Hey guys today I am back to discuss the other half of my VGC
experience in this month, this month quite unexpectedly was a lot of fun
regarding VGC because I didn’t had much studies to do so ad also I took some
really good notes on this metagame though, without saying more of formal stuff,
lets get into this:
Sau Paulo
Internationals:
I didn’t catch up the day one stream at all because I had
some other work to do, so later I went to watch the uploaded streamed matches
and I have to say in quite a while these were some of the most interesting
streams to watch for me, especially the last round of swiss that had Kom vs
Link was very much hype to watch. Following are the teams that made into the
Top cut:
1)
Tapu
lele, Pheromosa, Nihilego, Xurkitree, Arcanine, Smeargle.
This is Ian McLaughlin’s team otherwise known as ‘raikoo’ in
the community, he brought this team and went undefeated, in quite a while we
have seen a triple UB team go so far, especially the choice of smeargle on this
team seems very interesting.
2)
Arcanine,
Tapu Fini, Kartana, Togedemaru, Gigalith, Porygon 2
This is as standard as a team can get in this format, the
cores of AFK and p2 + Giaglith sure do seem to go well together on a team, this
team includes togedemaru which is the usual optional slot and surely would
provide a lot of support and disruption to this team. This team’s performance
also shows the strength of the meta-mons
3)
Buzzwole,
Tapu Koko, Golduck, Pelliper, Porygon2, Muk
This is another favorite of mine and yet Tommy Cooleen
proves another time that double ducks isn’t out of this metagame yet, combining
that with the usual to see, tapu koko and the core of porygon 2 and muk with
buzzwole is the way to go for Tman making the third top cut in the
international championships with this archetype. This is seemingly a risky move
as he did use a very much similar team on his media and it is gaining
popularity.
4)
Tapu
Koko, Persian, Snorlax , Arcanine, Tapu Fini, Kartana.
This is the team another favorite (and yes there are more
that made cut) brought to this tournament, being a very similar team to the one
he used in Melbourne as well as in an invitational tournament, he continues
toshow his love for the tapu fini + tapu koko archetype combined with the solid
AFK core and the Persian + Snorlax core.
5)
Pheromosa,
Torkoal, Lilligant, Tapu lele, Mimikyu, Snorlax.
Probably the person I most want to win this tournament is
Ashton who brought this team consisting of very strong cores and combinations
and I was happy to see him bring the psych up + belly drum strategy to this
game in a real tournament.
6)
Tapu Bulu,
Arcanine, Salamence, Porygon 2, Muk, Politoed.
This is a team very similar to what Wolfe Glick brought to
the London Internationals in the start of the season and finally for all tapu
bulu fans out there a team finally made it into cut, also a point tonote here
is that this team is piloted by the only native player who made it into the top
cut.
7)
Tapu
lele, Arcanine, Muk, Porygon 2, Ninetales, Garchomp.
This is also quite a standard team including cores of
arcanine + tapu lele and porygon 2 + muk, this shows that these cores were very
good in this tournament and in the current metagame so far.
8)
Tapu
Koko, Celesteela, Tapu Lele, Arcanine, Garchomp, Snorlax.
Last but not the least a classic celesteela core finally has
made it into the top cut of this event, another goodstuffs team that has always
been expected to do well in this game proved itself here as well.
Cores and Pokemons
Used:
Porygon2 + Muk: 3
AFK: 2
Tapu Lele + Arcanine: 3
Celesteela + Garchomp + Arcanine + Tapu koko: 1
Other than the most used cores mentioned above others used
were 2 Pheromosa + Tapu Lele cores as well Mimikyu and Persian + Snorlax cores,
only one Porygon 2 + Gigalith cores came into the top cut. Tapu Pokémon
Combinations of Tapu Koko + Tapu fini and Tapu Koko + Tapu Lele made it into
the cut. Overall arcanine once again was the most used pokemon in this top cut,
with quite some being the only ones on their respective teams like Mimikyu,
Persian and most noticeably Xurkitree and Smeargle.
