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I mostly pick number #21 which is Zinnia's theme, but sometimes I'll go for either #3 (Rival Battle) or #24 (I think that's the right number... either way, the Deoxys Encounter one). I find a lot of the music in OR/AS to be a little contrived sometimes, or to use instrumentation or take melodic directions that rub me the wrong way.
re the competition, after my first day my interest sort of dwindled which was a shame. I forced myself to do some battles yesterday but lost a bunch and stopped at six matches, while I was still ahead. My final score was 11-5, which is a good enough score for someone whose main motivation was the Tyrunt lol.
Yeah, Zinnia's theme is nice. I agree though, I don't think that they put quite as much effort into the ORAS soundtrack as they did into the HG/SS, or were we just expecting too much?
Your team is pretty good, and even though you have 4 Pokemon that share the same types (2 Fairies and 2 Water types), you manage to have them avoid the same weaknesses, even if you sacrifice the chance to have a more diverse team in the process.
How are you faring against Grass types without any Fire or Ice types, or Flying types, considering that you have no Rock, Electric, or Ice types?
Ended up with 22 wins out of 29. One of my opponents DC'ed and for some reason it didn't record it as a match but wouldn't let me go to 30. Strange.
Anyhows, this little tourney gave me a lot of respect for pokemon I wouldn't have thought to use before and my main 3 of Donphan, Roserade and M-Sableye worked really well together despite me having little experience of using them outside of in-game runs.
Also, big props to my M-Pinsir who slaughtered EVERY SINGLE Breloom that dared show their faces with a satisfying Double Hit that NONE of them were expecting :) My only regret is that I ran Close Combat and not EQ as he could have taken out a few M-Gross along the way too!.
Overall this was a really enjoyable tournament and I can't wait for the next one :)
I found it very difficult to predict opponents that did not have a high win ratio (like 1620 and below maybe), which gave me some stupid losses. I played some terrible games because I under- or overestimated my opponents, lol. On day three though, I think I went 9-1 or something. Will post more info soon. Some quick notes from my experience:
Roserade and Mega Gardevoir performed very well for me, along with Assault Vest Metagross. My other members, though - Gyarados, Sharpedo and M-Manectric - were not as good as I'd hoped.
This was my first competition. I was just in it for the Tyrunt, but I had a lot of fun. I didn't prepare much, I just went with whatever Hoenn dex mons I had and slapped them together. I expected to win around 30-40% of my games. First night I went 5-5 and was like "ah yeah, this team is garbage, I'm gonna drop below 0.500 the next night" but I was having fun and kept playing. I'm now 19-11, sitting below 1600 and I'm pretty happy with my result considering my expectations. I think a lot of people were like me, with half-baked teams with somewhat competitive mons and just wanted to enter for the Tyrunt.
I had some great DBond Gardevoir moments. Once, it was against a Mence (before mega) where I won the speed tie, got the DBond off and Mence double edged into it. There was also a crazy game where it was a Sharpedo vs MGard last mon situation where I DBonded as he protected. I then died to a Crunch and took down the Sharpedo. btw, the the Sharpedo player wins in that situation, but it was so awesome to see a 0-0. I lost but I was so happy to see that situation, lol
This was my team. Crobat was probably my weakest link. It's a great set in UU, but in 3v3 format it's better off running something like Taunt > Defog
Your team is pretty good, and even though you have 4 Pokemon that share the same types (2 Fairies and 2 Water types), you manage to have them avoid the same weaknesses, even if you sacrifice the chance to have a more diverse team in the process.
How are you faring against Grass types without any Fire or Ice types, or Flying types, considering that you have no Rock, Electric, or Ice types?
Honestly, I didn't feel like either Grass or Flying types were that big of an issue as both Gyarados and Ludicolo can significantly damage them with their Ice coverage. The only Pokémon that I felt I was a bit screwed by was Skarmory; my only real options for it were Ludicolo Hydro Pump or burn stalling it out with Sableye. Other than that I felt that most of my "resistances" were pretty trivial in the face of "+2 Mega Mawile Play Rough" and "Life Orb rain boosted Ludicolo Hydro Pump".
