Introduction:
I'm probably not too well known here but I've been interested in competitive Pokemon since the early days of D/P OU. I'd mostly only read stuff and battled with my friends in person and a little bit if simulator. Once Black/White came out in the Americas Voodoo Pimp got interested in VGC and he get me interested as well. Last year at Regionals I really liked Excadrill so I made a team around him so I was knocked out in the second round to a scarfed Vanillux (PANTS!!!). Come worlds I practiced more and had a much better team (Go TerraCott!) which got me to the third round of LCQ where I lost to the exact same team and lost to a Ferrothorn (again one Pokemon sweeping my entire team :|). Come this year I was dedicated to do better so I tried to put a lot more time into it. I couldn't manage a ride to Long Beach (and my team wasn't too ready) so this was my only shot to shine.
The Team:
#454 Slippy (Toxicroak) 
(level 50)
OT:
AJ 
(Black, 64812/4260)
Adamant - Dry Skin - 31/31/31/17/31/31 - 252 HP/254 Att/4 Spd
Sucker Punch - Drain Punch - Fake Out - Protect
Nickname: The stupid annoying toad from StarFox because he's an annoying toad.
#248 Spikette (Tyranitar) (level 55)
OT:
Kris (SoulSilver, 1052/19072)
Brave - Sand Stream - 31/31/31/31/31/0 - 254 HP/252 Att/4 SDf
Rock Slide - Low Kick - Protect - Crunch
Nickname: As the star player on my team often who holds everyone together I named her (only could find a good female seed to RNG) after Spike the best dragon out there and currently mine and Voodoo Pimp's avatar.
#145 Jeff Tracy (Zapdos) ♁ (level 53)
OT:
AJ (SoulSilver, 5966/28453)
Modest - Pressure - 31/10/30/31/31/31 - 140 HP/90 Def/252 SAt/28 Spd
Tailwind - Hidden Power - Heat Wave - Discharge
Nickname: Thunderbirds, nuff said.
#445 Rainboom (Garchomp) (level 51)
OT:
AJ (Black, 64812/4260)
Jolly - Sand Veil - 31/31/31/4/31/31 - 4 HP/254 Att/252 Spd
Dragon Claw - Rock Slide - Earthquake - Protect
Nickname: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WImRs-nWW48
I was running Substitute instead of Rock Slide for a while and almost wish I kept it. Subsitute makes it so with a good prediction he can beat all dragons faster than him.
#381 Pound Cake (Latios) (level 54)
OT:
Kris (SoulSilver, 1052/19072)
Timid - Levitate - 31/6/31/30/31/30 - 6 HP/4 Def/248 SAt/4 SDf/248 Spd
Draco Meteor - Protect - Hidden Power - Psychic
Nickname: The brother from the newborn twins in the My Little Pony episode that aired when I RNG'd him. Plus it's a cool Van Halen song and a delicious.
#609 Hanako (Chandelure) (level 52)
OT:
AJ (Black, 64812/4260)
Timid - Flash Fire - 31/2/31/31/31/31 - 4 HP/252 SAt/254 Spd
Imprison - Heat Wave - Shadow Ball - Trick Room
Nickname: From the Visual Novel Katawa Shoujou (can you say 3 weeks of my life) the character Hanako Ikezawa has major burns because her house burnt down while she was a small child. Is the name in bad taste? probably.
Originally I tried really hard to come up with an original team but nothing did well (just look how well all of Voodoo Pimp's crazy team ideas has done). So I settled for a ZapChomp centered team. Tyranitar for covering weaknesses and Sand Veil hax, Latios to deal with most fighting types and being super strong, Chandelure for Sun/Ghost/Trick Room, and Toxicroak for Fake Out/Rain Teams/Drain Punching/Sucker Punch. He almost works like a faster version of TTar for me. I'm ashamed at the lack of originality on this team but I've put a lot of time into it and it works pretty well for me assuming I can predict well.
