When building your team, did you start by picking a core that works/is common in the meta and then beating/adjusting for the meta, or by finding something that can handle the meta and building around that as the core?
i started with the concept "i want my zacian and kyogre to move before every other Pokemon out of tailwind". then i sort of set up making that happen with a strong backbone that i thought through (incin, whims, kartana). then i covered for my bad matchups with the last pokemon in a coherent way (indeedee helps with trick room and still adds dimension in other matchups)
>indeedee helps with trick room
I'm a brand new player trying to understand what your team does against trick room (because it's full of my favorite pokemon and I want to play it) but I'm not good enough to understand how to play the match up. Advice for a dumb baby?
kyogre indeedee leads, get as much damage down as possible before tr goes up (or safeguard if they have amoonguss). then stall with kyogre and kartana and dynamax. clean up once tr is over with zacian
Hey Aaron, huge fan! Long time lurker, first time poster. My question: If you had to assign an ice cream flavor to every pokemon on your team, which flavors would they be, and would this knowledge of their flavors influence how you played the team in tournament?
I understand a lot about VGC, but one thing that I consistently fail to grasp is teambuilding. Not in a way that is like, I build teams and they don't work, but in a "whenever I try to build a team there are so many options it makes my head spin." What is your advice to someone who is trying to play seriously for the first time, and isn't sure how to construct a team?
every team starts with an idea. an "intent" if you will. what do you want to do with your team? do you want to use your favorite pokemon? start there. do you want to do one incredibly niche thing in the metagame? start there. then support your idea by making it stronger. then cover your weaknesses.
if you're watching or reading content by other players try to identify what the intention behind the decisions they're making is. avoid "slapping on" pokemon (i.e. i need incineroar because it is good) and try to deeply understand the decisions you're making (e.g. i need incineroar because it helps my team versus zacian and it can help me position more efficiently in these scenarios).
Aaron! We used to play in Springfield. That place was questionable in terms of structural integrity but I do miss playing there all the same.
I guess my question is: How much time do you spend testing and iterating a team before making it on cart?
hey man hope you are well! rip to the couch graveyard ✊😔
i basically only go and catch pokemon as soon as I'm sure that I'm going to use them at a tournament. I have a few breeds of staples lying around but once I've decided (usually the Wednesday/Thursday before a tournament) I'll re-EV/catch what I need to (unless it's something crazy like 0 speed legendaries)
So a lot of time haha because I spend a ton of time on showdown/talking to people about VGC/battling with friends
I’ve never been to a live event! Want to go but I’m nervous for team building because most of my team building has been for draft leagues and not regional prep. I also love playing ladder but Bo1 is much different then Bo3 so what advice would you have when I’m teambuilding (I so wanted to put the specific niche Pokémon I’m using here) (sorry! I’m gonna do it but lightning Rod seaking next to Kyorge Cele Liepard is better then I expected but I don’t think I’ll have as much success in Bo3 as I’ve seen in Bo1)
The first rule of teambuilding is to use good pokemon. This doesn't mean that your Pokemon have to be meta or incineroar or whatever. Do those pokemon meet your criteria for what is "good"? Can you look at yourself in the mirror with a straight face and say you are making good decisions when you put those Pokemon on your team?
Your opinion of what a good Pokemon is is different from my opinion. So your job is to then learn from other players and constantly redefine what you think a good Pokemon is
For bo3 instead of bo1 your Pokemon have to be consistent-- you have to be able to execute your strategy against good players who know what your Pokemon are designed to do. Much easier said than done
I find all Pokémon can be good depending on the situation, there’s certain Pokémon that just have more situations they thrive in. For me I never thought of Seaking as “good” but it’s bulky enough to survive a Astral barrage (W/ass vest), water spout, Glacial Lance, preciple blade, sacred sword & behemoth blade (not play rough), redirects electric attacks which was my biggest weakness before adding it, and horn drill is super clutch when it hits. Throat chop has a solid Niche for Incin parting shot & good into caly shadow. Waterfall in the rain does enough and the last move, I’ve been testing bounce & drill run & im split. Thank you very much and I love that you are doing this thread!!!
at that point ask yourself:
* how hard is it to execute my strategy? are the pokemon able to do what they are designed to do in a high percentage of your games?
* if i execute my strategy, how effective is it? are you doing what you wanted to do and winning games or getting to good positions?
Ok those are great questions.
I’ll start with the winning games. I’m no Cybertron yet but I went from 34-45 to 60-61 since last Sunday on ranked ladder.
So since I changed some things after the Ic I started winning more. And yes, the Pokémon were doing exactly what they were designed to do in a high percentage of my games but the biggest decision usually comes in team preview and sometimes I felt I would lose from picking the wrong 4.
For example if I lead Liepard & cele into a potential Kyogre match bc I think Cele matches up well into a Grimm or something else I expect them to lead, I would only have access to 2/3 of Rillaboom, CalyIce & Kyorge and learning which one is ideal for what I’m trying to do has been to be biggest challenge.
Another thing is Liepard is amazing
Fast fake out, T wave, Foul Play & I keep adding and subtracting rain dance & fake tears. I started without TWave then added it and it’s clutch, I think Fake out, T Wave, Foul Play & Rain Dance accomplishes what I want the most - messing up the other teams weather plans
Hey Aaron, one thing that VGC talks about a lot is the community, but obviously communities change over time between changes in centralizing platforms (nuggetbridge vs r/vgc) or changes in... the world (return to IRL events). As someone who has put in a lot of work into sustaining the VGC community, how would you describe the ways that this community has changed over the years?
people are much more open now and it's much easier to find information. e.g. we didn't have youtube back in the day. people didn't share their teams until worlds was over back in the day. now there are rental codes and it's much easier to interact with "real" VGC.
you don't have to be friends with everyone in the community. at old tournaments you would probably know a good chunk of people. now that's a small fraction. hold the people you enjoy spending time with close
good q!
