Hey everyone! My name is MrScaryMuffin and I was the first to challenge and beat the Champ at this year’s (2014) PAX Pokemon League in Seattle. Below is a fairly lengthy, but hopefully entertaining and insightful, report of my experiences. I’ve also included links to any video commentary that I have uploaded to my channel using my 3DS capture card. The videos contain the battlecode in the video description, so you can put it on your game and challenge the same team as well!
Believe it or not, this is my first year playing competitive Pokemon. Prior to XY, I’ve never done anything beyond playing the single player story. In fact, I believe I quit part way through Diamond/Pearl because I got bored :p
However, I have been an avid TCG player for several years and got interested in the VGC events that typically run alongside of the card game tournaments. I felt that I learned enough from watching that I wanted to start playing VGC when XY came out. As such, my general knowledge and experience is a bit lacking, but I’m a quick learner and spent a lot of time doing research.
For those of you who don’t know, VGC is the official Pokemon format that is used for all tournaments sanctioned by The Pokemon Company International. The format is double battle, flat rules, item clause, species clause, choose four after team preview. This season, as an added restriction, only Kalosdex Pokemon and Pokemon bred/caught in XY are allowed. If you are interested in learning more about the format, I highly encourage you to check out http://www.nuggetbridge.com, which is the largest VGC community by far.
Anyways, this year was my 8th PAX – I’ve been attending PAX in Seattle since 2007, and I’ve been attending as a member of the media since 2009 thanks to work. As a PAX veteran, I quickly got bored. In fact, after the media hour (we get an hour in the exhibition hall before the doors open to the public on the first day), I felt like I’ve pretty much seen everything that I wanted to see.
My wife decided that she wanted to watch the League of Legends tournament that was being played live on an impressive broadcast stage. I wasn’t interested, but since we didn’t have access to easy comms (we’re Canadians and didn’t want to pay roaming fees on our phones), I told her that I’ll check out this Pokemon League thing I saw on Kotaku. Basically, I planted my butt in the handheld area for hours at a time until my wife came by to grab me for dinner :p
I didn’t have any experience playing Singles, but I did have two whole boxes filled with VGC viable Pokemon at the ready. Most of these were bred and train by myself, but at least 15% of them were given to me by friends or donated to me by viewers of my Twitch stream/Youtube channel. As such, I didn’t really take the time to change the nicknames to fit a theme like I normally do, but I will note any nicknames below if applicable.
[uxif][bxif]The “Balanced” Team[/bxif][/uxif]
In general, I stuck with my “balanced” team, consisting of Pokemon that I was most familiar or confident in. If I knew the theme that I was up against and felt that a Pokemon would be completely useless against them, I would swap it out with something else. For the most part though, I tried to avoid countering too hard and stuck with the main team as much as possible.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/f/fd/006Charizard-Mega_Y.png/250px-006Charizard-Mega_Y.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Charizard @ Charizardite Y[/bxif]
Ability: Blaze -> Drought
EVs: 92 HP / 4 Def / 212 SpA / 44 SpD / 156 Spe
Modest Nature
-Overheat
-Heat Wave
-Solar Beam
-Ancient Power
VGC CharY circa February-ish. When the XY format was announced for VGC 2014, Kangaskhan and Charizard Y were toted to dominate the format. I was really only comfortable with using three Megas: Kang, CharY, and Mawile. I didn’t want to use Kang because I knew it was banned in Smogon and didn’t feel like I would be playing in good faith if I used it. Mawile, on the other hand, is popular in VGC because it wins the Kangaskhan match up and it wouldn’t be as useful in a format lacking its favourite prey. Thus, I ended with CharY being the mega of choice on my team.
In the early VGC format, CharY builds used Timid nature for speed and simple 252/252 spread in special attack and speed to hit hard and fast. They typically relied on Chlorophyll Venusaur to put threats to sleep or Garchomp’s Earthquake to combine with Heat Wave and double up on the spread damage.
However, Venusaur’s Sleep Powder accuracy was unreliable and, being doubles, players quickly learned to play around fast CharYs with priority attacks and smart protects. As a result, Charizard usage dropped significantly and has never recovered. After the Winter Regionals, a new breed of CharYs became popular – one that can still nuke the field under the sun, but can also be expected to take some moderate hits. I think I got this spread from a random RMT thread, so it can probably use some work. It has a chance to survive Jollychomp’s Rock slide and Talonflame Brave Birds, as well as most Thunderbolts. 156 speed allows it to outspeed Modest Rotom.
Going back into it, I’d probably borrow Jeudy’s spread, which he used to get 2nd place at Worlds: 92 HP / 108 Def / 52 SpA /4 SpD / 252 Spe. This spread is much more physical defensive due to the physical metagame at worlds (Spring regionals and Nationals were more special focused). Additionally, the speed investment outspeeds Modest 252 speed Specs Hydreigon, which was extremely popular coming out of Nationals. That said, the special defense investment definitely helped me 1v1 against Zapdos with confidence since I knew my CharY could survive most Thunderbolts and return KO with an Overheat under the sun.