Road to the event:
Well I'm a college student who isn't allowed to have his car on campus and there's no public transit on weekends. So I thought I'd not be making it but then I was saved. My school held a VGC style Pokemon tourney and the top 3 got rides to VGC as a prize (SCORE!). Having already RNG'd my team I entered with it and swept though never losing more than 1 Pokemon in any match I can remember. I never fought AoK since she lost horribly to some noob.
Sunday:
Having not slept the night before (way too much homework) I was pretty groggy and hadn't ate breakfast (dining halls don't open until 10am) I was saved by our ride, who I'm not sure if he has a Smogon name, providing snacks. We got there a bit before 8am and it was pretty boring. Voodoo Pimp got a little lost and after he showed up we basically just talked until they took the prereg people. I don't really know too many other faces other than Nickscor (since he lost to Voodoo Pimp on the big screen at regionals last year). I also got to meet/talk to OmegaDonut and got handed over the responsibility of programming RNG Reporter. It was fun talking about programming/technology with him. I basically just waited around him him, his brother, and a few other people who came with me and I didn't know that well and died while they took forever to start the event.
Come 12pm they finally posted a list of everyone registered, sat us down, got our hopes up that we were starting when really it was just TCG we don't care about, told us the rules and whatnot, and then FINALLY started the matches I was already drained. No sleep, only eating a few snacks, I was almost a zombie and boy was that fun.
The Matches:
Round 1 against casual kid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOsDxK7EpVY
Toxicroak/Zapdos/Latios/Garmchomp vs. Excadrill/Tyranitar/Zapdos/Garchomp
Well this kid acted serious and talked like he knew his stuff really well so I decided to at first treat this like a very serious match. I could predict TTar/Excadrill pretty easy since that was his team's focus. Toxicroak destroys TTars and lets me use Fake Out to setup a Tailwind to outspeed so it was the obvious lead. I had my dragons for cleanup as they can together kill almost anything. After the first turn it was pretty obvious he didn't know what he was doing. Pursuit on Tyranitar and for some reason it was faster than Excadrill in the sand. I'm pretty sure Pursuit only gets priority if you actually switch out plus who would predict a switch turn one on a Fake Out user, or even try to damage a fighting type with a Dark move?
End result: 3-0'd him super easy. It could have probably been 3-0 if I had cared but I wanted a fast victory.
1-0
Round 2 against Bloom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=davaw9-SpwU
Tyranitar/Latios/Garchomp/Zapdos vs. Togekiss/Hitmontop/Blaziken/Gliscor
I wasn't too sure what to do against this team so I just went for my most common set of 4 and decided to lead Tyranitar/Latios since they usually are my Hitmontop counter plus then it saves Garchomp from intimidate and lets him get sand hax. The second I saw a shiny Togekiss I was excited since it meant RNG abuse and thus an actual challenge by someone who knows what they are doing. Got some pretty sold predictions which led to my victory. Ended 2-0.
2-0 WHOO I'm winning.
Round 3 against
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJeGb76DcqQ
Toxicroak/Zapdos/Latios/Garchomp vs. Tyranitar/Reuniclus/Garchomp/Excadrill
Another Excadrill team. I played it almost the same as the first round only with different team members. Sadly my Toxicroak died before I could take out the Tyranitar but ZapChomp still swept like the amazing Pair it is. There was plenty of unnecessary Garchomp hax which was funny. Ended with 3-0.
