As many of you know, the most important event of the entire VGC season draws near. In nearly a week, three players will be crowned the 2013 World Champions. But who? Who of the 56 (including LCQ) competitors from around the globe will achieve the most prestigious and elusive title in the entire VGC circuit? I’m here to give you a rundown of the players that I feel have the best shot at besting all others and becoming this year’s Senior Division World Champion.

Disclaimer: This list is not fact. The purpose of this article is to educate people on the players who have proven in the past that they are capable of winning this event. The factors influencing my choices of players include level of play, a large cash bribe, level of competition in their region, and past results at major events. World and National Championship results have the biggest influence of these, as they tend to have the toughest competition and are a good gauge of a competitor’s skill. With that out of the way, if you asked me who I thought were the safest bets to take the title of World Champion this year, I would reply with these trainers.

 Edward Thompson (Plusle)

One of the most consistent Seniors in the world, Edward Thompson is not to be taken lightly. Since the Senior division was invented, he has dominated the European scene. Edward became the first UK Senior National Championship in 2011, qualifying for Worlds. He went 2-3 there after a tough schedule including eventual Top 8 finisher Jeremiah Fan. In 2012, Edward managed to place in the Top 4 of the UK National Championship, once again qualifying for Worlds. He improved upon his previous record by going 3-3, but was once again paired up against some stiff competition such as the 2012 Korean National Champion, Wonseok Jang (KrelCROC), Jonathan Hiller (MrFox), and eventual World Champion Toler Webb (Dim).

In 2013, Edward attended the German National Championship, where he disappointingly missed the Top 8 cut. However, he was able to attend the UK National Championship and reclaim his throne, besting Spain’s Alex Gomez (PokeAlex1999) in the finals. In doing this, he qualified for Worlds for a third time. This is Edward’s final year in the Senior division, making this is his last chance to top cut in the Senior World Championship.

Edward seems to have no problems playing foreign competition. He has proven this countless times in the TPCI hosted Wi-Fi Tournaments, of which he won three, seeming to have no trouble defeating the ever present Zoroark+Lucario combo. Not only that, but in the recent Nugget Bridge Invitational he took down several tough competitors before losing in the finals against Blake Hopper (Mrbopper) in an amazing set, which can be found here. His team building style can be best described as a mixture between the best things that the European, Japanese, and American metagames have to offer. I believe this will help him to do well in the mixing pot that is the World Championship. Edward is going into Worlds with some momentum after his success online, and I would not be surprised if he finally was able to get in the Top Cut this season and go deep.

 Paul Chua (pwny person)

Paul Chua was easily the safest bet to win US Nationals this year, and I expect a similarly spectacular result at Worlds from this competitor. In his first season in Seniors, Paul placed in the Top 4 at US Nationals and went 4-2 at the World Championship, ending 9^th,  just below Jaime Martinez on opponents-opponent win percentage. He had an incredibly tough schedule, playing the previously mentioned Wonseok Jang, as well as Canadian National Champion and Top 4 Worlds finisher Nitesh Manem. He also happened to be matched up against Aaron Zheng (Cybertron), the two-time National Champion and Top 8 Worlds finisher, who had knocked him out of the Top 4 at Nationals.

Paul has continued to shine this year, winning 1st and 2nd place at two of the toughest Regionals in the country. He led an incredibly solid team of Politoed, Kingdra, Thundurus, Scrafty, Metagross, and Cresselia to victory at US Nationals, defeating DeVon Ingram in two solid matches in which he showed incredible foresight. Although his opponent was making some amazing predictions, Paul stayed focused, identified what he needed to do, and expertly maneuvered himself into a winnable position.

Something I think needs to be addressed is how Paul plays. Throughout game one of the finals, which can be found above, Paul seemed to be behind in the prediction game, with DeVon predicting his every move for the first couple of turns. However, Paul was able to identify his win condition in the last few turns. He played himself into a position where if DeVon’s Latias got fully paralyzed, he could take the game. It was to DeVon’s dismay when Latias was indeed paralyzed, allowing Paul to take the lead in the series 1-0. This is a great example of a player being forced into a position where they must use para-and-pray probability management tactics. It also shows that Paul will do anything he can to win when behind, something every true competitor needs to do. In game two, Paul was able to identify that if he could get rid of DeVon’s Volcarona, he could easily take the match with his Metagross. Paul always seems to have a good endgame planed, and his opponents at Nationals walked right into his traps.

In his 2nd year at the World Championship, I think we have a general idea of what Paul will be bringing to the table. Since his debut in 2012, he has brought offensively and defensively balanced teams with some subtle tricks, such as Explosion Metagross and Stone Edge Scrafty. His regular practice helps him to learn what he needs to do to win with the tools he has at his disposal. His consistency is unrivaled in the North American circuit this year, and he’ll be ready to show why he’s one of the best at the most important tournament of the year.

 Anilcan Ackos (BillaBro)

Anilcan Ackos has been around Pokemon for a while due to his brother, Baris (Billa) introducing him to the VGC series. In 2012, Anilcan had a great season, getting 2nd place at the Italian National Championship, losing to Luca Breitling-Pause (sewadle). He finished with a 4-2 record at Worlds, only losing to the previously mentioned Toler and Paul.  He placed 12th overall, a very respectable result for someone’s first World Championship.

Anilcan has had a solid season so far. He got past his previous runner-up status and won the Italian National Championships this year, dethroning the previous winner in the Top 4. The final matches against Maksim Cannova (mprox) can be viewed in the middle screen of this video. He used a team seemingly based off of the Korean National Champion Sejun Park’s winning team. The team Anilcan used was Abomasnow, Breloom, Liepard, Volcarona, Terrakion, and Thundurus. He brought the same team to the Germany National Championship and was defeated in the Top 8, although it is doubtful that Anilcan was actually trying to win with an invite and a trip to the World Championship already in hand.

You can learn a little bit about how Anilcan plays by watching his finals matches against Maksim. He seems to play very offensively, using Pokemon like Choice Scarf Abomasnow and Terrakion that hit hard and fast. However, Anilcan isn’t just about brute offensive. He had a couple of surprises that helped him to win the finals, such as a Flying Gem Hidden Power Flying Thundurus and Dark Gem Foul Play Liepard, which enabled him to get some surprising OHKOs. With such offensive play, his opponents will need to be on top of their game at all times to defeat this trainer.

 Jonathan Hiller (MrFox)

First off, you can rest assured: he has in fact shaved the ‘stache. Jonathan Hiller started playing VGC in 2011 when the Senior division was first created. He became the New Jersey Regional Champion before a lackluster 30th place finish at Nationals. In 2012, Hiller attended two Regionals, where he was unable to Top 4. However, that didn’t stop him from taking 2nd place at US Nationals with a team of Togekiss, Infernape, Mamoswine, Bisharp, Abomasnow, and Latios, losing to Aaron Zheng in the finals. He went to Worlds that year and had a 4-2 record, end up in 10th. He had an insanely hard schedule, playing Top 8 finisher Gavin Michaels (kingofkongs), finalist Jaime Martinez Alonzo, Luca Breitling-Pause, Edward Thompson, and Maksim Cannavo.

Jonathan has had a successful 2013 season with a Regional Championship, a Top 4, and a Top 8 to his name. At Nationals, he lost to Kyle L. (MrFookie) during Top 16, where he quickly found his team had a devastating weakness to TM 87. He achieved this placing with a team of Excadrill, Tyranitar, Togekiss, Breloom, Latios, and Rotom-Wash. Like many others, this is Jonathan’s last chance to Top Cut Worlds in the Senior division. An advantage Hiller has over most of his competitors is having lots of best-two-of-three experience from 2012 Nationals and his various Regional performances. I expect him to take advantage of this experience in the Swiss rounds at Worlds to get into the Top Cut this year.

Jonathan has a major tendency in leaning toward bulky Pokemon with moves like Rage Powder and Follow Me. Togekiss gets a special mention, as he has two years of experience with it. The reason for this is Hiller has a hyper-offensive playstyle, similar to Masters division competitor Randy Kwa (R Inanimate), another Togekiss connoisseur. Overall, Jonathan and his Togekiss fixation are going to be playing at a breakneck pace this year at Worlds. Will anyone be able to stop his quick play from taking the title in his final year in Seniors?

 Mohsyn Bharmal (Bcaralarm)

Let me start this off by telling you that Mohsyn is easily the most consistent Senior in the world when it comes to Nationals. He is famous not only for his glee-inducing name, but also for choking out of his first National of the year and following it up by winning himself a Championship. He won the France National Championship in 2011 and 2012, defeating the eventual Worlds runner-up Jaime Martinez in the latter. This year was no exception in Bharmal’s pattern, as in the Italian National Championship he was defeated in Top 8 by the previously mentioned runner-up Maksim Cannova. He came to the German National Championship ready to go with a similar, if not identical, team of Ludicolo, Cresselia, Rhyperior, Thundurus, Volcarona, and Hitmontop. There he defeated Luca Breitling-Pause in the finals 2-0, and won a trip to the World Championships for a 3rd consecutive year.

After a respectable 3-2 finish in his first World Championship in 2011, Mohsyn went to Worlds in 2012 and had a really humbling tournament. He ended up finishing a disappointing 2-4 after losing to Henry Maxon(Snake) in the first round. This was an extremely strange turnout for Bharmal, as he had been seen as one of the bigger threats going into the event. Since then, he has improved in hopes of finishing off his Senior career strong.

Mohsyn is the only player on this list whose play I know almost nothing about. But let’s be real for a moment. If this guy can win three National Championships in three years, he must be pretty good. All that I really know about Mohsyn’s play I learned from his 2012 French National Championship battle video, which can be found above. In this battle he showed off his ability to make some hard reads that can really help him to win matches.  He tends to use more common Pokemon on his teams, for example Cresselia and Thundurus. I would be shocked if he decides to be cute at his final World Championship and use anything too far outside of the norm. Look for Mohsyn’s skilled predictions to be his greatest asset at the World Championships.

 DeVon Ingram (dingram)

Before this year’s US National Championship, DeVon had yet to really break out at an extremely competitive tournament. However, he was able to go 8-0 in the Swiss round and reached the finals before being defeated by Paul Chua in two great matches. Although DeVon has two years of experience, this will be his first year at Worlds. Despite that, I believe he is one of the biggest contenders to win this year’s World Championship.

In 2012, DeVon took 1st place at the Georgia Regional, and placed in the Top 32 at Nationals before losing to the eventual runner-up, Jonathan Hiller. In 2013, Ingram has had an even stronger season. He started off well, once again becoming a Regional Championship, but this time in Florida. When the Georgia Regional came around, he was able to get into the Top 8. He put this experience of best-two-of-three matches from Regionals to good use in the National Championship, defeating strong competitors such as Edward Fan (iss), Grace Arnold, and Tyler Allen (Elite4Allen) on his run to the finals.

Ingram seems to have a very particular team building style. He leans toward more defensive Pokemon which allow him to win games by slowly chipping away on his opponents with his clever play. His defensive cohesion aids him as he switches out his Pokemon to give him the edge in battle when he is behind. His most recent team of Raikou, Scrafty, Gyarados, Rhyperior, Volcarona, and Latias had many aspects similar to the Korean metagame. He utilized sets such as Lum Berry Rage Powder Volcarona over the more American variant of Fire Gem Overheat, once again opting for a more defensive approach. It is this defensive style that DeVon is really known for, and I wouldn’t expect anything too offensive from him at the World Championship.

For those unwilling to scroll back to Paul Chua to find for the finals video of which I will be briefly analyzing, tough luck click here. For the first few turns of game one, DeVon showed off his brilliant prediction skills. He was consistently making solid reads that helped to maneuver himself into a great position. Although he didn’t end up winning the game, he played into a position where he had a 75% chance to win. Unfortunately for him, the RNG did not favor him and he lost. Although DeVon did lose the next game of the series in a less impressive showing, the fact remains that he can make incredible plays under high pressure, which I expect will set him apart from many of the players at Worlds.

Luca Breitling-Pause (sewadle)

Luca is probably the player that I feel is flying under the radar the most coming into Worlds, which is exactly why I’ve decided to blow his cover! Although he has been very successful in the past, he is relatively unknown to those outside of Europe. In 2012, Luca took 1st place in the Italian National Championships, defeating Anilcan Ackos in the finals. He was able to attend Worlds and while there achieved a 3-3 record.

Luca started 2013 off by getting Top 4 at Italian Nationals, losing to his previous finals opponent Anilcan. He achieved this with a team of Thundurus-Therian, Scizor, Cresselia, Politoed, Kingdra, and Conkeldurr. He then attended the German National Championship, where he got 2nd place, losing to Mohsyn Bharmal in the finals. He decided to roll with an entirely different team in that event. His final team was Hydreigon, Cresselia, Breloom, Scizor, Heatran, and Hitmontop.

In the past, Luca has had a lot of success with teams that have Rain modes. He brought Rain to Nationals in 2012 and it worked out well for him. However, I wouldn’t bank on him bringing a Rain team to the World Championship. As shown by his finish in the German National Championship, Luca has no trouble switching things up and doing well. Most of the best players are able to create teams very different than those they have used in the past and still succeed with them, and I think that will be what Luca ends up doing. However, I doubt that he will switch to much more defensive style, as his playstyle is very heavily offensive. I expect his performance to be dependent on how skillfully he can pilot his offensive teams through the tough field that is Worlds.

Watch Out For LCQ

For those unaware, players who have yet to qualify for the World Championship have one last shot to compete with the best of the best via the Last Chance Qualifier. The event is simply a single-elimination tournament in which players battle it out until only 4 remain. These battles operate using the best-two-of-three format, which serves to help those who actually deserve to play at the Worlds main event. Now, this is not my predictions of who is going to make it through the LCQ. If it was I would basically have to write about everyone I know who is going. The people I will overview could not only get past the LCQ with some luck, but I believe could also Top Cut in the main event. Now that that has been established, let’s get right into it!

First off is a player who had great success in 2012, but really fell off this year with some lackluster Regional performances. I am referring to Henry Maxon (Snake). Henry first started playing in 2011, where he was a fan favorite for Worlds in the Junior division. He unfortunately was unable to make the Top Cut, and left the Junior division the following year. In 2012 Henry had an impressive season. He managed to get a Top 16 US Nationals performance in which he was knocked out by the reigning National Champion. However, he was able to attend the LCQ, where he qualified for Worlds. There, he was able to go 4-2 in Swiss and qualify for the Top 8. He defeated Santa Ito of Japan before being knocked out by Toler Webb. This year he had two Top 8 performances, but was unable to attend US Nationals. However, I am still confident that Henry is capable of getting past the LCQ and doing some work in the main competition.

No stranger to strong competition, Shota Yamamoto is one of the biggest threats attending the LCQ this year. He easily has the most impressive résumé in the field, having success across multiple years. In 2010, Shota bested all other competitors to become the Junior World Champion in what many regard as the best Junior division finals ever. He returned to the World Championship in 2011, going 4-1 in Swiss before placing in the Top 4, losing to Sejun Park. In 2012, Shota became the Japanese National Championship, winning himself an invitation to Worlds once again, where he finished 3-3. In his final year as a Senior, Shota hopes to grind through the LCQ in hopes of once again becoming a World Champion.

When one talks about Shota, conversation tends to drift towards Santa Ito. Another incredible Japanese competitor, Santa is the 2009 and 2010 Junior World Championship runner-up. Like Shota, Santa has lots of experience at the Worlds stage, and even more experience in the LCQ. In 2011, he went 3-2, but his tiebreakers were not high enough to give him a Top 8 finish. In 2012, Santa swept through the LCQ, taking one of the four remaining invitations to compete in Worlds. In the main competition, he went 5-1 before losing in the Top 8 to Henry, as previously stated. Like Shota, this is Santa’s last chance to become a Senior World Champion.

Final Thoughts

As this comes to a close, I believe I should reiterate this: if someone isn’t included in this article, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a shot at doing well or even winning Worlds. The people I’ve discussed are here because they have proved time and time again that they are the best of the best. But the World Championships are a time when legacies are born. The reigning Senior World Champion Toler Webb wasn’t the fan favorite to win last year, yet he proved everyone wrong. There are so many great players attending Worlds this year, and if I included everyone I thought had a slight chance of doing well I would basically have an attendance list. Anyways, post your predictions for the Senior World Champion below!

The post Scouting Report: Players to Watch at the 2013 World Championship (Seniors) appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Here we go! LCQ is only about two and a half days away as I write this, so if you’re a Pokemon VGC player and your adrenaline isn’t pumping, I suggest seeing a doctor. We’re in for the most competitive Worlds we’ve ever seen this year. The Championship Points system has helped us achieve a Worlds field from a variety of countries that has many, many more players that are truly at a world-class skill level than ever before. It was extremely difficult to qualify in most of the world this year, so difficult that only two of the players out of the six from top 8 last year were able to earn an invitation back. Replacing last year’s field is a new group of players that are more practiced than ever before and eager to take over those spots in the top cut.

The 2013 field as a whole is really fascinating this year in a way that will make the tournament exciting and unpredictable. Typically with Worlds, in spite of the tournament’s prestige, the tournament winds up with about about 10 of the 40 players being much more skilled than the rest, and it is typically fairly easy to discern who those players are early in the tournament. I don’t think the usual scenario will take place this year, as the pool of players I’d put it in the elite class of players who have a good shot of making top cut without having to have the tournament of their lives is at about 20 players, with probably another 10 who could definitely make it if they get hot this weekend. That only leaves about 10-15 players who I think would be really crazy to expect to cut this time, and I’ve certainly been wrong before… while this Worlds field still isn’t the best 45 players in the World, it’s the closest it’s ever been this year, and it’s going to be a really tough road for everyone because of it.

With 6 rounds and about 45 players, players are going to need at least four quality wins to make into top cut, either getting four wins over stronger opponents in harder rounds of the tournament and one weaker win, or four really quality wins with two really quality losses to make it to the top 8. Outside of probably Australia(sorry!), every country has a few players who are viable top cut threats, and most countries have several. With with the magic of random pairings, surviving the Swiss rounds is going to involve the Russian roulette of avoiding top players as often as possible, but after about the second round I don’t think there’s going to be any easy matches left for anyone who is still in contention. I’m going to give an overview of all of the players in the tournament, because as the best players in their countries, the players have earned that respect, and we’ll follow up the overview with some predictions from players in the field.

The Players

•  Australia

With the dates of Regionals being announced so close to their arrival that the time Australians players had to practice this season could be measured in days instead of months or even weeks, and because of the absence of Australian events in the past, it is understandable that Australia has the lowest expectations of any country entering the tournament.

Australia tends to be pretty insular in regard to the VGC community they do have — perhaps even more so than the playerbases of countries you’d expect to be insular because of language barriers — and with no previous Worlds performances to speak of, there isn’t too much from Australia to write about. What little we do know of the Australian players and their Pokemon choices largely come from the teams they used at Nationals, which understandably look like teams you’d find in a US Regional or European National tournament from about 2009. Australia seems to look about how it would be expected a region that got its first meaningful official events a month and a half ago should look. It’d be hard to imagine either of their players even finishing with a positive record as a result, but hopefully the Australian players enjoy themselves and learn a bit from the experience so that they can come back more practiced in 2014.

Australia’s champion is Ben K., who ran a Rain team featuring some original choices like Sporeless Breloom and Toxic Politoed to win PAX. Australia’s other representative is PAX runner-up Hugh R., who used a team that was awfully aggressive, but that appeared to be much more appropriate for the rest of the World’s metagame outside of the surprising use of Air Balloon, which may help him do a little better than his countryman on the bigger stage. While the odds are definitely stacked against the Australian competitors, hopefully they surprise us a little. It’s exciting, at least, that VGC finally has some amount of foothold in Australia.

•  Canada

The first nation other than the United States to hold a VGC Worlds sadly doesn’t have quite the volume of representation one might hope for given its single representative. With Canada’s Nationals being merged back into the United States’ Nationals after a poor turnout last year, Canadian players had to compete with players from the United States for only a dozen spots. As a result instead of two representatives like last year this year Canada sends only Randy Kwa (R Inanimate) on a journey from his hometown of Vancouver to battle in the World Championships in distant Vancouver. What Canada lacks in volume Randy makes up for in skill, and I think Canada’s still long odds are a lot better this year than last year after qualifying the nation’s best player. I think Canada is one of the better examples of why CP works, because while I love all of the Canadian guys, I don’t think there’s many people that would dispute that Randy is the best player in the country and one tough loss against a bad matchup kept him out of Worlds last year.

With the LCQ in Vancouver, Canada will get one last chance to send some local talent into the field on Friday. Both of the 2012 Canadian National finalists, runner-up Mike Papagianis(skarm) and champion Tony Cheung(Chinese Dood), will be in attendance and among the greater threats to make it through LCQ

•  France

France isn’t a country that has traditionally had many VGC players, but every year France seems to send one or two players to Worlds. In 2011, France sent two players, who finished 3-3 and 2-4. In 2012, France sent only Bryan Martinet, who finished 2-4. This year, France sends only Nabil Lakehal, who finished in the top 16 of Germany after being eliminated by Lorenzo Galassi. The precedent would indicate that the French player will finish a little below the midpoint of the field, but Nabil will have to try to buck the trend and become the first French player to finish Masters Swiss with a winning record.

•  Germany

France isn’t the only country trying to get its first winning record in the Masters division, but the odds are much brighter for Germany. While Germany has been one of the most consistent European countries as far as taking many of the European invitations and sending players to Worlds, 3-3 has been a difficult bar for the German players to get over, and a German player has only had a winning record once in Worlds, during 2012 Seniors, since Swiss was adopted in 2009. Last year, Germany sent seven players to Worlds, with five of them finishing 3-3. In 2011, Germany sent four players, with two finishing at 3-3. Germany has been very consistent as far as sending Worlds-ready players to the tournament every year, sending more than any other European country in Generation 5, but Germany has never seemed to have that star player that actually gave them a realistic shot at winning the tournament like Italy has in Matteo Gini or Spain has in Abel Sanz.

With Germany earning more invites than any country but the United States, there’ll be no shortage of players trying to become that star for Germany this year. Germany’s highest finisher as far as overall Championship Points was Michael Riechert(Michilele), who is back in Worlds with a chance to prove that he’s better than he was last season, when he made Worlds but finished 30th of 33 players. Two of Germany’s better bets this year are younger players in Eloy Hahn(Dragoran5) and Jamal El Moutaoikil (Toazdt). While both players are in their first year in Masters, each of them managed to finish 2nd in a National tournament this year. One other thing they have in common is that they made it to Worlds in the last year of Seniors, where they also finished 3-3. Next in line for CP is Matthias Hellmoldt, who made it to the semifinals of the Italian tournament. Matthias Suchodolski (Lega) top cut two European Nationals this year, finishing in the top 8 of the UK to win the trip after losing in the round of 16 in Italy.

The next German in order of Championship Points is Lajos Kowalewski (Lajo), who sadly is unable to make it to Worlds and meet his hordes of screaming American Sun team fangirls.  Lajos’ top 16 opponent Stefan K (Maunzi) is next after him on the CP list, followed by Steven V. (Akatsubaki). The German squad is rounded out by two community fixtures in Barış Akcoş (Billa) and veteran Christoph Kugler (drug duck), who is returning to Worlds for the first time since his 24th place finish in 2009.

Germany also provides one of the more interesting LCQ storylines with Markus Stadler (13Yoshi37) and Marcel Kapelle (Massi) entering the LCQ. In a year where few players in the LCQ have appreciable Worlds experience, these two stand out as likely options to make the actual tournament, with Markus finishing 3-3 in 2012 Worlds and Marcel finishing 16th in 2009.

•   Italy

Italy is a strange country in the world of Pokemon. There never seem to be too many Italian players, with the relatively small Italian Nationals this year serving as a reminder of that fact. The players Italy does have are somehow still among the best in the world, something that was brought to light by two Italian players making top cut in 2011 Worlds. I think to many people, Italian VGC is just the Matteo Gini (Matty) show because of his second place finish that year. He’s certainly earned the notoriety of being known as Italy’s best player, as well as perhaps the best player in all of Europe, after winning Italian Nationals this year and finishing 2nd in Worlds and Italian Nationals in 2011.

However, I think that Italy’s progress is evident in the group of players being sent this year, which once again includes some players who are plenty capable of fighting for top cut slots beside Matteo. Perhaps the most famous is his brother Alberto Gini (BraindeadPrimeape), who added to the family legacy by being the top European finisher in one of the Wi-Fi tournaments and winning German Nationals. Luigi Lo Giudice finished in the top 4 of that tournament, and Arash Ommati (Mean) getting to play in Worlds is one of the obvious bright spots of Europe’s invites getting expanded past 16. I’m not sure whether or not Lorenzo Galassi (Greyfox) or Carlo Arbelli (shinycarletto) are actually attending Worlds, but the four players we do know are going are all good enough that Italy may wind up being one of the only nations that can say all of their participants have a legitimate chance of making top cut.

•  Japan

Once the most feared nation in Pokemon, Japan’s Pokemon players have fallen on hard times during Generation 5. With more than twice as many Japanese players in 2010 competing in the top division(10) as Japan will have in Masters in 2011, 2012, and 2013 combined before LCQ (4), the Japanese players just haven’t been given the same opportunity to perform they were given back in Generation 4. Between 2008 and 2010, eight of the twelve players who made it to top 4 in the highest division of VGC were Japanese, a legacy that should remind players how strong the playerbase in Japan can be. While Japan’s bizarre qualification system has restricted the ability of some top players to even have the chance to compete, Japan will once again be sending a pair of strong competitors to Worlds who will try to at least match the success Junpei Yamamoto had last year when he secured an 8th place finish for Japan.

Japanese Champion Kosuge Ryosuke is well-known enough that most of us had heard of him prior to Nationals in spite of him earning his first Worlds invitation this year. If reputation is any indication of ability, he’s likely to be one of the more threatening players in the field this year. His team had some eccentric metagame choices that I know a lot of people were a little surprised about when we saw his team, particularly Iron Ball Sunny Day Tyranitar. While the choices Kosuge made may not have been the choices I would have made either, I think the choices he made were understandable to counter some of the threats that were likely to be popular in Japan’s National tournament. Matsumoto Yuki played on stream for three rounds during Japan’s Nationals, giving the world a good look into his playstyle. I think a lot of us were a little surprised to see such a hard Trick Rain team do so well, but he made it to the finals of the tournament, and that’s what he needed to do.

Since my ability to research the Japanese players going to Worlds for LCQ is completely dependent on Google Translate, I enlisted recently impoverished Nugget Bridge Japanese correspondent Danny Zollner(Dan) to ask the tough questions about Japan’s LCQ roster after hearing rumors that Japan is sending somewhere between 20 and 2,000 players to Worlds. After speaking with the highest profile Japanese LCQer, his friend and 2012 Japanese National Champion Satoru Masukata(huuuryu), Danny reported back that outside of Satoru, there weren’t really going to be any players that are internationally known. He mentioned that many of the players were “Japan-internally known”, but not even too well known at that. Specifically, that “it’s like saying pookar is going to Worlds. Nobody in Japan knows or cares.” Even without a bunch of big names in the LCQ, the 20-30 players actually coming from Japan are likely to be pretty threatening. While most of the other major regions have sent most of their better players to Worlds already because of the Championship Point system, Japan has not been so fortunate, and the LCQ is the last opportunity for them to even the odds a little in the real tournament.

•  South Korea

While South Korea is only sending one player, I don’t think it’d be much of a stretch to say that if you were to weigh the odds of each country in the tournament producing the world champion, Korea’s odds would still be among the best. While Korea is criminally underrepresented in Worlds like Japan, Sejun has established his place as one of the top few players in the world. Sejun is part of the elite group of players who qualified for each of  the three Generation 5 Worlds tournaments, finishing second in Seniors in 2011, earning him an invite to the 2012 Worlds where he finished 5th in Masters. While Sejun is all there is for Korea in Masters this year, he’s probably the competitor the other players most expect to see in top cut because of his sterling record and skills. While Sejun is younger than most of the tournament’s other big threats, he’s got a great combination of all the skills you need to be successful in this game, and if you’ll scroll down you’ll find there’s no shortage of coverage about him..

•  Spain

Spain is the traditional European VGC powerhouse. While they always seem to create their fair share of controversy, Spain has risen as a consistent contender in VGC and is the only country other than the United States to have a player in top cut of Masters in both 2011 and 2012. One of the players who helped make this happen is Abel Sanz (Flash), who inexplicably doesn’t receive an invitation to Worlds for his top 4 finish last year, but managed to finish second at a hotly contested UK National tournament to earn his trip to Vancouver. Finishing second in CP for the Spainiards somewhat surprisingly is the excitable Albert Bañeres (Arbol Deku), who is the only Spaniard other than Abel and Jordi Picazo to win a trip this year. Jaime Martinez Alonzo makes his Masters Worlds debut after qualifying from an impressive run in Seniors Worlds last year, who may have a tough time adjusting after not getting to have quite the same amount of play in Masters yet as some of his fellow graduates have had. The unpaid invites in Spain all went to pretty well known players in Jose Garcia Mejia, Miguel Marti de la Torre (Sekiam), and Javier Bellanco (bellanko).  All three of them finished in the middle of the pack this year, but Jose and Miguel played in Worlds last year and went 2-4 and 3-3, respectively, so they’ll bring some experience if they’re able to attend.

•  United Kingdom

It seems we never know quite what we’re going to get from the UK. Good for only a DQ and a 3-3 finish in 2010 and three players who combined to go 4-13 and a bye in 2012, it’s easy to overlook that Daniel Nolan (Zog) was one of the first Europeans to make it to the top cut in 2011. After serving a short suspension, he’s back to Worlds this year, and he’ll be getting much more help this time. After a lackluster 1-5 showing in 2012 Worlds, Ben Kyriakou(Kyriakou) looks like a completely different player this year, top cutting two Nationals, including completely decimating his home National in the UK. His buddy Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson) is certainly also a growing name on the scene, winding up by far as the player with the most CP in Europe who didn’t win a trip. Lee Provost (Osirus) sort of quietly wound up fourth in European CP, and while he never seems to get the hype some of the other players who finished even below him do, there’s an awful lot more players behind him than in front of him this year. Christopher Arthur (Koryo) rounds out the list of more well-known players by finishing 15th with a pair of top 16 finishes. For the most part, the rest of the UK players – Rachel Annand (SPEevee), Benjamin G (Ben91293), Rina Purdy, and Sol64 — are a little less established, but since most or all of them will be attending Worlds they’ll have a great opportunity to make more of a name for themselves.

•  United States

Aaron and Wolfe did a good job of previewing the qualified American players in their write-up, so I’d check out their work for info on the players already in the field.

As far as the LCQers: it’s no secret that the United States has dominated the LCQ slots in the past, always taking most of the available slots. Worlds taking place in the United States in the past meant most of the players playing have been from the United States, and traditionally many of the best players in the United Sates have not had their invitations when Worlds rolled around. Both of those factors change this year, with Worlds in Vancouver and most of the best American players who actually played full seasons qualified for Worlds already outside of the bizarre case of Simon Yip (TDS) missing Worlds because Wi-Fi Claus put him on the naughty list. The most dangerous player in LCQ from the States will definitely be 2011 and 2012 Worlds Top Cut participant Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar) in spite of his weak 2013 season, who will hopefully lose in the last round so he can join Enosh and I in the extremely prestigious “choked the chance of making Worlds all three years of Generation 5 by one game” club. Duy Ha (Duy) is the 13th place finisher in CP and someone who will be very dangerous if he’s actually trying, with the next highest rated players in LCQ as far as CP being Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh) and Nico Villalobos (Calm Lava). Other dangerous players include people who who have made Worlds in past years like Jason Fisher-Short (Fish), Paul Hornak (makiri), and Huy Ha (Huy), as well as some newer names like Oliver Valenti (Smith), Tom Hull (TheGr8), and Blake Hopper (Mrbopper). With most of the best players already in Worlds and a majority of the remainder in Simon, Harrison Saylor (Crow), and Joe Pulkowski (sandman) not attending Worlds, the door to the LCQ is going to be open for the rest of the world this year.

Predictions

Like with US Nationals, we’ve asked a variety of players to give their thoughts on who they think will come out on top of the tournament! Joining us this time is a group of players who will be competing in Worlds: Lee Provost (Osirus) and Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson)  from the UK, Arash Ommati (Mean) from Italy, Christoph Kugler (drug duck) from Germany, and Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) and I (Scott) from the United States. Once again, everyone was asked to stick to 2-3 paragraphs, a concept we continue to be confused about the meaning of.

• Lee Provost (Osirus)’s Predictions

Going into the week before the World Championships is set to hit the global stage, it’s time to get the hype train started and take a look at the competitors representing this year’s field. Picking the eight players I think will top cut from such a strong field this year was actually so much more difficult than I initially thought it was going to be when first approaching this article. I may have went a little safe in the end with my predictions, but I feel they are all well-justified and please don’t be to offended if you‘re not mentioned.

Top 8: Ray Rizzo (Ray), Sejun Park, Abel Sanz (Flash), Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou), Enosh Shachar (Human), Wolfe Glick(Wolfey), Matteo Gini (Matty), Gavin Michaels (kingofkongs)

Enosh Shachar, the runner-up at the recent US Nationals, showed his intuitive and original teambuilding skills alongside his ‘do-or-die’ playstyle that make him what you can call a very “solid” player. With his ability to read games unlike most players combined with his playstyle to close games in the first few turns and to be able to swing a match in a clutch situation, I think it will be no surprise to see Enosh in top cut. I personally haven’t seen much of Wolfe Glick this year, but from being a two-time US National Champion and the way in which he topped Worlds with Ray last year, I would not be surprised to see his name in lights again this time around in top cut. At the very least, it will be very interesting to see what he brings to the field this time around. Gavin Michaels is the 2013 US National Champion, a very strong player, and the level of prediction skills he showed while obtaining this title really showed what a top class contender Gavin really is. I think his recent success will only spur him along to even more at Worlds and carry him very deep within the tournament.

