Hello Hat Lovers!

When we make EV spreads more complex than the simple 4/252/252 we often have to make some interesting choices based on our goals. Today I bring to you an interesting situation I encountered. Recently I was making an Aegislash spread. I wanted a specially defensive Aegislash that could survive other Aegislash’s Life Orb Shadow Ball. I didn’t know how much speed I wanted to use, so I decided to dump the rest in special attack. My first thought was that I would need a Calm nature, here is the spread I came up with:

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 172 SpA / 76 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature

These are the stats Aegislash achieved (note that the special attack stat is in Blade form since you can never utilize it in shield form):

167 / 63 / 171 / 192 / 198 / 81

Out of curiosity I decided to make a Modest spread to see if I could achieve the same stats. I came up with the following:

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 36 SpA /212 SpD / 4 Spe
Modest Nature

This spread reached the following stats:

167 / 63 / 171 / 192 / 197 / 81

At a cursory glance it appears that the Calm nature is superior to Modest, but the Modest spread is arguably the better spread. The reason for this is what these spreads do for Blade form. In Blade form the Calm set’s special defence stat is 88. The Modest spread reaches 97. Anyone who has played Aegislash before knows that while you always try to avoid taking hits in Blade form is does happen and you can still survive weaker hits. For this reason I consider the Modest nature to be better for this set. Calm nature still has merit for Aegislash, but not for what I was trying to do with it.

So when making an EV spread for Aegislash, keep in mind what stats it reaches in both of its forms.

~Max

 

Hello hat lovers!

With the NPA season now over for me, I’ve decided to write about the tournament. For those who don’t know what the NPA is, it was a tournament held by NuggetBridge in which the managers of the twelve teams would “bid” on the players who signed up. Each week, eight players from each team would play against each other.

This year I returned to the Castelia Cones after playing for them last season. I unfortunately didn’t do as well as I would have liked, only going 5-4 due to my lack of practice leading to poor team decisions and subpar playing, but I nonetheless held my own in a field against other high level players.

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Hello Hat Lovers!

Do you know the true meaning of fear? If not you haven’t faced Crawdaunt! Lets take a look at this monster. Crawdaunt has these big meaty claws ready to Crab Hammer your puny Pokemon into the dirt where they belong. Crawdaunt even has a star on its head so you know its the best Pokemon around.

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Hello hat lovers!

I was originally not planning to write a post on worlds given how poorly I did, but I figured it might be good to still do one, except more as a reflection on the experience than an actual report. I may or may not have also been encouraged by Mark to write this, but I think he just likes torturing me by making me look up an article picture for Gardevoir, given that this is now the third Gardevoir team I’ve posted here. I guess if there’s anything you can learn from a post where the author went 2-5 is that you really should not look up images of Gardevoir.

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Hey there Hat Lovers,

TPCi has announced the new Championship Points structure for the Video Game Championships circuit this year! There was a big discussion amongst the players on nuggetbridge.com, and TPCi listened and took their suggestions to heart. Here are some thoughts on all of the changes coming from someone who played the TCG, where the equivalent of Premier Challenges (Cities), Midseason Showdowns (States), Regionals and Nationals were part of the yearly circuit.

• What does the circuit look like?
• How important will these different tiers of tournaments be?
• What issues did we have last year, and have they been fixed?

The major changes to expect this season are less pressure to fill your Premier Challenge best finish limit (BFL) , and less pressure to attend/place at 3 Regional Championships. Why do I say this? Well…

p.s. I apoligize for the rambliness of this post. To aid with digestion, I’ve made bullet point lists at the start of each section to offer a “tl;dr” version of the article for those that just want to skim.

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