Xerneas!

Xerneas!

HP:126, Att:131. Def:95, Spa:131, Spdf:98, Speed:99

Ability Fairy Aura: Strengthens Fairy moves to 1.33× their power for all friendly and opposing Pokémon.

This new addition to the series debuting in XY is the only legendary Fairy type Pokemon and is understandably one of if not the strongest Fairy available in the game. Up until VGC16 this monster has been locked away in the darkest depths of hell unable to be abused. Sadly the cage has been opened and this stag has been unleashed upon the masses of players. In this article I'll talk about just why this Pokemon is so strong and some of the sets I feel are viable.

Now the obvious start on why this Pokemon is as scary as it is. Xerneas learns the move Geomancy which boosts its Special attack Special Defense and Speed by 2 after one turn of charge. This sounds pretty terrible until you remember the item Power herb, the seldom used item finally has a strong and effective use outside of random Sky Attack hype. Now imagine a +2 +2 +2 Fairy Pokemon with access to spread moves ploughing through your team like a knife through butter. Add the boost received from Fairy Aura and you'll find very few Pokemon being able to resist and actually beat Xerneas when its used Geomancy.

Xerneas does lack one thing though... Good Coverage. Often forced to run a Hidden power (usually Ground) to attempt to get past bulky fires and steels that stand in its way. A typical Xerneas will look like this:

Xerneas @ Power Herb  
Ability: Fairy Aura  
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe  
Timid/Modest Nature  
- Geomancy  
- Protect  
- Dazzling Gleam  
- Hidden Power [Ground]/ Thunderbolt/Psychic/Moonblast

This may change to incorporate more bulk during the year but at the time of writing the typical 252/252 is effective and more than usable.

A more interesting set might use a Choice Scarf:

Xerneas @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Moonblast
- Rock Slide/Swagger
- Dazzling Gleam
- Hidden Power [Ground]

This set aims to surprise opponents with swift KO's to their faster dragons or frailer Pranksters hoping to Encore it into Geomancy. Rock Slide can hit Ho-Oh and provide sweaty flinch potential or Swagger can be used because its a good move and the movepool is dire as is.

Checks:

The problem with Xerneas is the variety of partners it can utilise to set up quickly and easily so finding a Counter is pretty difficult so checks will be used instead.

The obvious check to Xerneas is Primal Groudon which can resist fairy and smack it back with a strong Ground attack. However if Xerneas has the usual partner in Kangaskhan a swift double attack can be used to rid Groudon of the field.  Groudon has access to a much larger movepool than ground attacks though so other options can be explored. Thunder wave can be used to neuter Xerneas for another Pokemon to weaken or even KO. Roar is also a niche option although its best used on the turn of set up to render Xerneas unable to boost for the rest of the game if it tries to set up.

Ho-Oh utterly walls Xerneas without thunderbolt with its massive Special Defense stat and the resistance along with recovery moves. It can also hit Xerneas on the frailer physical side with strong STAB attacks like Sacred fire and Brave bird. Ho-Oh can also utilize Whirlwind to similar effect as Groudon with Roar if the need arises. Ho-Oh also pressures the common Kangaskhan partner with a Sacred Fire burn.

Other Pokemon include: Fast Prankster Encore users, Thunder wave, Greninja w/Gunk shot. Bulky Fires, Aegislash W/Gyro ball, Ferrothorn. Swagger :]

The common Xerneas core going around at the time of writing is Kangaskhan,Groudon-P, Xerneas, Cresselia,Amoonguss so keep those Pokemon in mind when choosing a Xerneas check as most checks fall to Groudon.

If I've missed anything I'll come back and add it. I'll be doing Primal Groudon next (oh dear ) so look forward to that.

-Mattsby

That one annoying thing no one likes

Landorus-T

Two words can describe this Pokemon: Oh dear/Oh no/ Oh S**t etc. If you've ever played a game of VGC then chances are you've seen this thing and I'm willing to bet its flinched you out of an otherwise won game. It'd be hard to argue against this thing being one of; if not the BEST Pokemon legal in the format right now. The interesting thing about this Pokemon is that for the most part, it will run the same 4/5 moves, but the item its holding will drastically change the way it operates. In this post I'll look into some of the most common sets and a set that I think is pretty cool but have yet to test thoroughly.

Now before we start I need to address something regarding Landorus-T and that's everyone's favourite move...Rock Slide. A lot of Landorus' success can be attributed to that fabled move. 4-1 down? You still have a teensy chance to win because of that move. Simisear here is demonstrating the sign for Rock Slide that you may see irl. If you see the opponent performing this action, you better be ready for some flinching fun.

Onto the most common set and arguably the best albeit the most exploitable.

Blandorus@Choice Scarf 

EV's 252 Flinch, 252 Speed.... 36 HP/76 Def/ Rest in attack Speed 

Adamant/Jolly

Rock Slide/StoneEdge

Rock Slide/Earthquake

Rock Slide/U-turn

Rock Slide/Superpower

Knock off

Importance of Rock Slide highlighted on this set since that's the move it'll be clicking most of the time. The Hp and Def investment prevents Adamant Life orb Bisharp from OHKO'ing the majority of the time which is a poor yet semi common check.  Joking aside the draw of Scarf Landorus is the rapid flinching potential and the ability to check a lot of Pokemon who happen to be weak to one of its moves. Scarf can be played at any time in the game but it much prefers late game where it doesn't have to worry about the opponent switching. While this set is incredibly effective the majority of the time it is exploitable. If you can force it to Rock Slide then your Heatran will have a fun time attacking it whilst it switches out ( or flinches you to death anyway ) Your potential play options increase drastically when you find that it is indeed choice locked. Locked into Superpower? Bring in your own Landorus and punish it for being too forward on its date with Kangaskhan. Locked into EQ? I know a million Pokemon that would love to step in on that. The choice lock on its moves is this sets massive downfall which leads onto the next few sets.

Bandorus@ChoiceBand

252 POWER 252 STREMPH

Adamant/Jolly/Careful

Same moves as above set + Explosion sometimes

This set also suffers from Choice lock and a much poorer Speed, in exchange for better bulk( but slower so not really :o) and an amazing boost in power. It doesn't care about the choice lock as much as Scarf since its attacks are doing an insane amount of damage and it can be quite hard to switch into it. Most of the Ev's that would be invested into speed can now be thrown into HP DEF and Spdf for increased survivability. Explosion is quite an entertaining move on the Band set, I'm not sure quite how effective it is since I haven't tested it at all but I imagine some late game fireworks could be very pretty to watch on a streamed match.

Londorus@Life Orb

252 Innovation 252 Anti Lando

Jolly/Adamant/Naive/Timid

Same Moves as other sets + Protect and HP Ice

This is an interesting set... It trades a bit of the power from the Choice band and the choice lock in exchange for Protect and in some cases Hidden Power Ice. Just the move Protect on a Landorus can blow your opponents head clean off his shoulders when he doubles into it trying to ko Lando or the switch in. The momentum gained must be unreal. More momentum is gained when you OHKO the other Landorus with a sneaky Hidden Power Ice the next turn. The issue here is, once the opponent knows about your sly set, it becomes a lot harder to net that momentum you gained in a prior game. And in a big tournament info like this spreads like wildfire. While I don't personally believe scouting is That big a deal, I'd still much prefer all of my opponents to have to react to a Landorus than have prior knowledge. It just makes reading an opponent much harder. I guess the same can be said for any Pokemon set but with this one, you're almost forced into going for the surprise options just in case they are unaware which can lose momentum which is contrary to what the set is supposed to achieve. By all means try it out and when it works well come slap me in the face.

