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







 

Fire Water Grass

FWG Hype!!

If anyone has ever spoken to me for an extended period of time ( Unlucky ) about Mons you'll know how much I adore a good old Fire Water Grass core in my competitive teams. I may even become infatuated by a colourful FWG core one of these days. For those who have no idea what I'm on about, an FWG core is a team that revolves around the synergy created using a Fire type a Water type and a Grass type. Given how VGC15 is an open format, there are way more options to keep in mind if going this route. Another popular core which I happen to despise is FSD also branded as 'Fantasy' for whatever reason. This includes a Steel, Fairy and Dragon to create a core. I'll go through the Typings more in depth and some of my favourite Pokemon to use when building in this manner.  Other cores also exist but for ease of writing i'll stick to the most popular, I will mention other cores or 'Type triangles' at the end however.

Now its a little hard for me to discuss why FWG is so effective when I naturally end up with it in 90% of the teams I make but I'll try my best. FWG is the first core introduced almost subliminally to players through the starter Pokemon. Charmander beats Bulbasaur but loses to Squirtle whereas Bulbasaur can beat Squirtle etc. (Think of it as Rock Paper Scissors.) Naturally you'd attempt to get all 3 of those types into a team, competitive or in-game as soon as possible since the 3 types together can resist and super effect a large amount of the type chart as a whole.

A little bit on Fantasy before I move on, It works in the exact same way as FWG with an example being Hydreigon Metagross and Clefable. All these Pokemon can switch perfectly into each others weaknesses which is a fairly important part of playing VGC. 

When going with one of these cores its important to not just throw 3 pokemon of these types together as some wont work with each other, Heatran Tentacruel and Amoonguss for example will get destroyed by a Landorus. I typically like to stick to a basic formula of: Fire = Offensive, Water = Mixed and Grass = Defensive.  An example of this would be Entei Gyarados and Amoonguss. All can switch into each other with relative ease and Gyarados can support with Thunder wave or even mega evolve and lay on offensive pressure from the get go.  You can mix and match these roles however you see fit but try to have 1 of each role across the 3. 

A FWG core I am using now consists of Heatran(Mixed) Swampert (defensive) and Breloom (offensive)

With this Heatran can use its great staying power to constantly pressure the opponents team with Swampert providing Wide guard support along with Earth power to KO other Heatrans, Breloom backs up the core with spores and high powered attacks. Naturally this core has problems with some Pokemon, but 3 other Pokemon can be used to combat this issue.

A lot of people like to build a team around a Mega Pokemon but personally this is how all my teams are built. An fwg backed up with an appropriate mega. Just a bit of a personal finding, I find most FWG's benefit from a fast electric type and/or a Strong Ground type. This is likely why double 'Genie' is paired with fwg unknowingly. A common bog standard Fwg team could look like this: Kangaskhan, Thundurus, Landorus, Suicune, Amoonguss, Heatran. Not saying that's a particularly good team, ( maximum offence if this happens to be your team ;] ) but its a solid example of what fwg can look like. Other examples can include Charizard Venusaur Washtom and Venusaur Blaziken Suicune. 

PS: if you cant fit in an appropriate grass type, don't be afraid to leave it out since grass is the weakest type of the 3 :]

I wont go into Fantasy much as its options are far less varied than fwg but I'll mention that it is easily possible to merge both Fantasy and fwg into a single team through being crafty. An example includes Charizard X  Azumarill and Ferrothorn.

Just a disclaimer, I'm not saying a team NEEDS fwg or some sort of core to be successful, I just find it much easier to build a team with such a solid starting point. Don't be discouraged if  you lack a Rock Paper Scissors core, you may be able to thrive without needing one at all, infact quite a few teams that can be warranted successful lack a completed RSP core and instead use differing mons natural synergy through abilitys or general nobness ; See Whimsicott Gengar-M or Raichu Azumarill. I promised to leave another RSP core before the end ( didn't look this up at all ) but Fighting Dark Psychic is one with a few options and 3 fast Rock slide users can also be used to much success.