Reports

Published on February 14th, 2013 | by Werford

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Welcome to the Mach Parade: Team History and Competition Report

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

Prologue: My First Regional(s)

When I was a young trainer, my friend took me into New York City to see if I could battle competitively. The year was 2009, and the Pokemon Showdown was going on. I got there and hoped that I would be one of the 95 or so people who got a slot in the lottery to play, and sincle only 108 people showed up, I felt my chances were pretty good. However, it was not to be. I was not picked, and I vowed I would retire from Pokemon forever, that there wasn’t no way I was coming back again. As I would learn later, though, the hardest part is letting go of your dreams.

Flash forward to the waning weeks of March 2012. I still hung out in #smogon and after seeing the excitement build as more experienced users prepared for Regionals, I made a decision that would forever alter my hobby budget: I was going to compete in the upcoming VGC Regional Championship in Philadelphia. Never mind that I hadn’t purchased a Pokemon game in nearly three years and that I had never played Doubles outside of scripted in-game battles. I decided that I was going to make like Ninahaza before any major VGC event and end my retirement from Pokemon.

I bought myself a White version, beat the requisite number of Gyms, and enlisted the help of a user I’d soon get to know very well: Biosci. With his help RNGing — and a little of my own research — I made a team around one of my very favorite Pokemon: Breloom. I supplemented it with Follow Me support courtesy of Togekiss, and added Chandelure, Tyranitar, Abomasnow and Hitmontop to round out the team. Despite it being the first team I’d ever made for Doubles, I ended up doing pretty decently, finishing 6^th in the “flight of death” with a 6-1 record, made bittersweet by the fact that my only loss came at the hands of a player who was eventually disqualified for a hacked Pokemon. My strong initial showing, good enough for 12^th overall, made me decide unretiring was the right decision.

After joining Nugget Bridge and training more, I decided I was going to make a completely different team for the Philly 2013 Regional. This team featured another of my favorite Pokemon: Crobat. Also on the team were Virizion, an offensive Rotom-W, Tyranitar, Volcarona and Mamoswine. I equaled my previous number of wins, going 6-2. This was only good enough for 21^st overall, however, and as I used the team in various Nugget Bridge Live tournaments over the next few weeks, I realized something: I hated the team. Some of the ‘Mons were cool, but the team didn’t really mesh together as a whole.

Teams Described in This Article

The Winter Battle

As the Winter WiFi Battle approached, I knew that this would be the perfect opportunity to test out a team and practice for the Winter Regionals. I messed around with a few gimmicks (including pairing Swagger Sableye with a Normal Gem Explosion Own Tempo Lickilicky) before deciding that I was going to return to what brought me success in my first regional competition: Breloom. One thing that led me in this direction was a nifty new toy it received after I first used it in Philly: its Dream World Ability, Technician. Knowing I wanted to center a team around Techniloom, I came up with the following team:

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Trait: Technician
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
– Mach Punch
– Bullet Seed
– Spore
– Protect

This was a major change from the Breloom I used in my first Regionals. The obvious change is the Ability, which thus necessitated a switch from Drain Punch and Seed Bomb to Mach Punch and Bullet Seed. A change in the ability also necessitated a change in the item, so I swapped out a Toxic Orb with the much more useful Focus Sash. The less obvious change was a switch from an Adamant Nature to a Jolly one. I deliberated for a while on which to use, as both have their advantages: Adamant does more damage to things that threaten me and guarantees a few OHKOs that Jolly doesn’t, such as Mach Punch on non-Chople/Sash 252 HP Tyranitar and Bullet Seed on Rotom-W and Politoed (assuming the minimum two hits), while Jolly and these EVs lets me outspeed neutral base 80s. The ability to Spore things like Chandelure and Heatran before they could move guided my final decision, though there was also the bonus of winning the priority race against any Mamoswine I might come across.

