Hello friends. Out of those five acts lined out in the title, we're in fact looking at four of them in this entry. The fifth would be German Nationals, and I'd rather have that in an extra article. (Although that's where the real tragedy actually unfolds...) This leaves us at four teams with minor changes between them for this time, and short accounts on my tournament experiences will round it out.
First Version: Off to a Fresh Start
Motivation
First, if you haven't already before, you should have a glimpse at this previous team and its issues, because that one still kinda started this whole story. As it was, it obviously had no future, so I had to change some things to essentially get a new team out of it. I had multiple directions in mind, and what you are reading here is one of them. (I'll show another one that ended up not making it to real tournaments later.)
In that original team, Jellicent ended up feeling a bit underwhelming in the role as a Water Pokémon -- you know, it's slow and threatens pretty much nothing, just sits there and maybe walls some. I didn't get too much out of the Trick Room either. It was fairly clear to me that I wanted to try out Rotom instead at this point, as it would protect me better from that annoying Talonflame and also help my matchup against bulky Waters. Then we are at the FWG combination of Heatran, Rotom and Amoonguss, and Salamence shall be the Mega we arbitrarily decide to keep and drop Gengar. With how Thundurus was quite annoying as well, I decided to try out good old Pachirisu with the hope of making him next to useless. And the last slot was originally supposed to be staying Scrafty, because Scrafty really had done what I wanted it to, but well... I went on Showdown testing the lineup with Hitmontop a bit, and the new options he brought in felt way too good. Well then, time to look at the individual sets!
Specifics
Freitag d13. (Heatran) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 132 Def / 80 SpA / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 30 SpA
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Substitute
- Protect
Except for the nickname, completely unchanged from before. This, however, will later change.
08/15 (Amoonguss) (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
EVs: 140 HP / 252 Def / 116 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Protect
It's Amoonguss, what are you expecting...
Trick 17 (Rotom-Wash) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 76 SpA / 12 SpD / 148 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect
And here's the Rotom that, with very minor changes only, ended up sticking around with the team until the very bitter ending. The EV spread is based on Yoshi's 2014 Worlds Rotom -- pretty much the standard by now, but back then people for some reason actually hardly knew that spread... Which may also be the reason why it was so extremely effective in the first weeks, who knows. Anyway, it was the perfect build for a metagame way too flooded with those idiotic Bisharps, and it struck the perfect balance between offense and defense. As for the Item, I forcibly took Safety Goggles here because both Sitrus Berry and Leftovers were already taken by other slots. As nice as trolling Amoonguss was from time to time, it definitely made Rotom weaker when there was no Amoonguss around to begin with, and sometimes even scared me from picking it when it actually would have been the right call.
The nickname is a troll reference to the Rotom that Lajo used at the Premier Challenge right before the one where I used this team here. He had the same core in it, but the Rotom had a Choice Scarf and knew Trick, so I made this play on that. I don't believe anyone actually fell for it, but that's what it is. To actually understand this nickname and the whole theme though...you pretty much have to know German on a level of first language or somewhere close to that. It's a bunch of fun idioms.
Schema F (Salamence) (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Protect
Next and last returning member from the old team, and with simplified stats this time around. As I said last time, I legitimately forgot what the pseudo-defensive EVs did. On the other hand, I discovered pretty good reasons to just run the generic spread. (However, I'm not entirely sure if I already made this change in this version or in the next one instead. What you see here is only what my Showdown archive tells me, and I may have unintentionally mixed things up a bit while I was working on them.) Most of the Speed is needed to outrun Mega Kangaskhan, which became a bit more important with how I gave up that double Ghost thing to lock her down entirely. I also just took the Therian Thundurus and Garchomp benchmarks as well, because they were cheap at that point and could be very game-deciding if they came up. And the Attack, naturally it's needed for doing the biggest damage possible. I attacked without Attack boosts a lot of the time, and then games can go very, very differently depending on whether you actually kill that Sylveon on the other side or not. And yeah, special shoutouts have to go to all those fools who ran badly-built Sylveons or just Tailwind Sylveons, lol. Good Sylveons really shouldn't be OHKOed by Return from full health, but I actually saw it happen so often, I felt quite lucky (possibly up to the point I may have been relying on it more than I should, who knows...).
