[DONE] KANTO CLASSIC: Post your results!

Final Score: 17 W - 3 L.

I have taken the feedback into consideration and didn't play the last day of the competition as I was pretty satisfied with win ratio and having a ranking between 1690-1700 gap. It was my first official tournament, excluding Battle Spot and general battling seasons, and am proud to set a good score that satisfies myself.

Here is the prize team of mine and their movesets;


Despite the Speed, my lead was always Snorlax due to the invested 252 Defense in EV to tank the physical attacks and in return, provide a quality attack with 252 Attack EV invested to deliver Body Slam. I had no issues with Clefable's, as either they got KO'd after Heavy Slam, if not with Body Slam after utilizing Minimize. In order for Dragonite to take out Snorlax from the battle, it was essential to run Dragon Dance more than once, in which it either resulted users to suffer from paralysis or getting KO'd after Multiscale turn is over. If Snorlax ended up fainting in the process, Arcanine KO'd with Extreme Speed in emergency situations.

Gengar played an important role for players who aren't successful about compling the other party's team and anticipating switch in-outs. Inexperienced players who attempted to Dynamic Punch Snorlax ended up either being burnt by WoW or seriously damaged with Sludge Bomb. In the battles it participated, he managed to pull a good damage on opponents' teams as long as it outspeeds. In case of non-priority moves and slower Pokémons, Gengar successfuly set up Destiny Bond to take the other party down pretty well.

More than glad that I've run Sub-Alakazam. During switches, i.e. Gengar, Primape, Hitmonchan, Machamp, Starmie and etc., Substitute played a key factor to sweep the teams with Psychic, Shadow Ball or Focus Blast. Most of the Rest-Talk Snorlax's ended up KO'd with x2 Focus Blast. Have to mention that Substitute also covered me very well in Sucker Punch/Thunder Wave situations and turned into a big advantage.

Nothing to mention about Arcanine, really. Amazing Pokémon, amazing stats, great ability. Extreme Speed helped me in quite situations, especially sweeping the outspeeding, frail, Pokémon like Alakazam, Jolteon. Venusaur and other Grass variants suffered heavily from Flare Blitz, while Wild Charge effectively sweeped all water-type Pokémon with Wild Charge. Close Combat was in assistance to KO Snorlax during sleep, as most of the players surprisingly seemed to be unaware most physical Arcanine's carry CC.

Machamp had a great setting in EV. 172 HP, 252 ATK, 84 SPD, let me outspeed the 85 base Speed, 0 EV, Pokémon with great bulk. 100% confusion coming from Dynamic Punch changed the game in some situations, especially Knock Off with possible Gengar switchs. Ice Punch was a good addition to KO +1 DD Dragonite and Zapdos, while Bullet Punch countered Aerodactyl, Clefable very well and lowering the frail Pokémon's HP quite a bit down.

Slowbro was undoubdetly one of the best team members in the tournament by both working as defensive and offensive. Calm Mind worked like a charm in most of the cases due to the 252 DEF invested along with 252 HP on Bold nature. Slack Off was essential to recover the lost health while spamming Calm Mind. Scald was a nice addition to potentially burn DD users and most of the physical attackers and Psyshock combined with boosted CM hit like a truck. I saved the game from 1-4, 10 HP to 1-0 Win with Slowbro on the first day!

I have faced with many players, mostly Japanese with 1600+ and had a blast in every single match. I do hope that one day we will have tournament like this again, maybe Johto Classic, for future memories. I will be looking forward to see the results of the competition while feeding the team with Poké-Puffs as a prize!
 
After lurking for a while, I'd like to report my team for this competition, which went 20-0.

It's a bulky offense team featuring two sturdy pokemon to stop ohko users and had two main win conditions in CM clefable and curselax. The big oddity of this team would be future sight Slowbro; it put pressure on the poison and fighting pokemon that kept my win cons from setting up. Gengar was there to mess with any support and enemy curselax, and cleaned with hex if most of the opposing team was afflicted with status. This was the best way to deal with alakazam, which was tough to deal with if Slowbro or Golem was fainted.
 

Attachments

Barely played. Went 3-1, entered with a joke team. Behold it. ~1525 ranking.



Alakazam just tormented the absolute fuck out of everything, and yes, that's a bulky Alakazam. Uninvested Psyshock stings Gengar plenty, and anything unlucky enough to be slower than Zammy (aka, 90% of the metagame) was simply Subbed upon and mind-raped. Gengar? Psyshock may seem obvious, but I usually subbed; most people know "it's faster and I will die" so I just got a free sub on the switch, followed by a free Psyshock. Zammy forced at least 1 struggle/switch upon his first victim, at which point foe figures out they can switch on Encore. At which point, I simply Sub and spew Psyshock everywhere, severely denting the team combined with SR. Zammy would often be the overall most damaging mon, despite a single, uninvested, and relatively weak attack. Set up mon? Encore. Not a setup mon? Sub -> Disable -> Encore -> laugh.
Machamp did most of the killing, 20% of the trolling, and 40% of the crippling. Dynamicpunch is legendary, nothing bar Gengar wants to eat it, and Sub blocks OHKO moves and switches that Machamp baits to no end. Toxic was for crippling Slowbro, which I never saw, and ended up being used on random shit for chip damage. Stone Edge, I needed for Gengar and Dragonite; but mostly, I always use it on Machamp on account of "omg, it actually hits!".
Golem is an obvious lead choice, OHKO sponge, and general pain in the ass if it doesn't lead. Switch in to dumb T-bolt + Signal beam Jolteon, click SR, switch out if at full HP or just spam Stone Edge since nothing resists it. Just set up a half-dead, +2/+2 Dnite? Park full HP Golem in front of it. Watch as hope fades from your foe's eyes. Aerodactyl? Walk right in, give no fucks, and click Stone Edge. Articuno? Sure, Freeze-Dry me and gamble with Stone Edge. Blastoise? Sure, my Articuno could use a free switch in anyway.
Articuno was an absolute dick, preying upon Golem's switchins (Machamp, Starmie, Blastoise), stalling like hell with Sub + Roost + Pressure, and being more directly pressuring with Sheer Cold spam. limited 8 PP, sure, but would you want to fight a Sheer Cold spammer beind a Sub?
Arbok was entered via coinflip, as some know her as an inexpicably effective troll in my Double battles, spreading depair and misery everywhere she goes with Intimidate + Glare (Dragonite really hates that one btw) followed by Rock Slide spam. Even against superior foes who should win 1v1, such as Wish + protect Vaporeon, Glare + Coil + Rock Slide was simply too much. Arbok only ever died on account of me lacking Black Sludge and a Wish passer.
Scyther was chosen via lottery, and I ran Fury Cutter out of absolute stupidity; it actually came in useful against a stall Chansey though. Fury Cutter hits 60 -> 120 -> 240 power, and turns out Chansey doesn't take that very well without Eviolite. Wing Attack, I don't have the Aerial Ace TM, so wyaut. Defog I never used. Roost was fun to just stall against Ice Beam mons. all in all, 2 kills in 4 battles.