Togekiss @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 76 SDef / 180 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
– Follow Me
– Roost
– Air Slash
– Tailwind

Breloom’s original partner in crime, it more or less did exactly the same thing as it did in Philly. 180 Speed allowed it to redirect Hitmontop Fake Outs, while the HP and Special Defense allowed it to tank Ice Beams and Draco Meteors meant for Breloom with relative ease. I changed two things from the original Togekiss, electing to replace Protect with Roost to help tank even more damage and replacing the Leftovers that I previously had with a Sitrus Berry. I originally only did this because I wanted the Leftovers recovery on Heatran more (see below), but I found that I actually preferred having the Sitrus Berry anyway as its activation after the first Follow Me’d attack often let me survive the second.

Heatran @ Leftovers
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 244 HP / 52 Def / 76 SAtk / 4 SDef / 132 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Heat Wave
– Earth Power
– Substitute
– Protect

I straight up lifted this set from beautiful editor plaid‘s 2013 Philly Regional team. I’d messed around a bit with Wolfe’s variation as well, but I felt that having a bit more bulk was more in line with my personal playstyle. Like dashing editor plaid, my endgame plan was to get in a position where Heatran could set up a Substitute and slowly chip away at the opponent without being threatened in return.

Cresselia @ Chesto Berry
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 28 SAtk / 124 SDef / 4 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
– Icy Wind
– Skill Swap
– Psyshock
– Rest

This is also lifted from intrepid editor plaid’s article but with a variation. I wanted my Cresselia to have the option to recover health, but Togekiss and Heatran took both of the standard HP-regenerating items. My solution was to use Rest, and this single decision helped me win more than one stallfest where I was able to outlast the opponent purely due to my sleeping. It was also enjoyable to see the hearts of my opponents break as they come close to KOing my Cress, only for me to sleep away the damage. I have to say that RestoCress is my favorite variation of Cresselia.

Gastrodon @ Rindo Berry
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Def / 28 SAtk / 120 SDef
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
– Recover
– Earth Power
– Mirror Coat
– Ice Beam

If I’m going to steal two mons from fabulous editor evan’s team, why not a third? I became interested in Mirror Coat Gastrodon after losing to Fishy’s in the NB Major. I felt as though my team could use something to help against Trick Room and Rain teams, so Gastrodon seemed like a natural choice. I made sure mine was blue, though, since East Side Best Side.

Scizor @ Steel Gem
Trait: Technician
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Protect
– Bullet Punch
– Bug Bite
– Swords Dance

In keeping with my moveset thievery, I lifted this set straight from Aaron Zheng’s Worlds team. I tried to use it more or less in the way he described, and I felt it functioned well in that role.

I did pretty well for myself in the WiFi tournament, peaking at 1780 before sliding down to a final score of 1706 after a night of terrible plays and decisions. As I expected, Breloom/Togekiss ended up being my most popular lead, given their great synergy together. I could set up Tailwind while I protected with Breloom, allowing me to outspeed anything that wasn’t Scarfed or named Accelgor, or I could just go for an early Spore with Follow Me support. Breloom/Cresselia was also a popular lead for me. Cresselia didn’t quite have the same synergy with Breloom that Togekiss did, but Icy Wind still allowed Breloom to outspeed many threats, including Adamant Weavile, Starmie and the genies. Cresselia’s presence on the field also baited Tyranitar, and the combination of an Icy Wind on the switch in plus a Mach Punch from Breloom the next turn often let me kill off Tar before it could do anything.

Despite my myriad methods of dealing with Tyranitar, however, it was still a thorn in my side, being present in 8 of my 22 losses. I also had problems against Garchomp, Cresselia and Rotom-W, each of which were present in 5 of my losses, as well as Thundurus-I and Zapdos, which were each present in 4 of my losses. It became pretty obvious as I went over my data that I had a problem with Goodstuffs, and I decided that I was going to have to change some things around if I wanted to succeed in the upcoming Regionals.

