Thursday 12 January 2017

Oozing out the Pressure Cooker! - A Top 4 Dutch Open Team Report

Introduction

Welcome back everyone, it's Daniel Oztekin here, and this time on a different platform! Sadly since Nugget Bridge got hacked, my blog posts from the past year got wiped out. However I have taken the time to copy over the reports that meant the most to me, my  Liverpool Top 8 Finish, using Ditto and Sneasel and Yveltal, Rai-choose you!, my Top 16 UK Nationals report. 

If you enjoy my report, you might want to check me out and follow me on twitter here!


London to Leiden! A Summary of my weekend road trip.

Last Saturday I set off from London to Leiden to take part in the Dutch Open, a special even that counts as a regional slot towards qualifying for the Pokemon World Championship, along with MSK who was driving his son to the event and compete himself, staying up for 48 hours! It was quite a mental and very fun road trip, and was a bit scary as it was the first time I travelled abroad for Championship Points.


The journey was pretty dark and gloomy as we set off at 9pm Friday, and arrived at 8am Saturday. It started snowing halfway through our journey, so we were pretty freaked that we might get stuck in Belgium! By the time we travelled back the snow had melted though. Leiden was a very pretty city with cute dainty houses, and with everything being covered with a thin layer of snow made it very beautiful.

Upon arriving, I scouted out the field a little. Quite a few players turned up from the UK, to note my good friend Rafik who placed Top 4 with me and Jamie Miller who built the team. Vanlilluxe is one hell of a good Pokemon, so watch for it increase in usage in the future.

Prior to the event, I consistently placed high on the Battle Spot and Pokemon Showdown ladders, peaking at 1870 on Battle Spot and 1760 on Pokemon Showdown. In the end we played 6 rounds of swiss, with me finishing 5-1 and finishing 2nd in swiss with a solid resistance. I had a mostly solid run in swiss, with some really good luck in the last round not even giving my opponent a chance to play. Thankfully, I would have still cut with my resistance. In the end, I won my Top 8 match in an intense Rain vs Sun match, to be knocked out by my good friend 000aj in Top 4.

The organisers did an amazing job at the event. It ran really smoothly and was finished around 5pm! I really enjoyed myself and would love to attend next year.


Team Building


Unfortunately, the London International was a little bit of a disaster: I was really ill during day 1 of swiss, so performed terribly, not even obtaining any Championship Points. However during the second day I felt much better and I placed second in a 178 player Mid Season Showdown, restoring my confidence in the team I built and myself. Although frustrated at the main event, we all have to accept we will have our bad days and move on. If you're interested, I used a team of Kartana/Talonflame/Marowak/Krookodile/Tapu Lele/Milotic.

Following this, I avoided playing for a little while, before taking a shine to the play-styles Tobias and Wolfe had in London with Tapu Bulu and how their team's somewhat revolved around it defensively. From this, I started building a defensive team, based around Tapu Bulu. I decided a weather setter was a necessity and chose Torkoal due to it's sheer firepower and the synergy it has with Grassy Terrain support. As Torkoal is the 2nd slowest Pokemon in the game I chose Porygon2 as my trick room setter as it is by far the best Trick Room setter this format and acts as glue for many teams. Whilst I hadn't solidified my trick room mode, I added Lilligant to give my team a fast mode to prevent my opponents from Auto-piloting versus my trick room mode, force rigid leads from opponents and often win on team preview. I also consider ground types to be extremely powerful this format, so chose Mudsdale as it is extremely bulky, slow and hits really hard with Heavy Slam and High Horsepower, working well inside Grassy Terrain. Finally, my team had some problems will toxic-stall teams, and a lot of the things that wall this team could be broken down with Toxic, so I chose Tentacruel as my final Pokemon, as hits Toxic all the time, can't be poisoned, and gives my team a second leftovers.

The Team in detail

A note about my EV spreads: I didn't use defensive benchmarks in my team building. Instead, I tried to make my team as defensively efficient as I could with the EVs. I also made very small tweaks when playing on PS with Pokemon such as Porygon2 until they lived what I wanted, resulting in these spreads.




Tapu Bulu @ Kebia Berry
Ability: Grassy Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 76 Atk / 60 Def / 92 SpD / 36 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Horn Leech
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Protect

This is simply the move set that Wolfe used, with my own personal tweaks. The moveset allows Bulu to survive a long time and chip at opponents, whilst self healing. Tapu Bulu hits a HP stat of 176; I optimised most Pokemon on my team to have a HP stat divisible by 16, to optimise leftovers and grassy terrain recovery. I bumped up the attack EVs to 76 to reach the point that the Attack stat jumps 2 points, added speed creep and took the EVs out of Special Defence as I saw more use in them elsewhere. I didn't change the Defence stat because I didn't know what it did!

Wolfe used Lum berry Tapu Bulu, which I wasn't very keen on, and I considered leftovers and a few items that the rest of my team really needed. I ended up settling on Kebia Berry which is so so good! It comes into play most games, with many Pokemon choosing to opt for Poison Jab as their third move. One of my favourite leads is Porygon2 and Tapu Bulu into Tapu Koko and Garchomp, which would usually be a bad lead, but is completely reversed with the Kebia Berry.




Torkoal @ Firium Z
Ability: Drought
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 252 SpA / 12 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Eruption
- Heat Wave
- Nature Power
- Protect

Torkoal is the only Pokemon on my team that comes to 100% of games. In Trick Room the damage output of eruption really is terrifying. Eruption + Heat Wave together provide torkoal with reliable spread damage, allowing it plus the partner to constantly pick up KOs and punish switches. Firium Z Eruption allows Torkoal to blast off a 200 Base power Inferno Overdrive, which in the sun is insane, and allows you to work around Wide Guard. Finally, Grassy Terrain turns Nature Power into Energy Ball, which was my choice instead of Solar Beam. Despite it's lower base power, having a reliable option versus other weather teams was really important: I don't want to get stuck mid-charge! Nature Power also effectively gives Torkoal STAB moves of the other terrains. On a side note, Grassy Terrain halving Earthquake damage is very useful for preserving Torkoal.