My top pick from Spain is Abel Sanz. From playing him this season and after his amazing accomplishment at Worlds last year, he is definitely a player that cannot be left off this list. In my opinion, he is as good as they come, and even if he doesn’t seem to have the natural ability that some players posses I think he makes up for this in his work ethic, intelligence and the effort he puts into his team and game. It will be interesting to see what he brings to the table at this year’s event. We all know he loves his Metagross, and there’s no doubt he will have a few tricks up his sleeve to bring into this event, but whatever he ends up playing, he’s just one of those players that on his day can perform as good as anyone.

Matteo Gini, the Italian Stallion and one of Europe’s finest players. Matty’s ability to be one of the most consistent players worldwide alone will give him success at Worlds this year and is why he’s in my picks to top cut. I think before the season began Matty was always going to be one of the favourites to qualify for Worlds, and at the first Nationals in his home country of Italy he did it in style, topping Swiss and storming top cut to be crowned the Italian National Champion. Matty has an uncanny ability to read a players team utilizing the team preview option better than anyone I know, allowing him to formulate battle strategies and setup plays to pave the way for his next victory. I haven’t seen much from Matty since our European National events, so what he brings to Worlds will be a mystery to us all, but whether he goes for standard Pokemon or opts to pack a few tricks, he’s such a solid player and achieving  victory over this Italian Pokémon Master will be a very tough task.

Ben Kyriakou is my pick from the UK to top cut. To be honest, after his sudden break on to the VGC competitive scene last season after picking up 2nd place to Ruben at the UK Nationals and a quite forgettable performance at Worlds last year, I wasn’t sold on Ben as a player. But how I was wrong, Ben has proven that not only is he a great player, but one of the best in Europe, and has the potential, in my opinion, to be a world beater. He has gone from strength to strength this season, top cutting in Milan at the Italian Nationals and just missing top cut in Germany to finish the European circuit off by beating fellow European veteran Flash in the UK National finals to take and solidify his title again. I think the combination of Ben’s intelligence and offensive playstyle will push him very deep in this tournament, and I have no doubt he has the ability to do extremely well and make a push for success at Worlds this year. *My player to watch*

Sejun Park is the Korean National Champion and Wi-Fi tournament guru. I think his very successful season and the experience he picked up from his first Masters World Championships last year will only put him in a stronger position this year going into Worlds. His teambuilding skills are second to none, and the ability to read the current metagame trends and produce answers to nearly every threat out there are something that will, along with his skills, force him deep within this event.  I feel that Sejun is just one of those players who seems to have an almost natural instinct for the game, teambuilding skills that surpass most other top players, and coupled with his prediction skills it really links up to make him an all-around great player. As we have seen this year, he had a clean sweep of the Korean National Championships and has achieved top ten in every single International Wi-Fi event throughout the season. His teams have varied all year from tournament-to-tournament, and a majority of these teams and tactics have been very influential within molding our metagame and setting certain ‘play’ trends throughout the season. His offensive hard hitting strategies paired with nearly flawless defensive synergy make him a top contender, and I really do think this year might be his time to shine. It will be interesting to see what he brings to worlds but we can be almost certain it will be something that sets a ‘bar’ and makes him the player to beat.

Ray Rizzo is the three-time World Champion is all I really need to say!  With a wealth of worlds experience under his belt coupled with his best-of-three experience, this is a no-brainer in my eyes. Ray is an excellent player and I have no doubts he will go very deep in this tourney. Although we haven’t seen as much from him this season as the other US players, he’s someone you just can’t overlook at being a favourite for taking this event. He’ll be the player everyone is looking to take down for the sheer accomplishment and bragging rights that will bring, so he will need to be on top of his game for this year’s championships if he wants to continue his success. But with that said, I can’t help but think that he will once again pull something out of his bag of tricks to throw the field and take his title and tuck it up safely for another year.

My wild cards:

Zach Droegkamp(Zach) is a three-time consecutive Regional’s Champion. Worlds invite ‘done’ before US Nats. Those two sentences are reasons enough to put Zach in my wild card list, again, like my other picks this is Zach’s World Championships debut, but with how consistent he has been all season and how time and time again he has shown what he has to ‘cut the mustard’ in best-of-three match ups and top cut. If Zach can bring his ‘A’ game with him to Worlds, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him doing extremely well. Aaron Zheng (Cybertron), the Senior mastermind turned Masters pro! Aaron has had a great first season in Masters, showing why is he is one of the world’s finest players and a huge threat to watch out for at Worlds. His recent top 16 finish at the US Nationals after a Regionals win and repeatedly great performances in the international Wi-Fi events goes to show he has the ability to go very deep within this tournament. It will be interesting to see what Aaron and his trusty partner Scizor bring to Worlds, but from the wealth of experience he has from previous World events, National Championship win,s and having the grit, will and determination to grind through most situations, he will definitely be a player to watch out for at this event. If  Scott Glaza (Scott) is player, I can really see him doing extremely well. From watching him as a player this year and keeping tabs on his progress, he has seemed to, without much effort, find his place in the top 12 US players and grab himself an invite. This is really no surprise though, he is as consistent as they come and solid player who rarely seems to make the wrong play. He has a great ability to read games and make quick decisions to turn a match in his favour. This, alongside his teams that are solid and have that ‘good old’ US defensive synergy and offensive prowess, only add to the mix making him threat to the entire field. Even though he is known, in my opinion, to use quite standard metagame Pokemon, he is one of those players that can utilize and understand the archetype and reasoning behind team synergy better than most to make him a threat that you really shouldn’t underestimate, and who knows how well he would have done at the recent US Nationals if he hadn’t dropped in top 16 to commentate.

Christopher Arthur (Koryo) is a player I know personally very well. He has great ability as a player and an offensive play style that is unmatched in my opinion. Although he is not very known on the VGC ‘celeb’ list, I don’t think this should be a reason to overlook a player of his ability and skill, and if you do, it’s something you will end up regretting. This is his first appearance at Worlds, so it will be interesting to see how he performs, but like many other players on his day he can match anyone. As a player I know, this season his teambuilding has taken a detour away from the normal standard Pokémon and strategies he was known for last season, which will only give him an advantage going into Worlds this year, and with his aggressive hard-hitting offensive tactics, if you’ve not got your smarts to pick up on what he’s about to do, it will be too late and time to go home. I can see Chris top cutting and if he can get there, after that anything can happen. Christoph Kugler (drug duck) is my favourite wild card pick and for good reason. Chris is a VGC veteran but seems to be one of those players who is always on the wrong side of the coin flip. After a quiet start to this season from Chris, he went in the German Nationals not even mentioned as a player to do well but pulled a whopping result out of the bag storming Swiss 8-0 and heading the field going into top cut. But as usual, in top cut he saw the wrong side of the coin and was knocked out in the top 16 which was very unfortunate for a player who I know has the potential to do extremely well when the RNG doesn’t have a personal vendetta for him. He has a great eye for reading games, and has a typical German archetype of efficient, made to last and effective teambuilding that can potentially do him well at Worlds. All season Randy Kwa (R Inanimate) has made the headlines with Regional and Wi-Fi Tournament wins. His recent performance in the US Nationals was amazing, ending with a top 4 finish and solidifying his invite to this year’s championships. Although I have never played or spoken with Randy, I have kept a close eye on him this season mainly because of his differentiating playstyle and teambuilding skills that rival the best. I think out of all of my wild cards picks, Randy is top of my list to go the deepest in this event. I love watching his matches and just think he has been one of the most consistent and exciting players to watch all season.

• Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson)’s Predictions

This year’s race to Ray’s throne is tighter than ever before. The VGC 2013 ruleset isn’t so far away from that of the previous year, but the past year has seen numerous shifts and plenty of new strategies and team styles. One rather significant change on this route to glory, though, has been the qualification system. For Europe especially, the much-desired use of Swiss rounds has ensured that Worlds will finally see the best of both sides of the Atlantic.

Top 8: Ray Rizzo (Ray), Matteo Gini (Matty), Wolfe Glick (Wolfey), Abel Sanz (Flash), Sejun Park, Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou), Lee Provost (Osirus), Enosh Shachar (Human)

Reigning three-time champion Ray Rizzo is the man to watch. Vancouver will be his fifth Worlds appearance, with his proven record you’d be crazy not to expect great things from him. Italian National Champion Matteo Gini kept his cool to take his home country’s title this year in impressive form, having broke even at Worlds last year and reaching the final of Worlds the previous year, this man will do well. Like Ray, last year’s finalist Wolfe Glick has had the liberty to sit back and observe the metagame this year, his innovations are often ingenious, and his past results alone make the two-time U.S. National Champion one of the favourites. Coming third at Worlds last year, Abel Sanz will be one of Europe’s most dangerous hopes after qualifying by reaching the final of the U.K. Nationals. South Korea’s three-time National Champion Sejun Park is no stranger to Worlds success either, placing fifth last year and second the year before in the Senior division, he will be eager to go one step further. Two-time U.K. National Champion Ben Kyriakou returns to Worlds a different player to last year; having destroyed all competition in a near-perfect run in Birmingham, he showed that in that form he will be a serious contender. Lee Provost is a veteran of the game, and qualified by reaching third place at the U.K. National – having qualified for Worlds in 2010 but being unable to attend, there won’t be many with the determination this man will bring. And finally, Enosh Shachar(Human) might have just fallen short in the final of the U.S. Nationals this year, but clearly thought outside the box. With his third place finish at Worlds 2011 in the Senior division, he could be one to watch.

A few more names to watch; you can always count on two-time Senior U.S. National Champion Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) to have a solid run. Daniel Nolan (Zog) is the only Brit to ever top cut at Worlds, placing fifth in 2011. Scott Glaza (Scott) missed the top cut of Worlds last year by a whisker and has stayed on the ball this year. And current U.S. National Champion Gavin Michaels (kingofkongs) will be looking to improve on his sixth place at Worlds last year as a Senior. With a game like Pokémon, the potential for anything to happen is always present. We might just have a few upsets this year.

• Arash Ommati (Mean)’s Predictions

Worlds provides undoubtedly the hardest field of the year: it has always been the case, but even tougher this year after the improvement of both the American and the European qualification system. Nevertheless, there still remains a certain imbalance between the players skills, which makes us aware of the deep importance of the round one and possibly round two pairings; therefore it is nearly impossible to make an accurate top cut prediction. That’s why my choices will fall on players who have consistently achieved results over time.

Top 8: Ray Rizzo (Ray), Randy Kwa  (R Inanimate), Scott Glaza (Scott), Kosuge Ryosuke, Alberto Gini (BraindeadPrimeape), Matteo Gini (Matty), Christoph Kugler (drug duck), Sejun Park.

Even if I would like to see a brand new champion, it’s hard to imagine Ray out of the top cut, no need to explain why. I picked Randy and Scott both for the great results accomplished in the official season, and Randy’s Nugget Bridge circuit performance previous season. I also predict Ryosuke to make top cut not only for his fresh win at Japan Nationals, but also because many of his countrymen confirmed to me that he’s a strong and consistent player and they all expect him to do well, as opposed to the other Japanese finalist, who is relatively unknown. Then I picked up the Gini brothers for their two wins at Nationals this year, as well as for their almost perfect performance in the Swiss rounds. Last but not the least, there’s Christoph, who didn’t particularly distinguish himself with his results this year, but I’ve seen him playing and played him many times, and I think that Worlds is the perfect environment for this player.

Finally I can see Sejun Park emerging victorious and taking the 1st place. He has proven a lot winning his Nationals and proclaiming himself once again the best Korean player. I think this will be Sejun’s year.

As already said, this year is particularly difficult to predict the top cut accurately because of the multitude of highly skilled competitors. Between the ones I haven’t already mentioned, I especially expect Aaron Zheng (Cybertron), Ben Rothman  (Nightblade7000), Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou), and Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson) to go all the way and ruin my predictions. In regard to the 2012 Masters division runner-up Wolfe Glick (Wolfey), even if I think he’s an incredibly good player, I have the feeling that after a year out of the main circuit he’s not going to do as well as he did last year. The format has never been so vast and balanced as in the last two years, and it is as hard as ever to make a solid team. At this point there is a huge number of available strategies, none of them being particularly overpowered against all the others. I’m really curious to see how the players will chose to tackle this new metagame next weekend.

• Christoph Kugler (drug duck)’s Predictions

LCQ picks: Markus Stadler (13Yoshi37), Marcel Kapelle (Massi), Luke Swenson (theamericandream38), Evan Latt (plaid)

Apart from Evan, these are all former Worlds participants, and judging from the attendees in the starting post on the forums, these are my picks to make it through because experience in international best-of-threes and high-pressure situations is definitely a huge plus. I don’t know if the start post is up to date attendee-wise but if  Duy Ha (Duy), Huy Ha (Huy), Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar) and other Americans end up going, they’ll obviously be hot picks, too.

Top 8: Wolfe Glick (Wolfey),  Enosh Shachar (Human), Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou), Matteo Gini (Matty), Michael Riechert(Michilele), Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson), Abel Sanz (Flash), Sejun Park

Addressing the elephant in the room right from the start: where is Ray? While I think he’s been one of the most consistent players and still is a force to be reckoned with just because of his spot-on team building and playstyle, I don’t believe he’s hungry enough to go for a fourpeat. He will end up going positive with 4-2, but with a large field like this year’s 4-2 isn’t guaranteed top cut and he might whiff top 8 just because of tiebreakers.

For the top 8 picks, I’ve looked at how consistent I think the players are, and these eight are in my opinion the most consistent players in the world. This year is more than ever about consistently playing well and making no mistakes in order to keep the pressure up and maintain an advantage over the opponents. Wolfe is a beast at that, and he proved it by topcutting Worlds twice in 2011 and 2012 while becoming National champion in those two years, as well. While he didn’t get to play in any meaningful events this year, I’m sure he trained hard and the few times he played, he showed an understanding of the game that is deep enough to finally crown him World Champion.

Enosh is also one of the players who seem to never make mistakes, and his 558 CP proves that he had a very strong season with consistently good results. Coupled with his ability to always make the best move possible and his out-of-the-box team building skills, he is a major favorite for me to get into top cut seeing how there will probably no Illuminate Starmie in the Worlds field this year!

Kyriakou seems like a crazy pick considering last year’s 1-5 performance, but he ended up going 17-1 at Europe’s most crowded Nationals, beating a lot of formidable users on the way such as Spain’s very own Flash in the finals. He learned a lot over the course of the season and has become an irritatingly consistent player, as can be seen by Top Cutting in Italy and only whiffing Germany top cut because of tiebreakers. Exactly the same goes for Baz Anderson as well, being into the top16 of the European CP ranking with 2 top cut participations in three tournaments.

Matty is probably the best European player right now and most things I’ve said about Kyriakou also hold true for Matteo, except that Matteo actually has two Worlds participations under his belt, as well as making it to the finals in 2011. I feel he’s even gotten better and also proven he’s able to master situations under pressure, as he ended the run of yours truly at Germany Nationals after facing adversity outside of his control in game 2 of that set.

Michilele, as another one of the bunch of negative records from last year, might seem just as odd as Kyriakou, but seeing how consistent he was over the last two seasons (Top8, Top4, Top8, Top4 his results), he is probably the best German player right now.

The Spaniards as a group have been pretty underwhelming this year, with Abel being the only one returning from 2012. He had a streak of bad luck at Italy’s qualifier but impressively rebounded at UK Nationals where he used a heavy offensive 2012 style of team to grab top 2, losing only to Kyriakou. This would be my personal favorite story if he made it to Worlds top cut after such a bad start into the season.

Lastly, Sejun is the definition of consistency, achieving his third Worlds participation in a row as well as back-to-back wins at Korea Nationals should very clearly pointing out that characteristic. Style-wise he’s also my favorite players in that his choice of teams always sets his opponents on their back foot, pitting them into corners just by virtue of playing a controlled-aggressive game. This is something that, in my opinion, sets him apart from the rest of the field that tends to be either too defensive or too reckless.

Even though my picks look heavily Europe-based, I still think that the Americans have better representation player-wise as a group which is largely due to keeping the CP cutoff for North America at 12 while Europe’s 32 allowed some players to sneak in that probably shouldn’t be playing in Worlds just because they top16′d at one tournament, so all of NA’s qualified players basically needed to show consistent success to qualify. I also think that anyone out of those 12 NA invitees can make it to Top 8 of the main event, as well as the players who made it through LCQ, because LCQ players traditionally also do well in the main event. Gavin Michaels (kingofkongs), as the reigning US Nationals champion, and the Japanese National Champion Ryosuge are also interesting picks, although I think this being either their first year in Masters and in Ryosuge’s case getting through a bad qualification method makes it harder for them to get to top 8 than for the players above.

• Aaron Zheng (Cybertron)’s Predictions

Top 8: Wolfe Glick (Wolfey), Sejun Park, Ray Rizzo (Ray), Abel Sanz (Flash), Matteo Gini (Matty), Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou), Randy Kwa (R Inanimate), Kosuge Ryosuke

While deciding who to predict for my section of this article, I realized just how deep the field is this year — there are so many players that I think can win the entire tournament (if you asked me I’d probably give you these eight + an additional six). I’m choosing both players who have proven themselves with consistency in past World Championships along with those who I’ve watched up close this season and feel like have a great shot at the title.

It’s hard for me to envision a Top 8 without Ray, Wolfe, and Sejun, who have all top cut Worlds every time they have been in attendance and made the finals at least once. I feel most confident in Wolfe, since he has had the entire year to build and perfect his team, and while he has had three lackluster performances this season at two Regionals and Nationals, we all know that’s clearly not indicative of how well he will perform. I was not surprised at all to see Sejun make it back, and I really think he is South Korea’s best player. He plays in pretty much every Wi-Fi tournament, won Korean Nationals undefeated, and with a 2nd place finish in 2011 and a Top 8 finish in 2012, I have high expectations for him. And while Ray has not had much time to prepare a team this year, he’s clearly the greatest player in the world and has owned Worlds the past three years. I’d be very surprised if any of these three players missed top cut.

Moving onto the next set of players — the Europeans. This is by far the strongest European team we’ve seen in VGC history, and I expect at least three, if not more, to top cut. With this being said, I have to give some leeway to the most experienced players — all three of these guys made it to Worlds last year, and two have already top cut. In his first Worlds, Abel went 5-1 in swiss and made it all the way to the Top 4 before losing to Wolfe. He then placed 2nd at UK Nationals, earning his second invitation in two years. He has become one of Spain’s finest players, even challenging the legacy that Ruben left behind. Matteo was the runner-up in 2011, and while he finished with a 3-3 record last year, I still think he has what it takes to top cut — especially after winning a Nationals and finishing in the Top 8 at his second Nationals (only forfeiting to his brother in Top 8) this year. With more practice behind him this year and two brothers who are also Worlds competitors, I think Matteo has a great shot to make it back. And finally, Ben. In my eyes, Ben has become Europe’s most improved Worlds-level player. While I enjoyed his “Gary Oak” team last year, I was surprised that it managed to make it to the final of UK Nationals. This year, I was not surprised but even expected Ben to take the crown again, which he did. I’ve watched multiple games Ben played in that tournament, and man was I impressed with his level of play in each and every game. I think he certainly deserved the title this year, and while he has not top cut Worlds yet like all the other players I’ve mentioned thus far, I expect a huge improvement from his 1-5 finish last year.

For my last two picks, I went with Canadian player Randy Kwa and Japanese National Champion Ryosuke. Randy has had one of the best seasons in North America, with a 1st place finish and Top 4 at Regionals along with a Top 4 finish at Nationals — the only player to receive an invite without going to three Regionals. He’s been one of North America’s strongest players and it’s about time he gets some time to shine in the spotlight. There is a lot of pressure on him since he is the only Canadian, but he hasn’t finished below 4th at an event this year so I think he’ll be able to look past that. Ryosuke is a more risky pick since I don’t really know him very well, but I was impressed by his dominating victory in the finals a few months back, and I really enjoyed his team. He certainly seemed stronger than the other Japanese candidate, so he’s my pick from there.

Overall, a rather diverse field, with two Americans, three Europeans, one Japanese, one Korean, and one Canadian. Some other players I didn’t mention but I think have an equally strong chance at top cut include Trista Medine (ryuzaki), Kamaal Harris (FonicFrog), Scott Glaza (Scott), Daniel Nolan (Zog), and Enosh Shachar (Human). Trista and Kamaal have been at Worlds before, but both have barely missed on Top 8. They are still considered some of the strongest Americans. I’m still not sure whether Scott will actually play or not, but I’m glad that he received an invitation this year because he’s been a strong competitor since 2011. While he doesn’t have any big wins under his belt, he’s also had one of the most consistent seasons this year and came so close to making top cut last year. Daniel finished in the Top 8 in his only Worlds appearance in 2011, and after being banned for a season is making his comeback to the Worlds stage. His previous result has shown he can win. Enosh is a fan favorite of pretty much everyone right now after getting 2nd at US Nationals with one of the cooler teams we’ve seen in recent times, and he is 8 for 8 on making top cut at Pokemon tournaments. I’d like to include myself with those players but will let this weekend’s results speak for themselves.

My predicted winner is Wolfe Glick. I know he’s been training for this tournament all year long, and after coming so close the last two years, I think he is finally going to take the championship home. He turned from an underdog in 2011 to the world’s second greatest player in 2012, and with the amount of effort and practice he’s put in, I can expect nothing less than a win. However with that being said, Worlds can really be anyone’s tournament on a good day with enough effort put into it. I’d like to thank Scott for having me as a part for this article, and wish all my fellow competitors good luck next weekend. Worlds is where the best players come to perform and make a name for themselves, so it’s time for players to live up to their expectations or show the rest of the world just how good they really are at Pokemon.

• Scott Glaza (Scott)’s Predictions

Top 8: Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou), Sejun Park, Randy Kwa (R Inanimate), Kosuge Ryosuke, Matteo Gini (Matty), Abel Sanz (Flash), Trista Medine (ryuzaki), Stephen Morioka (Stephen)

My picks for the top eight are basically the same players I had intended to pick back in about January if nothing catastrophic happened, assuming I would have picked the Japanese champion no matter what.  I’m going to start with the one foreign who actually did surprise me: the UK’s Ben Kyriakou. Like most people, I didn’t take him very seriously going into this year after the whole somehow-qualify-for-2012-Worlds-with-a-Gary-Oak-team thing, and his 1-5 finish in 2012 Worlds didn’t help my perception of him. I actually think he’s one of the tournaments more intimidating players this year now that Worlds is here, though. While winning the UK alone is a pretty good reason to predict someone, my reasoning is a little more subjective. Turn-to-turn, there’s just something you can feel in battles with the best players that less skilled players can’t bring. When you battle the best players and you’re both trying, it just feels a little different against the best players. Whatever that X-factor is, Ben has it, and that’s all the proof I need that he is one of the World’s best players.

Korea’s Sejun Park and Canada’s Randy Kwa are both really fantastic players I expect to be making it to the elimination rounds. I lump them together in my head a little bit because one quality hat helps both of them is that they’re playing a style that none of the other Masters seem to be able to emulate effectively. It’s hard to stand out when you’re just using the same pieces everyone else is, because having similar tools means you have to substantially outplay or out-RNG your opponent to win rather than just getting to play your own game a little bit, which I think these guys will both get to do more than other players in the field. They both play more aggressive styles than some of the other really top tier players, but they do it in a way that works consistently because their teams are better designed than just throwing a bunch of high-BST sweepers on the team as though we’re still playing early VGC 2012. The danger with predicting them is that they’re both aggressive players and in some ways they could go 2-4 just as easily as they could go 5-1, but I have faith in them. These guys are both the best players in their respective countries by leaps and bounds, and I’m really glad they’re both going to get one last chance to show off for the rest of the worlds before the page turns to XY.

One other player representing a country without many players in the tournament I expect to do well is Ryosuke. I feel a little shakier about him than most of the other players I predicted because I don’t have a great feel for him as a player, as well as because he made some eccentric choices for his Nationals team, but he’s got a solid reputation and I think there’s a lot of value in coming out of the region where it is most difficult to qualify. Japan has never failed to send a player to the top cut in a year where it had representatives in the highest age division, and Ryosuke is the most likely player to continue that streak. Another player I feel like I’m expecting in top cut largely because of his reputation is Italy’s Matteo Gini. His performance this year was actually really ridiculously good, essentially winning all of the matches that were valuable for him to win in two different Nationals tournament,s including a win to start the season. Admitting that, I’m still leery about predicting him only because his team for Nationals involved a lot of Pokemon I have a hard time imagining making a deep run at Worlds. Matty has always been a clutch performer. Hopefully he’ll do well again this year, because he’s one of those people who I think is really important to the game. He’s a great guy in addition to being a great player, and he’s from a country that needs him as a star player.

My next pick is one I basically made when he wrote his top 4 2012 Worlds report in Abel Sanz. I was actually not very high on his team when I was watching it live, but after I had it all laid out in front of me when he wrote the report I really appreciated what he was doing as a team builder in spite of the Pokemon choices being pretty vanilla(just how I like it!) and some of his trick options being a little strange. There’ll always be a place near the top for players who can use the strongest Pokemon in more interesting ways than their competition, and he made some really good metagame calls to make his Pokemon handle the opponents he was likely to battle in Worlds more efficiently than his competitors did. The main thing I liked with his report was his logic, even though I didn’t like all of the places it led him. I have a tendency just to predict the players I think are smarter than everyone else, expecting that to make things work out, and Flash is one of those guys I think is in the elite class of thinkers.

That only leaves me with two players and zero Americans selected. Obviously, it’s probably a little surprising that I’m only predicting two Americans here. I think basically all of the qualified Americans have a good shot of making the cut.  It’s certainly the best group of players the US has ever sent to Worlds, and only the 2010 squad is even really competitive with it, so maybe that’s what causing none of the individual player to stand out to me much the way each of the players I selected already did. I would not be surprised if I am undershooting a bit and the amount of Americans in top cut is instead four again like last year, but it’s hard to single out any of our players because all of them are strong in different ways and almost any of them could win the tournament. I know its sacrilege not to predict Ray Rizzo to top cut Worlds, but while I love him, I know that even he is mortal and I think that the lack of practice is going to end his reign before the top cut this year, which opens up a pick for me I didn’t expect to have. I hope I’m wrong, because he’s been a great icon for Pokemon and also someone I’ve learned a lot about the game from personally, but I think Ray’s fourth World Championship is going to come some time during Generation 6.

In Ray’s place, I’m actually going to make a couple quirkier picks for the top finishers of my homeland and go with Trista Medine and Stephen Morioka. I know they aren’t the trendy picks, but I think Trista is probably the most consistent player in our game, and she’ll always be one of the better picks as a result. I tend to play a similar style to her’s of consistent, defensive Pokemon, and while I open up the offense a little more than she tends to, I’d like to see it proven that the general playstyle can win at the Worlds level. People seem to fixate a lot more on her personality and her gender than her skills, but I absolutely think she’s one of the eight best players in the world. I feel like the hivemind of the internet forgets Stephen exists a week after every tournament because he doesn’t hang out with us on IRC, but he had a heck of a season, and I think he had a very good shot of winning US Nationals if it was for a bizarre loss to Randy in top 8. I think both of them are players that are going to play six good rounds and that’s going to be a big deal this year, because nothing is going to come easy. I know everyone has been hyping up how much better than usual the European players are this year, but I think it is important to realize this is a much better group of players than the ones the United States sent in 2011 or 2012 in the same way.

As far as other players I expect to do well: I mentioned it was likely basically any of the other Americans could wind up winning this tournament, but special attention should probably be paid to Enosh Shachar (Human), Gavin Michaels (kingofkongs), Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) and Wolfe Glick (Wolfey). They’re are all players I really wouldn’t want to have a showdown with myself, but I felt like their Pokemon choice, or in Aaron’s case an underwhelming history at this tournament, made them a little bit riskier of picks than some of their alternatives. If Matt Coyle(PrettyLittleLiar) manages to survive the LCQ, I think he immediately becomes one of the biggest threats to win the tournament himself, but I don’t think anyone else from the LCQ will make it over 4-2. I’m gonna go ahead and say my trusty sidekick Mike Papagianis(skarm), Matt, and the two Germans take the LCQ spots. The only other player I think is substantially more dangerous than the rest is someone who makes me cringe on the internet at an all star level, Daniel Nolan(Zog). He has top cut Worlds before, and while I think 2011′s results were a little bizarre given where some of the players around him finished relative to their skill levels, he deserves respect for his finish and he’s one of those guys who’s capable of being really brilliant… it just seems to come at the cost of sometimes venturing rather far in the other direction.

The winner is kind of a no-brainer for me. While I think predicting the winner of Worlds is always similar to playing the lottery, I would love to be able to play the lottery with my odds weighted the same as predicting Sejun Park to win this tournament. I think being the only player from his country is a bit of a disadvantage, but playing top cut Saturday night instead of Sunday morning gives some help to the players without a lot of o/\o teammates. Everyone has talked about his Worlds finishes, but it’s worth noting his 2012 Worlds finish made him the first graduated Senior to break into the Masters top cut at Worlds, an impressive hurdle to get over given some of the problems adjusting we’ve seen graduated Seniors have in North America and Europe. Outside of Worlds, Sejun has won Korean Nationals in both of the years he needed to do so to qualify for Worlds, and he tends to be in the top few finishers in the world of every Wi-Fi tournament, including tournaments that use rulesets other than the standard VGC rules. He’s even been dominant in the Team USA vs Team Korea Wi-Fi friendlies, beating two of the better American Worlds players pretty handily in Wolfe and Trista. Even the type of intangible stuff that I feel is mostly puffery people use to describe players tends to apply well here: he makes good team choices, he knows which Pokemon and teams suit him, and he does great math when training his Pokemon to make sure he’s going into battles with the best team he can.

I don’t want to repeat everyone else too much, but it’s time to welcome the Korean overlord(s).

Coming Soon: Actual Pokemon Battles

Predictions are fun, but Worlds is the tournament where Pokemon legends are made. Every year, a few players rise up to join our pantheon of greats, and I’m sure there’ll be some fantastic surprises again this year. There were some pretty clear trends here, but we’ll have to wait until Saturday to see if the favorites are able to take home the top cut slots for their countries. Do you agree with the players’ predictions? Let us know in the comments, and enjoy the tournament!

The post 2013 Masters VGC Worlds Championships Preview appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Next weekend, some of the best Pokemon trainers in the world will represent the United Kingdom in the 2013 Pokemon Video Game World Championships. While they weren’t able to get information on all of the members of Team UK on such short notice, Baz Anderson and Kyriakou have put together an article to introduce you to some of the competitors from the United Kingdom, regaling you with their previous accomplishments and Worlds qualifications, how they rose to fame this year, and what they do outside of Pokemon. Keep in mind that to qualify this season, competitors had to gain enough Championship Points (CP) throughout the season and finish in the Top 32 in Europe.

Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou)

Age: 21
Location: Norwich, UK
Previous Worlds Qualifications: 2012 (32nd)
Qualified This Year Through: 1st Place UK Nationals
Most Notable Accomplishment: 2-time UK national champion
Signature Pokémon: Scarf Machamp, Nidoking

Ben “Gary MF Oak” Kyriakou has been playing VGC since just before UK Nationals in 2011, where he got knocked out in the second round. Coming back looking mighty fine in a Gary Oak cosplay, he stormed onto the scene, earning second place in UK Nationals in 2012. He was later being promoted to first place due to an unfortunate “incident” in a hotel, only to go on to get battered at Worlds trying to use something that was legit good, rather than spamming the (clearly) awesome Pokemon that Gary used.

This year he’s been hard at work becoming good at the game, and this has paid off with a 10th place finish in Milan, 22nd place finish in Bochum (apparently BS from a Garchomp, same story, different day), and retaining his title of UK champion with a truly disgraceful 17-1 record over the tournament.

He has just finished his degree in mathematics at the University of York, where he spent a lot of time playing pool and snooker for the uni, and playing assorted video games with his friends. Other than that, most of his time is taken up either ordering pizza, waiting for pizza to be delivered, or eating pizza.

What will Ben use this year? Well, if history has shown anything, it’s that he likes to take out threats, rather than play around them, but will he opt for a more defensive team to deal with the Worlds metagame? Only time will tell…

Benjamin Gould (Ben91293)

Age: 19
Location: United Kingdom, Leeds
Previous Worlds Qualifications: N/A
Qualified This Year Through: 2013 UK Nationals, Birmingham/CP invitation
Most Notable Accomplishment: Top 8 in UK, Top 32 in Europe
Signature Pokemon: Nidoqueen, Choice Scarf Abomasnow

Benjamin Gould  is a relatively new face to the Pokèmon scene. He has attended three National events so far; missing out on qualification in the previous two years due to the horrifically flawed system the UK events used (single elimination only). Finally, when swiss came to the UK, his 7-2 record allowed him to make a top cut. His competitive achievements so far stand at placing top 8 in the UK and in the top 32 of Europe, packing an invite to worlds in the process.

Ben’s hobbies include skateboarding, playing the guitar, zoological related activities and of course, playing competitive Pokèmon.

As for favourite team archetypes, Ben has been known to use fast paced, hard hitting teams that aim for type coverage in offensive synergy. He used dedicated Trick Room in VGC’12, only to be knocked out of the top 32 due to repeated Heat Wave misses. VGC’13 saw the use of Nidoqueen in a fast paced hail-centred team. What will we see from Ben at Worlds this year? Your guess is as good as mine.

Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson)

Age: 25
Location: Lincoln, England
Previous Worlds Qualifications: N/A
Qualified This Year Through: Championship Points (13th EU)
Most Notable Accomplishment: 6th Place Italian Nationals 2013
Signature Pokemon: Liepard, Breloom

Barry has been playing Pokémon since Red & Blue were released, but only stumbled into competitive battling in 2011. This year saw Barry finally make a name for himself being the only person in Europe to top cut all three Nationals, and dominating the rankings of the Nugget Bridge circuit.

Outside of Pokémon, Barry gets to interview bands and write publications for a large heavy metal website he has a long history with. He used to work at a falconry centre, and keeps an eagle-owl he raised, imprinted and taught to fly. He also has a degree in Psychology.

His teams are never standard, successfully representing the UK on stream earlier in the year with a Marowak and Gallade. His Nationals successes came from using a Liepard, but his team had changed once more for his most recent stream appearance in the Nugget Bridge Invitational. This will be Barry’s first Worlds experience, so it is tough to know what to expect.