I finally managed to reach the 1600 mark, after loosing two battles, one fair and square against Japanese player who kept switching out his Pokemon and I couldn't predict, and the other against a Milotic which I thought I had where I wanted, even though all I had was my Sableye, until the RNGame decided to give him a fucking crit.
I was very pissed at the game for the latter.
Now I'm debating if I should continue my next three battles, or should I just stop while I still have my 1600+ score?
I ended with a really nice score of 26-4 @ ~1780, couldn't be happier with that. Between the last 2 days I went 19-1 and it was such a satisfying streak, it felt like I made all the perfect team/lead choices, never made any game-losing plays and luck was on my side with no hax robbing me of wins. Wonder where I ranked?
This was the team
It may look like Salamence ran the show but I actually only used it a few times in favor of Altaria which was my main mega. Everyone was waaay too over prepared for that monster, so I was able to take advantage of that by leading with special Altaria to get the jump on all the anti-Salamence pokes that were commonly led with (Skarmory, Sableye, Sceptile, Manectric, Donphan, Swampert etc). Wobb and Metagross were usually its teammates and those 3 handled the whole metagame really well. Crawdaunt helped break through slower teams that looked threatening (esp if I saw Swampert + Milotic) and went well with Encore on Wobb to get free SD's or big hits off. Alakazam was kinda the opposite role as it beat the teams that were super aggressive thanks to its sash. All 6 pulled their weight which I've often struggled to do with 3v3 teams so that was nice too.
Just one replay of the best game that stood out to me, it was against the highest rating I faced (1730), had some plays on both sides and could have gone any way at the end depending on Azumarill's item
XTNW-WWWW-WWX5-6KCT
Well after my first day being 9-1 I was pretty hyped for the next day, but I ended up losing 4 and only winning 2 before I gave up for the day. Today I won 12 and lose 2 so pretty good ending over all with 23-7 and about 1700 points (before my last game that I won I was 1693). Here's the team:
IMO best mega in the format, I swept so many pokes and beat so many Dusclops and Sableye that think they shut me down with wilo.
Metagross @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 220 Atk / 68 SpA / 220 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Iron Head
- Zen Headbutt
- Ice Punch
- Grass Knot
Pretty good mega and with Grass Knot I killed a lot of Swampert, I did miss EQ and Bullet Punch a couple games though. The Special attack was to 2HKO Def Milotic I think.
First tournament for this guy, and it was a blast. Lots of ups and downs, a bit disappointed at 18-12 (was gunning for that 20 benchmark), but you know what they say about learning more from losses. First night was 10-5 against mostly Japanese players, then 8-7 the next against European/N. American time zones sprinkled with a few more Japanese folks. It seemed to me the Japanese took forever to battle (excessive calculating?), but fought very straightforwardly compared to the tricky tactics of the Europeans -- especially the wily Brits. It was with them I saw the majority of Baton Passing, VoltTurning, Destiny Bonding, Sheninjas, etc. Very entertaining.
If you're bored enough...
Safety Goggles Skarmory wrecked the day of every Breloom to come my way. Maniacal laughter erupted from my office after every failed Spore and free SR phasing. Sadly, there weren't nearly enough Brelooms to keep the halls filled with my cackling, a surprise equal to the number of Dusclops running amok. AVumarill was definitely my MVP, winning matches with such HP values as 12, 7, and 5, and countering such foes as Lati@s and Manectric to vindicate my decision of AV over Belly/Sitrus. He also provided a Knock Off answer to the aforementioned Dusclops that otherwise would have caused headaches.
