This would be my first post here. Or rather, this would be my first post here with this account. Some might better recognize me as TRE's Brother. After getting an invite to the Nationals from my Top 4 finish in Seattle, I felt that my team strategy wouldn't be as effective the second time around, so I decided to give my team a complete overhaul. I based it off an early team I had online that I had quite a bit of success in using.
Team Preview:
Gigalith, Jellicent, Eelektross, Conkeldurr, Zoroark, Chandelure
It appears to be a Trick Room team. The Zoroark is out of place, and is just there for the mind games. There isn't anything that really helps the team in getting Trick Room off, and if you can stop Trick Room from occuring you should be fine. Or are you? My team is a fraud. It's a Fake Trick Room Zoroark team. Neither Jellicent nor Chandelure even have Trick Room.
The main theme of the team was deception/surprise. Surprise Sucker Punches, Turn 1 Explosions, Fire Gem Chandelure, Scarf Jellicent. The team has a number of things that can catch the opponent off guard to gain an advantage I can ride until the end of the battle. The risks can be pretty high, though. Lead matchups are very important for the team since a bad matchup can cause the team to simply collapse with little way to recover. The team looks great in battles when it wins, but looks terrible in losses.
The Team:
Like last time, my Pokemon are not RNG'd. The loss of a few stat points didn't come into play in any of my battles and even without RNG it didn't take much more than a week to breed all the Pokemon I used for this team. Not RNGing pretty much just meant that I couldn't really use Tornadus/Thundurus, but since, above all else, I wanted to use a team that did not play into the "Speed Tie Game", I was perfectly fine in leaving them off my team. Anyways, here are the six I used:
Gigalith (F) @ Normal Gem ***ufotable
Trait: Sturdy
IVs: 31/28/31/11/28/31
EVs: 188 HP / 248 Atk / 4 Def / 68 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Explosion
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Protect
The moveset is nothing special, but the execution was quite important. I usually try to explode Gigalith as soon as I can in a battle. Due to the fact that it is guaranteed to take at least two hits to KO and that I never have Trick Room active at any point in a battle, I sort of expected people to target my other Pokemon and leave Gigalith alone to do its thing. The Speed EVs gives it 54 speed in an attempt to outrun Amoonguss. However, I never ran into any Amoonguss while using Gigalith during the nationals. It did help me outrun a Musharna, though.
I was worried that cutting out HP EVs for speed on Gigalith would affect its survivability, but fortunately it still survived the attacks it needed to in a pinch.
Zoroark (M) @ Focus Sash ***SHAFT
Trait: Illusion
IVs: 28/31/26/31/16/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 196 SAtk / 60 Spd
Lonely Nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Sucker Punch
- Protect
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast
A central part of my team. The idea was to hide it as a Jellicent who would look like a Trick Room user and lightning rod the enemies towards a Protect. Sucker Punch is almost impossible to see coming if I haven't done anything to tip off Zoroark's identity and can net key KOs in a battle. The Focus Sash is useful to be sure Zoroark survives two hits, since there are many things that hit Zoroark for neutral and still KO (namely, Tornadus Acrobatics and Thundurus Thunderbolts). The added speed is mostly unecessary, as Sucker Punch is Zoroark's main offense. Speeds between 123 and 158 is mostly a dead zone but I went with 133 speed in case I fought a speed dumped Modest Chandelure. I kept screwing up what I hid Zoroark as in my battles though, so my intended strategy didn't always pan out.
Conkeldurr (M) @ Flame Orb ***DEEN
Trait: Guts
IVs: 30/31/20/xx/30/31
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 52 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Drain Punch
- Rock Slide
- Mach Punch
- Protect
I cut back on the HP EVs for more speed. This also reduced burn damage by 1 which compensated a bit for the drop in HP. The EVs added into Speed gives Conkeldurr 72 speed, allowing it to outrun 4 Speed EV Eelektross. Aside from that, it's your usual Guts Conkeldurr. I found it to be a bit of a weak link of the team, but it still managed to do its job the few times I used it.
Jellicent (M) @ Choice Scarf ***J.C. Staff
Trait: Water Absorb
IVs: 31/17/20/31/28/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Water Spout
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
- Blizzard
Since my team is mostly slow Pokemon and threatens Trick Room, I expect that the opponent is less likely to try to put up a Tailwind. Also, the presence of Eelektross and Gigalith tend to deter the use of Tornadus as they usually end up getting walled hard by those two. This opens up the field for a Scarfed Jellicent to act as a cleaner in many battle situations. I still needed to watch out for Scarfers though.
Eelektross (M) @ Lum Berry ***GAINAX
Trait: Levitate
IVs: 31/18/28/31/31/19
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SAtk / 20 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- 67 Ice Power
- Thunderbolt
- Protect
Eelektross was originally for situations where the opponent has a possible Thundurus+Krookodile/Landorus lead option. Gigalith cannot take an Earthquake + Discharge without high risk of dying, and the other Pokemon in my party have a tough time with the attacks as well. Scarfed Krookodile is particularly dangerous since I can't even try leading with my real Jellicent and get a suicide Blizzard/Water Spout shot on the opponent.
Eelektross, can shrug off Earthquake + Discharge, and hit back hard in these situations, as the Genies tend to have troubles damaging it. It can't OHKO any of the targets in these situations, but it at least leaves them in range to be finished off with Sucker Punch, which moves the battle towards something more favourable.
I ended up using it a lot more than I expected since I often ran into teams that made Conkeldurr or Gigalith poor choices to bring in. Hidden Power Ice 67 was a coincidence. I wasn't explicitly breeding for Hidden Power Ice on the Eel, but the one I used just happened to have it, so I went with it instead of using Grass Knot. The speed EVs are somewhat for compensation. They give Eelektross 67 Speed to outrun Conkeldurr. But if it was IV 31 speed I'd still put the speed EVs to outrun other Eels.
Chandelure (F) @ Fire Gem ***KyoAni
Trait: Flash Fire
IVs: 31/23/31/31/31/12
EVs: 228 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 24 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Heat Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Overheat
- Protect
When playing online, I had a run where I kept running into Scrafty and fast Amoonguss that kept shutting down my Gigalith strategy so I added in this Chandelure as a bit of an after thought counter. I decided to go with Overheat and a Fire Gem as a sort of "It can OHKO Scrafty? Hey, why not?" sort of thinking. The Speed EVs are to compensate for the low speed IV. It has 95 Speed which I felt comfortable with for outrunning Tailwind style Scrafty outside of Tailwind. I really didn't expect to use it as much as I did in the Swiss format. My Chandelure continued where my other Chandelure left off in Seattle with an Overheated Murderous rampage. Now with a taste for charred lizards as opposed to roasted genies. Unfortunately, it's still stopped dead in its tracks by stone goats and those scary flinching rocks that they throw. =/
Due to the nature of the team requiring some secrecy, I ended up not getting as much practice with it online as I would have liked. Because of this, right up to the day of the Swiss rounds, I was never really sure on how well my team would really hold up. Between having people somehow recognizing my team from online battles, the opponents getting around my surprise strategies by use of obscure team choices, or me simply overlooking a fatal error, there were a lot of things that could go wrong. And what better way to start off the Nationals Swiss tourney than to face off against Metabou?
Battle #1 - Metabou
After seeing the pairings board and seeing who I was going to fight I went to my seat and waited a bit nervously. I placed a Togekiss and Bronzong figurine on the table, something that I would end up doing for all the battles that I had on Saturday and Sunday.
When Metabou arrived at the table, we greeted each other and I introduced myself as TRE's Brother. We then start our battle.
