drug_ducks "Kriegsgeschichte"
drug_duck's warstory
You can navigate through the warstory using Ctrl + F ;)
[1] Introduction
[2] Paris – comments about the team
[3] Thoughts between Paris and Cologne
[4] Cologne - comments about the team
[5] Cologne - travel and prelude
[6] The tournament
[7] After the tournament
[1] Introduction
My story begins in november of the last year when the VGC rules for Japan were announced. The metagame this year was really confined and so theorymon wasn't too hard and soon I had understood the metagame. The only thing I was really unsure about was if team preview would be used or not. In January, I took a look at the official Japanese VGC homepage together with RubeNCB92 and noticed that the Japanese were using no team preview so that the western world started playing without preview, too.
After the catastrophe in Japan it was confirmed that Japan wouldn't participate in this year's VGC so Mike Liesik suddenly had the last word about team preview. This changed the metagame in a way that forced you to build a good squad of 6 in which everything has synergy with everything else, not only in the lead position but also in the back of the team. Eventually, everyone figured out that a good team features Thundurus, Tornadus and Terrakion and this is what most teams looked like in Cologne.
For anyone not caring about Paris, just jump over this and ignore it.
[2] Paris – comments about the team
One week before Cologne we took a 3 day vacation to visit Paris and participate in the VGC. I didn't really know what to expect from French players and thought they'd be using Trick Room a lot in Masters for sure. I'm keeping it short: although my team had some really specific anti-TR measures, I ironically got my ass handed to me by a TR team featuring Chandelure and Scrafty because he also had Thundurus, Tornadus, Gigalith and Carracosta in team preview and this tricked me into thinking that his Chandelure might be using Scarf Overheat. I didn't pick Reuniclus and/or Scrafty and he got up TR. I managed to stall out TR and kill Scrafty and Chandelure before locking myself with Scarf Krookodile and Tornadus into EQ or Rock Slide against two mystery Pokémon (2 out of Carracosta, Gigalith, Tornadus and Thundurus). Picked Rock Slide and he brought Carracosta and Gigalith. gg.
Team:
[3] Thoughts between Paris and Cologne
After getting T32 at Paris I kept thinking about how I could twist the team, make it faster, without being totally vulnerable to Trick Room teams. I've been dying to test a fast mushroom after reading Milan's warstory and just thought it would fit into the team with Tornadus using Tailwind and all. Scrafty was okay but it did nothing against the genies and my team was too physical as well but I wanted something with raw power and Dark type and preferably special and so Hydreigon came to mind. Modest LO Draco Meteor / Dark Pulse has a lot more damage output than Scrafty and it also works well in Tailwind and against bulkier teams or TR teams. I gave the Chople to Krookodile and took a look at Tailwind speeds (thanks Human for compiling that list!) and I had my team. I also changed the Tornadus from bulky adamant to the standard jolly 252 spread because I saw quite a few matches where being slower than Terrakion would have cost me.
[4] comments about the team
The Cologne team looked like this:
** Toro Rosso
Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly (+Spe, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Quick Attack
- Protect
> Very surprising set.
** ShrOOmbert
Amoonguss (M) @ Coba Berry
Trait: Effect Spore
EVs: 84 HP / 76 Def / 4 SAtk / 92 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid (+Spd, -Atk)
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Protect
- Giga Drain
> Tailwind shroom. With my team being that fast people tend to think that Amoonguss is a slow 0 speed tech for TR teams which it isn't. Against heavy TR my plan was to start with Amoonguss and Hydreigon and use Krookodile and Tornadus in the back.
** Your Soup
Hydreigon (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 124 HP / 252 SAtk / 132 Spd
Modest (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Protect
> As I already said this works also well in Tailwind and is Amoonguss' partner in crime against TR teams. Dark Pulse has a 50% chance to one-shot 252/252 Cofagrigus which is okay. This was my MVP throughout the tournament because it also really works well without Tailwind against bulkier teams featuring Eelektross which gets one-shot by Draco Meteor.