Ludicolo and M-Swampert were a fairly effective Swift Swim core that saw the most action this weekend. The obligatory "oops" moment involved the overlooking of a Roserade at the selection screen, which promptly swept me to my only 0-3 loss. M-Mawile was the backup mega when things looked too sketchy for Swampert, but was less powerful than expected. At least Thunder Punch won a few matches by demolishing unsuspecting Azumarill and Gyarados. In hindsight, I wish I had also tutored it onto Metagross as well. His Lum Berry served as a secondary Breloom removal tool and general element of surprise, but I got too cute trying to use Rest with it. Outside of one Salamence kill (Ice+Bullet Punch) he was a bit disappointing, and left me wondering if I should have left the bogus Salamence in my Battle Box to fake out opponents.
Best match: a loss, actually, but a 25-minute Skarmory vs. Skarmory battle that roused my inner stall soul, otherwise unsatisfied with the offensive meta of this tournament. Unfortunately I missed my one open prediction while switching around his Taunt/Toxic shenanigans to stall out his Roost, but hats off to my fellow Skarmorer nonetheless!
Best moment: getting the Scald burn on a Liechi Donphan. Every gritty Azumarill win ever.
Just finished my last fight in the competition and one of my last fights posed a question: How is it possible that my Jolly, 252-EV-Speed, Mega-Salamence is slower then an unboosted Mega-Gardevoir...?! I lost a fight because of this and it bothers me, because technically it shouldn´t be possible, right? (Mega-Salamence base-Speed 120: Mega-Gardevoir base-speed 100)
I uploaded the battlevideo: EGFG-WWWW-WWX5-8K2T for those who are as surprised as I am! Any solutions for this?!
Just finished my last fight in the competition and one of my last fights posed a question: How is it possible that my Jolly, 252-EV-Speed, Mega-Salamence is slower then an unboosted Mega-Gardevoir...?! I lost a fight because of this and it bothers me, because technically it shouldn´t be possible, right? (Mega-Salamence base-Speed 120: Mega-Gardevoir base-speed 100)
I uploaded the battlevideo: EGFG-WWWW-WWX5-8K2T for those who are as surprised as I am! Any solutions for this?!
Entered in the last few hours of the competition and got exactly 15 battles in before close and came away with 11 Wins and 4* Losses making probably 1600 rank. (*one loss was a disconnect within the first move so no idea how that would have played out). Some of it was luck, particularly one of my last battles where my Magnezone crit-haxed a bulky Metagross with Thunderbolt and then proceeded to give paralysis and two extra hits that it shouldn't have gotten (6.25% x 10% x 25% = 0.15625% chance). Some of it was playing people who weren't at the level we try to be at. And a lot of it was the ridiculously powerful Zangoose I brought around that no one expected.
Final Gambit is tops one of the most uncompetitive moves in the game and my Zangoose wrecked 'mons and teams he shouldn't have. Talk about bullshit? Final Gambit beats 'Uber' M-Mence.
Had a lot of fun, don't think I have the time to actually be as competitive in these matches as I'd like to be.
Highlight was me realizing that the Kingdra I brought had a Razor Fang not Claw on. Ruined me so hard. D:
Where the hell was the feared M-Mence spam? He never was a big deal in any of my matches. Nor' was Breloom; I go and make a team completely insulated from that kangaroo and he never showed up!
Sometimes, the game just decides to give you the middle finger. You scream and rant obscenities at your game for a minute, and then most importantly of the process, you move on.
I lost a battle today all because of a fucking crit. Several hours later, it still haunts me, but I feel better than I did a few hours ago.
Wait, that means at the turn of Mega-evolution the speedstat of the normal form is still crucial?! If that´s the case I have to apologize for this question and beeing a retard for not nowing this after playing VI-Gen for so long... SORRY!!!