Without the need to run Protect, I was more than happy to fit all the offensive moves that are standard in VGC. Under the sun, CharY can deal with water types easily with instant Solar Beams and incoming damage reduced by weather (as well as the special defense investment!). Ancient Power lets CharY deal with opposing fire types, allowing me to punish predicted switch ins heavily, which I definitely did a few times during PPL. There isn’t much that can survive CharY’s Overheat under the sun, even those that resisted the type took significant damage. I can even maintain pressure under the sun after the stat drop if they were weak to fire. I kept Heat Wave because I knew that one of the gym leaders would be doing triple battles and at least one would be doing doubles.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/f/fa/445Garchomp.png/250px-445Garchomp.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Garchomp @ Focus Sash/Lum Berry[/bxif]
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
-Protect
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-Dragon Claw
AKA Standardchomp. Garchomp almost immediately jumped in usage in VGC 2014 as the best Ground type Pokemon with Landorus-Therian not being in the Kalosdex and, thus, not in the format. Garchomp is definitely my favourite partner for CharY and the Dragon Pokemon, as well as physical attacker, of choice for my team as I’ve been using it since the start of the year. The particular Garchomp that I used at PPL was given to me by a friend, which meant I cannot change its nickname. Since I used Garchomp in pretty much every battle, I couldn’t rename the whole team to fit a theme. Still, I love the stubborn guy, he comes in and does what he needs to do before making an exit.
As I mentioned in my videos, I switched between Focus Sash and Lum Berry throughout PPL. Lum Berry is a VGC standard to counter Will-o-Wisps and Sleep inducing attacks. However, since I was largely unfamiliar with some of the Pokemon I was facing (like Porygon), I wasn’t too sure when I might take a x4 effective ice attack to the face. As such, I tried out Focus Sash until I found that entry hazards were negating it too much and switched back to Lum Berry for the lack of something better. Since the Singles format does not have an item clause, I probably should have used Life Orb on it, but I believe I only had one Life Orb on my cartridge and it was being used on Talonflame.
Rough Skin is very popular in VGC this year due to Kangaskhan upping the presence of physical attackers while, at the same time, Tyranitar became less popular due to the lack of Cresselias in the format and the jump in Fighting type attacks (for Kangaskhan). With less sand floating around, Sand Veil is definitely less useful.
The EV spread should not come as a surprise to anyone, it has hardly changed in VGC for the majority of the season. Only during Nationals and Worlds have I started seeing people make adjustments, though these were typically not done for optimization, but rather done to make speed ties easier to predict in a mirror situation. Even then, these counter-meta spreads are still being fine-tuned and I don’t expect to see a “best” counter-252/252 spread for a couple of months. The 252/252 spread has no real flaws and is perfectly usable, especially in Singles.
Earthquake, Rock Slide, and Dragon Claw are fairly standard. I could opt for Outrage over Dragon Claw, but I prefer not to get locked into a move, especially without a partner to cover in a Singles battle. I ended up keeping Protect on Garchomp, partially because I couldn’t think of a better move (Poison Jab?), and partially because I wanted to be able to scout out Ice Beams from unfamiliar Pokemons. Using Protect every now and then in battles definitely helped with the prediction game, as you will see in my videos.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/a/ae/663Talonflame.png/250px-663Talonflame.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Talonflame @ Life Orb[/bxif]
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
-Brave Bird
-Taunt
-Overheat
-U-Turn
I love me some priority Brave Bird. Talonflame is one of my favourites to use as a late-game sweeper or revenge KO attacker. It’s hard to believe, after using it so much during PPL, that I originally opted to use Staraptor instead. I started with Staraptor on my team because I wanted to demonstrate a bit more skill beyond pushing the “win” button on the bird, but after getting destroyed by entry hazards in my first battle, I decided I needed a Taunt user and went with what I was most comfortable with.
The ability, spread, and nature are fairly standard. Priority Brave Bird is just too good to give up, so no other ability is viable on Talonflame. The spread can actually be optimized better for Life Orb Overheat, which was a last minute adaptation I made to the move set after watching Sejun Park use his Talonflame to win Worlds this year. Additionally, semi-bulky Adamant nature Talonflames have been popping up here and there, but like the alternate spreads for Garchomp, they were mostly made to make speed ties easier to manage and weren’t necessarily optimum spreads.
My original moveset included Protect over U-Turn as I played the bird a little bit more conservatively than most people would expect, trying to save it as a late-game sweeper or holding it to deal with one specific problem Pokemon on my opponent’s team. Funnily enough, I ended up not using Taunt very often, as Stealth Rocks was the biggest threat to my team (hitting both Talonflame and CharY for a big chunk of their HP), and most Stealth Rock users threatened to KO the bird anyways. I probably would’ve done better with Scrafty as a Taunt user on my team, as it would’ve brought the Intimidate support that Staraptor had provided while also acting as a solid switch-in option for the majority of the team. Oh well!