** CultOfLuna
Thundurus (M) @ Charti Berry
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 8 HP / 172 SAtk / 76 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect
- Thunder Wave
> First of all, thank you Metabou for this EV spread because I copied it from you and it has always served me well. Always survives a timid max SpA Electric Gem Thunderbolt from opposing Thundurus while still being powerful even without the maximum amount of SpA EVs. Since I've used this spread I think it's really the best one because you get off two moves in mirror matches for sure while with using a 252/252 offensive spread you risk losing the speed tie and your opponent might get more than an average damage roll, killing you without your Thundurus doing ANYTHING. This way you live in turn 2 for sure (if not double targeted) and you can even put paralysis on something. I was using Sub + Protect at first but Thunder Wave has proven to be much more useful not only because of speed control but also because of enforcing luck which IS needed sometimes... Because one lucky FP can turn around an entire match.
** Hilikus
Tornadus (M) @ Flight Jewel
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Acrobatics
- Tailwind
- Substitute
- Protect
> Self-explanatory. Mushroom makes a good partner for it because Amoonguss can draw away Thunderbolts from Tornadus and can secure an additional turn for Tornadus to get off Acrobatics. The whole team makes good use of Tailwind unlike my Paris team. Also checks Scrafty, Amoonguss and Conkeldurr.
** JoeCrocker
Krookodile (M) @ Chople Berry
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 92 HP / 252 Atk / 164 Spd
Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Protect
> Also abuses Tailwind and is a good team player with Intimidate and brings a much-needed field move for the team which can be abused with three flying Pokémon. Faster than Jolly Scarf Terrakion and deals some 98% minimum damage to it.
[5] Cologne - travel and prelude
Flame, Misaki, Asaki, * ~ * Serebii * ~ * and my scurvey self travelled from Ansbach to Cologne via regional trains on friday. Meanwhile, I traded Asaki 2 new Pokémon for her final team and practiced with her. Later we played some Mario Kart. I was almost winning but then I didn't (hi Zog!). We had 21 minutes in Frankfurt to switch trains but fucking German railways fucking fucked up and we ended up having three minutes to run from one end of the train station to the other end. Fuck you Deutsche Bahn!
Misaki and I arrived at 10:30 pm at Hotel Mama's jajajaja and went to bed quickly after since we had to get up really early ._.
[6] The tournament.
Not much to say about Juniors and Seniors, Juniors was won by two randoms after billa's sister made a mistake in semis and got punished for it and corcki had to face DaFlo's sisters in Senior semis which sucked because they were probably the best players out there. Corcki should have won this after the first turn because Julia fucked up heavily but oh well... just watch it here: click.
After Senior finals, queueing for Masters did begin and after I dumped down a 2 liter bottle of energy drink in the course of the morning, I had to go to the toilet quite a few times. I ended up being at the front of the queue for playing, plugged in my headphones, talked to some people and then the tournament began with the obligatory Eye of the Tiger. I am really sorry if there are gaps in my battles, so if you were my opponent and know how the battle went, just tell me. I wrote this down from memory the day after the tournament since we were not allowed to take notes in the tournament area and I was too tired to do it directly after the tournament.
Round 1: older woman, probably someone's mother
The good woman had goodstuffs in team preview and told me she'd rng'd her Pokémon and judging from her team I thought she might be tough to beat. She picked Hydreigon, Landorus, Haxorus and Amoonguss. I began with Tornadus and Amoonguss. Tornadus used Acrobatics, leaving her Landorus in the red HP area. Landorus used Rock Slide, bringing Tornadus down to 40% and dealing 20% to Amoonguss. Her Hydreigon used Hyper Voice lol and my Amoonguss flinched (Spore attempt). Turn 2 I use Tailwind and Protect while she kills off Tornadus with Rock Slide and using Fire Blast on my Protecting Amoonguss. 3-4 Enter Terrakion for Tornadus. Giga Drain on the almost dead Landorus and Close Combat on Hydreigon - which was risky because she could have had Chople or Sash -, 3-2. She brings in Amoonguss and Haxorus and proceeds to use Rage Powder and Dragon Claw on my Terrakion for 60% while I Spore her Amoonguss and Rock Slide with Terrakion, both of them being faster than her Haxorus, to bring it down to Close Combat range. I proceed to kill off Haxorus in the following turn while switching out Amoonguss for Hydreigon. Rock Slide and Flamethrower for game, 3-0.