From the team preview I couldn't read any specific team strategy, although at the time, I thought that a number of his Pokemon looked similar to what he used in the San Jose regionals. But then again, a team still having Terrakion, Thundurus and Amoonguss really doesn't me help much here.
I decided to go with my Gigalith and Zoroark hiding as Jellicent with Eelektross as my 4th. Except that I messed up and had Eelektross selected as my 4th Pokemon, thus altering what my Zoroark would show up as. Metabou lead with Thundurus and Scrafty.
After panicking a bit about my screw up and how my team just looks like a mess, I realized that the situation could be used to my advantage. Eelektross might be targetted by Fake Out since he may be scared that it would use Acrobatics on his Scrafty. So I went for an all or nothing move of Explosion + Protect, and hoped that he would go for the Eel.
When I saw Fake Out get blocked by Protect, and that he attacked with Thundurus, I smiled a bit inside. Gigalith wipes out both Metabou's leads with a massive explosion leaving me with a 3-2 lead.
I send my Scarfed Jellicent, while Metabou sends out an Amoonguss and a Samurott.
From here I gun for the Amoonguss. This ended up being a good move for me as Samurott protected itself. Amoonguss was dropped to about 30% of its HP and Zoroark was hit with Spore.
I continued to go after the Amoonguss, who tried to hang on with Protect. Eventually it goes down, and Samurott follows soon after but not before taking down my Zoroark.
2-0, Record: 1W 0L
I was a bit shocked that I actually won my first match against a formidable opponent, however there was no time to celebrate as we quickly moved onwards to the next round. My second opponent introduced himself as Victory Star when asked what his online name was.
Battle #2 - Victory Star
This is the only one of my battles that I can't completely recall turn for turn from the quick notes I wrote down in between matches about my battles, as there was a lot of switching around on his part. I can remember the first few turns and how it ends and a few of the moves thrown around in the middle.
From the team preview I see something that resembles a potential Trick Room team, but made note of a Hydreigon. I lead with Chandelure and Zoroark hidden as a Conkeldurr and a Jellicent in the back, while he lead with Musharna and Hydreigon.
Hydreigon can OHKO my Chandelure with Dark Pulse, but wouldn't be able to KO "Conkeldurr" without a LO Draco Meteor. I decided to protect with Chandelure and throw a Dark Pulse at Musharna as I wasn't sure if the Hydreigon would use Protect this turn or not in prediction of Conkeldurr's attack.
To my surprise (in a good way for me), he switches out Hydreigon for Jellicent. And to his surprise (in a bad way for him), the Conkeldurr was really Zoroark. Dark Pulse hits for just under half Musharna's HP while his a Psychic fizzles on Zoroark.
After a number of switches and attacks, with me netting an Overheat KO on his Scrafty somewhere in between, and him taking out my Zoroark, it ended up with my Chandelure and Conkeldurr on point with Jellicent on the bench against his damaged Jellicent and Musharna up front with Hydreigon in the back.
I go for a Shadow Ball and Rock Slide, but Shadow Ball is blocked by Jellicent's Protect, while Rock Slide misses Musharna, which gives me a bit of a scare as he hits my Chandelure down to half.
Fortunately, his second protect with Jellicent fails and it goes down. Rock Slide also gets a compensation flinch on Musharna, thus keeping my Chandelure alive. He sends Hydreigon to replace his Jellicent.
My Chandelure is taken out by Hydreigon's Surf, and I send in my Jellicent for the first time in the battle, from which he pretty much concedes. His Hydreigon was apparantly Scarfed, and was now locked into Surf. Jellicent just cleaned up his last two Pokemon.
Victory Star complements me on the effectiveness of the Zoroark in my team as it ended up completely throwing his team off balance.
2-0, Record: 2W 0L
After going two for two in Swiss, just about anyone would probably be pretty dangerous to face. However, your opponent always feels just a bit more dangerous when they have a known reputation for doing well in the VGC Tournament Scene. My third opponent was Duy.
Battle #3 - Duy
I don't remember too much about my thinking for team preview, but in the end I went with a Zoroark as a Jellicent and Gigalith for my leads, and had Eelektross in the back.
My Illusion strategy worked effectively in this battle allowing me to get an early lead, and the match became one sided after my Gigalith hung on with 4HP after taking two attacks and Exploded. A slight misplay on my part put me in a situation where a bit of last minute hax could have costed me the game, but fortunately for me none of that happened.
I won the battle 2-0, Record: 3W 0L
With a 3-0 record, I was well on my way towards a top 16 finish. But had to be weary of just how quickly things can go downhill. My 4th opponent wore a SkarmBliss shirt and introduced himself as meztips. If you are familiar with what meztips's record was after the Swiss Rounds, you already know how this battle will turn out for me.
Battle #4 - meztips
From the team preview I see some Pokemon I considered a bit uncommon, like Haxorus and Samurott, and I couldn't get a good feel for what his team does. I decide to go with something bold and intentionally hide my Zoroark as Eelektross again while brining Gigalith to lead, and having Jellicent in the back. meztips leads with Scrafty and Samurott.
I thought that he would Fake Out my "Eelektross" since it should be a danger to both his leads, like what Metabou did, but he instead doubles up on Gigalith and KOs it before it could explode which completely caught me off guard.
After that my team just couldn't quite recover. I sent out my Eelektross, making the illusion I had painfully obvious. I managed to KO the Samurott and leave the Scrafty near death at expense of my Jellicent, but then the Haxorus entered the field and I couldn't really do much else in the battle after that.
0-3, Record: 3W 1L
Taking my first loss in Swiss, I lost my one freebie loss so to say. Although I would still have a chance at a Top 16 finish if I lost again, I would be under a lot of pressure to win every battle and I hoped to avoid that. With that said, I couldn't help but laugh when I find that opponent for Round 5 was Alaka. I'm not going to draw any easy opponents, am I?
Battle #5 - Alaka
Alaka's team had a number of Ghosts, a Scrafty, and an Amoonguss. Gigalith and Conkeldurr looked to be pretty useless so I went with Zoroark as Jellicent and Chandelure as my leads, with my Eelektross in the back.
Just about everything in this battle worked in my favour. Alaka brought what I believe was an anti-Trick Room set up of Chandelure and Golurk. I took out his Chandelure with Zoroark's Dark Pulse, but not before being CH Shadow Ball'd down to 4 HP, while my own Chandelure blocked his Golurk's Shadow Punch with Protect.
Alaka sends in Scrafty next. I protect with Zoroark expecting a Fake Out, and he Protects with Golurk expecting Chandelure to go after it. He saw through my obvious Protect and had Scrafty go for my Chandelure, but probably didn't expect the Fire Gem Overheat coming so Scrafty ended up burnt to a crisp without doing anything.
Amoonguss is sent out as Alaka's last. I swapped out Chandelure for Eelektross to recover my Special attack and had Zoroark attack. Dark Pulse does about 80% of Golurk's HP, and Zoroark is KO'd by an Earthquake. Amoonguss used Protect to avoid the Earthquake.
I send in Jellicent and go for Water Spout while Eelektross uses Flamethrower on Amoonguss. Golurk uses protect, and my attacks drop Amoonguss a bit under half HP.
He tries to Spore my Eelektross, but that gets stopped by a Lum Berry. The battle is pretty much over after this point.
3-0, Record: 4W 1L
With my record being 4-1 after 5 matches, getting that one last win was extemely important if I wanted to make the top 16. My opponent for Round 6 was named Dan, and he wore a Ducks shirt. I forgot to ask what his online name was before battling, so it was only later on that I found out that the person I fought was dtrain.