Daniel Nolan (Zog)

Age: 20
Location: Halifax, England and Bangor, Wales
Previous Worlds Qualifications: 2011
Qualified This Year Through: 6th Place UK Nationals
Most Notable Accomplishment: Top Cut Worlds 2011
Signature Pokémon: Skill Swap Venomoth, Beheeyem, ones with a lot of STATS

Always competitive, Zog has been a trainer since the first generation’s playground days. Since European VGC started in 2009, he’s top cut four of the five UK Nationals: one of the most consistent Europe Nationals records in the game.
Zog, as well as being one of the world’s most effective players, is as reliably controversial inside and outside of his Pokémon activities. Avidly outspoken and with an infamous VGC history involving choice items, orange juice and being knocked flying on livestream (and more), Zog is surrounded in chaos as often as hunnies. That said, he’s certainly very warm and helpful and adds some humour to the community. Chaotic as he may seem, Zog always stands up for the game and is far from a destructive influence on the VGC community.

In the “real world”, Zog does zoological research at university involving reptiles, which he’s kept at home for 8 years in his huge animal room (complete with vivarium wall and beetle cabinet). He enjoys animals, writing, photography and most of all partying hard.

Zog is a self-professed shrewd tactician: his battling style being to simply never lose. A strong proponent of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, this strategy has served him well over the years. With his mirthfully fierce outlook on Pokémon and a team forged in the fires on Mount Doom, Zog is one of the most frightful players on this year’s world stage and he expects his opponents to tremble before being crushed. Apparently, they have been warned.

Christopher Arthur (Koryo)

Age: ???
Location: Bangor, Wales
Previous Worlds Qualifications: N/A
Qualified This Year Through: CP – 15th in Europe
Most Notable Accomplishment: Top 16 in Milan and Birmingham Nationals 2013
Signature Pokémon: Scizor

Christopher ‘Koryo’ Arthur (yes, that’s his real name) is from the UK and has been playing competitively for the last 2 years. He started playing on PO last year as a friend suggested it was a good place to start and was on there a lot doing pretty well. He also went by the name of “Bahamut Zero” and “The Black Knight”. This year, he decided to train by himself, and has only been seen in the Wi-Fi tournaments, where he has done pretty well.

Not much is known about this mysterious trainer except that he does everything Pokémon-related by himself. He plays for a semi-professional football team (or soccer to you Americans) every Saturday, so he is in pretty good shape. He also likes to cosplay and thinks his “sharingan” is real.

He failed to qualify for Worlds last year, getting top 32 at the UK Nationals, but he attended all 3 European nationals this year, top cutting twice and placing 17th in the other. His consistency has earned him 15th place in Europe overall and an invite for this year’s Worlds. He also placed first among European players in the last Wi-Fi tourney with a sneaky new untested team, but will he use it for Worlds? Also, has he improved it? And has he actually done any defensive calculations to go with the offensive ones he always does? One thing is for sure, if he doesn’t improve his terrible record in best-of-three, then I wouldn’t worry too much about him at Worlds!

The post Meet Team UK appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

With the 2013 World Championships coming to a close a little over a week ago, the best players in the world assembled for one final time during Generation 5, competing for the championship and giving their views on what the best Pokemon to use in this metagame through their teams as a result. While in any tournament some players will come out on top while other players will get some extra motivation to work hard again next season, simply making it to Worlds is a large accomplishment and all of the teams and players here are worthy of enshrinement for their impressive accomplishments during the 2013 VGC season.

The Teams

1. Arash Ommati (IT) (Mean)

2. Ryosuke Kosuge (JP) (gebebo)

3. Aaron Zheng (US) (Cybertron)

4. Benjamin Gould (GB) (Ben91293)

5. Sejun Park (KR)

6. Enosh Shachar (US) (Human)

7. Luigi Lo Giudice (IT) (LProx)

8. Matthias Hellmoldt (DE) (Tyvyr)

9.Barry Anderson (GB) (Baz Anderson)

10. Yuki Matsumoto (JP) (Haruto)

11. Christoph Kugeler (DE) (drug duck)

12. Toler Webb (US) (Dim)

13. Ben Kyriakou (GB) (Kyriakou)

14. Stephen Morioka (US) (Stephen)

15.  Jaime Martinez (ES) (repr4y)

16. Baris Akcos (DE)  (Billa)

17. Ben Rothman (US) (Nightblade7000)

18. Randy Kwa (CA) (R Inanimate)

19. Michael Riechert (DE) (Michilele)

20. Matthias Suchodolski (DE) (Lega)

21. Jordi Picazo (ES)

22. Gavin Michaels (US) (kingofkongs)

23. Osamu Shinomoto (JP) (ru-ni)

24. Albert Bañeres (ES) (Arbol Deku)

25. Wolfe Glick (US) (Wolfey)

26. Ray Rizzo (US) (Ray)

27. Demitri Camperos (US) (Demitri)

28. Shota Nakata (JP)

29. Trista Medine (US) (ryuzaki)

30. Daniel Nolan (GB) (Zog)

31. Matteo Gini (IT) (Matty)

32. Kamaal Harris (US) (FonicFrog)

33. Nabil Lakehal (FR) (Showmeasign)

34. Alberto Gini (IT) (BraindeadPrimeape)

35. Rina Purdy (GB)

36. Rachel Annand (GB) (SPEevee)

37. Lee Provost (GB) (Osirus)

38. Alan Schambers (US) (Metabou)

39. Eloy Hahn (DE) (Dragoran5)

40. Abel Sanz (ES) (Flash)

41. Wai Yin Low (SG)

42. Christopher Arthur (GB) (Koryo)

43. Ben Irons (US) (benjitheGREAT)

44. Ben Kilby (AU)

45. Zach Droegkamp (US) (Zach)

46. Hugh Ronzani (AU)

47. Jamal El Moutaoikil (DE) (Toazdt)

Frequency Per Pokémon

As the Pokemon used in the most important tournament under the VGC 2013 ruleset, the Pokemon below are those who have left the biggest mark on the game when it counted this year. The most common Pokemon in the tournament predictably consists mostly of metagame mainstays, with four of the five most common Pokemon at Worlds being the same as both the cumulative European Nationals top cuts and United States Nationals top cut in Cresselia, Tyranitar, Amoonguss, and Thundurus. Only Landorus-T, the fourth most common Pokemon in the Japan Cup, was able to break into the international top five at Worlds. Also showcased below are some less common Pokemon that the game’s best players thought were good enough to catch their peers off-guard in spite of the risk this year, like Magmar, Marowak, Registeel, and Torkoal.

Thanks to everyone who helped compile this information. See anything we messed up or missed? Feel free and leave a comment and I’ll fix it as quickly as I can.

The post Masters VGC Worlds 2013 Teams appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

During every Pokemon event, we learn a little bit about the game of Pokémon and the community that surrounds it that is worth reflecting on. This Masters-centric column will appear following major events and highlight important trends and moments during the previous(ish) weekend’s events.

Another fantastic World Championships is in the books! In fact, Worlds was so fantastic this year that we all had to take a week off to recover from its greatness, but I’m back to give a look back at the final event of the 2013 VGC Season. This year gave us three new champions, a weekend of excitement, and a video of a baby kangaroo punching a Conkeldurr.

And the Winner is….

The biggest story of the weekend was certainly Arash Ommati (Mean) winning it all and becoming the World Champion. I think we have a tendency to exaggerate the greater meaning of individuals winning Pokemon events, but it was really cool that we got our first Italian World Champion and by extension, the first winner from the European region. I’m not sure if Arash’s win will change anything for the greater community or not — I don’t think anyone ever contested, for instance, that Europe (and Italy in particular) has some great players or that Arash himself was very good. What I do hope, though, is that maybe Arash’s win will make a World Championship seem more attainable to players all over the world after three years of Ray Rizzo (Ray) dominating the field. Players having the dream to win it at all and believing they can achieve it is what makes the circuit exciting. Hopefully someone like Arash winning, who wasn’t riding the hype train coming in, helps remind everyone that it’s how you play the game that counts, not how other people expect you to do.

With that said, if Arash himself winning was super surprising to anyone, they probably weren’t paying attention. Obviously, he wasn’t among the big favorites coming in, even if you only look at Europe — that would have been Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou), Abel Sanz (Flash), and Matteo Gini (Matty). I think other than maybe Daniel Nolan (Zog), who was another player getting the respect predictions for having cut Worlds before, Arash really should have been the next player on most people’s minds who didn’t already have the big Worlds finish under his belt. In my own predictions, he would have been the next European player I had mentioned if I had kept going (and he was slightly higher than that on Scott’s Amazing Pokemon Worlds Fantasy Draft Rankings(tm), which I unfortunately never got to use). I think he flew a little under all of our radars because he’s not a player that self-promotes much, to the point I actually completely forgot he was going to Italian Nationals when I wrote the preview for it this year, but I think everyone who’s played him this season knew he was a good player coming in. I was more surprised that he ended up finishing so low on CP, which was more because he didn’t play the whole circuit than because of his performance, than that he won Worlds.

Especially now that I write so much promotional stuff on Nugget Bridge, I worry a bit about who the champion is going to wind up being when we get close to Worlds, because for better or worse, being the world champion means more than just having won a Pokemon tournament to the community. I’m really happy that the winner this year was Arash. He’s a strong player, and more importantly he’s always struck me as a good guy. He’ll be a good champion for our game as we head into a new generation, and I hope he takes the chance to be around in the community a little more this year. People will like him.

And a Top Cut For Germany

Germany might seem like an odd story to draw out for this. Korea had the 6-0 in swiss, Italy had two players in top cut, Japan made it back to the finals… and it was a good year for all of those countries, but I don’t want what the German players were able to accomplish to get overlooked. Prior to this year, no German player had ever had a winning record in Worlds before. Three different players managed to break that curse this year in Masters, with Matthias Hellmoldt finishing a bizarre 4-1-1 and Christoph Kugeler (drug duck) and Baris Akcos (Billa) both finishing 4-2. Matthias also became the first German Master to make top cut, and was only about an hour away from being the first German player ever to do so… an honor reserved for Baris’ sister Melisa Akcos in the Junior division.

Variety is the Spice of Whatever

One of the cherished aspects of the way Worlds qualification works right now is that it allows for players from many different countries to compete. We were all excited that the variety in VGC was greater than it has ever been before this year, with 47 total players competing in Masters this year from 11 different countries, an increase from 33 players from 9 countries last year. The new additions this year came from Singapore, who had a player qualify through LCQ, and Australia, who had its own VGC National tournament for the first time this year. Outside of Masters, the Senior division also had a player from Austria, bringing the total of participating countries to 12. Sadly, a Swedish player in Seniors and an Irish player in Juniors were also invited but were unable to attend, which caused us to fall short of a potential 14 countries involved with VGC Worlds.

It’s a Shame So Few Pokemon Are Viable

It is perhaps the most common complain in every ruleset of Pokemon that has ever been and ever will be that the most powerful Pokemon are too good and that serious players can only use a small variety of Pokemon because of them. If you haven’t already seen the list of teams from 2013 VGC Masters Worlds, you should definitely check it out, because I think that myth should absolutely be dispelled by what the game’s best players selected if it wasn’t already. While there’s a few things I would certainly have changed in this year’s ruleset if I could have… mostly related to Prankster… Pokemon variety was definitely not an issue this season. Between the 47 players in Masters VGC Worlds, 54 different Pokemon were used at least once. There were no teams of off-the-wall nonviable Pokemon inflating the statistics this year, and there were still a handful of reasonably strong Pokemon like Raikou, Machamp, Rhyperior, and Ninetales that weren’t selected in the Masters division this year in spite of the great variety present.

I’ll leave you with a few Pokemon that were selected by teams in the top cut that might surprise people expecting to see only teams similar to Ray’s 2012 team on top:

Ryosuke vs Aaron

While I usually try not to comment too much on specific games in these columns, especially games that aren’t the finals, I think the top 4 match between Ryosuke Kosuge and Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) has been controversial enough that it’d be helpful for me to touch on it.

I want to get my bias out of the way up front: I try and stay as neutral as I can, but since Aaron is kind of the communal little brother for the admins I was definitely rooting for him to begin with. Ryosuke is someone I expected and wanted to see in the top cut, but the familiarity isn’t there with him. I wanted Aaron to win even more after I saw how Ryosuke chose to play game 2 and 3 of their series, since I had given up my spot in Worlds to work on the stream because of how important I thought it was for the stream to give a good impression of VGC to the viewers… something I suspected the frequent use of Swagger and Thunder Wave was going to work against. To say I was frustrated when Ryosuke won playing the way he did would have been an understatement.

But you know what? Ryosuke played that series exactly the way he should have. Let’s take a moment to look at both players’ teams:

Ryosuke:

Aaron:

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out the way these teams stack up. Ryosuke was using his Nationals team again, completely verbatim. Aaron’s team was based on Ryosuke’s Nationals team, but had some changes that made it a little more comfortable against the metagame in North America and Europe. Most notably, Aaron was using a more standard Chople Berry/Protect Tyranitar instead of Ryosuke’s Iron Ball/Fling, as well as using ChestoRest Cresselia to free up the Sitrus Berry Aaron instead used on his Light Screen/Will-o-Wisp defensive Rotom-W, which he chose to use over Ryosuke’s infamous Thundurus-I. As we saw during Game 1 of their series, these changes gave Aaron an extremely large advantage playing a conventional game of Pokemon between the similar teams, and he won pretty easily.

If you’re Ryosuke there, you have to look at your options and figure out where you might be able to draw an advantage. He had several Pokemon, like his Landorus-T, Heatran, and Conkeldurr, which were either identical to Aaron’s or were functionally identical against him, and even trying to use them better than Aaron wasn’t likely to work because of Rotom-W, so the odds of winning through those three were bleak. Worse yet, Ryosuke had a small disadvantage between the Cresselias and Tyranitars because of Aaron’s changes. The only piece Ryosuke had that was appreciably different from Aaron’s in a positive way was Thundurus-I, who also had the advantage of being at its best against support Pokemon that don’t do a lot of damage on their own… which was exactly what was beating him before in Cresselia and Rotom-W.

We all know how it goes from there, and it isn’t pretty, but Ryosuke is in the semifinals of Worlds. He has to do whatever he can do to win, and I think he picked the highest percentage route to try to do that. Ryosuke’s odds were actually very good the way the match played out because Aaron rarely switched out of confusion, and even when Rotom-W and Cresselia were able to attack, they weren’t going to put out much offensive pressure on their own, so Ryosuke was able to put himself in relatively safe situations to do slow damage. Rotom-W also put the odds further in Ryosuke’s favor because Hydro Pump and Will-o-Wisp are both inaccurate moves to begin with, which further increased the odds of Aaron not being able to attack, though obviously Will-o-Wisp was much less accurate than what would be expected in that series.

I think not getting the best of luck understandably caused Aaron to tilt a little bit, especially after game 2, and he started making sub-optimal decisions in situations he might normally have played better. He chose to switch only rarely, and by failing to at least create pressure with a sweeper occasionally to threaten Ryosuke with meaningful return damage if Swagger didn’t work, he lost control of the games. Aaron also chose to allow Thundurus-I to stay alive for quite a long time, healing with its buffet of Leftovers. Opting not to use Tyranitar  in game 3 after getting run over by Thundurus-I in game 2 was also a strange decision, but I think it’s easy to understand why Aaron was a little shaken after game 2. However, these decisions were as big of contributors for why Aaron lost that series as the RNG was.

It’s unfortunate Aaron lost the way he did, since he didn’t really get out-Pokemoned, and while I’m a little flustered the top 4 match we showed the viewers was what it was, Ryosuke absolutely adjusted the way he should have to what happened in game 1 and played the series extremely intelligently. People shouldn’t be faulting Ryosuke for winning.

Stats Part I: Average Record of Countries

I think the international rivalry aspect of Worlds tends to get overblown in what is both fundamentally an individual event and an event that is more about having fun with other people who love Pokemon from all over the world rather than actually competing in a tournament. However, since the trash talk gives us something to do the other eleven months and three weeks of the year, I compiled some data about the tournament. First up is the average record of each country in the tournament:

Notes: Byes are excluded from the wins column. The tie between Matthias Hellmoldt and Ben Rothman(Nightblade7000) is completely ignored.

Obviously, everyone isn’t playing on even ground here. Especially in Europe, sending a bunch of players to Worlds is a sign that a country has depth. With this type of analysis it makes countries like Great Britain, who sent a bunch of players, look weaker compared to countries like Italy, who had only their best players competing. Still, I think this is an interesting stat to look at and I think at least it does a good job of showing how strong Italy and Japan were this year.

Stats Part II: Record Between Regions By Round

While this is another stat that has some limitations because all games have equal weight regardless of the record of the players playing in them, the head-to-head record between regions is another stat I figured would be interesting to people. It should be noted that I used qualifying region instead of country this time. I think qualifying region is much more relevant than country given that most of the European Worlds players played in more than one National and the Canadians played with the Americans, with the added bonus that using regions instead makes this table a more reasonable size and less redundant with the last one. I didn’t do all of the match ups in reverse to save space, but I hope everyone can still find the data they are interested in easily enough.

Perhaps the most interesting information to draw from this table is actually how frequently same-region match-ups occur, with 37 total (a little over six per round) between European players and 18 total (exactly three per round on average) between American players. Round 6 featured the second highest total of these matches for a single round, which included six of the eight games in the top eight tables and contributed to round 6 having the fewest games between North America and Europe of any round.

Decreasing Age of the Field

While Worlds wasn’t quite the same party for the younger guys that the National tournaments were, with graduated Seniors taking both spots in the US National finals and the runner-up positions at both the Italian and German National tournaments, it seems like the average age of the players in the top cut at Worlds gets a little younger every year. While I unfortunately don’t have exact enough data to get some more sick tables going here, almost everyone in the top cut was 20 or younger this year, and we saw three of the biggest threats from the first Senior World Championship in Enosh Shachar (Human), Aaron Zheng, and Sejun Park making it to the top cut and managing to become the favorites once again in the Masters division. Both of the 2012 Senior finalists finished at 4-2 as well, with the reign of the youngsters getting slowed down a little by former champion Toler Webb having to face off with Aaron Zheng in their 4-1 game to decide which of the two would move on to the top cut.

While the representatives from the European countries and Japan are staying a little older than the players from the United States and Korea, there is a distinct change in how young some of the top players are at the end of generation 5 compared to the end of generation 4. For a long time in VGC, the top spots in the uncapped age division have been dominated mostly by the players who have been playing Pokemon since they were kids and are much older now, but the times are changing. The younger guys are just going to keep getting better, and 2014 will be another season where some more strong Senior players graduate into Masters… it makes an old guy like me wonder how long my buddies are gonna be able to hang on!

LCQ Records

One of the more interesting storylines from 2012 Worlds was the improved performance of the players who made it to Worlds through the LCQ. Partially because of the addition of the best-of-three format to the LCQ portion of the event, the matches seemed to send the right player forward more often than usual. I think it was reasonable to expect a bit of a drop-off in the LCQ performers this year because the addition of Championship Points led to Europe and North America qualifying most of their best players before the grinder this year.

As a result, the LCQ thinned out a little, unlike past years where sometimes the LCQ would have a dozen players that seemed like they should have been in Worlds to begin with. 2013′s LCQ wound up having one of the more surprising results we’ve seen, with the Worlds field gaining two Japanese players, a Singaporean player, and American Alan Schambers(Metabou), who also qualified in 2010 and 2011. While the average finish of the players from the LCQ was understandably a little lower than it was last year because the actual Worlds field was a lot deeper, the LCQ players at least managed to keep their heads above water again this year. Here’s some bonus data:

Masters LCQ finishes in 2011(best-of-one LCQ, no CP, 34 total players): 9th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 34th
Masters LCQ finishes in 2012(best-of-three LCQ, no CP, 33 total players): 6th, 9th, 10th, 17th
Masters LCQ finishes in 2013(best-of-three LCQ, CP, 47 total players): 23rd, 28th, 38th, 41st

I think what we should draw from this data is that the change in LCQ performance over time is evidence the Championship Point and LCQ systems are working pretty well. While we did have a world champion coming out of the LCQ in Seniors, at least in Masters it seems the qualification system worked pretty well and the strongest trainers of the season were already in the field. Additionally, the LCQ adding the best-of-three format for the last two years is still helping deserving players get through. Even though 2011 was still using the unreliable system of only sending the top players at each National forward to Worlds and more extremely skilled players were in the LCQ as a result, the win percentage of LCQ players in 2011 was still pretty similar to the win percentage of LCQ players in 2013 in spite of the tougher field, because 2011 also sent a few players who weren’t as strong as some of the others.

Any Given Saturday

The most surprising story this year is definitely how much some of the favorites struggled during swiss. It’s easy to forget that the top players are human just like the rest of us and bad things can happen to them too, but even considering their humanity there seemed to be an avalanche of misfortune for some of the top players this year. Seven players in the Masters swiss field had top cut Worlds before, but outside of Sejun Park no one else was even within a win of repeating that feat this year. Matteo Gini, Wolfe Glick (Wolfey), Ray Rizzo, and Daniel Nolan all finished 3-3 with low enough resistances that even with an extra win they wouldn’t have cut. Abel Sanz and LCQer Alan Schambers ended up finishing 2-4, both having even rougher tournaments. I know some of them had some weird things happen to them like getting paired with a bunch of people they had practiced for Worlds with, or having some crazy strings of bad luck, or inexplicably spending all their teambuilding time working only on Torkoal, but it’s still amazing that all of them had an off-day at once. I feel like with most of these guys, if we were to play the tournament again in two weeks they’d finish with better records, but I think the way the Worlds that counts played out is indicative of how much better the players in the field have gotten.

While making it to Worlds is prestigious in itself, in past years there were always a good chunk of players who weren’t quite ready to compete with the best in the world who qualified to compete anyway. We all knew this was going to be a tougher year because of the Championship Point system sending more consistent and deserving players to Worlds this year, but I don’t think we had all quite grasped exactly how much tougher it was actually going to be, and I think the tournament experience some of these guys had is as strong of a statement about the increased challenge as we’re ever going to get. Maybe some of them deserved to do a little bit better and maybe some of the people above them overachieved a little, but the bottom line is that just being an elite player isn’t good enough anymore because the field is full of elite players. I’d expect most of the guys who had a rough go of Worlds this year to bounce back hard next year because they are all extremely good players, but this should be an eye-opener for everyone who wants to do well at Worlds. It’s never been as challenging as it is right now, and everyone who wants to do well is going to have to work hard to be ready next season.

Streamin’

I was pretty critical of the Worlds stream in 2012. While I think we were all excited that Pokemon had finally decided to try the streaming thing, something most of us who are fans of other games had expected Pokemon to do for years, the product was disappointing. Since the commentators weren’t players from the community, the commentary was essentially a comedy of errors. I feel a little bad for the commentators in retrospect because they did the best they could with the situation they were given, but they messed up attack names, Pokemon names, told the audience Metagross was a Garchomp counter, that Skill Swap had ended when Trick Room ended, were completely baffled by a game ending through the timer, and even failed to understand some basic mechanics like Sandstorm. I didn’t pull any punches criticizing their performance in last year’s version of this column, which I’ll admit I half-regret because it was fairly obvious from some of the things the commentators said that they had read our site prior to Worlds.  Like seemingly every time I run my mouth about something related to Pokemon, I quickly found myself having to put my money where my mouth is this year.

While there’s certainly plenty of things those of us who got to commentate this year need work on ourselves (perhaps someday I’ll figure out where the camera is and actually look at it), I think this year was a huge step for Pokemon. Pokemon is not a game that wants to try to be, say, what League of Legends is, but it’s still really valuable for Pokemon to bring the competitive game to as many fans of the brand and of gaming as possible, so that hopefully next year more people attend events than this year and so people keep purchasing the game in the future. I think what we did this year was a big step toward helping make that happen and getting people back in touch with Pokemon, whereas last year the Gamespot stream probably turned as many current fans of the game off with their sloppiness as they may have regained old ones by bringing the product to them to begin with.

While unlike the Gamespot guys last year, commentating this sort of a stream was something none of this year’s commentators had much(any?) experience with, I think at very least the content of what we were saying helped the product, because everyone speaking was someone who is very dedicated to Pokemon and who knows their stuff. During the cast of the VGC finals, we ended up hitting around 30,000 simultaneous viewers, which is pretty crazy when you consider for comparison that the record for a Nugget Bridge cast is something like 150 viewers. There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done to improve on what we did this year and expand the experience for viewers, but there’s sure been a lot less criticism of the stream this year than last year, and I think a lot of people came away from the stream with a positive view of the event and the game this year.

Growing the game is something I think is really important and is a big part of why we made Nugget Bridge to begin with, so it was really exciting to get to contribute to that some this year. I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this game and this community, so having the opportunity to help build up the game a bit was exciting. It’s something I’d love to do again, but for whatever segment of the VGC community this platform lets me speak for, for this year I just want to comment that I’m thankful TPCI reached out to the community to let us do it rather than shaming the game with Gamespot again. I think the people who weren’t able to make it this year at least got a coherent picture of what was going on at Worlds from the stream, and maybe some of the casual fans understand the game a little better and will hopefully check out what the competitive game is like when Pokemon X & Y come out in a couple months. I think that’s as much as we could have hoped for this year. Just have to keep building!

Spotlight At Just the Right Time

While I was checking last year’s article to read myself ripping into Gamespot, one thing I noticed was that I complained about the finals being simultaneous last year. The stream kind of forced that to change this year, but I think the denizens of Nugget Bridge at the very least are really thankful it did.

I had a lot of really awesome moments at Worlds and with Pokemon in general this year, but I think the moment I’ll remember most from the 2013 season was watching Brendan Zheng (Babbytron) finally get his Worlds win. He’s been so close twice, and with as hard as he tends to take his losses, it’s been really tough to watch him the past few years. We all knew he was good enough to take that championship home and it just never seemed to work out for him, and the defeats were pretty devastating. It was his last chance as a Junior this year, and seeing him take the crown was really cathartic. It had the added bonus of leading into what was by far the best interview of 2013 Worlds, but it’s weird to think that if this had happened last year, most of us wouldn’t even have been able to see him win. It was an experience I think a lot of us really valued having, and I’m sure he was glad to have his audience — which I think was the loudest of all of the finals at Worlds this year — so I appreciate the format change letting us have that moment.

The Seniors finals was one I had less personal attachment to, but as I write whenever this comes up, making it to the finals of an event like this is a huge deal that very few players ever manage to accomplish. Players who do accomplish the feat of making it to a Worlds final deserve their moment in front of everyone, and I’m really glad they got this year… especially because Machamp dominating a final was another great show the crowd enjoyed.

The CoroCoro Cup

While Pokemon has few enough events that we have a tendency to overanalyze all of them to death here at Nugget Bridge (as seen for Worlds in the article What We Learned: 2013 World Championships Edition), the one thing I feel like the community overlooked a little this year was one of Japan’s qualifiers, the CoroCoro Cup. If you aren’t familiar with it, the CoroCoro Cup was an event for elementary school students where three players teamed up to form a team and battled other teams, with the team that won two of the three matches advancing. Species clause applied to the whole team, so they could only use one Cresselia between the three of them, for instance. The top team at each of two tournaments received invitations and trips to Worlds. While it was something I think most of us outside of Japan originally only had two reactions to — that at least one division of Japanese players was going to get an acceptable amount of representatives and that we were fiercely jealous of the awesome format — I think there’s a lot more to read into it than what we saw at a glance.

To get to the point of why I’m mentioning it in a Worlds article: like all of the Japanese representatives, the CoroCoro players did extremely well. Junior runner-up Fuko Nakamichi qualified through CoroCoro, and her teammates Ryusei Yasue (3rd) and Izumi Motoe (8th) both top cut as well. The other team of CoroCoro qualifiers included Haruka Narita (4th), Kippei Takaki (25th Seniors), and Ryuma Sugie (10th). While it sure seems like the Japanese players were just that much better than everyone who wasn’t Brendan Zheng this year in the Junior division, I think this tournament is an incredibly brilliant way to help these kids become excellent players and also make them more likely to stick with the game. Honest players know that no one becomes an elite player on their own in this game, you get good by practicing against other people and working together to build teams and share ideas. By forcing the kids to work together to qualify for Worlds, they learn these important skills and I think they’ll all continue to be stronger players as they grow up because of it. I have to imagine they’ll keep playing longer for similar reasons, too — they’ve now made these friends and teammates they won with and traveled across the world with, who wouldn’t want to keep playing the game with them? I think this is probably the single most brilliant Pokemon tournament I’ve ever seen and would love to see it emulated elsewhere in the world. Even ignoring the benefits to the players, it sounds like a lot of fun!

This isn’t really analytical in any way, but I have to add one thing: how awesome of a feeling must it be for those kids to make it to Worlds working together with their friends and then to all do so well at Worlds like that, for Fuko’s team especially? I think working hard with your friends and having success together is what makes this game fun to play competitively, it’s cool that they’re getting that experience so early.

Now on the TVs: Matches People Want to Watch

Perhaps the most frequent spectator complaint in the past has been the choice of games for the audience during swiss. While Worlds is the only event left on the circuit where swiss rounds are played on television for spectators, until this year both of the TVs were placed at the weaker end of the field, including the very last table, leading to some frustrating matches for spectators who often feel like they’re stronger players than the people they’re watching. Gone are the days of Air Cutter Tornadus and Minimize Drifblim, however, as one of the TVs this year was placed all the way up at the third table, giving viewers a much better experience this year.

The audience ended up getting treated to some fantastic shows even before the top cut as a result of the change, including a couple great games from Japanese Nationals runner-up Yuki Matsumoto against United States National runner-up Enosh Shachar and Italian National champion Matteo Gini. Perhaps the highlight match for the audience during swiss was Aaron Zheng vs Jordi Picazo, with the crowd coming alive to cheer for Aaron’s close escape from Jordi’s perish trap.

Don’t Dream It’s Over

I think the last night of Worlds is always a great indication of why these events are so great. Everyone is tired, we have a new champion, and as a result the other players’ dreams are dead until the next year. So do the players get depressed and think about their losses? No, they enjoy the game and the event and spend the night multibattling with players from all over the world! Pokemon has become what it is because of the community it has created, and every year at Worlds we’re reminded of that. I know everyone who went had a great time this year, and hopefully I’ll see all of you in Washington DC next year. The dream isn’t over for long, with Regionals presumably in a couple months, so I hope everyone is excited to get at it again… next year, it could be you finishing the year as champion!

Expect Worlds team reports to start being published starting tomorrow, with a bonus What We Learned next week to take a look back at the whole season, which will hopefully double as a feedback thread.

The post What We Learned: 2013 World Championships Edition appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Recently, Breloom has risen to prominence in the VGC 2013 metagame given the boost provided to it through its new dream world ability: Technician. With a sky-high attack stat, access to priority, good offensive typing and access to SPORE: the only 100% accurate sleep inducing move, its no wonder Breloom is a force to be reckoned with. However, Breloom does not come without its weaknesses, with paper-thin Defenses, middling Speed and weaknesses to common types in VGC, the killer mushroom requires ample support from its teammates. This article aims to provide an overview on Breloom, how to use it and how to ensure it doesn’t ruin your day.

Base Stats:

As you can see from its stats, Breloom has enormous attacking power akin to sweepers like Scizor, Garchomp, Terrakion and Tyranitar. However, unlike these Pokemon, Breloom lacks any sort of bulk with Base 60/80/60 Defenses. Furthermore, although it is the fastest of all Spore users (barring Scarf variants) with a Base 70 Speed, it still falls quite short of taking on faster threats in the metagame. Thus, Breloom will often require Speed support in the form of Tailwind/Thunder Wave or even Trick Room.

Pre-2013 Breloom

Prior to the release of its Dream world ability, the “standard” Breloom employed Poison Heal, allowing it to heal 1/8 of it’s HP (double that of Leftovers) each turn provided it is poisoned. Slap on a Toxic Orb and along with Drain Punch, Breloom gets decent healing capacity. The addition of Spore along with its impressive Base 130 Attack and strong type coverage against common Pokemon like Politoed, Tyranitar, Bisharp, Hydreigon and Gastrodon made it a force to be reckoned with. All of these factors would have made Breloom a pretty appealing team member, yet…

Due to it’s weak Defenses and average Speed, a Focus Sash-less Breloom is extremely frail and requires a lot of support. In VGC ’12 a sample strategy would involve pairing Breloom with a Fake Out user and going for a Spore. Other possibilities included Rain or the now-common Follow Me.

Poison Heal + Toxic Orb Breloom

Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/4 Spe
- Seed Bomb
- Drain Punch
- Spore
- Protect

As you can see, the main purpose of this set is to fire off a Spore so you can either heal back with Drain Punch and Toxic Orb or go for the KO with Seed Bomb. The EVs provide maximum offense and bulk allowing Breloom to usually get off a Spore. Yet, it’s still clear that Breloom can be OHKO’d if hit by a Flying-Type move or a strong Fire/Ice/Psychic/STAB which leaves it quite vulnerable.

A notable usage of this Breloom was by iss at Apex. You can find the battles on the Clash Tournaments Youtube Channel. In this case, Breloom was see on a Rain team consisting of Politoed, Kingdra, Thundurus-T, Scizor and Rotom-W.

2. Technician and the Rise of Breloom

With the release of its Dream World ability, Technician, Breloom received a huge boost. Defensively, its free item slot embraced Focus Sash with open arms. With the Sash, Breloom almost has a guaranteed one turn survival (unless you’re double targeted) enabling it to use Spore: the only 100% accurate sleep inducing move. Breloom can not only put things to sleep but do considerable damage as well.

Offensively, many Breloom opt for Bullet Seed over Seed Bomb given its base power range of 75-187.5 relative to seed Bomb’s meager 80. The use of Seed Bomb allows Breloom to hit through Substitutes and do massive damage to popular Rain teams. Technician also elevates Mach Punch to a respectable 60 Base Power STAB.