Runde 2: Kilian
He's one of the two guys who are always doing interviews with all the VGC participants. He wasn't too enthusiastic when he saw I was assigned to him but oh well, you can only do so much. He had a goodstuff team in team preview featuring some Pokémon I was afraid of like the vulture and Golurk. He leads with Landorus and Hydreigon (wtf again) and had Mandibuzz and Golurk in the back. I just quickly picked Thundurus, Terrakion, Tornadus and Hydreigon without thinking too much. Well, the rest of the match went off quite quickly. Hidden Power Ice and Close Combat turn it into 4-2 within one turn and Mandibuzz and Golurk enter the field. I use Thunderbolt and Rock Slide to kill the vulture, 4-1, while his Golurk brings Terrakion down to its Focus Sash. Next turn I switch out Terrakion for Hydreigon and Protect with Thundurus and 4-0 him with Dark Pulse and Hidden Power Ice.
Runde 3: teenager girl, maybe 3-4 years younger than me
This one was the toughest match I had in all the years in a preliminary round. She had Tornadus, Seismitoad, Amoonguss, Scrafty, Thundurus and a Pokémon I forgot in team preview which brought me to think this might be some weird Rain Dance team and my hunch on that wasn't wrong. My Hydreigon proved to be a major MVP in this battle. I lead off with Terrakion and Thundurus against Tornadus and Seismitoad. Seismitoads Protects itself from being Close Combatted by my Terrakion and Thundurus' Thunderbolt brought her Tornadus down to Sash after she used priority Rain Dance. I predict her to predict my obvious T2 Quick Attack on her Tornadus and proceed to double Protect to also stall one additional turn of rain. She Protects with Tornadus and I see her Seismitoad using Muddy Water on both of my Protects. In turn 3 I kill off the Tornadus using Quick Attack and get some Muddy Water in my face which brings Terrakion down to Sash and does 85% to Thundurus. She sends Amoonguss to replace her fallen Tornadus. I use Protect with Terrakion in turn 4 while switching Thundurus with Hydreigon while she attempts to Giga Drain Terrakion and uses Muddy Water with her Seismitoad. My Hydreigon's health bar drops and halts at 55% - critical hit Muddy Water to Hydreigon. As if that wasn't enough she also manages to get an accuracy drop on Hydreigon. Okay, this means I need to switch out Hydreigon again so I sacrificed Terrakion and Thundurus, with Thundurus replacing Hydreigon to get rid of the drop and Terrakion using Quick Attack on the mushroom before dying because it might have Lefties or Black Sludge and this way I would see those items. After that turn Amoonguss restores some of its HP using Black Sludge so I confirmed it doesn't have a Coba Berry. Enter Hydreigon and Tornadus. In turn 6, she used Protect with her Seismitoad while my Tornadus kills Amoonguss with Acrobatics. I took the risk of being Effect Spore'd but luckily nothing happened. She brings in Scrafty for Amoonguss and I instinctively use Protect with both of my Pokémon. While she took time to pick her moves, I feared she might be using Fake Out + Rain Dance but she ended up using Focus Blast with Seismitoad on my Protecting Hydreigon instead. Although this was a slight misplay on my part because I would get 1 kill for sure if she used Fake Out, she couldn't abuse my mistake and so I won the match by using Acrobatics on Scrafty and Draco Meteor on her Seismitoad. 2-0
Yay, finalist's lounge for me and almost all of my friends made it to finalist's lounge as well, with some people casting suspicious views on us because we celebrated and congratulated each other that loudly :D
After that we had quite a long break again and after losing concentration in Paris, I made sure this wouldn't happen again. I ate something, went to the toilet, talked to people and then listened to my musik so as I wouldn't lose my focus again because I'm not trained well enough to be a Breloom that never loses his focus!
