Volt Switching it Up: 3rd Place Oregon Regionals Report

Hello Hat Lovers!

I placed third at Oregon Regionals. I used more or less the same team as I did at the MSS.

After the MSS I tried out Drifblim teams. I used Fini/Drifblim/Garchomp in the IC that was focused on setting up Tailwind and Swaggering Garchomp to facilitate sweeps. This was fun and while I did well with the team (22-4 in the IC) it didn’t seem like Regionals material. I could see a lot of flaws that my opponents weren’t exploiting due to the best of one setting.

When I saw teams similar to my MSS team picking up top finishes around the world I decided to try out these teams in order to understand how they played. I kept Koko, P2, Gigalith and Arcanine with a revolving door of Pokemon filling the last two slots. I didn’t like using the common stand-ins like Gyarados, Kartana or Lele. I also tried out a number of other Pokemon before coming to the conclusion that the original six were what worked best for me.

The QR Code for this team in available.

 785  Choice Specs  Thunderbolt  Dazzling Gleam Volt Switch  Hidden Power Fire
 233  Eviolite  Return  Ice Beam  Recover  Trick Room
 526  Rockium Z  Stone Edge  Rock Slide  Earthquake  Protect
 445  Groundium Z  Earthquake  Poison Jab  Swords Dance  Protect
059  Mago Berry  Flare Blitz  Extreme Speed  Snarl  Protect
 797  Leftovers  Heavy Slam  Flamethrower  Leech Seed  Protect

At a glance this team looks very standard. What sets it apart is the defensive the more frail Pokemon are trained. Tapu Koko is known as the frail Tapu but I expect mine to survive pretty much any non Z-move. Garchomp and Celesteela survive common attacks that exploit their weaknesses. Porygon2, Arcanine and Gigalith are all super bulky by nature.

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Double Rock, Double Bubble – 9th Place Oregon Regional Report

Hello hat lovers!

I recently attended Oregon Regionals and went 6-2, finishing 9th place, the second time that this has happened at this regional. Unlike 2015 Oregon though I actually had aspirations of making it further in the tournament, and I felt really good about the team I used and the preparation that lead up to the event. Sadly I didn’t make cut, but sometimes doing well involves uncontrollable factors going your way, and I have no regrets about my play and team decision for the weekend. It was also great to see that three Canadians ended up being the ones who made cut at 6-2. I also finished second in the Premier Challenge that was held right after Swiss ended (a moral victory on its own given that I haven’t been to many events this season).

This team is similar to the one Max and I used at the Vancouver MSS last month, though despite having 4/6 of the same Pokemon, my Oregon team took inspiration from a Japanese team Kelvin sent me. Heading into Oregon I was looking at different variants of Gigalith teams and this was the one that piqued my interest the most, because the six Pokemon on the MSS team didn’t appeal to me enough to bring to Oregon (though ironically, Max used the same team and did better than me at Oregon, finishing top 4). I still wanted to use Gigalith out of comfort given that I’ve been using it since late January, and looking at all the high ladder teams I’ve seen that had it gave me multiple perspectives on how to build a Gigalith team. The team Kelvin gave me had Trick Room Nihilego, and at first it made zero sense to me how this team could do as well as it did on the ladder, because double Rock types seemed to just compound on weaknesses. After trying it though, I felt very comfortable with the team and liked a lot of elements it had, despite the atrocious defensive synergy of the six Pokemon. It’s also a fun thought that this is a Sand team, of sorts. Three Pokemon take advantage of Sand, and even Arcanine can benefit from it, as the sand chip damage helps activate Mago Berry.

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VGC With Hats does Oregon

Hello hat lovers!

Much of the VGC With Hats crew recently attended Oregon regionals. The group did well enough to make it on stream several times, as eight of the fourteen streamed matches featured hatters. You can find all of those sets below. Big thanks to NuggetBridge for streaming the event, Duy, Zach, and Kimo for commentating, and JT pkmn for uploading all of the streamed sets on YouTube!

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Which Fiwam Berry Should You Use?

Hello hat lovers!

In VGC 2017, there are five berries that have become a staple on teams. While these five are largely the same, there are some differences that many players don’t know about, leading to some confusion about which of them is the best choice on certain Pokemon. These berries are the Figy Berry, Iapapa Berry, Wiki Berry, Aguav Berry, and Mago Berry. They are sometimes referred to as pinch berries or Super Sitrus berries, but memorising the acronym “Fiwam” and calling them Fiwam Berries will help you learn which berry not to use on some Pokemon. Beyond understanding the berries’ mechanics, there is also an information advantage that you could have by not using certain berries, even if they don’t confuse your Pokemon.

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