Tyranitar Passes the Check : A Top 32 Australian Nationals Report

Introduction

Hey guys, my name is Nihal Noor, and I usually go by the handle of UchihaX96 on Twitter and Nuggetbridge. I’m an Australian (not really, I just live here) VGC player residing in Melbourne, and I’m here to talk about my experience at Australian Nationals which was held on June 6^th-8^th , but first let me give you a brief run down of who I am.

I started playing VGC in mid 2014, but I only attended one regional level event that year where I finished in the top 16. In 2015 I took the game a little more seriously, and attended more events, eventually winning a regional in Adelaide, while top cutting another one in Melbourne. Over the past year I’ve gotten to meet, interact with and play against some really awesome people, and it has definitely helped me grow as a person. This report outlines my cumulative experiences over this season and what I’ve learnt about the community.

Pre-Nationals Teambuilding Woes

The Australian regional circuit had just concluded, and I was on a high note after winning the regional event in Adelaide. After coming back to Melbourne I decided that I wanted to have some fun with the game in the upcoming PC before preparing for Nationals. I looked on some Japanese blogs and found that I liked the idea of Japanese SunRoom, with Charizard+Venusaur and Cresselia+Rhyperior. I added the genies for safe measure and to cover some of the threats the team faced. So I took this team to the PC, but found that it wasn’t as easy to win a best of 3 with it than it was to win a best of 1 since the opponent would catch on to the tricks the team had in game 1 and would be able to take the set in the remaining games. I finished a meager 3-3 at this PC and then it was back to the drawing board for nationals, but this time I wasn’t in such high spirits.

The 2 weeks before Nationals I was frantically testing all sorts of teams on Battle Spot along with Luke Curtale, trying to ladder as well as find a team that was comfortable for best of 1 swiss. These teams ranged from Kang and friends to Mence/Mawile + Rain, Japan Sand, and even TR Garde. I wasn’t making much progress, and not feeling comfortable with any of the teams. About 3 days before the event, we got an announcement that Nationals was going to be best of 3 swiss, and this really threw me for a loop seeing as how all the events I’d played in had been best of 1 swiss so far.

Since Nintendo Australia wasn’t kind enough to give me my free hotel accommodation for winning regionals, I asked fellow player Ty Power (Sarkastik) if I could crash with him for Nats weekend, to which he complied. Spring regionals had just occurred in the US, and while I was still trying to decide on something to use, one team really stood out to me. Angel Miranda’s 3^rd place Georgia Regionals team consisting of the Japan Sand core, but with Landorus-Incarnate instead of Excadrill really intrigued me. Now, when I tested Japan Sand before, I really disliked the team since Landorus-T’s intimidate really hampered Excadrill and Tyranitar, and Excadrill lacked the coverage moves I wanted. With Ty’s help, we managed to build the team 2 nights before Nationals, and I felt very pleased that I didn’t have to stress about my team anymore.

Day 1 of Nationals was for TCG players, but also for VGC pre-registration. I wanted to get to the venue to register before sundown, so I took the train down to the city in the afternoon. Unfortunately during the train ride the train actually broke down, and so I was stuck for about an hour before the train started moving again. After registering our teams, Ty and I went back to his place for a bit before heading out for dinner with a few friends. We had a great time, and after we had our fun we wanted to get back to his place and get some rest. We took the tram back, and well what do you know, the tram crashed into the back of a car. So we ended up walking a solid 20-25 minutes back, and when we got back we just wanted to relax. Sometime around 1 am, I decided to do a few battles on Battle Spot, since I hadn’t actually played a lot of battles with Landorus-I on the team. Sadly, I found out the hard way that my Landorus-I had Hidden Power DARK instead of Hidden Power Ice. Now at this point I wasn’t feeling great, and had to contemplate whether to enter the tournament with it or somehow try and take it out of my battle box and replace it. After this blunder, Ty suggested that we might as well check for any other mistakes in our teams that could potentially harm our run at Nationals. To my absolute shock and horror, this last minute review of my team revealed that I had a LEVEL 50 Tyranitar locked into my battle box for the competition. The Landorus-I was a blow that was hard enough to deal with, but I was now confronted with a Nationals ending mistake that would cost me the competition without a doubt, especially after the Level 50 Hydreigon fiasco in Europe earlier in the year. I made a tough decision to cancel participation to unlock my battle box and fix the team at 3am, hopefully giving a good enough excuse to the organizers the next morning to warrant my re-registration for the competition. So after train failures, tram crashes, illegal pokemon, and 3 hours of sleep, we headed to the event. W A R S T O R Y