Top 32: Martin M. (gleizzo from a group of German players called "Seniors Outrage")
I had some WiFi matches with him in VGC 2010 mode and he was using Groudon and Cresselia with TR stuff. He kept being loyal to using TR teams and had a heavy TR team consisting of Cofagrigus, Gigalith, Jellicent, Amoonguss, Scrafty and a physical Eelektross. I had Imprison Reuniclus in France to counter exactly that type of team but oh well, since I kicked it I had to work around it somehow and as you might have read, my plan against those teams was to lead Amoonguss and Hydreigon and just disrupt and kill their stuff while they cannot do much. Also helps that they don't know that my Amoonguss is actually faster than everything such a typical heavy TR team usually features while they have to fear that it might outslow them in Trick Room. I'm not sure about every detail of the battle but it went like this:
He leads with Gigalith and Cofagrigus and I began with Amoonguss and Hydreigon. Turn 1 he uses Protect with Cofagrigus to block my Dark Pulse and Amoonguss Spores his Gigalith (boom attempt). Turn 2 I Spore his Cofagrigus to prevent it from using Trick Room and Dark Pulse Gigalith to cancel Sturdy. He gets a one-turn-sleep with Gigalith, wakes up... and flinches :D While those 20% may well be lucky, he also got lucky with his one-turn sleep.
In turn 3 he switches Gigalith with Amoonguss and my Giga Drain hits his Amoonguss for negligible damage while a modest LO Dark Pulse from Hydreigon OHKOes his Cofagrigus which was like 60% likely to happen with his EV spread. Assuming the Dark Pulse also can flinch it was very likely that Dark Pulse would prevent a TR setup either by killing Cofagrigus or flinching it. I end up seeing Black Sludge on his Amoonguss before the turn ends. He sends out Scrafty and I double Protect against Fake Out and Spore. Then I proceed to Spore Scrafty and dealing 85% damage to his Amoonguss with Flamethrower before he sleeps my Hydreigon with Spore. I don't know exactly what happened after that but I won the match 4-0.
Top 16: Fatum
It was a good game both teams played hard.
He promised me to upload this match to his youtube so I will add a link to it after he'll have upped it.
EDIT: He has finished uploading the video: Fatum vs drug_duck Top16
He also added a turn-by-turn description in this video.
Top 8: Misaki (girlfriend vs boyfriend jajajaj)
I knew all her move sets and spread because I made them for her. Lost to her because I didn't protect my Hydreigon from being paralysed by her Thundurus and couldn't win against Scrafty and Eelektross with Tornadus and a paralysed Hydreigon. She deserved to win and went on to win the whole thing and I got her 3DS so my efforts weren't totally in vain :D
[7] After the tournament
... we partied a lot with a big group of various people because our group, the "Bavarian Pokémon Elite" (short BPE, a group of friends of mine, don't take the name for serious ;D) dominated this year's Germany qualifier, seeing how 6 of eight people in Top8 were from our group.
1. Jenny / Misaki (BPE)
2. Sinan / Hilikus (BPE)
3. Rebecca / Sanchan (BPE)
4. Eric / BEACH (SPF, Spokane, USA)
5. Chris / drug_duck (BPE)
6. Paul / feqz
7. Mark / Flame (BPE)
8. Ben / Picollo (BPE friend)
I'll be in next year as well, in Cologne as a spectator because I'll be winning the paid trip in Madrid.
Will add list of pros and cons soon :)
drug_duck's warstory
You can navigate through the warstory using Ctrl + F ;)
[1] Introduction
[2] Paris – comments about the team
[3] Thoughts between Paris and Cologne
[4] Cologne - comments about the team
[5] Cologne - travel and prelude
[6] The tournament
[7] After the tournament
[1] Introduction
My story begins in november of the last year when the VGC rules for Japan were announced. The metagame this year was really confined and so theorymon wasn't too hard and soon I had understood the metagame. The only thing I was really unsure about was if team preview would be used or not. In January, I took a look at the official Japanese VGC homepage together with RubeNCB92 and noticed that the Japanese were using no team preview so that the western world started playing without preview, too.
After the catastrophe in Japan it was confirmed that Japan wouldn't participate in this year's VGC so Mike Liesik suddenly had the last word about team preview. This changed the metagame in a way that forced you to build a good squad of 6 in which everything has synergy with everything else, not only in the lead position but also in the back of the team. Eventually, everyone figured out that a good team features Thundurus, Tornadus and Terrakion and this is what most teams looked like in Cologne.
For anyone not caring about Paris, just jump over this and ignore it.