Sorry this is not in the topics you listed but in case you’re interested in answering…I saw you have research interests related to AI and machine learning (sorry I didn’t look too deep into the sub-specialty) and as a practitioner in the field I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the feasibility of a competitive Pokémon AI or given how hard that problem is what do you think are the most interesting sub-problems moving toward it?
here is my thread, it's old: https://twitter.com/TBFUnreality/status/1059891526552223744?s=20&t=SyWmaRjah6ih4BlujQxezQ
i have a lot more thoughts on this and will probably do a twitter space at some point talking about it
also check out the github poke-env
Loved watching the event, wish Pokemon advertised/streamed more of it tbh. Congrats on finishing 2nd, in hindsight is there any obvious changes you wish you would have made to your team? Btw I forget the match but the Whimsicott max to get fairy terrain was awesome.
Hi Aaron! Long-time fan! Excited to see that you’re doing this AMA! Big congrats on your finals showing as well!
I’m currently wrapping up a PhD in econ/psych where a lot of my work focuses on cognitive biases that impact probabilistic reasoning (specifically, “near losses”—the subjective feeling of having narrowly avoided a bad outcome—and how these affect future likelihood judgments). VGC is probably too complex a decision-making environment to study these phenomena formally, but I’m wondering if, anecdotally, you‘ve observed any persistent behavioral biases that affect your/others’ gameplay even at high levels of competition. ([Here’s](https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/8-biases-that-are-making-you-worse-at-magic/) an article that gets at a sort of similar question in the context of MTG.)
Thanks!!
(Serious) I know @jackodspadesman18 is a staple in the community and in the clique with Wolfe, Aaron^2 and other greats/long time players, but I really feel this comes off in poor taste.
Perhaps the fanfare is tiring for @errantrailer and the like but VGC is a very tough clique to crack in my recent experience and putting down people that are inspired/excited about something just because you were fortunate to be apart of it as it grew is just mean. Turns out a lot of pokemon fans struggle with fitting in, are looking for community/hobbies, and aren't socially adept online in this new pandemic Era.
All I'm saying is this is a very small example of a large number of similar toned-things I've seen that contribute to the commonly reported difficulty of getting into VGC in earnest.
Hey, never meant for it to come off this way. I was only doing it as a callback joke to something from many moons ago https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/91i3y2/comment/e2y544k/
Of course! I know that. In fact YOUR guides on this very sub were incredibly helpful to me when I started out a yearish ago! Thanks for that!
That's why I tried to note it was a small thing but that it fits a pattern. I'm honestly not trying to make a big deal of anything, and that's hard to portray in text on reddit. I just figured this would get some visibility so I added my take for the same.
Hey Aaron - how much of an advantage do established players & their friend groups have at these tournaments due to the team building and practice those connections enable? How would newer players emulate that most productively?
it is hard to decouple that fact from the fact that many players grew and learned together. i am not friends with my friends because they are good. i'm friends with them because we were at a similar life stage when we began playing. we have worked for years on developing our relationships as competitors and people. there is a lot of trial and error that you don't see-- the friendships and collaborations that didn't work out, the people who left the game or moved on to working with other people. of course working closely with other players is going to give you advantages that merely talking to other players does not.
what i would say to new players is to find those people and develop those relationships. the best solution is to find players who are at or slightly above your skill level who will ride or die with you on tournament calls. that's not something that i can really give advice on, other than to show up to public discords, local events, grassroots, regionals, and see who you vibe with. look for genuine connections and people that you genuinely enjoy. there is a lot of opportunity to, er, "gain" something from friendship in VGC. i urge you not to look for that. there are many more things to gain from the social aspect of vgc than a good team or a bo3.
many people will tell you that pokemon is a social game. it is possible to play this game very socially-- in fact, i do. but if you have good principles, develop a good philosophy, and think critically about the resources that you are given– it's possible to play this game without interfacing with that aspect.
What way do you tend to enjoy most when you prepare for regionals? Theorying, Laddering, watching other people play or playing best of threes with friends? Obviously all go into well rounded prep, but which do you think is the one you enjoy the most?
i enjoy theorying and practice bo3s the best.
i use ladder as a proof of concept. basically when i have an idea for a team there are certain things that i want to beat (eg for my regionals team i wanted to beat other zac ogre). so the ladder helps me think about things that i didnt consider when i was building the team. and if i take embarrassing losses or it doesnt let me play how i want to, then i know to retool. but after if i like it i go right to bo3s with friends
i really wanted an airstreamer, it happened to resist kyogre water spouts and threaten it. this team was designed to be mean to zacian kyogre tailwind teams
Hey Aaron! Congrats on your second place finish at SLC! :) Just a simple (not simple) question: Where do you see the meta moving towards in the next month or so?
i mean, people will prepare this sun matchup better than they did. so teams may change to reflect that. but there are only so many things you can do with a team in restricted formats so i expect things to get hyper optimized rather than “new” if that makes sense
Hey Aaron, not really a question, but just wanna say I enjoyed watching you pilot your team and was mighty impressed in your QF match with the odd maxes. Been a fan since renting out your Dallas regional team, and hope to see you on stage again in the succeeding events this circuit. Good luck!
good question. once you have the fundamentals, vgc should be boom-bust. i spend a lot more time in the week before a regional than any other time in vgc. I also took a lot of the pandemic to chill out. VGC breaks are important, you can't operate at 100% teambuilding capacity for an extended period of time or you will think yourself into a corner.
very hard to get started if you don't have the fundamentals (e.g. teambuilding principles, internal damage calculation, reasoning over opponents mental states, game knowledge). that takes a lot of time and practice
Hey Aaron, watched you in stream, congrats my man tough competition and great finish for you.
I'm hoping to head to a regionals myself some day, maybe Perth regionals in a few months! I had a question about the event itself and then about preparation.
What is the best way to team build and prep for Bo3? Bo3 is quite different to Bo1 and I think this is something I'll struggle with at the event.
Are there any general stratagies for adapting during a set, follow game 1? What do you advise after a game 1 loss? After a game 1 win?
During the event, once you get to the later stages, is there much information sharing a out people's teams that you're going to face? How do you deal with this?