The Team at a Glance

    

THE SQUAD

 

Salamence @ Salamencite ** Mence-Sama~~

Ability: Intimidate

EVs: 20 HP / 244 Atk / 4 Def / 36 SpA / 204 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Double-Edge

- Hyper Voice

- Roost

- Protect

Built to speed creep pokemon that speed crept max speed Thundurus-I by 2 points. This EV spread allows Salamence to pick up a KO on some bulky Mega-Kangaskhan after Hyper Voice + Double Edge. The 36 SAtk EVs also allow it to chip things, and it allowed me to KO Breloom with Hyper Voice after it’s sash was broken. The rest of the EVs were dumped into HP and Defense. Salamence performed really well on the day, and I brought it to almost every single battle. It didn’t let me down a bit. Looking back on it now, I didn’t use Roost as much as I thought I would, and switching from Jolly to Naive, with Draco Meteor over Roost would have been a much better call.

 

Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry ** ♥Accelerate♥

Ability: Levitate

EVs: 244 HP / 44 Def / 12 SpA / 68 SpD / 140 Spe

Calm Nature

- Thunderbolt

- Thunder Wave

- Hydro Pump

- Protect

Rotom-Wash provided a good way to beat water types, and the spread was designed to outspeed bisharp by 2 points, and still have a respectable amount of bulk. 244 HP EVs ensures it has an even number HP stat, therefore activating Sitrus Berry when Super Fang was used against it. 44 Def was for the guaranteed survival against the rare Mawile that might have appeared, while the rest was dumped into Special Defense and Special Attack for efficient use of the EVs. The use of Thunder Wave over Will-o-Wisp was questionable, as burn damage would have definitely helped against other bulky pokemon. Thunder Wave did help me in a few rounds though, so it wasn’t that bad.

 

Amoonguss @ Rocky Helmet ** ZzNapTimeZz

Ability: Regenerator

EVs: 172 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA / 76 SpD / 4 Spe

Bold Nature

- Spore

- Rage Powder

- Protect

- Giga Drain

This is your standard physically defensive Amoonguss, built with enough bulk to take a Zen Headbutt from Metagross, while the rest of the EVs were dumped into Special Defense. The 4 Speed EVs were rather useless, but it meant that I out sped other base 30’s and didn’t waste any EVs. The HP EVs on Amoonguss bring it to an HP stat of 211. This number maximizes the HP gained from Regenerator while also taking less sand damage each turn. Along with Aegislash and Tyranitar, Amoonguss gave me a way to deal with rain, as I could reset the weather, redirect attacks, and spore things while using Amoonguss’ ability to it’s full potential.

 

Aegislash @ Leftovers ** ♠Yosen♠

Ability: Stance Change

EVs: 204 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 28 SpD / 28 Spe

Modest Nature

- Shadow Ball

- Flash Cannon

- Substitute

- King's Shield

I opted for a faster Aegislash with Substitute on this team instead of the more standard wide guard that normally appeared on sand teams. Aegislash was able to speed creep other Aegislash and Sylveon and get an attack off before they could move. In Aegislash mirror match cases I could set up a substitute and force them into Blade form to have the advantage the next turn. The HP stat reaches a 16n+1 number, maximizing both leftovers and substitute, and a few EVs were put into Special Defense and Special Attack. Aegislash was a beast all day, becoming a win condition behind a substitute. It’s hard to say that it wasn’t a key pokemon for this team, being able to deal with fairies and mega pokemon like Kangaskhan, Metagross, Mawile and Salamence.

 

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Sand Stream

EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD / 228 Spe

Jolly Nature

- Rock Slide

- Ice Punch

- Superpower

- Crunch

Tyranitar was one of the stars of the team alongside Mega Salamence. With Salamence next to it, it could support Salamence by threatening some of it’s checks (Thundurus-I, Rotom-H, Heatran). Tyranitar was also intentionally made to be 1 point slower than Mega Salamence, and this was for the rare case where if Amoonguss used Rage Powder, I could knock it out with Salamence and then Tyranitar could hit the partner hard without being redirected. Tyranitar was also incredibly useful by setting up the sand to chip opposing teams, and helped in the weather wars as well.