Torkoal's EVs are pretty simple, 244 HP hits a HP stat of 176, divisible by 16 for grassy terrain. I maxed out Special Attack with 252 SpA EVs and placed the rest into Special Defence. I chose to run Relaxed Nature as not doing so with a base defence of 140 is criminally inefficient. The extra bulk results in increased Eruption damage in long games, so is definitely worth it.




Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Download
Level: 50
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Ice Beam
- Frustration
- Recover
- Trick Room

Porygon2 is the most solid Pokemon this format, in my opinion. It's a really good glue for teams and doesn't even need to be used on hard trick room teams to be effective. Up until now most Torkoal teams have focused on Oranguru as the Trick Room setter, and to be frank Porygon2 is better.

My move set and stat distribution is a little unusual. I ran as much defensive investment possible as getting Trick Room off was a priority for my team. The defence investment doesn't achieve anything in particular, but is a result of testing and tweaking my EV spread after grinding out battles on Pokemon Showdown. The HP stat hits 192, a number divisible by 16.

Up until the week before travelling to Leiden, I was running Tri-Attack. I had faced a few Return Porygon2 on Battle Spot, believing it to be a gimmick to take advantage of attack boosts from download, before taking a better look at it's stat distribution: A Base 102 move off an Attack stat of 100 and a Base 80 move off a Special Attack stat of 125 have the same effective damage output.

As a result, I wanted to run a mixed Porygon2 set with Ice Beam and Frustration. This meant whatever attack boost I gained would always be useful. However, it must be noted there are drawbacks to doing this. Using a Physical STAB move makes you more prone to Intimidate and Will-O-Wisp, weakening the Arcanine matchup, and you might miss the 20% chance to inflict status on the opponent.



Lilligant @ Wide Lens
Ability: Chlorophyll
Level: 50
EVs: 116 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 132 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sleep Powder
- After You
- Leaf Storm
- Protect

Lilligant brings me back memories of VGC2016: Simply being on the team will force your opponent to bring Pokemon to the match that can deal with it. And just to note, Lilligant isn't there to be pretty and do nothing, it's is terrifying to play against without the correct tools. First up, I opted to run Wide Lense to have access to 83% accuracy Sleep Powder and 99% Accurate Leaf Storm. 75% Accuracy is just awful, and made the Torkoal + Lilligant lead a lot more consistent, with one of the best moves usually being Sleep Powder + Eruption. After you is self explanatory, having a fast eruption can be crazy good, but in most situations may not be the best option. Honestly I click Sleep Powder more than any other move.

The EVs are simple but effective. 132 Speed EVs hit a speed of 127, allowing Lilligant to out-speed Scarf Garchomp in the Sun. I maxed the Special Attack stat to make Leaf Storm hit as hard as possible. Lilligant in combination with Tapu Bulu can be terrifying when it is viable to run. The rest of the EVs were invested into bulk. As a result Lilligant has enough bulk to make most attacks on it a 2HKO e.g. Garchomp's Poison Jab and Kartana's Smart Strike.

Honestly, with Lilligant on the team you could just lead Porygon2 + X and very likely have a great match up, as opponents may have hard countered your Lilligant mode. On top of that, This team is pretty great for best of 3 matches as you can choose either mode each game, often making games far more difficult for your opponent than yourself.



Mudsdale @ Leftovers
Ability: Stamina
Level: 50
EVs: 132 HP / 124 Atk / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- High Horsepower
- Heavy Slam
- Rest / Toxic
- Protect

I believe that Ground is the best offensive type in VGC2017. Everything is grounded to make use of terrains and ground types like Landorus have always been prominent every year. High Horsepower gives you a powerful move that isn't nerfed by Grassy Terrain, and Heavy Slam is extremely useful with the Tapus running around, still hits most targets for a neutral 120 BP.

Rest isn't necessary on the set, but Torkoal was my only answer to Celesteela on the team, and as I didn't want to bother making any major changes to the team I decided I would timer-stall Celesteela teams I faced in Leiden that KOd my Torkoal by knocking out all Pokemon except Celesteela and stalling 2 vs 1 with Mudsdale and Porygon2 until time and sudden death. This strategy won't work on Battle Spot or Pokemon Showdown. Rest can easily be replaced by Toxic, or Rototiller if you are a man enough.

Leftovers + Protect Mudsdale is really amazing, and increases it's long term use greatly. The constant healing each turn from Leftovers and Grassy Terrain plus Stamina boosts allows him to soak up hits and last way longer than it should. Mudsdale walls and provides quite a threat to many teams, so protect it carefully.

The EV spread is actually really sloppy, sadly. I chose to max Special Defence and put pretty good numbers in Attack and HP and leave it at that, which is pretty dire. As a result, High Horsepower would deal 90% to Muk, which was really dumb. It's a good idea to revise my spread a bit, as it isn't optimised. The HP stat hits a number of 192 HP, which is optimal for Leftovers and Grassy Terrain Recovery.



Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
Level: 50
EVs: 164 HP / 252 Def / 20 SpA / 4 SpD / 68 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Scald / Knock Off
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect

For the final slot of my team I wanted a Pokemon that could use Toxic and couldn't be poisoned to out-stall opposing stall teams. A Poison type Pokemon would be optimal, as it could hit 100% accurate toxic and hold the Black Sludge, giving my team an additional Leftovers. Water/Poison is a really good defensive typing, so I was originally going to use Toxapex as it also gets access to Regenerator, but it's offensive stats are low and supportive move pool isn't great, so I chose Tentacruel. Sludge Bomb allows it to one-shot opposing Tapu Bulu and heavily damage the other Tapu's, and Scald gives it dual stab. Scald should be replaced by knock off when PokeBank is released because it is far better, knocking off leftovers, eviolite, thick club, etc.