[2] Paris – comments about the team
One week before Cologne we took a 3 day vacation to visit Paris and participate in the VGC. I didn't really know what to expect from French players and thought they'd be using Trick Room a lot in Masters for sure. I'm keeping it short: although my team had some really specific anti-TR measures, I ironically got my ass handed to me by a TR team featuring Chandelure and Scrafty because he also had Thundurus, Tornadus, Gigalith and Carracosta in team preview and this tricked me into thinking that his Chandelure might be using Scarf Overheat. I didn't pick Reuniclus and/or Scrafty and he got up TR. I managed to stall out TR and kill Scrafty and Chandelure before locking myself with Scarf Krookodile and Tornadus into EQ or Rock Slide against two mystery Pokémon (2 out of Carracosta, Gigalith, Tornadus and Thundurus). Picked Rock Slide and he brought Carracosta and Gigalith. gg.
Team:
Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Quick Attack
- Protect
Scrafty (M) @ Chople Berry
Moxie
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Atk / 36 SDef
Careful
- Drain Punch
- Protect
- Crunch
- Fake Out
Reuniclus (M) @ Life Orb
Magic Guard
EVs: 168 HP / 36 Def / 240 SAtk / 36 SDef / 28 Spd
Modest
- Psychic
- Imprison
- Shadow Ball
- Trick Room
Thundurus (M) @ Charti Berry
Prankster
EVs: 8 HP / 172 SAtk / 76 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect
- Thunder Wave
Tornadus (M) @ Flying Gem
Prankster
EVs: 220 HP / 180 Atk / 92 Def / 4 SDef / 12 Spd
Adamant
- Acrobatics
- Tailwind
- Substitute
- Protect
Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Outrage
The plan was using Scrafty and Reuniclus as leads against obvious TR teams and locking almost every move typical TR inducers have (Psychic and Shadow Ball) and then focus fire on their partner. If they use Chandelure for setting up Trick Room, I need to damage or kill their leads and bring Reuniclus in the back. The fault of the team was that I never was convinced of using Scrafty + Reuniclus against offensive teams and thus had to go for Terrakion, double genie and Krookodile almost every time I was up against other offensive teams. Scrafty and Reuniclus couldn't really take advantage of Tailwind, with their being slow, also Krookodile's Scarf wasn't as good as I thought initially but I'd already given Sash and Chople to other mons.
Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Quick Attack
- Protect
Scrafty (M) @ Chople Berry
Moxie
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Atk / 36 SDef
Careful
- Drain Punch
- Protect
- Crunch
- Fake Out
Reuniclus (M) @ Life Orb
Magic Guard
EVs: 168 HP / 36 Def / 240 SAtk / 36 SDef / 28 Spd
Modest
- Psychic
- Imprison
- Shadow Ball
- Trick Room
Thundurus (M) @ Charti Berry
Prankster
EVs: 8 HP / 172 SAtk / 76 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect
- Thunder Wave
Tornadus (M) @ Flying Gem
Prankster
EVs: 220 HP / 180 Atk / 92 Def / 4 SDef / 12 Spd
Adamant
- Acrobatics
- Tailwind
- Substitute
- Protect
Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Outrage
The plan was using Scrafty and Reuniclus as leads against obvious TR teams and locking almost every move typical TR inducers have (Psychic and Shadow Ball) and then focus fire on their partner. If they use Chandelure for setting up Trick Room, I need to damage or kill their leads and bring Reuniclus in the back. The fault of the team was that I never was convinced of using Scrafty + Reuniclus against offensive teams and thus had to go for Terrakion, double genie and Krookodile almost every time I was up against other offensive teams. Scrafty and Reuniclus couldn't really take advantage of Tailwind, with their being slow, also Krookodile's Scarf wasn't as good as I thought initially but I'd already given Sash and Chople to other mons.
[3] Thoughts between Paris and Cologne
After getting T32 at Paris I kept thinking about how I could twist the team, make it faster, without being totally vulnerable to Trick Room teams. I've been dying to test a fast mushroom after reading Milan's warstory and just thought it would fit into the team with Tornadus using Tailwind and all. Scrafty was okay but it did nothing against the genies and my team was too physical as well but I wanted something with raw power and Dark type and preferably special and so Hydreigon came to mind. Modest LO Draco Meteor / Dark Pulse has a lot more damage output than Scrafty and it also works well in Tailwind and against bulkier teams or TR teams. I gave the Chople to Krookodile and took a look at Tailwind speeds (thanks Human for compiling that list!) and I had my team. I also changed the Tornadus from bulky adamant to the standard jolly 252 spread because I saw quite a few matches where being slower than Terrakion would have cost me.