Order 66 (Pachirisu) (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Volt Absorb
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 180 Def / 84 SpD
Careful Nature
- Nuzzle
- Follow Me
- Helping Hand
- Protect
You should know Pachirisu from 2014 Worlds most prominently, and naturally it had a similar purpose in here. I didn't see much use for the Super Fang that Sejun had, so I checked my Pokédex of choice, found Helping Hand and never looked back -- always nice to get some additional damage out of nowhere, hardly anyone would see it coming. (Oh wait, this nickname actually doesn't require German at all...just watching Star Wars this time!) The EV spread was, if I remember things correctly, an optimization between Landorus and Hydreigon. I only remember I wasn't really happy with any possibilities there were. Pachirisu's bad base stats really have shown in those calcs.
Plan B (Hitmontop) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Feint
- Wide Guard
And here's the Hitmontop, coming with some of Berlin's flavor. (One could say he's the fastest spinning kebab spear -- or however you would say "Dönerspieß" in English, I have no clue -- in the world, hahahah.) This is the exact set that eventual Worlds-invitee Christian C. ran in his Charizard team and other locals ran similar ones. Feint is probably one of my favorite moves ever, having used it on Hitmontop back in 2012 already, and it's so easy for anyone to completely fall for it, with fatal results. Well, and then Wide Guard for Hyper Voices and all that shit, and Lum Berry for any rogue Smeargles that might pop up (spoilers, none popped up). About the EVs, I had no convincing idea what I should be EVing for defensively and Speed was pretty much pointless too, so I threw it all into the Attack for getting the strongest Feint and chip damage possible.
Tournaments
There was only one tournament I played with this team, which was the PC in Berlin in mid March. I finished second place in it, but the run itself left some things to be desired. To start off, I survived the Swiss only with a meager 3-2 record. (Well, now we know that the two losses I got actually were against people that barely anyone knew before but who ended up having way better seasons than I did...) I ended up playing 3 other people who made top cut and two of them in early rounds, so my schedule pretty much saved my ass. Then in the Bo3 elimination stage, oh well... Nothing of it looked too good, I seemingly didn't play too well. The top 8 match against Toby I did win 2-0 but only because he made a costly misplay in game 2 when he could have gotten the 1-1. Top 4 against Yassine was completely difficult because he really is difficult to play with his preferred team style that favors the most annoying kind of offensive mons and supports. Game 1 was solid on my end, but it went to game 3 because I did lose a critical coin-flip prediction in game 2, and then in game 3 I somehow got myself in a genuinely awkward position against Wide Guard Weakness Policy Aegislash and Life Orb Taunt Thundurus. I won the game by praying for Aegislash being fully Paralyzed on a Wide Guard while I tried Helping Hand Heat Wave, and got it. Finally, for the grand final, I got rematched with Tadei who had come all the way from Poland and who I had just beaten in the first round of the day. The match went to shit hard, as I was too afraid to bring my Rotom against Guts Conkeldurr, Clefable, Dragon Claw Salamence and a Sitrus Rotom to just beat it by default, and then suddenly Entei wreaked havoc on my team. However...Second place still was a really good result for my standards, so I gladly took it.
Second Version: Pachirisu Is a Lie
Motivation
Order 66, might as well say that thing betrayed me. It actually didn't, but it didn't exactly do what I had it for either: shut down Thundurus. I just always saw the Taunt, and that was a bad trade for me without having Mental Herb. On the other hand, the team was quite Hydreigon weak. Choice Specs variants could just destroy the Pachirisu without any help and then destroy Salamence at -2 as well, while an Intimidate would save them from being OHKOed, and all that shit. Pachirisu has genuinely failed. There was no reason not to be "boring" and just bring in the Clefairy to take its job.