Battle #6 - dtrain
I went with an Eelektross and Zoroark as Conkeldurr for my leads with Chandelure in the back. I can't really remember if hiding as Conkeldurr was intentional or not.
dtrain lead with something that I remembered facing once online. I expected dtrain to do the same thing as that person I fought online did and in the online battle my Eelektross narrowly survived which allowed me to win the online battle easily. Based on that alone, I simply believed that my Eelektross would pull it off again, and attacked with it while my Zoroark used Protect. Calculations after the fact tell me that the Eel had a 24% chance to die there.
dtrain did what I expected and Eelektross managed to hang on with 2HP remaining. The rest of the battle was fairly smooth sailing for me, even though I did a hilariously bad mistake halfway into the match.
I won the battle, 2-0. Record: 5W 1L
With 5-1 and a battle to go, I could relax. My last opponent wore a Charlie Sheen shirt and introduced himself as Tokyo Pyro.
Battle #7 - Tokyo Pyro
He was a pretty cool guy. We greeted each other and congratulated each other on a 5W 1L record. We were both pretty confident that we would be in unless something crazy happened like over 16 people with 5W 2L record or better. We probably could assume that we had decent tiebreakers so even if it did happen we would be safe.
We were both probably a bit laid back for this battle, and I was a bit distracted by another epic battle that was happening at the same time at the other end of the arena with OmegaDonut vs Huy.
From the team preview, his team looked fairly standardish. A lot of the commonly used Pokemon were present, and the team seemed pretty straightforward.
Since I saw Amoonguss and Scrafty, I decided to not lead with Zoroark for once and went with Chandelure, Gigalith with Zoroark and Eelektross in the back.
He leads with Thundurus and Scrafty. Scrafty fakes out my Gigalith while he Taunts Chandelure to stop Trick Room. Chandelure nets its 3rd and final Scrafty Overheat OHKO for the day scoring a critical hit for the gross overkill.
He sends out Terrakion. For this turn, we both kind of say to each other that we believe we did a bad move for the turn, as he went for a Gem-boosted Thunderbolt on Chandelure and a Close Combat on Gigalith.
Chandelure survives it easily, since it has HP EVs. Gigalith survives the Close Combat with about 11 HP left and explodes, but not before both Thundurus and Terrakion were hit with Heat Wave.
Calculating it, the Terrakion hit my Gigalith with a minimum damage hit with Close Combat, and really had a 5/8 chance of finishing it off. I probably would have lost this match otherwise, but holding all other matches the same, I doubt it would change who was in or out.
His last was an Amoonguss, which pretty much had no chance of victory.
3-0, Final Record: 6W 1L
At the end of the day, my final Swiss standing was 3rd overall, and one of three people to go 6-1. This put me up against superwolfe in the Top 16 for a shot at an invite to the Worlds.
Top 16 Match - superwolfe
Battle #1
I was expecting a Trick Room team from wolfe before the battle since he used one in DC, and there wasn't too much time in between DC and the Nats. From the team preview, I was mostly right. His team look very similar to his DC team. I felt that my chances were good since in the first battle I could deter him from using Trick Room by bringing in Gigalith, which could hopefully disrupt his Trick Room game enough for a win.
With that in mind, I decided to lead off with Gigalith and Chandelure, with a Eelektross and my Jellicent in the back. I thought it might be a problem for me not to bring either of my Pokemon with priority attacks, but decided that I could manage it somehow.
He ended up not going with his usual Trick Room set up starting. I had some bad luck with flinches throughout the battle and was never really in the game, which made me regret my choice of not bringing any of my Pokemon with priority moves a bit.
Wolfe apologizes a bit for the luck hax and we moved on to the next match.
0W 1L
Battle #2
For this battle I had some troubles deciding on what the bring as the pressure started to get to me. With about 20 seconds or so left I settled to go with Conkeldurr and Zoroark as Chandelure and Eelektross in the back.
And... once again I screwed up my illusion and had Zoroark as an Eelektross. Although I didn't really feel that nervous when battling, my prediction confidence definitely took a hit this battle. A number of times throughout the battle, I could predict what wolfe was going to do, but never followed through with my prediction, opting to pretty much always play the turn straight.
Scrafty faked out my "Eelektross" revealing Zoroark. While Conkeldurr lands a CH Drain Punch on Scrafty knocking it into the red as it uses its Chople Berry. Cofagrigus uses Trick Room.
I get completely outplayed on the next turn as I try for a Mach Punch and Sucker Punch. Only for Mach Punch to do a small amount to a switched in Reuniclus, and for Sucker Punch to fail as Cofagrigus burns my Zoroark with Will-o-Wisp. I realized soon after that even if Cofagrigus was going to attack it couldn't really do much to either of my Pokemon, thus I should have Dark Pulsed.
With Reuniclus now on the field, I was having troubles deciding on what moves to perform. Sucker Punch was now weakened due to the burn, and Reuniclus threatens both my active Pokemon. Wolfe then suddenly exclaims that he just screwed up and did a misclick. As I hadn't finalized my moves yet, I tried to think of what he screwed up on. I managed to get as far as that he might have been trying to Double Trick Room to reset the TR timer, but I had no idea what he really ended up doing instead. So I double protected, as he switched out Reuniclus and shut off his own Trick Room.
I've been giving a small opportunity to try a comeback, but I would need a bit of luck, so I go for a Rock Slide to try for a flinch and switch out my Zoroark for my Chandelure to avoid a Mach Punch. However, end up missing against Cofagrigus all together, and get a "compensation" critical on the Conkeldurr. The hax continued to be prevalant in the battle as my Conkeldurr gets flinched by Rock Slide, preventing it from using Drain Punch on his Conkeldurr to deal some damage and restore HP on the turn afterwards, while my Chandelure protected to stall the Trick Room a bit.
From here I devised a plan to try to get through the remainder of the Trick Room turns and be able to turn the tables. There were three turns left and we both have seen all of each other's Pokemon. I felt that Conkeldurr and Zoroark were probably expendable, where as my Eelektross and Chandelure would be vital to win after Trick Room ended. I wasn't too sure whether Heat Wave + Thunderbolt was enough to KO Cofagrigus so I aimed to get a Sucker Punch off against it if possible.
Things went as planned, and I managed to stall to the last turn of Trick Room and deal a Sucker Punch hit on Cofagrigus before my Conkeldurr and Zoroark were both taken out. Double Protecting with my remaining Chandelure and Eelektross I managed to stall out the Trick Room. However, I did not have time on my side. The Battle Timer went into the red signalling that there were only 5 minutes left in the match. I concluded that even though I felt that the battle had turned towards my favour, I only had a few turns left to do anything, and since I'm down 2-4 at the moment, I would lose by tiebreaker. And... as if on cue, wolfe starts going for double protects to stall down the timer.
A long 5 minutes later, the timer went down and I had lost in the Top 16. Then again, even if the timer hadn't run out, I would have still lost. Luck just wasn't on my side as my Fire Gem'd Heat Wave ended up missing against his Reuniclus, which would have cost me the battle, as it would allow him to survive and set Trick Room back up.
0W 2L
Chandelure flinching on the very first turn, followed by a loss by timer while performing a comeback in a match late in a tournament. It's like I've seen this happen to me before. He apologizes for turn stalling at the end, and I said that it was understandable. He was a win away from getting to the Worlds, and the only reason I was getting back into the 2nd match was because of a massive screw up on his part. The stakes were high and he took no chances. I wished him good luck on his future matches. Who would have guessed that he would end up winning it all.
http://members.shaw.ca/teamrocketelite/smogon/Record.JPG
Overall, I had a great time at the US Nationals. Meeting with a lot of the US Smogon and Skarmbliss VGC players was great, even though I didn't really talk that much, and didn't really get a chance to hang out with you guys. Falling just short of a Worlds invite in order to keep the Canadian presence in VGC alive was a bit of a dissapointment, this is the furthest I've even gotten in VGC tournament, so I can't really complain. However, I did win at one thing in the Nationals...
