant Nature
– Shadow Force
– Shadow Sneak
– Will-O-Wisp
– Protect

Donker Mag. “Dark Power”. Shadow Force. Giratina’s always resonated with me more than the other legendary Pokémon, and for that reason I just had to use it. I like centipedes. It may come as no surprise to you that I do indeed keep a venomous centipede on my bedside table. He’s nearly a foot long, and is called Sonny Moore aka Skrillex, or, for short, Centipede. Because that’s not a Skrillex song, it’s a Knife Party song. This centipede is a predator, and I’m hilarious.

Like Giratina, Die Antwoord are a group that’s always been a little different. And by a little different, I mean purposefully and obtusely different. Like the Renegade Pokémon itself, Ninja and Yo-Landi are practically antimatter in a world that looks at them with something between disbelief and condescension, and doesn’t quite know how to handle them. They’re a band that through just being different were assumed to be a gimmick going for shock value, and now they haven’t changed much in a few albums, a lot of people will tell you they’re shallow. “Are you actually like this or is it just an act? Are you playing a character?”. There’s nobody more aware than themselves that they risk being taken seriously, or being seen as dangerous if they keep coming out with off-the-wall material and generally looking like they’re a mess. Donker Mag is one of their rare songs where they do actually reveal the thoughtful side of the madness, and I really like it. It shouldn’t be too hard to see why I have a lot of appreciation for Die Antwoord. Shame most of their music sucks!

Donker Mag himself is easily my favourite Pokémon in the game — so beautiful in every way, whether it’s by brutalising people with Shadow Force, finishing off with Shadow Sneak or gradually tanking things out with Will-O-Wisp. And he’s a huge sexy flying centipede. Love it.

Enter The Ninja

11:00pm

Finally, I had my team together. It’d taken me a solid three days of doing absolutely nothing useful but eventually I had my team put together in about… I think it was one hour’s work. I don’t really pay attention to time, what’s going on around me, that sort of thing. I topped the ladder on Showdown repeatedly when I was practising with my team, and now it was time to turn that into a top performance in the competition itself.

Soon, my first game begins and I prepare for a difficult fight. My opponent leads with Charizard and Groudon. He Mega Evolves Charizard into Charizard X and with Groudon uses… Earthquake. Literally the most pointless and self-destructive move that could have possibly happened, it’s like watching a fireman catch a baby from a burning building — only to punt it back through a window. The tournament is off to a mindblowing start.

11:30pm

As though the world were populated entirely by idiots, I’m 10-0 with absolutely no challenge whatsoever. I even fight a Normal Gem physical Greninja, which uses Return on my Terrakion. The tournament’s lack of resistance is disengagingly pathetic. When, like a gift from above, I find myself matched with this high-rated Japanese guy I remember playing in the casual room at Worlds last year, with the ingame name “Worms”.

YAKW-WWWW-WWW8-PJER

Thus, my faith in online tournaments is restored a little.

12:30am

Some more games down, I’m now 17-3 and at 1720. Things are looking good! My only losses have been to a Choice Scarf Landorus Rock Slide double flinching me when it needed both… and Will-O-Wisp missing three times in the same game. I can handle that; you’re bound to get a little bit of stupid luck things happen over 30 games right? Otherwise, the games are pretty fun and I’m really enjoying my Donker Mag.

23PW-WWWW-WWW8-PK3K

1:00am

So, I get the final 10 battles ready to be played. Immediately, I’m stricken with a sudden realisation of the truth of Murphy’s Law. If something can go wrong, it probably will.