Specifics
pp (Clefairy) (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Friend Guard
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 236 Def / 36 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 1 Atk
- Follow Me
- Icy Wind
- Helping Hand
- Protect
Well yeah, and now we are back to a Follow Me user that is immune to Dragon shit (remember, I had Togekiss at the start of the season) and I'll have no more of Hydreigon's pitiful antics! As I by this point knew from working on that Charizard/Cresselia team in parallel, I liked the concept of Speed control immune to Taunt way more than a random Moonblast that would only actually damage mons that I can just as well remove by other means -- enter Icy Wind, solid move while the silly 5% aren't happening. (Fun fact, the previous PC just had taught me that this evolutionary line learned Icy Wind in the first place... It was annoying to deal with for me, because it circumvented my precious redirection beside Salamence.)
Mushu (Salamence) (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Protect
No changes here. We just got our bulk from earlier back, if not even more than that, by simply running Friend Guard!
Summer Jam (Heatran) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 80 SpA / 4 SpD / 212 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 30 SpA
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Substitute
- Protect
And now I finally changed my Heatran spread to what it then stayed till the end. It outspeeds Bisharp, it OHKOs 252/0 Aegislash in Blade form with Earth Power and it survives another Heatran's Earth Power from full health with the help of Friend Guard. I don't think I actually ever had this situation, but I did calc it. All things considered, this is the optimal spread available for the team.
Morpha XD (Rotom-Wash) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 76 SpA / 12 SpD / 148 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 6 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect
So with Pachirisu gone, Rotom could now use the Berry it so craved. Other than that, all the same here. The remaining two slots went completely unchanged, so here they just are again with their new nicknames.
Shr00mberta (Amoonguss) (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
EVs: 140 HP / 252 Def / 116 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 22 Atk / 0 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Protect
20★DaCapo★12 (Hitmontop) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Feint
- Wide Guard
Tournaments
First with this lineup was round 5 of the Nugget Bridge Major, against Impact. He showed me a very Heatran-hostile team at preview, and this made it very easy for him to bring his Bisharp against me and even risk some stuff with it. Game 1 I could have feasibly won with a Salamence setup, but alas, Rotom had to show its alcohol addiction in the very first turn, where its Will-O-Wisp missed the naturally slower Bisharp. Also, I fucked up by maybe showing a bit more than I should have shown when I very much was confirmed losing. In game 2, he led Bisharp against my Rotom again and Rotom missed it again! But with what he then had in the back and all, this miss didn't even matter. I tried to do exactly the same as in game 1 because it seemed to work all right with less bad luck, but then he adjusted perfectly exactly for this plan and I simply lost with gravy. I was 4-1 in the Major after that. I can't deny the perfectionist me was quite a bit salty with how this just went, but all things considered, 4-1 was perfectly fine with how I had pretty much stolen a win in round 4 before. Well, anyway, just a few hours after that match, I was leaving for my next PC...
And this one now was over in Erlangen, competing with a fair share of southern Germany instead of my locals. Some of them were shit-talking me for losing to my locals a lot simply because they had no fucking idea how good they actually were, and naturally I wanted my revenge for that. As it turned out, I indeed can make the point: this southern PC may have had a few Worlds player and I in fact faced every single one of them during my run, but in total this tournament was in no way harder than the one I had in Berlin a week earlier. Consequently, I finished second place as well, also getting a very similar run with another 2-2-before-fifth-round Swiss even... My losses in Swiss were first to a local player with MajorBowman's Metagross lineup. My team being genuinely Ludicolo-weak is one thing, and then his Metagross also had the surprise Ice Punch to quickly remove my Salamence. I was glad he didn't end up being on my side of the top cut bracket, since I didn't see me ever winning in this matchup. My second loss I got from Lati in really fun back-and-forth game where we pretty much constantly threatened each other.
