Summarizing the Pokemon Worlds Championships 2016 in my View:

Hi guys today I am back and apologies for this post being a little or say a week late as I didn’t had much free time to do this so writing it off on the weekend, so welcome to the post where I will give you people my view on this year’s pokemon world championships held in Boston. This will be done under five section i.e revealed pokemons, rising starts, In interesting teams, meta shift expectations and finally meta-breaking. Without further ado let’s get into this post:

Newly revealed pokemons:

So during the time of pokemon world championships 4 new pokemons were revealed and yes kinda count In that turtonator too hence five, so what are my thoughts on these? :

Crawbrawler:

The pokemon revealed in the opening ceremony of the pokemon world championships, the pure fighting type crab, on the first look I was very unimpressed but then idk why it had me hyped to get it in use. Crawbrawler as looks may deceive is not a water or a ground type for a crab at all, all it does is brawl it’s iron fists ability sure does promise a pack of power in this pokemon.

Is there sand in my eyes?

So first of all why do I introduce the cool looking ground ghost types like this? Sandygast (the sand heap) is a pile of sand whereas it’s evolution pillosand (sand castle) is a sandcastle why are there names assembled this way? Only TPCi can tell. However never complained about their desing s and these two do look like the grimer and muk versions for generation 7. Now for their new signature abilities as I guessed that as water makes sandcastles sand out, it might have a similar ability, water compaction; which is it’s ability raises it’s defense sharply whenever hit by a water type attack which sound kinda better than stamina with mudsdale and mudbray if think of it nowm and even that bit of happiness as they do suit the theme of a pile of sand on the beach and a sandcastle.

Stuffed Bear:

We have had cute pokemons, and even some of them do exist in this generation, but never have we ever had a cuter pokemon than stuffle which is based on a stuffed bear and the cutest part about this pokemons’ design is that it even has a small tag under it’s tail just like stuff toys would have, a strange thing in comparison for this mon as well as bewear is that it hates being hugged and whenever is hugged it flails as a reaction whereas bewear hugs everything… maybe it’s revenge (It,s attack animation is the cutest!)

The Blast Turtle:

Turtunator or say the terminator turtle sure has a fierce appearance in all and I wouldn’t wanna go near if I ever get to see one, is amongst those rare few pokemons like mawile and mega sceptile that have their back turned towards their opponents when battling as their main stance. Turtonator funnily reminds me of blastoise which well is a blast tortoiseand their main art looks the same, their design even is based on kind of weapons, turtonator get’s this new move called shell trap which you can call a mine trap and now you should know how it works. Turtonator looks like the mashup of a magmar and a druddigon though, it’s typing is sure cool; fire/dragon, two of my favorite types in pokemon.

The ‘Rising star’ at the World Championships:

I feel like there is that one pokemon in every world championships that is seen in quite a reasonable amount to consider it in the metagame where as in the pre-worlds meta it wasn’t considered a thing, every world championships I feel like has that one pokemon that rises out and get’s success, as in 2013 magmar was considered as a rising star and at the 2015 world championships we saw an amount of entei coming out to the top, similarly in this worlds there was a rising star too:

                                    HITMONTOP!

Seriously this pokemon came out of nowhere and reigned at worlds and the most surprising factor is that this pokemon took home the championships in two separate divisions as well, both in the senior as well as the masters division this pokemon became the world champion, not only that, in the masters top 4 it was present on three out of the four teams. Which was surely surprising to me, it was a member of Wolfe, Markus, Billa and Babbytron’s worlds meta-breaking team ,which I will give my view on later in this post, it points to one factor that hitmontop had quite some untapped potential in the metagame.

Most of these I believe were adamant natured with the moves fake out, wide guard, feint and close combat, which are the same and somewhat only moves that people were using on their hitmontops in the earlier stages of this season after which it completely degraded, to almost non usage. All in all consider hitmontop in the metagame now and it will be seen more often in use as a supportive pokemon other than some team specific or call it niche Pokémon.

Interesting teams played at Worlds:

(NOTE/WARNING: as you would know this is just an opinion based post and I do not know anything about these teams at all and this is only a view of how I see these respectable players’ teams, the team pictures were taken from pokemon's website where you can find further details of the teams)

Though there were a lot of teams ran at worlds that had ranging from one to many crazy twists as worlds is a place where everybody likes using the surprises, there were five individual mons/teams in the world championships that really caught my eye, these are the following:

Barry Anderson’s team and Volcarona:

First of all, YEEEEESSSSSSSS! Baz finally made it to the top cut of the pokemon world champions! Isn’t it great! And I believe it is well deserved. If you know him or follow his amazing Youtube content you would know his playstyle by now as he has to be one of the most expressive people on their teams and strategies out there in this community, and each time he has made a team that fits his ‘disrupt + set up and sweep’ signature style he has left quite a mark on this community, he surely shook the worlds with bringing a team that fits his playstyle, his x-ray combination of choice provided the power and the set up side whereas stuff like smeargle and scrafty surely allowed his to disrupt before he sets up, something even more interesting on his worlds team was volcarona which raised the most eyebrows and bigger surprises were it carrying a red card which surely waved good byes to many xerneases, it also had that move rage powder so it can eliminate the threat for xerneas off of the field before it runs it’s attacks into xerneas or even rayquaza for that purpose.

