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.
Comments
Post a Comment