An important note: Tentacruel is often required in matches versus Goodra or Arcanine due to how much they wall the team.

The ability Liquid Ooze is a very cool ability that will damage Pokemon that Leech Seed it, most notably Celesteela. This helps out-stall these teams, reducing their options to damage Tentacruel. It also damages Pokemon that Horn Leech or Giga Drain it. Clear Body is an alternative if you want to focus on an offencive Tentacruel.

The EV spread is simple. I first invested 68 Speed EVs to hit a speed stat of 129 to outspeed Pelipper, as it can be very useful in the matchup. Then I maxed out the Defence stat and hit a HP stat of 176 to optimise Black Sludge and Grassy Terrain recovery. finally I added 4 to Special Defence and the rest to Special Attack.

Cores of the team, Lead combination & Theory




Leading either Tapu Bulu or Mudsdale are both very viable choices. I personally really enjoy leading with Tapu Bulu to cancel out the Terrain of any opposing Tapu Koko and Tapu Lele. Be wary that sometimes Trick Room isn't always the best move: if the opponent carries taunt double attacking turn 1 may be best, especially with Porygon2's Download Boost. When Trick Room is up it is very likely Porygon2 has taken a battering: Make sure to take care not to lose Porygon2 in Trick Room, and recover when the opponent is attempting to outmanoeuvre your Trick Room.

Getting Torkoal in on the early turns of Trick Rooms is very good, but should be done carefully. Luckily the massive defence stat on it allows it to switch into Physical attacks with relative ease. Even if Torkoal takes large amounts of damage, access to Heat Wave and Z Inferno Overdrive give it access to high damage output moves. Mudsdale provides a safer option to switch in that actually benefits from taking hits.

If the opponent has a team that seems particularily threatening to Porygon2 or Tapu Bulu I will often lead with Mudsdale instead. This is usually if I am afraid of a Z fighting move, which is a way players counter Porygon2. In that case, switching Tapu Bulu in on the Z move is a good way to get around it. If the opponent is commiting to prevent your trick room, it might be an idea to switch to Lilligant Torkoal instead.





You can choose to lead with Tentacruel instead if needed. Against more stall-orientated teams with toxic on their movesets or Pokemon that wall the team I bring Tentacruel to ensure I win the match up. The intention here is that Grassy Terrain extends the length of the game, allowing toxic counters with Tentacruel to rack up.





I chose to Bring Torkoal Lilligant to about 1/4 of games I played, simply because the Trick Room mode of the team is far more solid. However, in a best of 3 set or versus a Lilligant Torkoal weak team, it can be very effective. The above 4 are brought the majority of the time if I choose to play this way. Sleep Powder + X move gives you more flexibility in manoeuvring into a winning position. Pokemon that commonly answer this lead such as Arcanine and Muk are hit hard by Mudsdale, or if the opponent is trying to win the weather war you can easily switch in Porygon2 and hit the switch in with a Sleep Powder or Leaf Storm. You can also opt to bring Tapu Bulu in the back to buff Leaf Storm's Power, but this is highly situational.

Conclusion

I've had a ton of fun building this team from scratch, and after a lot of frustration it felt really good to get something consistent going! It has earned me 80 Championship Points so far, but with no major events until March for me I will be attending Mid Season Showdowns and Premier Challenges to rack up some CP with this team and variants. I also have a pretty amazing and wacky team in the works right now I'm really excited about... but regionals are in March, so you'll have to wait until then to see it! See you!


Wednesday 11 January 2017

You Used Ditto and Sneasel?! A Liverpool Regionals Top 8 Team Report

Introduction












Hello all, Daniel Oztekin here! Today is 14th November 2016; the VGC 2016 format is wrapping up with the last European regional coming up this weekend and twitter is rife with Pokémon Sun and Moon leaks. Instead of writing up a report on my success at the Liverpool Regional during the weekend 5th and 6th November, I have been spending far more attention absorbing information from the Sun & Moon data-mine, preparing team ideas for the European International Challenge. It's difficult to motivate myself to write up a report that at this point is completely useless to everyone, but I thought it would be a fun read, considering my wacky choices:

A Prologue Before going further, I haven't really wrote much up in terms of blogs since my UK Nationals Team Report. Instead, I've been spending too much time sh**posting on my twitter account. If you enjoy Pokémon and don't mind all the weeb trash and pictures I post of Felix, feel free to check out my twitter account at www.twitter.com/Necrocat219. Most the time, I post Pokemon-related stuff though, and I like to keep up to date with the meta, so it could be useful to you!

Since UK Nationals, I attended The Pokémon World Championship and had the time of my life. My team if you're interested was Groudon / Xerneas / Kangaskhan / Whimsicott / Cresselia / Scrafty, with Scrafty unfortunately being dead weight for the whole tournament. Despite finishing with a result of 5-3 and getting knocked out in round 7, just being in America for my first time was incredible, especially San Francisco, one of the most gorgeous (and money guzzling) cities in the world. Meeting so many American & international players that I had spoken to online, and the amazing times I had with team UK out there, and just going around the city, seeing the sights and walking along the coast from the Golden Gate Bridge to Fisherman's Wharf, made the most amazing experience.

Team building Process (Scroll down to team summary if you find this stuff boring)




Going into Liverpool, in all honesty I really wanted to enjoy myself. I wasn't going to pay a €35.00 entry fee and accommodation costs just to possibly get knocked out using boring stuff, so I started experimenting and looking into cool options I had that would let me auto-pilot on the day.

