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VGC2019 Sun Series Teams Writeup
Introduction
Hey guys! My name is Damon Murdoch, also known as SirScrubbington and I’m a VGC player from Queensland, Australia. I’ve earned 190/300 points of my worlds invite in the Sun Series for VGC2019, and wanted to take this opportunity to write a little about the teams which had carried me through the format and some of my thoughts on the format in general. At first I was a little unsure about how I felt about the format, however after playing through the entire season I felt that the format was extremely fun, and I’m hoping that moon and ultra series continue to be enjoyable VGC formats as well. I don’t necessarily think any of this is a massive achievement, and I could totally understand if you don’t think many of the results below are worth documenting however I like writing about teams and I personally think it is important to preserve the past of VGC, and making writeups like this is a very good way to do that. Thanks for checking out my report, I hope you find it interesting or useful!
The Teams
Pre-Season
Dusk Mane Kyogre Semiroom
This team was built around the idea of having both a very fast and slow mode for the team and had many different Pokemon in the last slot, primarily Tsareena or Lurantis. Life Orb Modest Tapu Koko was actually pretty strong early on during the metagame, however nowadays you would most likely just opt for sash on this kind of team if you were to use it at all. I actually quite liked this team, but I disliked the Yveltal matchup which you more or less entirely rely on Tapu Koko to win. The justification for Snorlax on the team was that it lacked a setup sweeper like Xerneas teams, and it was extremely powerful under Trick Room if it were given the opportunity to abuse it. I’m a little sad I never got to use this archetype of team at an event, but I really just couldn’t justify using it at tournaments where it was extremely likely to face Yveltal and Lunala archetypes consistently.
September 29th - Fastbreak PC #1: 1st Place
This team was a pretty hot take for my first event of the season, but in the past Brisbane events have had a pretty strong tendency to hard counter the meta so I was expecting to see a lot of Necrozma Dusk-Mane or Solgaleo. Rather, I ended up playing a lot of Xerneas matchups however Koko + Crobat were very good at answering most of those teams at this point in the metagame. I ended up winning this event, despite some unfavourable matchups (I only just barely managed to beat Scarf Ogre + Lugia) although in hindsight I feel I was pretty lucky to not face Masto’s Yveltal Xerneas team, for which I had very little matchup. The finals match of this tournament was pretty wild, as my opponent was a local player named Francesco who had no restricteds! I saw a lot of people talking about how his team made finals after it happened, but Francesco is actually a very good player who just likes using wierd teams like that. The finals match was actually really difficult, and I had to play pretty perfectly to take the win. Overall I had a really great time at this event, and it felt good to win the first event of a season for the first time in my VGC career.
October 13th - Neo Tokyo PC #1: Top 4
This event was pretty soon after Memphis regionals, which had just been taken out by Ashton Cox (@Linkyoshimario) and Jeremy Rodriguez (@SerapisVGC) making double finals of the event using the same six Pokemon, and the same incorrect Lunala EV spread. I felt like this was a pretty good indicator the team was solid so I decided to play with the archetype myself, only using a Lunala with special attack EVs. In the end it turns out my rendition of the team was a little unauthentic, however the moves I used were pretty useful against what I ended up playing at this event. In the last round I played @Mastodon_Swoles and discovered that I didn't know how to beat his Yveltal Xerneas team with this archetype, and I don’t think I touched this archetype again for awhile as it was a team that you should pretty commonly expect to face at Australian events, especially at a regional level. Overall I liked the team, but I felt like I needed something a little different for the midseason showdown at Fastbreak the next day.
October 14th - Fastbreak MSS #1: 1st Place
I ended up building this team when I got home, and I’d been theorying the archetype for awhile but I decided to build it properly after watching @theflyingbird14’s livestream where they built a similar version of the archetype. I ended up deciding on icy wind Ludicolo on the train ride to the venue, as I originally felt like Ice Beam was a superior move choice however after taking a moment to consider, Icy Wind Ludicolo is actually extremely good and gives the team a second mode of speed control which can be really important in some matchups. After making this adjustment, I also modified my Groudon from minimum speed to be an adamant variant, with enough speed investment to outspeed nature boosted base-100 pokemon after a single turn of Icy Wind. Overall I actually loved this team, and I feel like it’s probably the best team I personally built during the time I played this format, at least for this point in the metagame. Bronzong was actually extremely good, and I feel like it will continue to be good in moon series and especially so in ultra series. While I did win this event, it was not without playing some very difficult matches! I lost to @Arahpthos in swiss, using a team very similar to mine (Only with a much more stylish fire type Fake Out supporter in Infernape) and I felt pretty lucky to have not had to face him again, as I’m not too sure if I would have been able to win the matchup. I also had a very tough set against @PhilBoomyNguyen, with his interesting Reshiram Zekrom team that really caught me by surprise and forced me to play my absolute best during the set to take the win. Overall, I was very satisfied with how the team worked at this event and while I didn’t end up using it again, I'm confident that the team was actually pretty good.
October 27th - Fastbreak PC #2: 1st Place
I built this team basically on the train to the event, and decided on it because I wanted to try out the Yveltal Xerneas archetype which was becoming extremely popular in Australia. Rather than using the standard six, I opted to use Ludicolo instead of Tapu Fini because I felt that rain was extremely threatening and I was very likely to play it at a Brisbane event, where the players tend to use that archetype often. I also used Payapa Amoonguss over the Rocky Helmet item which is usually used on these teams, as I didn’t have terrain control but still needed to have an answer to Tapu Lele + x leads. At this event I used @AvengedWerehog’s Yveltal EV spread, which worked well however in modern Yveltal Xerneas teams I would have to suggest that running max speed is important. Overall I felt like the team worked well, and I was pretty happy with it but I played some really tough games, losing a set to Joey Schooth and facing a very strong opponent in @MogarVGC twice, in swiss and in finals.