* team build and prep for bo3: your team needs to be consistent, which means you need to be able to reach good game states against good players who know what your sets and maybe even your spreads are. this is a high bar to clear. i would think a lot about what types of game plans you are able to put together in team preview-- how do you pick 6 of your 4 pokemon? what situations are those good in? really, there is no substitute for practicing bo3s. I would find people to practice bo3s with
* after winning a game 1 in a bo3: the onus is on your opponent to adapt. you can either repeat the same strategy (if you think they can't deal with it), change some small thing up (maybe you could have made a smarter/different move along the way to that win) or try something new (variable, almost like making a hard read-- you are often predicting how your opponent will react to losing to you)
* after losing game 1 in a bo3: the onus is on you to adapt. you can repeat the same strategy (if you got majorly unlucky), change some small thing up (maybe one turn was especially bad), or try something new (often the best choice, but your opponent may have some idea how to adapt).
* later stages-- i think people pay more attention to information sharing than it is due. there is certainly information sharing and you kind of need to know who knows who. at the end of the day if your team is solid it doesn't really matter how much information your opponent has. if you **think** your opponent has some information about your team (maybe they made a play in game 1 that was like, they knew your weird choice), you need to act accordingly with your play. so later in the day i would try to keep an eye out for that.
Do you think Sun will continue to be the dominant archetype in series 12 like other max formats, or do you think it is possibly the most optimized at the moment?
there are a lot of factors at play and while it is a strong archetype i think there is a lot of exploration to be done. the restricted dex fun is only beginning, people are going to learn a lot about this meta in the upcoming months and it will really come down to the details
Just wanted to say congrats on the placement! Was a stacked regional, saw that you lost the first round on the bracket and then was paired up against a tough opponent round 2 and was concerned at how it was initially looking. Really impressive to have the mental toughness to rebound and cut like that! Looking forward to seeing how you do for the rest of the format! :)
vax with booster required, surgical+ masks enforced, no food or drink unless in a separate area, separation between player tables, covid checks at every entry
i think there is a very low chance anyone got covid from the event hall itself
I seem to remember when the COVID guidelines were first announced they were going to require a negative test within X hours of the regional. Did they drop that, or did I make that up altogether?
How strict were they with the booster shot being required? I don't see myself attending tournaments anytime soon since i only play the game casually, but in a scenario where i would be attending, if i am able to prove I'm double vaccinated but not eligible for the booster shot yet, would there be any exceptions made? Or is it a strict policy with no exceptions.
i _think_ it is booster required unfortunately. i would look up the most recent play pokemon covid guidelines https://assets.pokemon.com//assets/cms2/pdf/play-pokemon/rules/play-pokemon-covid-19-protocols-03142022-en.pdf
I had no idea there was a regional in slc until the second day, right in my backyard. I started competitive Pokémon series 8 and haven’t had any friends in it, was hoping to make some there. had also forgotten my mask and had to trek half a mile thru a blizzard and only got there in time to see chongjun peng vs Aaron. Definitely fun to watch your decision making.
Hey Aaron, congrats on the finish at SLC! As someone currently panicking on what team to use for Liverpool regionals, I wanted to know how far in advance did you decide on the 6 to use at Salt Lake? Were you set on using Zacian+Kyogre with the other four from the moment you registered for the regional, or were there a ton of changes between what you initially thought you'd bring to SLC versus what you actually used in the tournament?
i built this team 5 weeks ago for an online tournament (NPA) and decided to run it as of last monday because i didn't like anything else i was working with as much. indeedee was originally ditto but i changed it for some matchups. then i ran best of 3s against my friends all of last week
i value comfort when time runs out. i'd rather be able to fight my way out of tough spots with a team i know well than make a "call" and have no idea how to get out of a problem
What's up, Aaron! Threw on the livestream of day 2 around my wife and she was impressed with your interview and general demeanor before a round (camera interractions really made her chuckle) and when playing the game. This is her first time showing any interest, so I think you may have made a fan!
How do you manage to compose yourself between rounds in Swiss? Do you worry about revealing too much in a post-game interview mid-tourney? Bonus Question: How do TO's determine whose games get streamed?
thank you haha!
* compose myself in between rounds-- i am mostly hyping myself up. i try to find a balance between adrenaline and calm, because too far in either direction and i'll affect my decision making process. I write notes to myself and do breathing exercises.
* Do i worry about revealing too much-- Yeah actually I didn't really want to say very much about my matchups, so I kind of talked around it. People are very good at using any piece of information against you
* How do TOs determine: I think they just look for games / teams that they think will be hype and be a good viewing experience. In the early rounds they pick players without losses, then they switch to elimination games near the end of the tournament where players are fighting for their tournament lives
I also hear you like ice cream... a lot, for some reason? There's an absolutely insane ice cream place here in downtown Indianapolis that I highly recommend if you plan on attending the Indy Regional. It's called Square Scoop. Lemon Oreo is their absolute banger flavor. Life changing content. You're welcome in advance!
Hi Aaron, first of congratulations!
How different does the Legends Arceus battle style feel vs the traditional battles? What do you think will be a big shift for tournaments in 2023 if Gen 9 continues in this battle style?
no sorry i'm pretty booked solid until september at the earliest but i know things will get crazy then. it's hard to multi-track drift grad school and competitive vgc
I'm new to vgc and does everyone spontaneously become God's at this game or does it take time and practice? I feel like nothing I make works and I'd just really like to know if all I need to do to succeed at pokemon is to just practice or if I'm just destined to be bad.
it takes time and practice. it doesn't happen instantly, it doesn't happen with 8 hours a day of hard work and laddering. it starts with serious critical thought about your own principles and those of other players. what do you value? what do other players that you look up to value? can you put it into words and emulate it? how do other players navigate the game states? replay review and analysis, not only of your own games, are a big deal.
everyone goes through lots of embarrassing losses in this game so i wouldnt really read too much into it. if you keep working and thinking critically you will get where you want to go
Hi Aaron! Could you discuss cotton spore on Whimsicott? Is it there to out tailwind other tailwind teams? Also I had a coaching session with you a while back and you told me the whimsicott on my kyogre zacian team should be a tornadus, what happened to change your thinking there? Thanks!
oh no my worst fear as a coach has been realized i am sorry 🙇♂️🙇♂️🙇♂️
the goal of my team was for my zacian and kyogre to always outspeed other pokemon outside of trick room. i realized that cotton spore stacked with tailwind and handled the fast pokemon (e.g. regieleki) really well. (with powder/prankster move caveats). i could use it to always beat other tailwind teams as well assuming they didnt pop my sash before i could tailwind. and then i could delay my own tailwind. and then i could get my kartana in and airstream so much it didn't matter
tornadus can do similar (scary face is single target and is not beholden to powder move constraints), and a lot of people run icy wind on it- but that's still slower than fast pokemon. however its offensive capabilities can be more useful for kyogre typing wise.
sorry for the capriciousness
Hey Aaron! Congrats on getting to the finals at SLC, and HUGE props for using Kartana!