Watching the Finals
and Results:
Whenever Ashton goes to an event he is my favorite
throughout the day I didn’t have much time to watch but I came in at the
correct time and watched the full finals. It happened to be Javier vs Ashton to
my complete surprise, a lot of my favorites had already been driven out of the
cut and I was rooting for ashton. Following is how the games went: in Game 1
ashton missed a play rough and an essential sleep powder which really set him
back (the pineapple seemed to fail) and then Javier cleverly used his Arcanine
+ Muk duo to pick up the game which was a key combination for him to win the
match an excellent play made him excel in the match when he predicted the
snorlax switchin, in the last turn of game 1 ashton got quite a bit of info as
he revealed his z-move on lilligant and found out how much damage it did onto
muk as well as got the info that arcanine also held a pinch berry on it. Game
2: was a more balanced team and was in Ashton’s favor a key play from ashton
and a unfortunate misplay from Javier was that he switched in his muk which was
OHKO’d by ashton’s snorlax, which was a huge leap for ashton to win from where
he picked up that game easily. Game 3 started with a balanced side and after a
lot of swithins here and there the match overall looked very much close.
However ashton got double crit of on
which only the arcanine one mattered from where ashton picked up his muk
against his own snorlax. Honestly even it ashton didn’t got the critical hits
the match would have come very close, but definitely was a unfortunate event
for Javier.
Overall Ashton cox did won with a pineapple so try,
basically he tweeted out about it when he got to sau Paulo that someone gave
him a Pineapple and said Good Luck, he did got extremely lucky before this on
the day 1 stream against Gavin as well as a turn swinged the game entirely onto
his favor. And with that he got his first major tournament win, a lot of people
have made a reputation out of ashton for nly being lucky and winning because of
surprises that he brings but his prediction skills are some of the truly best I
this game and after such amazing finishes since he joined the masters divisions
made him a deserving winner to the International Championships.
A Better
Understanding of the Metagame for me:
So I finally started paying some more attention to the games
which I played with my previous marowak team, I really never was able to
understand the terms whenever someone says that ‘x tem helped me understand the
metagame better’ until when I got to experience it for myself, so when I was
playing with that team I took some very important notes on how the metagame and
the games in this format were functioning which I think is a huge leap in this
format in terms of knowledge atleast for me and will improve my teambuilding by
a lot:
·
Most of the games start of with Offensive or
Combination Style or even for other defensive teams more conservation and
flexible as well as disruptive leads such as tapu koko + arcanine or double
intimidate leads respectively. Leads that are present on most teams which I
would call as the first phase of the match.
·
The Match enters a second phase in which there
are switch outs in terms to preserve some pokemon a game of information as well
and it is usually being played conservatively in this phase, in terms of
stalling or disrupting terrains, weathers, using support moves to cut down an
opponents’ strategy.
·
The Third and The final phase of a match happens
to be the stalling aspect, when your opponent brings out their wall such as
celesteela or snorlax especially by the time they have eliminated the main
threat of your team for that wall and then stall out to win the game, some
teams have wall modes that can function well in between the game when the
opponent doesn’t have sufficient answers to that mode of their opponents, any
common on field wall can be in the form of Tapu fini + Celesteela. For
offensive teams or modes this was the time when the preserved pokemon comes out
and finishes up the games.
When I think about it these situations were almost a part of
every match I played but then getting to take note of this was very much
important for me in terms of how I would approach team building. Talking of
teambuilding I had the following ideas revolving in my mind after watching the
internats streams:
Teambuilding Ideas
and notes:
Pinch berries were getting very much annoying in some
situations especially after getting to know that araquanid started running the
move bug bite I was quite inspired by that aspect of it. So bug bite was
somewhat of a starting point for me on this team. Other notes I took were that
I must have solid ways to counter when the match is closing up or is in the
stalling aspect of the game, this was calling for a defensive team but overall
I felt like it would be nice to make a team with a mix of bulk and offense.
