'Ello reader. This past weekend (February 14-15) I attended the Portland, Oregon regional finishing with a 6-2 record and bubbling out of top cut at 9th place. Given that it was my first regional I can't realistically say that it was a subpar performance, though coming so close to making top cut was pretty disappointing. :(
Team Building and Practice Leading up to Regionals
For much of January I had been testing a team centered around Imprison Mega Gardevoir and Bold Rage Powder Volcarona. The basic idea of the duo was to draw away physical attacks (mainly Steel types) from Gardevoir, or at least discourage opponents from doing so because of Rocky Helmet and Flame Body, while Gardevoir sweeps with Hyper Voice. Imprison was to stop Sylveon, and if I could get myself into a position where my opponent's Pokemon were weak to Gardevoir, they couldn't Protect and would have to take a lot of damage from Hyper Voice while doing little in return or risk having their back Pokemon get blown up. For the most part I did like how the two played, however, Gardevoir itself had plenty of flaws that was very difficult for me to find concrete solutions to. For one, Gardevoir can't touch most Steel types, and two, its physical bulk was just so bad. There were plenty of things that could take Hyper Voices and Psyshocks, which was okay with me, but being so weak to so many physical attackers is what made me gave up on that idea. Talonflame and Landorus-T were the worst Pokemon to face off for those two, as Talonflame will flat out KO Volcarona (and Gardevoir, for that matter), preventing me from redirecting its partner's attack, and Landorus-T has powerful physical spread moves that nulls Rage Powder. It was an offensive core that just didn't trade damage very well with many threats.
What I ended up using wasn't something I planned on being my Oregon team. I was interested in testing the classic combo of Metagross + Hydreigon after seeing a decent amount of players using it on Battle Spot, and I sorta just worked from there. I added Togekiss immediately for Tailwind and its ability to redirect away weaknesses Hydreigon and Metagross had, then I added Rain mode to scare away threats like Landorus-T, Fire types, Dragons, and to a lesser extent Terrakion, then I added Terrakion for its ability to check certain Steel types, and in general, to improve my matchup vs Kangaskhan and Charizard. I thought of the six Pokemon in about thirty minutes; it was one of the many theorymon team structures I had tested, but the six Pokemon ended up working a lot better than I thought, so I just stuck with it. I had wanted to test Justin Burns' (Spurrific) Trick Room idea with Conkeldurr before Oregon, but I was too lazy to actually get the Pokemon necessary and I was enjoying laddering with this team on Battle Spot. It ended up getting closer and closer to regionals, so I didn't have time to practice new ideas anymore, so I had to dedicate my time to perfecting this team as much as I could.
I thought the team was solid overall. The rain bluff opened the door for my preferred core of Metagross + Hydreigon + Togekiss, however, it had plenty of flaws in testing and in the actual tournament. For one, Hydreigon was basically my only answer to Steel types (Terrakion loses to common ones like Mawile, Metagross, and Aegislash), I had a gaping weakness to Paralysis, and a well played core of Charizard / Landorus-T / Terrakion / Aegislash was basically an auto loss for me. Throw all five of those things together and give them to a good player and I'm helpless, which is what ended up happening in round 4 of Oregon. I'll still use this team on Battle Spot with some tweaking, but there's not a chance that I'll be bringing it to live events anymore. Substitute Metagross was my trump card; however, after it dominated the regional in Missouri, it's something that plenty of people will expect and prepare for now. Not to mention the local players I talked to about my team will now know I don't actually intend on bringing rain unless they have an overwhelming weakness to it.