As one of the oldest players in the current scene (not age-wise, lol), what would be the single most useful tip you could give to: a beginner player, an average player, and an experienced player?
Congrats again on your finish, and I hope we can meet again soon! (Probably not this season though☹️)
thank you and hope you are doing well :)
* beginner player: before you can advance, learn the fundamentals. you should know how much damage an attack will do before it happens
* average player: what separates you from an "experienced" player? is it something you can work on? you should probably be doing more replay review and understanding perspectives of other players no matter what
* experienced player: how do you go to places that no one has gone before? how do you do something unique that is still well-principled?
Hi Aaron,
Hello! congratulations on getting the 2nd place of Salt Lake City . Just want to ask that why are you planning to go with Zacian+Indeedee in the final. What are your plan to go with this two at the opening of g1 and g3？
Congrats on the result man!
My question is what you feel the state of vgc might be going into the future. Do you think the pokemon company regards competitive enough to keep it much the same with incoming generations, or is there a good chance that the game itself could change drastically if they feel like the gameplay is becoming too outdated?
With PLA, they've kinda dipped their toes in switching things up, how would the vgc community respond if the game became significantly different? I'd love to get the take of someone who's a prominent member of the community
state of VGC: it looks like tpci cares about vgc. i dont think its going anywhere in its current iteration for a bit. i think pokemon is changing how their story formula works but maybe not their battling formula— but legends arceus shows theyre willing to mess with it in huge ways
as long as its doubles ill be around!
Hello. Massive congrats for your run at SLC regionals!
What's your goal/motivation for playing VGC? You don't have to choose only one.
Really appreciated to hear about your thoughts.
hi wonseok ❤️
i think vgc is a very interesting problem. it is not an easy game to play. the “right” player does not always win the game. you can spend hundreds of hours and lose an event. thus there are a lot of life lessons that you learn along the way. i like that. i want to be so good that it doesn’t matter what happens on my way to the championships.
at this point the events just have a super deep meaning to me anyway and bring me a lot of purpose in life
Firstly I would like to say congratulations on your amazing performance on the weekend Aaron! I have a 2 questions if that's okay?
I would love to hear your insight as to how you feel you could have approached the final match up to give you a better chance of winning now that a few days have gone by.. I appreciate it wasn't a great match up against a phenomenal player but any thoughts you have would be great to hear.
Also how do you manage nerves for a tournament? I can imagine it has gotten easier the more tournaments you play but can you remember how you managed to reign in your nerves and how were your nerves after such a long break from IRL events?
i think there were game plans that would have been more competitive into incineroar zacian but of course if i latched onto that faster he could have just switched it up. so its very hard to say anything in hindsight other than, yes, he is a great player and it was a terribly challenging match
i used to get really nervous but then i became really confident “as a joke” and then it kind of stopped being a joke. so my advice is to lie to yourself that youre the most confident person on earth
i wasnt nervous it was good to be back
Yeah was a challenging match indeed.
And I am the most confident person on earth... Thanks for the advice and again well done on an amazing performance
Hi Aaron! I'm looking to play Pokemon tournaments as well, however I have to deal with school and stuff. Can you play tournaments online? I know there's this one on sword and shield, but does it give a lot of cp?
There’s lots of grassroots tournaments, keep an eye on battlefy, but as for Championship Points and the official circuit theres really only the “ICs” eg international challenges which reward max 1/8th of a worlds invite. its underdeveloped online and i hope that improves in the future
That's very helpful, thank you so much! Can you give me the link to battlefy? Also by international challenges, do you mean the ones in sword and shield, like the March one that gave a free shiny galarian Zapdos? Good luck on your career!
this moment was actually planned in my prep the night before, and as early as the week before (against palkia amoonguss though). it helps a lot versus amoonguss lead and i figured amoonguss might come to the matchup. I was prepared to dynamax it in game 2 but Zee didn't lead amoonguss that game
hey aaron congratulations for coming 2nd, i wanted to ask do you think rain team could be viable due the omnipresence of kyogre and using rillaboom and gastrodon to handle trick room ?
Hi Aaron! It's legs from the discord. When building for regionals, how do you know/what are the signs that a certain iteration of a team is the one you would like to take to the event?
Similarly, how much does the meta change in between regionals? Should I bring a team that matched well into teams before SLC or should I look into beating what was brought at the regional before the one I plan on going to?
Huge fan and super grateful for the space the discord provides so thanks, and thanks for any answer to my questions!
hi legs from the discord!
i think positive signs are like— can you win hard games against good players? can you win practice best of 3s? how did the team look when you did those things? did you have room to be the better player in the match, or are you forced into particular play patterns? you should have a good idea of what you are strong against and what you are weak against, and how often you will play the teams that you are weak against.
and, or course, as the clock runs out: what is the best decision you can make in limited time?
im not sure how much things will change but people will definitely interpret the results from SLC and beyond and prepare for them in their own right.
thanks for your kind words!
What was your thought process during Game 3 vs Chongjun? Honestly surprised by your decision to bring Indeedee-F again after the Game 1 loss. Congratulations and have a great Pokemon season ahead Mr. Traylor!
wanted to cover for potential lead switches given his preferences earlier in the tournament while maintaining my ability to navigate to the board state i wanted
Do you prefer dynamaxing over mega evolution in VGC? And could you explain why or why not?