[4] comments about the team
The Cologne team looked like this:
Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly (+Spe, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Quick Attack
- Protect
> Very surprising set.
Amoonguss (M) @ Coba Berry
Trait: Effect Spore
EVs: 84 HP / 76 Def / 4 SAtk / 92 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid (+Spd, -Atk)
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Protect
- Giga Drain
> Tailwind shroom. With my team being that fast people tend to think that Amoonguss is a slow 0 speed tech for TR teams which it isn't. Against heavy TR my plan was to start with Amoonguss and Hydreigon and use Krookodile and Tornadus in the back.
Hydreigon (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 124 HP / 252 SAtk / 132 Spd
Modest (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Protect
> As I already said this works also well in Tailwind and is Amoonguss' partner in crime against TR teams. Dark Pulse has a 50% chance to one-shot 252/252 Cofagrigus which is okay. This was my MVP throughout the tournament because it also really works well without Tailwind against bulkier teams featuring Eelektross which gets one-shot by Draco Meteor.
Thundurus (M) @ Charti Berry
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 8 HP / 172 SAtk / 76 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect
- Thunder Wave
> First of all, thank you Metabou for this EV spread because I copied it from you and it has always served me well. Always survives a timid max SpA Electric Gem Thunderbolt from opposing Thundurus while still being powerful even without the maximum amount of SpA EVs. Since I've used this spread I think it's really the best one because you get off two moves in mirror matches for sure while with using a 252/252 offensive spread you risk losing the speed tie and your opponent might get more than an average damage roll, killing you without your Thundurus doing ANYTHING. This way you live in turn 2 for sure (if not double targeted) and you can even put paralysis on something. I was using Sub + Protect at first but Thunder Wave has proven to be much more useful not only because of speed control but also because of enforcing luck which IS needed sometimes... Because one lucky FP can turn around an entire match.
Tornadus (M) @ Flight Jewel
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Acrobatics
- Tailwind
- Substitute
- Protect
> Self-explanatory. Mushroom makes a good partner for it because Amoonguss can draw away Thunderbolts from Tornadus and can secure an additional turn for Tornadus to get off Acrobatics. The whole team makes good use of Tailwind unlike my Paris team. Also checks Scrafty, Amoonguss and Conkeldurr.
Krookodile (M) @ Chople Berry
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 92 HP / 252 Atk / 164 Spd
Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Protect
> Also abuses Tailwind and is a good team player with Intimidate and brings a much-needed field move for the team which can be abused with three flying Pokémon. Faster than Jolly Scarf Terrakion and deals some 98% minimum damage to it.
[5] Cologne - travel and prelude
Flame, Misaki, Asaki, * ~ * Serebii * ~ * and my scurvey self travelled from Ansbach to Cologne via regional trains on friday. Meanwhile, I traded Asaki 2 new Pokémon for her final team and practiced with her. Later we played some Mario Kart. I was almost winning but then I didn't (hi Zog!). We had 21 minutes in Frankfurt to switch trains but fucking German railways fucking fucked up and we ended up having three minutes to run from one end of the train station to the other end. Fuck you Deutsche Bahn!
Misaki and I arrived at 10:30 pm at Hotel Mama's jajajaja and went to bed quickly after since we had to get up really early ._.
[6] The tournament.
Not much to say about Juniors and Seniors, Juniors was won by two randoms after billa's sister made a mistake in semis and got punished for it and corcki had to face DaFlo's sisters in Senior semis which sucked because they were probably the best players out there. Corcki should have won this after the first turn because Julia fucked up heavily but oh well... just watch it here: click.
After Senior finals, queueing for Masters did begin and after I dumped down a 2 liter bottle of energy drink in the course of the morning, I had to go to the toilet quite a few times. I ended up being at the front of the queue for playing, plugged in my headphones, talked to some people and then the tournament began with the obligatory Eye of the Tiger. I am really sorry if there are gaps in my battles, so if you were my opponent and know how the battle went, just tell me. I wrote this down from memory the day after the tournament since we were not allowed to take notes in the tournament area and I was too tired to do it directly after the tournament.
