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International Challenge (Feb 2017)

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Day 2 finished. Unimpressive day with a 9-6 record (20-10 so far) which should have been better were it not from *ahem* critical hits on around half the defeats (and actually a pair of wins where the opposing trainer was really bad - what makes you think if I tell you a +1 Buzzwole kept using Ice Punch and Thunder Punch vs a Porygon 2 and a Gigalith?).

Today I spotted a pretty curious use of Pheromosa - Speed Swap. It actually seems pretty interesting against Trick Room teans, especially since they can be very easy to predict.

In my case, that Pheromosa used Speed Swap on Hariyama (as I deemed Xurkitree to be more threatening if it had Dazzling Gleam, as my Mimikyu could Will-O-Wisp Pheromosa).

That could have been a great way to put me into a tighter situation... if Pheromosa didn't have Z-Me First, which it used after Trick Room was set.
 
Finished 10-5 today, 30-15 overall, with a rank of about 1680-1690.

The day didn't start well, with a(nother) haxy defeat and a sudden loss of connection I had, but the rest of the day were deserved wins or defeats - finally a day that goes like it should.

The last battle surprised me, though, with a cute gimmick of Weakness Policy Mudsdale paired with a Water Shuriken Smeargle. A gimmick, but it looked cool. And it defeated me.

The team I used is the one I posted here. Not a very creative one, I admit, but it was the first time I tried to do anything for doubles (let alone VGC). Next time I'll try a different style. Tailwind seems interesting.
 
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Finished with ~1700, a really acceptable result for me. Had the most problems against random Z-Moves like Botanium-Z Whimsicott and things like that.
 
Literally have not played a game of VGC17 and have very limited doubles experience as it is but played this for the mega stones. Only had a few hours to play on the Sunday unfortunately, and couldn't pull an all-nighter Sunday night like I normally do with online competitions as I got called to come into work Monday (and apparently I'm now working every monday now so I have to rethink my usual online comp strategy lol). My experience isn't really worth writing about as I only got 11 games in and broke 1600 but I like posting my battle box from the PGL ^_^

Feb IC sun.png

Heard that some noobs were using Dancer shenanigans and figured that would suit me, didn't really know how to build a team around it though so I just put what I understood to be four good mons that could help out against Ice/Rock/Steel types. Apart from Phero+Oricorio, I really liked Fini, and Garchomp turned out to be just as good as it is in battle spot singles. Like I said I didn't get to play as much as I wanted but this comp kinda got me interested in VGC so if anyone wants to RMT I wouldn't mind some pointers. I ran into like 7-8 full trick room teams with Oranguru and I think 5 of them had Torkoal, is that a common thing or low ladder sort of stuff? Because it was annoying AF to face.

I also played 3 games on my Moon cart to get the stones there too and just slapped together some stuff, I like the aesthetic of it and beat some guy ranked like 1650 with that Arcanine/Fini/Kartana core that is apparently a thing. It's not a serious team by any means but I'll also accept comments on it. I might try the WCS ladder on cart now so any help is good!
Feb IC moon.png
 
cant say said:
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Heard that some noobs were using Dancer shenanigans and figured that would suit me, didn't really know how to build a team around it though so I just put what I understood to be four good mons that could help out against Ice/Rock/Steel types. Apart from Phero+Oricorio, I really liked Fini, and Garchomp turned out to be just as good as it is in battle spot singles. Like I said I didn't get to play as much as I wanted but this comp kinda got me interested in VGC so if anyone wants to RMT I wouldn't mind some pointers. I ran into like 7-8 full trick room teams with Oranguru and I think 5 of them had Torkoal, is that a common thing or low ladder sort of stuff? Because it was annoying AF to face.
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Dancer is actually a very uncommon core but it's there.

It usually goes Lilligant/Torkoal/Oricorio/Pheramosa and usually the last slots are users choice.

Lilligant uses Chlorophyl alongside Torkoal's Drought to become very fast, Torkoal can either proceed to use Eruption while Lilligant uses After You (which makes Torkoal move immediately after the Chloropyl Lilligant which is undoubtedly the fastest on the field for free full power Sun boosted Eruption.)


Or, if Earthquake/Tectonic Rage is coming for Torkoal it switches out into Oricorio while Lilligant uses Quiver Dance, or Sleep Powder.