Team was retarded, had almost no synergy, and no switchins for most relevent threats. Somehow, I went 3-1, some were 1580+. The one loss, I recorded 6 crits to my 1 across ~18 turns so guess why I lost. I saw 0 Snorlax, I was sad.
I should not of pulled off half the shit I pulled off, nor should have more than 1 win.
 

Albus

The Triumphant
is a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnus
Welp, in spite of not being able to play literally every single Battle as I wanted to, I had a lot of fun with these rules and I managed to get a fairly good 14-3 (or 15, idk) record with a ~1660 rating, much better than I expected, I thought I'd end up faring much worse because I hadn't played Single battles since like B2W2 OU (2013). here's the team that I used:

upload_2016-3-6_19-38-26.png

My team was slightly improvised because I didn't practice a single time in PS! and I built it in less than 3 days before the comp lol. I only had in mind the idea of using a team around my Golem with what I thought would be the best metagame calls for the comp. I made/used some weird EV spreads/moves that helped me either saved my back and/or caught my opponents off guard; my Dragonite was slightly bulky (the additional bulk saved me in the last turn in a mirror against a faster Dragonite with Dragon Claw, it had its Multiscale broken), my Starmie was a bulky defensive one that even then nabbed important KOs, and my Machamp was a Guts variant with a cheesy Sleep Talk tech that saved me twice against a Venomoth and a Butterfree lol (I missed Bullet Punch at times though.

Forgoing No Guard for Guts was the best choice I could've made, the 'champ did a lot of work catching my naive opponents off guard trying to status/Fissure it and hitting them or whatever switched in like a truck in return (It hit so hard with that sexy Guts boost that it managed to OHKO a Vaporeon with full HP!), the 60 Speed EVs I invested in it did an awesome job as well, it helped me against some popular base 60 Speed 'mons like Clefable and the aforementioned Vaporeon; Close Combat's additional power helped me a lot as well, there wasn't a single time where I missed Dynamic Punch's annoying confusion.

I used alll of my 'mons and is a bit hard to choose these, but my MVPs, the ones who did a lot of work were Golem, its raw power and Sucker Punch easily saved my ass a lot of times and turned the tables against bad lead matchups like Starmie, and even if I hardly used it, Rock Blast did a lot against opposing Dragonites and the only Gyarados I faced. Dragonite was awesome as well, the dragon easily reversed bad matchups whenever it could get in, even with its Multiscale broken and against checks like Clefable (thanks to it I managed to turn a 0-4 into a 1-0 lol).

Even if everyone and their mother was prepared against her and I couldn't set up most of the time, Clefable did an awesome job by either spamming Thunder Wave against everything on sight or easily stopping setup 'mons and opposing Clefables, (fun fact: I intentionally bred it in a Poké Ball to "confuse" my enemy about my Clef's ability, which actually helped. :p ) I easily won the mirror matches against most of them which were mostly Minimize/Calm Mind variants (I don't regret not using Softboiled at all, Unaware was definitely the best choice), I even fought against a cheesy Charge Beam one lol (the guy was so stupid that he tried to set up on my Clef, the same thing happened with an idiot with an Amnesia Slowbro).

Even Gengar also did a pretty good job whenever it could get in by either spamming burns or firing off its STABs, Sludge Bomb's poison chance saved me more than Sludge Wave would have (I originally wanted to use the latter), unsurpringly it died a lot and at times it was a kind o a hit or miss in the matches.

Of all the things I faced, I had a lot of trouble against some 'mons; Jolteon put a lot of pressure on me, even with Golem, to the point that I was paranoid that it has HP Grass 99% of the time (Of all of the Jolteons I faced, one actually tried to catch me off guard with HP Grass lol); Alakazam, even if I faced like 3 of them, gave me a lot of trouble (a mispredicted Sucker Punch mind game with Golem against a Sub variant made me lost one of my last matches) Slowbro also gave me a lot of trouble, specially when my Gengar was down (which was 99% of the matches where I faced the 'bros); and Magneton, I literally didn't have anything to take its attacks or take it down and I had to try hard to work around it, fortunately I only faced 2 of them though.

I faced mostly good players from everywhere, even if the lower ladders (Like 5-6 Japs, 2 Mexicans and a lot of European players; I only got two "gift" matches against someone with underleveled 'mons and someone who didn't know what he was doing lol); I managed to get on the 1700s, but in my penultimate battle I lost by the aforemention Sucker Punch mindgame against a "Michael" guy who sat on the 1780s o played monstrously well (I have the feeling that the guy was a Smogonite lol); and I lost the last one against a damned Cosmic Power Clefable before the competition ended. Overall I had an awesome experience and lots of fun playing on this tournament and let's hope there are more comps like this one! I'll put some replays down here, for whoever wants to see them.