Surprise Battle Test Warstory
Battle Test works by downloading 5 CPU trainers into your game. You face them in a row and get a score at the end. In Seattle I tried the battle test once and got something like 6459 on my first try through it. I think I've seen some higher scores than what I got, so when I saw that they were still doing this in the Nationals I decided to get a bit more serious and try for a something on another level.
I started with the team I used before in Seattle and it slowly changed into the following team:
Jellicent (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Water Absorb
IVs: 31/17/20/31/28/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Water Spout
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
- Blizzard
The one I used in the Nats.
Bisharp (M) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Defiant
IVs: 31/31/23/21/26/31
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Sucker Punch
- Brick Break
- Protect
- Night Slash
A spare Bisharp, Could have probably used it in VGC if I made a team that used one.
Hydreigon (F) @ Shell Bell
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
IVs: 31/15/31/31/31/31
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Protect
- Dragon Pulse
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
The one I used in Seattle. With a few moves changed. Yes, that's a Shell Bell.
Amoonguss (F) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Effect Spore
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SDef
IVs: 31/xx/31/12/31/20
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Protect
- Giga Drain
The one I used in Seattle. Same moveset, since Amoonguss doesn't really run other moves. Yes, that's a Air Balloon.
Somehow my team all ended up being Unova Pokemon, partly due to me only using Pokemon that I had on me at the time.
Since the opponents are always the same, there are only 5 trainers, and they will pretty much always do the same moves, I could write a turn by turn walkthrough. But I'll write it more as a Warstory instead.
Battle One:
Team preview is off for Battle Challenge, so I can't switch up my leads if the opponent tries to pull a fast one on me. Fortunately, I already scouted out my opponent's strategies and knew what they were going to bring. My opponent starts with Deerling and Simisear.
Simisear is a strong contender, but I have a type advantage over it, but have to watch for Deerling's grass attacks. I go for the Sucker Punch on Deerling to cover Jellicent who follow it up with Water Spout on the enemy field. The attacks are successful and the opponents front lines fall.
Replacing the two are a Rufflet and a Samurott. Samurott is pretty angry at the loss of its fallen comrades, such that it often blinded by the thoughts of REVENGE, so much so that sometimes it decides to rush off blindly in an AQUA JET. But either way, Bisharp has it covered. A Sucker Punch on Samurott drops it into the red, and Jellicent washes them both away afterwards, leading to an easy 2 Turn, 4-0 Victory, taking minimal or no damage.
Battle Two:
The opponent leads with a Krookodile and a Sawk. Bisharp defies the Krookodile's intimidation, and boosts its attack, but Sawk is a danger to it.
Sawk is a Sturdy fighter and is faster than Bisharp. I decide to play it safe and use a Protect with Bisharp, because I know my opponent tends to go for kill shots above other options. Jellicent's Water Spout crashes down on the foes, taking out Krookodile and leaving Sawk in the red, as it runs into Bisharp's protect.
A Klinklang is sent out. The ferocious metal gear is able to take a Water Spout, and can fire it's main Zap Cannon at my Jellicent. But Bisharp once again had Jellicent covered. Being too focused on the ghostly blue blob, Klinklang didn't notice that Bisharp had snuck up and landed a Sucker Punch on it, taking out its armor. Water Spout proceeds to once again wipe the field.
The opponent's last is Gothitelle, who is taken out by Night Slash, for another perfect.
Opponent Three:
The opponents have gottend progressively tougher. This time an Eelektrik and a Stunfisk lead off against me.
My opponent is going for a Discharge + Earthquake combo. Both of them can survive a Water Spout, so I can only take down one of them. I decide to take down Eelketrik first, as Discharge paralysis hax is not good for me.
Stunfisk is brought into the red, and pulls off the first successful attack against my team with an Earthquake dealing some light damage to both of my Pokemon.
Scrafty is sent out next. Originally, I would Protect with Bisharp and watch Scrafty crash with Hi Jimp Kick, but then they started using Crunch instead, so I changed things up and went for a Brick Break.
The Scrafty doesn't really have much in defensive EVs, so the 70% power Water Spout, along with Bisharp's Brick Break delivers the killing blow to Scrafty and Stunfisk.
The last Pokemon the opponent had was a Cryogonal, which got Sucker'd by Bisharp. Who didn't give the poor snowflake any chance to move.
Opponent Four:
My opponent leads with a Hydreigon and an Archeops. But the Hydreigon is really Zoroark. Who the hell hides a Dark Type as a Dark Type? Apparantly this person does. But I am also aware that the Zoroark holds a Focus Sash.
My first turn, I use Sucker Punch on the Zoroark, and wipe the field with Water Spout. And the Opponent brings out the real Hydreigon, and a Haxorus.
This person gave me quite a bit of trouble in the past while testing out different teams. The Haxorus is a Scarfed Rivalry Haxorus which kept causing troubles for me, but this team solved all the problems.
Haxorus would go for an Earthquake, since Outrage doesn't KO my Jellicent (Rivalry debuff), and Hydreigon would go for a Focus Blast on Bisharp, as Dark Pulse doesn't KO my Jellicent either.
Thus, in response, I protected with Bisharp, and swapped Jellicent for Hydreigon to avoid the Earthquake. This is followed up by using Dragon Pulse to KO the opponent Hydreigon, and switching Bisharp for the Air Balloon Amoonguss, leaving the Haxorus stuck on Earthquake against two levitating targets.
I end up with a perfect vitory, completely outplaying my opponent.
Opponent Five:
The final opponent runs a Trick Room team. As it is difficult to stop the Trick Room, I actually have to take things a bit seriously in the match.
The opponent leads with a Ferrothorn and a Jellicent. The Ferrothorn knows Power Whip, from previous runs against the team.
I know that the Jellicent would go for Trick Room, so I struck it with Night Slash, while Jellecent tagged out for Hydreigon to take the Power Whip.
Jellicent lives from the Night Slash with about 5% of its HP and gets off the Trick Room, while Ferrothorn Power Whips Hydreigon for a quarter if its HP.
"What's this? The Colosseum!" My Pokemon are now slower than the opponent's due to the Trick Room, but Bisharp doesn't really care. Sucker Punch finishes off the Jellicent who things its safe to try to attack me, while Hydreigon lands a Flamethrower on Ferrothorn. The Ferrothorn survives by its Focus Sash fashion statement, as it decides to Curse up. Incidently, Curse is the only thing this Ferrothorn ever does right up to the point where I take it out.
The opponent sends out his Reuniclus. It knows Focus Blast and can OHKO either of my Pokemon. And to make things worse, it has a Colbur berry, so it survives Sucker Punch.
I go on the defensive, switching out Hydreigon for Amoonguss, while Bisharp protects itself. The Reuniclus throws a Focus Blast, and does minimal to no damage this turn.
I then start on my counter attack, as I start to use Trick Room to my advantage. I Sucker Punch the Reuniclus while Amoonguss outruns and puts it to sleep with Spore, stopping it from taking out Bisharp with Focus Blast.
I then proceed to take out the 1HP Ferrothorn with Giga Drain, and finish up Reuniclus with Sucker Punch.
The last Pokemon is a CB Gigalith, who gets taken out by Giga Drain and Brick Break for the victory against the final Trainer.