First of all, I got rid of Gastrodon. This was the easiest decision I made, as I never liked it anyway. As I played more games in the tournament, I felt as though it was essential to my victory in about a third of my matches, but it was the good-for-nothing ‘Mon I didn’t know how to use in the other 67%. My data supported my decision to drop it, as I only won 59% of the games I used it in (compared to an overall win percentage of 71% not counting disconnections). Scizor was a harder ‘Mon to drop, given that I felt confident using it and had fun doing so, but the data also bore me out: I only won 61% of the games I brought it to. I tried a few things in those two slots (including Gyarados, Swampert and Rotom-W), but the team wasn’t quite going in the direction I wanted it to. I had two choices: revert back to what I was using for the Winter Battle or blow the team up and try attacking it from a different angle. In the end, I chose the latter option.

The Regional

Breloom was perfect as it was, so I kept that the same. I really liked having Follow Me support, but I didn’t want to be restricted by two Ice weaknesses at the very beginning of team building. Thus, I chose Rage Powder Volcarona to replace Togekiss. That necessitated a switch out from Heatran, but I still liked the idea of having a somewhat bulky Steel dishing out damage from behind a Substitute. That led to me looking into Excadrill. Gyarados and Rotom-W would serve as bulky Water-types with Speed control (and in Gyarados, a way to stop Trick Room from getting set up in Taunt). Finally, I would tie it all together with a support Latias, using Swagger and Safeguard to help boost my own Physical ‘Mons.

However, this team did not gel at all when I tested it. Latias in particular was completely dead weight, and I was never able to get my envisioned combo off before it died. I substituted my old Cress back in, running Helping Hand over Skill Swap since nothing else on my team really appreciated it. In the week leading up to Regionals, though, I still had some problems. Gyarados in particular was not doing a whole lot for me, as it was neither powerful enough to brute force through things with Waterfall nor bulky enough to be much of a supporter. I still needed a Trick Room stopper with similar resists, though, so with only a day to go I substituted in my favorite Pokemon from the 2013 Philly team: Crobat. In the end, the team ended up looking something like this:

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Trait: Technician
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 240 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
– Spore
– Mach Punch
– Bullet Seed
– Protect

This was supposed to be unchanged from the WiFi tournament, as stated before. No need to fix what ain’t broke. However, I RNGed my own Breloom instead of using one from Biosci, and in the process of training it I managed to give it 4 Special Attack EVs. What made this worse was that it was at the expense of Speed, meaning that instead of beating max Speed neutral base 80s, I’d be tying them. Thankfully I didn’t get into a situation where I would need to win such a Speed tie in the tournament, but this is still a reminder of why it always pays to double check your work!

Crobat @ Flying Gem
Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Atk / 228 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Acrobatics
– Tailwind
– Taunt
– U-turn

Crobat was able to do a couple of things Gyarados was not. First of all, it diversified my methods of Speed control by adding Tailwind to the mix. Gyara originally had Thunder Wave, but I ended up dropping it to try to get more damage output with Stone Edge. Gaining back another method of Speed control really helped me out, and Tailwind in particular was helpful to get games started in my favor. It also had a more favorable matchup against Hitmontop, a ‘Mon that bugged me in testing. Finally, it gave me two interesting toys to use: Flying Gem Acrobatics, which helped against the aforementioned Hitmontop as well as being crucial to my victory against cakesofspan by taking out his Amoonguss in one hit T1, and U-Turn, which is a nifty little move that suits my playstyle of frustrating the opponent.

Volcarona @ Fire Gem
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 104 HP / 252 SAtk / 152 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
– Rage Powder
– Bug Buzz
– Overheat
– Protect

Originally added mainly as Rage Powder support and another anti-Hitmontop lead, I soon grew to love this little moth. Everyone loves their Dragon Gem Draco Meteor nuke, but few seem to utilize the power of a Fire Gem Overheat. I’d say ashes to ashes, and they’d all fall down. It scored me a lot of OHKOs that my opponent wasn’t expecting, such as against Landorus-T and Hitmontop, and did a lot of damage to other important threats (including 63% min against a 252 HP Calm Cresselia). I could have run Timid to outspeed a few extra threats, but I felt like the damage output I saw justified my decision to go Modest.