November 23rd - Neo Tokyo PC #2: Finalist
At this event, I used a carbon copy of the Riley Factura (@GENGARboi_) regional champion team which is documented in his team report here. I decided to use the team as I had rarely played using the team and I wanted to better understand the archetype. Overall I felt like the team was extremely good, and you could play very safe in most matchups however I lost in finals to what I feel in hindsight was a very bad matchup of the team, coupled with a skilled player in @Mastodon_Swoles. Overall I felt satisfied with the team, and felt like I could use it at the event the next day and play well with it.
November 24th - Fastbreak PC #3: 1st Place
This team was just a modified version of the team I had used the previous day, with the nature of my Xerneas and Kyogre swapped. I decided to use modest Xerneas and timid Kyogre as the power boost Xerneas gets from modest can help you take some extremely important knockouts on Pokemon such as bulky Incineroar, and fast Kyogre means you can usually attack first safely against opposing Groudon or Kyogre when you have your weather control and outspeeding opposing Modest Xerneas with my Kyogre before they could set up is extremely useful for getting good damage off in those matchups. I was able to win this event with the team, only dropping a set to local player Joey Schooth who I think is a very good player so I felt okay with that. In finals, I played against @AmedeeGraham, and I felt like the matchup was pretty unfavourable at face value so I had to make some pretty aggressive plays to take the set. It was a very difficult final, and Graham really made me play for it. Overall, I had a great time at this event and was satisfied with the way the team performed.
December 1st - Brisbane Regionals: Top 16
Going into this event, I had two archetypes which I felt were the best in the format - Lunala Xerneas and Kyogre Xerneas. Originally I was pretty convinced that Lunala Xerneas had the best neutral matchups all around of any archetype, and had every intention of bringing it to the event. The first team I built using the archetype was based on the standard Australian Yveltal Xerneas team, because I felt like the standard Ashton team struggled a little against trick room which I was expecting to face quite a bit.
I felt like this team was pretty strong when I built it, however after Ashton won Latin America his variant of the team picked up dramatically, and I found it extremely difficult to win the mirror match against that team. As a result of that, and several other matchups which were getting harder as a result of the teams popularity I decided to drop it and try using the standard Ashton version myself.
This team was extremely good, however I felt after using it for several weeks there were matchups I were expecting to face at Brisbane which were extremely unfavourable for the team such as Lunala Kyogre and Yveltal Kyogre so I decided to drop it for Kyogre Xerneas, which I found comfortable to play and had used it successfully at my two events in the previous week.
As with my other Kyogre Xerneas teams, this team was heavily based off the team built by Riley Factura and is documented in his team report which can be found here. I decided to stick with the modest Xerneas and timid Kyogre I had used the previous week, as the power boost Xerneas gets from modest can help you take some extremely important knockouts on Pokemon such as bulky Incineroar, and fast Kyogre means you can usually attack first safely against opposing Groudon or Kyogre when you have your weather control and outspeeding opposing Modest Xerneas with my Kyogre before they could set up is extremely useful for getting good damage off in those matchups.
I decided on dropping focus sash on Tornadus because I felt like after using the team, I didn’t need focus sash and could afford to use Safety Goggles to offset my awkward Amoonguss matchup. Overall, I rarely brought Tornadus (And I never procced Safety Goggles) so having Focus Sash or Mental Herb may have been better, but I feel like the adjustment was reasonable in theory and worked well in testing. Tornadus’s bulk was invested to live Modest 252+ Moonblast from Xerneas at neutral, and Kartana simply used Riley’s EV spread with points taken from attack to reach max speed, as I felt like winning the mirror matchup was extremely important for this team. My incineroar EV spread for this team was a little different than the one in the paste, but I don’t really feel too comfortable revealing my speed stat at this stage as I don’t want to risk setting a benchmark. Sorry!
I ended up going 4-2 at this event, losing to the eventual regional champion @ChosenFutureVGC round one in an extremely close, fun set on the big screen and @MitchVGC in round six which came down to making a defensive play in game 3 which I was punished heavily for. I ended up finishing at 9th place, which was a little disheartening for my second regional level event in a row however I felt like I played as best as I could and I was overall satisfied with getting another 80CP towards my worlds invite. In additon to this, it was also amazing getting to see all of my interstate friends again, including my good friend and training buddy @AvengedWerehog who helped me test most of my teams and ended up using the same six Pokemon in the event. Thankyou to everyone for making the event a great experience!
Conclusion
Overall, I had a lot of fun playing in VGC 2019 Sun Series events, and while Xerneas and Incineroar have an extremely dominating presence in the format I enjoyed what I felt was a format which rewarded good defensive play and board positioning. At the moment, It's not looking like I'll be able to attend Oceanic Internationals due to my graduate job starting a week beforehand so I'll most likely be relying on points purely from local events or if necessary, attending a regional or special event later in the year. However, if possible I'm going to do my absolute best to get my invite and make it to the world championships this year. I hope to see you all there! Thankyou very much for reading all this way through my writeup, I really appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed it!
