April Global Challenge: Five things thought and maybe learned.
Every time Global Challenges come around for VGC, I always see an increase in posts about frustration, bad luck, bad matchups, you name it. To be fully honest with myself, I've definitely had my contributions in the past as well that come off this way. Shoutouts to the one International Challenge where I was also doing a hackathon and there were no limits on games, where I literally just...burned myself into the ground willingly for only 1 CP!
For this weekend's tournament I locked into two different teams: Maushold/Annihilape/Chien-Pao/Dragonite/Amoonguss/Flutter Mane, and Pelipper/Barraskewda/Palafin/Chien-Pao/Gholdengo/Amoonguss. Neither of them were the right play, outright. The Maushold/Annihilape team has some potential in Regulation C for sure but Best-of-1 closed teamsheet is not it in my opinion. The Palafin rain team was fun to play but shut down as soon as somebody could Tera Grass, which was usually preserved until after my grass counters were knocked out. Just not really the play for this kind of tournament on either side of things, so I left feeling...kinda salty about it all.
So, in the name of practicing what I preach, here are 5 things I thought during this Global Challenge, and maybe even learned, when it comes to approaching this style of Pokemon play.
1. Best-of-1 just...hits different
I think this is more true in a Terastallization format, but it's just so easy for Best-of-1 to spiral out of hand into completely unknown/unaccounted territory. There were multiple games in my run where I made my prediction, guessed 100% wrong, and then was immediately punished for it. As somebody who is normally more of a reactive/defensive player, I had to challenge myself to go on the offense first to ensure I didn't fall behind as much. This was made twice as difficult when one of the teams I was running benefits more from defensive play (MausApe).
I think when playing in Best-of-3 tours, you can make a lot of assumptions based off of your opponent and information learned from their team sheet, how they play in previous games...you don't have the time to do that in Best-of-1. As a result your "best" play isn't necessarily the one that is a prediction...it's more like you're consistently minimizing the risk of things going horribly wrong. And it's more important that you minimize this risk given how it really only takes one turn for it to get that bad.
(Literally as I type this a Dondozo just tried to Fissure me...see? Minimizing risk! Don't let the Dondozo get many more chances to do that!)
For future GCs, I think teams need an auto-pilot mode where you can ignore the opponent's gameplan entirely and just do your own thing. Examples of this include Torkoal/Liligant, Dondozo/Tatsugiri, and Chi-Yu/Fluter Mane. Speaking of which...
2. Flutter Mane is just too darn good
I forgot to go to the Medali Restaurant to make sure my Flutter Mane had a Fairy Tera type instead of the Water Tera type I had been experimenting with before, and I greatly regret that. I found myself missing out on important KOs when I had the speed advantage thanks to Booster Energy, which was frustrating. While I do think there is hope for a Defensive-Flutter Mane-centered team in the future, I really believe that a Fairy Tera type is best for it, since it makes it such a threat that your opponent simply cannot ignore.
3. Marathon...not a sprint
45 games is a lot. 90 games is even more, assuming you're playing across two different games/files. I saw one person say that they were playing for over 15 hours total to get all their games in...Putting yourself in a position where you "have" to do well, "have" to get above 1600, "have" to hit this Hydro Pump...is not really a good attitude to have when there are so many games that you have to play. It's better to take things one step at a time, and keep reminding yourself of that fact no matter how frustrating it gets.
To be honest I think this is one of my favorite sayings, if only because I've run a marathon and it was literally the only way I could make it through that run. Literally one step at a time, through the 80-90 degree heat, somewhere on a baseball field delieriously lost in the ESPN Wild World of Sports complex. Whenever I feel frustrated with my progress on something, I like to remember that experience and remind myself that not only can it always be worse, every step does get you closer to the finish line, no matter how halucinatingly far it may seem.
At the end of the day most of us aren't playing for Day 2 CP anyways, right? So you can afford to have a tournament where you just play for fun. Especially with how point payouts work this year, I'm not anticipating a single GC to make or break anybody's Worlds invite (assuming they can make it out to events). I'm also saying this mostly to reassure myself that it's okay to have had a rough run, since I really did not pick the right team for this weekend.
4. What about the Treasures of Ruin?
Ting-Lu: Annoying. You can't KO it in one hit regardless of what you do. I like the people I saw using it as an offensive presence (Tera Ground + Earthquake, mostly) more than Fissure spam because I firmly believe that's not something I want to rely on for myself. Sans-Fissure hitting, it tends to deal chip damage to Pokemon to make other KOs more achievable for the other Pokemon in play, which can be manageable with the right tools.
Wo-Chien: Also annoying? It's on average way more predicatble than Ting-Lu though thanks to how few moves it has access to. Forcing your opponent to switch around to drop Leech Seeds can definitely be taken advantage of but I have yet to see this done in a way that feels crazy threatening. You can't ignore it on the field, but you also can play around it provided you bring enough Special Attackers to take it down. Amoonguss with Pollen Puff does a lot more damage to it than I thought it would, which is something I'm definitely taking forwards as a learning.
Chien-Pao: I think Chien-Pao needs to be on a team where it is the center of your build. Unlike Ting-Lu or Wo-Chien, who are bulky enough that they can go pretty much wherever, Chien-Pao really benefits from running it with Focus Sash on a team with at least two other physical attackers. Having STAB Ice attacks is fantastic but it alone isn't enough to make up for its weaknesses. I also want to run a dark type move and Sacred Sword on it, but I don't want to drop the coverage between Ice Shard/Ice Spinner. In short...Chien-Pao is just really finnicky and I can't decide if I like it or not.
Chi-Yu: I want Chi-Yu to work, so badly. Especially with Flutter Mane! On paper those two have everything they need to take out a lot of the metagame. But when you're actually playing, something just seems to fall short. My current working theory is that it's because you want to have a defensive-Tera to support Chi-Yu but then also need it offensively for Flutter Mane, but I'm not sure. I hope to have the solution to this before Regulation C ends, but we'll see if I actually have time to build around it or not.
(If anybody wants to build a team I could use for the next GC with Flutter Mane/Chi-yu/Grimmsnarl...I think there might be potential there, just saying)
5. Palafin + Fire/Water/Grass core ("Balance") is a solid start to Regulation C
After playing in so many games this weekend, I keep coming back to how powerful this simple core is. I wish I would've locked into it myself as the total bulk/manuverability of it feels really good in a format that thrives on unpredictability.
I don't know if it'll win EUIC, as I think that good players will find a way to beat it consistently especially after seeing how well it did in the IC this weekend. I do think though it is one of the strongest teams out there currently. Historically speaking FWG cores have been easy to pivot around; you can swap in whatever Pokemon will resist the type of attack you anticipate taking. Palafin works so well within that synergy given how with Zero to Hero, you want to be switching out at least once during the course of the match regardless. The ability + Tera Water + Mystic Water make up for so much offensive pressure you lose when swapping Pokemon around like that. I think as I look forward to my next battles I'll pick up these Pokemon for a spin and see how it goes, it definitely seems like the thing to be familiar with at least at the start of this format.
So there you have it! My thoughts on this April's Global Challenge. I've never really excelled at these kinds of tournaments but as I sat down to untangle my thoughts into this post I feel like I understand my own hold ups a bit more, and maybe you do too. Thanks for reading and hey - good luck out there with your own games!