(XCDG-WWWW-WW3M-JFXA) This one was against a 1680 Japanese guy with an annoying defensive core, I don't remember the details of the battle but I turned the tables against the guy.

(HDCW-WWWW-WW3M-JGE4) Another jap with that annoying defensive core.

(6MVW-WWWW-WW3M-JF39) This one was a tough one for me, here's where Machamp shows how absurdly powerful it can be with a Guts boost.

(23PW-WWWW-WW3M-JF6N) How the Sleep Talk tech paid off, in all of its cheesy glory.
(887G-WWWW-WW3M-JGWL) The sucker tried to SwagPlay me to death with an Electrode lol My gutsy Machamp did an awesome job here.

(DCVG-WWWW-WW3M-JG7S) Here's where my Dragonite's weird bulky spread saved me from a normally hopeless mirror match lol. Machamp's Guts helped me alot here as well.
(393W-WWWW-WW3M-JGZJ) Dragonite saved my ass on this one.

(VAGG-WWWW-WW3M-JYBT) My gutsy plays (no Machamp pun intended) saved me against this fella.



Sorry for the absurdly long post btw. lol
 
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Demantoid

APMS Founder
is a Top Tiering Contributor
Here's my team I managed to go 25-5 ending with a rating around 1760. Expecting to be around my usual placing. I'll post my opponents' usage statistics and maybe some replays later.
Kanto Classic Battle Box.jpg

Venusaur
Ability: Overgrow
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Def / 76 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Leech Seed
- Sleep Powder

Articuno
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Sheer Cold
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Star (Starmie)
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 28 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
- Psyshock
- Scald

Blob (Snorlax)
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 172 Def / 52 SpD / 28 Spe
Careful Nature
- Body Slam
- Crunch
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Clefable
Ability: Unaware
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Def / 4 SpA / 52 SpD / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
- Heal Bell

Gengar
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Clear Smog
- Taunt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Shadow Ball

This was the team that I used to get to #1 on the showdown ladder and is the team I am most comfortable with. I probably would have chosen a different team if it wasn't for that because I would have liked to use Slowbro. I've forgotten what most of the spreads do because I made the team a couple weeks ago. The team as a whole struggles to deal with Snorlax and Machamp and Magneton can also be threatening.

-Venusaur was really good overall and was a pokemon I really enjoyed using however it tended to miss Sleep Powders and Leech Seeds consecutively which cost me at least two games kind of like I said in the article

-Gengar was mostly put on to deal with Minimize Clefable but it ended up doing a ton of work since it could 2hko most things besides Snorlax.

-This was my favorite Clefable to use pretty much the entire time I tested. It's faster than most opposing Clefable. Stealth Rock was amazing and every game I lost I think I failed to set them.

-Snorlax just kind of sat around taking hits the entire competition. This is probably the pokemon that spent the most time lounging on the field. I would've used a more offensive Snorlax but I had been using this spread since the beginning and found other Snorlax frail. I believe it's close to taking three Psyshocks from Alakazam.

-Articuno was absolutely incredible in this meta. Unfortunately this one seemed to hate hitting Sheer Cold. It only hit a Sheer Cold in the first 4 attempts like once. Freeze Dry also has amazing coverage and let me get late game sweeps with it alone a few times. I think it actually got more kills with Freeze Dry than Sheer Cold which wasn't supposed to happen.

-I used a bulky Starmie because I needed hazard removal that could remove multiple times throughout the battle, a Gengar check, and a fast pokemon. I would've used Slowbro if I didn't have Articuno.

Shoutouts to Theorymon and Bluemew. for giving half my team (I had gotten the Articuno from Theorymon before the competition's announcement). And also Nelson Tangela for testing with me some on ps even if he's not on here anymore.
 
I saw atleast a dozen Shiny HP Ice Zapdos. That is some elite level Soft-Reset, or one lucky chance and clones. haha

Keep in mind I did 30 battles in Masters and my son did 26 battles in Junior.

I did see 1 HA ability Zapdos used by an American player, another member here commented earlier that there is the potential for English HA bird trio if the Japanese game was set to English.

I'm not claiming every loss I had was due to hacked Pokémon. I know 1 loss I had was to a known hacker, well I received a Shiny 6x31 IV Deoxys in Wonder Trade with his youtube tag as the OT and I noticed the same name during the challenge screen.

There for awhile I faced like 6 teams in a row with 6 shiny Pokémon.

Again, I have some TSV/ESV shiny battle ready Pokémon, but it took atleast a week to find individuals to hatch my eggs.

I think the only downside to this is that you never know. It is easier to say you got beat by a hacker.


I yell at my son all the time when he is playing CoD and keeps yelling hacker. I don't want my son developing that poor loser mentality. He is one of the best players I have seen playing the game. But I dislike hearing him downplay another person's victory.

Sorry, old man rant.
 

zero2exe

Veteran Breeder - Expert Translator
is a Contributor Alumnus
I saw atleast a dozen Shiny HP Ice Zapdos. That is some elite level Soft-Reset, or one lucky chance and clones. haha

Keep in mind I did 30 battles in Masters and my son did 26 battles in Junior.

I did see 1 HA ability Zapdos used by an American player, another member here commented earlier that there is the potential for English HA bird trio if the Japanese game was set to English.

I'm not claiming every loss I had was due to hacked Pokémon. I know 1 loss I had was to a known hacker, well I received a Shiny 6x31 IV Deoxys in Wonder Trade with his youtube tag as the OT and I noticed the same name during the challenge screen.