Last thing about the team: it's a flinching machine. I have six moves that can flinch and five Pokemon overall that can do so, including the very evil fast Rock Slide and Togekiss' Serene Grace Air Slash. I wouldn't rely on it unless it was in desperation, and I would never play a situation out expecting a flinch, but a well timed flinch could mean I get a free Substitute up, or a Tailwind, or in general, just free damage. I didn't build the team with the intention of having a lot of moves that can flinch, but it was an extra out that I had with the team. I can't count the number of times I said "sorry" after I flinched my opponent. Good thing everyone I played at the tournament was very accepting of the nature of the team and the game and I didn't get anyone getting even a little bit angry at me! :)
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The Team
Elmo (Politoed) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 212 HP / 132 Def / 4 SAtk / 116 SDef / 44 Spd
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Icy Wind
- Helping Hand
- Protect
This might be classified as a "rain team", however, Politoed is far and away the Pokemon I used the least in practice and in the tournament. Rain mode was just something that could be prepared for too easily. However, for the people that don't prepare for it, they often overextend themselves to beat rain but then fall victim to the rest of the team, so even if I never bring Politoed, it did a nice job of playing mind games with people. I also intentionally placed Politoed and Ludicolo first and second in Team Preview to make people more aware of the threat of rain.
Politoed is better off in this format with the access to support moves like Icy Wind and Helping Hand, and non Scarf Politoed is now something more than a Drizzlebot. Overall though, Politoed was still pretty disappointing when I brought it, as I could never get myself in a position to fully abuse Icy Wind, and while it had decent bulk, it was still relatively easy to bring down with repeated hits. I only used it once in Oregon and it was taken down in two turns without ever getting an attack off.
The spread was created by DaWoblefet, so major credit to him for helping me with this (and countless other spreads that I asked him for in the past!). The bulk allowed me to survive Kangaskhan's Double Edge and be 3HKOed by Specs Sylveon's Hyper Voice. I didn't actually care about either of these attacks, I just wanted Politoed to be as bulky as possible on both sides to keep rain up and to provide speed control. However, my favorite part of the spread is the speed. After an Icy Wind Drop I outspeed non Scarf Landorus-T. I didn't actually care about outspeeding it either, however, Icy Winding it gives me crucial information about its item. If Landorus is still faster after Icy Wind I know they're holding Choice Scarf (though I suppose they could also be Jolly), if they take less than expected damage from the attack I know they're Assault Vest, and if they're slower and take the expected amount of damage I know they're probably Sash. This situation came up a couple times in practice and it definitely made Landorus-T easier to deal with.
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Grapes? (Ludicolo) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 108 HP / 252 SAtk / 148 Spd
Modest Nature
- Fake Out
- Scald
- Giga Drain
- Ice Beam
Very boring Pokemon and spread. It's a standard Assault Vest Ludicolo with a standard moveset; there's not much to learn here! The speed allows me to outrun Landorus-T under rain or Tailwind. I decided on a more offensive spread because I anticipated that I would use the rain portion of the team more, but I sometimes wish I had more bulk. I never found any useful baselines though so I just stuck with it. It's not an optimized spread, certainly, but Ludicolo did very well when I needed it.
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Terrakion @ Lum Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Double Kick
- Protect
Another boring build. Double Kick was for Bisharp and Smeargle, however, I should have used Stone Edge to get passed Wide Guard + Charizard and to OHKO most Thundurus-I. Those things gave me serious fits, and it's not like Smeargle is all that common and most Bisharps carry Life Orb anyway. I just didn't like making last minute changes and I just didn't test Stone Edge enough. I chose Lum Berry to have extra outs vs paralysis and burns, and I also really hate Smeargle.
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Oppenheimer (Hydreigon) (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power
I used Hydreigon about as much as any other Pokemon last year, so I was very comfortable with how it played and was familiar with most damage calcs. I originally used Life Orb to give myself more switch options vs Sylveon, however, I really didn't like its damage output compared to Specs. In theory I didn't like Scarf either, because I wanted Hydreigon to be as strong as possible. I should have at least tested it though, just to improve my matchup vs Salamence and Landorus-T.