My box actually holds two Talonflames, since I often swapped between movesets and items I ended up just training up a second Talonflame to be my Choice Band set. The first Talonflame I raised was named Mavis, after the redheaded [urlxif]https://www.youtube.com/user/Mavis9308[/urlxif] from my Youtube community. (My first team was all named after members from the community). The second Talonflame was a part of the Rain team that I ended up using for the past few months. That team had a Marvel vs. Capcom theme and the bird was nicknamed Hawkeye, both for being a bird and for Brave Bird looking very much like Hawkeye’s Gimlet super.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/3/3e/635Hydreigon.png/250px-635Hydreigon.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Hydreigon @ Choice Specs[/bxif]
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 84 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
Modest Nature
-Draco Meteor
-Dark Pulse
-Flamethrower
-Stone Edge
I had *just* finished training my Hydreigon on the Thursday before PAX Prime started. My inspiration to use Hydreigon in VGC came from watching Alex Ogloza win US Nationals with a team that was just one Pokemon different than mine: he had Hydreigon instead of Scrafty. I borrowed a friend’s Hydreigon during a local tournament that was used as a warm-up to Worlds and got second place in it, losing only to Canada’s best player, Randy Kwa. As such, I was really impressed with Hydreigon and decided to train one of my own. Since it was up and ready by PAX, I decided to use it exactly the way I wanted to use it in VGC to gain some much needed experience.
There are several items that are viable for Hydreigon in VGC, the ones I considered were Life Orb, Haban Berry, and Choice Scarf. However, since I decided to X-Copy Ogloza’s Hydreigon, I not only opted for Specs, but I also grabbed his EV spread as well. This spread trades out speed for guaranteed survival on most Dragon-type attacks, allowing it to take a hit while swinging back for the OHKO. To be honest, between using my friend’s Hydreigon and using this spread, I feel that a faster spread might be more useful.
Draco and Dark Pulse are the standard STABs for Hydreigon, with Flamethrower being the necessary type coverage in VGC for Ferrothorn, which walls my VGC Rain team pretty hard. The last move really should have been Earth Power, but I didn’t realize that it was an egg move, so I missed out there. Instead, I ran Stone Edge, which would’ve been amazing in my battle against Jericho except that it missed twice :p
As for the nickname, Hydreigon would’ve been on my Marvel vs. Capcom themed team and he would’ve taken the name Firebrand, as it best fit his moveset and general appearance.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/9/99/282Gardevoir.png/250px-282Gardevoir.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Gardevoir @ Choice Scarf[/bxif]
Ability: Trace
EVs: 52 HP / 4 Def / 196 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
-Moonblast
-Thunderbolt
-Shadow Ball
-Psychic
I never quite got comfortable using Gardevoir, which is weird as I’ve been using Gardevoir on various teams since the start of the year. However, with two Dragons on my team, I definitely needed something that I can switch to on predicted Dragon-type attacks and the only Fairy types I had available in my box were Mawile and Gardevoir. As before, Mawile is out, so that left Gardevoir.
My think my favourite variant of Gardy has to be the bulky type using Sitrus Berry. However, Protect isn’t very useful in Singles and the spread I had on my Gardy was specifically made for Choice Scarf, so I used that. Gardy’s Trace ability can be a nice bonus against specific Pokemon, but Synchronize would probably be more relevant most of the time in Singles while Telepathy would be better in Doubles. For the most part, I didn’t pay attention to my opponent’s ability and I don’t think it mattered at any point.
The EV spread is the first of many that I grabbed from my friends at [urlxif]http://www.vgcwithhats.com/[/urlxif]. Given another chance, I would definitely redo it to better handle Hydreigon and Scizor, but for the most part, the spread worked fine for a Scarf user.
Since I was expecting mostly Singles battles, I didn’t need to run the standard Dazzling Gleam alongside Moonblast and Psychic. This actually afforded me the ability to run both Shadow Ball and Thunderbolt. Energy Ball over Thunderbolt would have been just as good, it just depends on what you wanted Gardevoir to handle.
Gardy has no nicknames. Does it weird anyone else out when they have a male Gardevoir?
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/a/ad/681Aegislash.png/250px-681Aegislash.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Aegislash @ Leftovers[/bxif]
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 172 SpA / 76 SpD
Quiet Nature
-King’s Shield
-Substitute
-Flash Cannon
-Shadow Ball
This is perhaps the most controversial Pokemon on my team. Being unfamiliar with Singles, I didn’t realize that Aegislash was banned by Smogon. I don’t necessarily agree with the reasons of said ban, but I’m not going to say too much about it since I don’t play the format :p All I know is that I was growing increasingly disenchanted with the standard VGC build of special Aegislash with Substitute and Leftovers.
There were way too many counters in VGC, with the rise of Hydreigon post-Nationals being the last straw, I had already cut Aegislash from my VGC team before Worlds but brought it out again for PPL due to its ability to switch in on Fairy and Ice attacks that threaten my double Dragons. Ferrothorn was considered for a similar role, but I definitely felt way more comfortable using Aegislash.