Final Score: 6700 posted (6753 unofficially)
http://members.shaw.ca/teamrocketelite/smogon/Scoreboard.JPG
http://members.shaw.ca/teamrocketelite/smogon/BattleTest.JPG
Team Preview:
Gigalith, Jellicent, Eelektross, Conkeldurr, Zoroark, Chandelure
It appears to be a Trick Room team. The Zoroark is out of place, and is just there for the mind games. There isn't anything that really helps the team in getting Trick Room off, and if you can stop Trick Room from occuring you should be fine. Or are you? My team is a fraud. It's a Fake Trick Room Zoroark team. Neither Jellicent nor Chandelure even have Trick Room.
The main theme of the team was deception/surprise. Surprise Sucker Punches, Turn 1 Explosions, Fire Gem Chandelure, Scarf Jellicent. The team has a number of things that can catch the opponent off guard to gain an advantage I can ride until the end of the battle. The risks can be pretty high, though. Lead matchups are very important for the team since a bad matchup can cause the team to simply collapse with little way to recover. The team looks great in battles when it wins, but looks terrible in losses.
The Team:
Like last time, my Pokemon are not RNG'd. The loss of a few stat points didn't come into play in any of my battles and even without RNG it didn't take much more than a week to breed all the Pokemon I used for this team. Not RNGing pretty much just meant that I couldn't really use Tornadus/Thundurus, but since, above all else, I wanted to use a team that did not play into the "Speed Tie Game", I was perfectly fine in leaving them off my team. Anyways, here are the six I used:
Gigalith (F) @ Normal Gem ***ufotable
Trait: Sturdy
IVs: 31/28/31/11/28/31
EVs: 188 HP / 248 Atk / 4 Def / 68 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Explosion
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Protect
The moveset is nothing special, but the execution was quite important. I usually try to explode Gigalith as soon as I can in a battle. Due to the fact that it is guaranteed to take at least two hits to KO and that I never have Trick Room active at any point in a battle, I sort of expected people to target my other Pokemon and leave Gigalith alone to do its thing. The Speed EVs gives it 54 speed in an attempt to outrun Amoonguss. However, I never ran into any Amoonguss while using Gigalith during the nationals. It did help me outrun a Musharna, though.
I was worried that cutting out HP EVs for speed on Gigalith would affect its survivability, but fortunately it still survived the attacks it needed to in a pinch.
Zoroark (M) @ Focus Sash ***SHAFT
Trait: Illusion
IVs: 28/31/26/31/16/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 196 SAtk / 60 Spd
Lonely Nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Sucker Punch
- Protect
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast
A central part of my team. The idea was to hide it as a Jellicent who would look like a Trick Room user and lightning rod the enemies towards a Protect. Sucker Punch is almost impossible to see coming if I haven't done anything to tip off Zoroark's identity and can net key KOs in a battle. The Focus Sash is useful to be sure Zoroark survives two hits, since there are many things that hit Zoroark for neutral and still KO (namely, Tornadus Acrobatics and Thundurus Thunderbolts). The added speed is mostly unecessary, as Sucker Punch is Zoroark's main offense. Speeds between 123 and 158 is mostly a dead zone but I went with 133 speed in case I fought a speed dumped Modest Chandelure. I kept screwing up what I hid Zoroark as in my battles though, so my intended strategy didn't always pan out.
Conkeldurr (M) @ Flame Orb ***DEEN
Trait: Guts
IVs: 30/31/20/xx/30/31
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 52 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Drain Punch
- Rock Slide
- Mach Punch
- Protect
I cut back on the HP EVs for more speed. This also reduced burn damage by 1 which compensated a bit for the drop in HP. The EVs added into Speed gives Conkeldurr 72 speed, allowing it to outrun 4 Speed EV Eelektross. Aside from that, it's your usual Guts Conkeldurr. I found it to be a bit of a weak link of the team, but it still managed to do its job the few times I used it.
Jellicent (M) @ Choice Scarf ***J.C. Staff
Trait: Water Absorb
IVs: 31/17/20/31/28/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Water Spout
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
- Blizzard
Since my team is mostly slow Pokemon and threatens Trick Room, I expect that the opponent is less likely to try to put up a Tailwind. Also, the presence of Eelektross and Gigalith tend to deter the use of Tornadus as they usually end up getting walled hard by those two. This opens up the field for a Scarfed Jellicent to act as a cleaner in many battle situations. I still needed to watch out for Scarfers though.
Eelektross (M) @ Lum Berry ***GAINAX
Trait: Levitate
IVs: 31/18/28/31/31/19
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SAtk / 20 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- 67 Ice Power
- Thunderbolt
- Protect
Eelektross was originally for situations where the opponent has a possible Thundurus+Krookodile/Landorus lead option. Gigalith cannot take an Earthquake + Discharge without high risk of dying, and the other Pokemon in my party have a tough time with the attacks as well. Scarfed Krookodile is particularly dangerous since I can't even try leading with my real Jellicent and get a suicide Blizzard/Water Spout shot on the opponent.
Eelektross, can shrug off Earthquake + Discharge, and hit back hard in these situations, as the Genies tend to have troubles damaging it. It can't OHKO any of the targets in these situations, but it at least leaves them in range to be finished off with Sucker Punch, which moves the battle towards something more favourable.
I ended up using it a lot more than I expected since I often ran into teams that made Conkeldurr or Gigalith poor choices to bring in. Hidden Power Ice 67 was a coincidence. I wasn't explicitly breeding for Hidden Power Ice on the Eel, but the one I used just happened to have it, so I went with it instead of using Grass Knot. The speed EVs are somewhat for compensation. They give Eelektross 67 Speed to outrun Conkeldurr. But if it was IV 31 speed I'd still put the speed EVs to outrun other Eels.
Chandelure (F) @ Fire Gem ***KyoAni
Trait: Flash Fire
IVs: 31/23/31/31/31/12
EVs: 228 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 24 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Heat Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Overheat
- Protect
When playing online, I had a run where I kept running into Scrafty and fast Amoonguss that kept shutting down my Gigalith strategy so I added in this Chandelure as a bit of an after thought counter. I decided to go with Overheat and a Fire Gem as a sort of "It can OHKO Scrafty? Hey, why not?" sort of thinking. The Speed EVs are to compensate for the low speed IV. It has 95 Speed which I felt comfortable with for outrunning Tailwind style Scrafty outside of Tailwind. I really didn't expect to use it as much as I did in the Swiss format. My Chandelure continued where my other Chandelure left off in Seattle with an Overheated Murderous rampage. Now with a taste for charred lizards as opposed to roasted genies. Unfortunately, it's still stopped dead in its tracks by stone goats and those scary flinching rocks that they throw. =/
Due to the nature of the team requiring some secrecy, I ended up not getting as much practice with it online as I would have liked. Because of this, right up to the day of the Swiss rounds, I was never really sure on how well my team would really hold up. Between having people somehow recognizing my team from online battles, the opponents getting around my surprise strategies by use of obscure team choices, or me simply overlooking a fatal error, there were a lot of things that could go wrong. And what better way to start off the Nationals Swiss tourney than to face off against Metabou?
Battle #1 - Metabou
After seeing the pairings board and seeing who I was going to fight I went to my seat and waited a bit nervously. I placed a Togekiss and Bronzong figurine on the table, something that I would end up doing for all the battles that I had on Saturday and Sunday.
When Metabou arrived at the table, we greeted each other and I introduced myself as TRE's Brother. We then start our battle.
From the team preview I couldn't read any specific team strategy, although at the time, I thought that a number of his Pokemon looked similar to what he used in the San Jose regionals. But then again, a team still having Terrakion, Thundurus and Amoonguss really doesn't me help much here.
