Hey there Hat Lovers,
Check out the ICPA Youtube channel to see Max and Mark commentate a Best of 3 between the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and Simon Fraser University!
Part 1
Uncategorized
Player Flaws and the Anatomy of Poor Results
Hello hat lovers!
This topic will be more rambly than usual, and some aspects of it will be less Pokemon specific. I wanted to highlight some flaws I thought people had when it came to approaching the game. I had meant to write this a lot sooner but didn’t quite know how to structure the post, so the tangents I go off of will be informal, but I figured it was the best way I could simply spew out my thoughts on this kind of topic.
Also, all of the examples here will be related to the VGC 2015 format and not 2016, because I’m not overly familiar with the new format just yet. 2015 is also the more developed meta game which makes it easier for me to determine what is actually effective instead of more creative ideas people have but have fairly untested success.
Original Pranksters: Liepard, Tornadus, and friends in VGC 2016
Hey there Hat Lovers,
Today I’ll be talking a bit about some of the new kids on the block. VGC 2016 has a very different dynamic from previous formats in how important it is to control weather, and how important it is to prevent setup sweeps. This article will go over these Pokemon in detail and talk about a few gems that may be hiding in the rough (or are just bad… I dunno). Not all of these Pokemon actually have the Prankster ability, but they’re Pranksters in spirit. I’ll also talk a bit about how Pokemon like Thundurus can adapt to the new heavy-hitting format.
While I never played seriously until about 2014-on, I’ve been paying attention to the game since 2011, and so I’ve seen Pranksters succeed in every format since their introduction. Hopefully that experience will be good for something (like an article)! I’ll also include their usage stats from the Generation Showdown on 3ds.pokemon-gl.com.
Currently hyped Pokemon
Queen Team: Top 8 Lancaster Regional Report
Hello Hat Lovers!
For those who may not know me, my name is Justin Burns and go by Spurrific online. I’ve been playing VGC since the fall of 2014 where I placed in the top 8 at the first regional I attended. For the rest of the 2015 season I never advanced that far in a big tournament, but I earned enough decent results to receive an invite to the World Championships in Boston, where Max added me to the VGC with Hats crew.
Following a 1-5 performance in Day 1 of the World Championships, I spent most of September trying to find a strong team I could play comfortably with. For a few weeks I was using Mega Gardevoir, but when October rolled around I had switched to trying out Kangaskhan.
The team was very standard, but it originally had some interesting quirks, such as Explosion Choice Band Landorus and Life Orb Thundurus. Although I dislike Choice Scarf Landorus, I switched my set to that because I felt like I was lacking in speed and needed a way to deal with faster threats I might see at regionals such as Weavile or Terrakion. The team was starting to win at a greater frequency, but I still felt like something was missing. I was keeping my options open during the week leading up to the Lancaster Regional, but ultimately I decided that I needed to take this team if I wanted to do well. After testing quite a bit and making some changes, here is what I came up with.
The Team
On Banning Dark Void
Hello hat lovers! Rapha here.
If you are active on Twitter you may know of the recent arguments that have arisen regarding Dark Void, unquestionably everyone’s favorite aspect of VGC. If not, to recap, some people have called for the move to be banned whereas people on the other side of the issue see the clamoring as nothing other than a symptom of a lazy team builder.
On some level this is true, but I’m really not a fan of the cherry picked targeting towards the poorly thought out arguments made by a fraction of people that happen to share a common opinion, and using that as a way to dismiss the idea. Unfortunately with a platform like Twitter, the people who are best heard aren’t those with the most compelling arguments, but rather who shouts the loudest, which is unfortunate because there are valid reasons as to why VGC would benefit from a banning of Dark Void.
This is a problem: discussions should be about whether or not Dark Void is beneficial for the game, not whether or not those who want a change from the status quo should be labelled as idiots or if they’re actually worth listening to. There’s responsibility on both sides to keep this civil and actually informative, but it often devolves into wah-wah-wah on one hand and shaming on the other, and the targeting of the people on the extremes only escalates the problem.
I’m going to do my best here not to come across as being whiny, entitled, or misinformed about how to approach problems posed during team building. Admittedly, I have also not played the VGC 2016 format yet, and my opinion on Dark Void will be on how it affects the game as a whole, not how it pertains to this rule set specifically.
I would be in favor of a Dark Void ban – Just because I share an opinion with several of the whiny people you may have seen on Twitter it doesn’t mean I represent or advocate that approach to an issue. Dark Void has issues that extend beyond just the problems with a player, and I’ll do my best quell some anti-ban arguments.
VGC with Hats 