 

Landorus @ Life Orb

Ability: Sand Force

EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

Timid Nature

- Earth Power

- Hidden Power Ice

- Stone Edge

- Protect

Landorus, pretty much the epitome of VGC’15, but not in it’s Therian form. Landorus helped deal with other Landorus/Salamence, and any pokemon weak to ground would be OHKOed 100% of the time in the sand by Earth Power.

I went with max speed to out speed base 100’s and below, and max special attack to deal as much damage as it possibly could. Special attacks don’t exactly hurt Sylveon, but Landorus could do a solid 50% to it with Earth Power, which helped in a couple of sets.

THE SWISS ROUNDS

Round 1 : Bailey Gabell (2-0W)

I’ve known Bailey for quite some time as we battled early season. Seeing his Sun team made me feel very confident as I figured Tyranitar and Salamence could do a lot of work with the sand up. I took game 1 with relative ease as I predicted Wide Guard from his Gallade and simply ignored it as I took out the rest of his team. Game 2 was slightly more difficult, as he set up tailwind. It came down to whether his AVest Landorus could flinch my Tyranitar twice, and he didn’t end up getting the flinch so my Tyranitar locked up the game with Rock slide.

Round 2 : Anthony Sullivan (2-0W)

Going into team preview, this team really scared me. It had a sand mode which was presumably faster than all of my pokemon, and it had the Trick Room mode with Abomasnow, Mawile and Chandelure. The Trick Room mode scared me the most, since I wasn’t sure how I would be able to handle Chandelure + Abomasnow together. Fortunately I only had to deal with them one at a time since he had to set up Trick Room with Cresselia, which he brought both games. There’s not much to be said about this set except that SubAegis carried both games by just being there and threatening his pokemon behind a sub while Rotom-W essentially took care of the rest.

Round 3 : Travis John (2-0W)

So this guy had a Blissey, a Ditto, a Wailord and a Scolipede. Right from team preview I knew this wasn’t going to be a match decided on skill, so I started to plan 3-4 turns in advance on how to run the timer down to win.

It wasn’t too hard with all my shinies and contest ribbons on my pokemon, sand damage, leftovers, Aegislash changing forms, switching, protecting and shell bell activating…?

Round 4 : Alex Rosenzweig (2-1W)

Round 4 was the first real challenge. I knew I’d finally be having a tough battle here. I figured he’d want to keep Zard and possibly Sylveon out of game 1, so I left Amoonguss and Aegislash on the bench as they wouldn’t be able to do much against Breloom and Heatran anyway. I took game 1 pretty convincingly, chipping everything with T-tar and Mence and finishing the game up with Rotom-W.

Game 2 he led Sylveon + Suicune, and since I didn’t bring Aegislash, he set up tailwind and tore through my team with Hyper Voice. I had already started to think about game 3, and reasoned that he would probably bring the same core of Sylveon, Suicune and Heatran, so I made up my mind to bring Aegislash to this next game and keep Landorus-I out of it.

This definitely paid off in game 3, as I curbed his screaming fairy and forced switches. With sand damage taking it’s toll and Salamence threatening, he was forced to make defensive plays with his Breloom, allowing my Rotom-W to deal with his team. Thunder Wave really came in handy against his Breloom and Suicune here. Good games to Alex.

Round 5 : Matthew Jiwa (JiwaVGC) (0-2L)

I had heard of Jiwa before as we were both part of a Facebook group, and I was definitely expecting to run into someone I knew by this time. A wild Garde TR team appeared! I knew this matchup was going to be tough no matter what. In Game 1, I lead Salamence + Aegislash into Scrafty + Gardevoir and he traces intimidate, so my Salamence is left at -2 Atk. Things go sour from here as he outplays me every turn, KOing my aegislash, and then locking down my Salamence with his Rotom-W and Heatran. He takes game 1 with ease. After that horrendous Game 1 I knew that I didn’t have a great chance to take this set, as the matchup was tilted completely in his favour. I wasn’t going to let him have a free win though, so this time I tried to get Aegislash behind a substitute, and try and chip his pokemon with Rotom-W so Salamence could come and clean up later. Unfortunately he carried on with his great playing, and I’m not sure he even had to set up Trick Room to win this one. Good games and well played to Matthew.