Kecleon Deceives:

Yassss! A Kecleon team ran in the pokemon world championships, to be honest I have seen a similar team to this I don’t know if it was ran by the same guy but it was drive the to top of a midseason showdown’s finals, kecleon itself confuses the opponent but the bigger aspect of has to be the team preview tricks that it provides the same team includes a groudon as well as a meowstic many opponents may think that this pokemon is for the purpose of setting up trick room but they sure would be surprised to see an assault vest variant dealing out a lot of damage with it’s attacks and that tricky proteon ability making a wide range of attacks that it launches all STAB for more damage added to them as gravy on top. A person who wrote his worlds report mentioned facing this team and also mentioned that it took less than half from his kyogre’s origin pulse which tells that it was quite a wall at the pokemon world championships.

The primitive bird:

This is about the story of an aerodactyle ran at the world championships and it sure looks as if providing a talonflame + crobat like support pokemon probably the one with a smeargle countering strategy with taunt and lum berry further the unnerve ability helping stop any berries. Aerodactyle provides that wide guard support over the all talonflame quick guard tactics which would sure be seen as something better suiting a yveltal + groudon team than a quick guard user, aerodactyle as if I hypothesize could have proved somewhat much better against other flying types like talonflame and any ho-oh’s that this person could have faced, it also could counter thundurus with rock slides if it thunder waves but can’t guarantee the thunderbolt survivals.

Trista Medine and Enosh Sachar’s mind blowing and surprising team:

If seen overall in terms of teams this team has to be the craziest and the most inventive of it’s types. Last time Enosh Sachar brought us slowbro the winds were different with the x-ray archetype but this time he paired it up with the groudon which proved to have a huge impact on overall how inventive the team became. So to say they had the surprise of an eject button raichu and the bigger part of not having fake out at all, there was again a slowbro but with heal pulse to support that groudon launch the most powerful eruptions, bronzing has that strange safe guard + swagger tactic which was truly never before seen and they even brought a mega venusaur to the world championships this year which  was lastly and only once seen on Gary Quan’s team which made top cut in the united states national championships.

Gary Quan’s Mega Sableye and Zebstrika team:

This is one of those teams that you wouldn’t maybe know about if you don’t follow gary quan’s twitter account, where he posted it, gary had the same concept as many others did had when going into the world championships of using that x-ray archetype but gary drove this to a different way, using pokemons like scrafty which may not be as surprising to see on x-ray to support xerneas, he also kept hold of a probably red card holding ditto even crazier of a part of his team was having that mega sableye which sent back any dark voids coming in from smeargles which no one could have expected. Lastly he kept a zebstrika which probably provided him with coverage and ways to beat primal kyogre as well as providing his team with an anti-paralyses or electric type stance thanks to it’s lightining rod ability.

Expected metagame shifts after the pokemon world championships:

Firstly wanna start off with something that may not be as readily included into the metagame but that assault vest rayquaza, yes you did read that correctly, so exactly three assault vest holding rayquazas made it into the top cut of the pokemon 2016 world championships, this might get attention and may even be included into the metagame. I theorize that these provide more offensive coverage while giving this pokemon the ability to launch attacks with bulk and probably surviving some hits from things like kyogre and who knows based on investment even a xerneas’s spread dazzling gleam. While another note on rayquaza is that the most successful rayquaza’s at the world championships were carrying focus sash to than that life orb which we have seen in the majority in the past, this might effect it’s usage and maybe focus sash ones start coming into the metagame.

Another big change that I saw in the metagame at worlds was the enormous amount of safeguard bronzing being ran at worlds and yes there were loads of them, this might make a prominent change in the ways of how bronzongs are being played and what they will carry.

Similarly a very big change was seen in the locality of talonflame, upon this pokemon making it as the runner up at the world championships this pokemon will be seen a bit more. And not only that but the amount of taunt talonflame ran at the world championships was very very real and made quite an impact on how the brave bird will land in the upcoming left months of this metagame.

Double primal were re defined at Boston where a lot of people were using this never before seen core of mega gegnar+ bronzing and the double primal this made the runner up at Boston and wolfe’s worlds winning team had those members with the exception of primal groudon on the core, this core was found a replacement to that salmence line where gengar proves to be somewhat of a better mega to pair with these pokemons while providing good ability support as in it’s shadow tag and levitate as well as more anti-xerneas properties and two stages permanent attack drop as compared to salamences’ intimidate. This is the new way to play double primal effectively and expect it coming your way.

Lastly commenting on the expected metagame changes to come I would say that there will be a clear rise in more ray-ogre teams being played around after it’s absolute dominance at worlds and quite much that effective worlds winning team that is supposed to break the metagame through it’s means.

Breaking the Metagame:

You would know that I talking about the most dominant overall as a team at the world championships this year, as the term meta-break is used for the ideas or teams that are against the metagame by all means and then the metagame can’t respond to it in the best way, which is exactly this Rayquaza, Kyogre, Raichu, Hitmontop, Gengar and Bronzong team did at the world championships.

From what I have seen this team as, the most disruptive yet surprising factor of it has to be that hitmontop + raichu rotator fake out intimidate/lightning rod disruption core that people didn’t had a whole lot of effective answers to at all. For me seeing it as a player I don’t think if I would be able to play this team to it’s fullest and I feel like I would play badly with it, until there comes out a report where the builders of this team explain it enough so we could maybe use it. I even drew the day before Wolfe won the championships to encourage him or whatnot.

 That's all! bye for now!