Like with Gardevoir, I got Aegislash’s EV spread from [urlxif]http://www.vgcwithhats.com/[/urlxif]. I actually argued with Mark Hanson, who is one of the two writers for the blog, about the best 4th move for Aegislash. He finally convinced me that Sacred Sword offered the same neutral coverage that Flash Cannon did, but with the added bonus of hitting Kangaskhan for weakness. Of course, with Kang being out of the picture and with the lack of a better way to handle Fairy/Ice types on my team, I quickly swapped Flash Cannon back on for its reunion tour.
On my Marvel vs. Capcom themed team, Aegislash got to be Taskmaster, who employs the sword and shield in the game.
[uxif][bxif]The Bench[/bxif][/uxif]
As I mentioned before, I avoided swapping my team too often because I felt that it wasn’t very fair, but also because I didn’t really have that many options to choose from in the first place! Still, there were a few Pokemon warming up the bench that definitely contributed to my success at PPL, so I thought I should mention them.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/5/5e/398Staraptor.png/250px-398Staraptor.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Staraptor @ Choice Scarf[/bxif]
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 220 HP / 156 Atk / 132 Spe
Jolly Nature
-Final Gambit
-Brave Bird
-Close Combat
-U-Turn
This guy was originally going take Talonflame’s spot on the balanced team, namely because I didn’t want to be abusing Brave Bird all day. However, Talonflame’s typing, priority, and Taunt made it a much better lead than Staraptor, especially against hazard setters.
Staraptor’s item and moveset was based on what Tony Cheung used to win the Spring Regionals in Seattle this year. The EV spread is one that I got from Pendlz’s Athens Spring Regionals report on Nuggetbridge.com. It maintains good speed with the scarf, trades KOs with almost everything using Final Gambit, but still packs a big punch if I opt to attack normally with it.
When I put Staraptor on the team, the intent was to instantly trade with any problematic set up Pokemon using Final Gambit or U-Turn out of there, doing decent damage in the meanwhile. Brave Bird provided the STAB damage while Close Combat was invaluable against the Dark Elite Member Sydney.
Staraptor first appeared on an attempt to make a Rain/Perish team, with Politoed being named Raincouver and Lapras being named Hailifax. I decided to continue the Canadian city naming theme and based Staraptor’s name on the Toronto Raptors, the NBA team, calling him Staronto.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/d/d0/473Mamoswine.png/250px-473Mamoswine.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Mamoswine @ Choice Scarf[/bxif]
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 124 HP / 44 Atk / 100 Def / 44 SpD / 196 Spe
Adamant Nature
-Earthquake
-Ice Shard
-Rock Slide
-Icicle Crash
I believe I only summoned the mammoth once or twice during PPL. Scarf attackers are too strong against mono-type teams and I really wanted a second Ground type on my team to handle Lt. Surge because I suspected that he would have resources to deal with at least one Ground type.
Out of all my EV spreads, the one for Mamoswine is perhaps the most in need of adjustment. I don’t even remember what benchmarks I was trying to hit with it. It definitely outspeeds Garchomp with a scarf on, but overly so. I believe I trained Mamoswine just after Spring Regionals. The meta has changed a lot since then, so whatever you do, don’t copy my spread :p
Nonetheless, Mamoswine did its job. I really never needed it more for anything other than Earthquake. Even Ice Shard saw low usage. Icicle Crash could be Icicle Spear for sash breaking, etc. but I never liked attacks that hit 2-5 times without Skill Link.
[imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/a/a4/186Politoed.png/250px-186Politoed.png[/imgxif][imgxif]http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/f/ff/272Ludicolo.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Politoed @ Sitrus Berry[/bxif]
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 236 HP / 156 Def / 36 SpA / 76 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm/Bold Nature
-Protect
-Scald
-Ice Beam
-Perish Song
[bxif]Ludicolo @ Assault Vest[/bxif]
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP/ 68 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD/ 196 Spe
Modest Nature
-Fake Out
-Scald
-Ice Beam
-Giga Drain
The core of the VGC rain team that I ran for the better of the past few months. Bulky Politoed allows for some switch-ins and typically survives long enough to get a Perish Song off on my opponent’s last two Pokemon for a checkmate scenario. Ludicolo is a Special Defense tank and hits most physical attackers hard before they strike back.
I’m quite proud of the spreads for these two and they’ve served me well for both defense and offense. Ludicolo’s weakness is definitely physical attacks, which is why I’m running double Scald to improve the chances of getting a burn (also, I hate Hydro Pump’s accuracy). I’ve experimented with Encore on Politoed, but without speed investment, it’s not as good.
As I mentioned before, Politoed was called Raincouver in my alternate rain team. However, on the Marvel vs. Capcom naming theme, I named it Storm. Ludicolo, on the other hand, gets to be the only MvC2 character as I named it after the Mexican cactus, Amingo.
[bxif][uxif]Thoughts on the Team[/uxif][/bxif]
So that’s the team! I think someone mentioned that they were surprised that Double Dragons worked out so well. I really think that the Steel and Fairy switch-out options really make it work. With the introduction of Fairy types in XY, we have a new defensively synergistic core that we call the “Fantasy Core” in VGC: Steel-Dragon-Fairy. The biggest problem with my team, as I’ve lamented a few times, is my inability to deal with entry hazards well, especially Stealth rocks, which utterly destroys both my Fire/Flying Pokemons in CharY and Talonflame.