There for awhile I faced like 6 teams in a row with 6 shiny Pokémon.

Again, I have some TSV/ESV shiny battle ready Pokémon, but it took atleast a week to find individuals to hatch my eggs.

I think the only downside to this is that you never know. It is easier to say you got beat by a hacker.


I yell at my son all the time when he is playing CoD and keeps yelling hacker. I don't want my son developing that poor loser mentality. He is one of the best players I have seen playing the game. But I dislike hearing him downplay another person's victory.

Sorry, old man rant.
Or most likely those were RNG abused from previous gens. since pentagon-less pokemon were legal this time around. Still there's nearly nothing saving that HA Zapdos from being a hack though.
Which reminds did someone end up using that Extrasensory Zapdos that was mentioned a few dyas before the competition began?
 
I have a question, how the rating system works in these tournaments? Do they consider only the rating u get from battles? Or some formula that mixes that rating number and the win:loss ratio? Because the rating number you can get depends from ur opponent's rating (or am I wrong?), so if I won against more high ladder (ie. 1720 rating) players the more rating ill get than someone who had the same number of wins but had more battles against mid (i.e 1680 rating). I know that the server try to match players with the same rating, but statiscally that is hard...
 

zapzap29

The obssessive man of passion
Or most likely those were RNG abused from previous gens. since pentagon-less pokemon were legal this time around. Still there's nearly nothing saving that HA Zapdos from being a hack though.
Which reminds did someone end up using that Extrasensory Zapdos that was mentioned a few dyas before the competition began?
I actually figured that there wouldn't be anyone using an extrasensory Zapdos due to the rarity of that mon and how difficult it would be to obtain one with usable stats and nature. I was almost correct, I only faced one during the entire competition and it was a high ranked Japanese player who had it.
 
Here are some replays that I accumulated throughtout the tourney:

QLKG-WWWW-WW3M-JZDY: Against an Upper 1700s Japanese player. This game was a nail-biter, at least towards the end. My team struggles with Dragonite pretty hard and when it flinched my Machamp with Iron Head, I was fearing the loss. Luckily, against the odds, my girl Rhydon powered through, avoiding the flinch chance AND landing the stone edge to win the game. Shoutouts to Articuno for landing almost two consecutive Sheer Colds lmao

YPYW-WWWW-WW3M-JQ7S: Another high level Japanese player. Jolteon and Gengar are annoying as hell to me. I had a burned Machamp put in serious work, though, such as finishing off a Clefable with a combination of Toxic and confusion (I had to do this to prevent stealth rocks from going up) and putting Gengar closer to the range where Bullet Punch would finish it off. Jolteon predicted my switchin to Rhydon with an HP Ground (I found this out when I switched in to Articuno and it didn't affect it) and I had to seriously play around it, Roaring until I had the chance to Rock Polish with Rhydon to clean the game. This guy had a Curse + Pursuit Snorlax. Heatah Fajita.

Some more casual, not as serious replays:

9URG-WWWW-WW3M-JSQ4: "You're time is up, my time is now. You can't see me, my time is now." I swear, nobody is capable of "seeing" John Cena Machamp. He 1v1ed a Slowbro with a combination of Toxic and Dynamicpunch confusion lmao

J5AG-WWWW-WW3L-S5ZC: This guy had the wildest Snorlax set I have ever seen. I didn't know it could learn this move lmao
 

Albus

The Triumphant
is a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnus
I saw atleast a dozen Shiny HP Ice Zapdos. That is some elite level Soft-Reset, or one lucky chance and clones. haha

Keep in mind I did 30 battles in Masters and my son did 26 battles in Junior.

I did see 1 HA ability Zapdos used by an American player, another member here commented earlier that there is the potential for English HA bird trio if the Japanese game was set to English.

I'm not claiming every loss I had was due to hacked Pokémon. I know 1 loss I had was to a known hacker, well I received a Shiny 6x31 IV Deoxys in Wonder Trade with his youtube tag as the OT and I noticed the same name during the challenge screen.

There for awhile I faced like 6 teams in a row with 6 shiny Pokémon.

Again, I have some TSV/ESV shiny battle ready Pokémon, but it took atleast a week to find individuals to hatch my eggs.

I think the only downside to this is that you never know. It is easier to say you got beat by a hacker.


I yell at my son all the time when he is playing CoD and keeps yelling hacker. I don't want my son developing that poor loser mentality. He is one of the best players I have seen playing the game. But I dislike hearing him downplay another person's victory.

Sorry, old man rant.
Just because you see a lot of Shiny 'mons in your opponent's team doesn't mean that said opponent is a hacker 100% of the time (Shiny HP Ice Zapdos is obtainable in any game where it can be caught not called XY) and that's a lame excuse to uh... excuse your loss (sorry for the redundancy); people like me use RNG abuse, Shiny TSV hatching and similar methods to get Shiny and/or flawless legitimate 'mons. there are obviously people with blatantly hacked 'mons in Battle Spot (go to the BS Doubles ladder and guess where all of those Shiny legendaries come from...).
Rock Blast, god damn it THAT'S what I forgot on my Golem, I had that feeling I was missing something important when I locked my box.
Rock Blast didn't help me as much as I wanted though, the sucker never got past nabbing 2 hits out of 5 (It only got 3 ONCE and even then I need 4 in that moment), there were time where I missed Stone Miss' raw power.
 
I have a question, how the rating system works in these tournaments? Do they consider only the rating u get from battles? Or some formula that mixes that rating number and the win:loss ratio? Because the rating number you can get depends from ur opponent's rating (or am I wrong?), so if I won against more high ladder (ie. 1720 rating) players the more rating ill get than someone who had the same number of wins but had more battles against mid (i.e 1680 rating). I know that the server try to match players with the same rating, but statiscally that is hard...
The only thing that affects your rank is your rating. Win/loss ratio is not used unless 2 players have the same rating. There a bit of luck about the rank of the opponents you face, but if you think about it, if they used win/loss ratio than there would be even more luck because the winner would likely be the person who faced the easiest opponents and facing a lot of high rank players would really hurt your placement.
 