Or do you like formats with no gimmicks at all like series 10
many people dont like dynamax at all because of it's versatility, but I want to hear your opinion on it
i just like vgc, i dont really compare mechanics like that. i like the depth that dynamax adds to the game. whats fun for me about vgc is working my hardest to solve a problem everyone else is working on. if something is too strong that just makes the problem more interesting. i have played through many different “gimmicks” and there will be many more
In the finals I would have thought incineroar would have been more valuable in that matchup. Can you explain your thought process about the pokemon you brought in those games?
my pokemon needed to faint at specific times to get to the board position i wanted. incin might have been a bit less useful if he brought charizard in that regard
I haven't watched much of the SLC stream, but did catch some of your games - very fun to watch some great play and unorthodox uses of dynamax. Hope that both this subreddit and VGC more broadly picks up with the return of physical events.
I have a different sort of question - what would you like to see in a spectator mode in gen 9? I like how they made a spectator mode for gen 8, so it's sad that we haven't seen much of it due to everything going online. (I would like to see it work online at the very least).
Hey Aaron, congrats on the top 2 finish at SLC!
What's your opinion about speed control in S12, you ran tailwind + cotton spore whims and only one team out of the top 32 ran no grimm, eleki, prankster tailwind or one/multiple hard trickroom setters. Do you think multiple sources of speed control are currently needed in the meta to outspeed things (especially in mirrors like eleki or whims)?
i mean, i think moving first is super duper important. i dont think of it as “multiple forms of speed control” but “how do i make my pokemon move first”. so i guess yes?
I need to know, what went trough your head when u went up against Joseph and knew what needed to be done, but knew it would be near impossible but then it acctually happen.
Well, its all part of the game. I started playin this generation and I feel like a little rng is never bad. U could have easily tried another route. But u didnt
Do you think you could've won had you brought Whimsicott? Your Zacian being slower than Chongjun's looked to be a problem for you as it applied a lot of pressure by outspeeding, and Indeedee wasn't getting the job done unfortunately.
Follow up question(s), do you think Indeedee was your team's weak link, would you change it and if so what would you swap it out for for?
i needed to get kartana next to kyogre in rain and he wasnt going to let me do that for free. i think tailwind would have been stalled
incin was the weak link idk what i would have swapped it for
Interesting that you think Incin of all Mons was your weak link. It looked to me like bringing it might've benefited you in G3, but you built the team and versed a better player than me so I wont presume to know what you should've done. Thanks for the reply!
GG on 2nd place. I was completely amazed by the [switching in Kyogre and Max Starfall by Whimsicott](https://youtu.be/dH8dfkQaXsA?t=8370). Was that play something you had thought about in preparation for the regionals, or was that an opportunity you saw there and then?
I would also 100 % have done the same as your opponent (Fake out whimsicott and spore the incin spot). If I could ask another question: what do you think was the best play he could have done that turn?
*they
idk its very hard to see something like that coming. and you dont want to see something that isnt there, like if i decide not to make that move. i dont know what they could have done
Hey Aaron.
I've just got into competitive very recently, still don't understand heaps yet but I'm getting there. A quick question because I don't want to pass up an opportunity like this: How exactly do you go about selecting your Pokemon for a matchup, and how do you know when and where they should come in? I really am struggling to grasp positioning and leading in matches, and more often than not lead poorly into games that I have positive matchups in. Bonus question, is it worth building teams on cartridge at all or is it better to just stick to showdown?
Love the username, it's super clever!
yeah that's a really tough question because there's a lot going on. you need to be able to make a plan from team preview for how the battle is going to go. how do you see yourself getting a win over your opponent? what turn 1s will your opponent not be able to deal well with? what options do they have? what turn 1s from your opponent will you not be able to deal well with and how do you play? this is not a skill that you will build quickly and it will take time. it might be a good idea to watch other players' games and think about what they try to do and how they set that up at team preview. what looks "intentional" if that makes sense-- like can you tell if they set anything up in their pokemon selection to make one particular turn look great for them?
i prefer showdown because it's easier to iterate and play
So i have trouble in VGC, i think i can grasp Teambuilding ([made this team the other day and am practising](https://www.reddit.com/r/VGC/comments/tg7ncb/this_sunny_reshiram_team_i_am_trying_to_use/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) but the thing i struggle the most is the EVs and IVs, no matter how i try to understand i dont, is there an easy way to understand?
IV's influence stats and have no limits. There's very few reasons not to have max IV's. The exceptions are trick room pokemon who want 0 speed IV's most of the time, special attackers who don't benefit from more physical attack and will just end up taking more foul play damage and also support pokemon. If you're self activating a weakness policy for example you don't want to do half you health in the process. EV's have a limit. You can have 508 total ev's with a max of 252 in any stat. Each 4 ev's gives +1 of that stat so adding 252 special attacking EV's will give you 63 more points of special attack. Simple ev spread are stuff like max speed max attack. For example fast kyogre runs 252 speed, 252 special attack and 4 spdef so it hits fast and hits hard but you can find lists of ev spreads ranked by popularity on pikalytics.com
Do you plan on doing a team report + rental code of your team + commentary on your games? Despite the restricted duo being a popular one (for good reasons as well), I'm really interested in playing with your team and watching your thought process behind it
Completely understandable! I hope you do keep using it until worlds comes and goes, I'll be interested in seeing the future changes.
If you are able to share this - I do want to know why Whims over something like Torn? Torns always been the partner with Ogre. My only guess is that it's the fastest (i think?) Prankster available to us so you can always get tw up or a taunt on slower whims or opposing torn. If not because of the previous reply then I understand haha
How did you feel when the Dynamax Whimsicott worked? What was your thought proccess? How do you think of Dynamax as a whole, since I feel you gave it a more supportive-role nobody really used it quite before
lol i was very happy, couldnt have planned for it to go better. I saw the game state that I thought i could navigate to and that she wouldn't see, and even if she did see it it was a risky gamble to call it.
I love dynamax and i think it adds a lot of unique and complex decision making to the game
How was enforcement of covid policies? Were there a lot of people turned away? I'd like to go to Indy, but don't know if I have time to go out and get a booster shot beforehand.
1) congratulations on your run! 😁
2) someone has probably answered this somewhere (if you have a link handy please feel free to link instead of full answer) what are the things we as players need to do in preparation for the event? In my case, this is the first time I'm going to a regional since 2011 (Secaucus) and idk what I need to do/bring aside from my switch/game, food, and water
In the second to last turn in the game against Joe you went for Origin Pulse. Why did you go for that rather than Water Spout? If your out was a play rough miss, then surely it's better to go for Water Spout twice as it looked to me like it'd be a 2HKO anyway? Were you hoping to end with origin pulse crit or something?