Anyways, let’s move onto the actual report!
[uxif][bxif]Battle Report[/bxif][/uxif]
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Emre-251x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #1: Emre, the Chipper Damager (Steel/Electric, Singles)[/bxif]
Emre was the first gym leader that I challenged. At the time, I was repping the Nuggetbridge.com shout out on my game and he realized immediately that I was a VGC player. Naturally he didn’t go easy on me.
I led Staraptor vs. his Galvantula and really couldn’t do anything to stop his Sticky Webs from going up. Realizing that I had no counters to entry hazards, he immediately swapped and essentially set up everything in the book: toxic spikes, regular spikes, and stealth rocks. I played him down to the last two Pokemon, but the chip damage was too much and I knew that I had lost well before the result appeared on the screen as all my outs to victory disappeared.
Still, it wasn’t too bad for my first official Single battle! And I think Emre agreed with me there, as he still awarded me the badge for a decent battle. Things were still pretty slow in the handheld area, I think it was a solid 1-2 hours before the designated meet up time, so he and I chatted about VGC and Pokemon in general for a bit. It was Emre’s first time as a gym leader, which is probably why he was delegated to the Casual tier, but I did feel that his team was fairly strong. If I had to take him on again, I would definitely bring in the scrafed Mamoswine to take advantage of the shared Ground weakness that his team had. And, of course, something to deal with hazard setters.
As my first battle, I totally forgot to save the video at the end T_T. Once again I ask. Emre, if you saved the video, let me know! I do want to do a commentary of this one
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_RossRagon-251x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #2: Ross Ragon, the Rose Twirling Rotation Guy (Dragon, Rotation)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/iIzAos5y2f0[/urlxif]
Ross Ragon was clearly a gym leader with his signature hat, mask, and rose. Aside from Emre, he was the only other gym leader in the handheld area early, having positioned himself enviously near a power outlet and comfy chair. There was a small lineup to play him, but I had nothing better to do so I sat on a beanbag chair and waited.
It was weird to me that there were three mono-Dragon teams in the PPL, but hey, it’s free and people are volunteering their time, so they get to do what they want. I suspected that Ross was in the Veteran tier because Rotation was a weird format. I had decent experience playing Rotation battles, having participated in the Eeveelutions rotation battle Wi-Fi tournament a bit back (You can watch a few of the battles from that tournament here: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/xXnMqumMb2Q[/urlxif])
I won’t say too much about the battle since you can just watch the video, but I definitely should not have let Gardevoir get hit by that Poison. Keeping Gardy available against his CharX would’ve been extremely helpful. Additionally, I think I might have missed it when Garchomp took the speed drop from Goodra’s Gooey ability and made a silly decision afterwards thinking that Garchomp would hit first.
I don’t know if Ross’s CharX had Flare Blitz, but the battle essentially came down to whether he Dragon Clawed or Flare Blitzed my Venusaur. I protected the turn before to scout out his decision and I was happy that he didn’t change his mind. I think it may be because Singles players aren’t that used to Protect, but I never saw anyone change their decision after I protected one turn to scout.
Interesting to note, Ross actually forgot to bring his badges on the first day and was ripping up bits of paper with a scribble on it as an IOU. I think I managed to claim the actual badge on the second day.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Samuel-253x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #3: Samuel Willingston III, the Unrelentingly and Unrepentantly Cruel (Quiz Master)[/bxif]
After my first two battles, I believe I disappeared to explore the show for a bit before returning just before the official meet up time for PPL. There were definitely more people around on the return trip, but most of PPL members were Elites. The Quiz Master only had a one or two people waiting, so I decided to park my seat nearby to try my limited knowledge at the trivia contest.
As I mentioned before, I only started playing Pokemon in earnest again at the start of the year. Prior to that, I’ve played RBY and have a hazy memory of GS. I also had solid TCG knowledge to rest on, but Willingston rolled his dice and I got the Abilities section.
Unfortunately for me, I only got one out of the three questions correct when I needed two. They were tough questions! I don’t remember the first question, but I got the second question right. It was the one about the most common ability (Levitate). The last question that I didn’t get was about getting massive stat boosts with Simple + Ancient Power.
I was allowed to rechallenge the quiz after an hour, but I never got the chance with lineups and such.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PPLP14_Sol-296x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #4: Sol Badguy, but not Bad Guy. You know? (Fire, 4v4 Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/tUg561tFg4k[/urlxif]
Not too much to be said about this battle outside of the video. Sol looked super busy and stressed out. I offered to play 4v4 against him for a shorter game so that he could crunch through his waitlist faster and he accepted. This was the only time I brought my rain team on, as I expected him to run Drought and Sunny Day on a few Pokemon. The end result was a lot closer than I would’ve liked and, as such, I did not opt to bring Rain again, even when facing other Sun Teams later on.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Naruhobo-300x237.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #5: Naruhobo, Getting Too Old for this Stuff (Themed Balanced Team, Singles)[/bxif]
I *pretty* sure that I battled against Naruhobo at this point, but I’m not 100% certain. In either case, I noticed that he was just wrapping up a battle and that there was no one on his waitlist so I waited for him to finish and challenged him.