It took me a little bit of time to get used to the team I was using so in my first 6 matches the win:loss ratio was 3:3. After that I started winning far more games (and finished at 21:8).

You'll notice that 21:8 only equals 29 games total, I was playing the last game when the tournament ended and would have won it (I had 5 Pokemon left, he had 2). Ah well, still did better than I expected.

I'm really bummed out that I didn't save two of my matches though, the first was an awesome win on my end while two of my Pokemon were frozen solid. Though I did manage to break it on my Snorlax JUST at the right moment, using Rest while I was at less than 10% health. That was awesome.

The other one that I wish I had saved was against the 1806 Japanese guy just so I could go back, replay through it and learn from the experience. He was very much a top tier player, it was insane. The main thing I noticed fighting against someone so experienced was just how much he switched his Pokemon out, he was able to predict my moves waaayy too much. :/

Overall, my final thoughts regarding the competition are that it was insanely fun and I can't wait for the next one! :D

Here's hoping for Johto Classic... that would be interesting, for sure.
 
Well, that was fun. My team did really well, ending up with 20-10, of which at least four battles were completely thrown away with dumb plays. My battle box isn't english so i won't post it, but I wanted to share some of my better replays, feedback is appreciated ;).

AE7G-WWWW-WW3M-LYVA Well, this guy must've been soo infuriated after the match. First, the Psychic from his Venomoth didn't kill my Machamp after a Quiver Dance and SR. And then, his Stored Power Clef got absolutely destroyed by ParaFlinch Dnite. It was hilarious, I got FIVE! consecutive flinches with Iron Head...

NHJG-WWWW-WW3M-LGQT Heal Bell on Jolteon was a lifesaver, Lapras proves to be bulky af, I luckily was able to shut Magneton down and once again ParaFlinch Dnite+Unaware Clef turn matches against opposing boosting Clef wincons. Also, Attract dactyl??

RPSW-WWWW-WW3M-LY5K How to outplay FissureLax, Trick Room Slowbro and Clef (scary team!). Surprise mon of the match: Hurricane Dnite. A good thing i build my Lapras more offensively especially for Slowbro, and mother luck was on my side once again.

There were many worse matches, but I'm still learning how to play. Looking forward to the next tournament that isn't VGC16 ;)

Edit: My Sets if anyone is interested.
Clefable
Unaware
Bold 252HP/252Def/4Spe
Stealth Rock
Moonlight
Moonblast
Psyshock

Machamp
No Guard
Adamant 204HP/252Atk/52Spe
Dynamic Punch
Stone Edge
Bullet Punch
Poison Jab

Jolteon
Volt Absorb
Timid 252SpA/4SpD/252Spe
Thunderbolt
Shadow Ball
Yawn
Heal Bell

Gengar
Levitate
Timid 252 SpA/4SpD/252Spe
Sludge Bomb
Will-o-Wisp
Hex
Sucker Punch

Lapras
Water Absorb
Calm 252HP/4Def/180SpA/68SpD/4Spe
Freeze-Dry
Hydro Pump
Ice Beam
Psychic

Dragonite
Multiscale
Adamant 252HP/252Atk/4Spe
Dragon Claw
Thunder Wave
Iron Head
Earthquake
 
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That was a really fun tournament! didn't get to play as many battles as I wanted but ended up with 12-4 and a rating of around 1610, which I'm happy with as I rarely play singles. My Outrage Dragonite was definitely my mvp, wreaking absolute havoc on unprepared teams :)
 
Was really fun! I also faced the Persian and Wigglytuff user, and some odds like Raticate and Kingler! Losing to them all. x)
My team was a mess. I just picked pokemons randomly expecting some results without thinking on any strategy.
My score was 17-10, what I think that was not that bad.
Apparently I was one of the few Dugtrio users (I not faced any other), but definitely it was not a good choice, an Equake stab that not kill an Alakazam not worth to be used... And is really frustrating how Stone Edge miss... Even Fissure seems to hit easily than Stone Miss... Golem or Rhydon would be better choices in his place. Although arena trap helped me a lot to deal against Nidoking, Jolteon and when I disperately needed an OHKO.
I decided to run Bulldoze Lapras to deal with magnetons on switch, and I running Tbolt over Freeze-Dry to hit Cloysters trying to Shell Smash, as Freeze-Dry does neutral damage to him.
Calm Mind on Alakazam was a disperate set as I didn't find TM 90 yet, but I faced a CM Slowbro and in the end it helped me in one battle at least.
The star of the team was Venomoth: Sleep Powder + Quiver Dance + Tinted Lens and Bug Buzz kill almost anything within 2 hits. Toxic Spikes would be better than Baton Pass (I did not use Baton Pass anytime).
The other mon that I probably would change is Venusaur, it not helped me so much, and I really missed a solid Alakazam and Dragonite counter.
I felt that I was affraid to predict sometimes or predicted wrong and did basic mistakes trying to overpredict the oponent. Playing 6v6 on 3DS to me was completly different from playing on battle simulators.



I'm not a native English speaker so I apologize for any bad writing and grammar errors.
 
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The Squad. I work full-time in sales so I wasn't able to play nearly as many battles as I wanted, which frustrated me to no end since I worked tirelessly on this team from day one. I ended up 16-2, both losses coming down to the final Pokemon. My first lost came against a high-ranked Japanese player who honestly outplayed me, luring my Clefable in with a Cloyster and then knocking it out with Explosion so that his Outrage Dragonite could clean through the rest of the team, and when I played to give myself a chance to win on the last turn with a 50/50 on Dragonite's confusion, he broke out Smack Down on his Machamp and then EQ'd my Zapdos, letting him finish the team without risking the confusion.