I decided to go with my Gigalith and Zoroark hiding as Jellicent with Eelektross as my 4th. Except that I messed up and had Eelektross selected as my 4th Pokemon, thus altering what my Zoroark would show up as. Metabou lead with Thundurus and Scrafty.
After panicking a bit about my screw up and how my team just looks like a mess, I realized that the situation could be used to my advantage. Eelektross might be targetted by Fake Out since he may be scared that it would use Acrobatics on his Scrafty. So I went for an all or nothing move of Explosion + Protect, and hoped that he would go for the Eel.
When I saw Fake Out get blocked by Protect, and that he attacked with Thundurus, I smiled a bit inside. Gigalith wipes out both Metabou's leads with a massive explosion leaving me with a 3-2 lead.
I send my Scarfed Jellicent, while Metabou sends out an Amoonguss and a Samurott.
From here I gun for the Amoonguss. This ended up being a good move for me as Samurott protected itself. Amoonguss was dropped to about 30% of its HP and Zoroark was hit with Spore.
I continued to go after the Amoonguss, who tried to hang on with Protect. Eventually it goes down, and Samurott follows soon after but not before taking down my Zoroark.
2-0, Record: 1W 0L
I was a bit shocked that I actually won my first match against a formidable opponent, however there was no time to celebrate as we quickly moved onwards to the next round. My second opponent introduced himself as Victory Star when asked what his online name was.
Battle #2 - Victory Star
This is the only one of my battles that I can't completely recall turn for turn from the quick notes I wrote down in between matches about my battles, as there was a lot of switching around on his part. I can remember the first few turns and how it ends and a few of the moves thrown around in the middle.
From the team preview I see something that resembles a potential Trick Room team, but made note of a Hydreigon. I lead with Chandelure and Zoroark hidden as a Conkeldurr and a Jellicent in the back, while he lead with Musharna and Hydreigon.
Hydreigon can OHKO my Chandelure with Dark Pulse, but wouldn't be able to KO "Conkeldurr" without a LO Draco Meteor. I decided to protect with Chandelure and throw a Dark Pulse at Musharna as I wasn't sure if the Hydreigon would use Protect this turn or not in prediction of Conkeldurr's attack.
To my surprise (in a good way for me), he switches out Hydreigon for Jellicent. And to his surprise (in a bad way for him), the Conkeldurr was really Zoroark. Dark Pulse hits for just under half Musharna's HP while his a Psychic fizzles on Zoroark.
After a number of switches and attacks, with me netting an Overheat KO on his Scrafty somewhere in between, and him taking out my Zoroark, it ended up with my Chandelure and Conkeldurr on point with Jellicent on the bench against his damaged Jellicent and Musharna up front with Hydreigon in the back.
I go for a Shadow Ball and Rock Slide, but Shadow Ball is blocked by Jellicent's Protect, while Rock Slide misses Musharna, which gives me a bit of a scare as he hits my Chandelure down to half.
Fortunately, his second protect with Jellicent fails and it goes down. Rock Slide also gets a compensation flinch on Musharna, thus keeping my Chandelure alive. He sends Hydreigon to replace his Jellicent.
My Chandelure is taken out by Hydreigon's Surf, and I send in my Jellicent for the first time in the battle, from which he pretty much concedes. His Hydreigon was apparantly Scarfed, and was now locked into Surf. Jellicent just cleaned up his last two Pokemon.
Victory Star complements me on the effectiveness of the Zoroark in my team as it ended up completely throwing his team off balance.
2-0, Record: 2W 0L
After going two for two in Swiss, just about anyone would probably be pretty dangerous to face. However, your opponent always feels just a bit more dangerous when they have a known reputation for doing well in the VGC Tournament Scene. My third opponent was Duy.
Battle #3 - Duy
I don't remember too much about my thinking for team preview, but in the end I went with a Zoroark as a Jellicent and Gigalith for my leads, and had Eelektross in the back.
My Illusion strategy worked effectively in this battle allowing me to get an early lead, and the match became one sided after my Gigalith hung on with 4HP after taking two attacks and Exploded. A slight misplay on my part put me in a situation where a bit of last minute hax could have costed me the game, but fortunately for me none of that happened.
I won the battle 2-0, Record: 3W 0L
With a 3-0 record, I was well on my way towards a top 16 finish. But had to be weary of just how quickly things can go downhill. My 4th opponent wore a SkarmBliss shirt and introduced himself as meztips. If you are familiar with what meztips's record was after the Swiss Rounds, you already know how this battle will turn out for me.
Battle #4 - meztips
From the team preview I see some Pokemon I considered a bit uncommon, like Haxorus and Samurott, and I couldn't get a good feel for what his team does. I decide to go with something bold and intentionally hide my Zoroark as Eelektross again while brining Gigalith to lead, and having Jellicent in the back. meztips leads with Scrafty and Samurott.
I thought that he would Fake Out my "Eelektross" since it should be a danger to both his leads, like what Metabou did, but he instead doubles up on Gigalith and KOs it before it could explode which completely caught me off guard.
After that my team just couldn't quite recover. I sent out my Eelektross, making the illusion I had painfully obvious. I managed to KO the Samurott and leave the Scrafty near death at expense of my Jellicent, but then the Haxorus entered the field and I couldn't really do much else in the battle after that.
0-3, Record: 3W 1L
Taking my first loss in Swiss, I lost my one freebie loss so to say. Although I would still have a chance at a Top 16 finish if I lost again, I would be under a lot of pressure to win every battle and I hoped to avoid that. With that said, I couldn't help but laugh when I find that opponent for Round 5 was Alaka. I'm not going to draw any easy opponents, am I?
Battle #5 - Alaka
Alaka's team had a number of Ghosts, a Scrafty, and an Amoonguss. Gigalith and Conkeldurr looked to be pretty useless so I went with Zoroark as Jellicent and Chandelure as my leads, with my Eelektross in the back.
Just about everything in this battle worked in my favour. Alaka brought what I believe was an anti-Trick Room set up of Chandelure and Golurk. I took out his Chandelure with Zoroark's Dark Pulse, but not before being CH Shadow Ball'd down to 4 HP, while my own Chandelure blocked his Golurk's Shadow Punch with Protect.
Alaka sends in Scrafty next. I protect with Zoroark expecting a Fake Out, and he Protects with Golurk expecting Chandelure to go after it. He saw through my obvious Protect and had Scrafty go for my Chandelure, but probably didn't expect the Fire Gem Overheat coming so Scrafty ended up burnt to a crisp without doing anything.
Amoonguss is sent out as Alaka's last. I swapped out Chandelure for Eelektross to recover my Special attack and had Zoroark attack. Dark Pulse does about 80% of Golurk's HP, and Zoroark is KO'd by an Earthquake. Amoonguss used Protect to avoid the Earthquake.
I send in Jellicent and go for Water Spout while Eelektross uses Flamethrower on Amoonguss. Golurk uses protect, and my attacks drop Amoonguss a bit under half HP.
He tries to Spore my Eelektross, but that gets stopped by a Lum Berry. The battle is pretty much over after this point.
3-0, Record: 4W 1L
With my record being 4-1 after 5 matches, getting that one last win was extemely important if I wanted to make the top 16. My opponent for Round 6 was named Dan, and he wore a Ducks shirt. I forgot to ask what his online name was before battling, so it was only later on that I found out that the person I fought was dtrain.