Kangaskhan and Whimsicott became my favourite lead of the format after months of Giovanni Costa trying to convince me to use it with how consistent of a lead it was. Whilst I did use Kyogre in Liverpool, Groudon is my love of the format. Groudon is a terrifying to face in trick room and gravity, and can be just as scary in tailwind, so had to be the next member. And so I had my first 3 team members...

With the mindset I had going into this tournament, I did want to find something pretty cool to use, and Miahruh introduced me to Ditto! He altered his Battle Spot team for the post-worlds meta-game (You can find his pre-worlds team report here) by replacing Salamence on his team with Assault Vest Ditto. This was mainly to assist versus the Wolfe team, as it could copy Raichu and it's lighningrod, Rayquaza and Kyogre, tank hits effectively and provide bulky fake out support, whilst being useful in other matchups: Miah preferred Assault Vest, this was largely because Ditto wasn't necessary for his XernDon matchups. Most times, he would bring his Bronzong mode to that team.

Instead of Assault Vest, back in May I had concluded that Life Orb would be the best item on Ditto (Inspired by Jamie Miller) based on the fact that you can control a Geomancy Xerneas, Primal Groudon or Mega Pokemon holding a Life Orb. The damage output they have is crazy! You could Copy Primal Groudon and one shot any Groudon in return, no matter their bulk, thanks to the Life Orb bulk. Fire off Life Orb Boosted Eruptions/Water Spouts. Copy Xerneas and deal ~60-70% with Moonblast back, which in combination of Kangaskhan's -1 Double Edge dealing ~40-60% would always knock it out. Actually knock out opposing Kangaskhan with Dazzling gleam. Coming off Modest 68 SpA Dazzling gleam, this had a 75% chance to knock out 4HP Kangaskhan. Copy Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Salamence, dealing immense damage. Copy Raichu and Hitmontop, stealing their Lighting Rod and Intimidate for your own use. And the list goes on.

Each game I would always attempt to copy Groudon or Xeneas with priority over anything else, but my item choice meant I could copy almost anything. During the day I copied: Groudon, Xerneas, Kangaskhan, Salamence, Mega Gengar, Talonflame, Jumpluff, Scrafty, Cresselia, Weavile, my own Groudon and Hitmontop.

A note on how I played with Ditto: Positioning Ditto in front of Xerneas/Groudon can be extremely awkward, thanks to a 50:50 of the leads sent out. Each set, I would lead Whimsicott and Kangaskhan game 1, following this up with a Kangaskhan and Whimsicott lead game 2. This would usually get around players trying to outguess me, without me having to waste time thinking about it. A note on other items I considered:

 Assault Vest: Greatly increases Ditto's bulk but limits ability to copy support Pokemon and use of Protect.

Choice Scarf: Even more limiting than Assault Vest. Ability to win every speed tie is nice, but makes Ditto completely useless versus Trick Room.

Red Card: Personally I find this item a bit gimmicky, and makes controlling the flow of the game difficult, and limits you to mainly copying Xerneas.

Quick Claw: Is generally a sub-par item, and is accepting you will have to go for speed ties.

Focus Sash: Was good early meta during Timid Groudon's rein, but not so much anymore.

Next up, I had to improve my match up versus non-Xerneas teams with my restricted choice. And the Pokemon of choice which I am very familiar is: Having used Tailwind Yveltal to compete in UK Nationals, it gave me a restricted Pokemon that favoured my Dual Primal and RayOgre matchups that had a lot of supportive moves at it's hand, as well as a good damage output. I decided to stray for the norm and build a fast, extremely bulky set with no offence, with a focus on Tailwind and Snarl support. Foul Play gave me a respectable damage choice, especially as I wasn't running any intimidate users, and made this guy a real pain for non-Xerneas players do deal with.

From here, I was actually pretty comfortable playing with just the 5 Pokemon on my team. I fiddled around with and finalised all 5 Pokemon on my team before choosing my 6th. My game plan was always to either lead Kangaskhan + Whimsicott or Kangaskhan + Yveltal, with Groudon and Ditto in the back, and I think that I succeeded in making this team work reasonable here. My team wasn't exactly the most solid, but if worst came to worst, I could always risk the speed tie or swagger the opponent. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, but using Swagger + the Ditto speed tie often gives me a 73% chance to win the game, so in using my frankly lazy game plan, I could still come out on top.

So I played around with stuff and decided it needed some memes: Weeks before Regionals, I faced Lee Provost who was using an unusually bulky Assault Vest Weavile that could live a -1 Power Up Punch from Kangaskhan, and that made me think, hey I can do some fun stuff with this. And so I removed all of my Weaviles attack, decided to slap Foul Play on for damage output next to Yveltal, and ran Snarl/Icy Wind/Fake out to make my team crazy-bulky on the Special Defence side, and grant me an extra form of speed control, whilst scaring Bronzong and Cresselia away from team preview (Everyone on seeing it on preview had no idea what it was for). And then I made a revelation: What if I replace Assault Vest Weavile with Eviolite Sneasel? I checked my calcs, and unfortunately Sneasel had a little less bulk that Weavile. However, Sneasel has access to Inner Focus, making it a random tech choice that probably would never be (and definitely still isn't) viable. And whilst I should have really took more time to weigh my choice, using a meme like Sneasel was way too tempting and so finalised my team.

Team members



Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50 EVs: 28 HP / 180 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Power-Up Punch
- Double-Edge
- Sucker Punch

My own spread for the season. It lives Low Kick from Jolly Kangaskhan 90% of the time, which I was happy with. I also optimised the attack stat in line with Parental Bond, Power Up Punch, and Intimidate. Other than that, nothing special. I kept this spread since April, and as I was so familiar with it never updated since.