3-0
Round 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiweUTSoOa8
Zapdos/Garchomp/Latios/Tyranitar vs. Tyranitar/Alakazam/Sneasel/Garchomp
Another team I wasn't too sure what to do so I led solid ZapChomp. Flinch hax meant I didn't get an Earthquake in turn one but it still had a pretty solid victory. Ended 1-0
Round 5 vs Nickscor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70gwN9S_c6s props to anyone who gets why I used this song
Garchomp/Zapdos/Latios/Tyranitar vs. Togekiss/Garchomp/Rotom-F/Abaomasnow
I'm not too sure what I was thinking bringing all 3 of my Ice weak Pokemon against a team of two blizzard users I knew he would use. Especially after he told me just last round he got a double freeze hax. Oh well Chandelure and Toxicroak would have both done well but that wasn't the entire problem here. I was taunting Nickscor since I remember his Heat Wave double miss last year in VGC and got what was coming to me when he froze my Tyranitar (my only real counter to the two Blizzard users who could easily destroy a scarfed Rotom-F). All and all he did a really good job getting into my head and managed to win. I knew the Abamasnow switch was coming and still used HP Ice instead of Heat Wave and knew the Garchomp switch was coming and still used HP Fire instead of Draco Meteor. Had any of these not happen I probably wouldn't have lost but oh well I was dumb and lost because of it. Ended 0-2
4-1, just need to win every other match and then I can go to nationals
Round 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL34zo3SbcI
Reuniclus/Amoonguss/Dusclops/Politoed
A rain/TR team eh? I finally got to use my rain and TR counters. I thought I head led with Chandelure/Toxicroak but somehow I made a mistake and selected Tyranitar first. Sand ruins my Focus Sash and that sucked especially because it would have been nice to stay out and prevent TR from being set up. I also should have protected on my Latios instead of letting him just kill it but alas I still won. Boy was I happy when he used Seismic Toss on my Tyranitar when it had 51HP left.
5-1 back in the game boys
Round 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASVM2rFBgbQ
Tyranitar/Latios/Zapdos/Garchomp vs. Garchomp/Zapdos/Cresselia/Hitmontop
A team I've seen on PO way too many times. I felt pretty confident about this one. Especially since Tyranitar/Latios almost always wins against ZapChomp. If I had thought of the Tailwind a quick Draco Meteor would have saved me from the pain of a Tailwind which was my ultimate downfall. I probably also should have kept my Zapdos alive instead of Sacrificing it for Latios. Oh well his HP Ice was Sand Veil haxed anyway. Plenty of bad calls on my part and out predictions were my downfall and I lost. No way a -1 Atk Garchomp and a Latios against a team with Light Screen can do much of anything. Ended 0-3.
5-2, well there goes my chance of going to Nationals, maybe if I do well in the opponent's wins thing I'll have a chance to get one of them shiny prizes. I felt really outplayed and this motivates me to want to learn mindgames better for next year.
Round 8 vs Nightmare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcLFOGfmxxw
Tyranitar/Zapdos/Chandelure/Latios
Yay a chance to use my Chandelure in the sun! Clearly the MVP in this round taking out 3 of his Pokemon. I wasn't too happy about how I played the first two turns but all was good because Heat Wave in the Sun kills everything it touches. Damage hax at the end didn't matter because I have focus sash. Ended 1-0.
An addition to this video: I asked most of my opponents if they had a Smogon name and didn't get one from anyone. I mentioned to most of them (but not all since who cares they won't see it) that I'll be uploading all my matches on YouTube. I guess I didn't mention it to him especially after he said he doesn't have an account on these sites. This morning I woke up to an angry PM from this guy demanding I remove the video. Oh well though. I doubt anyone will steal a team that placed 46th and lost to my team in the video and it's not too original anyway.
Seeing Nickscor win was pretty awesome. So was getting 13th (1 below a prize yay!). Then I got to actually interact with and meet fellow Smogon users. We were pretty unorganized when it came to finding a place to eat but going to Habit was fun.
Lessons Learned:
Play with what you know and what works. I've seen way too many people with problems because their team was thrown together last minute. I knew the ins and outs of my team and had it done and used it on WiFi months prior.
It's very important to read your opponent. Predictions can get tough sometimes and often I found that I'd over predict, thinking that they'd think I'd predict something and do something to counter my prediction. Instead I should probably assume they're going to to the obvious move unless proven otherwise. I also need to have some degree of randomness so that I can't get predicted. Do something to throw them off and then they'll not be able to read me as easily.
Sleep and food are required for the human body to function correctly.
Props
Flops
Shout outs to everyone from Smogon there. UCD crew watch out because UCSC is going to power up and come after you guys next year. Also congratulations to Baby Pimp for doing also as well as Voodoo Pimp with only a few hours of experience.