Much shorter part here about other non choiced Lando item's that I personally dislike but have probably already seen success and me living under a rock didn't hear about it.

Yache 

Sash

Landorus-I ;)

Lum

All of these are viable in some way or another but I'm not seeing it :]

Onto the post worlds terror:

Landorus@Assault Vest

Adamant/Jolly

Bulkyyy Most Just run 252/252 Attack Speed but there's much better out there. Go experiment

Stone Edge

Rock Slide

Rock Tomb

Earthquake

Knock Off

Superpower

U-Turn

Hidden Power Ice?

I really like this one. It gives Landorus an appreciated Spdf boost along with no choice lock at the exchange of Speed/ boosted Power and Protect. This might sound pretty horrible but Landorus has 145 base attack so it never really needed boosting unless you're actually insane, Protect wasn't used on the other choiced variants anyway. The biggest loss is the speed which forces Landorus to play differently. Although most players will assume Scarf from the get go, which is exploitable. Bring in Heatran on a Knock off will you? Eq to the chin. By the time they find out the item they've probably taken a lot of damage. My personal favourite along with Scarf and Life orb.

Now for a dodgy set I think would be pretty sweet (and probably bad)

Landorus@Lum Berry/Sash

Swords dance

Only need that one move to change things up big time. At + 2 Landorus is looking pretty nasty, able to Earthquake and Rock slide through most teams. The big issue here is the lack of speed and bulk, and the requirement of an SD to become truly scary. Just a bit of theory here but it could be pretty good or pretty bad. Someone test it for me I'm lazy :]

Partners: 

Literally anything. Just having this Pokemon on your team will pressure your opponent from the get go. Have a Spinarak and an Aipom on your team? Landorus will make it 50x better. You probably still wont win but the pressure is there. Add a Kangaskhan and who knows...

Jokes aside, Landorus either loves or requires numerous Levitators to give it as much EQ spamming freedom as possible so keep that in mind. Landorus having a nasty Ice and Water Weakness is something to watch out for as well as it's easy to stack up those weaknesses on a team.

Threats: 

I use this sparingly as Lando can just U-turn away or choose to drop some rocks on these mon's head's.

Rotom-W+++

Suicune

Milotic++++

Insert Bulky water here

Insert Wide Guard here

Aero-M

Sceptile-M

Alakazam-M

Insert faster than scarf mon (not ninjask) here

Cresselia

Thundurus

(random Ice moves)

Landorus's problems come from Pokemon it cant outdamage which isn't really a lot ( Scarily ) It's far from unbeatable however. You just need to find your own method of dealing with it. Just remember that if your check to Scarf Landorus loses to Jolly Scarf, Then it's a bad check. Sorry Scarf Washtom, I loved you but it was too much :[

That about sums it up. Landorus is one of the best Pokemon in the Format and Game as a whole. It'd be interesting to see if a GS cup ruleset gave it a smack but I somehow doubt that. While I say its one of the Best I don't think it IS the best. That honour goes to something else that everyone should be familiar with. And it's not Kangaskhan. I'll get around to writing that one up when I can be bothered but for now, Enjoy a 'Got Flinched out Face' Courtesy of my good friend Silcoon.

PS: Doesn't he look so sad :o

Thoughts on Kangaskhan (post worlds)

Kangaskhan and VGC16

Sigh, the sound every player makes when a Kangaskhan comes in at the end of a game primed and ready to crush. You've played the game to perfection, its 4 v 1 and you SHOULD win bar any craziness, shame your checks to Kangaskhan are looking a little weak. Boom clap smash and 3 turns later you've lost the game. How on earth did that happen? Was it hax? Was it poor playing? Or was it just Kangaskhan being a bit too strong for its own good? Probably a combination of the three but what could you of done about it? You could of had 6 fighting types.. but then you lose to the handy Cresselia or Latios thats sat next to that Kangaskhan. Or how about 6 ghost types? What about that Aegislash, Heatran, Thundurus (insert Kang partner here)  Long story short, Kangaskhan on its own isn't THAT bad, but when you add the right ingredients things get real explosive.

 Lets start with some bias... I love Kangaskhan, as a Pokemon before a 'tool'. Catching that thing in the safari zone back in Pokemon Red was exhilarating as a child, it was one of my first lvl100's. When it was announced it would be getting a mega evolution in XY I was ecstatic, the clip of it hitting twice didn't mean much at the time but as we all came to find out, Gamefreak had created a monster. I didn't care of course as it was cool and Kang was fun to use, as time went on you get called names and get generally abused for using it, even in actual irl tournaments which is disgusting. How can you hate someone just because they use a good Pokemon, I'm pretty sure if I was using a Sigilyph I'd receive similar abuse for being an idiot or a snowflake. You can't please everyone or anyone it seems. 

Kang in the VGC14 metagame:

The 14 metagame was by far my least favourite, games went down to team match up more than actual predictions and its only praised by its 'diverse' usage of mons ( Even though you were almost forced to use stupid unpredictable trubbish to stay on top) How does Kangaskhan fit in then? Kangaskhan started the format as an underdog, no one used it instead focusing on trying to use as much as possible, which is how a metagame is formed. Around Christmas time the UK winter series finals were being played. And Kangaskhan Garchomp and Talonflame was the big core to beat, We saw a lot of scarfed Salamence and Mawile to attempt to beat it but it wasn't strong enough with Kangaskhan taking the title. Over the Pond in America the Kang hate was in full swing, With Mawile Garchomp Ferrothorn winning a regionals and starting the Mawile train. For a while it seemed like you were either on the Kang train or the Mawile train. With both eventually opting for a rain mode. It was fairly even throughout the Nationals with Kang winning two and Mawile winning two also along with a rogue Venusaur and Charizard X in Italy. As worlds came around, Kangs time was up. Everyone went full anti Kang and it almost disappeared from the standings withstanding one decent finish. 

Why was Kang such a force in 14? It was a combination of the move Power Up Punch and the format being filled with generally 'bad' Pokemon unable to take a hit from the monster. Alongside that was a lack of intimidate in the format being generally limited to Salamence Mawile and Gyarados. The nerf of special moves also contributed making Kangaskhan much harder to take down with its superb bulk. But what held it back from crushing worlds? Some say better partners, some say tutor moves, some say Mawile was too good a counter ( It really isn't xD) With ORAS announced however and the predicted open format looming, we all wondered if Kangaskhan would survive the transition with ease or if it would be left in the dirt.

Kang in VGC15

Kang seemed to be dead in 15 with the introduction of all new mega Pokemon, seemingly introduced to put a stop to Kangaskhan. Gamefreak forgot one simple thing though... Kangaskhan has friends. Gallade loses after a single speed control option is performed, Lopunny is the same and Slowbro is just really slow and really weak to special attacks. Some of the less direct 'counters' Salamence and Metagross were fairing better, Salamence especially. Metagross was forced to adopt substitute as a way to stop Kang was simply sucker punching it out of the way which became predictable and Metagross eventually fell off the radar.

Salamence however, with intimidate and base 130 def after mega! was fairing much better. However, in most Kang Mence stand off's, it commonly ended in a trade or Kang barely hanging on. Kang's partners typically T-waved Mence or just plain Ice beamed it. 