I don't remember much from my second loss, as I was kind of rushing through games as the deadline approached last night, but I got the impression that I could have done much, much more on day 3 with this team, as that loss was really my only competitive match that day out of the four games I played.

Aside from that regret, my biggest teambuilding gaffe was putting Toxic on Machamp instead of Stone Edge. Not once during any of my games was poisoning something more useful than other things I could do, and having one more way to hit Zapdos and Gengar and Dragonite would have been spectacular many times. Snorlax was an exceptional win condition, though having to sit through many turns while I waited for Fissure to hit got a little dull at times, I enjoyed having Crunch to hit Alakazam and Gengar, though it left Snorlax rather helpless against Zapdos and Dragonite, though I don't think Body Slam would have been any better against them save for the chance to paralyze the dragon.

I also might have preferred Stealth Rock to Calm Mind on Clefable, too. I think there was only one game where I actually boosted and swept with her, but having rocks on the field would have helped against the flying types that are immune to Fissure, so if I had it to do over again I'd certainly go that way.

All in all, the format was a ton of fun. I didn't encounter any OHKO moves and saw a few cool and unexpected sets, and at one point I actually played against someone using my exact team, or at least an earlier version of it. Must have found my RMT inspiring.
 
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Didn't have time to play any of the 3rd day matches, which worked out since I was pretty satisfied going 19-1 and ending up around 1750 for the first two days.

I've already shared my thoughts on the level of competition so I'll mostly be talking about my team. The gist of this team was fair balance (no OHKO cheese) with a strong defensive core that could break and wear threats down until the offensive core could clean.

The "Triple Blob Core" of Snorlax, Clefable and Slowbro were the most valuable members of my team and arguably the 3 strongest Pokemon in the entire competition. Movesets were pretty standard, with all 3 members being able to spread paralysis, wall just about every physical/special threat (lacking OHKO moves) through bulk alone and shrug off status via Heal Bell (Clefable) or Rest (in the case of Snorlax). These 3 were the ones on the field the majority of the time and many teams struggled to break through this core (only 1 player was truly successful) as I kept them healthy and slowly chipped away at my opponents' teams. Honestly, I could've stuck these 3 on any team and it would be solid - that's how strong these 3 were together.

The other 3 members formed more of an offensive core and I selected them based off of their offensive synergy together.

Alakazam was definitely the hidden MVP of this team as it won me so many games between Substitute and Encore. While many of my opponents were competent battlers, they all fell into a predictable pattern of using Rest with Snorlax 1 turn before it would've been KO'd. This gave me the opportunity to switch in Alakazam, Encore the Rest and then set up a Sub. The opponent would then either be forced to switch and have to eat 2-3 consecutive attacks from Alakazam (which few mons could stomach) or get PP stalled (which actually happened to one guy that refused to switch). Between its offensive and supportive capabilities, Alakazam definitely proved its worth as one of the most threatening mons in the competition. With that said it's a Pokemon that requires a certain degree of risk taking to be most effective. Capitalizing on your opponent's predictable patterns or defensive plays can really shift momentum in one's favour if you're willing to make a ballsy play.

Nidoking was alright on this team. It did its job of countering Clefable and cleaning up slower/paralyzed threats but besides that I found it didn't have too many opportunities to shine. I sort of regret making it my rocks setter over Clefable (though having the slots for T-Wave and Heal Bell were nice) as it could really only setup rocks against Clef and the Electrics (sadly I barely ran into any Zapdos and didn't encounter a single Jolteon). I almost never lead with Nidoking as it lost to common leads in Aerodactyl and Golem, fast offensive attackers like Gengar and Alakazam or walls like Snorlax and Slowbro - and at least one of these were on every team I faced. I usually had to bring Nidoking in later in the match to try and setup rocks, but there were a couple games where he had no chance to switch in or I would've had to forfeit a ton of momentum. In retrospect I probably would've replaced Nidoking with either Gengar or Venusaur as they would benefit this team more.

Dragonite was another member that I was a tad disappointed in, but moreso because every team I faced was super prepared for it and had 2-3 checks. I think I only secured a sweep twice, but Dragonite still pulled its weight by breaking down the opponents' walls and revenging stuff with Extremespeed. Simply the threat of having Dragonite on my team may have caused opponents to play more defensively (I know I did every time I saw a Dragonite), so perhaps it had an additional psychological effect, heh.

In short, while my team was solid it was far from perfect. The team lacked a consistent win condition, had no answers against OHKO spam (I opted against Magneton to prevent my team from becoming too stall-based) and had the potential to become overwhelmed by a strong offence. So how did I end up winning the majority of my games? Through outplaying my opponents, adapting to their playstyles and punishing predictable or sloppy plays. I also tried to think ahead a few turns in advance, consider which members of my team I needed to preserve and which ones could be sacked if needed. Competitive Pokemon battling is as much a game of strategy as it is team-building and type matchups, and this is part of the reason I find it so fun.

Anyway, this competition really rekindled my love for battling and I'd like to thank everyone in this thread and on Showdown for being so active and involved.
 

cant say

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I played a fair bit on PS in the early stages and did well with cheese strats like MiniMind Stored Power Clef and such, but as the metagame evolved I found myself continuously dropping from my peak of ~high 1400s~ and honestly got pretty bored with it all. I did 100% intend on competing though so in the days before the comp started I threw something together of stuff that I know all works on their own but had no idea about synergy, lol. This is how I remember it going down:



Articuno is hands down one of my favourite Pokemon, and I wanted to use the flawless Timid one I SRed on my X version that literally just sits in my PC all day. I knew for a fact that I was going to be using Sheer Cold, and that 8 PP sucks so I was probably going to use RestTalk with it rather than SubRoost as 6v6 required more opportunities to hit than 3v3. I didn't know what I wanted to use in the last slot, but since it was +speed I would utilise that with Roar, hoping that Sleep Talk would select it against slower foes and get me free phases. To take advantage of those I figured I needed entry hazards...