Some sample Technician calculations for an Jolly 252 Attack Breloom:

• Bullet Seed (two hits): guaranteed OHKO on Rindo-less, Defensive Casstrodon and Swampert and a 43.75% chance to OHKO 252 HP Jellicent
• Bullet Seed (three hits=75% likelihood): guarantees OHKO on Biosci’s Politoed, 236 HP/88 Def Rotom-Wash, 252 HP Suicune and Zach’s Jellicent
• Three Seed hits also provide a 6.25% chance to OHKO 252 HP Tyranitar hence, at least four Seed hits (50% likelihood) will OHKO
• Mach Punch guarantees an OHKO on Scarf Tyranitar and Bisharp

(Note: a switch to an Adamant Nature raises the likelihood of a three Seed Bullet Seed to OHKO Tyranitar to 62.5%)

3. Different Sets:

I. “Standard” Breloom

Nature: Jolly/Adamant
Breloom @ Focus sash
252 Spe/252 Atk/4 HP
- Spore
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Protect

Voila! Breloom’s basic bread-and-butter set. Focus Sash allows Breloom to set up Spore while a potential partner deals with speed control/redirects damage to itself. Otherwise, Breloom can fire off a powerful Bullet Seed or Mach Punch. Protect increases its survivability.

The EV spread provides Breloom with maximum offense and Speed since the Focus Sash eliminates the need for bulk. I personally prefer Adamant over Jolly because Breloom will likely be receiving Speed support anyway and the change in Nature likely results in a 7-10% decrease in damage roll. Moreover, Wer’s Breloom was initially EV’d to outspeed an Adamant Mamoswine whereas, now following the post-Worlds metagame, Scarf Mamoswine is probably the most common set.

As you can see, Breloom has a relatively simple and effective standard set which makes its easy to use and create chaos by putting your opponents Pokemon to sleep.

II. Life Orb

Breloom @ Toxic orb
Nature: Jolly/Adamant
252 Spe/252 Atk/4 HP OR Adamant with 252 Atk/140 Spe/116 HP
- Spore
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Protect

The following Breloom set although less common than the Focus Sash variant provides more power. The cost is survivability as without its Sash, Breloom’s pitiful Defenses are left exposed. Nonetheless, with a Follow Me/Rage Powder user, this set can be just as effective and possibly even more given the power boost. Focus Sash does have its disadvantages as it can be broken by Sand or Hail, and then you’re out of an item slot. However, be on the look out for double targeting moves that will cleanly OHKO you like Heat Wave or Blizzard.

The given EV spreads emphasize a maximized Attack and with Life Orb, Breloom hits like a truck. Jolly 252 Atk Life Orb Breloom has a couple of advantages over the standard set:

• Bullet Seed (three hits) gurantees an OHKO on Tyranitar (with one less seed hit than previous)
• Mach Punch has a 18.75% chance to OHKO Hydreigon (81.25% chance if Adamant)

Overall, the increased damaged output is beneficial especially in the case of bulkier threats such as Cresselia.

The latter EV spread, the given EVs allow you to outspeed 4 Speed Cresselia and 4 Speed Rotom-W with the rest dumped in bulk for increased survivability.

III. Scarf Breloom

Breloom @ Choice Scarf
Nature: Jolly
188 Spe/252 Atk/60 HP/4 Def/4 SpD
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Rock Slide/Stone Edge
- Spore

The third Breloom we’ll discuss is another uncommon variant: Choice Scarf Breloom. The Scarf eliminates the need for Speed support and allows you to fire Spores and attacks right off the bat. A potential asset of this set would be that your opponent may predict you to set up Speed support and redirect their attacks to Breloom’s partner, allowing you to take advantage of the situation and SPORE! Moreover, Breloom receives an added moveslot for Rock-Type coverage against Flying and Fire-Types that dare to take it on.

An effective way to take advantage of the strategy would be to pair Breloom with a (fast) Fake Out user like Liepard and preferably with good synergy to help get off Spores. The given EV spread allows Breloom to outspeed Scarf Tyranitar, maximum ttacking power with the rest dumped in bulk.

The set however, has clear disadvantages due to the scarf’s movelock and the loss of bulk and flexibility with Focus Sash and Protect. Breloom also becomes quite vulnerable to priority moves and faster Pokemon.

IV. Trick Room Breloom

Breloom @ Focus Sash/Life Orb
Nature: Brave
EV: 252 Atk/252 HP/4 SpD
- Spore
- Bullet seed
- Mach punch
- Protect

This Breloom variant is simple yet difficult to execute as it requires a greater amount of setting up. Although it gains greater bulk and offense relative to the standard set, one must set up Trick Room and safely switch in Breloom or a Follow Me/Rage Powder (whichever is not already out since Follow Me and Trick Room are incompatible).

Recommended partners include Cresselia, Jellicent and Slowking/Slowbro due to their bulk and solid synergy with Breloom.

4.Partners!

Togekiss

Togekiss is a near perfect fit for Breloom due to its good bulk and diverse movepool, specifically, its access to Follow Me and Tailwind. Follow Me is wickedly good in the present metagame as it enables a possibly frail partner such as Breloom to dodge powerful attacks like incoming Draco Meteors, Overheats and Flying-Type attacks. Tailwind on the other hand, elevates Breloom’s subpar Speed to dangerous levels and enables it to actually get off more Spores and powerful attacks. Thus, Togekiss helps Breloom live up to its full potential by providing it with necessary support.

R Inanimate has most popularly used the Togekiss/Breloomd duo to great success in the 2013 season.

Liepard

Liepard rivals Togekiss as one of Breloom’s most common partners; however, unlike Togekiss who supports her teammates, Liepard instead disrupts her opponents. It’s vast supportive moveset provides Breloom with a plethora of options to act as a pivot and unleash its power! Fake Out enables Breloom to get off Spore. Moreover, if the opponents Protect during Fake Out, Liepard can Encore for more fun. Swagger and Spore also form a fantastic disruptive duo to prevent the foe from attacking and breaking your Sash. Finally, Foul play + Dark Gem + Swagger is an amazing way to potentially OHKO a target. Thunder Wave is another option for Speed support.

The disadvantage to using Liepard is that it’s a bit of a gamble. Although you are able to set up significant disruption in turn one and two through Fake Out and Encore, Liepard is unable to give Breloom adequate support from Swagger Confusion 45% of the time (50% confusion * 90% accuracy). Additionally, Liepard, like Breloom is extremely frail and can be shut down by a faster threat .

The Liepard/Breloom duo has been used to great success by Baz Anderson.

Other Tailwind Users

Speed support is a near-must for Breloom due to its average Speed. Luckily, a move called Tailwind receives great distribution and its users have their niches.

Tornadus has access to priority Tailwind which is a great security. Further, it can deal damage through STAB Flying Gem boosted Acrobatics to deal with enemy Fighting-Types. It also has access to Superpower for coverage against Rock and Steel-Types. For the final moveslot a choice of Taunt/Protect/U-turn is likely. Torandus however, shares Breloom’s weakness to Ice-Types. Nonetheless, Tornadus is a great partner for Breloom with good offensive and support potential.

Crobat possesses a niche in Inner Focus, Base 130 Speed and defensive prowess against Fighting-Types. Thus, Crobat is almost guaranteed to get off a Tailwind, speeding up Breloom. It also provides an offensive threat through STAB Flying Gem Acrobatics. Taunt is also effective in preventing your opponent from setting up. However, Crobat has no way of handling Steel-Types and also racks up your weaknesses to Rock and Ice types. If you wanna check out Crobat in action see Wer’s team analysis.

Rage Powder Volcarona

Although not as defensively oriented as Togekiss, Volcarona provides decent support in the form of Rage Powder and Flame Body to neuter physical threats. Unlike Togekiss, Volcarona is a strong offensive presence and it can threaten Ice and Steel-Types especially Scizor. Volcarona and Breloom also have good defensive synergy as Breloom can take care of the Rock and Water-Types that threaten the fire moth.

However, a key disadvantage of the Breloom-Volcarona duo is that the pair is weak to Scarf Tyranitar and faster threats like Latios. Moreover, Volcarona is unable to provide Breloom Speed support.

Sweepers

Sweepers are often paired well with Breloom as they apply offense pressure to a Pokemon threatening it. This theory however, assumes there are not two threats to Breloom or a faster threat to the sweeper.

Terrakion has amazing synergy with Breloom. It takes care of the Flying, Fire, Ice and (to an extent) Steel-Types that would otherwise harm Breloom. It’s monstrous Base 129 Attack and strong Base 108 Speed make it an ideal sweeper candidate and Breloom’s partner in crime, yet one must be weary of Scizor and Latios.

Latios also has good synergy with Breloom. Its Psychic stab takes care of Fighting-Types while a Dragon Gem Draco Meteor clears almost anything in it’s path. Interestingly, one can also use it for Tailwind. It’s also got a useful resistance to Fire-Types, however, it racks up Ice weaknesses yet again. Like Terrakion it has killer stats: a Base 130 Special Attack and Base 110 Speed making it a great sweeper.

Rain = Politoed

Politoed is a ferociously good partner for Breloom. Firstly, it brings the Rain which nullifies Breloom’s weaknesses to Fire. Moreover, its Water typing has a good offensive and defensive synergy with Breloom as it resits Ice and Fire-Types while wreaking havoc on Fire, Rock, Ground (and to an extent) Steel-Types with a Rain-boosted, Water Gem Hydro Pump! If this weren’t enough, it also provides Speed control in the form of Icy Wind. For the final moveslot, a choice of Encore or Ice Beam can be chosen.

The sole drawback of using Politoed is that your team may be vulnerable to Electric/Flying-types like Zapdos and Thundurus which can hit both Politoed and Breloom hard with strong Electric-Type attacks and Hidden Power Flying respectively. Along with Politoed, partners that love the Rain will follow such as Kingdra, Ludicolo and friends.

5. Effective counters

Thundurus

If your team seems to be having trouble with Breloom, Thundurus is a great choice. With great defensive typing and potential, the right Thundurus can demolish Breloom.

Thundurus-Therian is a force to be reckoned with. With the highest usable Special Attack in the VGC metagame at a skyscraping Base 145 and decent Base 101 Speed. Given its offensive prowess, it can OHKO Breloom with HP Flying and dent Togekiss or other Flying-Type partners with an Electric Gem boosted Thunderbolt. Moreover, it’s Electric-Flying Type resists both of Breloom’s STAB moves but beware of the rare Rock-Type coverage move.

The Incarnate form, like Thundurus-T, is a great wall against Breloom, however, more supportive options like Taunt enable it to shut down its partner’s ability to set up Tailwind or Follow Me as well as Breloom’s ability to Spore. Also Hidden Ppwer Ice or Flying enables it to threaten Breloom and its still strong Base 125 Special Attack allows it to do some damage to a Flying-Type partner as well.

Dragons

(not named Hydreigon)

Salamence although an uncommon dragon is a perfect way to counter Breloom. With Intimidate and its Dragon-Flying typing, it resits Breloom’s Grass (4x!) and Fighting STAB. It can also do serious damage back through Hidden Power Flying and Draco Meteor to Breloom and a possible bulky partner respectively.

The Lati twins also possess good efensive typing against breloom as their dual Dragon-Psychic typing provides them resistance to Breloom’s STAB. Whereas Latios applies offensive pressure, Latias plays more of a defensive role. Latios can threaten Breloom with Psyshock and any partner with a strong Dragon Gem boosted Draco Meteor. Latias, like her brother, provides key resistances, but can also play a defensive role by setting up Safeguard to nullify Spore while still providing offensive presence through Psyshock and a Dragon-Type STAB.

Volcarona

sample set:

Modest
@ Lum berry
Potential spreads: 116 Spe/252 SpA/132 HP/4 Def/4 SpD
- Heat wave
- Bug Buzz
- Rage Powder
- Protect/Quiver Dance

Volcarona resits both of Brelooms STAB options and it’s ability Flame Body gives an attractive 30% burn rate enabling it to potentially neuter it’s offensive presence and Sash. Heat Wave is also effective in bringing Breloom to Sash as it is not redirected by Follow Me. The given spread enables it to outspeed a Jolly max-Speed Breloom and maximum offensive potential with the rest dumped in bulk.

Note: Volcarona is seriously threatened by possible Rock Slides and Breloom’s common Flying-Type allies

Abomasnow

(see araluen7′s article)

Timid nature
@ Choice Scarf
EVs: 228 Spe/228 SpA/44 HP/4 Def/4 SpD
- Blizzard
- Giga Drain
- HP Fire/Ground
- Ice shard

Abomasnow provides an amazing outlet against Breloom, the activation of Snow Warning breaks its Sash, and STAB Blizzard, a two-pronged attack both enable it to kill off breloom and deal serious damage to a potential Flying-Type partner or Tailwind setter. Defensively, the basic staple Scarf Abomasnow can take an Adamant Breloom’s Mach Punch provided it does not have Life Orb.

If you’re not fashion conscious and hate the Scarf, you can ditch it for a Sash a long with your very own Rage Powder/Follow Me user like Lum Berry Togekiss (Note: You shouldn’t just be using the Lum Berry due to Breloom fears). Moreover, Quiet Abomasnow sets can also employ Wood Hammer to deal greater damage to Rain teams.

Guts Users

An interesting option against Breloom would be bulky Guts users like Heracross, Conkeldurr, or Hariyama, given their held item leaves them impervious to Breloom’s Spore, and defensively, Breloom can do little to them (ESPECIALLY Heracross) outside of landing a Bullet Seed. However, many Guts user’s require Speed support whether in the form of Trick Room or a Scarf for Heracross. The former is easy to shut down and predictable, whereas a Scarf leaves Heracross quite vulnerable as it will be locked into a move and Protect-less.

Magic Bouncers

These obscure pokemon deserve a mention for their fantastic ability: Magic Bounce, an ability which enables them to bounce back Status inducing moves and the like which not only makes them immune to Breloom’s Spore but able to bounce it off as well. Many other Pokemon can attain this power through the use of a Magic Coat, however the only two Pokemon with it from the start are Xatu and Espeon.

Xatu resists Breloom’s STABs and bounces back Spore which is nifty, however it has no defensive presence and it’s offensive stats are sub-par at best. Espeon, unlike Xatu, possesses a respectable Base 130 Special Attack and a Base 110 Speed, yet it does not resist Bullet Seed.

When all else fails…there’s Vital Spirit and Insomnia…

Other Options

• Low Kick: deals more to heavier targets and punishes them for their weight however the loss of priority is noticeable.
• Drain Punch: enables Breloom to heal from a sleeping foe, yet again the loss of priority is notable
• Stone Edge: sneaks up on Flying-Types like Thundurus and Tornadus and deals a considerable amount more than Rock Slide (56.25% power for double targeting). The low accuracy, however, is unappealing and not recommended.
• Superpower + Fighting Gem: popularized by R Inanimate, this alternative to Bullet Seed forgoes its Grass-Type predecessor’s luck based mechanics and will prevent you from cringing at low Seed hits. On the plus side, it allows you to hit Tyranitar and other threats harder while making you more vulnerable to Ghost and Water-Types.
• Swords Dance: fake a Scizor-esque set and it is a useful combo with Mach Punch, however it requires heavy setting up and Breloom doesn’t come anywhere near Scizor’s Defenses.

Conclusion

To conclude, Breloom, a rising star in the current metagame you should watch out for. With great Attack, typing and movepool especially its access to Spore, Breloom is a great Pokemon. With the right partner, Breloom can further be a deadly and disruptive threat. In any case, a Breloom-weak team is by no means a good team to have in the present metagame. So, you better stock your team with decent checks and counters to the doom shroom unless you want to have your very own Shroomsday.

The post Shroomsday: On Breloom and Its Uses appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

While most players have their sights set on Pokémon X & Y’s release in a few hours, Sunday marks the first event of the 2014 VGC season, confusingly still taking place in 2013. Players have one final set of BW2 events to deal with and try to establish their CP positions before moving on to their shiny new toys in the next generation of games.  Expect the 2014 Fall Regionals to be tough as players will be bringing their A-game to the upcoming group of events on a level they didn’t for 2013′s Fall Regionals. Last year, players didn’t even know how CP was going to work during the Fall Regionals and many of them took the events less seriously as a result, whereas this year they’re both hungry for CP after the results of last season and eager to get CP in a more predictable, established metagame before XY and a new generation of shenanigans enters the stage during Winter Regionals.

Pleasanton is likely to be the most hotly contested of all BW2 Regionals. While we’ve had ten BW2 Regionals already and will soon have four more, the three week Regionals cycles in North America this year are going to make the events on isolated weekends much tougher than the others. With the opportunity for players to play in three Regionals over three weekends during each set of Regionals, there’ll likely be a few of the more serious players traveling on both of the bonus weekends, and for Fall it looks like Pleasanton will by far be the most invaded Regional. The swiss rounds of this tournament may wind up being particularly brutal because it isn’t likely more less serious players will show up than normal, with a new game having just been released and the travel distance being prohibitive for players who wouldn’t have shown up regardless of the change in Regional timing.  Odds are good there’ll be more spotlight matches in the swiss rounds than usual as players try to get through the pairings Russian roulette on their way to the top cut. Last year, no one made it to Pleasanton’s top cut with more than one loss, so pairings could have a big impact on the tournament early on.

As with the 2013 Fall Regionals, expect the results of the 2013 World Championships to be evident in the Regionals this year. Last year we saw a handful of players make it into the top cut by using the teams of Worlds competitors and many more players use tactics that were inspired by them, and I would expect to see more of the same this year. Hope everyone has those Lum Berries ready…

Pleasanton Regional

Difficulty Rating:

 / 5

(five ghost Pokemon returning to haunt the field out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Kim Cary of Second City Gym

Last Year’s Winner: Kamran Jahadi (Kamz)

The Story:  While California and the western United States in general is home to a group of players I have poked some fun at in the past for being a little over the Pokémon hill these days, there’s an interesting mix of players from that region who have had recent big events and cross-country travelers that should make this one of the more exciting Regionals in recent memory.

After a lackluster and controversial Regionals season last year that included both losing a bye to a tournament organizer error and missing the top cut in San Jose because he forfeited a game to conceal information and wound up finishing 9th, the now more appropriately named Gavin Michaels (kingofmars) is trying to finally have a successful Masters Regional after winning US Nationals and finishing at a respectable 3-3 in Worlds. The only other local(ish) players who competed in the 2013 World Championships in the field are Nationals top 4 finisher Demitri Camperos (Demitri) and LCQ survivor Alan Schambers (Metabou). Duy Ha (Duy) barely missed out on Worlds last year with a 13th place finish and Hayden Morrison (hakemo) wasn’t too far behind him in 16th place overall. Stretching the local thing a little farther, former Regional winners Texan Len Deuel (Alaka) and Blaine County resident Paul Hornak (makiri) both made it to the last round of Worlds LCQ, which they’ll be hoping to transition into some Regionals success after middling 2013 seasons. Kamran Jahadi (Kamz)’s season went downhill after winning this event last year as he gradually dropped in the standings partially due to an inability to travel, but as the defending champion he’ll be one of the favorites to do well here.

There are a few other players out west who were once among the most feared names in the game and will be looking to make a comeback. Two years ago this tournament was won by Marco Sandoval (Nickscor), but he’s been a little too busy making thousands of Air Cutter calculations since then to actually accomplish anything. Huy Ha (Huy) had a quiet 2013 season after finishing 9th in the World in 2012, but he has still had one of the best decorated pasts of any player. Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut) is a former National champion who is still playing at a National champion level but who seems to greatly enjoy undermining his own chances of success with bizarre team choices. At the very least, it’ll be interesting to see what he brings out this time. Omari Travis (BadIntent), Ryan Schambers (DeagleBeagle), and Thomas Mifflin (PBB) haven’t been big names in VGC for quite a long time now, but were certainly strong enough players in their primes that if they decide to put effort in they’d quickly wind up back near the top.

I wrote previously that players traveling from the rest of the country would likely be a big factor here, and there are a handful of players who are all among the biggest contenders to take the tournament. Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) has earned the first mention by finishing 3rd in the world and winning a Regional in 2013, though with his 2014 Worlds invitation already locked up he may not be his usual self at this event. The most intimidating invaders are probably a couple Midwestern players in Kamaal Harris (FonicFrog) and Zach Droegkamp (Zach), both of whom also won Regionals and qualified for Worlds in 2013. While he seemed to come up a little short at every turn in 2013, Matthew Coyle (EnFuego) is one of the game’s most intimidating opponents after making the top cut of Worlds in both 2011 and 2012. Perhaps the most intriguing attendee will be recent Seniors graduate Edward Fan (iss), who will be looking to continue a trend of early success among recent Seniors graduates over the past couple of years. Ray Rizzo (Ray) will be trying hard to name his own price so he can come as well, though William Shatner doesn’t seem to be Negotiatoring very hard for him. I haven’t heard anything solid either way, but there are rumors Stephen Morioka (Stephen) may be coming as well, who is a favorite in any event he attends.

A little recap: that’s eight of the top 16 finishers in North America last year that may be attending this Regional. Given that most of the points those players racked up last year were under the same ruleset as this event, Pleasanton’s quality of play should be very high for a Regional, especially considering there are potentially three more 2013 Worlds competitors and at least seven more players who have participated in the World Championships in past years in the field.

The Smart Money is on…:  Kamaal Harris (FonicFrog) . While Nationals and Worlds didn’t go quite the way he planned, the latter of which is understandable given that he had a schedule containing both 2012 finalists, the 2013 US National champion, and Canada’s best player, Kamaal is one of the game’s best players and I expect him to get his revenge in perhaps the last star-laden BW2 event. This is probably the most open Regional I can remember, though, and there’s about 15 players who have a good shot at this one.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

While I’m sure XY will be on everyone’s minds, this should be a fun event and I encourage everyone who can go to it to show up while the rest of us enjoy following the results from home. Firestorm, makiri, and Huy will all be there, so say hello to your friendly neighborhood Nugget Bridge admins if you’re there!

The post 2014 North American Fall Regionals Preview Part 1: Northern California appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Another weekend, another Regional! On October 20th VGC returns to Arizona, a state that that hasn’t seen a sanctioned VGC event in recent years in favor of relatively nearby areas like Southern California and Texas. Of course, those Regions aren’t so close that players who attend those events won’t have to put some effort in to make it over to the event, and with Texas having a tournament next week, the lower concentration of VGC players in and around Arizona, and the excitement over Pokemon X & Y, we’ll probably see Arizona having an even smaller VGC Regional like Northern California did last weekend.

To revisit last weekend, we saw Thomas Mifflin (PBB) take out Omari Travis (BadIntent) in what some viewers were shocked to discover was, in fact, actually a VGC 2013 event and not a surprise VGC 2010 event. The top four was rounded out by two more veterans in Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut) and Paul Hornak (makiri). The implications of this top four are worth looking at: the 2013 VGC season in North American Masters was largely dominated by younger players. First we saw some Regional wins by recent graduates, most notably one right off the bat by Kamran Jahadi (kamz) and eventually one by Aaron Zheng (Cybertron), both of whom were first year Masters last year. The strong Regionals season for the youngsters was followed up by a 2013 National final that contained a first-year Master taking on a second-year Master with Gavin Michaels (kingofmars) taking on Enosh Shachar (Human). Worlds was more of the same, and not even Ray Rizzo (Ray) getting back in the action could stop the rise of of the former Seniors, with Aaron Zheng finishing the highest of any American Master in 3rd place and Enosh Shachar being the only other American in the top cut. While the young guns showed up all year, there seemed to be some regression among many of the older players, which contributed to a disappointing finish for the country as a whole at Worlds.

It is particularly interesting, then, that in the first event of the new season two verteran players who didn’t make a real attempt at the 2013 circuit made it to the finals of the first event in the 2014. While it’s been a few years since they’ve taken the game too seriously, I was a little surprised at how many newer players didn’t even know who these guys were. Omari Travis was among the favorites going into 2010 US Nationals and was the only undefeated player in Swiss that year, eventually winning a trip to Hawaii to compete in the World Championships, where he finished 3-3 in the tournament at a point where I think 3-3 was a much stronger record than it is now given how many representative were coming out of Japan at that point and how far ahead their metagame seemed to be compared to the rest of the world at the time. Thomas Mifflin qualified for Worlds that year as well, marking his second Worlds appearance after qualifying in VGC’s inaugural season in 2008, though it ended up being cut a little short by an unfortunate disqualification. While they’ve both been out of the game a few years, they were once among the most respected names in the community, and I certainly hope we see more of both of them this year. Any sort of game is better when most of its more legendary names are still playing, and even as someone who was just kind of getting into VGC as those two were getting out, I thought it was a lot of fun to see them come back and do so well. Hopefully, they’re able to keep it up this season, because the North American circuit could definitely benefit from their competition after last season.

Arizona Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(One and a half Cacturne out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Patricia McCan

Last Year’s Winner: Silly template, there was no Arizona Regional last year…

The Story: While I don’t think putting VGC in new places is necessarily something that should be expected to start off with small turnouts, the timing of XY’s release causing the tournaments to run a generation behind in the Fall will likely lead to a smaller event here. While Northern California was small in a way that made the tournament hotly competitive because there was still an above average amount of the “hardcore” types, I would expect Arizona will probably just be small all around, with about half the big names attending as last week and probably a drop in total attendance to go with it.

That’s not to say there won’t be anyone here: the most interesting part of this tournament is that most of the top cut from last weekend will be attending Phoenix as well! I detailed Pleasanton finalists Omari Travis (BadIntent) and Thomas Mifflin (PBB) pretty extensively in the opening, and they’ll be back trying to rack up a healthy chunk of points before most other players even get playing. Even making it to the top four would put either of them at 200 or more points two weeks into the season, which is a pretty crazy possibility when you consider that it only took 274 CP to make Worlds in 2013, and with 16 invites this year, last year’s bar would have been only 240. While I’d expect those numbers to go up this season with players being able to travel to more than three Regionals and Nationals awarding more points than last year, the opportunity to build an almost insurmountable lead right out of the gates is there for these guys.

Also hoping to build on their strong early seasons are three other members of Pleasanton’s top cut, Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut), Paul Hornak (makiri), and Matt Souerby (matt). In the case of Mike Suleski, I was pretty ecstatic to see he’d chosen to bring the team he’s been using in Nugget Bridge’s NPA, where he finished tied for the best regular season record at 7-1. It seemed like for every tournament preview of the past year I was writing about how his team choice was holding back his skills, but that we all knew the former National Champion was still inside him.This time, he brought something that was strong enough to give him a chance to show off his skills and it paid off for him. I hope to see him continuing to finish near the top of tournaments this year, because that’s where he belongs. Paul Hornak was perhaps the member of the top four who’d fallen off the edge of the world the least in recent years, as he ended up with a respectable 162 CP last year in spite of not playing in Fall Regionals in favor of TCG and was a game away from qualifying for Worlds in both 2011 and 2013. Matt Souerby is someone I know basically nothing about as a VGC player and am aware of mostly from his presence in the  TCG community, but he’s done pretty well in the only VGC events I know of him participating in, and he took Paul to three games in top cut last week, so he’s done well so far and it’ll be interesting to see how he does this weekend with a little more spotlight on him.

Largely the players who did well in 2013 had a terrible weekend in Plesanton, but this week a partially new batch of 2013 success stories will try to start another good season. Duy Ha (Duy) is probably eager to put generation 5 behind him after finishing a game out of Worlds all three years, losing in the top 16 of 2011 Nationals, the final round of 2011 Worlds LCQ, the final round of 2012 Worlds LCQ after not playing in Nationals that year when it was the only other way to qualify for Worlds, and then finishing tied for 13th in CP in 2013, 2 Championship Points short of Worlds. Duy has kept a positive attitude in spite of being probably the most ill-fated player in VGC history, and he’ll look to add to the 50 CP he got last weekend with a bigger finish here. 2013 US National Champion Gavin Michaels (kingofmars) didn’t quite have his plan for Cincinno/Primeape figured out last weekend and wound up in the 50 CP range as a result, but hopefully he used his copy of Pokemon X and/or Y to play Pokemon-Amie and figure out what cutemons do to help him prepare for this week and avoid starting another season of underwhelming Regionals performances. Stephen Morioka (Stephen) will make his first appearance of the season Sunday (this time for real), and while he tends to fly under most players’ radar a little bit because he’s a modest guy and doesn’t spend too much time in the eye of the community, 2013 US Nationals’ only undefeated player in swiss should be on everyone’s radar this time. Ben Irons (benjitheGREAT) will also be making his first appearance of the season. He won his first event in 2013, made the top four of his second, and then seemed to tail off a little bit, but he showed at points last season he can play at an elite level and will be looking to get another hot start to work toward a second Worlds appearance this year.

The known part of Arizona’s field is rounded out by a few other players who have had some high points in their Pokemon training careers, but who aren’t positioned as favorites in this event. Len Deuel (Alaka) is going to keep going to events until he is a favorite and definitely wants the win more than anyone else, but after a 4-3 finish last week he’s going to have to engineer a better run than he had last week if he wants to even get into the top cut. Kamran Jahadi (kamz) was an unfortunate final round pair-up with Omari away from making top cut himself last week, and he will probably redeem himself this week assuming one of the hundreds of players he asked for a team actually gave him one. Alison McDonald (Fishy) won a Regional in 2012 and made top 16 of Nationals shortly after, but has been breezing in and out with the wind since. Chalkey Horenstein (Chalkey) had a pretty solid run at the beginning of last week, but wasn’t quite able to finish it out. I always get conflicting reports about whether or not Natalie Kaspszak(maski) is actually playing Pokemon these days or not, and I think we have possibly ended up in a bizarre situation where her father and perpetual simulator ladder opponent Dadski is the bigger threat, particularly after hilariously knocking out 2012 Canadian Nationals Runner-up and 3-3 Worlds finisher Mike Papagianis(skarm) out in the first round of the 2013 Worlds LCQ. Rushan Shekar(Firestorm), completely explicably, finished 5-2 last week, so I guess everyone’s favorite community organizer-but-definitely-not-competitive-battler has earned a mention in the auxiliary threats section here. I expect Rushan will be especially effective if the weird time warp from last week continues, confusing him and leading him to believe he’s participating in a tournament taking place at a time where he cared about winning.

The Smart Money is on…:  Stephen Morioka (Stephen). While there are several players who have a good shot at this one I try and pick to pick the favorite here, and I think that’s almost a no-brainer this time. Stephen had the highest 2013 Worlds finish of anyone here, the second highest Nationals finish of anyone here, and the most points of anyone here from 2013 Regionals… it’s hard to argue with that given that we’re still playing with the same ruleset. I’d expect big finishes from Omari Travis and several of the other players who did well last week as well, but this is Stephen’s event to lose.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

The post 2014 North American Fall Regionals Preview Part 2: Arizona appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello! My name is Konrad “Gonzo” Janik also known as your favourite EV training aid! This time, I want to share with you a list of good hotspots for Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. The code of the games cannot be decrypted yet, so I am not listing any Pokémon introduced in 6th Generation games because their EV yields remain unknown. The rarity of listed Pokémon is estimated and not 100% precise. Unfortunately, it is all we can get so far. This guide will be updated as soon as we get more information.

I stated Pokémon’s locations, their approximate levels, encounter rate (well, not really) and method of encountering. I also put EV gain from battling each Pokémon and calculations for EV gain modifiers so you’ll know exactly how many EVs you’ll get. A new type of wild Pokémon encounters — horde battles — are also listed. There are many other hordes, but I picked the most common ones, made of a single Pokémon species with the lowest possible levels. The guide is divided into four sections: Introduction, Hordes, Friend Safari and alternative methods.

1. Introduction

Important changes in EV Training compared to older games:

• The maximum amount of EVs in a single stat prior to XY was 255. In 6th Gen it was reduced to 252, so now you don’t have to worry when maxing out a single stat.
• Horde encounters are the fastest way to EV train your Pokémon.

Ways to Modify EV Gain:

• Pokerus – doubles EVs gained, can be combined with Macho Brace and Power Items
• Macho Brace – doubles EVs gained, halves holder’s Speed, can be combined with Pokerus
• Power Items – give 4 additional EV points to a corresponding stat, halves holder’s Speed, can be combined with Pokerus

In XY, you can find Macho Brace lying on the ground at Route 15, Power Weight (+HP), Power Bracer (+Atk), Power Belt (+Def), Power Lens (+SAtk), Power Band (+SDef) and Power Anklet (+Speed) can be purchased in Battle Maison (Kiloude City) for 16 BP each.

Calculations for EVs per Battle (Don’t forget to multiply by 5 for horde encounters!):

Base 3 points:

• Pokérus / Macho Brace: 6 EVs
• Pokérus + Macho Brace: 12 EVs
• Pokérus + Power Item: 14 EVs

Base 2 points:

• Pokérus / Macho Brace: 4 EVs
• Pokérus + Macho Brace: 8 EVs
• Pokérus + Power Item: 12 EVs

Base 1 point:

• Pokérus / Macho Brace: 2 EVs
• Pokérus + Macho Brace: 4 EVs
• Pokérus + Power Item: 10 EVs

Tips:

• Avoid Pokémon introduced in 6th Generation when EV training, as their EV yields are currently unknown.
• If you need simple 252/252/4 spreads, use Hordes. Using vitamins is unnecessary – two Horde encounters give you the same amount of EVs as 10 Vitamins.
• If you need a more complicated EV spread, use Hordes + Friend Safari or find wild Pokémon that can give you the amount of EVs needed.

2. Hordes

In XY, if you use Sweet Scent or Honey, you have 100% chance to encounter a horde. A horde is a group of 5 Pokémon at a level around one half of the Pokémon you can encounter at the same location in regular one-on-one encounters. Method is not listed as this works in tall grass and caves only. Recommended for fast and easy maxing stats.

HP

Location: Route 5
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 5
EVs: 1 HP per each

or:

Location: Connecting Cave
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 7
EVs: 1 HP per each

Attack

Location: Route 14
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 16
EVs: 1 Atk per each

or:

Location: Route 19
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 24
EVs: 2 Atk per each

In case it’s raining on Route 14 or 19, you can’t use Sweet Scent and Honey to encounter hordes. Alternatively use:

Location: Frost Cavern
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 20
EVs: 1 Atk per each

Defence

Location: Route 10
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 11
EVs: 1 Def per each

or:

/
Location: Route 18, Terminus Cave
Encounter Rate: common/uncommon
Level: 23/23
EVs: 1 Def per each/2 Def per each

Special Attack

Location: Frost Cavern
Encounter Rate: Common
Level: 20
EVs: 1 SpAtk per each

Smoochum horde can be found in Frost Cavern as well. It’s very rare, but the EV yield is the same as Vanillite’s, so you can just use them if you find them.