Kang also picked up one of the most important tools it could ever hope to have... Low Kick. This move is capable of one shotting Heatran, Ttar, Hydreigon, Terrakion, other Kangaskhan, Lopunny. While some argue that PuP is still the best option, the results lean more towards Low kick being 'the play' Kang dominated all the way through the year along with Salamence and later on Gardevoir. until worlds where we all thought it would fall off. We were wrong... Kang plowed through the whole event ending up with 7/8 teams in top cut having one.

Obviously this upset many people claiming Kang is broken and Kang needs to go. This may or may not be true, Kang was always one of if not the strongest Pokemon available to use over the past two years but it took a worlds domination for people to realise this. I guess you can call Kang a cake, you can just have it and its alright, but when you start adding more ingredients and toppings, then that's just icing on the cake.

Kang teams have different archetypes than just 'Kangsquad' Some where 'CHALK' ( Cresselia Heatran Amoonguss Landorus Kang) and some where Kangwind, Kangroom,Kangrain,Kangsun. The options Kang had access to over the other mega's is what pushed it over the edge. With the best Kang teams seeming to differ on the choice of fire type with some having Heatran with others having Rotom-H, Entei, Arcanine or Volcarona.

What can we do to stop Kangaskhan though? Honestly I don't think its 100% possible too in such an open format. Given as of the time of writing, we have no new game on the horizon to potentially nerf Kang a little   (maybe only have the STAB move hit twice?) we can only speculate on the next format. In my opinion it can be one of three things, only one of them I'd be okay with playing. 1: Keep the format the same... This wouldn't help anything and it'd be staler than 40 week old bread. 2: Remove the top 12 Pokemon from this year... This has issues as well, without Kangaskhan or Landorus around, some other Pokemon will step up and likely completely dominate with the lack of checks, To some people this is completely fine as they are blinded with Kang hate and would rather get pounded by a Pinsir than a single mother. 3: The return of GS cup... GS cup was the format played in 2010 which allowed 3 'Uber' Pokemon per team with only 2 being allowed in the match. This can be made less confusing by only allowing 2 'ubers' per team. There are many arguments against this, one being it encourages hacking, not that this year did the same.... Another is the massive power creep being scary for newer players, but personally if I was just starting out and was told I could use Mewtwo, I'd be over the moon. Another is the issue with the Primals being stupidly overpowered, I agree on this one and if GS cup were to exist I'd hope there would be some kind of rule, maybe impose a cap on BST with the highest being 700 which would exclude the Primals, Mega ray and Mega mewtwo's. The issue here is the move Dragon ascent which would leave Rayquaza available to mega evolve at any time whilst it has it learnt. The move could be banned but any viability Rayquaza had would be stripped away.

Honestly I don't know what the format will be, I'm personally hoping for GS cup after playing in some of the BS competitions that allow the bigger mons. But I wouldn't be surprised if the top mons were taken away and people get their wish. One can only hope something less checkable than Kang takes Kangs place and ruins everything . I'm so spiteful :) Anyways, I'll see you next year whatever the format ends up being       (Bar VGC98)

PS: Kang is the best cri moar ;)))

Mattsby

Bubble Buddies Part 2: Musings of a Masochist

                                            Bubble Buddies part 2: The Musings Of A Masochist

Hey there, and welcome to another report which will mostly be made up of further evidence as to why Kangaskhan is far and away the best Pokemon in the game, and has been for the last 2 years!

This follows on from Mattsby's report a while back, since we both had extremely similar results throughout the course of the VGC season, with teams that were somewhat similar in their build, but with noticeable variations based on our own personal preferences. All of our play with our teams eventually culminated into a Top 8 showdown in a Premier Challenge to see which team would reign supreme, so here's how it looked after the final tournament of the main season, Milan Nationals!

The Team:

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Adamant nature – Ability – Inner Focus
36hp/132atk/180def/4spdef/156spd
-Fake Out
-Double-Edge
-Low kick
-Sucker Punch

Kangaskhan. What more needs to be said? It’s the best pokemon in the game, therefore I'm going to use it. There are other megas in the format which compete with it for power and popularity, notably Charizard Y, Salamence and Gardevoir, but none of them can boast the team building options that Kangaskhan has at it’s disposal. It doesn't care who it's paired with, it’s just going to put a shift in.
I used the same spread throughout the season, and although it may not be entirely optimal, it does what I wanted. It can survive a low kick from any opposing Kangaskhan, maintain a good chance to OHKO in return, has a good chance to survive Terrakion's Close Combat and out speeds Smeargle after mega-evolving.

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Adamant Nature
12hp/196atk/92def/20spdef/188spd
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-U-Turn
-Superpower

A very standard Landorus set here, and I don’t care, it’s another excellent Pokémon that is so good that you don’t care if your opponent knows the set before the game begins. It can flinch, it can Intimidate switch, it can batter things. Keep it away from ice moves, and it’s the perfect Pokémon.
The EV spread ensures Landorus can survive a Life Orb Sucker Punch from a +1 adamant Bisharp 100% of the time, while giving me a little more chance to survive some of the weaker HP Ice attacks. The speed allows me to outrun Pokémon in the Base 130 speed category, and in the event that Landorus’ choice scarf is knocked off, it can still out speed Breloom by 1 point. Looking back, I may have wanted to lower the attack stat a little more in order to invest a little more into special defence to feel more comfortable around HP Ice users, but nevertheless, I was still happy with this spread.

Breloom @ focus sash
Jolly nature
4hp/252atk/252spd
-Protect
-Spore
-Mach Punch
-Bullet Seed

Standard set again. There really is nothing more to say about Breloom. Its a nuisance when paired with Kangaskhan, and helped out with my Trick Room matchup by simply Sporing the setters before they could move. An all around annoying Pokémon that can quickly irritate your opponent if they allow it to get out of hand.

Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry
Calm nature
252hp/44def/60spatk/148spdef/4spd
-Protect
-Will-o-Wisp
-Thunderbolt
-Hydro Pump

One of the biggest “Marmite” Pokémon around, I definitely love Rotom-Wash. Yes it misses it's moves a lot, but if you can deal with that then there isn’t much to complain about. I always felt it was criminally underused midway through the season, with it's good bulk, it's solitary weakness, and it’s potential to make opposing genies think twice about the situation they're in. This pokemon got me through some of my toughest matches this season, and I don’t regret using it one bit. EVs were unchanged from the standard 2014 spread. Survive Kangaskhan's Double-Edge with Sitrus Berry, Mawile's Play Rough, and Charizard's solarbeam 100% of the time.


Heatran @ Chople Berry
Modest nature
44hp/28def/196spatk/36spdef/204spd
-Protect
-Heat Wave
-Overheat
-Flash Cannon

Onwards into the slightly more interesting sets in the team now. This Heatran set is the one pokemon that myself and Matt 100% agreed on in every way, it’s fantastic. Yes, by running Chople berry and dropping earth power you are immediately consigning yourself to losing the Heatran mirror matchup, but here are the reasons why that doesn’t matter.
Firstly, during the time that this team was in it's prime, roughly half of all heatran were timid Max speed, suggesting that even if you opted for that set and ran earth power, in theory, you would still lose the Heatran mirror match an alarming amount of the time. Secondly, in being able to take strong fighting attacks, this opens up an abundance of opportunities to take on otherwise horrifically threatening Pokémon, such as Kangaskhan, Terrakion and Conkeldurr to name a few. Thirdly, this team has a Landorus, a Kangaskhan and a Rotom Wash in it. Opponents rarely bring Heatran to this match up at all so you would rarely use earth power anyway. EVs here were to outspeed adamant Bisharp, OHKO 252hp/4spdef Aegislash 100% of the time with Overheat, and to ensure that Breloom's Mach punch would always be a 3HKO with the Chople Berry.