And then in top 8, I got rematched with him. This was so draining, with how tricky the matchup was for both of us, and we got three more games and all of them turned out entirely different, if you will. What it ultimately boiled down to is what I then dubbed the "nuclear stalemate": Salamence and Clefairy against Latios and Pachirisu. Clefairy could be fully Paralyzed between mindlessly spamming Follow Me and then Latios could theoretically get a Draco Meteor off, and with Salamence I just had to set up and stall the annoying Reflect. Top 4 against jira went more smoothly, where I found just the right ways to not let him have any setup with Azumarill, Cresselia or Kangaskhan. Back in finals again! To my surprise, I was playing good old Flame in it, who had not dropped a single game all day to this point. Then I took the first game off him, coming back from a bleak field after lots of Scarf Togekiss Air Slash flinches -- that thing was quite strong in a 20-man metagame where only like 2 or so people had a Thundurus with them. Second game I got totally destroyed Suicune/Breloom. Third game I prepared a bit better for them, but still I could not do any better then have it come down to Sleep turns. I went all-in with a Dragon Dance and forced a win condition on a 1-turn Sleep, but I didn't get it and he then made the only right thing in that situation by aggressively targeting that Salamence down so it wouldn't get another chance at waking up, and then I lost. Fun fact besides, I didn't pick Hitmontop a single time all tournament.
Last tournament experience with this lineup was round 6 of the Major, against an American player named Monster with some digits. He used "Battle Spot special" with a few twists against me, and with how well-practicted I was against that matchup, I ended up completely murdering him in two games for the 5-1. The only thing that kept this match from being absolutely perfect for me was me misremembering his revealed last mon in one of the games and making an overly defensive play because of that which could have led to him coming back on favorable RNG.
Third Version: Reviving Gengar
Motivation
"Revive" a ghost, yeah sure, you fucking idiot... It's kind of a lie though, since I'm not bringing back Mega Gengar here but instead just using a normal Gengar -- for the first time since like 2009, even. As mentioned, I ended up not doing too much with Hitmontop outside of freaking Showdown, so I was on the hunt for alternatives. Gengar made a lot of sense initially: it was better for handling the Breloom issue, better against potentially annoying Fairies as well, also offered a nice fast Taunt and...would be just as bad against Aegislash and Metagross as Hitmontop. But I should probably get into the details now.
Specifics
Yoshi's Egg (Gengar) (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sludge Bomb
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
- Protect
Moveslot syndrome galore, you know it all and you know it well. I don't see me ever running a Gengar without Protect when stupid random ass Scrappy Fake Out exists and is common to ruin it, so I run Protect. Then Will-O-Wisp because you just shouldn't run Gengar without it, you want it to be productive in the face of Kang and not be Sucker Punched like an idiot. Sludge Bomb is a must for the Fairies and Ludicolos. What we have then left is the discussion between Shadow Ball and Taunt, where I decided to go with Taunt in order to seize control over games more easily.
The other slots stayed all the same. Turns out I just started recording Amoonguss's crappy Attack IV just now... Makes sense to call it "Bad Egg" then, hahahaha. A belated happy Easter everyone!