Special Defence

Location: Route 7
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 6
EVs: 1 SpDef per each

Speed

Location: Route 8
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 9
EVs: 1 Speed per each

Taillow horde can be found on Route 8 as well. It’s very rare, but the EV yield is the same as Wingull’s, so you can just use them if you find them.

In case it’s raining on Route 8, you can’t use Sweet Scent and Honey to encounter hordes. Alternatively, use:

Location: Connecting Cave
Encounter Rate: common
Level: 8
EVs: 1 Speed per each

3. Friend Safari

After you beat Elite 4, you’ll gain access to Kiloude City where you can find Friend Safari. Each of your 3DS friends generates three Pokémon of one type that can be encountered there. At the beginning, you can find just two species, and a third can be found after your friend beats the Elite 4, so non-Pokémon 3DS players will give you just two Pokémon. The list of Pokémon depends on Friend Codes you have, so after you go and discover your friends’ species, just check their EV yields. The best way to do this is to use Bulbapedia’s, Serebii’s or Veekun’s Pokedex, as all of them list the EVs you can get from beating specific Pokémon. This method is recommended for adding smaller amounts of EVs, impossible to get via Hordes.

4. Alternative Methods

(this section will be expanded when we have accurate encounter rates)

Poke Radar

If you don’t want to use Hordes or Friend Safari, you can try something old-fashioned. Finding random Pokémon in grass quite inconvenient, so you can try using Poke Radar to chain specific Pokémon with desired EVs. When 100% accurate encounter rates are found, I’ll expand this section. For now, I need to leave you with the idea.

Fishing

Attack

Location: Route 3
Encounter Rate: 100% combined
Level: 25
EVs: 1 Atk per each
Rod: Good Rod

Speed

/
Location: Route 3/Route 8
Encounter Rate: 100%
Level: 15
EVs: 1 Speed
Rod: Old Rod

Magikarp is on Route 3, Luvdisc is on Route 8

Surfing

Special Defence

Location: Route 8
Encounter Rate: very common
Level: 20-30
EVs: 1 SpDef

The other Pokémon is Wailmer with very low encounter rate. In case you find it, just run away.

Speed

/
Location: Frost Cavern (outside)
Encounter Rate: 100% combined
Level: 38-40
EVs: 2 Speed per each

That’s all we can get so far. I’ll keep an eye on any EV Training related information and will update the guide as soon as possible. Meanwhile, good luck with your EV training!

The post EV Training Hotspots in Pokémon X & Y appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Hello Nugget Bridge, my name is Zackary Thornberg, also known as Technoz on the forums. With 2013 being such an exciting and intense year for VGC, everyone has been looking forward to the 2014 season, and now it is upon us. With so many of the Senior division’s best players graduating to masters this year, such as DeVon Ingram (dingram) and Jonathon Hiller (MrFox), It has cleared the field some to let newer players take the stage and show what they have to offer. There are also several threats moving up from the Junior division into Seniors this year, like Brendan Zheng (Babbytron) and Beau Berg (Oreios). Also expect to see big things coming from earlier Junior graduates Ian McLaughlin (Raikoo), Abram Burrows (Abman261), and Brian Hough. So without further ado, lets get on to looking at the senior competition for this season’s Fall Regionals.

Arizona Regional

Tournament Organizer: Patricia McCan

Last Year’s Winner: None

The Story: Phoenix was a unique location for the Southwestern regional, considering that an official VGC event hasn’t been held in Arizona since 2012. One of the best players attending is Abram Burrows, who had a phenomenal 2012 season, getting second at Regionals and then not losing a single sanctioned match for the rest of the year! This is an incredible feat, considering that it was his rookie year. Abram also had a very strong 2013 run, getting second at Regionals, top 16 at Nationals, and 21st at the World Championships. There is no doubt that Abram is the player to beat at this event.

There have been rumors about George Langford (KobraTail) also attending the Phoenix Regional, but it he isn’t 100% sure yet. If George does come, we can know from his past records that he is sure to give Abram a run for his money.

Pennsylvania Regional

Tournament Organizer: Dorian Redburn

Last Year’s Winner: Ben Hickey (Darkpenguin67)

The Story: The Northeast regionals have always been known to have some of the best players in the world. This year is no different and Philly again has several Worlds-level Seniors. Paul Chua (pwny person) has been one of the best players of the division since 2012, after he got third at Nationals and a very respectable ninth at Worlds. Paul then had a very strong 2013 season, getting 2nd at Winter regionals, losing to Jonathon Hiller in the top two, and first at Spring Regionals, beating Cameron Swan (Drizzleboy) in the finals. In the Nationals Swiss rounds Paul went 7-1, losing only to the future runner up, DeVon Ingram. In top cut Paul beat Hayden Mctavish (Enigne), the future world champion, in his top 16 match. In the end Paul adapted well from his Swiss match and was able to defeat DeVon in the finals, claiming the national champion title. At the World Championships Paul did very well, making top eight and earning himself 120 CP for the 2014 season, but this was the end of Paul’s 2013 run, as Cameron Swan was able to beat Paul this time.

Another huge threat at this event is Cameron Swan. As stated earlier, he lost to Paul in the finals at Massachusetts Regionals. After having a decent Regional run, Cameron did amazingly at Nationals, placing third overall after losing to Paul yet again in the top four. At Worlds Cameron showed he has what it takes to play against some of the best players in the world. After a strong run through the Swiss rounds, going 5-1, Cameron had to face Paul Chua yet again in top cut, but this time Swan came out on top, securing his invite to the 2014 world championships. In the top four Cameron lost to the eventual world champion Hayden McTavish. Because Cameron already has his invite to the World Championships, he really doesn’t need to try hard at Regionals, but we should expect that he will still be playing his best to try and earn the other prizes available.

Brendan Zheng is a five time Regional champion making him a huge threat to anyone. On top of that, Brendan has gotten top four at World Championships three times and won the whole event in 2013, possibly making him the best Junior in history.  Brendan’s playstyle is unique and he has a lot of prediction skill, which is important in Seniors. Brendan has proved himself a worthy opponent to even the best Masters in online tournaments, and I believe that he has a lot of potential to do extremely well at this event.

Priten Patel (LudiImpact) isn’t a player that most people think of when they talk about Northeastern seniors, but his past definitely makes him a threatening player this year. Priten got sixth at Philadelphia Regionals in 2013 after going 6-1 in Swiss and losing to Jeremy Gumbs (Randomtron) in the top eight. He also did very well at APEX 2013, a grassroots tournament that is open to all age divisions, placing 7th overall, showing that he can play very well against the Masters age division. I expect Priten to be playing his best this season, as it is his last in the Senior division.

Texas Regional

Tournament Organizer: Mike Cook

Last Year’s Winner: Cedric Bernier (Talon)

The Story:  Last year this was a very heated regional for the Senior division, with competition from Cedric Bernier (Talon) and Aaron Grubbs (LPFan),  both very experienced players. Ian McLaughlin is one of the two experienced seniors attending the Houston regional this year.Last year Ian has a very solid run, getting second at Regionals, losing to Cedric in the finals. He did well at Nationals and Worlds too, getting ninth at Nationals after losing to yours truly and getting 28th at the World Championships.

The other senior attending Houston that I think is worth mentioning is Mark Grubbs. Mark placed third at Regionals last year, losing to Ian in his top four match. Mark didn’t do very well at Nationals, but he beat George Langford in the World Championships LCQ, earning himself a spot in the main event. In the main event Mark did incredibly well, going 3-3 in Swiss and getting 15th overall, even with a very rough schedule, having to play Jonathon Hiller, Hayden Mctavish, and Mark Mcquillan (woopahking123). Mark has very good chances this year, with the field being easier than last year and him really only having to worry about Ian for well-known threats at Regionals.

Indiana Regional

Tournament Organizer: Derek Farber

Last Year’s Winner: Brian Hough

The Story: Fort Wayne is a Regional that has more senior competition than you would expect. Most of the Seniors attending keep to themselves in the community.  Beau Berg, the 2013 Junior National champion, is someone I expect to do very well simply because of how well he has done in Juniors. We don’t know much about Beau’s style against Seniors and Masters because he usually keeps to himself on the forum and hasn’t played much in the NB circuit tournaments, but  this tournament is a big opportunity for him and we should expect that he will be trying his best to win this one.

Another player that not many people seem to think about when looking at the Senior competition this year is Ayaan Nadeem (Pokemonmaster), who had an amazing 2012 season in Juniors, getting first at Toronto Regionals, first at Canadian Nationals, and sixth at the World Championships. In 2013 Ayaan did very well at his first Regional in Seniors, getting fifth at Toronto Regionals only losing to his older brother, Umer Nadeem (Gorigenous), who ended up getting fourth. Unfortunately, Ayaan and Umer could not attend nationals in 2013 due to being on vacation, but I expect both of them to do very well here.

The last Senior that I wanted to mention here was the last year’s Fort Wayne Regional Champion, Brian Hough. We don’t know a lot about Brian, as he isn’t on the forums and hasn’t really been apart of the VGC online community,  however from Brian’s past VGC records we know that he will be a huge threat this year. Brian got 1st at Worlds in 2011 and 2nd at Worlds in 2012 in the Junior age division. In 2013 Seniors Brian got 1st at Fort Wayne Regionals. At Nationals Brian didn’t top cut, but he more than made up for it at the World Championships, finishing fourth overall.

Conclusion

I hope to have given you sufficient information about the Seniors competing in this year’s fall Regionals. If you are attending one of the above Regionals and happen to be a Senior, good luck! I made this article mostly based on players’ VGC 2013 seasons, and only chose a select few to mention, but do well at Regionals and I will definitely consider writing about players who do well in my Seniors Nationals Preview.

Feel free to leave your predictions, comments, or who you are rooting for below!

The post 2014 North American Fall Regionals Preview: Seniors Edition appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Finally, the last of the BW2 Regionals is upon us! I’m about 60 Wi-Fi matches into Pokémon XY now, and like I imagine is the case for most of you, playing Black 2 and White 2 again kind of feels like I may as well be playing Gold and Silver to me, but we’d be wise not to overlook this weekend’s events: one strong Regional or one terrible one can easily make or break anyone’s season as we saw with how close the standings were last season.

Last week in Phoenix we saw one of the smaller VGC events in recent memory go to Stephen Morioka (Stephen). Stephen is one of the community’s most consistent players, nicest dudes, and also someone who hadn’t won a tournament in a very long time, so it was cool to see him take one home. The runner-up was birthday boy Ben Irons (benjitheGREAT), who is another guy it was cool to see in a Regional finals again after a weaker second half of the season in 2013. While Pleasanton was dominated by the ghosts of players past, we seem to have rejoined the present a little bit last weekend, since even though Stephen has been around forever both finalists were 2013 World Championship participants. Both Phoenix finalists will be back in action this week in Texas along with Omari Travis (BadIntent) and Len Deuel (Alaka), two other players near the top of the overall CP lead and the only two players I know of who are attending three events in three weeks. One of the more controversial changes to the Championship Points system players were very interested in this year is how having events on multiple dates and a best finish limit would play out, so Texas should be an event everyone has their eyes on this week to gauge the impact of the new system as players start hitting a number of events that would have comprised an entire season before we actually enter the year the season is attached to. I’d also like to give a shoutout to Maylee Hornak, who became the first VGC player to win two Regionals in the same Regionals season with back-to-back wins the last two weeks.

In other community news, I should note that while I’m not sure if we’ll be seeing any VGC games streamed this weekend — we’re sort of limited on the equipment and manpower needed to stream events where we’re all at different places and playing instead of spectating — one place we definitely wouldn’t have been streaming from is the Texas Regional. While we wouldn’t have been doing anything there streaming the video game anyway, the TCG definitely would have had a stream from On The Bubble, except the Texas PTO is… trying to charge them to stream the event. I know most of Nugget Bridge’s readers don’t care very much about Pokémon’s TCG, but there’s a bigger community issue here that’s pretty relevant to growing competitive Pokémon as a whole. Obviously, streaming is something that’s pretty important to me both as a competitive player and someone who is running a site dedicated to part of the competitive Pokémon enterprise because it’s an important part of making the game grow by highlighting the most important matches and making the game feel exciting and accessible to players and potential players. For the most part, the same people are running events in VGC and TCG, so it’s pretty important if we want both games and Pokémon itself to grow — which is fairly obviously good for players, organizers, and vendors — that the people running events get on the same page as the players trying to help grow the game to make that happen. I imagine we’re largely stuck with each other and this game, so instances of things like this are pretty major setbacks and are probably not going to disappear on their own. It is very frustrating to me to see what I think is hard to view as anything but a PTO trying to exploit a fangroup for extra revenue to provide a service that is obviously good for the PTO’s event and the game the PTO is profiting from. I feel like in the real world, businesses tend to pay to have their events promoted, not the other way around. Streaming is something that everyone should be encouraging, because it’s good for everyone… hopefully, this is an isolated incident and something happens to lead to some change.

With that said, on to this weekend’s events! I’m going to try to mention a relatively even amount of players at every Regional because the point is supposed to be to mention the most of the best players at each event, which is going to read a little weird this week given the discrepancy in the experience of players in the different events.

Texas Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(four greedy Meowths out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Mike Cook

Last Year’s Winner: Ben Irons (benjitheGREAT)

The Story: Texas surprisingly features several players with recent success this season. While 2013 runner-up Oliver Valenti (Smith) has joined the big leagues in the northeast, 2013 champion Ben Irons (benjitheGREAT) is back to defend his crown after a second place finish last week in Phoenix. He was a roll or two away from another title last week, and I think he has an excellent chance of repeating in Texas this week if he plays as well as he did in the finals last week. The player who defeated him last week, Stephen Morioka (Stephen), will be here as well, and you can expect to see him do well again here: he was right up there with Aaron Zheng, Enosh Shachar, and Randy Kwa as one of the most consistent players in 2013 and had a solid outing in all five 2013 events. Speaking of consistency, Zach Droegkamp (Zach), he of the three consecutive Regional wins, will be here as well and looking to get a larger chunk of BW2 points banked. He’s had some harder times recently with poor performances at Nationals and Worlds and his first missed Regionals cut in Pleasanton, but it would be very surprising if he didn’t at least get himself back in the top cut in Texas. Omari Travis (BadIntent) and Len Deuel (Alaka) are both on pace to attend nine Regionals this season, and each have one top cut appearance to show for it so far. Like Ben, Omari was very, very close to winning a Regional already this season, so you can expect he’ll be hungry to finish the job this time after deciding to drop at X-2 last week. Len’s past handful of events have been pretty solid, which is lost a bit because he missed Nationals in 2013, and he’ll look to continue his recent consistency here and finish high enough that he’ll actually want to use the finish as he continues travelling around the country. It’s worth noting that all of the players I just mentioned who are playing in this event have something interesting in common: they have all played in at least one 2014 Regional already and will likely be among the region’s point leaders heading into XY.

While that’s usually about where I expect the list of names to end before I really start reaching for the events in the south, there’s actually quite a few more players that need to be mentioned this time. DeVon Ingram (dingram) had one of the more impressive looking losing series I have ever seen in the Seniors Nationals final, and I think his predictive skills make him one of the safer graduating Seniors to expect to transition well to Masters-level play. There’s a really small pool of players that I find particularly interesting to watch, but DeVon is on that short list of players who I think make the game exciting and I’m hoping he does really well this year, because I’d love for him to get some more spotlight, and he definitely has the talent to do it. Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh) seems to be the most easily forgotten player in VGC history, but she finished in the high teens overall in each of the last two seasons and has been consistently solid at every event she’s ever played in. Blake Hopper (Mrbopper) is one of those players that has had some strong internet tournament finishes but hasn’t quite had the same success in real life. Thomas Lamont (Captain Falcon) came onto the scene about a year too late to really fit into the whole ghost of Poke-Christmas past thing we’ve been seeing on top of Regionals so far this season, but has been solid in events he’s attended in recent years even though he hasn’t had a big finish since his Regional win in 2011. Ryan Booker (lolfailsnail) probably wins the prize for most eccentric team choice I saw at Nationals that almost worked, so he’ll be another player where it will be interesting to see what he brings and whether it helps or hurts him. Richard Ashby (TheAshAttack) sort of came out of nowhere and finished 9th at US Nationals using Lajo’s team, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can chain that into more success in a much easier event. Other Nationals Top Cut participants attending this Regional include Jonathan Rankin (JRank) and Kevin Fisher (Uncle Taint).

The Smart Money is on…: Ben Irons. I know it’s a little odd to do this now after (correctly) predicting Stephen to win the last one over Benji, but I like the odds of the Texas champion staying the same. I thought he played a good series last week and he has that extra motivation coming off a loss instead of a win, which I think drives people a lot harder. Everyone in that first paragraph has a fantastic shot, though, and I hope most of them make into the top cut to battle it out.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

Indiana Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(two city-defining Garbodor out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Derek Farber

Last Year’s Winner: Zach Droegkamp (Zach)

The Story: The Ft. Wayne Regional of the 2014 season has an attendee list that is a little odd. While the competitive community around Pokémon has been growing and the amount of “big names” going to most events has been increasing as a result, Ft. Wayne is the one event in the Fall cycle that looks a little more sparse as far as established resumes go than it did in 2013, ignoring potential total attendance. Gone are both 2013 finalists, with Zach Droegkamp and Stephen Morioka both going to Texas instead of the lovely Ft. Wayne. Without those two, Ft. Wayne is only left with one 2013 Worlds competitor: Kamaal Harris (FonicFrog), who surprisingly didn’t make it into the top cut in Ft. Wayne in 2013. After a disappointing first Regional in 2013, he went on to win his second in St. Louis, and he’ll look to do the same thing within the Fall cycle of 2014 after a disappointing first outing in Pleasanton two weeks ago. Unlike the finalists, the 2013 semifinalists will both be returning. Tylar Hagan (Tyler) is probably the most underrated player who top cut two Regionals in 2013, which actually puts him in pretty elite company. I feel like even people who know Tyler forget he still plays the game sometimes, but he actually finished 17th in CP in 2013, which would make him the illustrious Worlds bubble boy this year. On that note, the other 2013 semifinalist is Scott Glaza (Scott), who finished 5th in North American CP and was one of two people who cut the four pre-Worlds events in the North American circuit last year, but was too busy practicing writing in third person to participate in Worlds. On some level, as far as players who are well-known in VGC’s community and who have had reasonably strong finishes at sanctioned events, this is probably the extent of the list… but I think it would be silly to think that the three of us are the only “favorites” heading into this weekend.

Cory Moeller (cmoeller22) has done the impossible in that he won the Wisconsin Regional but has still stayed far enough under the radar that if I mention him to someone I still have to qualify the statement with “the guy who won the Wisconsin Regional” before they know who I mean. He ended up with a pretty solid body of work during the 2013 Regionals season between that win and bubbling out of Ft. Wayne’s top cut last year. The next highest finisher in 2013 CP is Adib Alam (honchkro13) at 36th, who didn’t have too fantastic of a Regional season but made it all the way to the round of 16 at US Nationals, and has had some notable online tournament success in the off-season as well. Travis Standiford (MagmaBSTS) seemed to finish just outside of the top cut at every event he played in last year, and will be looking to join the VGC-veteran-Regional-winning-renaissance. The last player with a relevant 2013 season is Maurice Easterly (Reeseesee) in 54th, who made the top cut last year in Ft. Wayne and in Nationals last year as well, but was unable to get passed me in the first round of top cut both times. Outside of Travis, who just needs to find a way to get his resistance on the right side of the top cut bar, I feel like these guys are all kind of in a group of players who have had some good events and some bad events and are looking to find more consistency in 2014, but who have shown that they can play with anyone when they’re on their game.

There are a handful of other players who are also kind of in that good-enough-to-mention-but-not-established-enough-to-be-a-favorite-ordinarily group. Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom) stands out as a player who doesn’t have many real life accomplishments to point at but who has been pretty successful online, so hopefully he’ll get a strong start to the 2014 season here. Luke Swenson (theamericandream38) is actually the player who won Ft. Wayne in 2012 and made it to the top 8 of US Nationals in the same year, but hasn’t really accomplished much since. Chris Wiley (IceKingz) made it to the top 8 of Madison last year, but ran into Zach Droegkamp a round before his win a million Regionals in a row streak ended. The last people who probably deserve a mention are Keegan Beljanski (Darkeness), Andy Himes (Amarillo), Brandon Mitchell (Bisty), and Andrew Burley (Andykins). Ft. Wayne is really wide open: with the field consisting mostly of people who could have really good or really bad days easily, anyone who has been putting particular effort in could vault on top of a fairly shallow group of players this season.

The Smart Money is on…: I know I blew this prediction two weeks ago already, but the last time I predicted Kamaal Harris to win the second Regional he competed in in a season he won, so this time for sure Kamaal to win. Admittedly, the keep-trying-until-it-works system of predictions didn’t work very well when I tried it on EnFuego last season, but what could go wrong if I try it here?

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

Pennsylvania Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(five time travelling Celebis trying to use magical powers to get an east coast tournament to run on time out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Dorian Redburn

Last Year’s Winner: Matt Sybeldon (bearsfan092)

The Story: As usual, the east coast Regional looks by far to be the deepest, and I could easily mention 20-25 people here who would be favorites if they’d driven to Ft. Wayne instead. Pennsylvania is the only Regional that retains both of its 2013 finalists, though they each went in very different directions after the event last year. Matt Sybeldon (bearsfan092) won the event sort of out of nowhere, having kind of been in that group of players that the community respected but who hadn’t really had a high finish in an official event. From there, however, he only went to one other Regional and didn’t make the top cut of Nationals. 2nd place finisher Aaron Zheng (Cybertron) may not have won the event, but he did go on to win another Regional, make it to the top 16 of US Nationals, and then finish 3rd in the World Championships. That 3rd place finish nets him an automatic invitation to the 2014 World Championships, but he says he’s going to try hard (for the hunnies), anyway. Enosh Shachar (Human), the third place finisher in 2013, had by far the most consistent season of anyone in North America, top cutting all three Regionals he attended, finishing 2nd in US Nationals, and ending the season with a 6th place finish in the World Championships, making him the only player to cut all five events last year. The other player who top cut in 2013 that deserves a closer look is Toler Webb (Dim). He was in sort of an awkward situation last season where he was still mostly trying at every event but didn’t actually have the pressure of needing to qualify for Worlds driving him because he was the 2012 Seniors World Champion, so it’ll be interesting to see what he does this year without the automatic invite to start the season. He’s perhaps the head of the list of players that tends to be underestimated by a good chunk of the community because he doesn’t do much self-promotion, but I’d expect at the end of the season he’ll be one of the sixteen players representing North America in the World Championships.

The final 2013 Masters Worlds competitors in Philadelphia are 2012 Worlds runner-up Wolfe Glick (Wolfey), Ben Rothman (Nightblade7000), and Trista Medine (ryuzaki). Like Toler, Wolfe hasn’t played an event outside of Worlds he actually needed to win in a very long time, so it’ll be interesting to see how he adapts to the Regional metagame after a controversial Worlds run. Ben ended up having a more conventionally controversial Worlds run that involved a tie to the strangest mechanical errors I’ve seen in a Pokémon match since the power knocked out a battle box in 2010 US Nationals, but he made it to two Regional finals in 2013 and won Apex. Trista had a rough Worlds run but was otherwise one of the most consistent players in 2013, making it to the top cut of three of the four events she played in and making the finals once. While he didn’t actually qualify for Worlds, Simon Yip (TDS) is probably the most motivated player in the field after finishing tied for 13th in 2013, which no one seems to be letting him hear the end of. I’d expect him to come out of the gates storming in 2014 to avoid his season ending the same way this year. There are also at least a couple aged-up Seniors from 2013 Worlds looking to make the mark on the Masters division in 13th place finisher Jonathan Hiller (MrFox) and 20th place finisher Edward Fan (iss). Matt Coyle (EnFuego) is my go-to for predictions in this region, but in spite of finishing 16th among North Americans in CP he had a 2013 season that fell below the expectations set by making the top cut of Worlds in the previous two seasons.

There are a variety of other players in the field who had one or two top cut finishes last year. Some notables include Oliver Valenti (Smith), the similarly named Alex Valente (avdc90), Tom Hull (TheGr8), Michael Lanzano (JiveTime), Patrick Brodarick (wer), Dan Levinson (dtrain), Alan Sutterlin (Dubulous), and inexplicably, Evan Latt (plaid).

The Smart Money is on…: There are about 20 players who could realistically win this event, but I’m going to go with the safest on average finish in Enosh Shachar. In spite of his consistency, he’s actually kind of the epitome of the type of player I don’t like to predict because he tends to make a couple risky choices with creative movesets on every team he uses. For whatever reason, in BW2 it always seems to work out for him. I know it’d probably be smarter to predict him to finish in 3rd, but getting close is good, too, so I’ll go with the 2013 season’s most consistent player in an unpredictably difficult field.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

That’s all for BW2! I hope everyone who can makes it out to the last BW2 events and presumably, the last premier VGC events of 2013. XY might be shiny and new, but in the end of the season the shiniest thing is cold, hard, intangible Championship Points.

I think it’s just Evan and I going to Regionals this weekend, but if you’re in Philadelphia, say hello to your favorite balding VGC Worlds commentator/Nugget Bridge administrator (and follow him on Twitter @NBplaid), or if you’re stuck in Ft. Wayne, you can always try your luck saying hello to me!

The post 2014 North American Fall Regionals Preview Part 3: Finale appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

While I’d normally be writing a Regionals retrospective right about now, I don’t feel like there’s a whole lot of value in going over the last set of Regionals given that they were the last events of their format. So while I’d like to congratulate JiveTime, Wesley Morioka, and BadIntent on their success last weekend, I figured it’d be more interesting to start moving forward instead. I imagine we still have plenty of changes between Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 and Pokémon X & Y left to discover since Game Freak doesn’t exactly release patch notes between generations, but with Black 2 and White 2 having metaphorically been stomped into a million pieces under our feet, it’s time to evaluate some of the new changes in Pokémon X & Y. While we don’t have an official ruleset for 2014 yet — which hasn’t stopped us from having super fun internet arguments about the rumored rules — the additions and changes to the game have a universal impact regardless of metagame for the most part, so I’ll be running through what we know and the impact it’s likely to have on the Video Game Championships (VGC) and competitive Pokémon in general. There’s a lot of new content in X & Y, so I’m going to break this down into three articles: mechanics changes and move updates, the impact of totally new content like new Pokémon and Mega Evolutions, and the impact of the new breeding techniques, 6th generation EV training, and the current lack of RNG on competitive play.

Mechanics Updates / Move Updates

I can almost guarantee everything that changed in X&Y isn’t here, but here’s the list of what we know right now. For the most part, these changes are pretty minor, but I will try to include all of the VGC-relevant changes.

First up are a bunch of balance changes to moves:

• Meteor Mash changed from 100 base power, 85% accuracy to 90 base power, 90% accuracy.
• Pin Missile base power increased to 25 power per missile from 14 per missile.
• Water Pledge, Fire Pledge, and Grass Pledge base power increased from 50 to 80.
• Energy Ball base power increased from 80 to 90.
• Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, and Ice Beam base power lowered from 95 to 90.
• Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, and Hydro Pump base power lowered from 120 to 110.
• Overheat, Draco Meteor, and Leaf Storm base power lowered from 140 to 130.
• Dragon Pulse base power decreased from 90 to 85.
• Muddy Water and Surf base power lowered from 95 to 90.
• Heat Wave base power lowered from 100 to 95.
• Aura Sphere base power reduced from 90 to 80.
• Power Gem base power increased from 70 to 80.
• Hidden Power base power reduced from 70 to 60.

The general impact here is that the base power of Special attacks were reduced across the board, with a few other minor changes that mostly only impact one or two Pokémon.

To get the simple changes out of the way first, Meteor Mash was nerfed a little bit, likely to help bring down eternal high-end VGC option Metagross a little. Metagross also received some other nerfs this generation as the Steel-type change gave it new weaknesses to Dark and Ghost (more on that later). It definitely wasn’t overpowered before, but it certainly was one of the best three or four Pokémon in 2012 and 2013, so it getting toned down some is probably a good thing.

The Pin Missle buff seems to have been done basically exclusively to allow Mega Heracross to use it with Skill Link and have it actually be better than Megahorn. Shallow impact, but Mega Heracross has the potential to be really good.

The pledges are only available to starter Pokémon, who typically aren’t very good in competitive play to begin with, but the increased base power of the pledges means that they’re actually reasonably competitive single target damage options for all of them. Trying to run a pledge team is still probably not something that has “future Regional winner” written all over it, but it would be much more consistent and viable than it would have been in generation five. I’ll probably at least try it out for fun now, which is a big step up from where it was before…

Other than the pledges and Energy Ball, which was brought up to be equivalent with the Flamethrower series (which it probably always should have been part of anyway…), basically every other viable Fire-, Water-, Electric-, Ice-, Dragon-, and Grass-type special attack saw a base power reduction. I’m not completely sure I see the reasoning on this one: other than Gem-boosted moves from the Draco Meteor series (which were metagame-defining and needed to be toned down), there weren’t any attacks that were overly devastating from the special end of the spectrum. While the reduction in damage is pretty minor, I imagine the nerf was intended to counterbalance the lack of a special Intimidate a little bit given how prevalent Intimidate tends to be as a check to physical attackers, as well as perhaps to reduce the damage of non-STAB attacks a little bit given how often most of the nerfed attacks are used as coverage moves.

The impact of that blanket coverage reduction is most seen in Hidden Power, the lowest base power move on the list, losing 10 power and falling down to a pretty sketchy 60. Given that using Hidden Power to begin with almost requires RNG or hacking I’d kind of hoped Hidden Power would just get removed, but the damage reduction causes it not to be very useful unless you’re using it to hit a Pokémon with a double weaknesses to a type, since even at double damage 120 BP isn’t much higher than what most Pokémon can accomplish with a neutral-but-STAB-boosted attack. The biggest hit here might be to Pokémon like Zapdos who frequently used Hidden Power to make up for a lack of a viable STAB attack, since 90 BP after STAB is still pretty pathetic even compared to the mediocre 105 STAB Hidden Power was at previously.

The changes here are minor enough that I don’t think anything is likely to be too important, with the Draco Meteor series and Hidden Power being the main exceptions. If the Gems are reintroduced at some point(more on this next week), the base power reduction on Draco Meteor and its clones will reduce the amount of special defensive EV investment basically everything in the metagame that isn’t a frail sweeper needs, which is a pretty major change. Similarly, the Hidden Power nerf means that other than the Scizors and Heatrans of the Pokémon world, most Pokémon are pretty safe from it now and Hidden Power’s usage will likely decrease some during generation six. A minor reduction in overall damage does slow the game down just a bit, which usually helps the strategic element of the game.

• Damage from critical hits reduced from x2 damage to x1.5 damage.

I think if you were to look at generation five and have to come up with one change that would improve the competitive game the most, reducing the damage of critical hits would be just about the best thing you could have picked. Especially because of the other qualities critical hits have in addition to the damage boost in that they ignore the defender’s Defense/Special Defense boosts and Attack/Special Attack reductions on the attacking Pokémon, there were no shortage of ridiculous critical hits through Intimidate Attack or Draco Meteor Special Attack reductions that won the wrong player games in 2013 and in every other iteration of competitive Pokémon that has ever existed.

Is reducing the damage of critical hits by 25% going to change that? Probably not, but it definitely makes critical hits much more manageable, and in many cases a boost of damage by x1.5 instead of double is something that can be feasibly EVed against. I’ve already played plenty of games on Battle Spot in XY where my opponent or I got a timely critical hit that would have stolen us the game in a generation five match, but we wound up with the right player winning after all because the damage bonus wasn’t enough to knock out the target. I’m a little confused why Game Freak didn’t take this a step farther and reduce the self-hit chance of confusion and odds of a losing a turn to paralysis, but this was a huge step toward letting the players decide the matches instead of dice. Hopefully, they continue patching in that direction…

• Will-o-Wisp’s accuracy increased from 75% to 85%

This is a big enough change that it deserves to be isolated. While most of us heavily involved with VGC had to think back to the amazing Will-o-Wisp accuracy Cybertron’s Rotom-W had in the 2013 World Semifinals when we heard about this change, Will-o-Wisp was an incredibly strong move even in generation five. With the accuracy boost, I would expect it to be a move that dominates generation six formats if physical Pokémon are as prevalent relative to special attackers as they were in generation five (and so far on battle spot, they’ve actually been even more common). It’s always been a little odd to me that there is a status effect that permanently halves a Pokémon’s physical damage output but not a special equivalent in a similar way that there isn’t a special equivalent to the damage reduction from the ability Intimidate, but hey, at least there were those move power reductions…

• Steel-type Pokémon are no longer resistant to Ghost- or Dark-type attacks.
• Fairy-type Pokémon have been introduced. Fairy-type Pokémon are weak to Steel- and Poison-type attacks and resistant to Fighting-, Dark-, and Bug-type attacks. They are completely immune to Dragon-type attacks.
• Fairy-type attacks are supereffective against Fighting-, Dark-, and Dragon-type Pokémon, but are not very effective against Poison-, Steel-, and Fire-type Pokémon.
• Among a few others, Azumarill, Togekiss, and Mawile are now part Fairy-type.

After not introducing a new type since Gold and Silver, Game Freak pulled out Fairy for X&Y. While it was maybe not the most welcome thematic choice for some of the older players, the addition of the Fairy type was a pretty obvious attempt to help balance the game. In addition to helping counter the powerful Dragon type, which dominated singles with Outrage and was at least metagame-shaping in doubles with Dragon Gem Draco Meteor, it is also supereffective against Dark and Fighting, which makes it supereffective against what feels like everything popular in VGC ’13 that wasn’t a Steel-type, a Rain Pokémon, or a support Pokémon.