Cresselia @ Safety Goggles
Bold nature
220hp/76def/212spatk
-Thunder Wave
-Calm Mind
-Psychic
-Ice Beam

Although the surge of Aegislash since nationals ended has led to a huge drop in Cresselia usage, it was still pretty stunning at the time. The move set or item slot on this Cresselia changed with every single tournament I entered, as there was just so much it could do, but I will go into more detail during the tournament analysis. The EV spread was very basic here, simply KO'ing as many Landorus as possible while still being nice and bulky.


The Tournaments:

- Sutton Coldfield Regionals – 6-2 (9th Place)

I went into this tournament far more confident than I usually do, believing that some of my funky move/item choices would see me through. Kangaskhan's ability was still scrappy here, while Cresselia was holding leftovers and had Protect in place of Thunder Wave, and icy wind over ice beam.
I started the tournament strongly like I often do, seeing off Jason Finch (Die2Distroy) in Round 2, before seeing a daunting matchup in Round 3 against a former travel buddy in the Netherlands... Koryo. I'd lost my 2 previous matches with Koryo, both including some dubious amounts of bad luck, and I certainly didn’t want to turn it into a hat trick! Long story short, I won in a very one sided game with Cresselia and Heatran getting out of control, the battle video can be found here – GU7G-WWWW-WW2G-EYQG.
At 4-0 I was absolutely demolished by Jamie Boyt. When you Icy Wind the opponent, and he switches in serperior to get a speed boost, it never ends well. Nevertheless, I soldiered on, got haxed on stage, and finished 6-2, but knew my resistance was going to be good. It was an agonising wait for the final standings, but unlike in Germany ’14 there was no fairy tale ending. I missed out on the top cut by one place, on opponent's opponent's win % to fellow Nosepass, Eden Batchelor!


Germany Nationals – 6-3 (78th Place)

Germany is a great country, I'd been looking forward to going back there all year, this time with a huge crew of new travellers to make it even better! Ringbrots were consumed, ringbrots were worn, ringbrots were thrown... Onto the tournament itself!
Cresselia was changed once again with icy wind making way for ice beam.
I started strongly again, beating Solarii in Round 1 by managing to out speed his Virizion with Cresselia in the end game thanks to the choice scarf he had initially tricked onto me on turn 1! The strong opponents didn't stop there, with Round 3 pitting me against Riopaser, fresh from his top 4 finish in the senior World Championship last season. It was an incredibly close match which was finally turned when I predicted his Terrakion to protect from Kangaskhan’s Fake Out, so I simply smashed straight into his ludicolo, then survived the Close Combat the next turn, to pick up another KO with low kick. GG! 3-0!
The tournament was turned on its head the following round, suffering 9 Thunder Wave paralysis in a row, where hitting through once would have been enough to win the game. I never really got over this match, and in some ways, the next match was worse. When your mind is angry, the last thing you want to see is your name paired with Lajos Kowalewski. He never gives you an easy game, always long lasting with huge amounts of thought required, and that’s exactly what happened. Yet I found myself in a winning position, with just one more turn required for me to take the game! Only one problem, there's 19 seconds left on the timer and he's double protecting to take the match. The game could have been won much earlier if I had played a little riskier, but that’s the game. Lajo saw that the timer was his win condition, and he played it just right.
I whimpered to a decent 6-3 finish, which I wasn't upset with, but was certainly left contemplating what could have been.

- Sutton Coldfield Premier Challenge – 3-2 Swiss (2nd Place after Top cut)

I finally decided to give in and drop protect on Cresselia for this tournament replacing it with thunder wave, for the all important hax factor, whilst also switching Kangaskhan to an Inner Focus variant.
This was a bloodbath, from round 2 onwards, every single opponent I faced was a friend. The games were rough, and the final round of Swiss paired me against Mattsby’s himself. I lost the match but still managed to make the top cut, seeded 5th as the highest ranked 3-2 player. My opponent for top 8... Matt... Again. However, this time I had more of a game plan. Shut down the Scrafty. It was a menace in the Swiss round, and I knew that if I could contain it better this time, I’d have a good chance.
It was a great set, lasting much longer than the other top 8 matches, and here are the 3 games for you to enjoy:
3FKG-WWWW-WW2G-EPX3
CUMW-WWWW-WW2G-EP4K
4DNW-WWWW-WW2G-EP66

Eventually I ended up in a satisfying 2nd place after losing to Toquill in the final, onward to nationals!


UK Nationals – 6-3 (74th place)

Another really fun tournament with another consistent result. A crippling early loss to Billa where only a final turn critical hit prevented me from winning the game was costly. At 6-2 going into the final round, I needed a win to make the top cut. The matchup was perfect. My Cresselia and Rotom-Wash were facing down Salamence and Blaziken mid-way through the match, surely I couldn’t mess this one up.

“The opposing Salamence used Swagger!”

GG

- Italy Nationals 6-3 (48th place)

Cresselia was finally changed again to match the set seen in this report. With Arash introducing “Japsand” to Europe, I wanted to make my matchup a little better than it already was, just incase I was paired against that team. The safety goggles helped, playing 3 exact replicas of the team along the way, and 2 attempted to spore Cresselia!
Going into the tournament, I was aware that 100cp from this event would most likely seal up my world's invite, so the goal was simple, win the early rounds and I'd be fine. It went according to plan, aside from a hiccup against Lega in round 4 where my own mistake stopped from winning the game, I flew ahead into a 6-1 score. (Massive apologies to Riopaser who I got a nasty freeze on when we met again in round 7.)
Although I disappointingly lost my final 2 matches, I was just happy to seal up my worlds invite, and knew my time with this team had probably run it’s course.

Concluding Thoughts:

Overall, I feel a team like this is exactly what was required to have a good chance of qualifying for world’s this year. Nothing too outrageous, just a team with solid foundations that is difficult to beat. Providing you could get consistent tournament results, and gain CP from every single one, like I did, then your worlds invite is almost guaranteed.
Thanks for reading, and bring on Boston!!!

Bubble Buddies P1 : 6-3 is a bad dream

                                                           Bubble Buddies P1

Figured since my season has effectively ended at the point of writing this ( post UK and German nationals )

I'd do a 'little' write up on the power squad that I've used at every event this year, including how it came into being and the changes I made after each event. You might notice by the title that this is going to be a two part report, with the first part written by myself and part two written by 'ya boi' Jake ( whiteafroking ) who just so happened to get the same results as me in the major tournaments we both took part in, having the same CP for most of the year. At the time of writing Italian Nationals have not taken part yet so who knows what'll happen. ( hopefully an 0-9 the dream so this report can be less fiddly xD ) 

The start of this season had me in jitters, so many options, so many new mega's and so much potential to do well with the promise of local events in the UK. As is standard I started the year by messing around with all the new mega's and some of the old ones with the new tutor moves providing options previously unavailable.