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Metagross @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Atk / 4 Def / 36 SDef / 180 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Zen Headbutt
- Substitute
- Protect
The spread is Randy Kwa's. I know it outspeeds neutral natured base 100s, and he focused more on its bulk, but I don't actually know what the rest of the EVs do. I just shamelessly stole his spread because I was too lazy to run calcs before practicing with it. I never found that I needed to do anything else with Metagross so I stuck with it, and I definitely agree with Randy that Adamant is better than Jolly after he told me of its advantages a while back. I really liked the bulk with Mega Metagross as it allowed it to play to its advantages (such as countering Terrakion and Sylveon) quite well.
I used Ice Punch over Substitute initially, however, I never found myself ever using it, so I tested Substitute to allow me to work around Sucker Punch and status (both of which Metagross obviously hates). Substitute ended up doing both of those things better than I expected and more. It helped greatly against Trick Room and Tailwind teams because it bought me extra turns, and with Follow Me and Fake Out support, Metagross' natural bulk, and the synergy it had with the team it allowed me to dominate games with Metagross. People often focus their attention to Metagross after it sits behind a Sub, which leaves them open to my other two offensive Pokemon in Terrakion or Hydreigon or allowed me to set up Tailwind with Togekiss. Substitute also allowed me to completely shut down Mega Venusaur which had been rising in popularity (though I never actually faced any at Oregon) and with Metagross' good speed, it worked like a second Protect in that I would sacrifice 25% of my HP to avoid taking more from slower powerful Pokemon like Heatran. I could talk about all the things Substitute did for me in practice, but the move had countless advantages, and it was easily my favorite part of the team. People never expected it and I was elated to see an astounding four people in Missouri make top cut with it. Having both Substitute and Protect kinda cut into Metagross' coverage, but the way the team was built and how I used the Pokemon this never became an issue. Steel + Psychic has really good neutral coverage, and Metagross was an excellent Pokemon to use to at least 2HKO much of the metagame and it's just a well built Pokemon overall with how its stats are distributed: it's fast, bulky, has good power, and has a positive or better matchup against a very large group of Pokemon, including the very common Sylveon and Terrakion. The metagame is somewhat limited in physical steel types that can actually outright beat Sylveon (Mawile's base form is awful at taking Hyper Voices, Cobalion has bad special bulk and is quite weak, and others like Ferrothorn and Escavalier were really held back by their speed). Clear Body in base form and Substitute gave Metagross so many advantages over other Steel types and it's one of the few physical attackers in the game that really doesn't mind facing off against Intimidate or burns. Don't let Metagross' lack of dominating raw power discourage you from using it over other megas like Charizard or Kangaskhan. It's a fantastic Pokemon that may function differently from those two but will almost never let you down, and definitely give Substitute a try! It was fantastic move to make Mega Metagross even more well rounded than it already was.
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such toge (Togekiss) (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 4 SAtk / 60 SDef / 76 Spd
Bold Nature
- Air Slash
- Follow Me
- Tailwind
- Protect
For whatever reason I've become obsessed with using redirection in this format, and Togekiss is one of the best Follow Me users in the game because of its defensive stats and access to Tailwind. I know Randy doesn't like that Togekiss picked up extra weaknesses with its Fairy typing, but for this team, its resistances to Dark, Dragon, and Fighting were very important. Togekiss is the Pokemon I bring the most because there's almost never a situation where redirection or Tailwind wouldn't help.
The spread allows me to survive Life Orb Bisharp's Iron Head while maintaining an even HP stat for Super Fang, and I just dumped the rest of the EVs into its special bulk because I didn't care about its special attack. The speed allows me to get the jump on defensive Rotom so I can set up Tailwind before they possibly KO me with a double target, and at worst, I can try to flinch them!
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The Tournament
I don't actually take notes on what goes on in the battle and only ever write Team Preview, so I'm going off of memory on what happened in the battle and the Pokemon I brought. Bear with me if there are any mistakes!
Round 1 - Aaron Whitehurst
He brought:
I brought:
Pretty dedicated looking Trick Room team. Oh, and with a Golem. I go with my standard anti Trick Room set up of getting Metagross behind a Substitute and putting Ludicolo in the back with the intention of bringing it in later to stall out a turn of Trick Room with Fake Out. His team didn't have a lot of offense, so I was able to out damage him even in Trick Room and I ended up being up 4-1 with just his Aegislash left. At this point the battle kinda dragged on because I didn't want to switch Hydreigon in for risk of getting crit with Flash Cannon, so I ended up winning by slowly chipping away at Aegislash.