I was not particularly excited when I heard that Fairy-type was being created because I felt like at least in doubles, the impact of Dragons were vastly exaggerated by most players. So many Pokémon needing to invest to survive Dragon Gem Draco Meteor was annoying, but that investment served other purposes, so it isn’t like it only there to deal with Dragons. Fairy was also announced around the time of US Nationals, a tournament that featured zero Dragon-type Pokémon in the Masters finals. My worry at the time was that I felt with the amount of switching that occurs in high level play, and the importance of not being threatened excessively by two targets instead of one, that Steel was actually the best type in VGC to begin with anyway, and that making it even stronger by introducing a new type it was good against was probably not going to be a good game balance decision. I didn’t realize at the time Steel was going to lose two of its key resistances, obviously, but I think it still winds up being a better type in generation six than Dragon, especially now that Steel might be better than mediocre offensively.

Fairy, for its part, probably winds up being the best type in the metagame. Like I wrote before, tons of Pokémon who were good in VGC ’13 are weak to Fairy now. Tyranitar, Conkeldurr, Hitmontop, Hydreigon, Kingdra, Latios, Scrafty, Breloom, Garchomp, Heracross, Salamence, and Terrakion stand out, which is about half of the top Pokémon from last year. While typing is part of what made most of these Pokémon good and that strength will be diminished with the introduction of Fairy, most of those Pokémon are good because of their stat totals, stat distribution, movepools, and/or abilities as much or more than because they had favorable typing. Since those other qualities didn’t change, I’d expect basically all of the Pokemon I listed to stay good in generation 6, which is a great sign for the new type. Somewhat ironically, while the type itself is strong, most of the Pokémon that have it are not, which is probably not surprising given that it was added to a bunch of Pokémon that were awful in generation five and that most of the new Pokémon with it aren’t amazing. Togekiss is the only new Fairy that was good before, but since it can’t really use Fairy-type moves offensively it doesn’t get much of the benefit. Mawile is definitely the big winner, going from one of the worst Pokémon in the game to perhaps the single best. Azumarill, Gardevoir, and the new Pokémon Klefki, Sylveon, and Aromatisse probably round out the group of competitively useful Fairy-types, which is a group with very low stats compared to most types’ top dogs.

As intended, Dragon sure looks a lot worse. Between Draco Meteor getting nerfed, Dragon Gem being MIA, and Fairy-types existing to clobber them, Dragon is the weakest it’s been since Generation 3. In the end, though, Dragon Pokémon have the highest average stat total in the game, above average defensive typing, and great movepools, so I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Latios or Hydreigon. For a fun twist, Garchomp will probably actually be better in 2014 than it was in 2013 if it does wind up being Kalosdex-only thanks to its Mega Evolution and the removal of some predators like Landorus-T and Cressselia.

• Drizzle, Drought, Sandstream, and Snow Warning only last five turns instead of until the end of time. Like their move equivalents, their duration can’t be reset until the original effect ends.

Other than the critical hit change, this is the best mechanic change in X&Y. I can only think of two or three teams I used in VGC ’12 or ’13 that didn’t have Politoed or Tyranitar on them because of how powerful auto-weather was, and while I’m confident my usage stats aren’t representative of the playerbase as a whole on this one, I think it’s pretty safe to say that they were a little too powerful in generation five. Those two Pokémon, along with Abomasnow and new Drought user Mega Charizard Y, are doing just fine on Battle Spot doubles in spite of the weather duration reduction right now, which is probably proof enough of where those abilities were before.

Drizzle’s duration reduction in particular is really good for the game. Rain has always been something that is a lot stronger against newer players than more experienced ones, but I can’t imagine a less desirable way for a new player to get introduced to tournament play than to show up to their first event and get facerolled by some guy mindlessly tapping various combinations of Muddy Water, Surf, and Helping Hand. No other brainless strategy is nearly as strong against an unprepared team in VGC as hard Rain is, and while Rain will continue to be plenty playable (probably still too much so), having the extra win condition of knocking Politoed out and stalling out the remaining turns of rain should help bring the archetype’s power down a bit. I actually find weather wars have been more fun in X&Y because of this change, since in addition to the usual situations where players are trying to keep their weather up against other weather users, you also get situations now where both sides know there’s only a turn or two left in a weather’s duration and Tyranitar/Politoed/Abomasnow/Charizard needs to switch in and out to reset it, which leads to some fun predictions. Great change.

• Assist can no longer call two turn moves like Shadow Force and Dive.

Rest in pieces, Divecats! For anyone who wasn’t aware of it, there was a cheese strategy in generation five that involved using Prankster Liepard and Purrloin holding Lagging Tail and Full Incense. The cats used Assist and their teammates only had two turn moves and moves Assist can’t call, so they’d get to use Prankster Assist for Priority Dive/Shadow Force and then hit last the turn they did damage because of their items, making them invulnerable to most non-priority damage. While this wasn’t a strategy that worked against most competitive teams and was incredibly all-in, it definitely wasn’t a desirable or skill-oriented gameplay mechanic, so I’m glad to see it was removed. I know at least a couple cases in Juniors where Shadowcats did really well last year and I really don’t think they should be subjected to that sort of garbage, so good work on this one too, Game Freak.

• Sleep returns to its pre-generation 5 behavior and the counter for Sleep turns no longer resets when a Pokémon is switched out.

Another hugely important change. While Swagger inexplicably made it past the watchful eye of Game Freak, apparently Mean’s Spore spam did not, and switching out no longer resets the sleep counter. Sleep moves put Pokémon to sleep for 1-3 turns, which for some reason during generation five reset every time you switched, so you couldn’t, say, take one turn off your sleep counter the turn you were Spored and then switch out and have that turn count against the timer later like you could in every generation from one to four. This was probably the single dumbest change I can remember the Pokémon franchise ever making, but at least it was finally reverted. Interestingly, part of the intended balance of that change was that sleep was at its shortest maximum duration ever in generation five at only 1-3 turns after having a maximum length of anywhere from four to seven in the past depending on generation, and that reduction seems to have carried over to generation six. I guess angry YouTube commenters will have to go back to complaining about shinies and legendaries now… another needed change.

Other notes:

• Dark Void isn’t banned on battle spot right now. This would not be something I think most players would like to see reintroduced into the Video Game Championships and not something that adds a desirable strategic element.
• Quick Guard blocks Prankster moves now! Prankster is probably the biggest mistake Game Freak ever made, but at least there’s a new way to counter it. Unfortunately, most of the Pokémon with Quick Guard aren’t in the Kalosdex…
• Follow Me/Rage Powder’s priority seems to have been reduced by one, notably placing it in the same priority bracket as Extreme Speed and one below Fake Out. Minor nerf to one of the game’s best moves.
• Several old Pokémon received minor increases in their base stats. Unfortunately, the changes are to such bad Pokémon and are so minor that they’re all pretty much irrelevant, but you can check them out on Bulbapedia or Serebii or something. The most relevant is probably Ampharos gaining 10 defense, since it also just gained a Mega Evolution.
• Oblivious now blocks Taunt. This makes Oblivious playable on a couple of Pokémon, though Aroma Veil existing outclasses it.
• Grass-types and Pokémon with Overcoat or Safety Goggles are immune to Powder moves including the redirecting effects of Rage Powder, Electric Pokémon are immune to paralysis, Ghost Pokémon are immune to trapping effects, and Toxic from Poison-type Pokémon hits with perfect accuracy, even through Fly and Dig, and Infiltrator and sound-based moves bypass Substitute. These are all interesting changes, but it’s hard to write much about potential metagame impact of them since many of them are either irrelevant or hurt and help the same Pokémon.

As is probably pretty obvious, I think almost all of these changes were really helpful. Some of the move base power changes were a little odd, but all of the mechanical changes were huge improvements and should help contribute to a more skill-oriented game in Generation six. I felt like we had a pretty good format the past couple of years, but things are looking up on the gameplay side this year, so I’m pretty excited to see what XY tournaments end up looking like. Expect write-ups on the new content and the impact of the breeding changes soon! If there’s anything I missed here that you think is important enough I should have included it, feel free and mention it in the comments and maybe I’ll include it in the next article.

The post Looking Ahead to Pokémon X & Y: Mechanics Changes / Move Updates appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Nearly a month into the release of Pokémon X and Y, many competitive players have already moved past the initial in-game and exploration stages and are starting to breed their teams to participate in Random Matchup to get a handle on the new environment. A nascent metagame has begun to take shape, and while it’s questionable how long conclusions drawn from it will remain relevant after things like the announcement of VGC 14′s rules or Pokebank’s release, I think it’s still a fertile ground for discussion because it is ostensibly the current best method for players to explore all the new possibilities that the new generation has provided.

Many of us English-speaking players have long been fascinated by the Japanese community, with their different community organisation, tournament structure and mindsets giving rise to a playstyle that can be incredibly unorthodox at times, by our metagame’s standards. Today, I bring to you a translation of a preliminary overview of the XY doubles metagame by Japanese player taroimo, half in an attempt to shed some light on this playstyle and half in an attempt to stimulate discussion and comparison. Please share your own Random Matchup experiences if you have any, and let the discussion begin!

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This is a translation of these two blog posts kindly reposted with taroimo-san’s permission.

A Brief Overview of the XY Doubles Rated Metagame

(Because I haven’t racked up all that many battles myself, I have relied on observations and information from others to bolster this overview, and as a result it may not be completely impartial)

Standard (Goodstuffs) Playstyle

In the process of trying out the various Mega Evolutions, the one Mega that has risen to the pole position in common usage is Mega Kangaskhan. Its ability, Parental Bond, allows it to attack twice and do 1.5x damage. The notable benefits of this are the capability of boosting its attack by +2 through use of the new TM move Power-Up Punch and knocking out opponents through Focus Sashes. Thanks to Power-Up Punch, it can tear through opponents even when afflicted by Will-o-Wisp burns. However, ignoring the mirror matchup and considering its performance, the vast majority of Kangaskhan are running Jolly, maximum Attack/Speed, and furthermore with it being Normal-type, individually Kangaskhan is not much of a threat. To compensate for this, other Pokémon must be called in for support. Examples of such Pokémon include Rotom (Will-o-Wisp and screens), Togekiss (Follow Me) and Intimidators. Kangaskhan can also use Fake Out, and this opens up the possibility for disrupting opponents by flinching them and getting off Will-o-Wisp, screens and Intimidate.

Rotoms and Togekiss nowadays are rather slow.

With the Fairy type’s immunity to Dragon attacks, teams based on breaking through opponents with physical offense are aplenty. Bearing this in mind, players can answer with things like Will-o-Wisp, Intmidators and Prankster Meowstic ♂’s Charm (there are instances of players using a Bold nature to perform this role).

If Rotoms are running slow sets, an Atk/Spe invested Metagross’s Choice Banded/Normal Gem boosted Explosion may be able to deal decisively with it.

Trick Room Teams

Hail Room

No big differences from Hail Room of the BW2 days here.

Pokémon like Abomasnow, Chandelure, Rhyperior and Hitmontop form the general structure. Cresselia is unavaliable, but Musharna, Chandelure, Slowking and friends get Trick Room set up just fine.

The traditional Life Orb max Attack/Special Attack Abomasnow is being replaced by Mega Abomasnow.

Rain-Trick Room Switch Teams

(Translator’s note: ‘switch’ is the term Japanese players use to refer to teams that incorporate multiple different playstyles. English-speaking players would simply call this Rain-room.)

The essential Trick Roomers are Trevenant (both Frisk and Harvest are strong options) and Gourgeist.

The metagame is devoid of Raikou and Thundurus, but Mega Manectric is worthy of attention. Manectric’s normal ability Lightningrod may be able to protect friendly Water Pokémon, but after Mega Evolution its Intimidate allows it to weaken the opponent’s physical Pokémon. By using Volt Switch to scatter Intimidate Attack drops, it is possible to do a Volt Switch-into-Trick Room strategy. Overheat gives opposing Grass- or Steel-types a good roasting. Hidden Power Ice, if available, lets it stand against Dragons. These are some of Manectric’s noteworthy capabilities. Being able to deal with Garchomp with its 105 speed before and 135 speed after Mega Evolution is another strong point.

Sandstorm-Trick Room Switch Teams

Generally composed of Brave Tyranitar, Brave Intimidate (Mega) Mawile, and the essential Trick Roomers. Due to the low number of encounters with this type of team, many details are still unclear.

Overall, if you are aiming for a high rating, you can expect opponents to throw Will-o-Wisps, Thunder Waves and Swaggers (Prankster Klefki/Meowstic ♂) at you frequently. Because of this, Safeguard is worthy of consideration.

If you have Swagger, you can use it to boost friendly physical attackers as well.

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I shall continue on from the overview in my previous blog post. I shan’t focus on specific teams for the time being, but rather on individual things and gimmicks that left an impression on me.

Rocky Helmet

An item that returns a fixed percentage of damage back to attackers who used a contact move on the holder (basically most physical moves, but take note that the special Grass Knot is a contact move as well). With the physical-centric metagame and the popularity of Mega Kangaskhan, the usage rate of this item has gone up. Ideally this should be held by a Pokémon with superior endurance on the physical side (In Rated Singles it seems that there is a high-ranking player using Impish Rocky Helmet Gyarados, and Rocky Helmet Roost Skarmory is also a common thing). Another noteworthy property of this item is its ability to break Focus Sashes.

Disquake

The Discharger role is played by Levitating/Flying Electric Pokémon, mainly Rotom and Zapdos, and the Earthquaker role by Garchomp. Sometimes appears in teams even though it is unrelated to the main strategic focus of the team. There have been cases of people giving Rotom Choice Specs to expedite the strategy. The Zapdos currently in Rated Doubles have no way to learn Heat Wave, but plenty of high-ranking players seem to have taken the trouble to get hold of high IVed Zapdoses with Hidden Power Ice, so Salamences and Garchomps should tread carefully around them.

The common moveset on Zapdos would probably, I dare say, be Thunderbolt(Discharge)/ HP Ice/ Thunder Wave / Roost.

Rotom’s Various Sets

There are Bold and Calm bulky Rotom with recovery items going around spreading Will-o-Wisps, but there are also offensive sets and Modest Choice Specs sets going around (and Modest but reasonably bulky Rotom with recovery items like Sitrus Berry and Leftovers straddling the middle ground).

If it were me, I’d want to allocate my Speed EVs for Rotom in the following manner: If Bold/Calm, 20 EVs to speed creep on 4 EV Rotom, and if Modest, then at the minimum enough speed to get the jump on mirror matchups, standard Tyranitars and Hitmontops. With Electric-types” newfound immunity to paralysis, if not using other speed control methods such as Trick Room, Icy Wind or Tailwind, I would want to invest as many EVs in Speed as I could possibly afford.

Mega Evolutions

Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Mawile are aplenty, but I see various other Mega Evolutions around as well. Mega Lucario hits a maximum speed of 180 after evolving, and before that it doesn’t get flinched by Fake Outs thanks to Inner Focus which should be kept in mind. Memorizing the base speed stats of the various Mega Evolutions is a must.

Weather Pokémon

There is an extraordinarily low amount of rain teams. There are a few Sun- and Hail-dependent teams going around, but due to the ease with which Tyranitar denies other teams their preferred weather, my impression is that the situation will revert its previous state, where weather inducers were included in teams depending on their base stats and their general utility. The flinching that comes along with Choice Scarf Tyranitar’s Rock Slides is strong as well.

Garchomp

A utility Pokémon. I get the feeling that a lot of players using it are thinking something along the lines of “Garchomp may not be related to the rest of my team, but if I put it in it’ll probably manage to do some work for now”. Initially, due to the presence of Fairys in the metagame there was some debate over the use of Iron Head/Tail and Poison Jab, but in reality Dragon move / Earthquake / Rock move ends up more or less covering all the bases. Compared to the days of BW2, I feel that there has been a marked increase in the usage of Rough Skin. I’m rather uncertain about Sand Veil at the moment due to its inherent large amount of randomness.

The post New Generation, New Perspectives: A Preliminary Overview of the XY Metagame from Japan appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Note: Some game mechanics such as Draco Meteor’s base power have changed since the writing of this article which factors into the examples, but the content itself is still valuable for the 6th generation and beyond.

Overview

After following jio’s guide and allotting the appropriate number of EV’s offensively and in speed, you have come to the point where you have leftover EVs and don’t know where to put them.  Or perhaps you’re trying to make a bulky spread to survive as many attacks as possible, but you don’t know whether placing the EVs in Defense, Special Defense, or HP is the most beneficial.

If this is somewhat along the lines of your thought process, you’ve come to the right place.

A question you may be asking is: “Why invest EVs in defenses in the first place?  My team consists of a bunch of hard hitting Pokémon that outspeed and OHKO the opponent’s Pokémon with super-effective attacks.”  The reason for that is that higher the level of play you go, Pokémon become bulkier to survive the attacks that are normally designed to KO them.  That Conkeldurr that you thought your Metagross would take care of with a Zen Headbutt will come right back and Hammer Arm you into submission.

When you first come up with an EV spread, it’s a good idea to determine the role your Pokémon will play on your team.  Will it be a Pokémon designed to hit as hard and fast as possible?  A bulky Pokémon intended to take out specific threats?  Or perhaps an extremely defensive Pokémon that sticks around the entire game?  The role that your Pokémon is intended to fulfill plays a large part in the amount of EVs that will be distributed into defenses.

Pokémon designed to hit as fast and hard as possible should invest maximally in offense, reach the desired speed tier, then place the remaining EVs in defenses.  For a Trick Room Pokémon, you can simply invest maximally offensively then place the remaining 256 EVs into defenses.

Bulky Pokémon whose job it is to remove a threat from the opponent’s team should have just enough offensive EVs to always OHKO the target Pokémon, or a chance to OHKO it that you’re comfortable with.  If your Pokémon is unable to naturally OHKO the target Pokémon, you can use a Gem, Helping Hand, Life Orb, or other method of powering up your attack.  Or, you can invest adequate offensive EVs to always 2HKO the target Pokémon, then place the rest in defenses.

For a Pokémon intended to last as long as possible, simply distribute all the EV’s into defenses.  Make sure that you aren’t missing out on any important OHKOs or 2HKOs though!

For those who may not know the difference between these stats:

• HP increases both the Defensive and Special Defensive durability of a Pokémon
• Defense increases the Defensive durability of a Pokémon
• Special Defense increases the Special Defensive durability of a Pokémon

Before we talk about EV distribution, one of the most important things you can do when creating an EV spread for a Pokémon is to choose a Nature that boosts the highest base stat (you can access a list of base stats here).  A positive Nature boosts a stat by 10%, and 10% of a larger number is more than 10% of a lesser one.  In other words, by boosting the highest base stat, you can achieve the same stats while using fewer EVs (or higher stats with the same number of EV’s).  The only exceptions to this rule are if you need to boost a stat beyond its normal 252 investment limits, if you have an offensive goal which your Pokémon overshoots with a positive attacking Nature, or in cases where you would need to invest so many EVs in another stat that boosting that stat would let you achieve the same goals, while still hitting a larger number of Nature boost benchmarks than would otherwise be hit (these will be discussed later).  An example of the former is standard Latios, which is most useful if it outspeeds as many Pokémon as possible.  Therefore, a Timid Nature is used to boost Latios’ speed beyond the normal 252 EV limit, even though a Modest Nature would provide Latios with more stat points overall.  An example of the latter is if you are trying to create a Gastrodon spread that has just enough offenseive EVs to always OHKO 252 HP / 4 Special Defense Heatran with Earth Power.  Gastrodon’s highest base stat that can be boosted by a Nature is its Special Attack, however a Modest Nature with no Special Attack EVs provides one more Special Attack point than is necessary to OHKO Heatran.  Therefore, by using a Calm Nature and the concept of positive Nature benchmarks, we can create a spread with a larger number of total stat points.

When you first go about distributing EVs defensively, it’s beneficial to come up with a goal for what you want the EVs to do.  This is greatly dependent upon the role you want your Pokémon to play on your team.  Is there a super effective attack that you can survive?  Or perhaps turn a borderline 2HKO into a 3HKO?  Let’s take a look at a standard Amoonguss spread.

Amoonguss (F) @ Black Sludge
Nature: Sassy (+Sp. Def, -Spd)
IV’s: 31/0/31/31/31/0
EV’s: 252 HP / 84 Def / 172 SDef
Ability: Regenerator
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Protect

Amoonguss is used to Spore the opponent’s Pokémon and redirect attacks as much as possible before fainting, so we want to make it as bulky as can be.  With the prevalence of special attackers, you might think to simply dump 252 EVs in HP and 252 in Special Defense  However, a common super effective attack that it falls to is Metagross’ Zen Headbutt.  Therefore, we use a damage calculator such as the Honkalculator 4000 and see how much Defense it takes for Amoonguss to survive the attack 100% of the time.  Once we’ve figured out that 252 HP and 84 Defense in tandem survive Metagross’s Adamant Zen Headbutt, we transfer 84 EVs from Special Defense to Defense.  Setting a defensive goal helps to ensure that you are not just throwing EVs randomly into different stats.  Another thing to note is that you do not necessarily need to survive an attack 100% of the time, just a percentage that you are comfortable with.

Some powerful attacks that people EV to survive are:

Physical

• Adamant Tyranitar’s Crunch, Rock Slide, and Dark Gem Crunch
• Adamant Hitmontop’s Fighting Gem Close Combat
• Jolly Terrakion’s Fighting Gem Close Combat
• Adamant Metagross’s Zen Headbutt and Meteor Mash
• Brave Conkeldurr’s Life Orb Hammer Arm and Ice Punch
• Adamant Scizor’s Technician Bug Bite
• Adamant Breloom’s Technican Life Orb Mach Punch

Special

• Timid Latios’s Dragon Gem Draco Meteor
• Modest Hydreigon’s Dragon Gem Draco Meteor
• Modest Volcarona’s Bug Gem Bug Buzz
• Modest Chandelure’s Fire Gem Overheat and Ghost Gem Shadow Ball
• Modest Rotom-W’s Water Gem Hydro Pump
• Quiet Heatran’s Fire Gem Eruption

A common beginner’s mistake is to EV too many of their Pokémon to survive a certain threat, like a Dragon Gem Draco Meteor from Latios.  While this can sometimes be useful, make sure that your Pokémon can do something to the attacking Pokémon in return, otherwise surviving the attack is pointless.  Whether it’s best for a Pokémon to survive an overpowered attack depends heavily upon the role it’s playing on your team.  Remember that a Pokémon’s teammates are there to help take care of threats that it can’t defeat by itself.

Now that you’ve created a goal for your Pokémon, it’s time to actually distribute the EVs.  The rule of thumb when distributing EVs is to increase the Pokémon’s lowest base stat.  Why? Because increasing the lowest base stat increases the stat by a higher percentage than increasing a higher stat would.  Blissey’s low base Defense is the reason that her Defense and HP are maximized, providing the maximum possible Physical durability.  Unfortunately, it’s not always so easy to tell which stat is the most beneficial to maximize on a Pokémon.  This is because it’s often more beneficial to maximize a Pokémon’s HP stat even when its base HP is slightly higher than its base Defense and Special Defense.  Let’s use Ludicolo as an example.   Ludicolo’s defensive base stats are 80 HP / 70 Def / 100 SDef.  After selecting a Calm Nature, you might immediately want to maximize EVs in Defense to survive Hitmontop’s Close Combat.  This is not the most efficient use of EVs, because even though Ludicolo’s base HP stat is higher than its base defense,  maximizing HP provides more overall bulkiness than maximizing Defense would.  Because situations like this aren’t always apparent, it’s generally a good idea to put all of your EVs in HP first, then the leftovers in Defense and Special Defense.  From here, we will split into two different pathways, EV’ing for overall bulk and to survive a specific attack.

EVing for Overall Bulk

Sometimes when you set an offensive goal, for example KO’ing a certain Pokémon, you’re left with a number of EVs that aren’t sufficient to survive anything significant.  This is where we want to spread the EVs out for overall bulk.  When you’re EV’ing for overall bulk, there is no definitive best spread.  It all depends on how well you want your Pokémon to take Physical and Special Attacks.  Transfer EVs from HP to Special Defense and Defense and between Defense and Special Defense until you achieve Special and Physical damage percentages that you’re comfortable with.  Only transfer EVs from HP if this will not lower the percentage of damage that you take.  You can also use a modified version of X-Act’s calculator to come up with the general idea of a defensive spread.

EVing to Survive an Attack

If you have more than 252 EVs:

With your HP maxed out, put enough EVs in Defense or Special Defense until you survive the attack. Use the minimum possible number of EVs for this, the rest should go in the opposite stat. For example, if you’re placing your EVs in Defense to survive a Physical Attack, only put in enough EVs to survive that particular attack, then put the rest in Special Defense.  This ensures we’re using the minimum number of EVs possible to reach our goal and saving EVs for other stats.  If this is not possible, transfer EVs from HP to the respective defensive stat until you survive the attack.  Once this has been achieved, transfer EVs from HP to both Defense and Special Defense until you reach the lowest damage percentages, or keep it as is if the current spread will provide this (make sure that you can still survive your benchmark attack when transferring EVs!).

If you have less than 252 EVs:

Oftentimes after placing EVs in both Speed and offensive stats, you won’t end up with more than 252 EVs.  If this is the case, start with all of the remaining EVs in HP, then transfer them into the respective defensive stat until you can survive your benchmark attack, or minimize the possibility of it OHKO’ing your Pokemon (or leave it as is if you already can).  Next, transfer EVs from HP into Defense and Special Defense to minimize the damage percentages while still surviving your benchmark attack (again, only do this if it will improve the Pokémon’s durability).

Now that you’ve come up with the skeleton of a spread, it’s time to get into the finer points of defensive EV spread calculation.

Minutiae

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Minimizing HP EVs

Reducing the amount of HP as much as possible while still retaining the same percentage of damage from an attack is beneficial both offensively and defensively.  Offensively, if you’re using a draining attack (e.g. Drain Punch, Giga Drain, etc.), minimizing your HP stat will allow you to regain a higher percentage of HP from your attack (since the HP regained depends on how much damage you dealt to your opponent).  Because this is the case, reducing HP for the defensive aspect is also useful.  This will allow your opponent to regain fewer HP when they use a draining attack on you.  Remember to only minimize HP to the extent that the damage percentages remain the same; it’s not worth doing if you take a lot more damage from an attack.

The only instances that reducing HP is not beneficial is when you’re getting attacked by a fixed damage attack like Night Shade or Seismic Toss, or by an attack with recoil damage such as Flare Blitz or Brave Bird.  Because they are both calculated based on actual HP points, you would take a higher percentage of damage from fixed damage moves and recoil from attacks like Flare Blitz.  In addition, the opponent attacking you with a recoil move would take a lower percentage of damage from recoil.  However due to the relative obscurity of these moves compared to Conkeldurr’s Drain Punch, it’s generally worth it to minimize HP.

This brings me to my next point, which is to represent damage as percentages of HP lost as opposed to the amount of HP lost.  Different EV spreads will have a different amount of EVs invested in HP and Defense/Special Defense, therefore comparing spreads using HP lost is inaccurate because a spread’s defensive durability may lie in its Defense and Special Defense investment, giving the same Pokémon a different HP number from an alternate spread.  This is also the reason that the myth that maximizing HP for Sitrus Berry use is beneficial holds no credence.  After all, you are recovering 25% of your HP with Sitrus Berry – whether or not you have a higher HP stat makes no difference.  The only instances where you want to calculate damage using HP lost is if you’re trying to survive two successive attacks, or an attack and passive damage , where you need to add up the HP lost for both cases and make sure that you have at least 1 HP remaining.

Before we get into the next section, it’s best to understand the concept of a benchmark.  A benchmark is a special number that achieves a certain goal, be it reducing passive damage, reaching an efficient substitute number, maximizing Leftovers recovery, or gaining an extra point from a boosting Nature.  It’s best to look for all of these benchmarks in an EV spread to see if it would benefit your Pokémon to reach it.

Note: The next few points are also explained very well in DaWoblefet’s guide Stepping it Up: Small Ways to Improve Your Game, but are reiterated here for completeness sake. Go check it out!

Reducing Passive Damage

Reducing the amount of damage that you take from passive damage (e.g. Burn damage, Sandstorm/Hail damage, Poison damage, Life Orb recoil) can be very beneficial.  To do this, we need to know the percentage of HP that these reduce per turn.

• Sandstorm/Hail: 6.25% or 1/16 of max HP
• Burn: 12.5% or ⅛ of max HP
• Poison: 12.5% or ⅛ of max HP, increases by 12.5% every turn for a badly poisoned Pokémon
• Life Orb: 10% or ⅒ of max HP

With this in mind, if we want to take one less point of damage we reduce a Pokémon’s HP stat to one under a multiple of 16, 8, or 10, depending on the passive damage you’re trying to reduce.  For example, Cresselia often uses 220 HP EVs because this reaches the HP stat of 223.  223 is one under a multiple of 16, which means that Cresselia will take one point less of Sandstorm, Burn, and Poison Damage (Burn and Poison damage are also reduced because 12.5% is a multiple of 6.25%).  Why does this work?  It’s because the game rounds down for most numerical values, truncating all numbers after the decimal point.  In other words, 224 divided by 16 is 14, while 223 divided by 16 is 13.9375, rounded down to 13 points of damage.  For certain Pokémon like Cresselia and Togekiss that stay on the field for a long time, it’s a good idea to minimize Sandstorm damage because of the large number of Tyranitars they tend to attract.

Only attempt to reduce passive damage if it will not significantly increase your damage percentages taken from attacks.

Distributing HP for Leftovers/Black Sludge

Leftovers and Black Sludge both recover 1/16 of your max HP rounded down at the end of the turn, so to make sure that you get a whole number of HP recovered, it’s beneficial to have an HP stat that is divisible by 16.  Only implement this technique if you won’t take significantly more damage and the benchmark is just a few points above your current HP stat (i.e. don’t reduce your HP stat just for the sake of perfect Leftovers recovery).

Distributing HP for Sitrus Berry

Sitrus Berry restores ¼ of your Pokémon’s max HP, so you want your HP stat to be divisible by four.  Similar to Leftovers, getting perfect Sitrus Berry recovery is not a very high priority, so only attempt to do so if you won’t take a higher percentage of damage from attacks.  If you prefer not to make the HP stat divisible by four, try to make it an even number.  This will cause Sitrus Berry to activate after your Pokémon is hit by Super Fang, making it more difficult for it to be picked off by a follow-up attack.  If the HP stat is an odd number, Super Fang would leave you sitting just above 50% HP, preventing Sitrus Berry from activating.  Also, if you want to see if your Pokémon will be able to survive two consecutive attacks while factoring in the Sitrus Berry, simply multiply the HP stat by 1.25, then round down.  Add up the maximum damage rolls of the two attacks, and if it’s less than your HP * 1.25, you’re good to go!

Distributing HP for Substitute

The move Substitute reduces your HP by ¼ of your max HP (rounded down) to produce a plush doll that bravely takes attacks in place of your Pokémon.  To get an optimum Substitute HP benchmark, either make the HP stat one over a multiple of four, or simply make the HP stat not divisible by four.  This will allow you to substitute four times with one to three HP leftover.  If you’re also holding the item Leftovers, it’s best to make your HP stat equal to 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, or 11 points above a multiple of 16.  This allows your Pokémon to create four Substitutes, then have recovered enough HP with Leftovers to create another one (assuming your Pokémon took no other damage).

Using the Minimum Number of EVs

Have you ever wondered why Latios with Hidden Power Fire only run 248 Special Attack EVs?  This is because Hidden Power Fire requires your Special Attack stat to be 30, and whether a stat’s IVs are even or odd determines the number of EVs that is necessary to invest to reach a certain stat point.  If a stat has an odd number of IVs, the EVs divided by 8 should have a decimal value of .5.  If a stat has an even number of IVs, the EVs divided by 8 should be a whole number.  If these conditions are not met, you’re wasting EVs due to the way the game calculates stats at level 50 (e.g. It takes 8 EVs to increase a stat by one point after the initial 4, assuming odd IVs).  Returning to the Latios example, since Hidden Power Fire requires an even number of IVs in Special Attack, the EVs invested need to be divisible by 8.  Therefore, 248 EVs is the maximum number of EVs that can be invested in Special Attack. (Note: This is only relevant at Level 50.  At level 100, whether an IV is even or odd makes no difference on the amount of EVs that can be invested.)

Minimizing Attack on Special Attackers

On special attackers, reducing the attack IV to zero minimizes the damage that your Pokémon takes from self-inflicted confusion damage and Foul Play.  Also, unless your special attacker is used in Trick Room (which generally indicates a negative speed Nature), choose a Nature that reduces the Attack stat for the same reasons.  As DaWoblefet mentioned in his article, to minimize IVs while keeping the same Hidden Power type and power simply reduce the IVs to 2 if it was originally an even number and reduce them to 3 if  it was originally odd.

Improving an HP Spread

A simple trick to improve the overall bulk of a Pokemon utilizing a spread with defensive investment solely in HP is to remove 8 EVs from HP and place 4 EVs in Defense and 4 in Special Defense.  This trick is successful on most Pokémon unless its base HP is a lot lower than its base Defense and Special Defense.  However, it only works if the IVs in Defense and Special Defense are odd.  The methodology behind the madness is that you are in effect removing one point of HP and adding one point in both Defense and Special Defense.

Nature Boosted Stat Benchmarks

A positive Nature increases a stat by 10%, and because the game generally rounds down, there are benchmarks for an extra stat point at every multiple of 10.  For example, Thundurus has a Special Defense stat of 100 with a neutral Nature and no Special Defense investment.  The next Nature benchmark is at 110 (the next multiple of 10), meaning we would have to increase its stat by 10 points to get an extra point from a Special Defense boosting Nature (e.g. Calm).  Assuming there is an odd number of IVs in Special Defense, this would require 4 + (8 * 9) = 76 EVs (4 EVs to increase the stat by 1 point, then 8 EVs each for the other 9 stat points).  Once you’ve found the first benchmark, you can simply add 80 EVs to reach the next benchmark.  In Thundurus’ case, they  would be 156 EVs and 236 EVs.

This skill is useful for knowing how many EVs you need for the boosted stat to gain an extra point, often making a difference in the stat total.  When you are making the skeleton of an EV spread, try reaching a positive Nature benchmark in a stat to begin with, as this can save you EVs for other stats and often results in the most efficient defensive spreads.