It's a really fun core but is easy to read
 
So I finished with a piss poor 2-3 record only for the Mawilite and Beedrillite, but some of my friends had better luck than I. I'm noting to never run an Electric type with Alolan Marowak ever again, since Lightning Rod never came in handy during any of my games.
 
I signed up and played without really looking to see when it would end. I finally have more time to play this week, but it ended.
I ended either 9-0 or 10-0. I forgot which, I had an easier time checking the other day when the competition was going on.
Last I checked, I was at 1606, but the person I beat last was at 1703.


Decent results, sure, but not enough matches for it to really count.

I got really lucky on one of them. I assumed that they would bring a Trick Room team. I knew for sure they would.

I was wrong, should've lost, but I just got some frosty hax at the end and won.
Y4NW-WWWW-WWW5-M7D5

Just the fact I made this many bad predictions early in my streak, clearly I would have some losses when dumbluck doesn't pull me trough.


Lol, I do have a nice replay of me making the right prediction with a Trick Room team. :p
HGTG-WWWW-WWW5-K6G2

I really wish I payed more attention to the dates, I would have made more time last week. That was my favorite one yet.
 
My entire experience with Doubles prior to Friday was a dozen or so matches on the VGC ladder on Showdown. This showed as I routinely had no idea what my opponent was doing, or that, say, Pikachu knows Lightning Rod. (Given I don't remember the outcome of that match, I can only assume my loss was shamefully repressed). I still somehow went 16-11 in the matches I did play. For the first time (for me at least) the experience was also somewhat marred by the matchmaking being spotty, failing to find an opponent thrice or so and often taking inordinate lengths of time otherwise.

I also want to remark that it's a real pain doing EV spreads that don't involve two 252s. Which none of these have. I should have prepared well ahead of time so I could just let Pelago handle it, but I do not have even that pitiful level of foresight.

My team was a Double Duck variant shamelessly stolen from some guy on reddit. I figured it was a known enough strategy that the tweaking would lend me an advantage when people prepared for someone who knew what the hell they were doing got hit by the wondrous flying toilet and had a Pokemon subsequently deleted by Tapu Koko. Even if that Pokemon was Garchomp.

GdDIYGN.png


I was assured that this was not a meme (it was), but it didn't work out as horribly as it could have.

After initially being disheartened by a few easy wins (and easier losses), not to mention the matchmaking crapping out on me, I figured I'd just write the whole thing off. Then there was a thread on /r/stunfisk about people's experiences, and despite my initial distaste with doubles, I went on to do ten or so more matches in the eleventh hour.

I'm glad I did, because the highlight of the competition was being down to Tapu Koko and Muk in a sandstorm both well into yellow health. The opponent only had a completely fresh Tapu Lele left (who had just induced Psychic Terrain), and the only way I'd be able to take Lele down would be landing two fucking Thunders. I queue up Poison Jab on Muk, despite the fact it would almost surely fall to Moonblast.

Predictably, the first Thunder whiffs, so I've resigned myself to the basically certain loss. The other fucker starts dancing and I exclaim aloud about wasting my time with a Z-Move, so upset that I fail to realize it's Shattered Psyche. Koko goes down, grossly overkilled despite being the significantly lesser threat. Muk one-shots Lele wih Poison Jab, winning the match.

We all make mistakes, and I am grateful to Kyun for hers.
 
My dislike for competitive play has cost me the two stones apparently, since I did not read carefully enough to see that you needed at least 3 battles. I was likely never gonna use either but it is still a disappointment.
 
Got around 1630-1640, couldn't play at all on Sunday, thanks my mom getting annoyed at me. I suppose I could have done better, but I decided to wing it despite being an avid VGC player. I mainly did it for Mega stones. Will post the team later.
 
I ended up going 13-5 (above 1608 rating), I could only play my friday games and 3 saturday games due to having a pre-planned trip to Mazatlan on the weekend. Still fairly satisfied with my performance, it was a fun experience, and I'm hopeful about getting to play the whole weekend on the next IC.

This was my team:

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Prior to the IC I was running this team with a Z-Nature Power Cott gimmick on the VGC ladder to a fair level of success, but since I was noticing the gimmick was more known and predicted recently, I decided to bait and switch by switching to a different Cott for the IC, with the 2 Tapus and Cott together still making people expect Nature Power, and thus, no Sash.