74XW-WWWW-WWW8-PJJ8

I mean, really? I get hit with two necessary critical hits in the first two turns, but still make it back. This is a theme that keeps carrying on. Will-O-Wisp has missed more times than it’s hit. Every time a Darkrai Dark Voids me, I’m sleeping for the maximum three turns. A Specs Latios uses Thunder out of rain, critical hits through my +2/+2/+2 Xerneas and paralyses me, but I still manage to win. But then things start getting a little more ridiculous. A Scarf Kyogre double critical hits my Kangaskhan/Xerneas lead, when they’d survive and KO otherwise. Now I’m remembering how stupid the legendary format could be back in the day, with Dark Void Smeargle everywhere and critical hits being gamebreaking pretty much every time they happened. Only in this format Darkrai is actually legal, so there’s a good Pokémon throwing Dark Void everywhere, and then it’s paired with Arceus and its stupid priority moves and Xerneas and its Geomancy and it gets to the point where a single missed turn can lose you everything against the most abusive team setups. When far too many people are using things that take control of the game out of both of the players’ hands, I don’t think that’s fun any more.

Allow me to illustrate. Please, try not to laugh too much.

R54W-WWWW-WWW8-PJLJ

Yeah… yeah. I was keeping a running total of Prankster Swagger turns. I had twelve of them over the course of the tournament, and every single time, my Pokémon hurt themselves. I felt like joining in, to be honest, and making my own little emo Pokémon crew. We’d go shopping for quirky and unique accessories at Affleck’s in Manchester then hang out by the Urbis on Sundays, glaring at strangers. It’d be fun. In all seriousness though, when Pokémon gets like this I’d rather play in traffic. At least then when I get flattened, it would be my fault.

This wasn’t even my worst game. The one immediately after, which tragically the game wouldn’t let me save, I lead with Xerneas and Geomancy and his Ludicolo critical Scalds through +2 and burns it, both necessary occurrences for Xerneas to go down without 4-0ing his whole team. Then Grass Arceus (!) freezes Donker Mag with the one (critical hit) Ice Beam it gets off, and he sits there frozen for five turns on his own tanking repeated Water Spouts from this Kyogre, which is now whaling all over the rest of my guys. I manage to get it down to just my Giratina and Terrakion against his Kangaskhan and Landorus. All I have to do is Quick Attack for the KO on his very low health Landorus. Of course, double Protect fails, I get the minimum damage roll, and Landorus (which Will-O-Wisp had missed on twice already) survives on 1hp and KOs both of my guys then itself with life orb Rock Slide.

See, the major problem with this tournament is that with Dark Void and Prankster Swagger users around, being limited to 30 games with so many luck-based factors involved means that whatever happens, you’re not going to have a fair shot at getting high in the rankings. You either roll the dice and come out winning some and losing some, or you have to deal with other people rolling the dice and, in my case, getting a bum roll every single time. It’s only a major issue because of the 30 game limit, which is far too low, especially when in a tournament like this you have to get stuff ready that you aren’t going to have normally.

Battle of Legends

All said and done, it was better than nothing, ‘cause at least it gave me an excuse to write something. If I’m wasting time, might as well make it productive — and then it isn’t wasting time! Or so I’ll tell myself. I ended up with a rating of like 1650 and a 24-6 record, which is pretty depressing to say as I felt I was actually good at the format. Oh well. Let’s just hope that next time there’s a tournament with legendaries involved, the obviously superior (and event-based) stuff like Arceus and the dice-rolling things like Darkrai get left on the banlist in favour of letting the decent legendaries shine. The likes of Giratina, Xerneas and Lugia are all powerful but totally unique, and I hope to see them allowed again in the future, in a similar kind of format to 2010. Wouldn’t that be something special?

In the meantime, let’s all just have fun and look forward to Worlds. Except for me. I’m not going to Worlds, I’m going camping on a beach with my favourite idiots — and, as much as I love Pokémon, I wouldn’t have it any other way!

About the Author

Zog A veteran tournament player, Daniel "Zog" Nolan is proud of his no-nonsense attitude and silly sense of humour. When he's actually doing work, Zog likes to hide toy snakes in the wilderness (and other decidedly more lab-based activities) in the name of scientific progress. Follow on Instagram at dan_z_nolan and Twitter @Zoggykins!

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