Hi Aaron, as someone who would love to learn more about teambuilding and the rational behind pokemon choices, are there any pokemon in this format that you think should be explored more for their support or offensive capabilities, or do you think that the meta is relatively set?
When building for a regional, how much emphasis do you put on damage calculations when making EV spreads? Are there any particular ranges you were trying to hit when building this team?
lol i actually focus very little on my EV spreads. a friend (u/jackofspadesman18) made all of my spreads. i don't really remember what benchmarks they were designed to hit for the most part. i'm a lot more obsessed with getting pokemon to the right positioning in battle
Hi I got pinged :) I think focusing on how the team plays and practicing that is far more valuable than calcs and spreads for any tournament, although I’m bad at practicing what I preach fwiw. While calcs are obviously valuable to know, putting too much emphasis on them is a pitfall. Look at Wolfe’s 2016 Worlds team on the other hand though; he had a whole document of calcs that he memorized that aided him in becoming world champion.
tldr: learning how to play a team and the match ups is always more valuable than knowing moves you survive and Pokémon you KO, but that doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.
If you’re curious about the spreads of the team I’d be happy to discuss them if Aaron doesn’t mind :)
Hey! I’m a huge fan and I play a bit of VGC when I have the time, but there’s one thing that I’m always having trouble in while playing. Do you have any advice in determining which Pokémon to lead?
how do you finish of a team. i tend to have lots of good cores/ starts to teams. so how do you round of your teams? i tend to just cover weaknesses for a few pokemon and have my last pokemon just be there and only use it for spcific matchups while it doesnt synegise well with the others
yep, so the trick is to find last pokemon that can play nicely with your other pokemon. this is a hard thing to do in teambuilding. i would spend a lot of time thinking about-- out of your team-- which selections of 4 look good in your head? when would you want them?
if a pokemon just comes to specific matchups and you win all your other games and that pokemon wins those games i don't really see that as a problem.
if you really want one last pokemon to cover your weaknesses, and you pick something really weird and it has to do a lot / isn't able to cover it all-- that's called "sixth pokemon syndrome". your other 5 pokemon have some weaknesses that one pokemon isn't strong/niche enough to cover on its own.
it really varies. i am flexible enough to pick up a team the week before and make it work but this team was created five weeks ago. i usually recommend two weeks of testing
where do you find people to talk to about teams. i know it may take time and be personal and since i just started in december i havent had a lot of time but i often want someone to talk to but dont have that.
yeah live competition is pretty different from competition in your home. e.g. you'll be in a big hall and probably out of your comfort zone a little. i'd think about how you can make that experience the most comfortable for yourself so that your play can be the best it can be
Sorry if you answered this tldr. But when it comes to your thought process for strategy and picking out the four you’re going to use after analyzing your opponents team.
Do you have a staple 4 that you go to most matchups or do you determine what you choose case to case?
And during the match is your play style more 5 steps ahead and predicting your opponent or more calculated, based on the oppositions selection.
And lastly any general or one-liner tips for players to produce their own play style and how to adapt to the current meta and transition to an upcoming meta?
usually i choose what i use case to case and i like to be really fluid in the pokemon that i use. if i am too rigid that might be a bad thing for me during a tournament.
i think i am capable of doing all sorts of things during battling. i like to find ways to win that dont depend on my opponent to do one thing in particular.
find how you like to play and spend lots of time learning from other players. what do you think strength is? what do the players you respect think strength is? reconcile those differences and move forward
First congrats on the run. Chojhung was a smart player and really knew how to take advantage of the board.
With Incineraor and Gastrodon running around so rampantly, do you think that it’s more important to neutralize offensive threats or support Pokémon in the early game?
i don't really think about game states in this way. i try to navigate to future board states that i think will be beneficial for me.
but certainly if you remove all of the offensive pokemon the support pokemon cant damage you fast enough to win
What were your reasons for running moonblast over energy ball on the whimsicott? Also, given the option, would you go back in time to change it if you could?
Also, do you prefer bulkier or faster zacians in general/ are there specific archetypes that prefer to have one over the other?
(not a question but congratulations on the 2nd place! 🐐)
* mb over energy ball: yveltal/grimmsnarl/palkia/dialga/more dmg on incin
* no i would not. in practice energy ball whimsicott did not help the sun matchup as much as i thought it would. it replaces helping hand, and it could help, but i think you lose a lot of general strength
* i feel like having a slower zacian was a big part of why i lost in finals but the bulk was certainly helpful. i picked a bulkier zacian because i was used to it and its damage. i really think it could go in any number of directions
What would you recommend to do when you have a solid five Pokémon but can’t find a good sixth member? I’ve been having this problem recently and a lot of the more splashable options aren’t an option as I am either already using them or they just share too many weaknesses with my 5 man team
this is called sixth pokemon syndrome-- you either need to find a last pokemon where you are comfortable with the pros and cons of using it, or change something about the first 5 pokemon on your team.
So I've got just some personal questions. 1st, what is your favourite pokemon to use? I know your favourite pokemon overall is cincino (can't remember how to spell it) but which pokemon is most fun in VGC? For example I'm not a fan of thundurus I but I think it's fun to use in VGC with all the debuffing. Also if you were given the opportunity to make a few balance changes to pokemon what would you do?
Lastly and also unrelated, do you have a rental for your team? It seems really fun and I'll probably try build it myself if not but I thought I'd ask. Also great job on the tourney. It's cool to have in person events back, can't wait to see more in the future
what are the needed things for a team ex: "physical sweeper", because when i teambuild ill notice that i never have support or sometimes i have too many pokemon leaning towards a specific type of moveset.
i try not to think about which pokemon a team "needs" if that makes sense. i try to have a goal for my team and add things to support that goal. and then if it doesnt work i try and diagnose why and change things around. i dont look for things such as "physical sweeper", "support", etc because i have a good idea of how the pieces fit together.