Fake Tears + Tailwind allowed Koko and Specs Fini (was Calm Mind on the previous team) to brute force their way through many bulky threats, it was a surprisingly good way to handle P2, other Fini and Celesteela in a pinch.

Having Sash on Cott meant I had to do something else with Kartana, and since I think AV is meh I decided to take a cue from Pyritie and run Fightinium, which was super good, although I think a big part of it was the surprise factor lol.

I like this team overall, it lets me use my favorite mon (Cott) with a balanced and effective team, and since I have so many Cott variations ready for use, I can switch my strategy around whenever I feel like it.
 
This was my first time doing any serious double battles outside the Battle Tree, and I only started to pick up on VGC about a month ago, so I expected absolutely nothing going in this competition. In the end, I had a busy weekend and could only play 24 battles, but I surpassed my expectations by far, going 20-4 and ending somewhere around 1700. Granted, most of the early battles were not against very competitive teams, Whimsicott + Nihilego got a few easy sweeps in there. The last few battles were pretty intense, though, and I had a ton of fun!

IeCEzZy.png
 
Prior to this competition I hadn't played any VGC17 at all outside of a little bit of practice on showdown, but I decided to enter because I really wanted the mega stones. I made it to the 1700's at one point, but I ended up going 30-15 with a rating around 1660. I'm pretty happy with my performance though considering I’m still fairly new to the format. This was my team:
International challenge february3.png

I built this team myself, its mostly standard stuff but it performed pretty well and was really fun to use.

Fightenium Z was amazing on Kartana. It allowed me to get a ton of surprise ko’s and take out pokemon that would normally beat Kartana like offensive arcanine and torkoal.


Mud bomb on Gastrodon was just an idea I wanted to try out. I wasn’t sure how well it would perform, but it actually ended up being amazing. Mud bomb allowed Gastrodon to 2 hit ko Tapu Koko, Xurkitree, Kartana, Nihilego, Alolan Marowak, and Torkal in sun. Rindo barry let me play a bit more risky with Gastrodon and allowed it to live nearly any grass type move outside of Tapu Bulu's wood hammer and adamant Kartana's leaf blade. Most people would ignore Gastrodon thinking it was too passive to do much damage, only to be 2hit koed by mud bomb. The relative lack of flying types in the metagame made it a fairly decent neutral coverage option as well.


Overall, this competition was really fun, I had a bit of a rough start with a few costly misclicks and I must have gotten frozen at least 7 times, but I had a ton of great battles against a bunch of high level opponents.
 
WallaceTheChampion said:
My team:
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Good start for a team. I like how you have a heavy Trick Room component yet can also function outside of it. Next time give all your Pokémon a held item (oran berry can be upgraded to sitrus) and tighten up your movesets. How many times did you use Slash or Skull Bash during the tournament?
 
Tinglemies said:
Good start for a team. I like how you have a heavy Trick Room component yet can also function outside of it. Next time give all your Pokémon a held item (oran berry can be upgraded to sitrus) and tighten up your movesets. How many times did you use Slash or Skull Bash during the tournament?
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Garchomp,Celesteela and crabominable were not ready for the international challenge so the oran berry,slash and skull bash were not used.
 
WallaceTheChampion said:
Garchomp,Celesteela and crabominable were not ready for the international challenge so the oran berry,slash and skull bash were not used.
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I don't know if this helps, but in the future, you don't have to lock your battle box until you actually start playing, and you can delay playing until the sunday if you want. Any unplayed matches carry over to the next day, so you can finish your team and play all 45 battles on sunday if you wanted to.
 
B6TyU8R.png


Chaining for HA ratatta was indeed worth it. Ran across a scarf ninetails and still had enough HP after Blizzard to knock out its partner.

Outside of the rat, aerodactyl and nihilego were fun. Will definitely revisit them on more serious teams.
 
TheMantyke said:
B6TyU8R.png


Chaining for HA ratatta was indeed worth it. Ran across a scarf ninetails and still had enough HP after Blizzard to knock out its partner.

Outside of the rat, aerodactyl and nihilego were fun. Will definitely revisit them on more serious teams.
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That Raticate set looks pretty clever :P

Max Speed and Max HP, I guess?
 
Results are out, got 1692 Points in the end, it´s pretty okay for me even if my goal was to get a place under the top 1000.
 
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