I'm probably not too well known here but I've been interested in competitive Pokemon since the early days of D/P OU. I'd mostly only read stuff and battled with my friends in person and a little bit if simulator. Once Black/White came out in the Americas Voodoo Pimp got interested in VGC and he get me interested as well. Last year at Regionals I really liked Excadrill so I made a team around him so I was knocked out in the second round to a scarfed Vanillux (PANTS!!!). Come worlds I practiced more and had a much better team (Go TerraCott!) which got me to the third round of LCQ where I lost to the exact same team and lost to a Ferrothorn (again one Pokemon sweeping my entire team :|). Come this year I was dedicated to do better so I tried to put a lot more time into it. I couldn't manage a ride to Long Beach (and my team wasn't too ready) so this was my only shot to shine.
The Team:
(level 50)
OT:
(Black, 64812/4260)Adamant - Dry Skin - 31/31/31/17/31/31 - 252 HP/254 Att/4 Spd
Sucker Punch - Drain Punch - Fake Out - Protect
Nickname: The stupid annoying toad from StarFox because he's an annoying toad.
(level 55)
OT:
(SoulSilver, 1052/19072)Brave - Sand Stream - 31/31/31/31/31/0 - 254 HP/252 Att/4 SDf
Rock Slide - Low Kick - Protect - Crunch
Nickname: As the star player on my team often who holds everyone together I named her (only could find a good female seed to RNG) after Spike the best dragon out there and currently mine and Voodoo Pimp's avatar.
OT:
(SoulSilver, 5966/28453)Modest - Pressure - 31/10/30/31/31/31 - 140 HP/90 Def/252 SAt/28 Spd
Tailwind - Hidden Power - Heat Wave - Discharge
Nickname: Thunderbirds, nuff said.
(level 51)
OT:
(Black, 64812/4260)Jolly - Sand Veil - 31/31/31/4/31/31 - 4 HP/254 Att/252 Spd
Dragon Claw - Rock Slide - Earthquake - Protect
Nickname: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WImRs-nWW48
I was running Substitute instead of Rock Slide for a while and almost wish I kept it. Subsitute makes it so with a good prediction he can beat all dragons faster than him.
(level 54)
OT:
(SoulSilver, 1052/19072)Timid - Levitate - 31/6/31/30/31/30 - 6 HP/4 Def/248 SAt/4 SDf/248 Spd
Draco Meteor - Protect - Hidden Power - Psychic
Nickname: The brother from the newborn twins in the My Little Pony episode that aired when I RNG'd him. Plus it's a cool Van Halen song and a delicious.
(level 52)
OT:
(Black, 64812/4260)Timid - Flash Fire - 31/2/31/31/31/31 - 4 HP/252 SAt/254 Spd
Imprison - Heat Wave - Shadow Ball - Trick Room
Nickname: From the Visual Novel Katawa Shoujou (can you say 3 weeks of my life) the character Hanako Ikezawa has major burns because her house burnt down while she was a small child. Is the name in bad taste? probably.
Originally I tried really hard to come up with an original team but nothing did well (just look how well all of Voodoo Pimp's crazy team ideas has done). So I settled for a ZapChomp centered team. Tyranitar for covering weaknesses and Sand Veil hax, Latios to deal with most fighting types and being super strong, Chandelure for Sun/Ghost/Trick Room, and Toxicroak for Fake Out/Rain Teams/Drain Punching/Sucker Punch. He almost works like a faster version of TTar for me. I'm ashamed at the lack of originality on this team but I've put a lot of time into it and it works pretty well for me assuming I can predict well.
Road to the event:
Well I'm a college student who isn't allowed to have his car on campus and there's no public transit on weekends. So I thought I'd not be making it but then I was saved. My school held a VGC style Pokemon tourney and the top 3 got rides to VGC as a prize (SCORE!). Having already RNG'd my team I entered with it and swept though never losing more than 1 Pokemon in any match I can remember. I never fought AoK since she lost horribly to some noob.