Excadrill @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 236 HP / 180 Atk / 4 Def / 76 SDef / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
– Earthquake
– Rock Slide
– Substitute
– Protect

It’s always a good idea to include a Steel-type when team building, and a combination of things led me to consider Excadrill. It had good type synergy with the rest of my team, both offensively and defensively, and I was expecting an uptick in Sand use, so having something that outspeeds everything up to Scarf Chandelure in Sand seemed like a good idea. While I expected this to have a positive impact on my team, I underestimated how great a sweeper this thing could be. In addition to dealing out damage, it also refused to die. Defiant to the end, it heard the call to carry on. I only brought it to one match, but it was my MVP there.

Rotom-W @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 236 HP / 88 Def / 180 SDef / 4 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
– Protect
– Thunderbolt
– Hidden Power [Ice]
– Thunder Wave

I decided that I wanted a bulky Water type on the team, so I used a version of Junpei Yamamoto’s bulky Worlds Rotom-W. It would have the best defensive type synergy of any of the bulky Waters I looked at, so it seemed like a good choice. I chose HP Ice over Grass because the ability to hit Dragons and Thundurus-T was more important than my ability to OHKO Gastrodon, who could be taken out by Breloom or brute forced by my other ‘Mons anyway. Originally, I was going to have Reflect in the first slot over Protect, but I straight up forgot to replace Protect after I was done leveling it. Another reminder to make absolutely sure your team is ready before you lock your box!

Cresselia @ Chesto Berry
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 28 SAtk / 124 SDef / 4 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
– Ice Beam
– Psyshock
– Helping Hand
– Rest

After Latias failed to impress me, I went back to my Cress from the WiFi tournament but with a change. I forewent having an extra form of Speed control in exchange for the ability to hit threats like Thundurus harder with Ice Beam. In retrospect, I only faced one Thundurus all tournament, and I didn’t even bring Cress to that battle, so I think I would have been better served sticking with Icy Wind. There were a few moments where having that extra Speed control would have been more optimal.

Virginia Regionals

I had my team. I had my car. I had my two friends from home who were supposed to come with me bail at the last minute, so instead of them I ended up taking two more Nugget Bridgers. Team STRONGCAR consisted of Toronto Regional second-place finisher dtrain, VGC phenom SapphireBirch, World Champion Ray Rizzo, babby VGC player kittenmay and yours truly. The drive down was longer than it had to be as I missed a turn near Baltimore and had to go across half of Maryland as a result, but thankfully no one else seemed to notice. The ride was made shorter by having awesome people in the car, and the musical stylings of Ray Rizzo made the trip fly by like it was nothing. If you have not heard his rendition of the Pokemon cartoon’s first theme song, it is like looking into the face of God and having him tell you, “You are my most wondrous creation.”

We got there around 8 PM, and after meeting up at the event hotel, we went out to Steak and Shake for a nice dinner with VGC celebrities EnFuego, ryuzaki and tds. Nothing else really went on that night, but the next night we met up with more great people, including Wolfey, Cybertron and DARK HORSE pookar. Also, Kinderlew was there. Hot battles were served up, and I’m sad to say that the team of pookar and wer couldn’t stand up to the multi-battle one-two punch of Rizzo and Glick. After the battles, many of us went to the sketchiest pizza place I have ever been in: Cici’s. If you want to be a Pokemon Master, you should probably not go there, simply because staying alive is one of the requisite skills you need to develop.

The morning of, I filled my stomach with coffee and an omelette from IHOP and headed over to the hotel for registration. While in line, I said my hellos to a few more VGCers I knew, such as Nightblade7000, Dubulous and handsome editor Evan. I also met a few people I didn’t know before, such as drunkaya and jio. I got registered around 12 and waited with butterflies in my stomach (maybe they were attracted to the eggs?) until the tournament began.

