Shoma vs Sejun - Battle of champions! VGC 2016 Battle

What a battle! 2 of the greatest players clash in a local tournament in Japan. I think it's funny how both players managed to play their niches successfully in this season, with sejun using follow me on togekiss rather than pachirisu, and shoma still using thundurus and managing to still make it effective. 

Magiana! The man made pokemon! Discussion and speculation

The International Challenge January 2016 - BattleArenaVGC's Team Report

  

Hello Everyone! I wanted to talk about the team I used to compete in January's international challenge, Mawthitelle or Mawth for short. This team got me a result of 12 wins 3 losses on day one. Before I go into the details of the team, I want to talk about its strengths and weaknesses. Trapping your opponent and preventing them from switching allowed me to play against my opponents with an advantage. Preventing them from switching and nullifying attacks from my own Groudon or Kyogre allowed for easy wins. This team punishes leading poorly heavily. If my opponent lead with Kangaskhan and Xerneas, it was rather easy for me to win a game, due to mawile intimidating kangaskhan, and threatening to OHKO Xerneas without fear of being KO'd in return. Without being able to switch, you make your opponent rather predictable. However this team did have some glaring weaknesses. Dark void was a problem until I added a certain move onto Gothitelle (which I will discuss later) and amoonguss still posed a threat as it should to any trick room team. Groudon being my only answer to the annoying shroom, it was difficult for me to either attack or setup trick room, since there was always something threatening to OHKO Groudon stopping me from going after Amoonguss, and setting up trick room was a no-go since it would outspeed me in it. That being said, I would like to now get into the specifications of the team, discussing each member.

I knew I wanted to build a team around Mawile ever since I knew what was popular. The ability to single handedly beat Pokemon like Xerneas, Rayquaza, Kangaskhan and possibly Kyogre given the proper support. I used a Careful nature on Mawile solely for winning trades against mega Salamence since non STAB boosted heat wave/flamethrower fire blast cannot OHKO. Intimidate prevents earthquake from Salamence to KO Mawile. Its worthy to note max attack adamant mawile is such a waste of EVs since it doesn't need them thanks to huge power.

Mawile @ Mawilite  

Ability: Intimidate  

EVs: 100 HP / 152 Atk / 252 SpD / 4 Spe  

Careful Nature  

- Protect  

- Iron Head

- Play Rough  

- Sucker Punch  

Ah, shadow tag. What a wonderful ability in a meta game where weather cannot be removed unless you switch in your own weather (cheesy gimmicks don't count). Gothitelle is probably the best Shadow tag user in the game, due to its typing and stats. Gengar loosing levitate and using up your mega slot is a bad since the most common Pokemon is a ground type. Gothitelle was chosen with a sassy nature, given how specially offensive the meta game is. Magic coat is a wonderful move that hard counters Dark Void. Trapping Smeargle and making it useless is great. Originally I was also using skill swap, but then realized its not needed since your opponent cant switch anyway. Heal pulse maintains the option to spam eruption and water spout at max power. It's 0 Speed IV allows it to heal pulse before Kyogre and Groudon get to move in trick room, allowing max power eruptions/water spouts after a sucker punch/brave bird or any other priority move (extremespeed ray I'm looking at you). Sitrus berry worked well enough and allowed Gothitelle to survive Kangaskhan's double edge 100% of the time. Psyshock was to get chip damage on Pokemon, note it was chosen over psychic since it hits Xerneas through the Geomancy boost. See it's set more in detail below:

Gothitelle @ Sitrus Berry  

Ability: Shadow Tag  

EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD  

Sassy Nature  

IVs: 0 Spe  

- Psyshock

- Heal Pulse

- Magic Coat  

- Trick Room  

Restricted Pokemon #1,  Kyogre. Kyogre has great synergy with Mawile and Ferrothorn. Kyogre is pretty straightforward  and carries a modest nature with some added bulk in HP. Water spout was chosen over origin pulse since it's accuracy is quite shaky and water spout can deal consistent damage with heal pulse from Gothitelle. Thunder is there for the Kyogre mirrors.

Kyogre @ Blue Orb  

Ability: Drizzle  

EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD  

Modest Nature  

- Protect  

- Thunder

- Ice Beam  

- Water Spout  

Groudon was chosen as my second restricted Pokemon. It was mostly brought in the back as an option to eliminate strong rain. Brave nature was used to hit Xerneas harder on the physical side. Precipice blades over earthquake since none of Groudon's partners are flying or levitate users. Rather shaky accuracy leaves much to be desired and can cause losses by missing crucial attacks. Rock slide for Ho-oh and talonflames, also for flinching things in trick room.

Groudon @ Red Orb  

Ability: Drought

EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpA  

BraveNature  

- Protect  

- Eruption

- Rock Slide  

- Precipice Blades  

Ferrothorn, the hardest counter to Kyogre, Xerneas and possibly Kangaskhan. Ferrothorn can single handedly win you games if you eliminate your opponents answer to it. When fake out was suspected, a switch can be employed to break focus sashes from Weavile and Liepard, while dealing some chip damage onto Kangaskhan. It's set is rather standard. 0 speed for max damage gyro balls.

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers  

Ability: Iron Barbs

EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD  

Brave Nature  
IVs: 0 Spe  

- Protect  

- Leech seed

- Gyro Ball

- Power Whip  

Kangaskhan. There's actually not much to say about Kangaskhan, except it wasn't used ONCE. It was just there as an option, but it wasn't actually ever needed. It has since been replaced by a different Pokemon and the team is functioning a bit better I should say. 

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite  

Ability: Inner Focus 

EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 HP

Jolly Nature  

- Fake Out  

- Low Kick

- Double Edge  

- Sucker Punch  

That pretty much sums up the report. My final score in the premier challenge was: 

14 Wins

5 Losses

TOTAL NUMBER OF BATTLES: 19

I wasn't able to finish my games, since I  had work friday and played most of my games saturday and spent time with my wife. I tried to play all 26 of them sunday after noon but forgot that Japan is almost  a full day ahead of us, and it was monday by that time with the IC officially over. 45 matches of Pokemon is A LOT of pokemon over 3 days, lol. 

Have any questions about the team? Feel free to reach out to me! You can find my contact info. in the "about me" section at the top. Thanks for reading!

-BattleArenaVGC(:

Dark Void - " To possibly be banned from competitive play "

It seems like The Pokemon Company international international thinks its rather boring to broadcast games where half of the match Pokemon are sleeping. Understandable since it is the 20th anniversary and they wouldn't want to showcase this to all their new viewers that will be drawn from the super bowl commercial. 

Sounds like great news!

Here's a link: http://esports-runner.com/pokemon-double/147704-2/

More evidence: http://i.imgur.com/tJ50mAe.jpg

It looks like they will be paying close attention to the upcoming regionals. If smeargle and dark void are spammed, we might get it banned, heavily shifting the meta game!

Will you be bringing smeargle these upcoming regionals to boycott it ?

#BoycottSmeargle2016

international challenge replay #1 ! Dark void