Whimsicott @ Focus Sash Ability:
Prankster Level: 50 EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature IVs: 0 Atk
- Safeguard
- Swagger
- Tailwind
- Moonblast

The mostly standard set, the Whimsicott I brought to worlds had Encore which was very handy. However in many cases, Whimsicott would be able to emit the same pressure on team preview anyway, so I replaced it with Swagger in order to use SafeSwag. Safe Swag was VERY important to this team's success. With Kangaskhan and Whimsicott out with Ditto in the back, I needed to make sure that I had control of the game, and always be the one with board control. Turning Kangaskhan into a single target nuke forced opponents to either get swept by my Kangaskhan, or knock it out, giving my Ditto a free switch in to copy their Xerneas or Groudon. It also gave me a decent game-plan versus trick room teams when I failed to bring Yveltal and Sneasel: As the opponent was setting up Trick Room, this could give me free reign to set up Safeguard, and start swagging up in trick room, resulting in punishing the opponent with a very boosted Kang.

 I could also Swagger their Groudon in Trick Room and switch my Ditto in as they knocked out my Pokemon, giving me a 73% chance to win the game. Tailwind was necessary in the speed control war. As Xerneas sets up Geomancy, I set up Tailwind, and win on speed control. Letting Xerneas set up is very risk free due to Ditto being in the back.

Against Xerneas and Smeargle leads, Kangaskhan and Whimsicott is a pretty much guaranteed win, especially as a Power up Punch from Kangaskhan one turn can be followed up by Moonblast the next turn, making Follow Me useless versus my lead (With exception of Evasion Moody Boosts)
Moonblast was a reliable for of damage output. Very important for chipping opposing Groudon and Pokemon in KO range of my own Groudon's Precipice Blades. I also one shot 3 Salamence on the Day, thanks to the Xerneas on their side of the field boosting it with Fairy Aura.




Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
Level: 50 EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe Jolly Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Fire Punch
- Rock Slide
- Protect

In order to capitalise on the nature of my team, I felt that Jolly Groudon was necessary. Moonblast chip + Precipice Blades would take out most Groudon builds. Fire Punch is necessary and Rock Slide grants coverage (mainly versus Salamence & Talonflame). At times that I did not want to risk speed ties, I could Swagger up my own Groudon and proceed to sweep, even outside of tailwind thanks to it's Jolly Nature.



Ditto @ Life Orb
Ability: Imposter
Level: 50 EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Transform

Fun fact: I didn't realise until the day, but I didn't have the correct Hidden Power on my Ditto! On the day I quickly looked around for and traded a Hidden Power Ice Ditto from my friends at the venue. Unfortunately as a result, the happiness of the Ditto was rock bottom, and despite feeding it some friendship berries and giving it a massage, I tested a copied return and it was around base 60 Return. Woops. Luckily, I scouted for Double Edge and Return Kangaskhan and it never came into play. Minimum speed is optimal to transform after an opponent intimidates Ditto. I maxed bulk for when Ditto didn't have a target to copy, which actually did come into play on the day, allowing me to transform into my own Groudon!



Yveltal @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Dark Aura
Level: 50 EVs: 180 HP / 84 Def / 4 SpA / 52 SpD / 188 Spe
Timid Nature IVs: 0 Atk
- Snarl
- Foul Play
- Tailwind
- Protect

A very supportive set, with this Yveltal my goal was to focus on Snarl + Tailwind support, in effect to replace Whimsicott in the Dual Primal and RayOgre match-ups. I hit 157 speed which out-speeds the Primals and Non-Mega Kangaskhan, and just decided to balance the Defences exactly 50:50, perfectly optimising the calcs. I didn't need to use any offensive investment, as I could rely on Foul Play to chunk opponents, with Snarl doing decent chip damage to put opponents in Precipice Blades KO range.



Sneasel @ Eviolite
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50 EVs: 236 HP / 20 Def / 4 SpA / 100 SpD / 148 Spe Timid Nature
 - Fake Out
- Foul Play
- Icy Wind
- Snarl

252 Atk Mega Rayquaza Dragon Ascent vs. 236 HP / 20 Def Eviolite Sneasel: 135-159 (84.3 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 -1 76+ SpA Primal Kyogre Water Spout (144 BP) vs. 236 HP / 100 SpD Eviolite Sneasel in Heavy Rain: 87-103 (54.3 - 64.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 -2 76+ SpA Primal Kyogre Water Spout (139 BP) vs. 236 HP / 100 SpD Eviolite Sneasel in Heavy Rain: 64-76 (40 - 47.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Here's the bulky Sneasel I ran. the aim was to speed creep the Wolfe's Raichu by 1 point (Hitting 169 speed), live non-Life Orb Dragon Ascent and then shove the rest of the EV's into Special Defence to live Kyogre's attacks. As I would be leading Yveltal + Sneasel, I would be getting off many snarls, enabling it to easily eat up attacks.

The above calcs are examples showing Sneasel's Snarl's with minimum damage rolls, but it would be partnered with Yveltal which has a stronger snarl. It was very fun, and although it only came to 3 games in the end as the majority of opponents were using Xerneas, I won all 3 games I brought it to.

Conclusion 

Hope you enjoyed my fun little team! It was so much fun to play at the last Regional of the season, and I'm glad that I finished it off with this team. In honesty, it was a really lazy team, where once I learnt how to use ditto I basically spammed the Kangaskhan/Whimsicott/Groudon/Ditto lead. But still, I'm now entering the next season with 122 out of 500 Championship Points, ready to take on the world in the European International Challenge. Also shoutouts to Jamie Boyt to completely overshadowing me by winning the regional with Cottonee, his team report can be found here!

