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Saturday 3 February 2018

Return of Quicksand (I Tried)

Alola friends. Long Leipzig weekend behind me now, time to share the team I brought. I'll talk more about the events in another post later into the season, but the summary of it is that I got top-32 at the main event and some chip CP from mostly irrelevant stuff, putting me currently at 239/300 CP.

But before I actually go into the team... Might as well take a little moment to say this: This was my last Regional and it will be my last year, with Worlds in Nashville being my final competitive event in VGC. The specifics about my decision, which I have long mulled over, will also follow in another post, which will be released some time this summer, but just telling you now. This is my last ride...but I will not go down easily.

Finding the Team

Well, this is the most awesome and most idiotic thing at the same time, really. It all starts with the fact that I could not at all motivate myself to play Pokémon in the first place. Story was finished a day before I left for Leipzig, threw the team together mostly on paper and just got the mons from friends. Little practice, less than 20 games before the main event. But it was absolutely fine because this happens to be a team that I know extremely well no matter what. Just check out my posts from 2015, and that will be enough to understand why I am saying this (and why it's true). And really, without any meaningful practice whatsoever, it was the best play available to me at the time. I really just dug out the old thing from its grave and changed some details where I felt like it was reasonable.

The Team

Quick note on the EV spreads: not gonna talk about them, really. It's way too early into the format, I've made the non-generic ones with calcs that might not even be relevant, and so on. I will only talk about what's guaranteed to be relevant.

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Double-Edge
- Flamethrower
- Protect

...And that would be the change from Naive to Hasty right here! Tapus, freaking Tapus. Run the calcs and you'll see, it's a sacrifice worth making especially when you eat damage from sand. Well, and everything else is really just as it used to be. Aerilate nerf is a thing, yeah, but I can deal with it just fine. The purpose of Hyper Voice to generate massive chip damage, and it still does that. The purpose of Double-Edge is to pick off weakened or type-weak targets, and it still does that too. And Flamethrower is more important than ever because Metagross is back to being very relevant (it's been a long ass time!).

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Assurance
- Ice Punch
- Superpower

Pretty usual old Scarftar here, but the move choices do come with more caveats than I've known this time... I would have really liked Low Kick for Snorlax right now, and if some things had not been invented, I'd totally use Low Kick. But nein, they had to invent this lightweight Kartana. Great, just why! So yeah, Kartana is a killing argument for Low Kick due to the overall team composition that deals horribly with it when Salamence and Aegislash can't do the job. Assurance, on the other hand...it has done me some disservice this time around. I have probably brought it for the legacy more than anything else, and then it makes perfect sense that Crunch might have been the better and safer option.

Tyranitar King of VGC is back in full force, long live the King.

Amoonguss @ Payapa Berry
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Spore
- Rage Powder
- Protect

Amoonguss, the fallen support. Terrains hurt, can't Spore anything it endures anymore. It might just be, once again, the worst mon that I am using, but still it happens to be not completely useless. Sporing Landorus and Cresselia is good, redirection is good, and as you know, I always want to have my consistent game plans for the Trick Room matchups out there. Giga Drain is on it for Gastrodon and Swampert (and Landorus chip too, I guess), couldn't handle them well without it, but it does mean I have an out less against Koko.

Azumarill @ Assault Vest
Ability: Huge Power
Level: 50
EVs: 124 HP / 252 Atk / 132 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 5 Spe
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough
- Knock Off

Now Azumarill has been really nice, I have to say, underrated mon of the week! I have considered boring old Fini here, but ended up going for Azumarill because it's different in ways most desirable. Knock Off helps precisely against those Berry Finis, and against Snorlax and Cresselia too, it's so huge (power!?). I will bleed so hard the moment I will give it up. And Aqua Jet is that helpful bit of priority for my favored chokehold of board control on weakened targets, very much in the spirit of my old friend Abomasnow. The regular double STAB in the other slots just rounds it out well so it also has a presence when the situational moves are weak. Being unable to Protect can be a problem at times, but seriously, this cute little bunny is absolutely worth using right now as one of the few non-Megas and non-legends.

...And Play Rough is the worst move 10% of the time 100% of the time. Pokémon why..........

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 100 SpA / 76 SpD / 68 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Substitute
- Wide Guard
- King's Shield

The old weaponry made in Germany, once again. Wanted both of Wide Guard and Substitute on paper, so it kinda made sense to run it like that, but in actual gameplay, well, it can turn out to be a rough deal not to have a more streamlined build whenever you aren't facing that rare matchup you actually need this nonsense for. This is mostly me being trapped in ancient ideas, and it may very well have hurt me. Ghostium with a second attacking move or Toxic over Substitute looks fair enough.

Excadrill @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Iron Head
- Drill Run
- Protect

Sheesh, doesn't have a Z-crystal on Aegislash and then forgoes it on Excadrill too... Well, on Excadrill it just isn't the right thing to run imo, period. Z-crystal entails only one strong attack, it can only be of one type and single-target, and whenever you're not using it, you'll just be weak as fuck. It's 2015 all over again in that I just need the help of Life Orb to still do useful damage after Intimidate. No rocket science whatsoever, just putting shit in range, you know.

Ground/Steel is still basically the best typing in the game. Tapus are still so hard to get though, they can just stall the sand and then they'll commonly have a random partner that threatens Excadrill. The whole composition isn't quite working as of yet. Which brings me to...

State of the Archetype

Quicksand and similar teams are in a most interesting position right now. Salamence/Tyranitar is probably hotter than it has ever been, only thanks to this nice, lovely, awesome and much needed Thundurus nerf (good fucking riddance!). You know, I felt forced to run Lum Berry Ttar back in the day only for Thundurus, but now Scarf (or Tyranitarite, old favorite of mine even moreso!) is perfectly fine. It helps so much that the Speed control metagame got stripped of its most painful and RNG-heavy element. But on the other hand, the world is still far from perfect. Tapus are the most notable new threat and they're a big one at that to Salamence and Tyranitar. Koko almost invalidates the combination on its own by just outspeeding them both, clicking Dazzling Gleam for 50% and more. Fini is annoying too, hard to get rid of and will do mean things to you when you let it move too often. Lele is always dangerous, but it at least can be contained decently enough in Bo3 for learning what build it exactly is. Well, and Bulu...happens to be commonly run with Choice Scarf right now, and that matters because it outspeeds the Ttar that can't Protect. Like yeah, I do have double Steel, but still it's hard to play around them! (Doesn't make sense to pick them both most of the time because I might need someone else too, you know.)

And my own team as shown has fallen very off-meta by the mere fact that it's...all breedable mons! You look at successful teams, and all that you see are ones that have 3 or more legends. Along with the Megas returned and the Z-moves of this generation. All of that power hike dwarfs the "normal" mons right now, they're in a place not too much better than 2016. And I'm no fan of it, I have to say. That may be a discussion for another day though. Anyway, this team as shown will have to go to rest because it's just not optimal anymore. I've still very much enjoyed playing it though, and I've made games interesting enough, but that's all because of my personal background, you know. Chances are I will at least try to rebuild the whole thing from scratch and have it be more up to date. If it also happens to be what I stick with, though...that I can't answer, it's just too early. All I know is I will not change my known general approach of play in my last year, and if I do, I am only doing it for a nice and potent meme. Alola!

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