My general synopsis on everything turned out something along these lines ' Everything is terrible'.  Mega Salamence was completely unusable for me, Mega Metagross seemed pointless with all the new weaknesses, and Mega Charizard Y missed all its attacks. After exhausting the terribad choices like Glalie I decided there was only one thing left to do... Use every ones favourite teen parent Kangaskhan again. This was all well and good for me since I already knew a bunch of calculations from the previous year and Kangaskhan being one of my favourite Pokemon let me use something I liked to win, completely offsetting my inner hipster. Now Kang is a terror but not on its own, so naturally I needed some strong partners like Gengar and Bisharp. This lasted about 30 seconds as the Metagame seemed to evolve to destroy this core immediately. The next step was completely stripping the team down to its base component (Kang) and try the old classic approach of Kang + Fire Water Grass. And thus Kang Entei Virizion Swampert was born. This core was really strong for the most part but over time I got incredibly annoyed at how Intimidate and constant 50% rolls ruined Entei and Virizion, Swampert and Kangaskhan were working really nicely together however so I once again stripped down :] to the starting point and tried again. Next I stuck with the FWG and tried another approach. This would come to be my UK Regionals team. 

REGIONALS HYPE

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite

Ability: Scrappy

Nature: Adamant

EV's: 28HP 188ATT, 76DEF, 28SPDF 188SPE

-Double Edge 

-Sucker Punch

-Low Kick

-Protect

Nice and boring Kangaskhan, The Ev's were terrible and I cant remember what they did apart from outspeed Adamant Bandorus by 1 Point on the off chance. I ran Protect over Fake out as I felt that Kangaskhan can be targetted down by the Pokemon it does not choose to disable for the turn and that chip damage can be huge, It also can be used to get a huge momentum boost if the opponent decides to double into it on the turn it protects. While Double Edge does off set the bulk of Kangaskhan, I feel the extra power is 100% necessary in a format as bulky as this one where Kang needs to rip holes as effectively as possible. Sucker punch is Sucker punch and Low kick decimates those weak to it, including other Kangaskhans.

Swampert @ Sitrus Berry

Ability: Torrent

Level: 50

EVs: 252 HP / 68 Def / 156 SpA / 4 SpD / 28 Spe

Modest Nature

- Scald

- Wide Guard

- Ice Beam

- Earth Power

I opted for Sitrus on this Swampert as I wasn't a fan of it getting utterly destroyed by Kangaskhan and a swift double target. This meant I couldn't hold the popular Expert Belt item which I didn't mind too much as it still Ko'd or 2hko'd most of the Pokemon I wanted it too and I had multiple options for dealing with Aegislash. Wide guard is used to dump on the popular Double Genie core and to provide a late game win conditions alongside Heatran.

Cresselia @ Leftovers

Ability: Levitate

Level: 50

EVs: 220 HP / 100 Def / 108 SpA / 60 SpD / 20 Spe

Modest Nature

IVs: 15 Atk / 1 Spe

- Ice Beam

- Psychic

- Thunder Wave

- Trick Room

Yes I'm aware the Ev's and nature waste an atrocious amount of points. Yes I do fix this in the future and yes this Cresselia has both Thunder Wave and Trick room. This Cresselia set came to be known as Best set Cress among friends as it provided a way out of unwinnable situations, A good example comes from my round 6 game at Regionals. I have paralysed and neutered my opponents Kangaskhan and knocked it out, in comes Terrakion to stare down my own Kangaskhan. I cant risk it being a Lum Terrakion so I have to Protect Kangaskhan and T-room, My opponent does not see this coming due to the previous T-wave and proceeds to get ruined by Kangaskhan winning me the game. Basically, T-room is used as a late game lock down move, causing many games to be instantly won and providing more speed control than T-wave over one turn. While T-wave was used much much more, the few occasions where T-room can be used are often gamechanging and I wouldn't change it for the world. It also allows me to avoid insta loss to Aromatisse Hariyama. Ice beam with the investment Ko's the biggest mon I cannot paralyse Landorus-T most of the time and Psychic is used over Psyshock because Shock is bad.

Heatran @ Chople Berry

Ability: Flash Fire

Level: 50

EVs: 52 HP / 44 Def / 188 SpA / 12 SpD / 212 Spe

Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Heat Wave

- Flash Cannon

- Overheat

- Protect

Chople Berry Heatran is an absolute lord. After reading yung zoggy's early meta report thing on NB I fell in love with this thing. Being able to stare down one of the most common (and worst) Kangaskhan checks Terrakion is an amazing skill to have. Providing Heatran is above 80% it can reliably take on most Terrakions and get a surprise KO and paves the way for Kang to plow through unhindered. Flash cannon is used because I didn't feel like losing my Heatran to other Heatran when I can just switch out into something much more comfortably and I wanted a safe reliable stab move to finish or chip opponents. Overheat is an interesting choice for roasting foolish Aegislash that think they can Wide guard safely and getting some neat Ko's. A Kang that switches in on HW is in range for Overheat for example. I opted for a much faster Heatran because I wanted to protect Cress from Life Orb Bisharp, Sash Bisharp don't do enough damage to worry me so I wasn't too fussed with those surviving. 188 spa gives a really good chance of one shotting  252 12 Aegislash and the rest is slapped into bulk. This EV spread does not change over the season.

Thundurus-I @ Life Orb

Ability: Prankster

EVs: 36 HP / 220 SpA / 252 Spe

Timid Nature

IVs: 10 Atk / 26 Def

- Thunderbolt

- Hidden Power [Ice]

- Taunt

- Protect

The Iv's are pretty not great but it was the best I could get at short notice.

Before I added the thunderburd I was constantly losing to other Thundurus paralysing everything and this aggravated me to no end. Then one day at the Pub with friends I had an epiphany, Max speed Taunt Thundurus would shut them down quickly. I could easily add a Life orb to match the damage output of the Thundurus-T I was using at the time and taunt to stop my embarrasing instaloss to Dusclops. The Ev's hit the bump on SPA and the HP was a lovely Life orb number . This things job was to wreak complete havoc on the opponents team with unexpected chunks of damage and it did that job fantastically. I opted for Protect over Thunder wave or Swagger as Cresselia had T-wave already and Protect put me in more favourable positions than Swagger did in testing. This set does not change all season.

Breloom @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Technician

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Superpower

- Bullet Seed

- Rock Tomb

- Spore

Be ready to get some serious Ebola with this amazing Breloom set. Choice scarf Breloom is absolute cheese and not a great cheese at that. It was supposed to put on heavy pressure on the opponent threatening lightning fast Ko's on Kangaskhan, Terrakion and Charizard and also provide a spore option in emergency's. Sadly it didn't quite work out this way, It was threatened massively almost every game and I was terrified that it would of somehow been leaked to my opponent prior to the match. A stupid assumption but you can never be too careful in tournaments. I think I brought it to 2 games out of 8 and it did nothing but instantly die and lose me the game on the spot. This was a mon that really really needed changing.

I ended up going 6-2 and 16th place at this event losing cut on both of my losses playing each other last round to decide cut. Oh well, maybe if I hadn't used Breloom I'd of done better, who knows. All I knew was that it had to go and changes had to be made.

Before all the nationals I noticed that slowly and slowly I wasn't using Swampert anymore and at some points I was getting grass knotted by what I'm assuming was Specs Thundurus-I. However I was far too fixated on fixing this Breloom spot. I needed something that patched up my weakness to Cresselia, Metagross/hydreigon cores and could stand up to Kangaskhan. Obviously my first port of call was the beastly burd herself, Mandibuzz. On paper it did everything, one shot kang and metagross with Foul play after Helmet recoil, beat out Cresselia and roost stalled Hydreigon out. It was brilliant in testing and I was fully about to bring it to German Nationals. Sadly though, the week before I was having a standard case of Landorus flinched your check, Kangaskhan wins! This aggravated me to the point of me releasing the Vullaby I had bred ready for Nationals. I quickly needed another option that performed similar roles and didn't invite Rock Slide spam from the get go. My main man Luke suggested Scrafty and I disagree'd solely on the fact it was weak to fighting and I HATE sharing weaknesses, I was then directed to the fighting resists I had and gave in, giving it a quick try. Oh dear what I had missed out on... Quickly becoming one of my favourite Pokemon to use, I brought this thug to almost every game. I was utterly lost on what set to run though and I instantly reverted to VGC13 Lum Berry but this was underwhelming, It ended up being a toss up between Safety goggles and Assault Vest. Goggles purely for the poor Breloom match up and AV for general usage.