R1: BYE

This was a really tough opponent. I don’t remember much from this battle, and the notes I took were unhelpful, but I know that I ended up coming out on top with a little patience. Record: 1-0

R2: vs. Cakesofspan (1-0)

vs.

My first real matchup was posted, and my heart sunk. I’d recognized the name from the weekly WiFi tournaments on NB, and I knew that I was going to have a heck of a battle. I was more nervous in that I knew from the team preview that he was packing Trick Room, which my team was not really prepared to deal with if it got set up. This was probably my best match in terms of how both of us played and the absence of any kind of significant hax, so I saved the video.

Some points from the video:

• I don’t think Cakes was expecting Acrobatics to do that much damage to Amoonguss T1, but it definitely gave me an advantage right off the Bat.
• Tyranitar’s Fling definitely shocked me. Definitely a great move by cakes though putting it on there, as it would have OHKOed my Cress with the sand anyway. I’ve been inspired to use this on another team.
• Mach Punching the Cresselia near the end there wasn’t the absolute safest move I could have done there, and looking back, I probably should have tried to Protect. I was hoping I could get Cress down into Sandstorm KO range and watch it corrode like a beast in repose. I could then deal with Chandelure with Crobat and Excadrill, since I knew TR would be ending that turn.

It was a close match, but Excadrill really ended up being the deciding factor, netting me half of my KOs. Record: 2-0

R3: vs. Joseph Young (1-1)

vs.

I was paired down for this round against a guy who had previously complemented me on my Foongus plush that I’d brought with me. It was his first VGC tournament, though his brother had attended the last tourney in their home city of Philly. He was a really chill opponent. I was expecting Trick Room based on his Jellicent, but he ended up surprising me with Normal Gem Explosion Gigalith, which took out my Breloom and almost took out my Crobat. I defeated his other ‘Mons pretty handily, and went on to my next match. Record: 3-0

R4: vs. Tristan Macek (3-0)

I have met Tristan before, as he is a TCG friend of Birch’s. Sadly, I did not get to battle him, as he had to leave for his bus back to NYC right after his third match. I got a free win out of it, though, so I’m not complaining. Record: 4-0

R5: vs. JiveTime (4-0)

vs.

Another Nugget Bridger I knew I was going to have problems against. His team looked to me like a very solid Goodstuffs team, and I wasn’t sure how to play against it. I ended up leading with my go-to leads of the tournament against his Landorus-T and Latios. He played a very solid game, seemingly knowing exactly when to Protect and make the correct switches. He also surprised me by having a Trick Room mode and infuriated me when his Cress Swaggered my Volcarona and prevented it from KOing his Metagross with Overheat. Our match eventually went to the timer, and as I had a deficit of two mons to three, he won the game. Record: 4-1

R6: vs. Alex Chmielinski (4-1)

vs.

Rain is probably my team’s best matchup, so I was thrilled to see that my opponent was bringing a standard Rain team. I ended up beating him 4-0, in what would have been a 5-turn victory had he not tried to Protect stall with Politoed. Record: 5-1

R7: vs. jio (5-1)

vs.

I knew jio by name from NB, but had never really talked to him before. He seemed to be bringing Rain as well, though having that Thundurus scared me a bit. Indeed, he led with Politoed and Kingdra against my Crobat and Breloom. He surprised me T1 in that he Hydro Pumped Crobat, leaving me in a 3-4 hole to start the game. However, after that everything in the luck department started to go downhill for my opponent. I ended up winning due to the following things happening:

• Rotom-W Thunderbolt critting and OHKOing his Kingdra
• Rotom-W Thunderbolt paralyzing his Scizor
• Volcarona living with 4 HP through his Timid Specs Thundurus-T Thunder, which had a 50% chance of OHKOing me
• Volcarona’s Fire Gem Overheat connecting on his Thundurus, killing it.