Naruhobo was following an Ace Attorney theme, with Pokemon named after characters from the series (such as Espeon being Maya). He himself was in costume and was wearing the appropriate toque. He asked me what my level was and I told him it was first time playing Singles, but that I was a VGC player. I felt kind of bad because he kind of cut me off after I said that it was my first time playing Singles and I didn’t think he was paying attention when I said I was a VGC player. I didn’t really bother to make sure that he heard my full statement but, then again, he might not even know what being a VGC player meant anyways :p
As a result, he played his easier team against me and almost immediately regretted it when he saw my team. I offered to let him change teams but he seems fine to run Stunfisk, though I got the feeling that he wasn’t liking me very much at this point.
That feeling only intensified when I used Substitute with Aegislash. Again, I didn’t know that Aegislash was banned on Smogon, but I’m guessing Naruhobo knew and he wasn’t having much fun. He told me that if someone else wanted to challenge him, he would give me the loss and end the battle immediately since I was using a stall Pokemon. I tried to explain to him that the standard Aegislash build isn’t really a stall Pokemon (given the fact that there is a 15 minute time limit for VGC matches, stall Pokemon don’t do very well). The Aegislash’s substitute was meant to punish people for trying to set up on a predicted King’s Shield and allow the Pokemon to get off two attacks safely without worries. My Aegislash didn’t carry Toxic, as was typical for stall Pokemon, but instead was designed to 2HKO or 3HKO opponents with Shadow Ball or a fourth move, which was Flash Cannon in this instance.
Still, Naruhobo didn’t look very happy to be playing against me and I felt bad. This was perhaps the most uncomfortable match and least fun moment of the entire PPL. Having played against stalled Pokemon myself (see: [urlxif]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnZUpVWxChU[/urlxif]), I could understand how Naurhobo was feeling, so I wrapped up the match quickly (Aegislash only set up one sub the whole match), took my badge and never looked back.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PPLP14_GaryOak-287x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #6: Gary Oak, the Crit Magnet (Themed Balanced Team, Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/_S3Duveg2vA[/urlxif]
My wife and some of our friends came by to fetch me for early dinner (crucial to beat the wait times at restaurants!), but I wanted to see if I could get one more battle off. I noticed an Asian girl sitting bored with the neon green scarf on and I asked her if she was accepting challenges. She glanced over to another guy and he sighed a bit before getting up and taking her scarf to don on himself. Someone in the crowd, I think it was one of the Elites, said “Holy Shit! It’s Gary Motherfucking Oak!” and the Asian girl started fawning over him chanting “Gary, Gary, Gary”. It was quite hilarious.
As I expected, Gary was running mostly a balanced team with some Pokemons known to be on Gary Oak’s in-game and anime/manga teams, including an Eeveelution (Vaporeon) and Nidoking. I quickly figure out that Nidoking is scarfed (but not before I lost my Garchomp) and got an easy KO on his mega Charizard with my own Charizard’s Ancient Power, which caught him by surprise. As I mentioned in the video, we were pretty even up until I crit’d him with a -2 Draco Meteor on his Scizor. After that, the match was pretty much over.
Gary really did seem to have terrible luck during PPL. I remember at least three distinct times where I would overhear his outburst in the crowd after getting crit’d against, turning the tide of a battle in favour of his opponent. If there was an item that made your own Pokemon more susceptible to crits, I would’ve accused him of sandbagging, but unfortunately for him, he just had bad luck. In either case, badge get!
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PPLP14_Spyra-300x290.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #7: Spyra, the Happy Go Lucky One (Dragon, Singles)[/bxif]
Again, I may have my challenges a bit out of order here. I didn’t exactly pin the badges in any particular order on my lanyard so I don’t really have a way to remember. I think I faced Spyra early on the second day of the PPL. I had to wait for a few matches to finish up before challenging her and, as a condition to challenge her, I had to show her a Pokemon that was affectionate to me. Naturally, I showed her my breeding bird, the Flame Body Talonflame named Mama Bird that is always in my in-game party. I would find out afterwards that, because my Pokemon had maximum affection for me, I would have gotten the badge regardless of the outcome of the battle.
As a side note, I really do love my Mama Bird! It’s equipped with Thief (for grinding Heart Scales), Incinerate (for horde battle EV training), Quick Attack, and Fly. The only way it could be better would be if I could somehow put both False Swipe and Sweet Scent on it. Instead, I have a Mawile called Nanny McGee to handle that.