Yveltal, Rai-Choose you! 14th Place UK Nationals 2016 Report & Season Report

I originally posted this blog on Nugget Bridge 16th May 2016, however it was lost following the hack, so I have reposted it here.






Achievements made with the team:
  • Top 16 UK National Championships 14th May 2016
  • Top 2 Mid Season Showdown Nottingham 30th April 2016
  • Peaked at 1916 on Battle Spot - 6th Place in the World Rankings
Introduction
Hello all! My name is Daniel Oztekin and I have actually been playing VGC a surprisingly long time, with my first event being the Birmingham National Championships in 2011! However I did not start playing Pokemon to a competitive level until VGC 2014 and the games X and Y were announced, where breeding and soft resetting for legendary Pokemon was made far simpler and less time consuming.

Follow me on Twitter!

My journey throughout VGC 2016
To understand my mindset going into the new format, imagine how Shaun Martin felt after he placed second at Collinsville regionals through many favourable moody boosts: There was a large amount of criticism of the team choices and moves that he made which often pushed into insults and derision that he did not deserve. This is exactly what happened to me in VGC 2015 when I placed 2nd at regionals with a semi-functional team that could only defeat strong players through the luck the team could provide me. Whilst I did not deserve my placing, the criticism on social media was a bit painful and it made me determined to earn future results through my own hard work.

Post worlds, I met a player named Will Tansley known as StarKO on Nugget Bridge at the local PCs - who has since won Dublin regionals and placed 3rd at UK Nationals. We started talking quite a bit and started practising together, when the VGC 2016 format was announced. As soon as the format was announced Will got straight to testing Xerneas/Groudon cores and was nice enough to let me test the teams he constructed and ladder with him. I am so thankful to him as all the discussions and testing of various moves on the team, that would be known as the Big 6 in future, improved me so much as a player and gave me a head start in the format, earning me 4th Place at Wakefield Regionals. This would not have been possible without him and I would have remained a scrub if I had not met him, so I'm glad all his hard work has paid off with him now earning a paid trip to worlds.

Construction of the team
Fast forward to Sutton Coldfield Regionals 9th April 2016: I had earned my day 1 invite completely off using the Big 6 or variants with Clefairy and Amoongus. This was the last major regional in the UK and so the next tournament I had to prepare for was UK Nationals, and it was time to come up with 'the play' as people like to call it. Whilst I can't really say 100% that it was, running Yveltal in a tournament full of Dual Primal and Ray Ogre teams, with an absence of Xerneas Groudon would certainly give me an upper hand:

DISCLAIMER: If full paras, flinches and confusion trigger you, stop reading now. It's Pokemon. You have been warned!


Yveltal was the start of it all. What inspired me to pick it up was watching Koryo's team in action. His core of Yveltal/Kyogre/Manetric gave dual primal teams a big problem. I took note of some of his move-set choices and EV spreads and started testing a physical Yveltal set. I did try the popular special variant with Snarl/Dark Pulse/Foul Play/Protect but the damage output felt underwhelming. Sucker Punch was a very appealing move to use that in combination with Mawile was very scary to face and allowed me to operate in the opponent's Tailwind and Trick Room. I also used Knock Off which gave me a reliable stab move that could also one-shot Bronzong and Cresselia which are both very popular.


Next up I wanted to test the core Koryo created. I tested out Snarl/Volt Switch Manetric for a while switching between the 3rd filler move, and tested it with a standard bulky Kyogre. In case you haven't noticed a problem with my choice of restricted Pokemon, they share a crippling weakness to Electric type attacks. Manetric provided the team with very valuable lightning rod support, whilst also spreading intimidate and acting as a pivot with Volt Switch. Being able to choose when to mega evolve meant Yveltal could fire off full power Foul Plays and the intimidate which was very nice, however compared to Kangaskhan, Salamence and Mawile it felt underwhelming in damage output and bulk as a mega, so I looked for other options.


The only other lightning rod user I saw being viable was Raichu, the electric Liepard. A very annoying Pokemon, Raichu provides the team with Fake Out and Nuzzle support that can cripple opposing teams. in testing I felt that I didn't have a problem with opposing Kyogre as I had Yveltal already dealing 80% to them with Sucker Punch, so I replaced Volt Tackle with Swagger. This gave Yveltal the power to one-shot Groudon and Kyogre and the two became one of my favourite leads. I actually posted this combo on twitter after I placed 6th on battle spot, so it affected how UK players lead and played against my team.



The next two choices took 2 weeks to create, and were born from my many scribbles beside me as I produced sets of accounts at works (very interesting job) and were a result of me theorising how to have a positive match-up versus Groudon Xerneas teams whilst still being useful in other games. Eventually I came to a conclusion that using Crobat with Haze replacing Quick Guard and Mawile was my best answer, with Kyogre in the back. I produced a flow chart on paper for how to beat big 6 for myself and mapped the optimal moves I could make, attempting to eliminate as many 50/50 scenarios as I could. Which lead to my next choice:






I wanted a team member that could replace Yveltal as the 4th Pokemon against Groudon Xerneas teams, that was a flying or levitating Pokemon that could provide both intimidate and a decent damage output. As a result I tested choice scarf Salamence which was garbage. It provided my team a Pokemon that was an acceptable switch into Mawile for when they lead Groudon, and provided double intimidate to neuter it's attack. It took me a few extra days of theory to replace it.





The final member of the team I finalised was Landorus, a Pokemon that has fallen out of favour this format. When I realised that Landorus slipped into that slot perfectly, it was a relief to finally remove Salamence from my team. It could replace Yveltal in the back versus Groudon Xerneas teams as a switch in for Mawile, providing me with an additional immunity to ground type moves that also neuters the opponent's attack stat. It is also excellent in the dual primal match up, being one speed point faster than the Primals, and could blanket them with Earthquake and Rock Slide. I also gave it U-Turn to act as a pivot for my team.