After a literal coinflip I ended with Assault Vest and I don' regret this one bit. As for the moves I had the standard Fake out Dual stab and Snarl. However, after watching ya boi LebronronaldoHD (Raf) on PS using Super Fang Scrafty, I fell in love and stole the set instantly (sorry bruh) It was now time for German Nationals.

German Nats HYPE

Team remained the same with the following change added

Scrafty @ Assault Vest

Ability: Intimidate

EVs: 252 HP / 160 Atk / 12 Def / 72 SpD / 12 Spe

Adamant Nature

- Drain Punch

- Crunch

- Fake Out

- Super Fang

Now this little hoodlum thug thing was easily the MVP of the whole tournament despite my lack of practice with it. Learning matchups on the flow and the synergy it had with Cresselia was just brilliant for what I needed. Cress was able to perform the preferred method of speed control with Fake out support and then Scrafty could rampage through the opponents team with unresisted Normal, Dark and Fighting coverage. Super fang patched up my problem with t-room  teams in that it's easy for the opponents to switch around into resists for a few turns, Super fang made this incredibly difficult as something was going to take a massive chunk of HP for Kangaskhan to clean up later in the game If needs be. The EV's allows Scrafty to beat Kangaskhan 1v1 with Drain punch and take an Zard Y's Overheat in the sun the majority of the time with help from the AV. I'm often asked ( to my annoyance ) on why I use Crunch over Knock off. The answer is simple... Consistency. I like to know how much damage I'll be doing on the next attack, and 2 crunches does ever so slightly more than 2 knock offs. It's also nice to let Landorus keep its scarf since I'd rather face one locked into a move than one with freedom. It also aids the perish match up by smacking Mega Gengar around, however silly that might sound I believe that every team that can be considered good must have some way to deal with Perish trap regardless of if you think its a gimmick or not. Smeargle is seen as a gimmick, doesn't make it acceptable to instalose to does it?

I ended up finishing German Nationals with a 6-3 record losing in the last round of swiss, ending up in the Top 64, enough for a 100 CP boost. Over the 9 grueling swiss rounds I noticed I brought Swampert a whopping 0 times. With UK being my last major tournament of the year I knew I needed to refine what I currently had into something special and something that would get me into the top 32 cut I needed so badly

When looking into new mons for the role left empty by Swampert I instantly went to try and salvage the Fire Grass mini core. I went to Torterra which was surprisingly not an terrible mon, I just disliked it being outsped and smeared by common Pokemon. Then I piled into Jake's suggestion of a Landorus-T much to my dismay. I really really wanted it to suck, but then it really really didn't. It provided a double intimidate core to shut down Kangaskhan massively barring crits, U turn was a great momentum move to have and also to Intimidate shuffle around in a single turn. Earthquake was Earthquake and Rock Slide is a stupid unfair move everyone should run.

However, it was not without its issues. I kept getting sniped by random Ice beams and Hidden powers so I went to what is possibly an extreme conclusion... I must make Landorus fat enough to prevent an outplay costing me the game on the spot. Could I of simply played better? Probably. Do I care? Nope. Bulky Scarf Landorus came into play countless times in testing and during the Nationals itself and even the PC the week before, succesfully taking a Washtom's Hydro Pump and living to flinch another day (It did). 

One other thing I noted was how popular Gardevoir was becoming and how horrible my Kangaskhan spread actually was. This worked out perfectly for providing a base goal for Kangaskhan to EV for.  I was going to drop Kangaskhan at one point due to how hostile the German Metagame was towards it. I convinced myself it would fare well against the expected Greninja Talonflame spam from the homely Nationals.  And  then all of a sudden.... UK Nats was upon us.

UK Nats HYPE?

So as is standard now, UK nationals sucked in more ways than one, the general organisation was grim and my mentality was similar. ( Being in the same room that I went 3-5 in was pretty harrowing ) But I'm not here to whine about how unforgiving the event was so onto the finalised team.

 Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite

Ability: Scrappy

EVs: 220 HP / 116 Atk / 4 Def / 52 SpD / 116 Spe                             

Adamant Nature

- Low Kick

- Double-Edge

- Sucker Punch

- Protect

Kang has kept the same moves all year and the way its played is similar to the Regionals as well. However, the juicy and probably inefficient EV's changed everything for me. The set is 3hko'd by Mega Gardevoir's Modest 252 spread Hyper voice the vast majority of the time, changing Kang from a soft check into a much harder one. 4 def was opted for since the opponent was often Intimidated, 52 Spdf allows the 3hko' from Gard, survival from Specs Hydreigon  Draco meteor and a Charizard's sun boosted Overheat. The speed allowed it to outspeed Breloom in Mega Forme as it proved to be a huge problem for me without the Kanga outspeed.

While the UK didn't have the expected tissue mon core, it still seemed a bit lenient on Kanga rampaging and as a result it tore through most opponents after a quick softening and was brought to every game compared to Germanys 7/9 games. 

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Intimidate

EVs: 36 HP / 108 Atk / 52 Def / 100 SpD / 212 Spe

Adamant Nature

- U-turn

- Superpower

- Earthquake

- Rock Slide

Now this is something I'm proud of... Even though its likely inefficient (I'm poor at Ev's)  This lean mean flinching machine was amazing for me in the PC before Nats and handled itself well at the Nats themselves despite what appeared to be a 'screw off Landorus' Meta. The bulk on this Landorus was an attempt at mixing Scarf and AV Landorus together and It semi worked out. It was Ev'd to survive +1 LO Bisharp Sucker punch most of the time and 212spa Cresselia Ice beam. The special investment allowed some strange survivals such as an Ice Beam from Milotic and also one from a Suicune in testing. The speed outsped Mega Lopunny by 2 points as I expected that to be a popular tier for scarfers to hit. This ended up being nice as Mega Lopunny was my most fought Mega oddly.

Heatran @ Chople Berry

Ability: Flash Fire

EVs: 52 HP / 44 Def / 188 SpA / 12 SpD / 212 Spe

Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Heat Wave

- Flash Cannon

- Overheat

- Protect

Cresselia @ Leftovers

Ability: Levitate

EVs: 220 HP / 20 Def / 188 SpA / 76 SpD / 4 Spe

Bold Nature

IVs: 14 Atk / 30 SpD / 0 Spe

- Ice Beam

- Psychic

- Thunder Wave

- Trick Room

Thundurus @ Life Orb

Ability: Prankster

EVs: 28 HP / 4 Def / 220 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Timid Nature

IVs: 10 Atk / 26 Def

- Thunderbolt

- Hidden Power [Ice]

- Taunt

- Protect

Scrafty @ Assault Vest

Ability: Intimidate

EVs: 252 HP / 160 Atk / 12 Def / 72 SpD / 12 Spe

Adamant Nature

- Drain Punch

- Crunch

- Fake Out

- Super Fang

Again I finished 6-3 but I dropped to X-3 much earlier this time (same time as Jake did in Germany weirdly) but I kept on trucking and snatched a paltry 50 CP from the top 80 placement which I was rather upset about. I lost R1 to my own timer as I was Crit down to lower than my opponent which was unfortunate but expected from that cursed venue. I then dropped a game to my own misplay but it was still a wonderfully close game so I don't mind, and then the third loss I won't go into but if you were there with me after that round you know exactly why :[ . This poor performance has me seriously doubting my top 60 position at the end of the season since the whole reason I'm playing is just to get that email saying I'm invited to worlds xD. I'll be upset if I miss out but its just another reason to try harder next year. I won't be retiring this team this year so if you see it it's probably me messing about on showdown or Battle spot. I guess this kinda combats the whole scouting business that's been going on. hopefully by me posting everything I have, others will do the same and it'll return to the good old days when team reports where a blessing for both Author and Reader.