>


Golem was chosen for Stealth Rock. Articuno also struggles hardcore against Magneton which Golem can fire off an Earthquake against provided it gets in safely. That's pretty much it. Shoutouts to Albus for hooking me up with a cash Sucker Punch one at the last minute!

>


Articuno fuckin hates Stealth Rock, so a spinner was obviously needed. I liked Starmie's ability to heal and spread yellow magic which is why I picked it over Tentacruel.

>


I was seeing a bit of a Jolteon + Zapdos weakness, as well as Magneton to a certain degree still, and OHKO moves are fun so I opted for the based god Seaking. Whenever these online comps roll around I find myself needing to find something gimmicky or like an underdog Pokemon and Seaking just fit that role so perfectly.

>
/


Now I'm starting to see a bit of a Venusaur problem, as well as something to take on Clefables that are boosting out of control. Magmar was real good on PS in practice, Vital Spirit was great for sleep spam, fire STAB killed off Venu and Moth, and Clear Smog and Fire-typing helped to take on Clefable. However, as I was under time constraints, finding a Hidden Ability Magby, raising it to level 30 to evolve, breeding a better one, and repeating until I had a 5IV one (I was also planning on Hidden Power Grass) seemed like the worst idea ever. I could have probably called a few favours with the awesome people in Wi-Fi but I instead opted for Magneton who is one of my favourite Pokemon alongside Articuno, who I also had already bred on-cart, so it was an easy decision in the end.

>
/


Now I needed a good last mon. I didn't really know what I wanted to use or who would complement the team so I just went with Snorlax because he's an absolute beast, but then I realised I had a massive weakness to DD Dragonite so I went with the boring Clef choice, albeit with a not so boring set, lol.


Articuno
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 76 SpA / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sheer Cold
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Freeze-Dry / Roar

I ended up changing Roar to Freeze-Dry as I figured I needed a move that could give me consistent damage even though all I wanted to do was get OHKOes... It proved really useful for picking off things at low health and did respectable damage to a lot of stuff, notably Golem who was immune to Sheer Cold. Because of this change of moves I invested 76 EVs in SpA to guarantee the 2HKO (or out-damage Slack Off) on standard Slowbro. 20 Spe was to make sure I outspeed all variants of Machamp, yes even the Jolly 252 ones, and be able to bop them with 100% accurate Sheer Cold. The rest was put into bulk. This guy was probably the MVP and that made me really happy.


Golem
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 50
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Sucker Punch

This guy turned out to be a beast. Even though I wasn't utilising Sleep Talk + Roar anymore, the hazard is still invaluable in the 6v6 setting. Rock Blast was chosen because of its good accuracy, ability to fight through Substitute users, and fair chance at being stronger than Rock Slide (need 4 hits) and even Stone Edge (5 hits). It did backfire once when it hit twice against a Sub Gengar where a 3+ hit would have beaten it, but it's not like Rock Slide or Stone Edge would have been better so meh... Sucker Punch was amazing. Now this is serious, I had 3 battle where I expected my opponent to lead with Aerodactyl so I went with Golem, each time they used Taunt expecting rocks, and each time I killed them instead with Rock Blast. Not only that, but each of those 3 times my opponent sent in Alakazam, probably to use Grass Knot, but got OHKO'd by Sucker Punch! That's 3 times I had a 6-4 lead for free...

220 Spe to creep 12 Spe Magneton. Max Atk for power and the rest in HP.


Starmie
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Thunder Wave
- Recover
- Psychic / Psyshock / Scald

Not much to say about this thing except it did its job perfectly. I started with Scald on PS but changed to Psyshock, but then changed again to Psychic at the last minute without testing because it could still OHKO Gengar, did more to Golem than Psyshock, and the same to Snorlax who invest in Def (which I thought they all would be but they weren't). The biggest surprise for me was how many Arcanine this thing 1v1'd, they all must have been Jolly or physically defensive, but with the help of some para and recovery, I didn't fall to a single one! Enough Spe to outpace Gengar, the rest in bulk.


Seaking
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 29 Spe
- Horn Drill
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Scald

Not much to say about this thing either but I am so happy I put it in the team. It didn't beat all the Jolteon it faced (damn Shadow Ball SpD drops and Signal Beam confusion) but it was amazing nonetheless. The best moment was when I had just beaten a Golem with Scald, so my opponent sends in their Machamp, only to be outsped and OHKOed. I settled for a 29 Spe IV because I was breeding in a hurry, it's only one point who cares right? I went physically defensive to give myself a better shot against Snorlax and Machamp.


Magneton
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 50
EVs: 108 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 140 Spe
Modest Nature
- Discharge
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Flash Cannon

This guy was fun too. Discharge + Flash Cannon provided great coverage, only really fearing Jolteon and Seaking. Even then, Flash Cannon provided clutch SpD drops which let me beat Jolteon anyway (didn't see an opposing Seaking). Rest + Sleep talk was an idea I got from Nelson Tangela who topped the PS ladder with it. RestTalk on almost anything here was good imo, as there's no lefties for passive recovery, and if you want to be bulky but don't have a reliable recovery move then you're just gonna get whittled down and KOed (like my Golem a few times...). This guy was really good in general, but did his job of countering opposing Articuno and checking Snorlax. Flash Cannon also muscled through the Clef I saw which was nice.

140 Spe to beat fast Golems so that I could finish them with Flash Cannon. Max SpA for power and the rest in bulk. Taking a point from HP to get the extra in Def + SpD each gave slightly better bulk so that was nice.