Team Details

Kyogre-Primal @ Blue Orb
Ability: Primordial Sea
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 76 SpA / 4 SpD / 52 Spe
Modest Nature
- Water Spout
- Origin Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Protect
When I run my dual primal team I have been using variants of the 252HP/180Def/76SpA spread that has been pretty popular. I've also been testing variants of PokeAlex' spreads which opt to reduce HP for Special Attack but they didn't feel right for this team. Up to this point I have also been using both Water Spout/Scald/Ice beam and Origin Pulse/Thunder/Ice Beam sets and am a big fan of both. In order to improve the synergy with Raichu, I chose to run the set without Thunder. I ran this until Joseph Richardson convinced me this was garbage and I should run Origin Pulse over Scald, and that is how I arrived at this set.


I chose my speed EVs based on Wolfe's video on speed creeping. Now I was going to run 28 Speed EVs at Nationals, however after this video was released I started getting outsped by far more Western players on Battle Spot and when I found the cause of this, I bumped this up to 52 speed EVs so to water spout before those that watched his video. As a result I was faster than every Kyogre I faced at Nationals except for one Timid Kyogre.



Yveltal @ Black Glasses
Ability: Dark Aura
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Foul Play
- Tailwind
- Knock Off

Sucker Punch is mandatory on Yveltal. It combines with Mawile granting me the ability to remove most Pokemon with a double sucker punch and chunks into opponents hard. Foul Play was the next choice I made as it granted me a reliable source of damage even when intimidated. As Salamence is very popular right now it's difficult to have a full attack Yveltal, so Foul Play gave me an out to this. Paired with Swagger Raichu it also granted me a way to eliminate the Primals and other Pokemon before they could take any action. Players have asked me if I have trouble juggling this with my two intimidate users; however I have both Sucker Punch and Knock Off as other forms of damage, so with these additional options I don't usually find this a problem. Tailwind grants me a way to establish speed control over the opponent without bringing Crobat to the game, and punishes unnecessary protects and switches. Knock off is the final, less common choice that gives me a ways to delete Cresselia and Bronzong before they set up trick room. It also just deals really high damage and grants utility vs anything that isn't a Primal or Mega: For example Ferrothorn, which would seem like a threat to me team, takes 60-70% damage from knock off, and I can remove Life Orbs and Choice Band's from slower Pokemon before they attack.

Running protect-less Yveltal was something that I was keeping on the low in the run up to and including at Nationals as it can heavily affect how one plays versus my team. Wherever possible, I would avoid using all 4 moves versus any one player even if it cost me the game, as it would prevent them from scouting me effectively. As a result no one found this fact out. I also found that I could easily switch Yveltal into my Kyogre, Landorus and Mawile depending on the threat I faced as they have good synergy. Same goes for Kyogre.

The EV spread is simple because I have already eliminated any complicated spreads I made through benchmarking. Maximum possible attack is necessary. I chose to run a Jolly nature over Adamant because out-speeding the Primals is too important. Choosing the speed stat of 158 (which out-speeds my Jolly Landorus) requires 196 EVs. However this under-speeds Rayquaza and Kyurem-W, sitting at a speed stat of 161. At this point I decided I should just run 252/252 as I masewell just speed tie with other Yveltal/Xerneas than keep fiddling with spreads.

I have been asked many times why I run Black Glasses over Life Orb, which ensures that Yveltal can pick up a few additional KOs, mainly Foul Play on Jolly Rayquaza and +2 Attack Kyogre. I never have had a problem versus Ray Ogre and I prefer to play in a way that generates a slow advantage through careful manoeuvring of my team through switching and pinning the opponent with sucker punch threats and recycling intimidate rather than to instantly going for game.



Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 44 Atk / 4 Def / 100 SpD / 108 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Rock Slide
- Iron Head
- Protect
Ray Rizzo's Mawile time travelled to the future to help me from VGC 2014. Whilst I didn't use a careful nature like he did, as I wanted to still pick up kills with double Sucker Punch, I did invest heavily in my Special Defence stat and invested enough Speed to hit a stat of 84: Enough outspeed Jolly Kangaskhan in Tailwind and to under-speed the Primals in Trick Room. Here's a quote he made 2 years ago:

''I felt that maxing its Attack really didn't accomplish much. It's one of the perfect examples in Pokémon of diminishing returns. It has such an obnoxious Attack stat with Huge Power, investing in it to the maximum is likely to be just a waste of EVs. It's going to OHKO frail Pokémon and stuff weak to Fairy no matter how much Attack you have, and it's still going to 2HKO everything else that doesn't resist it no matter how much Attack you have. On the other hand, its SpDef is so bad, even weak STAB attacks deal a ton of damage to it.''
And a slight contradiction as a result of that is my lack of Play Rough! I found that the only useful thing that it provided over Iron head was a solid damage output on Kyogre. I chose to run Rock slide as it provided better coverage for my team, a means to deal spread damage to my opponent and the potential to flinch under tailwind or in trick room. This additional disruption can dismantle opponent's game plans before they even begin. It also gave me a means to knock out Talonflame on Groudon Xerneas teams with it, which cannot kill Mawile after intimidate, or two intimidates in the sun.

In reality I faced no talonflame during the tournament. The stronger players had replaced Talonflame with Thundurus on their teams. As a result I'm actually unsure if Rock slide was optimal. Going forward I might consider Knock Off over Rock Slide to help prevent trick room going up.