Sunday:
Having not slept the night before (way too much homework) I was pretty groggy and hadn't ate breakfast (dining halls don't open until 10am) I was saved by our ride, who I'm not sure if he has a Smogon name, providing snacks. We got there a bit before 8am and it was pretty boring. Voodoo Pimp got a little lost and after he showed up we basically just talked until they took the prereg people. I don't really know too many other faces other than Nickscor (since he lost to Voodoo Pimp on the big screen at regionals last year). I also got to meet/talk to OmegaDonut and got handed over the responsibility of programming RNG Reporter. It was fun talking about programming/technology with him. I basically just waited around him him, his brother, and a few other people who came with me and I didn't know that well and died while they took forever to start the event.
Come 12pm they finally posted a list of everyone registered, sat us down, got our hopes up that we were starting when really it was just TCG we don't care about, told us the rules and whatnot, and then FINALLY started the matches I was already drained. No sleep, only eating a few snacks, I was almost a zombie and boy was that fun.
The Matches:
Round 1 against casual kid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOsDxK7EpVY
Toxicroak/Zapdos/Latios/Garmchomp vs. Excadrill/Tyranitar/Zapdos/Garchomp
Well this kid acted serious and talked like he knew his stuff really well so I decided to at first treat this like a very serious match. I could predict TTar/Excadrill pretty easy since that was his team's focus. Toxicroak destroys TTars and lets me use Fake Out to setup a Tailwind to outspeed so it was the obvious lead. I had my dragons for cleanup as they can together kill almost anything. After the first turn it was pretty obvious he didn't know what he was doing. Pursuit on Tyranitar and for some reason it was faster than Excadrill in the sand. I'm pretty sure Pursuit only gets priority if you actually switch out plus who would predict a switch turn one on a Fake Out user, or even try to damage a fighting type with a Dark move?
End result: 3-0'd him super easy. It could have probably been 3-0 if I had cared but I wanted a fast victory.
1-0
Round 2 against Bloom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=davaw9-SpwU
Tyranitar/Latios/Garchomp/Zapdos vs. Togekiss/Hitmontop/Blaziken/Gliscor
I wasn't too sure what to do against this team so I just went for my most common set of 4 and decided to lead Tyranitar/Latios since they usually are my Hitmontop counter plus then it saves Garchomp from intimidate and lets him get sand hax. The second I saw a shiny Togekiss I was excited since it meant RNG abuse and thus an actual challenge by someone who knows what they are doing. Got some pretty sold predictions which led to my victory. Ended 2-0.
2-0 WHOO I'm winning.
Round 3 against
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJeGb76DcqQ
Toxicroak/Zapdos/Latios/Garchomp vs. Tyranitar/Reuniclus/Garchomp/Excadrill
Another Excadrill team. I played it almost the same as the first round only with different team members. Sadly my Toxicroak died before I could take out the Tyranitar but ZapChomp still swept like the amazing Pair it is. There was plenty of unnecessary Garchomp hax which was funny. Ended with 3-0.
3-0
Round 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiweUTSoOa8
Zapdos/Garchomp/Latios/Tyranitar vs. Tyranitar/Alakazam/Sneasel/Garchomp
Another team I wasn't too sure what to do so I led solid ZapChomp. Flinch hax meant I didn't get an Earthquake in turn one but it still had a pretty solid victory. Ended 1-0
Round 5 vs Nickscor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70gwN9S_c6s props to anyone who gets why I used this song
Garchomp/Zapdos/Latios/Tyranitar vs. Togekiss/Garchomp/Rotom-F/Abaomasnow
I'm not too sure what I was thinking bringing all 3 of my Ice weak Pokemon against a team of two blizzard users I knew he would use. Especially after he told me just last round he got a double freeze hax. Oh well Chandelure and Toxicroak would have both done well but that wasn't the entire problem here. I was taunting Nickscor since I remember his Heat Wave double miss last year in VGC and got what was coming to me when he froze my Tyranitar (my only real counter to the two Blizzard users who could easily destroy a scarfed Rotom-F). All and all he did a really good job getting into my head and managed to win. I knew the Abamasnow switch was coming and still used HP Ice instead of Heat Wave and knew the Garchomp switch was coming and still used HP Fire instead of Draco Meteor. Had any of these not happen I probably wouldn't have lost but oh well I was dumb and lost because of it. Ended 0-2
4-1, just need to win every other match and then I can go to nationals
Round 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL34zo3SbcI
Reuniclus/Amoonguss/Dusclops/Politoed
A rain/TR team eh? I finally got to use my rain and TR counters. I thought I head led with Chandelure/Toxicroak but somehow I made a mistake and selected Tyranitar first. Sand ruins my Focus Sash and that sucked especially because it would have been nice to stay out and prevent TR from being set up. I also should have protected on my Latios instead of letting him just kill it but alas I still won. Boy was I happy when he used Seismic Toss on my Tyranitar when it had 51HP left.