Bad Egg (Amoonguss) (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
EVs: 140 HP / 252 Def / 116 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 22 Atk / 0 Spe
- Giga Drain
- Rage Powder
- Spore
- Protect
Vader Egg (Heatran) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 80 SpA / 4 SpD / 212 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 30 SpA
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Substitute
- Protect
Whiplash Egg (Rotom-Wash) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 76 SpA / 12 SpD / 148 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 6 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect
X-mas Egg (Clefairy) (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Friend Guard
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 236 Def / 36 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 1 Atk
- Follow Me
- Icy Wind
- Helping Hand
- Protect
Bacon Egg (Salamence) (M) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Protect
Tournaments
Another Berlin PC and the last 3 Swiss rounds of the Major. I'm starting with the Major. Round 7 against TrickSage. He had a pretty good run to this point with his genuinely annoying Trick Room team around Gothitelle and Mega Sableye. Fortunately, I happened to have a really good matchup here. In game 1, Heatran with double redirection did all the dirty work with Salamence cleaning up the endgame, and in game 2, I brought the Gengar along with Heatran, which turned out to be just as effective. 6-1, one more win for top cut. Round 8 I played against Pd0nz and you can watch the match on his YouTube. Then, in the final round, I got matched up with another player from the New York scene in Crazy Snorlax. In game 1, he completely wrecked me with his reads and also reminded me why Heatran was kinda bad. Consequentially, my FWG switch-around play kinda didn't get me anywhere against the Infernape/Hydreigon/Suicune combination in the end, so I went for the hard Clefmence endgame following up some hopefully good leading work by the fake double Ghosts. And now that worked out better, took game 2 commandingly and game 3, well... I handily won the Salamence mirror in it, but for the first time he brought this extremely annoying Life Orb Aegislash (remember it, guys: Life Orb Aegislash) and I mucked up by not clicking Hydro Pump against it in Blade form when I probably should have. The Thunderbolt that I went for instead just crit it and saved me the game and thus the match. (I later learned that he likes to use Greninja. Oh boy, if he had brought that...!) Finished that Swiss 8-1 and as seventh seed between the 1200ish total players.
Now to the PC that happened somewhere between those Major rounds. This PC made me want to scream, it was the most nerve-wrecking gauntlet in the season so far. First round was a straight 0-4 loss against Life Orb Rock Slide Icy Wind Greninja joined by Scarf Adaptability Hyper Beam Porygon-Z. The inaccuracy of his moves was my only chance, but it didn't happen, and so this was a clear auto-loss. (And then he went 1-3, useful resistance is useful resistance...) Second round I got matched up with yet another Trainer taking this tournament not too seriously -- he brought a mono Steel team. It was a tricky matchup for me because I had to bring at least two mons that couldn't touch most of his team with their actual attacks, but I just won it all right. (I think he went 1-3 as well.) Third round (or maybe actually second, but who cares really, I'm too lazy to check my notes now) I found yet another Rock Slide Icy Wind Greninja, but this time with Focus Sash instead of Life Orb and joined by a standard team with Kangaskhan, Suicune and Amoonguss. This matchup was really tough as well. I was pretty much forced into the Amoonguss mirror, and then Sleep turns were exactly what decided the match -- in my favor this time. Fourth and last round (fuck low attendance!) I was supposed to play a Salamence mirror. However, both Salamences were completely nulled by the RNG in this game. I got a 4-2 lead against him and what he then had left were Lum Terrakion and Scarf Landorus. We all know what he had to click and what he naturally did click... I was not allowed to move at all until the score was 1-2, and what I then had left was a full-health Amoonguss against both these full-health Rock Sliders. And now it finally was allowed to move, and...it went complete hero mode. I think I cried in laughter living through that madness. You know, could have had it so much easier with like just one non-Amoonguss mon getting a move off, but yeah, nope... Anyway, resistance was total fucking garbage but records panned out nicely, so I made top cut as the last 3-1.
In the semifinals, I played Kintaro for the first time since years. I want to call his team the "eastern special" -- he had Mega Salamence, Mega Gardevoir, Heatran and an annoying rogue frailmon in...freaking Regenerator High Jump Kick Mienshao. Yuck. This fucking weasel pretty much stole game 1 with both of those gimmicks together, hahaha. Rotom/Gengar was the absolute perfect lead against his team. I lost the Rotom too quickly by not seeing the High Jump Kick coming. The Mienshao I actually Poisoned with Sludge Bomb and it looked doomed, but it switched out and got some health back to be annoying for a few more turns. RIP me, the first. For game 2, we both didn't change much, and especially with the information gained, it was very much winnable for me. However, I somehow got a bit ahead of myself. I was already making a plan for game 3, as I had figured out I would likely win the Heatran mirror for free, having not brought Heatran at all so far. Anyway, what then happened was, I may have had the free lead and all, but my mid- to endgame management went to shit and he just turned it around with a bold play or two. He then went on to win the whole thing without dropping a game, well done.