Clefable
Ability: Unaware
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 244 Def / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Moonblast
- Moonlight

Yeah I could have used a more standard Clef with Calm Mind, or cleric with Heal Bell, but those are boring and I wanted to have some fun. I think I had a fair share of hax with this set, it worked against the things that Clef should check anyway like Dragonite, and obviously didn't work against things like Gengar and Nidoking, so I don't feel like it was broken at all. I did get 2 forfeits when it got going though... 20 Spe to creep Machamp aiming for 4 Spe Clef. Only lost a minuscule amount of bulk for it.

CGWG-WWWW-WW3M-FEK9
This one is special. I was fighting a losing battle that I got outplayed in, only for Articuno to pull a win out of its ass in the final turns. Thanks RNGesus.
(skip to turn 29 for the cheese)

YBVW-WWWW-WW3M-NPZ9
This is another case where I could have got an Aero + Zam takedown with Golem, but iirc this guy had a high ranking so I thought he would expect it and go for Disable. Their Snorlax reveals itself as a haxlord and I play badly against it by sending out and losing Starmie to it. Snorhax keeps doing work, not once hitting itself with confusion, but then makes a weird play by going for Crunch against my Clefable and then switching out. But it's ok because Magneton saves the day in the end.

I have a couple more replays but they aren't fantastic and I'd have to delete some existing ones to upload them. One I saved because it's basically the Seaking show (even though my opp wasn't fantastic), and another was a battle where I basically switched between Artiuno and Seaking and fished for OHKO hits (my opp switched a lot so I had lots of chanses).

Anyway, like I said in my last post, I only managed half the matches and went for 12W-3L for about ~1640 points. I could have very well been 14-1 though which I'm pretty annoyed about but whatever.. My first loss was to some genius using Substitute / Softboiled / Thunder Wave / Seismic Toss Chansey that I just couldn't beat. Shoutouts to him for also using Own Tempo Slowbro as his team was royally screwed by Machamp otherwise. I saved the team on PS so if anyone's keen to see it find me on there. My second loss was to a Gengar using Hypnosis, Substitute an Hex and it would not fucking miss and managed to KO three of my Pokemon. As I eluded to earlier, if Rock Blast had hit 3 or more times against him he would have gone down and I would have been in a much more favorable position than 6-3... My third loss was to a guy with only his Dragonite left and I had Articuno out with just Starmie in the back. He was locked into Outrage which would have KOed Articuno, but I know that my full HP Starmie tanks one, so I send it in to T wave on the next turn so that Articuno can finish with Freeze-Dry, but ofc he crits on the switch and gets a 3 turn Outrage to finish off Articuno without having to worry about confusion. I was especially annoyed about that because he was mid 1500's and I lost about 25 points for it. But that's Pokemon lol (and probably makes up for my luck in the first replay).

Anyway, this was really fun and I wish I was able to play more. Now we just have to wait until April to see if there isn't a third VGC16 online comp. I still want to see Sky Battles someday haha.
 


I wanted to share my team because I'm pretty proud of how it did, I ended up going 24-6, 9-1 day 1, 6-4 day 2 and 9-1 day 3. I procrastinated building a team all week and on the last day I just grabbed 6 kanto pokemon out of my battle ready box and came up with this incredibly physical team, and it played amazingly. My biggest problem was starmie and realizing too late that I took my oblivious TR slowbro instead of regenerator slowbro, but I was still stoked at how well I did since it was my first competition.
 
It's so sad to see this competition end... Training for a month and then play for only 3 days ;-;
I hope that I'll see this community again in whatever the next competition is :D
This so much.

I almost feel like it was wasted for me since I started late and didn't even get to finish my matches. I thought I could squeeze them in like with the festive feud, but battles just lasted too long and I started getting high ranked players after my 9 game winning streak and I only went 4-5 from there on out.

But anyway, I might as well post my team:

Kanto Cup.png


Not much analysis other than it seems I prepared for the wrong Clef set. I was well prepared for the minimize spam BS, but if it was the cosmic power one, I was pretty much done due to the fact that the main thing I had phasing, Tentacruel, was sucking it up in testing, especially if he was the last mon standing. But the team did pretty well on Showdown without it, so I didn't think I'd have many issues. (Any feedback on what could have been replaced is muchly appreciated as I didn't know what I wanted to part with).

One of my main regrets though is that I didn't put my own spin on some of the aspects of my team rather than just filling it in with the biggest threats. I wanted to try out an Insomnia Primeape over Machamp and a Stall Breaker Golbat in a different slot which could have saved me in the last battle I had, but oh well

I also have a literally perfect Impish Gyarados that I wanted to fit on my Kanto team, but I felt like it left me extremely vulnerable to opposing Zapdos (who I didn't see as much of as I thought), so in the end it got cut.

I shouldn't be too negative as I started out hot but my tour ended on a really sour note ( I should have stopped when I was 13-3, but I got greedy).

But lesson learned: no more singles teams without a phaser or taunt! I got away with it in triples tour and manged to go 23-7, but it was a huge lapse in judgement here.

And lastly, I can fully say Sleep Talk Lax wasn't a reliable way to stop Baton Pass Venamoth as it resulted in mind games on rather they'd sleep you or just boost again. If you predict wrong, it's gg.

Can't wait until we can use items again as I love punishing sleep abusers.
 
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I want to share this last replay: EC3W-WWWW-WW3M-QM7G

This was an intense match. A lot of double switching from both parties which kept the both of us on our toes. I wasn't expecting Sub 3 attacks Alakazam and that was giving me quite a bit of trouble towards the end. I also landed two Horn Drills in a row early game. He thought he was slick when he was trying to force my Rhydon out with his Machamp.
 

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