Greetings Hat Lovers,
Well… I remember when I used to play Pokemon casually; that was only last year actually. Oh, sorry, let me introduce myself first. My name is Meaghan Rattle otherwise known as Rykou in the VGC world. I am an Australian based player who contended for day one of worlds in their first year of playing.
Hello Hat Lovers!
I competed in my second World Championship this year.
Going into Nationals I didn’t do a lot of testing because I was pretty disillusioned with the format. After Nationals I really wasn’t interested in team-building for worlds. I tried out a couple teams that did well from various Nationals but once Pokemon Go came out I had stopped playing VGC altogether.
A week before Worlds I looked at the teams I could run. I decided to use Alan Schamber’s Nationals team. The team had strong options against Big B teams and didn’t rely on inaccurate moves. I knew the items and move sets from Pokemon’s official website but had to make my own spreads.
Ni Hao Hat Lovers!
This is Hao, one of your new authors of VGC with Hats. I started playing VGC last year, learning a lot from local tournaments and friends, keeping improving myself as well. At the time, I surprisingly cut my first regional in Seattle last year. This year I played decently in PCs and qualified for world championships day 1.
I’m just back from San Francisco, where I finished my first world championships. I went 6-1 on day 1 to advance to day 2, in which I finally finished 4-3, barely missing the cut after I lost my last set. I am going to analyze the team I prepared and used and how the matches went during the tournament.
Hello Hat Lovers!
Over the last couple months I’ve been playing in the NPA as a member of the Fortree Brave Birds. I was one of the 2015 format players on the team. This gave me a chance to revisit VGC 2015 and my old team.
Week 1 VS Hayden (Loss 1-2)
Hayden’s Team: Salamence, Rotom-W, Cresselia, Heatran, Aegislash, Conkeldurr
For week 1 I went with a Mega Sableye team (I forget exactly what I had, I picked stuff more or less at random from my box). I remember it doing well against Hayden the last time we faced. It didn’t go so well. I later remembered that when I last played against Hayden I had Swampert which gave his team a lot of trouble. The match was streamed after the PC at UBC. I hoped that using Mega Sableye in the first week would scare away potential counter teams for a couple weeks.
Week 3 VS GogogoGolems (Win 2-0)
GogogoGolems’ Team: Kangaskhan, Sylveon, Thundurus, Landorus, Heatran, Amoonguss
Thundurus is the one major threat my opponent has against my team. Removing Thundurus while limiting the amount of Thunder Waves it gets to spread is the way to win this match.
I was able to limit the amount of Pokemon Thundurus could paralyze. Once Thundurus goes down I’m able to handle the remaining Pokemon with little difficulty.
Week 4 VS Hongyu (Win 2-1)
Hello Hat Lovers!
The VGC w/Hats crew did well for themselves at the Vancouver Midseason Showdown. Kelvin, Rapha and I all used the dual primals archetype and got 1st, 2nd and 7th respectively. Rapha also won the Premiere Challenge the day after.
VGC with Hats 