Result: Win
Record: 1-0
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Round 2 - Travis Knickerbocker
He brought:
I brought:
Another Trick Room team, with some fast options like Mega Salamence and Raikou. So, same as last time, Metagross out in front to set up Substitute, and Ludicolo in the back. Good thing Team Preview alone scared him away from bringing his most powerful threat in Camerupt, so it was just a matter of trading damage effectively against his other Pokemon while maintaining good board position. For some reason I was surprised to see that his Abomasnow wasn't mega because regular Salamence almost doesn't exist anymore and Camerupt is useless without its mega stone, but it didn't end up mattering too much because his Salamence mega evolved before Abomasnow even came in; I just had to be careful not to expect to KO his Abomasnow when it could have had Focus Sash. At one point in the battle he had Cresselia at a little more than half HP and Abomasnow down to its Sash vs my Metagross and Hydreigon. I played it way too safe by splitting my attacks while Abomasnow Protects, and his Cresselia reveals that it has Colbur Berry, so it was able to survive my Dark Pulse to set up Trick Room again. Thankfully my Metagross was behind a Sub vs two Pokemon that couldn't do a lot of damage to it, but I had to hard switch Togekiss into a Blizzard the next turn because I wanted to conserve Hydreigon (at this point Ludicolo had already gone down). It came down to his Salamence vs my Metagross and Togekiss with Hydreigon in the back and two turns of Trick Room left. At least I thought it was two turns: I didn't actually count this time because I didn't think it would have mattered, so I had to be careful to get this detail exactly right so I can sequence my moves properly. I double Protect to see what move he has to KO Metagross, whether it'd be a Fire move or Earthquake. It turns out Salamence has Earthquake, so I Iron Head and set up Tailwind. If I was wrong and there was more than two turns of Trick Room left, I would have been in a lot of trouble because his Salamence would outspeed my Hydreigon and Togekiss just can't KO Salamence fast enough. Thankfully I counted properly and he ends up using Double Edge on my Metagross anyway, which sealed up the game for me. Close win, and Travis was certainly appreciative of seeing my Metagross' Substitute, saying that it was a really cool tech. I agree!
Result: Win
Record: 2-0
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Round 3 - Zach Costello (shadowz900)
He brought:
I brought:
I missed Zen Headbutt twice in this game, which was definitely annoying. My Metagross was surprisingly faster than his, and his Rotom-W revealed itself to be offensive when it used Volt Switch. I remember his Tornadus getting Tailwind up, which was difficult to play around, and during the last play of the the game, I thought I was done for. He had full health Metagross and Conkeldurr with almost no HP left vs my full health Hydreigon and Metagross at 75%. His Metagross whips out Bullet Punch onto my Hydreigon, and I knew he would double target it with a Mach Punch also, so I fully expected this to go down to a Metagross mirror, which he might win because he had full HP and I didn't. However, his Conkeldurr was thankfully the bulky variant, as my Hydreigon was able to survive both priority attacks and KO Metagross with Dark Pulse, and my own Metagross finishes up Conkeldurr. Close game that I thought was lost at multiple points in the battle.