Anyways, Spyra was a Casual tier Gym Leader while her husband, Solmun, was an Elite. The pair were dressed like Vikings and I could tell that Spyra’s theme was derived from How to Train Your Dragon. Compared to her husband, I got the sense that Spyra was fairly new to Pokemon and played super loose, as if she did not have a care in the world. Needless to say, it was a solid stomping, but I think she expected that and was pretty bubbly throughout the battle.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Jericho-288x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #8: Jericho, the Ancient (Ice, Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/8lfWZbIN4EQ[/urlxif]
Jericho, the Artic Explorer, did not have a costume, but he did love to speak in character. When we battled, he asked, “Are you prepared, Summer Child?” I teasingly replied that a) I was probably (definitely) older than he was and, that, b) I was from Canada and probably (definitely) had more experiences with cold winters than he did. He told me to just play along and so I did.
Overall the battle was very enjoyable despite the thrashing I got. I think I mentioned it in the video, but if I had a do over, I probably would’ve liked to bring a Bullet Puncher along and probably (definitely) avoid bringing the Stealth Rock prone Talonflame and CharY. I think Mega Mawile actually would not be a bad call here provided I could alleviate Earthquake threats.
Jericho clearly enjoyed the battle as much as I did and he gave me the badge as a result, even though I lost. He did add the stipulation that we must rematch at a later time when he was more available, but unfortunately that never happened. I did go by him at least twice during the remainder of PAX, even after I beat the champ, to see what his wait list was like, but he was always super busy.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Burgh-229x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Leader Challenge #9: Burgh, Who Has Accepted his Fate (Bug, Singles)[/bxif]
Burgh was another gym leader dressed in character and, in the time period immediately after I battled Jericho, the only leader in the handheld area that I haven’t earned a badge from yet. So I sat down next to him and waited the good wait before we could do battle.
One of the cool things about PPL was the Battle Chateau, where you could challenge other challengers while you waited for a gym leader. Everyone started as a Baron and, after four Chateau battles, you become a Viscount. Every battle needed to be validated by a gym leader, but if you battle against another Viscount, the matches would count in place of a regular badge! You can acquire two badges this way, afterwhich you would become a Duke and battling against another Duke/Duchess would be equivalent to an Elite badge. It was a neat system to give people something to do while they waited, I only wished that it was advertised and promoted more as everyone seemed to not know about it. During PPL, I managed to get to the Viscount level, but never found another Viscount to battle against.
Anyways, my battle against Burgh was fairly straight forward. With multiple Flying and Fire types in my balanced team, it was pretty much a stompfest. I believe I might have swapped out the bug-weak Gardevoir for Staraptor in this battle as well. Burgh was Casual tier and he seemed pretty much resigned to his fate. He told me he wasn’t expecting to win much with an all-bug team and was participating for the fun of others, which I highly respected.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PPLP14_ThomasRoe-300x298.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Elite Challenge #1: Thomas Roe, Pick a Card – Any Card! (Themed Balanced Team, Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/ImbXtPc6tvw[/urlxif]
Once I earned Burgh’s badge, I pulled out my lanyard from my bag and double checked to make sure that I had eight. At which point, I quickly scanned the crowd for an E6 scarf and set my eyes on Thomas Roe. When I challenged him, he asked if I had eight badges. It was a line that he and all the other Elite leaders had been repeating for over a day now, but I was the first to give a new answer. I showed him my lanyard covered with badges and said, “Count ‘em!”
Roe’s eyes pretty much lit up, part surprise and part excitement. The Elite members up until now had been pretty bored. They essentially sat around during the first day with no viable challengers. I knew that a few of them played friendly matches, but I got the sense that they really wanted to sink their teeth into a serious battle with a challenger.
Thomas pulled out several Pokemon cards and fanned them out to me facedown. I chose one card and turned over Rotom-Heat, the bravest little Toast Box, my favourite of the Rotom forms. I had actually expected his team to be entirely Rotom forms, but instead he used the one that I chose randomly on a balanced team.
You can watch the battle in the video with my commentary, but I must say that I really enjoyed this battle. I’ve never battled against a Genesect before and had no idea what it did. To be frank, I still don’t know what it does and why it’s banned in Smogon, but it was still great experience!
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Sidney-272x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Elite Challenge #2: Sidney, the Manga Otaku (Dark, Themed, Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/VYW5LS8WJ6U[/urlxif]
Sidney came by while I was in the middle of my battle against Thomas Roe. He had the vest and shirt of his costume down pat, but his hair was definitely too long :p At first, he thought it was a friendly battle, but then he realized it was a legit challenge. I guess it must have been the serious look on our faces. Nonetheless, he also got pretty excited and practically challenged me to a battle once I was done.
I knew that Sidney was the Dark trainer and opted to run Staraptor for this battle. I think it knocked out two or three Pokemon before he realized that it was scarfed. By then it was too late and my remaining Pokemon cleaned up his team. We talked briefly after the battle and he lamented that he didn’t have many Pokemon to choose from since he based his team off of Sidney’s team in the game, anime, and manga. There weren’t many viable options there and he really wasn’t expecting to win many challenges, but he still wanted to see how well the team did. I ran into Sidney again before PAX ended and he told me that he did managed to squeeze out one official victory with the team, which was awesome. I don’t think I high-fived him for the accomplishment though...