I usually don’t apologize for “hax” since Pokemon is Pokemon and the RNG screws us all over at one point or another, but the combination of those things made me apologize profusely to him for the victory. To his credit, he took the loss like a champion. There was some confusion after the fact, as both of us circled that we had won, but we got everything straightened up after the fact. Record: 6-1

R8: vs. Alex Valente (President of the Penn State Pokemon Society)

vs.

I knew that if I had one more win, I’d top cut and definitely reach my goal of placing top 16. I sat down at the table, seeing that the top 3 slots had Nugget Bridgers on one side (cool guy editor Evan at the top slot, myself in the middle, and dubs on my left) and the PSPS on the other (with the Vice President, President, and Treasurer in that order). We talked a little bit about the upcoming tournament and how the PSPS was really making strides compared to Philly, where half of them seemingly got DQed over illegal move tutor moves. The battles started, and I led Batmoth against Topmoth. We had a pretty even match, and he surprised me with a KO on Breloom with Mach Punch from Intimidate Hitmontop. However, I ended up with the win, finishing my opponent off with an Acrobatics boosted by Flying Gem and Helping Hand on his Gastrodon. Final Swiss record: 7-1, ranked 5^th overall.

Top Eight

I had reached my first ever top cut in just my 3^rd Regionals event. I was blown away that I managed to get this far. It was very cool to see that 6 of the other 7 top finishers were Nugget Bridgers as well: suave editor Evan, dubs, tds, Ben7000, dtrain, and my opponent in top 8: JiveTime. Of course, the gods of hax would even out my luck against jio by placing me against the only person who beat me in Swiss. I sat there wondering, did I get what I deserved?

G1:

vs.

I tried a new pairing, knowing that he had a strong opening against me last time. We traded U-turns turn 1 and brought out Cresselia and Tyranitar, respectively. I lost Cress the next turn when a combination of Rock Slide, Draco Meteor and Sandstorm brought it down. The rest of the match was a wash for me, and I just missed not getting 4-0’d when my Volcarona Bug Buzz brought his Tyranitar down to about 1 HP.

G2:

vs.

I lead Batmoth this time and made getting Tailwind up my priority since he didn’t bring Trick Room in the last battle. I lost Crobat T1 to a Draco Meteor, but he got Tailwind up, which allowed me to kill Latias with Bug Buzz and Landorus with Overheat before either could do much to me. I got a lucky Rock Slide miss later on, and managed to take the second match 2-0 with Volcarona landing the final blow: a Helping Hand boosted Bug Buzz on Tyranitar.

G3:

 vs.

My biggest mistake of the tournament comes at this crucial moment: I never learned a goshdarn thing against Fishy in the Nugget Bridge Tour, and I switched up my leads after winning the last game. Failing to bring Crobat was how I disappeared, as JiveTime’s Cresselia was free to set up Trick Room and Tyranitar to sweep. I once again lost without defeating a single one of JiveTime’s mons.

Though the loss against JiveTime was disappointing, I still did much better than I had expected. Top 8 was nothing to sneeze at, and I earned enough CP to gain a bye at the next round of Regionals. I had a nice victory dinner after we left, and then set out into the night on the long drive home.

Props:

• The VGC people I hung out with seemed to be really cool. Shoutouts go to everyone in the strongthmobile, EnFuego, Cybertron, Wolfe, pookar, Ben7000, tds, all around good guy who is strong editor Evan, dubs, and jio. Hopefully I’ll see you all in Boston in April!
• The event organizers for actually including a hack check as part of registration. Keep doing this!
• Breloom and Crobat, for being the deadliest to lead. They’re both on the squishy side, but as an aggressive lead I couldn’t really have a better two ‘Mons to work with. Against faster ‘Mons, I could run Tailwind with Crobat while Protecting or letting myself get Sashed in exchange for a Spore on the slower opponent. Against Trick Room leads, I could Taunt and/or Spore at my leisure, shutting them down. There are things that completely shut it down, such as Thundurus-I, but it’s still a very scary lead.
• Tristan, for gifting me a win.
• Finishing top 8. I hated the ending of my run myself, but it started with some all right scenes.
• My Foongus plush, courtesy of dtrain, made an excellent stress ball, and it got me all sorts of compliments.
• Energy drinks and the cold weather, for keeping me awake during the drive home.