Battle #6 - dtrain
I went with an Eelektross and Zoroark as Conkeldurr for my leads with Chandelure in the back. I can't really remember if hiding as Conkeldurr was intentional or not.
dtrain lead with something that I remembered facing once online. I expected dtrain to do the same thing as that person I fought online did and in the online battle my Eelektross narrowly survived which allowed me to win the online battle easily. Based on that alone, I simply believed that my Eelektross would pull it off again, and attacked with it while my Zoroark used Protect. Calculations after the fact tell me that the Eel had a 24% chance to die there.
dtrain did what I expected and Eelektross managed to hang on with 2HP remaining. The rest of the battle was fairly smooth sailing for me, even though I did a hilariously bad mistake halfway into the match.
I won the battle, 2-0. Record: 5W 1L
With 5-1 and a battle to go, I could relax. My last opponent wore a Charlie Sheen shirt and introduced himself as Tokyo Pyro.
Battle #7 - Tokyo Pyro
He was a pretty cool guy. We greeted each other and congratulated each other on a 5W 1L record. We were both pretty confident that we would be in unless something crazy happened like over 16 people with 5W 2L record or better. We probably could assume that we had decent tiebreakers so even if it did happen we would be safe.
We were both probably a bit laid back for this battle, and I was a bit distracted by another epic battle that was happening at the same time at the other end of the arena with OmegaDonut vs Huy.
From the team preview, his team looked fairly standardish. A lot of the commonly used Pokemon were present, and the team seemed pretty straightforward.
Since I saw Amoonguss and Scrafty, I decided to not lead with Zoroark for once and went with Chandelure, Gigalith with Zoroark and Eelektross in the back.
He leads with Thundurus and Scrafty. Scrafty fakes out my Gigalith while he Taunts Chandelure to stop Trick Room. Chandelure nets its 3rd and final Scrafty Overheat OHKO for the day scoring a critical hit for the gross overkill.
He sends out Terrakion. For this turn, we both kind of say to each other that we believe we did a bad move for the turn, as he went for a Gem-boosted Thunderbolt on Chandelure and a Close Combat on Gigalith.
Chandelure survives it easily, since it has HP EVs. Gigalith survives the Close Combat with about 11 HP left and explodes, but not before both Thundurus and Terrakion were hit with Heat Wave.
Calculating it, the Terrakion hit my Gigalith with a minimum damage hit with Close Combat, and really had a 5/8 chance of finishing it off. I probably would have lost this match otherwise, but holding all other matches the same, I doubt it would change who was in or out.
His last was an Amoonguss, which pretty much had no chance of victory.
3-0, Final Record: 6W 1L
At the end of the day, my final Swiss standing was 3rd overall, and one of three people to go 6-1. This put me up against superwolfe in the Top 16 for a shot at an invite to the Worlds.
Top 16 Match - superwolfe
Battle #1
I was expecting a Trick Room team from wolfe before the battle since he used one in DC, and there wasn't too much time in between DC and the Nats. From the team preview, I was mostly right. His team look very similar to his DC team. I felt that my chances were good since in the first battle I could deter him from using Trick Room by bringing in Gigalith, which could hopefully disrupt his Trick Room game enough for a win.
With that in mind, I decided to lead off with Gigalith and Chandelure, with a Eelektross and my Jellicent in the back. I thought it might be a problem for me not to bring either of my Pokemon with priority attacks, but decided that I could manage it somehow.
He ended up not going with his usual Trick Room set up starting. I had some bad luck with flinches throughout the battle and was never really in the game, which made me regret my choice of not bringing any of my Pokemon with priority moves a bit.
Wolfe apologizes a bit for the luck hax and we moved on to the next match.
0W 1L
Battle #2
For this battle I had some troubles deciding on what the bring as the pressure started to get to me. With about 20 seconds or so left I settled to go with Conkeldurr and Zoroark as Chandelure and Eelektross in the back.
And... once again I screwed up my illusion and had Zoroark as an Eelektross. Although I didn't really feel that nervous when battling, my prediction confidence definitely took a hit this battle. A number of times throughout the battle, I could predict what wolfe was going to do, but never followed through with my prediction, opting to pretty much always play the turn straight.
Scrafty faked out my "Eelektross" revealing Zoroark. While Conkeldurr lands a CH Drain Punch on Scrafty knocking it into the red as it uses its Chople Berry. Cofagrigus uses Trick Room.
I get completely outplayed on the next turn as I try for a Mach Punch and Sucker Punch. Only for Mach Punch to do a small amount to a switched in Reuniclus, and for Sucker Punch to fail as Cofagrigus burns my Zoroark with Will-o-Wisp. I realized soon after that even if Cofagrigus was going to attack it couldn't really do much to either of my Pokemon, thus I should have Dark Pulsed.
With Reuniclus now on the field, I was having troubles deciding on what moves to perform. Sucker Punch was now weakened due to the burn, and Reuniclus threatens both my active Pokemon. Wolfe then suddenly exclaims that he just screwed up and did a misclick. As I hadn't finalized my moves yet, I tried to think of what he screwed up on. I managed to get as far as that he might have been trying to Double Trick Room to reset the TR timer, but I had no idea what he really ended up doing instead. So I double protected, as he switched out Reuniclus and shut off his own Trick Room.
I've been giving a small opportunity to try a comeback, but I would need a bit of luck, so I go for a Rock Slide to try for a flinch and switch out my Zoroark for my Chandelure to avoid a Mach Punch. However, end up missing against Cofagrigus all together, and get a "compensation" critical on the Conkeldurr. The hax continued to be prevalant in the battle as my Conkeldurr gets flinched by Rock Slide, preventing it from using Drain Punch on his Conkeldurr to deal some damage and restore HP on the turn afterwards, while my Chandelure protected to stall the Trick Room a bit.
From here I devised a plan to try to get through the remainder of the Trick Room turns and be able to turn the tables. There were three turns left and we both have seen all of each other's Pokemon. I felt that Conkeldurr and Zoroark were probably expendable, where as my Eelektross and Chandelure would be vital to win after Trick Room ended. I wasn't too sure whether Heat Wave + Thunderbolt was enough to KO Cofagrigus so I aimed to get a Sucker Punch off against it if possible.
Things went as planned, and I managed to stall to the last turn of Trick Room and deal a Sucker Punch hit on Cofagrigus before my Conkeldurr and Zoroark were both taken out. Double Protecting with my remaining Chandelure and Eelektross I managed to stall out the Trick Room. However, I did not have time on my side. The Battle Timer went into the red signalling that there were only 5 minutes left in the match. I concluded that even though I felt that the battle had turned towards my favour, I only had a few turns left to do anything, and since I'm down 2-4 at the moment, I would lose by tiebreaker. And... as if on cue, wolfe starts going for double protects to stall down the timer.
A long 5 minutes later, the timer went down and I had lost in the Top 16. Then again, even if the timer hadn't run out, I would have still lost. Luck just wasn't on my side as my Fire Gem'd Heat Wave ended up missing against his Reuniclus, which would have cost me the battle, as it would allow him to survive and set Trick Room back up.
0W 2L
Chandelure flinching on the very first turn, followed by a loss by timer while performing a comeback in a match late in a tournament. It's like I've seen this happen to me before. He apologizes for turn stalling at the end, and I said that it was understandable. He was a win away from getting to the Worlds, and the only reason I was getting back into the 2nd match was because of a massive screw up on his part. The stakes were high and he took no chances. I wished him good luck on his future matches. Who would have guessed that he would end up winning it all.
http://members.shaw.ca/teamrocketelite/smogon/Record.JPG
Overall, I had a great time at the US Nationals. Meeting with a lot of the US Smogon and Skarmbliss VGC players was great, even though I didn't really talk that much, and didn't really get a chance to hang out with you guys. Falling just short of a Worlds invite in order to keep the Canadian presence in VGC alive was a bit of a dissapointment, this is the furthest I've even gotten in VGC tournament, so I can't really complain. However, I did win at one thing in the Nationals...