Hope you enjoyed this massive wall of text and my story this year, hope I wasn't too boring and I apologise for the lack of play by play as it was simply too much to remember. Stay Classy and enjoy the Power Squad. Plus a huge thanks to everyone in the chat for being such babes and stopping me from using craziness, its really appreciated  :]

Mattsby 

Credit to Harshdeep for the lovely Pic of the whole Pokefamily in Manchester >3                                                            (I'm the happy chappy the picture is giving a smooch too :] )

Top 8 UK regional Team report

8th Place UK Regional Team Report by Xenoblade Hero

Eden here, also known as Xenoblade Hero and this is a team I used to reach top cut at the first UK Regionals, hosted in Birmingham
Teambuilding Process

Kangaskhan-Mega Sylveon Milotic Entei Ferrothorn Latios

At the dawn of VGC '15 I initially tested out the new ORAS Mega Pokemon such as Gallade, Glalie and my personal favourite Slowbro. Unfortunately I could not warrant using them either because they didn't fit my more defensive playstyle or, in the case of Slowbro, they were difficult to use in the current environment with prominent threats being Hydreigon, Aegislash and Thundurus. I even tried out level 1 Smeargle + Cresselia + Mega Heracross at one point to guarantee Trick Room against a fast environment and force offensive pressure due to the threat of Endeavour. Mega Heracross performed very well and manages to OHKO most Pokemon in the metagame however this team became unreliable due to over relying on Trick Room being set up. 

Therefore my new check-list for a Regionals team was the following; to include optional speed control, to have at least two checks or methods to get around all of the current top 12 Pokemon, to contain very powerful spread coverage to get past redirection and last but not least, to include no Pokemon that are entirely passive. Arguably I didn't fill all the criteria with this team but it both performed consistently in testing and contained threats that were bulky and fitted to my own style of play. Another added bonus of this team is both a Fire/Water/Grass core and a Steel/Fairy/Dragon core which allows me to make optimal defensive switches into punishing offensive options.

All of the EV spreads for this team I made myself. I like to refrain from using elements of other's teams other than for a reference point to make my own EV's around. I see many people asking online for people to make sets for them but ultimately, it is only the players themselves who know what their own team has a weakness to and what is optimal. Practise makes perfect!

Kangaskhan-mega

MISS. INGNO (Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 4 HP / 172 Atk / 156 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Double-Edge
- Low Kick
- Sucker Punch
- Protect

I'll get this Pokemon out of the way first as many of you have seen Kangaskhan throughout VGC '14 and this season. The majority of the Pokemon placed on my team are made to either threaten or deter threats that give my Mega trouble, such as Terrakion, Landorus-T, Mawile and Aegislash. I felt like Protect was a more consistent option than Fake Out as well due to opponents often double Protecting in BO1 anyway, and in BO3 being able to Protect helps me pivot around Kangaskhan so I can keep it in the field after turn one if a threat appears.

I made this EV spread myself to survive opposing Kangaskhan's Adamant Low Kick, to outspeed max speed Timid Heatran that have become a common choice of late, and to contain enough attack power to still reliably OHKO 4HP Kangakhan with Low Kick. I only switched to Double Edge a week before the tournament; it was originally Return but the lack of power was noticeable and the bulk investment was still sufficient vs opposing Kang as I would not be using Double Edge against them unless I predict a switch out.

Sylveon

STEVE (Sylveon) @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Def / 188 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Hyper Beam
- Helping Hand
- Protect

Named after the one and only Edgson.

I found Sylveon to be exceptional vs more passive teams such as the one I faced in the UK Regionals top cut and opposing Trick Room during turn one. A lot of powerful setup strategies that use Pokemon such as Pachirisu and Togekiss are also hindered due to Hyper Voice being such a powerful spread move, hitting the partner for heavy damage. I found many opponents tried to target down Sylveon the instant it is sent out as well due to it being a hard-hitting threat, so I felt Protect was a must and Choice Specs was too risky to use (often the extra power is unnecessary because Pokemon such as Assault Vest Conkeldurr are EV'd to survive the Choice Specs variant of Hyper Voice anyway). The older version of this team had Life Orb with Hidden Power Ground, but I eventually found the power between that and Pixie Plate barely noticeable and Hyper Beam's ridiculous wallbreaking potential means I could justify swapping the item and Hidden Power out. Helping Hand was an asset on the team for multiple situations - even with Tailwind Sylveon doesn't outspeed the Jolly base 100+ speed tier and I wanted to keep the bulk investment as it was, so Helping Hand can guarantee faster threats get the KO's they need. Even without speed control I can guarantee KO's with Kangaskhan's Sucker Punch, or my Scarfer which will be revealed shortly, before Sylveon is attacked. To give an actual situation where it came in useful I Helping Hand boosted my Kangaskhan to OHKO an opposing Heatran with Low Kick through Chople Berry during one of the Nugget Bridge Live tournaments I entered.

The EV spread was created to survive Jolly Mega Salamence's Double Edge and KO back variants with slight bulk investment, as well as surviving some Kangaskhan Double Edge's and all Kangaskhan's Returns and KO'ing back less bulky variants with Hyper Beam if I need to remove it immediately. The special defence investment may seem very low but it still allows me to take an unboosted Flash Cannon from Aegislash and deal damage back with Hyper Beam. The 20 speed investment was left over from my calculations and is there to speed creep other Sylveon.

Milotic

KrillerQueen (Milotic) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 36 Def / 220 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Scald
- Icy Wind
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump

I wish I could break free from making these terrible nicknames!

A large threat to Kangaskhan was Intimidate and the prominent Landorus-T. This made Milotic a very good choice to threaten Landorus and, like Bisharp, manipulate the opponent into not leading with their Intimidators. This moveset may seem ridiculous at first glace; surely two water and ice type moves isn't making the most of the movepool available to Milotic? I considered the other options a lot and I found all the Hidden Power types to be poor options to be forced into, with Grass and Fire being only powerful in best of one situations before being revealed. Often against threats such as Suicune a burn is a lot more valuable to chip away health consistently and to limit switch ins because of the burn chance. Mirror Coat falls into the same category of being tough to use after being scouted. Icy Wind found use as an extra form of speed control, and the spread coverage enabled me to get past redirection if needed (for example if the opponent uses Dragon Dance with redirection I can nullity the speed increase whilst doing chip damage, allowing my partner to KO the Follow Me/Rage Powder user). Hydro Pump was to guarantee an OHKO on Terrakion which Scald failed to pick up, and due to the popularity of the rock dog I kept it on the set. Scarf is also an interesting concept on a Milotic, making it difficult to remove due to being able to attack first reliably against common speed tiers in the metagame, with a brilliant base 81 speed that speed creeps Timid base 80 Scarfers, Adamant Scarf Landorus-T and base 130 speed Pokemon such as Mega Gengar.