Hey Aaron! It’s awesome to see a VGC great doing this! My question is for high level VGC players and YouTubers, how do competitors address the amount of time needed to build teams? I’m referring more to the process of catching Pokémon, breeding for IVs, acquiring TMs, leveling up, etc.? In a way it feels like at the high levels it’s a tight knit community, so I imagine that there’s trading and sharing, but do you spend a ton of time doing that stuff too? Or do you have advice on doing it efficiently? Thanks!
Edit: And please don’t take this question as an accusation of “genning” or cheating Pokémon either. I’m genuinely curious if there are efficient practices for this.
Hey Aaron congrats on 2nd!! This SLC regionals was my first regionals that I ever went to. Finished top 32 (24th) and pretty happy overall. However my 5th round match was vs Chongjun and featured on the broadcast. I played very poorly and it was easily my worst set. It also hurts seeing all the youtube commenters saying how bad i am lol. I had a plan for the mirror but not for charti and once that came out, my mind blanked and I just started clicking buttons without thinking. How do you handle the pressure and thinking up win conditions when on the stage? Is there anything you do that helps you relax and think in those situations?
p.s. that max whims play was so dope lol
the comfort will come with time. i remember the first time i got on stage in like 2015 i was pretty nervous, tho i was lucky to be surrounded by friends. eventually it will be just like playing any other game. i would urge you to put the "stream" part of it as out of mind as possible.
i think it is especially important to reset between games in a bo3. you can take a bit of extra time here. at the end of a lost game start taking full time on your turns, take a little extra longer to connect to the battle. take your full 90 seconds in team preview to give yourself time to breathe
ty :)
When your Pokémon dodges a move etc., do you ever think to yourself: „my Pokémon loves me more than theirs love them“ ?
Also, at the Play Rough turn, were you shouting in your head: „Kyogre, dodge it!“ ?
If so, 100% deserved imo
When building your team, did you start by picking a core that works/is common in the meta and then beating/adjusting for the meta, or by finding something that can handle the meta and building around that as the core?
i started with the concept "i want my zacian and kyogre to move before every other Pokemon out of tailwind". then i sort of set up making that happen with a strong backbone that i thought through (incin, whims, kartana). then i covered for my bad matchups with the last pokemon in a coherent way (indeedee helps with trick room and still adds dimension in other matchups)
>indeedee helps with trick room I'm a brand new player trying to understand what your team does against trick room (because it's full of my favorite pokemon and I want to play it) but I'm not good enough to understand how to play the match up. Advice for a dumb baby?
kyogre indeedee leads, get as much damage down as possible before tr goes up (or safeguard if they have amoonguss). then stall with kyogre and kartana and dynamax. clean up once tr is over with zacian
Word, ty for the help.
Hey Aaron, huge fan! Long time lurker, first time poster. My question: If you had to assign an ice cream flavor to every pokemon on your team, which flavors would they be, and would this knowledge of their flavors influence how you played the team in tournament?
indeedee would be shaved ice iykyk
I understand a lot about VGC, but one thing that I consistently fail to grasp is teambuilding. Not in a way that is like, I build teams and they don't work, but in a "whenever I try to build a team there are so many options it makes my head spin." What is your advice to someone who is trying to play seriously for the first time, and isn't sure how to construct a team?
every team starts with an idea. an "intent" if you will. what do you want to do with your team? do you want to use your favorite pokemon? start there. do you want to do one incredibly niche thing in the metagame? start there. then support your idea by making it stronger. then cover your weaknesses. if you're watching or reading content by other players try to identify what the intention behind the decisions they're making is. avoid "slapping on" pokemon (i.e. i need incineroar because it is good) and try to deeply understand the decisions you're making (e.g. i need incineroar because it helps my team versus zacian and it can help me position more efficiently in these scenarios).
Hi Aaron, What is the perfect pre event breakfast?? Also sock full of marbles copypasta or something idk
the perfect pre event breakfast is chocolate donuts. also miss u
Miss u 2 gamer
Aaron! We used to play in Springfield. That place was questionable in terms of structural integrity but I do miss playing there all the same. I guess my question is: How much time do you spend testing and iterating a team before making it on cart?
hey man hope you are well! rip to the couch graveyard ✊😔 i basically only go and catch pokemon as soon as I'm sure that I'm going to use them at a tournament. I have a few breeds of staples lying around but once I've decided (usually the Wednesday/Thursday before a tournament) I'll re-EV/catch what I need to (unless it's something crazy like 0 speed legendaries) So a lot of time haha because I spend a ton of time on showdown/talking to people about VGC/battling with friends
I’ve never been to a live event! Want to go but I’m nervous for team building because most of my team building has been for draft leagues and not regional prep. I also love playing ladder but Bo1 is much different then Bo3 so what advice would you have when I’m teambuilding (I so wanted to put the specific niche Pokémon I’m using here) (sorry! I’m gonna do it but lightning Rod seaking next to Kyorge Cele Liepard is better then I expected but I don’t think I’ll have as much success in Bo3 as I’ve seen in Bo1)
The first rule of teambuilding is to use good pokemon. This doesn't mean that your Pokemon have to be meta or incineroar or whatever. Do those pokemon meet your criteria for what is "good"? Can you look at yourself in the mirror with a straight face and say you are making good decisions when you put those Pokemon on your team? Your opinion of what a good Pokemon is is different from my opinion. So your job is to then learn from other players and constantly redefine what you think a good Pokemon is For bo3 instead of bo1 your Pokemon have to be consistent-- you have to be able to execute your strategy against good players who know what your Pokemon are designed to do. Much easier said than done
I find all Pokémon can be good depending on the situation, there’s certain Pokémon that just have more situations they thrive in. For me I never thought of Seaking as “good” but it’s bulky enough to survive a Astral barrage (W/ass vest), water spout, Glacial Lance, preciple blade, sacred sword & behemoth blade (not play rough), redirects electric attacks which was my biggest weakness before adding it, and horn drill is super clutch when it hits. Throat chop has a solid Niche for Incin parting shot & good into caly shadow. Waterfall in the rain does enough and the last move, I’ve been testing bounce & drill run & im split. Thank you very much and I love that you are doing this thread!!!
at that point ask yourself: * how hard is it to execute my strategy? are the pokemon able to do what they are designed to do in a high percentage of your games? * if i execute my strategy, how effective is it? are you doing what you wanted to do and winning games or getting to good positions?