Round 1: older woman, probably someone's mother
The good woman had goodstuffs in team preview and told me she'd rng'd her Pokémon and judging from her team I thought she might be tough to beat. She picked Hydreigon, Landorus, Haxorus and Amoonguss. I began with Tornadus and Amoonguss. Tornadus used Acrobatics, leaving her Landorus in the red HP area. Landorus used Rock Slide, bringing Tornadus down to 40% and dealing 20% to Amoonguss. Her Hydreigon used Hyper Voice lol and my Amoonguss flinched (Spore attempt). Turn 2 I use Tailwind and Protect while she kills off Tornadus with Rock Slide and using Fire Blast on my Protecting Amoonguss. 3-4 Enter Terrakion for Tornadus. Giga Drain on the almost dead Landorus and Close Combat on Hydreigon - which was risky because she could have had Chople or Sash -, 3-2. She brings in Amoonguss and Haxorus and proceeds to use Rage Powder and Dragon Claw on my Terrakion for 60% while I Spore her Amoonguss and Rock Slide with Terrakion, both of them being faster than her Haxorus, to bring it down to Close Combat range. I proceed to kill off Haxorus in the following turn while switching out Amoonguss for Hydreigon. Rock Slide and Flamethrower for game, 3-0.
Runde 2: Kilian
He's one of the two guys who are always doing interviews with all the VGC participants. He wasn't too enthusiastic when he saw I was assigned to him but oh well, you can only do so much. He had a goodstuff team in team preview featuring some Pokémon I was afraid of like the vulture and Golurk. He leads with Landorus and Hydreigon (wtf again) and had Mandibuzz and Golurk in the back. I just quickly picked Thundurus, Terrakion, Tornadus and Hydreigon without thinking too much. Well, the rest of the match went off quite quickly. Hidden Power Ice and Close Combat turn it into 4-2 within one turn and Mandibuzz and Golurk enter the field. I use Thunderbolt and Rock Slide to kill the vulture, 4-1, while his Golurk brings Terrakion down to its Focus Sash. Next turn I switch out Terrakion for Hydreigon and Protect with Thundurus and 4-0 him with Dark Pulse and Hidden Power Ice.
Runde 3: teenager girl, maybe 3-4 years younger than me
This one was the toughest match I had in all the years in a preliminary round. She had Tornadus, Seismitoad, Amoonguss, Scrafty, Thundurus and a Pokémon I forgot in team preview which brought me to think this might be some weird Rain Dance team and my hunch on that wasn't wrong. My Hydreigon proved to be a major MVP in this battle. I lead off with Terrakion and Thundurus against Tornadus and Seismitoad. Seismitoads Protects itself from being Close Combatted by my Terrakion and Thundurus' Thunderbolt brought her Tornadus down to Sash after she used priority Rain Dance. I predict her to predict my obvious T2 Quick Attack on her Tornadus and proceed to double Protect to also stall one additional turn of rain. She Protects with Tornadus and I see her Seismitoad using Muddy Water on both of my Protects. In turn 3 I kill off the Tornadus using Quick Attack and get some Muddy Water in my face which brings Terrakion down to Sash and does 85% to Thundurus. She sends Amoonguss to replace her fallen Tornadus. I use Protect with Terrakion in turn 4 while switching Thundurus with Hydreigon while she attempts to Giga Drain Terrakion and uses Muddy Water with her Seismitoad. My Hydreigon's health bar drops and halts at 55% - critical hit Muddy Water to Hydreigon. As if that wasn't enough she also manages to get an accuracy drop on Hydreigon. Okay, this means I need to switch out Hydreigon again so I sacrificed Terrakion and Thundurus, with Thundurus replacing Hydreigon to get rid of the drop and Terrakion using Quick Attack on the mushroom before dying because it might have Lefties or Black Sludge and this way I would see those items. After that turn Amoonguss restores some of its HP using Black Sludge so I confirmed it doesn't have a Coba Berry. Enter Hydreigon and Tornadus. In turn 6, she used Protect with her Seismitoad while my Tornadus kills Amoonguss with Acrobatics. I took the risk of being Effect Spore'd but luckily nothing happened. She brings in Scrafty for Amoonguss and I instinctively use Protect with both of my Pokémon. While she took time to pick her moves, I feared she might be using Fake Out + Rain Dance but she ended up using Focus Blast with Seismitoad on my Protecting Hydreigon instead. Although this was a slight misplay on my part because I would get 1 kill for sure if she used Fake Out, she couldn't abuse my mistake and so I won the match by using Acrobatics on Scrafty and Draco Meteor on her Seismitoad. 2-0
Yay, finalist's lounge for me and almost all of my friends made it to finalist's lounge as well, with some people casting suspicious views on us because we celebrated and congratulated each other that loudly :D
After that we had quite a long break again and after losing concentration in Paris, I made sure this wouldn't happen again. I ate something, went to the toilet, talked to people and then listened to my musik so as I wouldn't lose my focus again because I'm not trained well enough to be a Breloom that never loses his focus!