5-1 back in the game boys
Round 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASVM2rFBgbQ
Tyranitar/Latios/Zapdos/Garchomp vs. Garchomp/Zapdos/Cresselia/Hitmontop
A team I've seen on PO way too many times. I felt pretty confident about this one. Especially since Tyranitar/Latios almost always wins against ZapChomp. If I had thought of the Tailwind a quick Draco Meteor would have saved me from the pain of a Tailwind which was my ultimate downfall. I probably also should have kept my Zapdos alive instead of Sacrificing it for Latios. Oh well his HP Ice was Sand Veil haxed anyway. Plenty of bad calls on my part and out predictions were my downfall and I lost. No way a -1 Atk Garchomp and a Latios against a team with Light Screen can do much of anything. Ended 0-3.
5-2, well there goes my chance of going to Nationals, maybe if I do well in the opponent's wins thing I'll have a chance to get one of them shiny prizes. I felt really outplayed and this motivates me to want to learn mindgames better for next year.
Round 8 vs Nightmare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcLFOGfmxxw
Tyranitar/Zapdos/Chandelure/Latios
Yay a chance to use my Chandelure in the sun! Clearly the MVP in this round taking out 3 of his Pokemon. I wasn't too happy about how I played the first two turns but all was good because Heat Wave in the Sun kills everything it touches. Damage hax at the end didn't matter because I have focus sash. Ended 1-0.
An addition to this video: I asked most of my opponents if they had a Smogon name and didn't get one from anyone. I mentioned to most of them (but not all since who cares they won't see it) that I'll be uploading all my matches on YouTube. I guess I didn't mention it to him especially after he said he doesn't have an account on these sites. This morning I woke up to an angry PM from this guy demanding I remove the video. Oh well though. I doubt anyone will steal a team that placed 46th and lost to my team in the video and it's not too original anyway.
Seeing Nickscor win was pretty awesome. So was getting 13th (1 below a prize yay!). Then I got to actually interact with and meet fellow Smogon users. We were pretty unorganized when it came to finding a place to eat but going to Habit was fun.
Lessons Learned:
Play with what you know and what works. I've seen way too many people with problems because their team was thrown together last minute. I knew the ins and outs of my team and had it done and used it on WiFi months prior.
It's very important to read your opponent. Predictions can get tough sometimes and often I found that I'd over predict, thinking that they'd think I'd predict something and do something to counter my prediction. Instead I should probably assume they're going to to the obvious move unless proven otherwise. I also need to have some degree of randomness so that I can't get predicted. Do something to throw them off and then they'll not be able to read me as easily.
Sleep and food are required for the human body to function correctly.
Props
- Not losing super early
- Placing in the top 16, 101 higher than Voodoo Pimp
- Chandelure sweep
- Delicious Habit Burger
- Finding out Duy knows a girl who made a fan club for me back in high school
Flops
- FREEZE HAX!
- No sleep the night before or after
- No food because I'm a poor, cheap college student
- Constantly falling asleep on the car ride back when I was supposed to be playing awesome music
- Not making it to Nationals
Shout outs to everyone from Smogon there. UCD crew watch out because UCSC is going to power up and come after you guys next year. Also congratulations to Baby Pimp for doing also as well as Voodoo Pimp with only a few hours of experience.