Round 6 : Billy Stanley (2-0W)

I had played Billy earlier in the season in the PC I went to. I remembered his Raichu + Zard + Trevenant combo, that liked to protect Zard with Lightningrod and Will-o-Wisp, and abuse Trevenant’s Harvest ability in the sun. This matchup was fairly simple for me, as I cruised through the set just letting the Salamence + Amoonguss combo handle everything, with Double Edge picking up quite a few OHKOes.

Round 7 : Brendan Webb (FloristtheBudew) (1-2L)

In Round 7 I was matched up against Brendan Webb, in what was essentially a mirror match. In Game 1 he brought his Ferrothorn, Tyranitar, Salamence and Volcarona. My Salamence deleted his Volcarona instantly and I took a quick lead. I was able to hold on and close out with Aegislash being clutch against his Ferrothorn.

In Game 2, I picked up a turn 1 OHKO onto his Salamence with my Landorus, which surprised him. In this game he revealed that his Rotom-W was specially defensive with Leftovers and Thunder Wave for support. This led to some problems for me since I didn’t have a great way to deal with his Rotom-W, and since his Tyranitar was max speed, it was faster than my Salamence and threatened with Rock Slide. After taking out my Landorus, he managed to put himself in a good position by playing well with his Ferrothorn and getting a timely Thunder Wave paralysis to stop my Aegislash from getting up a Substitute and setting up a Leech Seed on to it. Aegislash slowly whittled away and I had no way to beat his Ferrothorn and Rotom-W.

Game 3 was a tight game, but once again his Rotom-W proved to be very difficult to handle, as I let my Salamence get paralyzed and consequentially taken out soon after. He still had his 4 pokemon left while I tried to get back into it with Rotom and Aegislash, but Thunder Wave and Rock Slide sealed the deal for him, flinching my Aegislash a few times, ensuring it wasn’t able to KO his Tyranitar before Rotom-W had a chance to do much. Good games Brendan.

Round 8 : Stephan Lowing (2-0W)

At 5-2 I wasn’t sure about my chances to Top Cut, but regardless I still needed to win this round. Stephan had a fairly standard team with some anti-meta picks in Milotic and Blaziken. Blaziken was a real threat as it had the potential to OHKO 5/6 of my pokemon with it’s coverage moves.

Game 1 started with his Zapdos and Blaziken vs my Aegislash and Rotom-Wash. Both of us played this game very safely, and I switched in and out a lot to try and take care of his Blaziken before it could cause too much trouble. At the same time Zapdos was firing off Thunderbolts after setting up tailwind, and Roosting off the damage it had taken. This was a rather long battle, and the game came down to Blaziken vs Salamence + Aegislash. Only being able to KO one pokemon, he had a choice to make, and he KOed Salamence while I set up a Substitute with Aegislash. At this point there was about 1:30 on the game clock, and his Blaziken was at 80%, from Life Orb recoil. Now if this was a more experienced player I’d have to say he would have taken this game, for all he had to do was run the timer down and Protect, and then run the timer down another time to win based off % HP remaining, as my Aegislash was at 10%. That wasn’t the case, as he Overheated, breaking my substitute, putting Blaziken in Shadow Ball KO range, and Aegislash promptly picked up the KO giving me Game 1.

Game 2 was pretty much over in two turns.

He led Blaziken + Kangaskhan vs my Rotom-W + Salamence. Blaziken protects and Kangaskhan uses Fake Out into Rotom’s protect as I launch a Hyper Voice with Salamence. Based off the previous game’s plays, I make the read that he will not HP Ice into my Salamence slot, and since Kangaskhan took a Hyper Voice earlier, it was in range for a Double Edge. He Superpowers Rotom-W as I pick up a double KO with Double Edge and Hydro Pump. He has nothing else to beat Rotom-W and my Aegislash, so that was the game in a nutshell. Good games Stephen.

Round 9 : Justin Lok (Singapore) (2-1W)

Round 9 was a very tense round for me as my Top Cut hopes were on the line, and what better way to decide which of us had a shot at Top Cut then to have a weather war! Justin was a pretty friendly guy and we talked about how this was the deciding match for us. We wished each other luck (but not too much, since he had Thundurus) and started our set.