The EV set is simple - it survives all priority attacks up to Choice Band Talonflame's Brave Bird and keeps a fantastic speed tier. The rest is invested in special attack.

Entei

FlamingShibe (Entei) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 116 HP / 132 Atk / 4 Def / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Stone Edge
- Snarl
- Protect

I've seen various sources stating that they believe Entei is a poor man's Arcanine. However there was several reasons I spent days soft resetting for one; Stone Edge makes Entei a fantastic option against Charizard Y, Volcarona and the sun archetype the rest of my team has problems against. Sacred Fire is also similar to Scald in that it limits the plays an opponent can make due to the threat of a burn. I saw that Safety Goggles was a popular option on Battle Spot which surprised me; Substitute is a very good option to check teams worried about Amoonguss and Breloom, and additionally Sacred Fire does massive damage to both of them, 2HKO'ing Sitrus Amoonguss if redirected and threatening just under a 50% chance to OHKO Breloom with the burn chance of Sacred Fire, a heavy risk to take to Spore. On the subject of Substitute I did test it as a move alongside Will O Wisp for the guaranteed burn chance but found Snarl much more useful for the bulky archetype of my team, offering special defence drops alongside the potential physical attack drop of Sacred Fire to make my team's bulk insurmountable in some situations. More reasons I used Entei over Arcanine was the higher BST which allowed me to invest more efficiently to take Earthquake and the lack of Intimidate due to so many teams now containing Defiant or Competitive alongside the more threatening physical attackers nowadays. I figured I would take my chances with a high chance to burn rather than cause a domino effect in some situations; even though Arcanine has access to Will O Wisp to lure Bisharps Sucker Punch to give an example, the opponent could play around my forced plays and chose to take out a threat, leaving a powerful +1 Bisharp against my weakened team. Flexibility seems to be key.

The EV was created to survive Landorus-T's Choice Scarf Earthquake and Life Orb Hydreigon's Draco Meteor (Life Orb tends to be the more common set for flexibility in my testing). The speed investment was to outspeed Smeargle tier and give me another option to hit it and burn through a Sash if my Kangaskhan is threatened, as well as outspeeding a lot of common who aim for the same speed tier. The leftover EV's went into attack to give Entei optimal power.

Ferrothorn 

Metal Face (Ferrothorn) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Atk / 28 Def / 20 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip
- Protect

I have been using Ferrothorn as a hard rain check since VGC '14 due to the prominence of Rain in the European metagame. I didn't end up facing Rain on the day of Regionals but Ferrothorn had similar uses to Heatran in that if certain threats are taken out, Ferrothorn can stall an entire team with Leech Seed if unprepared. The only major problem I face with Ferrothorn is it's low speed, allowing it to be 2HKO'd in some situations (with Billa took advantage of during Swiss) however, physical attackers take a lot of damage and often put themselves into KO range for Kangaskhan to clean up. Power Whip and Gyro Ball are self explanatory and as STAB moves help out my team's overall coverage. Lum Berry was considered as Ferrothorn often gets targeted with burn by Rotom-W but I found the large amount of chip damage from Ferrothorn saved me on occasions where I had to stall physical attackers.

The EV spread 2HKO's the most bulky AV Ludicolo set I have seen (Bopper's '14 Worlds Ludicolo set) and KO Mega Kangaskhan after being attacked by it considering Rocky Helmet damage. It also survives Virizion's Life Orb Close Combat, Terrakion's unboosted Close Combat and has an 18% chance to be 2HKO'd by max attack Scrafty's Drain Punch. It also beats Aegislash 1V1 in a mirror with Leech Seed as long as Aegislash does not get an early special defence drop with Shadow Ball.

Latios

Da Ba Dee (Latios) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psychic
- Hidden Power Ground
- Tailwind

Latios turned out to be a surprise MVP during the later games on my Swiss. He manages to check plenty of threats with a good speed tier and excellent STAB coverage, helping me out against Pokemon such as Mega Venusaur, Terrakion and more Pokemon that cannot hit Latios for super effective damage. Hidden Power Ground was an option for Steel types, particularly Heatran and Mawile in Rain if I needed to chip it. My team lacked methods to OHKO Heatran but the presence of multiple threats that can hit it super effectively is usually enough to deal with them. Tailwind was another unexpected move for many I faced, and I found Latios to be both one of the most powerful and consistent setters with a Focus Sash and great typing; Latias misses out on extra power and needs a boosting item to even KO Terrakion, which means less investment for other areas. I will admit that if I could fit Protect on the set and I didn't run Tailwind I would remove Sash for Life Orb, which was suggested to me multiple times as it can pick up extra OHKO's on some key threats, such as fast Heatran and Virizion.

Team Weaknesses:

Cresselia: Cresselia almost always manages to set up on me as I lack ways to OHKO it outright, although chip damage allows me to take care of it with Sylveon + another Pokemon before it causes too much damage. Trick Room sets however will usually get the chance to set up with Fake Out support if my opponents suspects my own Kangaskhan doesn't carry the move. I would simply have to adapt with slower Pokemon to the conditions and use Snarl/Burns to chip away at Pokemon under the conditions or resort to switching in resists (which thankfully isn't too much of an issue due to my team's good type synergy). I carry no Taunt as most Cresselia carry Mental Herb that need to set up so the move is not as useful as it used to be in previous seasons.

Suicune

Suicune turned out to be a major problem for me at the Regionals, resulting in two of my losses on the day when I decided it was too risky to bring Ferrothorn into the match to Power Whip. Specifically Calm Mind sets and Snarl sets +recovery enable it to wall some of my more powerful attackers such as Sylveon and Latios.

Other major weaknesses are solely based on leading incorrectly for particular combinations as I had good checks to individual threats. Mega Gengar is not particularly common but if it is used correctly and the opponent gets past Sash Latios, it can heavily weaken most of my team with a Will O Wisp offensive set, or even Perish variants.

Matt here :]  I've decided that it would be interesting and also would help progress Eden's team if all the editors gave their own opinions on it, offering suggestions and elements that they enjoyed or would improve upon if they themselves were to use the team. (PS: I couldn't get the images for the Pokemon at the current time so I'll re-edit this at some point to include them.)


 Mattsby's opinion: Best part about this team is the Latios' nickname being quite simply the greatest song ever composed :]   All joking aside, I really enjoy the look of this team and it looks like something I could of arrived at during teambuilding if I chose Entei as a fire type. While others may argue that Sacred Fire is a terribly inconsistent move since it can miss and also not burn despite the high odds, I like to think it has a higher chance of succeeding as swagger so it's perfectly fine :] Since I constantly nag at the focus sash on Latios I feel I should offer a slightly cheesy suggestion on how to get a Life orb on there. Perhaps Thunder wave on Ferrothorn or something along those lines can free up protect as a slot?  The Milotic has a fairly unconventional set with the Choice scarf but the reasoning is completely justified given Milotics awful movepool. One last awful suggestion here, but you mentioned you lose to Cresselia when it sets up on you, Roar could be an interesting third move option on Entei to bye some time to properly deal with it. All in all though; a very standard Kangaskhan team with unique little twists around every corner which I enjoy greatly. If you continue to use this team or a variant of it, I wish you the best of luck at the upcoming Nationals <3