Result: Win
Record: 3-0
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Round 4 - Demitrios Kagaras (kingdjk)
He brought:
I brought:
I didn't know who he was at the time, but I learned after our battle that Demitri was having a good start to the season after he had top cut North California. Also, man, this battle. Oh, this battle. Remember how I mentioned Charizard / Thundurus / Aegislash / Terrakion teams was almost an auto loss for my team? Well, yeah, that's exactly what happened. I had nothing for his Aegislash and Thundurus lead, and even with the great team matchup, Demitri did nothing to give me any sort of leeway to get back into this game. I didn't even get to find out his last Pokemon! He was still a few turns away from clinching the win when I forfeited, but I didn't want to drag the battle out any longer than I had to. Also I really had to go to the
Result: Loss
Record: 3-1
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Round 4 - Max Douglas (starmetroid)
He brought:
I brought:
Welp. It's Max. He entered the weekend first in Canada in CP and I've played against him countless times at Premier Challenges. Coming off of a loss, I was definitely nervous that I could very well drop a second straight game. I did, however, recognize this team exactly: I played against Randy a month prior who had the exact same six Pokemon, and two weeks before Oregon, I played against Max's main team building partner Mark Hanson (Crawdaunt) at a Premier Challenge who also had the same six Pokemon. Despite being a formidable opponent, I knew exactly* what Max's team did, so I had to use that to my advantage. We also shared three of the same Pokemon and we brought all three to this battle, which was kinda weird. The end game came down to my Terrakion and <50% Hydreigon at -2 with a Paralyzed Togekiss in the back vs his full health Hydreigon and Metagross. My intention was to switch Hydreigon out and Protect with Terrakion as he Protects with his Life Orb* Hydreigon and attack with Metagross into my Protect. Instead, I didn't have enough time to cancel my moves all the way, and I stuck with my foolish decision to click Close Combat into his Metagross as he uses Iron Head to KO my Terrakion. At this point, my Hydreigon was low enough that his Metagross could clean up the game. I was definitely bummed out about choking away a probable win because I didn't have enough time. However, the win wasn't sealed because my Togekiss would have needed to break through paralysis twice for me to win with my original plan, which didn't exactly have the greatest odds of happening. I like to think that I would have been fully paralyzed in one of those turns anyway, which would mean I would have lost even if I selected the moves I wanted, but after dropping my second game with plenty of the tournament still left, my chances of cut weren't looking so hot. There were still three rounds left to go and I had already dropped my second game with only two 6-2s making cut. At the very least I lost to a friend, who really couldn't afford to drop a second game after he lost in round 1. Also, his Hydreigon had Choice Specs and not Life Orb. What the heck. Maybe it wasn't exactly the same as Mark's or Randy's team, so all I needed to do was Close Combat Hydreigon right away and have had a 75% chance of winning. But hindsight is 20/20.
Result: Loss
Record: 3-2
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Round 6 - Matt Alcina
He brought:
I brought:
The first thing I noticed in Team Preview was that the sight of rain could probably scare him away from bringing Landorus-T and Heatran to this game. So, up against Sylveon / Bisharp / Kangaskhan / Cresselia I realized I could probably outright win the game with Metagross behind a Sub and next to Terrakion, so I went for that play right from the get go. After I double Protect with Metagross and Terrakion vs his Cresselia and Kangaskhan, this is where the madness happened. I knew he'd switch his Kangaskhan out so I went for the Rock Slide and Iron Head onto his Cresselia. Sylveon comes in and Cresselia flinches. Okay, even though Rock Slide missed his Cresselia, I still had a decent chance to flinch it. So at this point I Iron Head Sylveon and Rock Slide again. His Bisharp comes in in place of Sylveon and Cresselia flinches a second time. I Double Kick Bisharp for the KO and Cresselia flinches for a third straight turn to an Iron Head. In the end, I won without him ever getting an attack off. I definitely know that with the nature of my team and how he kept trying to switch around two Pokemon he couldn't deal with very well that this game would likely would have been mine regardless (and he was also trying to Thunder Wave my Terrakion when he *didn't* flinch, which had Lum Berry), but with the tough team matchup, the flinching preventing him from ever attacking was pretty overkill, and I definitely felt bad because of it. Matt was kind enough to understand that these things happen in this game and didn't act the least bit salty.