Slops:

• The event organizers, for starting late and being noticeably absent during rounds. I understand that they’re mostly TCG volunteers and they’re doing the best they can, but some level of organization would be nice.
• Ray Rizzo for stiffing me on gas money, you bum!
• Other than being a hax-dispensing machine in my match against jio, I wasn’t able to effectively utilize Rotom-W. I know there’s nothing I can say to change that part after the fact, but I think I would have preferred using something that was better at countering Trick Room in that slot.
• My scatterbrain. While fortunately my Breloom didn’t have to test any Speed ties with its 4 SAtk EVs, there were a few moments where I think I would have appreciated Reflect support from Rotom-W. Hopefully the lesson was learned: always double check your ‘Mons before locking your battle box!
• The woman at the toll booth outside Baltimore on the trip back home. She asked me if the Giants had made the Super Bowl and cackled maniacally when I told her no. It was kind of funny in a surreal way, though. I’m sure she’s happy now with the way the game went.

Special shoutouts go out to Biosci, for being the Oak to my Red and giving me my first ‘Mons, as well as Ben7000 and Synre, both of whom listened to me bounce my silly ideas off them (with varying degrees of patience) and gave constructive criticism in return.

Epilogue

I was swamped with work following the Regional, so I decided I was just going to run essentially the same team in the WiFi tournament the next week. While I did relatively poorly in the event (finishing with a rating of 1636 and a record of 28 wins, 8 losses, and 9 disconnections), there were two changes I wanted to talk about briefly. The first was a minor change that I alluded to earlier in the article, which was to change Ice Beam on Cresselia back to Icy Wind. As I expected, I found that the additional method of Speed control was more valuable to me than the damage output of Ice Beam, so it was a good move on my part.

The second and more drastic change was motivated by three things. The first thing was that jio’s Thundurus-T scared me, as it was able to rip through my team like it was nothing (my luck notwithstanding). I wanted something, then, that could wall the genie and his Incarnate cousin. The second thing was that I was severely disappointed with Rotom-W’s performance in the Regional, and I wanted to replace it while still keeping some of its excellent resistances. Finally, above all else, I wanted to use something a little off-the-wall on my team, since I wanted to have fun after a grueling Regionals. With these three things in mind, I settled on this:

Lanturn @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 52 SAtk / 168 SDef / 38 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
– Protect
– Thunderbolt
– Ice Beam
– Scald

Inspired by moot’s heroic use of Lanturn in Oregon, I pulled this from a gimmick team I had made a friend and put it in as an anti-Rain and Thundurus measure. The cool points from using Lanturn on a team would have been enough for me, but I found that this was actually a pretty anti-meta mon when put up against Rain. The EVs listed let it take two consecutive Draco Meteors from Modest Kingdra and at least two Giga Drains from Modest Ludicolo, with a 3HKO being most likely. Thundurus also often couldn’t do a single thing to it, limiting itself to the rare Swagger or dealing ineffectual damage with Hidden Power Flying or Ice. It didn’t have a whole lot of firepower behind it, and I think in hindsight I would have appreciated Thunder Wave over Scald for the extra anti-Rain utility, but I’m definitely glad I tried this little fish out.

About the Author

Werford A player of the games since the inception of the franchise, Werford only really got into the competitive scene late in the 2012 season. Since then, he's top cut two Regionals and a Premiere Challenge. A player more known for his terrible hockey pun nicknames, will he go on to even greater success in the future?

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