After testing out again arcanine with bulk and support with araquanid and tapu
bulu, I soon realized that I didn’t work well for me. Then I thought of using
Silvally + Mimikyu cores and starting building from there, it was quite
successful, and the following is the team I used:
The Team:
Silvally @ Life Orb
Ability: RKS System
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 204 SpA / 44 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Explosion
- Ice Beam
- Flamethrower
- Protect
First of all starting with silvally, I would have to say
that it was one of those pokemons that was one of my favorite in this
generations’ pokemons, however I did fail to use it on any team, after seeing a
video of someone using it and reading about how it works alongside mimikyu, I
felt like that it could work, this variant is a bit deviated from what is the
most common cores around it, that is why I would really very much like to
explain it. I started from testing out with scarf but everyone knew the idea
they would just go for double protect and once trick room is set they would
start of adjust and then attack me, scarf’s damage output was bad as well, that
is why I felt like I really needed to break that conception of this pokemon,
that is why I gave it life orb to increase damage output as well as give it
more moves to use in battle, this could also work when my opponent had a faster
pokemon like kartana or garchomp, then I could go for the trick room and attack
with my silvally, now explosion’s damage output was enough to get the OHKO’s it
was once lacking and overall I really liked how this variant planned, worked as
I thought and as I wanted it to on paper. Ev spread is quite simple too I gave
it speed to outspeed many and most Tapu Fini builds and maxed out its attack to
maximize the explosion damage and then chose the naughty nature to not deduct
the special attack too low for it to not pick out enough damage when it really
needed to, I decided not to give it –def nature as a lot of arcanine’s still
use extreme speed as well as for those some people who have started using
vacuum wave kartanas. Rest was dumped into the special attack
Mimikyu @ Mental Herb
Ability: Disguise
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Atk / 116 Def / 124 SpD / 4 Spe
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Shadow Claw
- Play Rough
- Trick Room
- Psych Up
Moving on the center of the core, is mimikyu, mimikyu is
both a supportive member and an aggressor of the core’s strategy, as you do see
I have psych up here so naturally a belly drum partner can be thrown its way
quick. I recently picked up this mimikyu variant online from a report and I
think its one of the best, it lives many very strong attacks and then allows
mimikyu to set up the trick room with almost all surety also the mental herb
helps a whole lot for the people who think that it now carries a ghostium z
which is really falling behind in usage mostly due to drifblim being able to
burn it before it can attack. Attack is there to 3hko common mandibuzz which
comes in handy as well, I could not have been happier with any other spread on
this mimikyu for this team of mine. That is why some tapu lele are a threat as
it doesn’t survive some specs or orb variants’ attacks, but I modified this
spread by cutting down the attack to ad onto the special defense for it to live
a tapu lele’s psychic. Silvally + mimikyu was my most common lead and a lead I
really liked because of the way it worked because either your opponents can
attack into mimikyu and get the explosion damage or they can double protect and
then the trick room goes up.
Hariyama @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Poison Jab
- Belly Drum
Upnext is a stranger belly drum variant, when I started out
this silvally idea I really needed a belly drum user, most people use snorlax
because of its bulk and the loved gluttony ability however I went onto a
different path and used hariyama, it may looked terrible, but worked when I was
trying out the core, the strategy worked with the lead of silvally + mimikyu
lead and then I would have four turns of trick room left, on the fourth turn I
can go for belly drum + psych up, hariyama gets 70% of its health back and
mimikyu also now sits are +6 attack, from where they will atleast have one turn
to attack in the trick room considering the protect, move, protect expected
from opponents, which basically means that I get to ko atleast 2 pokemons of my
opponents. Now for the main reason that I chose hariyama, really has to be that
it could work offensively in more situations where as a defensive pokemon like
snorlax would have failed for me, that is what that doesn’t make this belly
drum mode very viable but it is great in the games that I do get it off in.