Surprise Battle Test Warstory
Battle Test works by downloading 5 CPU trainers into your game. You face them in a row and get a score at the end. In Seattle I tried the battle test once and got something like 6459 on my first try through it. I think I've seen some higher scores than what I got, so when I saw that they were still doing this in the Nationals I decided to get a bit more serious and try for a something on another level.
I started with the team I used before in Seattle and it slowly changed into the following team:
Jellicent (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Water Absorb
IVs: 31/17/20/31/28/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Water Spout
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
- Blizzard
The one I used in the Nats.
Bisharp (M) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Defiant
IVs: 31/31/23/21/26/31
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Sucker Punch
- Brick Break
- Protect
- Night Slash
A spare Bisharp, Could have probably used it in VGC if I made a team that used one.
Hydreigon (F) @ Shell Bell
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
IVs: 31/15/31/31/31/31
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Protect
- Dragon Pulse
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
The one I used in Seattle. With a few moves changed. Yes, that's a Shell Bell.
Amoonguss (F) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Effect Spore
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SDef
IVs: 31/xx/31/12/31/20
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Protect
- Giga Drain
The one I used in Seattle. Same moveset, since Amoonguss doesn't really run other moves. Yes, that's a Air Balloon.
Somehow my team all ended up being Unova Pokemon, partly due to me only using Pokemon that I had on me at the time.
Since the opponents are always the same, there are only 5 trainers, and they will pretty much always do the same moves, I could write a turn by turn walkthrough. But I'll write it more as a Warstory instead.
Battle One:
Team preview is off for Battle Challenge, so I can't switch up my leads if the opponent tries to pull a fast one on me. Fortunately, I already scouted out my opponent's strategies and knew what they were going to bring. My opponent starts with Deerling and Simisear.
Simisear is a strong contender, but I have a type advantage over it, but have to watch for Deerling's grass attacks. I go for the Sucker Punch on Deerling to cover Jellicent who follow it up with Water Spout on the enemy field. The attacks are successful and the opponents front lines fall.
Replacing the two are a Rufflet and a Samurott. Samurott is pretty angry at the loss of its fallen comrades, such that it often blinded by the thoughts of REVENGE, so much so that sometimes it decides to rush off blindly in an AQUA JET. But either way, Bisharp has it covered. A Sucker Punch on Samurott drops it into the red, and Jellicent washes them both away afterwards, leading to an easy 2 Turn, 4-0 Victory, taking minimal or no damage.
Battle Two:
The opponent leads with a Krookodile and a Sawk. Bisharp defies the Krookodile's intimidation, and boosts its attack, but Sawk is a danger to it.
Sawk is a Sturdy fighter and is faster than Bisharp. I decide to play it safe and use a Protect with Bisharp, because I know my opponent tends to go for kill shots above other options. Jellicent's Water Spout crashes down on the foes, taking out Krookodile and leaving Sawk in the red, as it runs into Bisharp's protect.
A Klinklang is sent out. The ferocious metal gear is able to take a Water Spout, and can fire it's main Zap Cannon at my Jellicent. But Bisharp once again had Jellicent covered. Being too focused on the ghostly blue blob, Klinklang didn't notice that Bisharp had snuck up and landed a Sucker Punch on it, taking out its armor. Water Spout proceeds to once again wipe the field.
The opponent's last is Gothitelle, who is taken out by Night Slash, for another perfect.
Opponent Three:
The opponents have gottend progressively tougher. This time an Eelektrik and a Stunfisk lead off against me.
My opponent is going for a Discharge + Earthquake combo. Both of them can survive a Water Spout, so I can only take down one of them. I decide to take down Eelketrik first, as Discharge paralysis hax is not good for me.
Stunfisk is brought into the red, and pulls off the first successful attack against my team with an Earthquake dealing some light damage to both of my Pokemon.
Scrafty is sent out next. Originally, I would Protect with Bisharp and watch Scrafty crash with Hi Jimp Kick, but then they started using Crunch instead, so I changed things up and went for a Brick Break.
The Scrafty doesn't really have much in defensive EVs, so the 70% power Water Spout, along with Bisharp's Brick Break delivers the killing blow to Scrafty and Stunfisk.
The last Pokemon the opponent had was a Cryogonal, which got Sucker'd by Bisharp. Who didn't give the poor snowflake any chance to move.
Opponent Four:
My opponent leads with a Hydreigon and an Archeops. But the Hydreigon is really Zoroark. Who the hell hides a Dark Type as a Dark Type? Apparantly this person does. But I am also aware that the Zoroark holds a Focus Sash.
My first turn, I use Sucker Punch on the Zoroark, and wipe the field with Water Spout. And the Opponent brings out the real Hydreigon, and a Haxorus.
This person gave me quite a bit of trouble in the past while testing out different teams. The Haxorus is a Scarfed Rivalry Haxorus which kept causing troubles for me, but this team solved all the problems.
Haxorus would go for an Earthquake, since Outrage doesn't KO my Jellicent (Rivalry debuff), and Hydreigon would go for a Focus Blast on Bisharp, as Dark Pulse doesn't KO my Jellicent either.
Thus, in response, I protected with Bisharp, and swapped Jellicent for Hydreigon to avoid the Earthquake. This is followed up by using Dragon Pulse to KO the opponent Hydreigon, and switching Bisharp for the Air Balloon Amoonguss, leaving the Haxorus stuck on Earthquake against two levitating targets.
I end up with a perfect vitory, completely outplaying my opponent.
Opponent Five:
The final opponent runs a Trick Room team. As it is difficult to stop the Trick Room, I actually have to take things a bit seriously in the match.
The opponent leads with a Ferrothorn and a Jellicent. The Ferrothorn knows Power Whip, from previous runs against the team.
I know that the Jellicent would go for Trick Room, so I struck it with Night Slash, while Jellecent tagged out for Hydreigon to take the Power Whip.
Jellicent lives from the Night Slash with about 5% of its HP and gets off the Trick Room, while Ferrothorn Power Whips Hydreigon for a quarter if its HP.
"What's this? The Colosseum!" My Pokemon are now slower than the opponent's due to the Trick Room, but Bisharp doesn't really care. Sucker Punch finishes off the Jellicent who things its safe to try to attack me, while Hydreigon lands a Flamethrower on Ferrothorn. The Ferrothorn survives by its Focus Sash fashion statement, as it decides to Curse up. Incidently, Curse is the only thing this Ferrothorn ever does right up to the point where I take it out.
The opponent sends out his Reuniclus. It knows Focus Blast and can OHKO either of my Pokemon. And to make things worse, it has a Colbur berry, so it survives Sucker Punch.
I go on the defensive, switching out Hydreigon for Amoonguss, while Bisharp protects itself. The Reuniclus throws a Focus Blast, and does minimal to no damage this turn.
I then start on my counter attack, as I start to use Trick Room to my advantage. I Sucker Punch the Reuniclus while Amoonguss outruns and puts it to sleep with Spore, stopping it from taking out Bisharp with Focus Blast.
I then proceed to take out the 1HP Ferrothorn with Giga Drain, and finish up Reuniclus with Sucker Punch.
The last Pokemon is a CB Gigalith, who gets taken out by Giga Drain and Brick Break for the victory against the final Trainer.
Final Score: 6700 posted (6753 unofficially)
http://members.shaw.ca/teamrocketelite/smogon/Scoreboard.JPG
http://members.shaw.ca/teamrocketelite/smogon/BattleTest.JPG