Result: Win
Record: 4-2
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At this point we headed into lunch break. I still wasn't feeling good about my chances of making top cut, but with sideline reporter Justin Burns keeping track of my progress, he had let me know that my opponents had done very well thus far, putting my resistance at an astounding 76.7% before round 6. After talking with Mark (a TO who was very familiar with the tournament structure) he told me that there were 5-1s who probably didn't have resistance as good, and even though my resistance definitely wasn't going to stay at 76%, it likely wouldn't drop down below 67% or so, which Mark had estimated would be the resistance of the top 6-2. So, while I definitely knew that I still had to win my last two games, I was getting excited over an opportunity to play in top cut. As we looked at the pairings for round 7, though, I was crushed to see that Max and Demitri had been paired. I really needed that to NOT happen seeing as how my opponents need to win all their games for me to have the best chance of cutting, and two of my opponents getting paired meant that one of them would be guaranteed to lose.
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Round 7 - Richard Schmidt
He brought:
I brought:
My eyes lit up at this team matchup as his team was overwhelmingly weak to Metagross. This was the first and last game I brought Politoed, because I didn't need much else and I figured he might bring Volcarona even in the face of rain because he had nothing else to beat Metagross. I lead with Metagross and Hydreigon to his... Volcarona and Terrakion. Okay, really not what I was expecting, and even with the good team matchup I was down in a hole early because of an awful lead. I get rain up and Politoed goes down without ever getting a move off. I was thrown off by his decisions to never Protect early on, so after I got Tailwind up, I went on the offensive and brought the game to Metagross and Hydreigon vs Florges and Scizor, which I wasn't going to lose, even though I let my Metagross get weakened more than I needed to. I don't fault myself for leading the way I did, but I was definitely very nervous that I almost threw a game away that I had a big team advantage in.
Result: Win
Record: 5-2
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Round 8 - Kayhon Tahmaseb
He brought:
I brought:
I almost timed out at Team Preview and ended up not leading what I wanted to because of it. Metagross + Togekiss covered just about his entire team, except for Ferrothorn, which I really figured he would lead with because I had rain. He ended up leading with Mega Gardevoir and Sableye, which was a free Sub for my Metagross. At that point, with his Sableye never showing Foul Play or Knock Off he had nothing that could break my Metagross' Sub, let alone KO it, so I ended up winning the game without him getting an attack off (unless you count a burned Ferrothorn Gyro Balling into my Substitute).
Result: Win
Record: 6-2
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I was stoked at this point. After a convincing round 8 win, and with my resistance looking strong, my heart was racing that I had a very real chance to make cut at my first regional. It wasn't to be though: I finished in 9th place with an opponents' win% of 65.62% while 8th place Demitrios Kagaras' opponents' win% was at 70.31%. It was quite ironic because I was seated next to Demitri in round 8, and after we won at almost the exact same time, we expressed some excitement that our resistances had gone up. Little did I know at the time that I should have been rooting for him to lose* because he ended up beating me on tie breaker! That's not to say that I "deserved" to cut or anything, but it was disappointing to see that I came so close at a chance of winning.
*I'm just kidding. 10th place Josh Krueger had tied me on opponents' win%, so even if Demitri had lost and not been the one to knock me out of cut, my resistance would have gone down as a result, and Josh would take 8th place instead. Or maybe Josh also played Demitri and I would have been the 8th seed if Demitri lost in round 8. I don't know. But now I'm rambling.
After getting over bubbling (okay, I still haven't really gotten over it), I was elated to see that Max and Rushan had won seven straight games after both of them dropped round 1, and both had secured their spot in cut. They were also on opposite sides of the bracket, so we had a chance at an all BC finals. Max and Rushan ended up finishing second and third respectively, both losing to Conan, who had won his second tournament of the weekend after also taking home a Premier Challenge the day before, and he also finished the regional as the 8-0 player in swiss. (it's also kinda funny if I did take the 8th seed: I likely would have lost vs Conan because he's a highly capable player who had a good team matchup vs me, and if he did, he would have beaten three BC residents en route to a regional win)
In the end, I took home 40 CP from a top 16 finish, putting me in top 100 in North America. Only the top 40 will receive Worlds invites, so I've still got a lot of work to do, but I'm in a better position now than before the weekend had started.
- rapha