Comparing EV Spreads

When you’re comparing two EV spreads for a Pokémon, there are two different ways to go about doing so.  The first is to simply compare the percentage of damage dealt from an attack both on the Specially Defensive and Defensive sides of both Pokémon (a simple way of doing this with one attacker is to use Psychic and Psyshock).  This helps you to see which spread is bulkier in each area.  The second method is to calculate the damage of both spreads when hit by successive Special and Physical attacks.  This factors in the damage from both Physical and Special moves and gives you an idea about the spread’s overall bulk.  In addition, you can subtract the HP lost from passive damage from both spreads to compute the number of turns it takes for a spread with reduced passive damage to have a lower percentage of damage than one without it would.

When I wanted to compare two different Conkeldurr spreads to see which one was bulkier overall (one of which was designed to minimize HP while the other was meant to maximize HP while minimizing Sandstorm Damage), I wanted to account for passive Sandstorm damage and Life Orb recoil while factoring in the HP regained through Drain Punch.  In this case, I decided to compare the physical and special aspects of Conkeldurr’s defenses separately as opposed to successively.

Note that the choice of Cresselia as an attacker on Conkeldurr and Gastrodon as a defender from Conkeldurr’s Drain Punch was arbitrary, any Pokémon and attacks are acceptable as long as you compare the same spreads using the same specifications.  However, an EV spread that takes less damage from one attack than another spread may take a higher percentage of damage from a different attack, so the comparison is not always objective.  In the following example, I compute the damage taken from a neutral Natured zero Special Attack investment Cresselia’s Psychic and Psyshock, while taking into account passive Sandstorm damage and Life Orb recoil.  In addition, I decided to compare the amount of HP recovered from both Conkeldurr’s Drain Punches attacking 108 Def Bold Gastrodon.

Spread #1: 188 HP / 44 Def / 20 SpDef; Actual HP stat: 204

Cresselia’s Psychic does at most 132 damage, so we subtract that from 204 HP and have 72 HP remaining.  Next, we want to take Life Orb into account.  Ten percent of 204, our max HP stat, is 20 damage (20.4 rounded down), therefore we subtract 20 from 72 and end up with 52 HP remaining.  Finally, we subtract 12 HP for Sandstorm damage (204 divided by 16 rounded down) and end up with 40 HP remaining.  Taking this number, we find the percentage of HP remaining Conkeldurr actually has by dividing it by the HP stat at full health.  This leaves us with a value of 40 / 204, or 19.61%

In mathematical terms:

• 204 (Max HP) – 132 (Psychic damage) – 20 (Life Orb recoil)  - 12 (Sandstorm damage) = 40 HP
• % HP Remaining: 19.61 (40 / 204)

Next, we’ll restore some HP from the damage dealt to Gastrodon through Drain Punch.  The maximum damage done to 108 Def Bold Gastrodon is 148, so the HP recovered in this situation would be 148 divided by 2, or 74 HP.  Therefore, we add 74 to our subtotal of 40 and end up with 114 HP.

In short:

• 40 (HP remaining) + 74 (HP recovered) = 114 HP After Sandstorm, Life Orb, and Drain Punch recovery.
• The final percent of HP remaining would be 114 divided by 204, or 55.88%.

With the Specially Defensive side finished for this spread, we now move on to the Defensive aspect.  Neutral Natured zero Special Attack investment Cresselia does a maximum of 86 damage to this Conkeldurr spread, so we subtract 86 from 204, our original HP stat.  Next, we again subtract 20 HP for Life Orb recoil and 12 HP for Sandstorm damage.  This leaves us with 86 HP, or 42.16% of our max HP.

• 204 (Max HP) – 86 (Psyshock damage) – 20 (Life Orb recoil) – 12 (Sandstorm damage) = 86 HP
• % HP Remaining: 42.16 (86 / 204)

After attacking a Bold 108 Def EVs Gastrodon, the maximum HP recovered is 74, which we add back to our subtotal of 86.  Doing so, we end up with a total of 160 HP, or 78.43% of our max HP.

• 86 (HP remaining) + 74 HP (HP recovered) = 160 HP After Sandstorm, Life Orb, and Drain Punch recovery
• Total % HP Remaining: 78.43 (160 / 204)

Spread #2: 212 HP / 28 Def / 12 SpDef; Actual HP Stat: 207

Just like the first spread, we’ll calculate the percentage of health remaining from neutral Natured 0 Special Attack investment Cresselia’s Psychic and Psyshock, subtract Life Orb recoil and Sand damage, then add back HP regained from Drain Punch.  Since it’s likely you don’t want the same process explained twice, here are the cold hard calculations.

• 0 SAtk EV Cresselia’s Psychic: 134 Max Damage
• 207 (Max HP) – 134 (Psychic damage) – 20 (Life Orb recoil) – 12 (Sandstorm damage) = 41 HP
• % HP Remaining: 19.81 (41 / 207)

After attacking 108 Def Bold Gastrodon, Max HP Recovered is 74 (damage dealt to Gastrodon  / 2)

• 41 (HP remaining) + 74 (HP recovered) = 115 HP After Sandstorm, Life Orb, and Drain Punch recovery
• Total % HP Remaining: 55.56 (115 / 207)
• 0 SAtk EV Cresselia’s Psyshock: 90 Max Damage
• 207 (Max HP) – 90 (Psyshock damage) – 20 (Life Orb recoil) – 12 (Sandstorm damage) = 85 HP
• % HP Remaining: 41.06 (85 / 207)

After attacking 108 Def Bold Gastrodon, Max HP Recovered is 74 (damage dealt to Gastrodon / 2)

• 85 + 74 = 159 HP After Sandstorm, LO, and Drain Punch recovery
• Total % HP Remaining: 76.81 (159 / 207)

Now what do all of these numbers mean?  Looking at the damage taken from Cresselia’s Psychic, we notice that the percentage of HP remaining for the first spread was 55.88%, while the percentage of HP remaining for the second one was only 55.56%.  On the physical side, the first spread has 78.43% of its HP remaining, while the second one has 76.81% remaining.  From this, we can deem that the first spread takes a lower percentage of damage from Cresselia’s Psyshock and Psychic after regaining some of its health back from Drain Punch.

Now that you know all the minutiae in creating a great defensive EV spread, it’s time to put that knowledge to good use.

Example EV Spread

DaWoblefet and I thought that it would be useful to update Cassie’s Defensive Gastrodon spread originally designed to survive a Fighting Gem Close Combat from Jolly Terrakion and a Timid Latios’s Dragon Gem Draco Meteor to today’s metagame and survive an Iron Fist Conkeldurr’s Life Orb Hammer Arm as well.

Therefore, my original goals were to have Gastrodon survive Conkeldurr’s Life Orb Hammer Arm and a Timid Latios’ Dragon Gem Draco Meteor.  Normally, you would want to have some offensive investment to ensure your Pokémon doesn’t miss out on any important OHKOs or 2HKOs, but for the purposes of this example I decided to attempt to have Gastrodon survive Conkeldurr’s Life Orb Hammer Arm in addition to its follow up Mach Punch through the use of a Sitrus Berry.

With my goals in mind, I looked at Gastrodon base stats.  I noticed that Gastrodon’s highest base stat was Special Attack, so I would likely gain the most stat points by using a Modest Nature.  However, I knew by taking a quick glance at the damage outputs of my target attacks that I would be unable to to achieve all of my goals by doing so.  Therefore, I chose to use the highest defensive base stat: Special Defense.  Both a Sassy and Calm Nature could have been used successfully depending on the team that Gastrodon is on, but in this case I chose to use a Calm Nature.  I also noticed that Gastrodon’s base Defense was significantly lower than its base HP, indicative that the best spread likely wouldn’t be one that maximized HP.

To start off, however, I placed 252 EVs into HP.  Next, I invested enough Defense so that the HP lost from Conkeldurr’s Life Orb Hammer Arm and Mach Punch was less than 272 (Gastrodon’s HP with 252 EVs is 218. 218 * 1.25 = 272.5, round it down and you get 272 HP).  The minimum Defense investment necessary to get the sum of the damage from Conkeldurr’s two attacks to 271 was 204 EVs. The rest of the EVs were placed into Special Defense.

Just for comparison’s purposes, I also calculated the damage taken from Conkeldurr’s Fighting Gem Hammer Arm and found that it would OHKO my current spread 12.5% of the time.

At this point, my spread looked like this:

Gastrodon (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Nature: Calm (+Sp. Def, -Atk)
IV’s: 31/0/31/31/31/31
EV’s: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 SDef
Ability: Storm Drain
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Protect

I realized that with the 52 EVs invested in Special Defense, Gastrodon’s positive Nature benchmark was only one point away.  Therefore, my next goal was to transfer EVs from HP to Special Defense to reach the benchmark, then put enough into Defense to still reach my Conkeldurr goal.  This lead me to an EV spread of 220 HP / 228 Def / 60 SDef.  To compare it to the first spread, I again checked the damage taken from Conkeldurr’s Fighting Gem Hammer Arm.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that by gaining an extra stat point by hitting the Special Defense benchmark and investing more in Gastrodon’s low base Defense stat, I was able to reduce that chance that Conkeldurr’s Fighting Gem Hammer Arm would KO Gastrodon to 6.25%.  Additionally, by reducing the HP stat I was able to minimize the percentage of HP regained by an opponent’s Pokémon using a draining attack.

The final spread would be:

Gastrodon (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Nature: Calm (+Sp. Def, -Atk)
IV’s: 31/0/31/31/31/31
EV’s: 220 HP / 228 Def / 60 SDef
Ability: Storm Drain
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Protect

In this case, I deemed Gastrodon’s survival of my target moves was far more imperative than reducing passive damage, which is why I didn’t account for it anywhere in my calculations.

Conclusion

At this point, I’d like to thank DaWoblefet for his numerous discussions with me, tremendous editing prowess, and for helping me to see things from a different point of view.  I’d also like to thank Jio, Ray, and Wolfey for pointing me in the right direction when I first embarked upon my Pokémon journey.  In addition, I’d like to thank the Nugget Bridge community as a whole for creating the best website on the Internet for competitive VGC play and putting up with my numerous threads on this subject..

Of course, I couldn’t have gotten this far without the numerous sources that have helped me along the way:

• Stepping It Up: Small Ways to Improve Your Game by DaWoblefet
• 252 Times Better Than 252/252: Advanced EV Spreads by jio
• HP vs. Draining Moves, a Nugget Bridge thread in the Q&A section
• Distributing HP for Substitute, a Nugget Bridge thread in the Q&A section
• Chinese Dood’s post on getting a bonus point when using Natures
• Smogon’s guide to EV training in the 5th Generation
• Smogon’s guide to complex EV spreads in the 4th Generation
• Smogon’s guide to maximizing defenses in the 4th Generation

Hopefully I’ve helped you understand how I think about defensive EV spread calculation and the tremendous finesse it entails.  However!  Don’t forget that making an absolutely perfect EV spread is no substitute for teambuilding and battling skill.  These skills are just as important as creating an advanced EV spread, so make sure you don’t ignore any of them as you create the perfect team.

The post Bulking Up: A Guide to Defensive EV Spreads appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Welcome to part 2 of Nugget Bridge’s Pokémon X & Y changes review! Last time I wrote a bit about some of the gameplay mechanics changes and move updates in X & Y, and before moving on to the exciting new stuff in the last part of the review, I figured I should touch on a different type of gameplay mechanics change: the changes to breeding Pokémon in the sixth generation games. There were several changes made in X & Y to make breeding Pokémon significantly less time consuming than it has been in the past. The traditional breeding process ended up being basically completely replaced by RNG manipulation the past few years, with players able to acquire Pokémon in a few minutes instead of a few days. In X & Y, that same level of RNG manipulation is gone, but breeding to get five-31 IV Pokémon is fairly easy — though it still takes a significant amount of time relative to using the RNG, or more importantly, just playing on a simulator instead of on the game cards. On some level, I can’t complain too much: until X & Y, I literally hadn’t been the original trainer of a Pokémon I used in a battle against another player since Journey Across America in 2006. I now have a box and a half full of perfect Pokémon that are mostly my own, so obviously I’m using the changed system much more than I used the previous system. However, I’d still like to take a moment to look at the big picture of the breeding changes in Pokémon before I get on to the individual changes because I don’t think this was a perfect set of changes.

As you’d expect from an established franchise that has been as consistently successful as Pokémon has been, Game Freak tends to be slow to introduce major changes to the game. Incremental change works very well to slowly improve parts of the game that aren’t broken, such as the battle mechanics. While I think most people would agree that the mechanics changes I wrote about last week would look even better if they had included, say, a reduction of the flinch chance of Rock Slide, a reduction in confusion self-hit chance, and a reduction in the odds of losing a turn to paralysis, the reaction to the mechanics changes in Pokémon X & Y has been deservedly positive because the changes that were made were good. Slow, incremental change is effective for gameplay mechanics, especially because if you go too crazy, things can get a little broken. That’s when you end up with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Or maybe Cataclysm.

However, slow change is much less effective in cases where the incumbent features are weakest. While Pokémon doesn’t seem to have too many areas where large change is needed, one place that really did need an overhaul was the time investment required to raise a competitively viable team. Like the battle mechanics, we saw a variety of changes that made raising Pokémon a little bit better this generation… but if Game Freak wanted to keep players playing on their 3DSes instead of online simulators, an improvement larger than a little bit was probably needed. Breeding is faster and easier than it’s ever been, but being faster than before doesn’t necessarily mean battling on the cartridges outside of official events — or on the cartridges at all for players who prefer rule sets other than Standard — is going to be seen as a viable alternative for players who have enjoyed the convenience of simulators or for new players who might see breeding a competitive team as too much effort to make battle spot worth trying out. I should probably get my stake on the table here: I started playing competitive Pokémon in 2002 and used simulators basically exclusively until 2011. Even when I started playing in the Video Game Championships, I very rarely played in-game because it was a pain to get Pokémon and in-game Wi-Fi was horrible. The latter issue is definitely fixed now, and I think it’d be best for the growth of the game if people were connecting with newer players through the games, which have millions of people playing them, instead of the simulators and their thousands, but I’ve been using the simulators for over a decade for a reason. They’re much more convenient than getting a team in-game to test out is, and it’s going to be really difficult for Game Freak to change the behavior of players to keep them on their 3DSes at this point, especially old dogs like me with habits that are hard to break.

Pokémon breeding mechanics are among the franchise’s touchiest issues because it is probably the single case where Pokémon appealing to many demographics pits design goals against each other the most. Game Freak, like many of the more casual players it has attracted, seems to value each Pokémon’s individuality and has maintained a high level of individual complexity for each Pokémon (six IVs that can be 32 values each, one of 25 natures, one of three abilities) that with one new exception, can’t be modified at all once a Pokémon is born. The time investment of acquiring a high quality version of an individual Pokémon is also probably intentionally reasonably high: while it certainly isn’t going to take anyone a week to breed a single Pokémon like it may have in generation five — not that I would know — even using a previously bred Pokémon in the same egg group as a father, collecting a mother of the appropriate species and passing IVs is going to take a few hours per Pokémon without incredible luck. This is in stark contrast to a simulator, where players can enter a whole team and be battling in about five minutes.

I think Game Freak is probably never going to be willing to just have an online simulator clone mode to really compete with simulators on convenience because it’s so far off of the image they seem to want, but unlike in Black 2 & White 2, I think the in-game battle experience is fairly indisputably better on the carts in XY. As such, I think it’s realistic for the games to be reasonably competitive if the extra time involved with making a team in-game isn’t too severe. Whether or not Game Freak accomplished this in X & Y will probably be seen over the next year or so, but I think there’s some evidence in both directions right now. There are many, many more players playing in-game and making legitimate competitive teams than probably at any other point in Pokémon’s history, including a lot of people I would never have expected to be playing on the carts at all, but there are still plenty of players — some who are extremely dedicated to VGC — who are just waiting for Poke Bank to transfer RNGed Pokémon over to play with because they don’t want to spend the time making a team. I’d really like to see more players playing in-game compared to generation five, both because it’s typically much easier to convince people playing in-game who aren’t already tournament-goers to try out the format and attend events and because I think the international element of playing on the carts is a little more interesting than the relatively static group of simulator players. However, as someone with a few hundred hours logged in X & Y already that was mostly spent breeding Pokémon instead of battling, I’m not sure we’re really at the point where that’s going to happen over the long term yet.

Changes to Breeding, Training, and Acquiring Pokémon in Pokémon X & Y

For a full guide to breeding Pokémon in Pokémon X&Y, check out Huy’s Guide.

• IVs and Natures: Still the same as before

The first change is actually a lack of change. There are still six IVs controlling the six stats that have a range of 32 potential values and 25 natures. There are still no ways to change any of these values after a Pokémon is born.

This is noteworthy because if there is any place that makes sense to attack the difficulty of achieving perfect Pokémon, this was the spot to do it, and it didn’t happen. This seems to be one of those places where Game Freak likes the individuality of their Pokémon and appears uninterested in changing things, and I think that it’s probably a mistake. I’d love to see them remove IVs completely, but since they don’t seem to want to do that, simply allowing there to be some way to do additional training at max level or through super training to increase IVs seems like it would have been a reasonable solution that I am unsure why we haven’t seen. Natures are much less obnoxious to deal with because of Synchronize and Everstone, but a way to change a Pokémon’s Nature on the fly would be pretty handy, too. I don’t feel like either of these concepts are too out there — I could change personalities in RPGs that had a similar function way back in the early 90s (one of the Dragon Quests, I think?) and several MMOs have an equivalent to boosting stats at max level that being able to increase IVs the same way would emulate — but Pokémon not having anything like them implemented means that the cost of individuality is that the vast majority of Pokémon are genetically inferior fodder. Which apparently is a better state of affairs.

• New Item: Ability Capsule — Changes a Pokémon’s Ability to its other non-Hidden Ability (one time use, 200 BP)

Ignoring that changing between non-Hidden Abilities is almost never useful and 200 BP is a ridiculous price tag (especially now that battling online doesn’t give BP), this is a really fascinating change to me because of the previous bullet. Abilities, like IVs and Natures, had always been locked and now can be changed at a cost. Here’s hoping this is a step in that direction…

In the mean time, if you breed a flawless Pokémon with the wrong ability you can make it competitively useful for the low, low price of one easy payment of 200 BP!

• A parent holding Destiny Knot when breeding allows 5 IVs to pass down from the parents instead of 3 IVs.

Rather than improving the potential of existing Pokémon, the solution Game Freak chose was to allow Destiny Knot to vastly improve bred Pokémon. This wound up being a pretty good solution: with one parent holding Everstone and the other holding Destiny Knot, if both parents have 31 IVs in the 5 stats the bred Pokémon is going to use, you actually end up with a 19.3% chance (1/6 of not passing the right stat + a 1/32*5/6 chance of rolling a 31 when the wrong stat is passed) of breeding another perfect Pokémon to trade. Where this tends to be practically useful is earlier than that scenario in the breeding process, since if you have a male with the right five 31 IVs in the egg group you’re working with, as simply catching a female with the correct Nature and breeding it with the male using Everstone and Destiny Knot means you can almost always end up with a Female with the correct Nature and 3 31 IVs within an hour(probably 4 if the female is from Friend Safari), which is already starting to get you pretty close to having a realistic shot at rolling a perfect child.

Destiny Knot is fantastic. It makes X & Y breeding by far the fastest its ever been in the Pokémon franchise. I do want to go back to the points from the introduction here, though, because they’re most relevant to Destiny Knot. Destiny Knot was Game Freak’s only major overhaul toward breeding competitively viable Pokémon. Once you have a decent selection of Pokémon, it definitely becomes viable to get most breedable Pokémon with even or primarily female gender ratios within a few hours. The question to me here is still whether or not it was a big enough change. There’s a little inherent greed in basically writing that this was a great change but that I actually wanted more, but making a team on a simulator in five minutes is still going to appeal to a lot of people when you consider that even in a situation where I have males in the appropriate egg groups and get fairly lucky, it’s going to take me a minimum of about ten hours to breed a completely fresh team (which is probably a low estimate). That’s an awful lot of time to spend preparing to play a game.

I know there are a not insignificant number of players that see raising Pokémon as a major part of the game and as important to competition as battling, and while I’m glad some people value and enjoy the breeding aspects of the game, the competitive impact of breeding should be zero. No one comments on how really unlocking champions, leveling your account, and buying runes are as important a part of becoming a champion in a game like League of Legends as battling on the Fields of Justice, or how going through the storymode in a fighting game to unlock characters is as important as actually battling other players in those games because those claims are completely ridiculous and are just as ridiculous in Pokémon. At the end of the day, for Pokémon as a competitive game, acquiring a team to start battling is a barrier to entry, and while that barrier isn’t quite The Wall from A Song of Ice and Fire anymore, it’s still a fence I’m concerned many people are going to choose not to climb.

• Pokémon Bank Delayed Until Almost 2014

The lack of Pokémon Bank is perhaps the most irritating part of collecting Pokémon right now. On some level, this isn’t worth writing extensively about — it’ll come out when it’s ready and it’s better to have the game without Poke Bank than getting them both at the same time later — but the impact of not being able to transfer Pokémon is pretty large. Other than the release of generation three, where Pokémon weren’t allowed to be transferred at all with the changes to IVs and the addition of Natures, this is the first time Pokémon haven’t been transferable between generations at launch and it causes pretty large problems for the competitive game. Without Pokémon Bank, a variety of Pokémon and move combinations are missing. Some egg moves are now illegal, which vastly reduce the power of Pokémon. Chandelure, for instance, can’t learn Heat Wave without using a tutor or breeding with something that used the tutor in a past generation, so while even in 2011 before the BW2 tutor came out it was able to use Heat Wave by breeding with a Slugma from generation four, it is now relegated to the less useful Flamethrower and Fire Blast for a couple months without transfers. Several other Pokémon are missing important tutor moves that make them significantly weaker, such as Zapdos also missing Heat Wave, Scizor missing Bug Bite, and basically every Pokémon who would normally use it missing Icy Wind, which is greatly reducing the game’s speed control options. This is before you even look at Pokémon being completely unavailable because they aren’t available in XY. The net impact of this is that while we currently don’t have a ruleset anyway, we’re playing in a bizarre, fictional metagame that will be changed quickly when Pokémon Bank is released.

While starting fresh is probably appealing to some players, it also complicates breeding. It is much, much faster to get a perfect Pokémon using perfect parents, even if it is just a perfect male of another species. If Pokémon Bank were available, it would allow us to transfer over the flawless Pokémon we have in generation five and breed quicker in generation six. This is particularly irritating in cases like Scizor, where it is a good enough Pokémon now to breed one to use temporarily, but doing so is fundamentally a waste of time on multiple fronts, since we can neither transfer perfect Scizors to breed faster and will probably want to replace it completely when Bank comes out to get Bug Bite. Pokémon Bank is leading to a lot of wasted time, which is pretty frustrating for such an important feature and again adds to the barriers to entry complaint… we’re spending more time to spend more time on this one.

• There is currently no way to RNG or hack and only limited cloning

So here’s something else that’s a little controversial. I imagine most players who aren’t playing in VGC events would read that bullet and view it as a positive. I don’t, and I want to take a moment to explain why.

It is a pretty obvious theme at this point that I think anything that forces players to take a substantial amount of time to get started battling is a bad feature. RNG and cloning were things I liked a lot in generation five because it let people get around the tediousness of acquiring a team and get to battling, which for many competitive players is the only part of the game that is appealing. I interact with a lot of different players with a lot of different views on this stuff, and I can read some of the holier-than-thou responses about breeding Pokémon with trust and love and being a *** REAL POKEMON TRAINER *** already, but the bottom line is there’s a very understandable reason why so many players at tournament play and the time spent breeding Pokémon just to compete (even though that wasn’t actually true last generation). Most players don’t want to go through significant effort just to be able to play a game, especially if they aren’t already invested in it… it’s very different for me to spend a couple days making a team compared to someone who’s never played the metagame before and isn’t sure if they’ll even like it.

Fundamentally, what we do here on Nugget Bridge is try to make VGC more accessible to people and help grow and teach the game. Anything that makes the game harder to play works against those goals, and I’d say RNG and cloning not being available is a big mark against that. The lack of cloning is leading to people actually trading Pokémon, which is definitely cool and community building, but it isn’t even close to allowing for the same type of availability in Pokémon we had before and that is definitively bad.

I’m all for hacking being gone for now, though, if only because of how poorly people tend do it… but given a certain Magmar I’m getting mixed signals on how we’re handling hacking at this point, anyway.

• EV Training with Hordes / Super Training

One of the more promoted new features other than the obvious ones like Mega Evolutions and the glorious return of the Red & Blue starter Pokémon was Super Training, a way to EV train Pokémon without engaging in battles. While not nearly as time consuming as actually breeding Pokémon in the past, EV training has traditionally been a long and extremely tedious process, so I think we were all eager for a faster way to train Pokémon. Instead, we got Super Training!

Sort-of-jokes aside, Super Training was disappointing. The one really positive thing I can say about Super Training is that since it does give you that little graph of your EVs training even when acquired through normal battles, it should be reasonably discernible for new players that there’s a way to train their Pokémon other than experience that is probably important, which at least people can figure out exists without the help of an internet resource revealing the mechanic to them now. That’s not to say it’s necessarily reasonable for a player to figure out how to optimize EVs training without outside help, especially since the whole points-only-count-in-multiples-of-four thing is pretty unintuitive (more so when you remember it’s usually multiples of 8 but sometimes 4 at level 50 instead), but at least it’s there and people can probably get 252/252 spreads down without any outside influence. I am all for new features that help break down barriers to being competitive, and at least this indirectly teaches players something.

Super Training itself is hilariously inefficient as a feature, unfortunately. I used it to train my first few Pokémon because I think the minigame is kind of fun, but once the novelty wears off EV training through hordes is much, much faster… which is a little worrying considering that the whole point of Super Training was presumably to actually be an efficient way to train, and that the minigame probably took a decent amount of effort to develop. Super Training, inexplicably, is not even useful enough to be the best way to do anything but acquire some items. Hopefully, Game Freak increases the EVs training received from each training activity by at least about double next time they release a game, because it just isn’t very effective right now.

Perhaps the worst part of Super Training is that even though it doesn’t shy away from assigning numerical values because it comes out and tells you that you’re going to get +4/8/12 EVs training for each drill, it doesn’t actually list the values of your total EVs anywhere, instead giving me you graph you can’t actually use to figure out if you’re off by anything smaller than accidentally putting 252 EVs in Attack instead of Defense. All-in-all, Super Training feels a generation or two away from where it needs to be to be useful, but at least Game Freak isn’t essentially denying the existence of EVs anymore… even if the translators did decide to keep using a name for them (base stats) that competitive players usually use to refer to something else.

• Females can pass Egg Moves when bred
• Males pass Hidden Abilities when bred with Ditto
• Egg Moves can be relearned at the Move Reminder

While these changes are not very exciting to look at — they’re kind of the @Leftovers of the list — they’re really important because they allow for several combinations of moves and abilities to be legal that previously were not. Male Pokémon being able to pass their Hidden Abilities allows several Pokémon that previously were only released in male-only promotions to use their Hidden Abilities and Egg Moves at the same time, though many of those Pokémon, such as Charizard and Venusaur, are now in the Friend Safari anyway. Females being able to pass Egg Moves similarly increases the pool of allowed combinations, as you can now continually breed Egg Moves onto females and then introduce more with new males and get any combination of four egg moves you want on any Pokémon that can breed. The practical applications of this are pretty limited, but it’s kind of neat in the sense that combined with the Reminder change you can breed any egg move you’d ever want on a Pokémon and then relearn them as you need them and be able to change movesets with Heart Scales instead of needing to breed a new Pokémon. Cool changes.

• Friend Safari Pokémon are guaranteed to have at least two 31 IVs
• Friend Safari Pokémon can have Hidden Abilities if you’ve been online at the same time as the owner
• Legendary and other Pokémon that are unable to breed are guaranteed to have at least three 31 IVs

There’s isn’t a lot of exposition I can add for these changes, but other than Destiny Knot these are the best improvements for raising a competitive team in XY. While there aren’t really any legendaries worth catching at this point — Zapdos isn’t really Zapdos without Heat Wave and potentially Tailwind, and Articuno and Moltres are horrible — locking 3 31s makes it realistic to chain reset for a near-perfect legendary now without spending ridiculous amounts of time. I’m actually a little surprised by how many players have even managed to take this a step further and get Hidden Power Ice Zapdos already on Battle Spot, so even without RNG people are getting really solid legendaries.

While catching anything competitively useful out of the Friend Safari is pretty unlikely, between being able to get any of the Pokémon’s available abilities and at least 2 31 IVs, the Friend Safari is an excellent place to get the first mother for starting a competitive Pokémon’s lineage and cuts a bunch of time off of the process most of the time. Subtle change here, but it makes a mountain of difference.

Conclusion

Overall, the changes to building a team in this generation were positive, decreasing the time it takes to breed competitively useful Pokémon and adding some new ability/move combinations to bred Pokémon. Will it be enough to get people practicing on the actual game instead of the simulators this season? Only time will tell…

The post Looking Ahead to Pokémon X & Y Part 2: Raising a Competitive Team appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

While we still don’t have an official ruleset for the VGC ’14 season, many players have been battling on the Doubles ladder on the in-game Battle Spot feature in order to get practice with the X & Y mechanics and to gauge the strength of new and changed Pokémon. Over the past couple of weeks, I slowly collected some data about the Pokémon that players on the ladder were using by collecting the rosters of the six Pokémon opponents rated 1700 or higher I ran into were using and compiling them. Since collecting data on my would be slow, I got some help from Simon, skarm, and Unreality, and also pulled data from Cybertron and iss’s stream archives. I ended up with 131 teams total to pull data from, which is still a relatively small sample of 1700+ teams, but a large enough number that I think it’s fair to say you get a reasonably accurate view of the Battle Spot Doubles metagame from looking at it. I ended up with incomplete data on a few teams, and most likely due to data entry errors the total number of Pokémon is a little lower than it should be (774 instead of the expected 786), but the listing below should give a fairly accurate view of the metagame on Battle Spot. Only Pokémon with more than two uses are listed, and the data of each trainer was only recorded once even if we battled them multiple times or a trainer battled multiple players collecting data unless the trainer in question changed their team between games.

While the relevance of this data is sort of sketchy, since we expect a few of these Pokémon probably won’t be available in Standard this year (the Pokémon who are not in the Kalosdex, italicized), and PokéBank transfers will shake up the game a lot if they are allowed, I think this is really good preliminary data to begin gauging the relative popularity of Pokémon based on the international competition on Battle Spot. Winter Regionals are only two months away, so hopefully having this information available now will help players get prepared if they haven’t had a chance to battle much yet. I’m biased since most of my recent matches are recorded, but I haven’t been recording data for most of my battles and the usage still feels like a pretty accurate representation of what I’ve seen on the ladder to me.

If you’d like to contribute to my usage tracking, feel free and PM me data about your opponents. I need the following information: your opponents rating, their location, the six Pokémon they had on team preview spelled correctly, and optionally their name to make it easier not to count the same teams twice, if you can read it. It’s definitely better if you do this in an online spreadsheet so I can copy and paste, but I’ll work with what I get. I would actually really prefer we didn’t just do a group Google Spreadsheet for this one because I’d prefer not to make a database for team scouting in the process… just PM me the data and I’ll compile and present it.  I’m still only interested in the teams of 1700+ rated players, as I’d like to focus on Pokémon that players with at least reasonable success are using in order to gauge the metagame on the top half of the ladder, since getting to 1700 already isn’t very difficult.

Happy planning, hope this helps out people who haven’t had a chance to play much.

The post X & Y Battle Spot Doubles: An Early Look At Pokémon Usage appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

While together they look a bit like a reference table in a mathematics textbook, Speed tiers are what drive turns in Pokémon. Knowing whether your Pokémon is going to move before or after its opponents is essential to winning battles and avoiding unnecessary damage. This list should help you get a feel for the relative speed of each Pokémon and what nearby threats are faster or slower than them.

Some helpful hints about Speed before the table:

• Discounting the bonuses and penalties of a Pokémon’s Nature, the difference between a 0 IV in Speed and a 31 IV is 15 points in Speed and the difference between 0 EVs and 252 EVs in Speed is 32 points with an odd IV or 31 with an even IV.
• Choice Scarf boosts Speed by one level (*1.5). Tailwind boosts Speed by two levels (*2). Thunder Wave reduces speed to 1/4. Icy Wind reduces Speed by one level (2/3). Iron Ball reduces Speed by two levels (2/4).
• A Pokémon’s Speed is always a whole number. Like most of the math in Pokémon, Speed calculations round down, so a Pokémon with 101 Speed would have 151 Speed when holding a Choice Scarf, not 151.5 or 152.
• The turn order of Pokémon is decided before a turn starts. If you use a move that changes a Pokémon’s Speed level (like Icy Wind) or value (through Mega Evolving) you retain the Speed value you had before the turn started until the next turn. The only exception to this rule is the move Quash.
• There is a 50/50 chance of each Pokémon moving first if two Pokémon have the same Speed. This is some of how Speed Tiers got their name, though Game Freak has enjoyed putting Pokémon at a much greater variety of Speeds in recent iterations of the game compared to the older games, when any popular Pokémon were tied at base speeds like 100.

Every Pokémon listed below has either 0 or 252 EVs in Speed and a 31 or 0 IV in Speed. In real life, you’ll probably see more variance than this, so what a list like this really does is help you find absolutes: these are the fastest and slowest Pokémon can be with the given natures. Since taking unnecessary risks tends to be the fastest way to lose in Pokémon, you can use this information when planning your team to make sure that your Pokémon will move before important threats that can knock your Pokémon out, or if that is unreasonable or impossible, to know when defeat could be a turn away and you need to switch out to a more appropriate counter to fend it off. This list can also help you figure out how much Speed you really need: if all the things you want to counter only require your Pokémon to invest 100 EVs in Speed, you’re probably going to want to invest the rest of your EVs defensively instead of running more Speed EVs that might not accomplish very much.