Top 32: Martin M. (gleizzo from a group of German players called "Seniors Outrage")
I had some WiFi matches with him in VGC 2010 mode and he was using Groudon and Cresselia with TR stuff. He kept being loyal to using TR teams and had a heavy TR team consisting of Cofagrigus, Gigalith, Jellicent, Amoonguss, Scrafty and a physical Eelektross. I had Imprison Reuniclus in France to counter exactly that type of team but oh well, since I kicked it I had to work around it somehow and as you might have read, my plan against those teams was to lead Amoonguss and Hydreigon and just disrupt and kill their stuff while they cannot do much. Also helps that they don't know that my Amoonguss is actually faster than everything such a typical heavy TR team usually features while they have to fear that it might outslow them in Trick Room. I'm not sure about every detail of the battle but it went like this:
He leads with Gigalith and Cofagrigus and I began with Amoonguss and Hydreigon. Turn 1 he uses Protect with Cofagrigus to block my Dark Pulse and Amoonguss Spores his Gigalith (boom attempt). Turn 2 I Spore his Cofagrigus to prevent it from using Trick Room and Dark Pulse Gigalith to cancel Sturdy. He gets a one-turn-sleep with Gigalith, wakes up... and flinches :D While those 20% may well be lucky, he also got lucky with his one-turn sleep.
In turn 3 he switches Gigalith with Amoonguss and my Giga Drain hits his Amoonguss for negligible damage while a modest LO Dark Pulse from Hydreigon OHKOes his Cofagrigus which was like 60% likely to happen with his EV spread. Assuming the Dark Pulse also can flinch it was very likely that Dark Pulse would prevent a TR setup either by killing Cofagrigus or flinching it. I end up seeing Black Sludge on his Amoonguss before the turn ends. He sends out Scrafty and I double Protect against Fake Out and Spore. Then I proceed to Spore Scrafty and dealing 85% damage to his Amoonguss with Flamethrower before he sleeps my Hydreigon with Spore. I don't know exactly what happened after that but I won the match 4-0.
Top 16: Fatum
It was a good game both teams played hard.
He promised me to upload this match to his youtube so I will add a link to it after he'll have upped it.
EDIT: He has finished uploading the video: Fatum vs drug_duck Top16
He also added a turn-by-turn description in this video.
Top 8: Misaki (girlfriend vs boyfriend jajajaj)
I knew all her move sets and spread because I made them for her. Lost to her because I didn't protect my Hydreigon from being paralysed by her Thundurus and couldn't win against Scrafty and Eelektross with Tornadus and a paralysed Hydreigon. She deserved to win and went on to win the whole thing and I got her 3DS so my efforts weren't totally in vain :D
[7] After the tournament
... we partied a lot with a big group of various people because our group, the "Bavarian Pokémon Elite" (short BPE, a group of friends of mine, don't take the name for serious ;D) dominated this year's Germany qualifier, seeing how 6 of eight people in Top8 were from our group.
1. Jenny / Misaki (BPE)
2. Sinan / Hilikus (BPE)
3. Rebecca / Sanchan (BPE)
4. Eric / BEACH (SPF, Spokane, USA)
5. Chris / drug_duck (BPE)
6. Paul / feqz
7. Mark / Flame (BPE)
8. Ben / Picollo (BPE friend)
I'll be in next year as well, in Cologne as a spectator because I'll be winning the paid trip in Madrid.
Will add list of pros and cons soon :)