Well I can't play any more battles so I guess that means the comp is over! I ended up spending a lot of my Sunday devising a last-minute team which took a long time to actually get onto my Sapphire cart as I have literally just restarted it and was only at Slateport! Anyway I got the team together and figured I should start battling. First game the opponent leads with Sableye so I send in Blaziken to soak up the Will-O-Wisp but oh wait! What's this? I can't mega evolve! Turns out it wasn't that I had forgotten to equip my Blaze with his mega stone, I wasn't far enough into the game and didn't have the Mega Bracelet, which actually stopped me from evolving my pokes over wi-fi! I actually did not know / realise that was a thing so I had to speed run up to the Latias subquest to get the stone. The biggest problem with this is that I take in-game runs way too seriously and I had planned out exactly what I wanted to do beforehand, which meant I had DexNav captures I needed to do before advancing... I really wanted a Hyper Voice Swablu but after about 1.5 hours (seriously) of looking I as running out of time so I settled for a gentle (blah) 4IV one with no egg moves. Then I thrashed Flannery and my Old Man and let Wally take me to route 118, I took the very first Latias I got and it ended up being 31/31/31/26/19/31 Calm (without a sync) lol. Then it was straight to fightin with little over an hour to go
tl;dr I'm an idiot
Anyway, even though I didn't get many battles done (a mere 6!! I endured about 25 minutes of timer stall before forfeiting in one match) I still worked reasonably hard on the team so I'm going to post it anyway....
yes, I did go onto MS Paint and edit Glalie's eyes and Wob's lips
Basic plan was to lead with Wobbuffet and either kill something with CounterCoat or lock something into a dumb move and switch to set something up. More often than not I would Encore turn one as Wob was usually a 3HKO to most things so I could lock them into an attacking move and easily pick the right move, or lock the opponent into their own set-up or status move and take advantage of the switch. If I faced a lead Sableye I would just straight switch to Blaziken because Sableye is either going to burn you or Taunt you anyway. Against lead Breloom I would Encore the Spore, Safeguard and then switch so something could get in and force Breloom out for free. Lum Berry Gyarados was a good switch here as it could dish out pain to the opponent after 1 dragon dance and take another Spore when Breloom came in to 2HKO through its Sash.
I stole the Latias idea from Pyritie because it sounded hella fun. I wish I got to play more games because annoying people with that set would have been great. I got to do it once against a Swampert who couldn't hurt me so I got to do a Calm Mind sweep. Theorymon and Jibaku were talking about Wobbuffet on irc so I basically stole the idea from them, except they mentioned Destiny Bond was good but I didn't like it...
I wanted to breed a mixed HP Ice Blaziken for the comp but I had the event one in my PC and just figured why the fuck not? I EV'd it to make sure that I could outspeed a +1 max speed M-Sal if I was at +2, then max SpA with the rest in attack... Was pretty fun on the sim, didn't get to use it today...
The Metagross was one I went and tried to catch in the Friend Safari because cool ball (and yeah, I do plan to use it competitively) so this was its first competition. I would have re-EV'd for max bulk + attack if I had time but this worked on the sim anyway. Weakness Policy because I already had two megas and I didn't like Band / Scarf because his coverage isn't so great so he needs to be able to change moves. +2 Bullet Punch is fucking cool though.
Glalie is there because I have one and like, why not? In practice it worked as a sick revenge killer and panic button in Explosion (OHKO's Dusknoir, does a shitload to Dusclops) but probably a waste of a mega slot haha.
Gyarados is standard, nothing to see here
So yeah, I was pretty lazy with my teambuilding, mostly just slapping stuff together that I already had (only had to breed Wob and Gyarados) but I put a lot of thought into how I was going to use them so there's that. I'm feeling a little disappointed that I didn't get to play so much now so if anyone wants to have a BoH friendly match HMU hahaha
Oh before I forget (not that it's important), I finished with 4 wins 2 losses. Lost my first game because no mega evolution, also they guy had a Sub+Red Card Crobat that ruined me. I broke the sub and figured he would sub again (sitting at about 50%) so I Bullet Punched hoping to take him down below 25% and prevent his sub which I did, but his Red Card activated and forced Blaziken in while he was using Brave Bird. GG. The second loss was to a guy with Sableye / Milotic / Cradily who walled me to hell and back and forced me to forfeit as there was no chance of winning and wanted to sneak in another game before the comp ended. My other games were all wins and all pretty good.