Crobat @ Lum Berry
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50
EVs: 52 HP / 228 Def / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Taunt
- Tailwind
- Haze
- Super Fang

There seems to be a passive rule in this format: If you do not have Crobat or Thundurus on your team, you will lose to Big 6. I chose to run Crobat over Thundurus as I felt it would provide me with a far more reliable check to the team and that Thundurus would clash with Raichu. The move set is mostly simple, I felt that taunt was too important to remove as it is needed to disable Smeargle. Tailwind and Haze guarantee that my opponent cannot set Geomancy up. I chose not to run maximum speed as I felt I would not take it into games where the opponent also had Crobat and made it a bit bulkier, and chose to out-speed Weavile by 2 points.



Landorus-Therian @ Assault Vest
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- U-turn
- Knock Off
With Landorus there were two important benchmarks it needed to meet: Hyper Voice from Mega-Salamence needs to be a 3HKO and it needs to survive a +2 Dazzling Gleam from Xerneas. As a result I chose to run Assault Vest over Choice Band and Life Orb. However Life Orb is probably the most optimal choice and Landorus can be EVd to still survive 3 Hyper Voices by greatly reducing it's attack stat. However rather than make this change I realised was possible a few days before Nationals I decided to stick with what I had practised with.


Earthquake and Rock Slide are standard and provide consistent damage output and disruption. U-Turn let Landorus act as a pivot, assisting in providing safe switches into Yveltal and Kyogre and providing me with momentum. As Kyogre is far bulkier than any other Pokemon on my team it also made it very efficient to timer stall my opponents by preserving Kyogre, so U turn chunks an extra 45 seconds off the clock. Knock Off was added to deal extra single target damage with Dark Aura.



Raichu @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 116 HP / 140 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Swagger
- Feint
- Nuzzle


The final Pokemon of the team, and the namesake of this article: Raichu. During initial testing Yveltal and Kyogre I quickly found that any attempt to remove Manetric from the team resulted in an overbearing weakness to Thundurus and any other electric types in existence. Thundurus dramatically spiked in usage between the Sutton Coldfield regional and UK Nationals so was useful in most games. I can safely say that on a Yveltal/Kyogre team Lightning Rod is required, and the only viable users are Manetric and Raichu.

Firstly, I want to shout out to Baz Anderson for inspiration of the use of Safety Goggles and the namesake of this article. My Raichu initially used Focus sash, but in reality I rarely used it. Now Physical Yveltal has a weakness to redirection, mainly in the forms of Amoongus as Kyogre can't effectively damage it (As opposed to Togekiss and Clefairy, which I can use Water Spout against). The standard Dual Primal team can lead Salamence/Amoongus or Kyogre/Amoongus versus my team and cripple it. However after drawing some inspiration from listening to his report I replaced it with Safety Goggles which has seen very little use this season but decidedly solves this weakness. I faced 2 Amoongus in the tournament and both opponents were crippled by this tech and couldn't adapt for game 2.

The presence of Raichu effectively renders any team with Thundurus to a 5 man team, or forces them to bring it in the back and eliminate Raichu first. I faced a total of 6 Thundurus and 1 Manetric in the tournament.

Fake Out allows Yveltal and Kyogre to fire off a powerful attack whilst ignoring the larger threat. Often opponents will not use protect in fear of the Feint or Encore that Raichu often carries. If I can manoeuvre and safely predict an opponent's unsafe Protect, Feint is a win condition. I used Encore on it for a while but experienced and skilled players know to switch out to avoid it, so it seemed useless. I felt Feint was far better in a best of 3 environment too.

Nuzzle was so so good. Being able to spread paralysis without the fear of taunt gets around Thundurus entirely, and grants my team a second form of speed control. As a result of Raichu and this one move the Salamence/Thundy lead which should give my team problem becomes futile. It also nastily allows my two Rock Slide users to out-speed for a chance to flinch the opponent.

Finally we have Swagger which unfortunately makes me full of guilt and dread when I remember player's reaction to this move. In place of Volt Tackle which most players use I chose to grant my Yveltal the ability to one shot the majority of Pokemon it outspeeds. To justify it:

+2 Black Glasses Dark Aura Yveltal Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Primal Groudon: 237-279 (114.4 - 134.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 Black Glasses Dark Aura Yveltal Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 136 Def Primal Kyogre: 207-244 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 Black Glasses Dark Aura Yveltal Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 180 Def Primal Kyogre: 196-232 (94.6 - 112%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

At this moment of time players are opting to run speed creep on Kyogre over defence, which really increases the chance that foul play will kill. A life orb can be run on Yveltal to guarantee that any Kyogre will die to Foul Play.

Swagger also makes Raichu useful when all it would be doing is sitting there. If ignored as a support, it can Swagger opposing Special Attackers to decrease their chances of attacking. Stacking this with paralysis and flinches can further eliminate any chance they have of winning.
The Immobalisation Table

In case you receive any nasty language, I have put together a table of probabilities to recite to your opponent for your ease of use:

ParaFusion - 63% Chance to be immobalised

ParaFlinch - 48% Chance to be immobalised

ParaFusionFlinch - 74% Chance to be immobalised


Aftermath
Overall I had an amazing weekend and it was amazing to see my efforts this whole season pay off. Following Nationals, this has placed me on 676 Championship Points, and I continue to try a variety of teams and to understand 'The Play' For worlds as I will be attending day 1. Do I think that Yveltal/Kyogre is the play? To be frank, no. I think my team is a lot of fun and has mostly favourable match-ups at this current time this format thanks to Yveltal being strong versus Dual Primal. However this weekend I was defeated by both Xerneas Groudon teams I faced, despite thinking that I had fully prepared for them. I believe that as Xerneas Groudon based teams make a resurgence in the run up to worlds my team will become less and less viable.

If you managed to read all the way here, thanks for getting all the way through this wall of text! I hope you enjoyed  And here is the pastebin: http://pastebin.com/vG4C1LpA


I want to say thank you StarKO and Miahruh for helping my team theory and testing throughout this season, been a big help!