I decided to lead with Salamence all 3 games to put pressure on his physical attackers and Sylveon if he brought it. Game 1 he led rain, and thus ensued the war between sand and rain. With Amoonguss and Substitute Aegislash I was able to dispose of his Sylveon quickly, and Tyranitar helped take out his Ludicolo, but not before I sacrificed my Amoonguss. The endgame came down to my Salamence at 9HP vs his Thundurus in Double Edge range. Sand was up, so at the end of the turn I would faint, regardless of what happened. All he had to do was get the full paralysis from Thunder Wave, and he did, winning game 1.

In game 2 he decides to lead Talonflame and Sylveon, hoping to set up tailwind and beat my team with sheer offensive prowess. Tyranitar does a good job beating Talonflame, but his Sylveon reveals Hyper Beam and really chunks my Aegislash switch in. After pulling some more switches and stopping his rain mode, Aegislash and Salamence clean up after I KO Politoed and set up the sand.

This was game 3, potentially the last game that either or both of us would play at this tournament. He decides to bring Thundurus back in instead of Talonflame and keeps his rain mode + Sylveon in as well. I get rid of the Thundurus pretty quickly, and get a Substitute up on Aegislash well. I make a read that he won’t protect his Sylveon and get the KO on it with Salamence, but not before my Tyranitar is taken out. The rain is up, and he has no switches, but I have lost access to my weather as well, and he has an ample number of turns to take out my remaining pokemon. Playing smartly with SubAegis and Amoonguss allows me to stall out some turns of his rain, and put Politoed to sleep as I chip at both his pokemon with Aegislash when I can. For some reason the rain just doesn’t let up, and he is able to KO my Aegislash, but I KO his Politoed with Giga Drain in return. At this point I’m really praying for the rain to let up, as the only explanation is that his Politoed had a Damp Rock. I protect both of my pokemon, and the rain finally lets up. I heave a sigh of relief as Salamence cleans up his Ludicolo and we shake hands. Good games Justin!

It turns out we were the last 2 people left battling as we were alone at the tables, and our results were the final ones they needed in order to determine the Top Cut. We gathered with everyone else and after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, the Top Cut results were announced. They are as follows :

Bubble and Beyond

I ended up finishing 7-2 at 18^th place, bubbling pretty hard, missing Top Cut by 2 places. It was a disappointing end to my tournament, but I had only myself to blame for my 2 losses during the day, though 4 of my opponents did drop and put me in quite the situation. You can’t stay sad forever though, and I was glad that some of my good friends made the next round, including Ty Power (Sarkastik), Saamid Zikria (Yourf), Phil Nguyen(Boomguy) and Matthew Jiwa (JiwaVGC).

After the day was over I went back to Ty’s place, and we worked on his Top 16 matchup against Mustafaa (musty)and then got a nice 5 hours of sleep.

I stayed at Nationals to watch the finals the next day and hang out with everyone else who was still there. Nationals was a lot of fun, and even though I didn’t make it to the final stages I still had an incredibly good time, and I look forward to being able to do so in future events.

Shout-outs :

Ty Power (Sarkastik) - Cheers for letting me crash at your place and just being great overall. Also for helping point out that ridiculously hilarious Level 50 Tyranitar.

Luke Curtale (Dawg) – Cheers to Luke for trying to register a MALE Kangaskhan for Nationals! Seriously though, you helped a lot during the teambuilding phase before Nationals. I appreciate it. Fantastic job commentating too!

Daniel Pol (Chiron) – We were sand buddies with Luke, and our Pokemon plushes said no less. Good times, and you did a superb job co-commentating on the stream with Luke as well!

Saamid Zikria (Yourf) – Solid Top 16 performance, and hopefully you can do better next time without having to blow anything up!

Layne Hall (Lejn) – Poor Layne had to study for his exams and miss Nationals. Maybe you’ll be able to compete at Nationals next time!

Matthew Bockman (Zyihk) – The Algerian Prince has yet to make his mark, but I’m sure he’ll be back better than ever this season. I hope.

Mitch Kendrick (MitchVGC) – Shout out to Mitch here who was surprisingly sober the whole day I presume. Was good seeing you again, and I’m sure you’ll get better and be more consistent this season.

To all of the above - Squad was on point. Parmas were great. Warstory is real. We out.