Sometimes, the game just decides to give you the middle finger. You scream and rant obscenities at your game for a minute, and then most importantly of the process, you move on.
I lost a battle today all because of a fucking crit. Several hours later, it still haunts me, but I feel better than I did a few hours ago.
Wait, that means at the turn of Mega-evolution the speedstat of the normal form is still crucial?! If that´s the case I have to apologize for this question and beeing a retard for not nowing this after playing VI-Gen for so long... SORRY!!!
I also found out that apparently, the competition stopped at 8:00, so I guess I won't be doing those last 3 battles after all.
Oh well, at least I have a score of over 1600.
Now when they give away Amaura, I'll set the goal for 1650.
I'm real bummed. Been reading this thread in preparation over the last week or so and registered here only to vent my frustration. My first ever tournament. I was on the PokeGrind hard for about a week because of this thing. Was unable to battle until today, so I planned on smashing out all 30 battles before midnight tonight. The tournament must've closed when it became Monday in Japan, I'm assuming. I got to 10-4. 2 of my losses were disconnects because I'm using college wireless. I should have realized it wouldn't close at midnight eastern time, but for some reason, it never even occurred to me. Sheeeeit.
My team:
Froslass
Timid
Choice Scarf
Cursed Body
252 speed, 252 sp. attack, 6 HP
Switcheroo
Ice Beam
Shadow Ball
Thunderbolt
I also found out that apparently, the competition stopped at 8:00, so I guess I won't be doing those last 3 battles after all.
Oh well, at least I have a score of over 1600.
Now when they give away Amaura, I'll set the goal for 1650.
I hate when that happens!! I had this one stupid opponent who timer stalled me, for no good reason, and continued to do so, even after my trusty Hopskinville Goblin knocked out one of his Pokemon (all but guaranteeing my win, especially if I decided to timer stall in return).
I don't know if he was stoned or drunk, but he did it for the entire fucking match. That is 20 minutes of my life that I'll never get back, when I probably could've done it in 5!
If I didn't know any better, I'd have to say that he wasn't playing, just letting the timer out, and letting the game choose his default moves, except his Crobat somehow used Confuse Ray, then U-Turn. I don't suppose that your timer staller also had a Breloom and a Gyarados?
William_the_FoeJES turn order is decided before mega evolution happens, so Mega Salamence doesn't get that nice base 120 speed on that turn, but every turn after it does. Same goes for stuff like Mega Banette which doesn't get the Prankster priority boost on that turn (which is why most run Protect). It's not the game "throwing you the middle finger", it's all mathematics and calculations that decide what happens, not voodoo magic...
Also, these global events use UTC as the standard time, not your local time, so find out whatever the difference is between your timezones and figure it out. For example, I'm in AEDT +11 so it ended at 11:00am for me...
pj cozz you can use the edit button instead of straight up deleting your post. That's one wacky team you've got though! Fully physical offensive Xatu instead of a defensive or special set? I do like Trick+Scarf Froslass though, Destiny Bond would have been a cool addition to that set, maybe over Thunderbolt...
I'm real bummed. Been reading this thread in preparation over the last week or so and registered here only to vent my frustration. My first ever tournament. I was on the PokeGrind hard for about a week because of this thing. Was unable to battle until today, so I planned on smashing out all 30 battles before midnight tonight. The tournament must've closed when it became Monday in Japan, I'm assuming. I got to 10-4. 2 of my losses were disconnects because I'm using college wireless. I should have realized it wouldn't close at midnight eastern time, but for some reason, it never even occurred to me. Sheeeeit.