Fourth Version: Back to the Roots
The Only Change
Not copying the whole team this time, because it's literally only the Gengar slot that changed, and I even kept the nickname theme around. The new slot is, who would have thought, Scrafty over Gengar.
Meaty Egg (Scrafty) (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 140 Atk / 116 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 3 Spe
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Fake Out
- Snarl
Shoutouts to LightCore for the Snarl idea -- Assault Vest is still shit though, running Assault Vest Scrafty is asking for bad things to happen. Other than that nothing too spectacular here. Brought back the helpful double Intimidate while Milotic still was next to non-existent, got something better to deal with those annoying Aegislashes of all kinds and then Snarl would let me sponge all sorts of attacks that are not, well, Hyper Voice.
The Only Tournament Match
Nugget Bridge Major top 64, against Firestorm. I anticipated him bringing the Slowking/Gastrodon thing that he somehow beasted various Vancouver PCs with, which my Scrafty would match up very well against, but nope, he just had a boring Charizard/Cresselia team for me. The whole match was quite a trainwreck on my end... But I can only credit him for playing this well. Game 1 I ended up reliving a thing I had experienced way before: Charizard killed Scrafty before Calm Mind Cresselia was successfully dealt with, and I had no good way to prevent it. I ended up winning the game on...an Icy Wind miss. Then in game 2 I got this luck paid back hard, as my Heatran missed an unforgivable amount of Heat Waves, which led to the Cresselia surviving a Helping Hand +1 Return in the darkest red -- and consequentially beating me, as Heatran just wouldn't get the Heat Wave Burn in the eventual 1-1 war of attrition either. Finally, in game 3, I was well set up for a win again, but it wasn't exactly safe, based on target choices. A similar thing like during my 2014 Major death happened, where he got the exact sequence of plays that beat mine out of a treacherous advantage. The main difference is that this time I went for overly safe plays, while back one year ago was pretty much the opposite, because I then let an Aegislash in Blade form attack me way too often. Oh yeah, speaking of Aegislash: Life Orb Aegislash played a part in me losing this recent Major here, remember it from just before? Keep remembering it, guys.
The Aftermath
So with that failed match I was going into Nationals preparation. I played the last team as seen a bit more on Battle Spot, and Battle Spot did exactly the right thing: bring back Sylveon to usage. The Scrafty version of the team was inacceptably Fairy weak, and I learned that a combination of bulky Thundurus with Safety Goggles Sylveon would be able to entirely break me. I was in severe need of a Fairy check. I wanted Gengar back, but I didn't want to be so Aegislash-weak again. One noteworthy thing I tried but won't exactly lay out here was to ditch Amoonguss (since you know, Amoonguss is bad and you'll never hear me say something different) and have both of Scrafty and Gengar. I was getting a good performance with this alternative lineup result-wise, but feeling-wise it kinda went the "LightCore way", or precisely: the inconsistency shone through, I won almost all of my games on hard read sequences where any errors would have made me lose. This is totally not what seems acceptable for Nationals. It's 7-2 or bust, and while there naturally is always a chance to just randomly get it, might as well get it more consistently while I (possibly?) can. Single redirection was not the call. Amoonguss was shit on any day of the week but I felt like I still needed it.
Anyway, that shall be enough foreshadowing for the Nationals experience. The final version of this team will get its own article. And then it will die a horrible death, the fifth act will play out and the curtain will fall for good. I'm looking to release that one right next week. Take care.
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