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Drasna-251x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Elite Challenge #3: Drasna, the Cosplayer (Dragon, Themed, Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/p77LccfBWz0[/urlxif]
True to character, Drasna seemed to be the lead organizer of the entire PPL. She gave out little thank you care packages to the other gym leaders on the first day and seemed to know everyone. She told me that she had cosplayed as Whitney before and even had her Whitney team on her cartridge, which she used for friendly battles against bored challengers.
Her team was pretty much exactly the same as Drasna’s in-game team, except with the inclusion of Goodra, which was one of her favourite Pokemon. Like the other mono-Dragon battles, this challenge was fairly straight forward, as you can see from the battle video. I was quite happy that Garchomp’s Lum Berry actually mattered for once.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_LtSurge-204x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Elite Challenge #4: Lt. Surge, the Eyeliner (Electric, Themed, Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/1_p0RQfDIg0[/urlxif]
After defeating Drasna, there were no more Elite members to prey on. Drasna offered to play a friendly battle against her Whitney team, but just as she started to get it set up, who should arrive on the scene but Lt. Surge. Sidney practically dragged the two of us together for the battle.
Lt. Surge had a pretty spot-on costume, though one could mistake him for a Guile with less intense hair. His hair did seemed to be recently bleached and he wore eyeliner for some reason. It was something that I couldn’t stop staring at.
Anyways, I brought my scarf Mamoswine for this battle, replacing Talonflame, whose main advantage was stunted due to Surge’s entire team resisting Brave Bird. Surge did have some non-electric Pokemon though, to my surprise, but he explained that it was canon to the anime/manga. Nonetheless, his Pokemon fell pretty quickly, as we both had expected.
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Snorkus-216x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Champion Challenge #1: Snorkus, the Nervous (Themed, Singles)[/bxif]
Battle video: [urlxif]http://youtu.be/U-g-1XNTOEw[/urlxif]
So now I had the four requisite Elite badges to challenge the champ! However, the champ was nowhere to be seen. Good guy Solmun offered to battle me while we waited, but he was already engaged in a friendly battle. Before Solmun finished his battle, Snorkus the Champ arrived. Once again, Sidney was there to drag us together for the first official champ challenge!
Snorkus was actually a bit surprised that someone had already collected all the badges, though it had already been a day and a half since PAX started (from my understanding, people had managed to grind out all the badges on the first day at PAX East this year, so I was pretty slow). I don’t think he was mentally prepared for a battle and he straight out said aloud that he was nervous. He gave me a dice to roll and that determined which of his Pokemon was going to Mega.
In case you don’t recall, all of the Pokemon in Snorkus’ team carries their respective Mega Stone, as it was his theme. Naturally, he could only evolve one of them, which was determined by dice roll. When I revisited the handheld area later on in PAX, I learned from other champ challengers that he didn’t offer them the dice roll and just Mega’d whichever Pokemon he wanted during the battle.
You can watch our battle with my commentary in the video, it was pretty one sided. I got a lot of practice with the Singles format during the PPL and, as I mentioned earlier, I did find Singles much easier to play and predict when compared to Doubles. The crowning ceremony was a bit awkward and embarrassing, though probably moreso for Snorkus since his voice cracked when he was shouting. I got a certificate and a funny blue mini-cape with a Pokeball clasp. You can see the picture that was taken on the front page to get the full awkwardness effect.
Afterwards, Snorkus wanted to do a re-match and I teasingly told him that, since he was now challenging me, I got to choose the format. So he put together a VGC team and I used my Rain team against him. He complained a bit that I was styling on him since I used Perish Song to checkmate his last two Pokemon before KOing them. Sorry Snorkus!
[imgxif]http://paxpokemonleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PPLP14_Solman-245x300.png[/imgxif]
[bxif]Bonus Challenge #1: Solmun, the Weather Warrior (Sun, Singles)[/bxif]
I did end up playing against Solmun, who used a Sun team, after beating the champ. I still had to wait in the handheld area for my wife and he was bored. Solmun actually ended up handing me my third loss at the PPL, as Stealth Rocks once again ripped apart my balanced team. I actually have the battle saved on my travel 3DS (not the capture card device I keep at home for recording). If anyone is interested, I could put this battle up with commentary, but so far no one has really voiced interest.
[bxif][uxif]Conclusion[/uxif][/bxif]
Well, this has been a long report. If you’ve read the whole thing, then props to you! I also want to thank all the PPL leaders for their generous volunteering. I had a lot of fun and I know that I probably wouldn’t be willing to do something similar myself.
I will be continuing to post Pokemon-related video on my Youtube channel, which I hope most of you guys will follow. The vast majority of the content will be VGC related, but I intend on starting a series of 5-10 minute videos called “Pokemon for Slowpokes” that will take the uninitiated all the way to becoming VGC competitors. The main target audience for the series will be people who played RBY casually as kids and never touched the franchise again, but I’m sure the later episodes in the series will be beneficial to anyone. At the very least, be sure to guide your newbie friends towards the videos when they come out!
