All This Yelling Is Making My Throat Sore: Spring Regionals Report

Hello Hat Lovers!

Today I’m going to show the team I used to get 7th place in Washington Regionals and 2nd in Utah Regionals. Mark also took 2nd at Washington Regionals with this team (be on the lookout for his report on Nugget Bridge). Originally we were only going to Washington but once the Nationals Stipends were announced we decided to fly to Utah to give us a better chance of earning a stipend.

Going into Regionals I didn’t know what I wanted to play. My goal for Washington and Utah was to get enough points to earn a travel award to Nationals and to get a Worlds invite without needing points from Nationals. Getting two top 16 finishes be good enough so I decided I needed a team that would be able to go X-1 in Swiss reliably.

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What is Momentum in Competitive Pokemon?

Hey there Hat Lovers,

Today’s article will be a topic that I think confuses many people (including myself). You hear a lot of players talk about the momentum of a game, saying things like “I was able to take back the momentum” or “I couldn’t stop their momentum.” But what is momentum? If you asked people this, I’m sure they could answer, but it might come out a bit rambly and unfocused. I only really got a clear idea of how to convey momentum thanks to my experience with the TCG, where the game is highly predictable turn after turn. So today’s post is short and sweet. I’m going to put forth a definition for momentum, and discuss how it can change through the game. After that, I really just want to hear back from you guys, the readers, about whether you think I’ve hit the nail on the head or if my definition needs adjustments. Here goes:

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3 Reasons Why Mixed Blaziken Is Better Than Physical Blaziken

Hello Hat Lovers!

Last time Mark looked at why Milotic isn’t a very good Pokemon despite looking good on paper. Today I’m going to talk about why physical Blaziken is a bad set and why mixed Blaziken is superior. Think of this as a public service announcement to help educate those using non-mixed Blaziken.

Physical Blaziken is something I see players use at the lower ranks on Battle Spot and Showdown. These teams make for easy wins because they’re easy to counter. You can use physical Blaziken and have a decent win ratio as you stomp on the scrubs while dropping matches against more experienced players. The problem is that when you get to higher levels of play your opponents will be able to handle Blaziken and put the chicken down.

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5 Reasons why Milotic isn’t Bisharp

Hey there Hat Lovers!

Today is a discussion on Milotic vs. Bisharp as the two most common Pokemon you’ll see trying to put pressure on Intimidate users. While one Pokemon is proudly Defiant in the face of Intimidate, the other pretends like it’s Competitive, and hopes the opponent won’t notice the reality of the situation; the reality being that Milotic isn’t very good.

Why isn’t Milotic very good? Why isn’t it just an alternate Bisharp? Well… here are 5 reasons why Milotic isn’t Bisharp: (more…)

Premiere Challenge Update

Hello Hat Lovers!

I won my fifth Premiere Challenge last weekend. The tournament only had 6 masters so this post is more of an update then an report.

I played the same team that I used for the last PC:

The only changes I made were replacing Meteor Mash with Iron Head on Metagross and getting better IVs on my Politoed and Terrakion (0 attack on Politoed and 31 HP on Terrakion). As with the last PC I knew that this team would be good against the Victoria metagame.

I want to take a moment to talk about how ridiculous 6 person tournaments are. If a 6 person tournament doesn’t sound prestigious you don’t know the half of it. Of the 3 rounds we played I got paired down twice and didn’t face the players that got second and third. The player I faced in the last round got fifth place and was one more critical hit (from a Leaf Blade no less) away from beating me and winning the tournament.

This brings me up to 300 CP. Since I’ve maxed out my best finish limit at PCs I can now go full NFG for the rest of the Premiere Challenges this season. I’ve had a lot of team ideas that are probably really bad that I’ve been ignoring until now.

~Max