Froslass absolutely dominated. Allowed me to screwover Eviolite Dusclops with the Switcheroo. No one knew what was coming with her.
Xatu didn't fail me once. He was in my team solely to counter Breloom, and he did his job.
Yeah that got me too. Once I realized they do events according to Universal Time (IE, European-ish) I went on a mad spree trying to breed out and EV my last few pokes. Even then battles actually take a long time in this game :P.
I liked your Froslass, one of my favorite pokes and I never thought of that layout even though I had a serious Dusclops problem. Plus you had balls using Xatu. I mean I get the MG point but I never gave Xatu a thought and just wrote it of with most of Gen2's shitmons.
EDIT- ninja'd === OH one semi-important fact for the procrastinators like me; the tournament stops literally at 11:59:59. This appears to mean that even if you had a battle begun at 11:50:00 and it goes on for 10 minutes or more it will not count.
Which stinks cause that puts me at 10 and 4 :/
How are people finding their battle box online?
Same goes for stuff like Mega Banette which doesn't get the Prankster priority boost on that turn (which is why most run Protect). It's not the game "throwing you the middle finger", it's all mathematics and calculations that decide what happens, not voodoo magic...
Tell that to the guy who lost his Metagross to a critical-paralyzing thunderbolt and then suffers through a paralysis turn right after that making sure his Metagross dies with my Magnezone after Rocky Helmet damage. :/
Some times the RNG appears to be a voo-doo demon, alright.
Yeah, finding that out was a pretty crappy day for me as well. Hey, least you know now :)
cant say said:
William_the_FoeJES turn order is decided before mega evolution happens, so Mega Salamence doesn't get that nice base 120 speed on that turn, but every turn after it does. Same goes for stuff like Mega Banette which doesn't get the Prankster priority boost on that turn (which is why most run Protect). It's not the game "throwing you the middle finger", it's all mathematics and calculations that decide what happens, not voodoo magic...
Ahhh. So this is why a freshly mega'd Sableye still had Prankster Priority over my scarfed Froslass. That one stumped me till now.
cant say said:
Also, these global events use UTC as the standard time, not your local time, so find out whatever the difference is between your timezones and figure it out. For example, I'm in AEDT +11 so it ended at 11:00am for me...
pj cozz you can use the edit button instead of straight up deleting your post. That's one wacky team you've got though! Fully physical offensive Xatu instead of a defensive or special set? I do like Trick+Scarf Froslass though, Destiny Bond would have been a cool addition to that set, maybe over Thunderbolt...
I was going to edit but I accidentally submitted my OP while typing out the second pokemon on my team, so I figured it would take too long to edit in the rest of my team while that incomplete post just sat there and people read it like: "this dude only used a Froslass?!" lol.
But thanks. Xatu was very fun to play. His base attack ain't that bad at 75, so it can do some damage with SP and Drill Peck. The best part was switching him in on predicted status moves, as he can Magic Bounce EVERYTHING (or so it seemed).
I never considered Destiny Bond on Froslass till now. Good idea. Truth be told, I only had Thunderbolt on her to provide some much needed coverage against Azumarills.
EsurioXY said:
Yeah that got me too. Once I realized they do events according to Universal Time (IE, European-ish) I went on a mad spree trying to breed out and EV my last few pokes. Even then battles actually take a long time in this game :P.
I liked your Froslass, one of my favorite pokes and I never thought of that layout even though I had a serious Dusclops problem. Plus you had balls using Xatu. I mean I get the MG point but I never gave Xatu a thought and just wrote it of with most of Gen2's shitmons.
I didn't even know there was such a thing as "Universal Time," geeze, haha. Also was I the only one who thought the battles would go a lot longer? Seemed like there was barely any stall in this meta.
Thank you. Froslass is also one of my favorites, glad you appreciate her awesomeness (in both design and play).
Xatu started out as me just thinking: "well, I need a Breloom counter."