hariyama beats some top pokemons like porygon 2 and snorlax as well as gigalith
which are basically some of the scariest things to face when you have a trick
room core of your own. Also with other pokemons it could work flexibly on this
team by providing fake out support. Some times in the late game belly drum also
helped out greatly whereas normal hariyama wouldn’t get the chance
Araquanid @ Waterium Z
Ability: Water Bubble
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Liquidation
- Bug Bite
- Protect
- Wide Guard
I tried to fit in a core of three pokemons that cover the
majority of the metagame, for some time I tried to use my older araquanid +
tapu bulu + arcanine as I saw araquanid on the least was getting some use, but
then switched the bulu to kartana for good usage and effective reasoning. The
team isn’t much strategically complex from this point on, as you do know that
araquanid is very good of a pokemon. And then one of the best things were that
I got to use the move bug bite once again something that I was quite interested
in as it got those pinch berry users very well, it could also be a very good
trick room attacker. It was my main counter to muk as well in a team of many
physical attackers, a pokemon with burn immunity was quite good. Overall I
really liked this pokemon in the back when bringing my main core.
Kartana @ Focus Sash
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Protect
- Sacred Sword
Upnext is the replacement of tapu bulu tapu bulu couldn’t
work as I had major weaknesses to tapu lele, as well as didn’t have much muk
counters, kartana was way more flexible and less situational then tapu bulu.
Focus sash was the best item as I did want to keep some coverage as well as
more pokemons with protect on this team. It could also take rock type attacks
really well for araquanid. Overall katana fit in this team really well forming
solid counters to tapu lele and tapu fini as well as many other common pokemons
and I overall liked it way more than a tapu bulu which requires a lot of
support around it other than giving some to its partners as well. Main goal was
to counter all water types which it does very well too. If I put together the
things that tapu bulu or kartana allow me to achieve both go very much close to
each other but for the purpose of more coverage, metagame comfortability and
speed as well as not a terrible matchup against muk made me pick kartana as the
slot on my team
Arcanine @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 44 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Snarl
- Morning Sun
- Will-O-Wisp
I really didn’t knew what to do for this last slot on my
team, then I looked that my matchups against kartana and celesteela were bad,
sun matchups were increasing and more difficult for me now than ever. That is
why I have this somewhat niche arcanine here of this team. Safety goggles is
quite an early meta choice for the teams who didn’t have much against this sun
duo but now it works well too. It was also then able to counter those few
people who has started to use the support of smeargle alongside ultra beasts
like xurkitree and pheromosa. Intimidate ability of this pokemon really helped
me out in a lot of mimikyu’s calculations, an important one to consider is the
tectonic rage survival from whenever my opponent has kokochomp in front of my
silvally + mimikyu, that also fills up for the part where silvally can go for
parting shot with its usual scarf which is absent on this team. Another niche I
noticed was that my arcanine outspeed the usual garchomp which tend to outspeed
the 252 neutral speed arcanine where I can go for a will-o-wisp and get them to
-3 stages of attack after the intimidate. Hariyama was also helped by arcanine
in the late game to set up and sweep with a belly drum boost. Arcanine did make
my late game very strong which was something I lacked in my previous teams.
Expected Metagame
Changes After Internationals:
Gunk Shot Muk:
A trend that we saw in the internationals was some people
trying out a gunk shot muk, the main reason for this is, from atleast what I
think is to get ko’s on the variants that some people use that get a 2hko from
the normal poison jab, I do realize that gunk shot has lower accuracy, but
muk’s main job had become of utility in this format, that is why the trade of a
bit of power over accuracy is seemingly fine.
Will-o-Wisp
Arcanine:
Some people were also seen using this variant on their
physical arcanines, it can always be a good support for when the people find
themselves against pokemons like muk or gigalith, making arcanine not ompletely
useless, this usually makes the opponents lose their extreme speed or wild
charge, but it would be important note to take which ones get replaced.
Return of The Sun:
As we all do know that a sun mode team won the
internationals, it is greatly expected to once again dominate the metagame, it
was just overlooked but never was that bad of an option to consider. Especially
more and more trick room teams have started to appear that do not happen to
have ranguru + torkoal but do keep torkoal in them.
Others like Poisonium Z Pheromosa as well as stockpile
snorlax may also add to this metagame.
Conclusion:
Personally for me it was quite an unexpectedly exciting
month regarding VGC, hope u liked going through my thoughts on the things that
happened in this month, and liked going through the post overall and it was
worth your time, Bye for now.
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