Author: Starmetroid

2nd Place Oregon Regionals Report

Hello Hat Lovers!

Mark, Trevore, Chase, Jason and myself all drove down to Portland last weekend to compete in Oregon Regionals. Trevore, Chase and Jason all played in TCG Regionals on Saturday and then in a League Challenge on Sunday. Me and Mark played in a Premiere Challenge on Saturday and in VGC Regionals on Sunday.

We got in around 1:30 AM after getting lost a couple times and our TCG friends were up until 5AM preparing their decks. This made me incredibly thankful that I had decided on my team well in advance. We got up at 7AM to deliver them to the event. I made top 8 in the Premiere Challenge. I changed some of the items for the PC so that if I faced the same people at Regionals they would have false information on the team. The item changes were not ideal for the team, but they were worth trying.

Chase made top cut and stayed up until 3AM deciding on what deck to play on Sunday. We got up again at 7AM to get to the event in time for registration. There were 175 masters registered, giving us 8 rounds of swiss and a top cut of 8. Only 8-0 and 7-1 records were ensured a spot in top cut, with two 6-2 records making it.

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No Sleep Until Clear: Victoria Premiere Challenge Report

Hello Hat Lovers!

I played in two Premiere Challenges this weekend in Victoria. These were the first tournaments I’ve played in since switching to the new format, and my goal was to win at least one of the tournaments. I’ve had a team I’ve been testing for a while now and while it has done well in practise (winning an online Smogon tournament the day before) I decided I didn’t want use it and would rather build a team focusing on Pokemon I knew would be good against the local metagame. I knew which Vancouver players would show up and what they used in the past, as well as what the Victoria players would use.

Since this tournament took up my afternoon and I went out on Friday I ended up getting home at 1AM without knowing what I wanted to run. There were a couple threats I needed to prepare for. I knew Rushan had used a Trick Room team with Slowbro and Gastrodon so I wanted a Grass type to make that match-up easier. Murray was likely to have a rain team, so a Grass type would pay dividends in that matchup as well. Hongyu was the one player I didn’t know was coming, but I wouldn’t have known what he was running anyways.

Day 1

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Terrakion & Bisharp

Hello Hat Lovers!

Today I’m here to talk about Terrakion and Bisharp as partners on a team. I’ve been using both on a lot of teams in testing and found they compliment each other fairly well.

I’ve been seeing these two show up together on a lot of high profile player’s teams. Aaron “Cybertron” Zheng and CT Mikoto Mikasa both used these two on their team to win Premiere Challenges. Both players used these two along with their Mega Salamence + Redirection combo.

I’ve found that these two can fit on most teams (I wouldn’t expect them to go well on a Trick Room team) and often were my safe leads against teams that I didn’t know what I wanted to do against.

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T12 Pokemon on Battle Spot Doubles

Hello Hat Lovers!

Since VGC 2015 is essentially ORAS Battle Spot doubles we can start practising for the format so we’ll be ready for those early January Premiere Challenges. I’m going to give a rundown of the 12 most common Pokemon on the Battle Spot Doubles ladder including their moves, items and abilities.

The data for Battlespot usage comes from here: http://3ds.pokemon-gl.com/battle/oras/#double

Keep in mind that the top 12 is based off of what gets used the most and not what is the most successful. Data is subject to change as time goes on.

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VGC 2015 Rules Announced!

Hello Hat Lovers!

The rules for VGC 2015 have finally been announced. These rules will be put into place January 1st 2015. Here the rules regarding team construction:

  • VGC 2015 will be played on Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire versions. Players cannot use two Pokemon with the same Pokedex number. Players cannot have two of the same item on their team.
  • The following Pokemon are banned: Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Celebi, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Jirachi, Deoxys, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Darkrai, Shaymin, Arceus, Manaphy, Phione, Victini, Reshiram, Zekrom, Kyurem, Keldeo, Meloetta, Genesect, Xerneas, Yveltal, Zygarde, Diancie. Hoopa and Donut-Steam-Monster will be banned once Game Freak officially reveals them.
  • Soul Dew is banned.
  • Pokemon must have a blue pentagon on their status screen. This blue pentagon will indicate that the Pokemon was obtained in generation 6.

This is the same format I was expecting, and I’m glad we finally got it confirmed. Now we know exactly what we’re dealing with next year and people can stop making ridiculous claims about the format being Hoenn-Dex only or Primal Legendaries being legal. These rules are the same as the battle spot doubles ladder on ORAS, which means we will have an in-game ladder to play on throughout the whole year.

As you may have noticed, we’ve started Brigette’s PC 2015. This will contain sets for VGC 2015 Pokemon and we’ll be adding sets that we’ve used as well as those from tournament reports on Nugget Bridge.

Cheers,

~Umbreon out