The speeds listed here are broken up into three somewhat arbitrary groups to make the list a little more readable. There is almost too much data here already, so Pokémon not likely to be relevant to the metagame aren’t listed. Should there be a rise in Pidgeot usage, it would be added to the list.

Faster Than Base 100

Pokémon here are those faster than base 100 Pokémon with positive natures, which includes Pokémon with Speed boosts from weather abilities and Choice Scarf as well as most of the Pokémon that are used largely because of their innate Speed.

Middle of the Pack

The bulk of the available Pokémon fit into this group. Slower than the base 100s like Mega Kangaskhan, Charizard, Zapdos, and Salamence that will drive a lot of the metagame’s Speed decisions, but faster than Pokémon you’d see on a dedicated Trick Room team.

Trick Room Zone

Below are the slowest Pokémon, most of which have had their Speed lowered further by a negative Nature and a 0 IV in order to optimize their effectiveness in Trick Room.

The post VGC ’14 Pokémon Speed Tiers appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

Nintendo UK’s Pokémon Winter Event Finals take place this weekend, featuring many of the United Kingdom’s best players. I thought it’d be a good idea to write a preview article about the event and mention the players who I think are the ones to watch.

For those unaware, invites to take part were earned at over 20 tournaments around the United Kingdom during the last month, in which you had to reach top 3 to qualify. The main event will take place on December 7th, 2013 from 12:00pm until 18:00pm. You can find the list of prizes for the tournament on our previous article (the event location is secret, only given to qualified players and people on the guest-list). If you’re not attending this event through one of those means, you can still request a ticket via sending an e-mail to the following address: nintendocommunity[at]nintendo.co.uk

Now, this list is obviously going to be a subjective list mainly including the players I know the most about. I’ve tried to use as much information as I can remember about these players at past events, along with their performances in the qualifiers leading up to this tournament. Obviously, pretty much everyone here will have a chance to win! So, if you’re not included as one of my favourites, take that as an incentive to prove me wrong!

Barry Anderson (Baz Anderson)

So, where do we start? How about with the only player on the European circuit to top-cut every single European National last season? Or, maybe I’m just listing people in alphabetical order? You’ll have to wait and see. Along with his stellar Nationals performances, Barry also managed to finish 9th in the world at the 2013 Pokémon World Championships in August, missing a fourth successive top-cut by one place. He also dominated the Nugget Bridge circuit for most of the season, even though he missed out on winning the eventual season finals. Barry often feels like the game hates him, as while he managed to top-cut three National events, he always fell short of earning paid travel and accommodation and finishing one place off of the Worlds top-cut is obviously heart-breaking despite how good of a result it is. It also took him three attempts to qualify for this event, due to no time for a third place play-off match in Manchester, and facing a good friend in Round One at Nottingham. He did make up for this with top finishes in both Northampton and Derby, the latter of which had a very strong field. Regardless, maybe it’s his own fault for being a member of Team Rocket? Karma, man!

Barry’s Top Picks: Ben Kyrakou, Brandon Ikin, Christopher Arthur, Chris Barton, Daniel Nolan, Lee Provost, Sam Bentham, Barry Anderson

Rachel Annand (SPEevee)

Rachel has been on the competitive scene for a while now, first managing to top-cut the UK Nationals in 2010 and win fan-run event in 2011. Don’t let her picture fool you, though! She’s not just really, really happy to be here, she can play a bit of Pokémon too. At the UK National in 2013, she managed to make it to the Top 8, earning a World Championships Invitation and paid trip in the process. It did take her two attempts to qualify for the finals in London, but that was mainly down to an unlucky draw which saw our two Scottish players face off in the Top 8 at the Gateshead tournament. She won the Elgin tournament outright and will be a threat in London.

Rachel’s Top Picks: Jason Finch, Barry Anderson, Chris Barton, Rina Purdy, Mark McQuillan, Ben Kyriakou, Lee Provost, Christopher Arthur

Christopher Arthur (Koryo)

Chris didn’t manage much at his first VGC event, but he managed a semi-final and final appearance in two of the three fan-run Manchester tournaments he attended. 2013 was a much better year for him as the swiss format was brought in, which saw him top-cut two of the three European National events in the season just gone (and he was only one place off cutting at the other). This saw him attend the World Championships as a competitor, which is an experience most players from the United Kingdom don’t have. Chris made it here through winning the Bangor qualifier, defeating rival Daniel Nolan in the final who has generally been the thorn in his side during important tournament play. He’s known for a more direct and offensive approach that is often difficult to combat. He’s not afraid to use moves that some people may class as more risky, but considering he has the courage to wear that UK jester hat, he’s clearly not afraid of anything.

Christopher’s Picks: Christopher Arthur, Lee Provost, Chris Barton, Barry Anderson, Daniel Nolan, Ben Kyriakou, Tamao Cameron, Jason Finch

Sam Bentham (SuperIntegration)

“SuperIntegration is now a ting.” Sam recently broke into the spotlight by winning the first Nugget Bridge Live Tournament of the season, though most of the better UK players will tell you he’s been good at the game for a while now. He managed to go 7-2 in the United Kingdom National last season, losing in a close game to Richard Fairbrother meaning both players just missed out on the top-cut. Sam managed to win the Cambridge event which had a few strong players in attendance. He’s known for being the cool cat with his snazzy dress sense. Who comes to VGC in a shirt and suede shoes? Sam Bentham, that’s who. He’s also a very keen chess player and we know how good chess players are at Pokémon…

Sam’s Top Picks: Ben Kyriakou, Chris Barton, Lee Provost, Mark McQuillan, Barry Anderson, Tamao Cameron, Simon He, Christopher Arthur

Tamao Cameron (tamoo)

I must admit that I don’t know very much about Tamao, except that he has confessed that he hasn’t been playing competitive Pokémon VG for very long. However, despite this, he’s the only player to have won two qualifier tournaments in this series. What’s more is that he defeated seasoned pro Lee Provost in the Banbury qualifier final and the Liverpool event he also won had the most players out of every qualifier event. Tamao also plays Pokémon TCG, so he may have a lot of experience in big tournaments which could be a factor here. Definitely someone to watch out for.

Jason Finch (Die2Distroy)

Some say, he can’t spell “destroy.” Some say, it doesn’t matter what some say. Jason was new to the competitive game in 2012, but he improved very quickly and managed to collect a lot of Championship Points in the Wi-Fi tournaments and made the top-cut in the UK in 2013, finishing in 15th place after the nine swiss rounds. Unfortunately this meant he had to play a very experienced and in-form Lee Provost in the first round of top-cut, which he lost and ultimately missed out on World Championships qualification. He then became more active in the UK battling scene and started to attend StreetPass Manchester meets, the latest of which earned him a spot in this tournament with a second place finish. He managed to defeat Barry Anderson in the semi-finals, but lost to Chris Barton (me!) in the final – although qualification was secured by that point anyway. I think it’s safe to say the pride of Manchester is in some good hands for this event and I’d love someone from there to win the tournament!

Jason’s Top Picks: Ben Kyriakou, Barry Anderson, Chris Barton, Lee Provost, Christopher Arthur, Daniel Nolan, Seb King, Jason Finch

Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou)

What do we really need to say about Ben? Two-time UK National champion and ranked 13th in the world this year. His performance in the UK National in June was very scary in particular, going 9-0 in the Swiss Rounds and only dropping one game in the entire top-cut. I managed to watch one of his games up close in that tournament, where he managed to make his opponent forfeit within a few turns, making some exceptional calls. Ben qualified for London via finsihing 2nd in the Nottigham event, losing to what I must say was a well-built team with a big surprise that cost him the match. He first made a name for himself at the 2012 UK National, showing up as a Gary Oak cosplayer with a theme team and managing to make the final! Does he give a damn about finishing the Pokédex? No. He’s Gary Oak. He plays to win. Also, it seems like he eats hotdogs as well as he plays Pokémon, so I wouldn’t challenge him to that either!

Ben’s Top Picks: Chris Barton, Sam Bentham, Barry Anderson, Lee Provost, Daniel Nolan, Christopher Arthur, Rachel Annand, Ben Kyriakou

Mark McQuillan (woopahking123)

I think I’m probably right in saying that Mark will be the youngest player in this tournament, but that is definitely not going to be a factor in whether he wins or not. The proud young Scotsman managed to top-cut all three tournaments in the Senior division in the season just gone, which included the World Championships. He also won the Gateshead tournament which was one of the larger events, having to take out fellow Scottish player Rachel Annand in the Top 8. His favourite Pokémon is Wooper, and I’m sure he’ll do his fair share of ‘wooping’ in London on Saturday. Oh yeah.

Daniel Nolan (Zog)

“Don’t eat yellow snow” is something Daniel may not have taken note of. He’ll just build a Lapras out of it and lick it because that’s how he rolls. Daniel’s style is quite unorthordox, but there’s no doubt that he is one of the best players in the game on his day. He was the first player from the UK to ever top-cut the World Championships, a feat that has still only been matched (and inevitably bettered) by Ben Gould at Worlds this year. Along with reaching the Top 4 in 2011 and Top 8 in 2013 at UK Nationals, he also won one of the fan-run Manchester tournaments, defeating Christopher Arthur in the final. As I mentioned above, Chris finally got some revenge on Daniel in the Bangor event finals, though both players had already qualified at that point. Daniel got the wins that mattered so far, with a Manchester title and paid trip to Worlds on the line. I just hope there isn’t a Pokémon themed toilet sign in London or he’s had it…

Daniel’s Top Picks: Chris Barton, Jason Finch, Mark McQuillan, James Launder, Ben Kyriakou, Sam Bentham, Barry Anderson, Lee Provost

Lee Provost (Osirus)

Every tournament needs a rock star! Lee Provost has been playing in the Video Game Championships since 2010, managing to finish in the Top 4 that year, losing to the eventual winner Rees Hamilton in the semi-finals. Lee had mixed performances after that, but bounced back this year, with a top-cut finish at the Germany National and a Top 4 finish at the UK National. This earned him a paid trip to the World Championships which gave him even more big tournament experience that will be key in London. Lee is one of only four players to make the Top 4 at UK Nationals on more than one occasion, in good company with Ben Kyriakou, Ruben Puig Lecegui, and Rees Hamilton. He qualified for London through a second place Banbury finish, losing to Tamao Cameron in the final.

Lee’s Top Picks: Chris Barton, Ben Kyriakou, Sam Bentham, Barry Anderson, Christopher Arthur, Daniel Nolan, Jason Finch, Marti Bennett

That rounds off my picks to win, but this is anyone’s game in London! Players such as Worlds 2013 participant Rina Purdy will be in attendance, along with Nugget Bridge members who may fancy their chances such as Andrew Waddell, Tyler Bakhtiari, Brandon Ikin, Adam Dorricott, Jake Birch, and Joe Wilson. There are also a total of 22 players who won tournaments over this series and how can they possibly be counted out? Who are you expecting to win and do you think I’ll be proved wrong by none of my picks winning?

If you still need more information on this event, visit the following links:

• List of Tournament Winners and Qualified Players
• Official Event Page on Facebook
• Event Schedule
• Tournament Rules

The post Nintendo UK Pokémon Winter Event Preview appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

For the first time since the release of Pokémon Gold and Silver in 1999, Pokémon introduced a new type in Pokémon X and Y, the Fairy type. Initially, response to the Fairy type was mixed. The alpha-male Pokémon players cited the new type was “too girly” and threatened their masculinity. I however, with fellow Fairy enthusiasts, welcomed the Fairy-type with open arms! The new addition was not an entire theoretical shake up due to the existence of the Fairy egg group. Moreover, you could imagine yourself fantasizing over the sheer ferocity of say, a Fire-Fairy, a Dark-Fairy or even a Dragon-Fairy type Pokémon! Albeit many of these weren’t realized in X and Y, there are many spectacular Fairy type Pokémon. The purpose of this article is to not only overview the viable Fairy-type Pokémon but indicate their strengths and weaknesses on a competitive level.

Typing

Before examining some Pokémon, we must consider the typing of the pure Fairy type.

• Offensively Fairy is super effective against Fighting, Dragon and Dark types, while being not very effective against Fire, Poison and Steel types.
• Defensively Fairy is resistant to Fighting, Bug and Dark types with a special immunity to the Dragon type. On the other hand, it is weak to Poison and Steel types.

The new addition to the type chart makes the Fairy-type an interesting outlier. Offensively, Fairy is an incredible type as it hits popular VGC ’13 types such as Fighting and Dragon types for supper effective damage while the less-popular Dark type as well. Its offensive drawback is that its not very effective against Steel types, a dominant defensive type and a competitive staple. The resistances of Fire and Poison are less-so considerable for Fairies given their unpopularity in VGC but a consideration nonetheless and they may give rise to niche Pokémon. As an offensive force, the Fairy type also means Pokémon such as Hydreigon and Scrafty join the 4x weaknesses club.

Defensively, fairy is also fantastic! With a useful resistance to Fighting stacked with those to Bug and Dark types and not to mention, an insane immunity to the Dragon types that dominated VGC ’12, Fairy is a defensive force to be reckoned with. The days of having to tank a Dragon Gem Draco Meteor are minimized by decreases in move and Gem power and to Fairies, an incoming meteor is frivolous. On the downside, the weakness to Steel types does make Fairies a considerable target for the already-prominent type, whereas the Poison weakness is somewhat manageable given its former unpopularity. All in all, Fairy is an amazing type, so let’s have a look at whether there are enough Pokémon to take advantage of it!

Mega Mawile

At the time of writing, Mega Mawile is perhaps the most dominant Fairy type if not Mega Evolution as well. From previously being a competitive footnote, Mawile has had a rags to riches story through Mega Evolution. By Mega Evolving, Mawile gains a huge boost to its base Attack and Defenses. Its new ability of Huge Power doubles its Attack stat, effectively giving it a Base 259 Attack stat, the highest in the game, ensuring the two-mouthed Steel-Fairy hits like several trucks. As a Steel-Fairy type, Mawile takes neutral damage from the Steel type (a common Fairy’s worst enemy), and is immune to Poison. Further, its only weaknesses are the Fire and Ground type. In terms of its pre-Mega Evolution state, Mawile possesses useful abilities in Intimidate and Hyper Cutter. While the former being popular due to the prowess of Physical attackers, this generation; Hyper Cutter could be used to block opposing intimidates. With Base 50/125/95 Defenses, Mega Mawile is not too bad defensively either. Overall, Mega Mawile definitely has all the star qualities to become a staple!

On the down side, if one decides to use Mega Mawile it must be their designated Mega Evolution as unlike some other Mega Evolutions e.g. Tyranitar, Garchomp and Gyarados, Mawile cannot stand on its own. Mega Mawile also requires speed control often in the form of Trick Room or a redirection move such as Rage Powder.Mega Mawile’s Special Defence may be its Achilles heel as it amplifies its weaknesses to Fire types. Further, because of its low pre-Mega-evolution defences, Mawile makes a very vulnerable switch-in. Moreover, Mega Mawile is a great target for attack-reducing aspects of the meta game such as Intimidate and Will-o-wisp and it is shut down by Skill swap.

Usable moves:

• Play Rough (that 90% accuracy can have its downs)
• Iron Head
• Sucker Punch

Klefki

Can we all take a moment to appreciate that Klefki is a pair of lost keys. Cute.

Competitively, Klefki’s role is essentially a Kalos-Thundurus. Yes, it possesses perhaps one of Pokémon’s most broken abilities, Prankster. Sharing its great Steel-Fairy typing with Mawile, Klefki also sports Base 57/91/87 defences which seem subpar at first glance but with maximum investment it has the makings of a tank. Not only does Klefki have Prankster and passable defenses, its move pool includes:

• Thunderwave
• Swagger (watch out Cybertron)
• Light Screen & Reflect
• Sunny Day, Rain Dance
• Crafty Shield
• Offensive slot: Play Rough or Dazzling Gleam

Thus, Klefki seems to be quite the interesting choice as it serves as a substitute for Thundurus in X and Y. Parafusion lives.

Gardevoir and Mega-Gardevoir

Like its fellow Fairy brethren, Gardevoir received a Mega-boost in X & Y through a new typing and Mega Evolution. As stated, Fairy typing is phenomenal both offensively and defensively. As a Psychic-Fairy, Gardevoir is a major wall to Fighting types and despite weaknesses to Poison and Ghost, it remains threatened by Steel types. In its original form, Gardevoir carries a notable base 125 Special Attack and Base 115 Special Defence but has little other redeeming qualities. On a team, it may be used as a Trick Room setter and possesses useful support moves such as Will-o-wisp, Thunderwave and Dual Screens while also being able to dish out considerable damage with Moonblast. Its problem is its weak physical defenses with 68/65 across the board. With maximum investment, this could be mediated but nonetheless, is a weak point which requires team building around.

Usable moves:

• Moonblast
• Status: Will-o-wisp, Thunderwave
• Trick Room
• Psychic/Psyshock
• Thunderbolt

As per Mega Evolution, Gardevoir gains an increased Special Attack, Special Defence and Speed stat to Base 165, 135 and 100 respectively elevating it to colossal heights. Its Special stats are raised to mammoth levels as it possesses one of the highest usable Special Attacks in the game (second only to Mega-Alakazam) and a fantastic Special Bulk. Its Speed change is somewhat confusing as at Base 100, it is no longer a viable Trick Room user and requires maximum investment along with a boosting nature to be significant like its Base 100 brethren. Gardevoir also gains Pixilate, an interesting new ability which turns Normal-type moves into Fairy-type moves. Despite sounding cool, there are few uses for Pixilate besides a Fairy 102 BP Return coming from a Pokémon with Base 85 Attack, the use of Echoed Voice or perhaps the not-so-so-gimmicky Round gimmick which could actually be pulled off with a fast partner such as Noivern.

Azumarill

BUNNY!

If its former non-Fairy brethren weren’t loving their type transformation enough, Azumarill too has gained a lot in Pokémon X and Y. From being a cute competitive doormat, the Aqua bunny has become a pixie powerhouse. Azumarill’s unique Water and Fairy typing complement each other very well, giving Azumarill a niche. Defensively, Water resists Fairy’s weaknesses to the Steel type, resulting in neutral damage. Additionally, the array of resistances of the Fairy type and the Water type come together to give Azumarill a total of six resistances and one immunity. Offensivley, Water-Fairy also possesses flawless coverage, hitting every Pokémon type for neutral damage! The competitive Azumarill may be seen sporting a Choice Band in a Trick Room-heavy team while also having the unique possibility of Belly Drum and Aqua Jet! The sole of its kind, Azumarill beats its belly, maximizing its Attack (+6!) and the following turn may use Base 40 power, priority move Aqua Jet to blast into its opponents face with its polished guns. Despite requiring a one-turn set up, the combo is unique and packs a punch.

Usable Moves:

• Watefall/Aqua Tail
• Aqua Jet + Belly Drum
• Play Rough
• Superpower

Defensively, Azumarill’s stats are middling at Base 100/80/80 defenses. Its typing leaves it weak to Electric, Grass and Poison types. While the latter two are rare sights in VGC, Electric types will pose a threat to Azumarill. It will also require speed support as its Base 50 Speed will leave it trailing behind. Yet, it makes a great Trick Room Sweeper. Additionally, refer back to the Belly Drum & Aqua Jet combo (BellyJet), Azumarill covers the speed issue but that one-turn set-up can be crucial. Nonetheless, Azumarill is an interesting choice, miles ahead of where it was last year.

Aromatisse

Aromatisse, the fragrance Pokémon. When Spritzee was first introduced, I was certain it would evolve into a flamingo Pokémon. CERTAIN. Instead, we got a hybrid of a risque French dancer and a Furby toy. Competitively, Aromatisse is the new Trick Room setter on the block. With the non-usability of Cresselia in VGC ’14, Aromatisse serves as a premier replacement. Defensively, it is endowed with Base 101/72/89 Defenses, nowhere near Cresselia’s presence as a tank but a solid stand-in. Aromatisse also sports a very useful Base 29 Speed for Trick Room and a respectable Base 99 Special Attack, giving it more offensive presence than the standard Cresselia. As a pure Fairy, Aromatisse indulges in the type’s defensive presence and is only threatened seriously by Steel-types.

Defensively, Aromatisse’s physical bulk of 101/72 slightly lets it down, making it extra vulnerable to Steel types like Mega-Mawile and (Mega-)Scizor. However, with just the right investment, VGC’s sweetheart can pull through the steely eyes of adversity.

Usable moves:

• Trick Room
• Moonblast
• Light Screen &/or Reflect
• Other attacking options: Thunderbolt, Psyshock/Psychic and Energy Ball
• Skill Swap
• Swagger
• Rest

Other Fairies!

The Fairy type shortlist! Sadly, some of these nymphs did make the cut, yet they do have some obscure niches, so I thought they deserved an overview!

Sylveon - MY FAVOURITE. If you watch the Eevee & Friends minimovie, Sylveon moves with such grace and CUTENESS. Competitively, its Base 130 Special Defense and Base 110 Special Attack are useful but its gravely limited by its movepool. Base 95/65 physical bulk is quite pathetic and Base 60 Speed is doing it no favours. However, with the loss of move tutors, I could see it being a decent and cute supporter with Helping Hand.

Florges - Even its name is elegant. Basically a better Sylveon. With Base 78/154 Florges has serious potential as a Special wall. Unfortunately, Base 78/65 physical bulk is worse than Sylveon’s and its movepool is just as shallow. It has aesthetic appeal but even then, it may just be a decent supporter in doubles.

Slurpuff - An average Joe Fairy. There isn’t really anything special about Slurpuff. Base 85 Special Attack is pitiful and 82/86/85 defenses are mediocre. It does possess a niche in Sweet Veil, blocking sleep but its unclear how useful this will be. It carries a diverse movepool, with unique access to Flamethrower, but it’s missing a key Fairy ingredient, Moonblast.

FAIRIES!?!

To conclude, Fairies definitely present an interesting shakeup to the Standard metagame. Offensively and defensively, Fairies are superstars in typing. However, they’ve been plagued by poor distribution and their often average physical bulks leaves them vulnerable to Steel types. Even so, Fairies are sure to drive Dragon types and Mr. Crocker crazy.

Article image created by ishmam and used with permission. Check out his deviantART page

The post Fairy Invasion: An Introduction to Fairy-type Pokémon in VGC appeared first on Nugget Bridge.

After Fall Regionals continued with Black and White 2 for one last set of events, we finally have our first Pokémon X & Y events for Championship Points over the next three weekends. While we’ve gotten a taste for XY in tournaments from the Nintendo UK Winter Event series and some grassroots events, this weekend marks the first opportunity for players to progress in the circuit through Pokémon X & Y.

Every time I’m at home on an event weekend it drives me crazy, so with perhaps the most intriguing Regional tournament I can recall coming up on Sunday I definitely suggest that everyone who can attend does so. Virginia being the first Regional of Pokémon X & Y would be exciting on its own, but Virginia always seems to be the hardest Regional on the circuit due to the Winter Regionals being so spread out, which should be even tougher this year with attendance likely increased beyond what it would have normally obtained by being on an isolated weekend. The field of attendees is so deep that you could end up with a pretty respectable Nationals-size type cut, so seeing so many strong players competing in a brand new ruleset is really exciting for our game. There are a lot of really clever players who will be given a chance to showcase their viewpoints on what works in X & Y through the competition Sunday, so it should be exciting to see who is able to break the metagame that is currently establishing itself and to see which Pokémon are better and worse than their current perceptions. I think it is particularly exciting because as much as I’d have liked to see a ruleset with fewer Pokémon restricted, I think the format this year is dramatically improved over anything we saw during the BW and BW2 era due to some of the gameplay changes on XY. The more balanced gameplay will add some extra credibility to whatever results we get here. In spite of these events occurring very early in this format’s exploration, the winners of the upcoming Regionals will definitely deserve their placements, which has maybe not always been the case with the early events in some formats.

With this being the first tournament on XY for CP, it’s probably a good time for some quick reminders for our readers. The 3DS battery life is a little shorter than we might prefer for these events. Make sure you charge your 3DS before you leave your hotel room or home, because I am sure no Regional will have nearly enough charging stations for everyone. As a nice supplement, I am told these Nyko Power Paks will vastly increase your battery life and are something we should all probably be investing in. While I don’t know if Virginia is going to have any streamed matches, players looking to attend events that will have streams like St Louis’s Regional and APEX next week should keep in mind that you can’t move a digital copy of a game to a capture card to stream, so if at all possible it would probably be a really good idea for everyone to play on a physical copy of the game if you have access to one. Move those Pokémon over and start working on that Return happiness now!

Perhaps most importantly: Download the patch to update your game to version 1.2 before you go. You need your games updated to play.

Virginia Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(Five powerful Mega Pokémon and a Regigigas that can’t get it going because of its Slow Start out of five)

Tournament Organizer: David Tuskey

Last Year’s Winner: Benjamin Rothman (Nightblade7000)

The Story

While all Regionals in the northeast tend to be full of VGC’s biggest names, Virginia’s place in the schedule and its proximity to APEX have made it the most intimidating Regional on the circuit. In 2013, Virginia was also perhaps the Regional that most made it seem like eight players was too small of a top cut for Regionals. Probably the hottest contested Regional of the 2013 season, the top 8 consisted of Ben7000, JiveTime, Andres Morales, TDS, plaid, wer, dtrain, and Dubulous, leaving out a chunk of 2013 worlds competitors in the cold because of their resistances, with Wolfe Glick at 10th, Ray Rizzo at 11, and Trista Medine at 14th, not to mention 2011 Worlds top 4/2012 Worlds top 8 finisher Matt Coyle at 12th. Expect things to be just as close this time, as most of those players will be contending for the top spots again and there are a gauntlet of other high end players trying to take the crown. One interesting change this year is that byes seem to have been quietly abolished, removing the advantage players who did well in Fall Regionals had last season, which led to some of those whiffs.

I tend to start these previews with the old guard because I think we’re still at the point where we old timers tend to be the favorites to top cut at most events, but especially as we move into a new generation, I don’t think that the reality is always going to match that expectation. Skill in this game tends to be somewhat universal regardless of ruleset, but the average player gets better every year and Pokémon is a game that requires a decent amount of specific knowledge about the available Pokémon to win at. Just like with generation four transitioning into generation five, I’d expect Pokémon XY and upcoming sixth generation titles will lead to some turnover toward the top. In 2011, the first year of Pokémon Black and White, we saw the rise of some players we take for granted as stars now like Wolfe Glick (Wolfey) and Aaron Zheng (Cybertron). For someone, the path to joining those names starts this January.

With that said, the northeast does feature the biggest chunk of people you’d probably want playing for you if you needed someone to win a Pokémon battle to save your life. All three of the biggest names in North America — 2010-2012 World Champion Ray Rizzo (Ray), 2011-12 US National Champion and 2012 Worlds runner-up Wolfe Glick, and 2011-12 Senior National Champion and 2013 Masters Worlds semifinalist Aaron Zheng — will be in attendance. It’s a little weird to be writing this, but things have sort of reversed themselves and now and Aaron is the one I’m concerned isn’t going to be taking the event seriously enough with his Worlds invitation already locked up, with Ray and Wolfe having a little more to play for after having their freebie invites last year. The former World Champion still doesn’t seem to be quite as practiced as he should be, but he’s still the best player our game has ever seen and should be a major threat to win the first Regional he’s actually needed to try in since 2010 in spite of being underprepared (please don’t use Torkoal). I think of the three players mentioned here, Wolfe is by far the most dangerous player at this event, as after a year where he could take things a little bit easier he’s put in like 300 games on the VGC ladder on Battle Spot already and will presumably be extremely prepared for this event.

What makes the northeast so intimidating is that there’s still a bunch of other former Worlds competitors to touch on before we even hit the normal favorites. Nationals runner-up and 6th place Worlds finisher Enosh Shachar (Human) was one of only a handful of players who cut three Regionals in 2013. After finally missing top cut at a Regional where he decided to use Charizard even though it was not yet time for Pokémon XY, he should do better now that Charizard can, in fact, Mega Evolve into something useful. While I’ve heard he might not be coming this year, Ben Rothman won this event last year after an impressive victory in APEX the previous week, culminating in one of the more impressive combined performances of the 2013 season, and after respectable performances at Nationals, Worlds, and the other Regionals he attended last season he’s solidified himself as one of the favorites at any event he attends. After a circuit with lower stakes last year after winning the 2012 Senior World Championships, Toler Webb (Dim) has quietly actually been very effective in his last two events, coming within inches of top cutting over Aaron Zheng in last year’s World Championships and finishing 2nd at the Texas Regional last Fall. He should definitely be one of the favorites in Virginia. The 2013 Worlds competitor I’m most curious to see the results of is Trista Medine (ryuzaki), because she seems to be in a similar spot to Ray where she hasn’t seemed to have had too much time to practice but is so good when she’s on that it might not matter very much. It’s hard to imagine any of the players in the last two paragraphs missing Worlds, so expect a giant chunk of the CP from Virginia to fall into their collective hands as they start charging toward DC.

As far as the bigger names that aren’t coming off of a Worlds invitation, Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar) has sort of started flying under the radar a little after a 2013 season that wasn’t quite up to his usual standards, but he top cut Worlds two years in a row prior to last year for a reason. I’d probably lump him in with what I said about Trista and Ray, but you’ve got to figure the dice will land on the right numbers for him sooner or later (assuming he remembers to give his Pokémon items) and he did top cut his Fall Regional this cycle. His buddy 2011 Worlds competitor Simon Yip (TDS) had perhaps the most tragic season of 2013, missing out on a Worlds invitation only because of a couple Wi-Fi tournament disqualifications, but he is one player I know who actually has been playing XY pretty regularly, which should help him take a step towards some justice. Like Matt, Danny Zollner (Dan) also had a long series of Worlds invitations broken last year after having been invited every year since 2010, and while the 2011 US Nationals runner-up is unlikely to be using something as bizarre as Zebstrika this time, he seems much more comfortable than he has in the past couple of years and should be poised to make a comeback as a result. Matt Sybeldon (bearsfan092) had been kind of quiet since winning one of the first Regionals of 2013, but he went 8-0 in Swiss in Pennsylvania and he’s been working at XY on stream a bit. Hopefully, he will finally be using a team other than PM649′s, if only because if he complains about it any more it will become a meme and we definitely don’t need any more of those. While Michael Lanzano (JiveTime) never seems to end up in Worlds, he deserves a mention in this grouping of players because he has to be around top 5 for average Regionals finish of all Masters player over the last couple of years and already has a Regionals win this year, so history dictates he should do pretty well here, too. When I think about his Regionals history, it’s a little confusing to me as he never seems to make it at the end of the year, but the CP system has mostly started reversing those trends, so maybe this will be his year.

While most of the previously mentioned players were top finishers in a variety of events during the fifth generation of Pokémon, there was a large amount of turnover between 2010 and 2011 as we shifted into new games, and I would expect that we will similarly see some new stars rising with XY. While some of the people who seem to be working the hardest on XY are old stars — like Wolfe, for instance — there are definitely some other players who seem poised to jump the top. Jeudy Azzarelli (SoulSurvivor) recently won a local grassroots tournament that contained many of the bigger names who will be attending Virginia, including almost all of the former Worlds competitors, so in spite of not really having a notable body of work beyond that win his name has to jump up on the list as one of the better dark horse picks here. SoulSur and his pals Chuppa Cross (Chuppa) and the better known Angel Miranda (Sapphire Birch) have been spending a solid bit of time working on XY, and Chuppa is coming off a NB Live tournament win a week ago, so I think they should have a pretty good shot of cutting here. I will admit, however, that after Seel in Philadelphia I think I’m more interested in what Nugget Bridge’s favorite definitely-a-cute-girl-user Birch will be using than I am in how many matches he’s going to win. While Edward Fan (iss) spent the tournament SoulSur won being some sort of crazed real life bug catcher, he’s spent a lot of time playing and streaming XY and should come into this tournament more prepared than some of his better decorated competitors. In spite of not finally buying a 3DS until like a week ago or something, what I wrote about iss is true of William Hall (Biosci) as well (except for the fixation on weird Bug-types), who’ll look to increase his point total now that he finally gets a full season on the mainland. I’d be really surprised if either of these guys didn’t at least get close to top cut, and I think if you were to think of relative surprises that could end up with Worlds invites without going super deep at Nationals these two should both come to mind.

Even with several paragraphs of players being mentioned, I can’t help but feel like I’m leaving out some important names. Jonathan Hiller (MrFox) won Virginia last year in the Senior division and will be looking for his first top cut in Masters. Cameron Kicack (Stormfront), Adib Alam (honchkro13), David Mancuso (Mancuso), Alex Valente (avdc90), Patrick Brodarick (wer), Dan Levinson (dtrain), Tom Hull (TheGr8), and Tiago Maltez (CinderellaStory) all have at least one top cut in the last year under their belts and will be looking for another in Virginia. I’m sure I’m forgetting a decent chunk of obvious contenders even before the usual “every Regional has a couple players come out of nowhere and surprise us by making the top cut” caveat because the first XY Regional is overflowing with excellent players. There are a ton of players here who will deserve better fates than they end up with, but only eight players will finish in the top cut and the competition will be overwhelming. It should be incredibly exciting to see who comes out on top of a field as strong as this one, and many of them will be back in action again next week at APEX!

The Smart Money is on…: Frankly, the smart money isn’t on anyone this time — without any larger scale XY tournaments to speak of, any prediction seems as wise as the next. With that in mind, I guess I’m expected to pick someone, and if I were setting the betting odds for this event, my favorite would be Wolfe Glick. He’s proven he’s a contender for best in the world when he’s on his game, and of all of the players who have proven they’re among the world’s elite, Wolfe is perhaps the one who seems to be working the hardest right now, so I’ll side with him. He’s also the sort of player I think will be really good in the untested waters of a new metagame. Wolfe is someone who has shown he’s plenty comfortable innovating new strategies almost irrespective of metagame, which is perfect for a situation like what we have now where much of the metagame may be too unstable to rely on. The creative players tend to come out on top early in new formats, and as someone who is both creative and consistent, this should be Wolfe’s time to shine.

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

Photo by Doug M.

The post 2014 North American Winter Regionals Preview Part 1: Virginia appeared first on Nugget Bridge.