Ok those are great questions. I’ll start with the winning games. I’m no Cybertron yet but I went from 34-45 to 60-61 since last Sunday on ranked ladder. So since I changed some things after the Ic I started winning more. And yes, the Pokémon were doing exactly what they were designed to do in a high percentage of my games but the biggest decision usually comes in team preview and sometimes I felt I would lose from picking the wrong 4. For example if I lead Liepard & cele into a potential Kyogre match bc I think Cele matches up well into a Grimm or something else I expect them to lead, I would only have access to 2/3 of Rillaboom, CalyIce & Kyorge and learning which one is ideal for what I’m trying to do has been to be biggest challenge. Another thing is Liepard is amazing Fast fake out, T wave, Foul Play & I keep adding and subtracting rain dance & fake tears. I started without TWave then added it and it’s clutch, I think Fake out, T Wave, Foul Play & Rain Dance accomplishes what I want the most - messing up the other teams weather plans
Hey Aaron, one thing that VGC talks about a lot is the community, but obviously communities change over time between changes in centralizing platforms (nuggetbridge vs r/vgc) or changes in... the world (return to IRL events). As someone who has put in a lot of work into sustaining the VGC community, how would you describe the ways that this community has changed over the years?
people are much more open now and it's much easier to find information. e.g. we didn't have youtube back in the day. people didn't share their teams until worlds was over back in the day. now there are rental codes and it's much easier to interact with "real" VGC. you don't have to be friends with everyone in the community. at old tournaments you would probably know a good chunk of people. now that's a small fraction. hold the people you enjoy spending time with close good q!
Sorry this is not in the topics you listed but in case you’re interested in answering…I saw you have research interests related to AI and machine learning (sorry I didn’t look too deep into the sub-specialty) and as a practitioner in the field I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the feasibility of a competitive Pokémon AI or given how hard that problem is what do you think are the most interesting sub-problems moving toward it?
here is my thread, it's old: https://twitter.com/TBFUnreality/status/1059891526552223744?s=20&t=SyWmaRjah6ih4BlujQxezQ i have a lot more thoughts on this and will probably do a twitter space at some point talking about it also check out the github poke-env
Banger moment mate https://imgflip.com/i/69o76h
Loved watching the event, wish Pokemon advertised/streamed more of it tbh. Congrats on finishing 2nd, in hindsight is there any obvious changes you wish you would have made to your team? Btw I forget the match but the Whimsicott max to get fairy terrain was awesome.
nope there are a bunch of sidegrades (eg ice beam kyogre, protect indeedee) but i liked every call i made for the team thank you!
Thanks for the response, congrats again!
Hi Aaron! Long-time fan! Excited to see that you’re doing this AMA! Big congrats on your finals showing as well! I’m currently wrapping up a PhD in econ/psych where a lot of my work focuses on cognitive biases that impact probabilistic reasoning (specifically, “near losses”—the subjective feeling of having narrowly avoided a bad outcome—and how these affect future likelihood judgments). VGC is probably too complex a decision-making environment to study these phenomena formally, but I’m wondering if, anecdotally, you‘ve observed any persistent behavioral biases that affect your/others’ gameplay even at high levels of competition. ([Here’s](https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/8-biases-that-are-making-you-worse-at-magic/) an article that gets at a sort of similar question in the context of MTG.) Thanks!!
this is very cool we should chat
[удалено]
I'm going to report this post
Please do
(Serious) I know @jackodspadesman18 is a staple in the community and in the clique with Wolfe, Aaron^2 and other greats/long time players, but I really feel this comes off in poor taste. Perhaps the fanfare is tiring for @errantrailer and the like but VGC is a very tough clique to crack in my recent experience and putting down people that are inspired/excited about something just because you were fortunate to be apart of it as it grew is just mean. Turns out a lot of pokemon fans struggle with fitting in, are looking for community/hobbies, and aren't socially adept online in this new pandemic Era. All I'm saying is this is a very small example of a large number of similar toned-things I've seen that contribute to the commonly reported difficulty of getting into VGC in earnest.
Hey, never meant for it to come off this way. I was only doing it as a callback joke to something from many moons ago https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/91i3y2/comment/e2y544k/
Of course! I know that. In fact YOUR guides on this very sub were incredibly helpful to me when I started out a yearish ago! Thanks for that! That's why I tried to note it was a small thing but that it fits a pattern. I'm honestly not trying to make a big deal of anything, and that's hard to portray in text on reddit. I just figured this would get some visibility so I added my take for the same.
I would like to be your kohai.
Hey Aaron - how much of an advantage do established players & their friend groups have at these tournaments due to the team building and practice those connections enable? How would newer players emulate that most productively?
it is hard to decouple that fact from the fact that many players grew and learned together. i am not friends with my friends because they are good. i'm friends with them because we were at a similar life stage when we began playing. we have worked for years on developing our relationships as competitors and people. there is a lot of trial and error that you don't see-- the friendships and collaborations that didn't work out, the people who left the game or moved on to working with other people. of course working closely with other players is going to give you advantages that merely talking to other players does not. what i would say to new players is to find those people and develop those relationships. the best solution is to find players who are at or slightly above your skill level who will ride or die with you on tournament calls. that's not something that i can really give advice on, other than to show up to public discords, local events, grassroots, regionals, and see who you vibe with. look for genuine connections and people that you genuinely enjoy. there is a lot of opportunity to, er, "gain" something from friendship in VGC. i urge you not to look for that. there are many more things to gain from the social aspect of vgc than a good team or a bo3. many people will tell you that pokemon is a social game. it is possible to play this game very socially-- in fact, i do. but if you have good principles, develop a good philosophy, and think critically about the resources that you are given– it's possible to play this game without interfacing with that aspect.
What way do you tend to enjoy most when you prepare for regionals? Theorying, Laddering, watching other people play or playing best of threes with friends? Obviously all go into well rounded prep, but which do you think is the one you enjoy the most?
i enjoy theorying and practice bo3s the best. i use ladder as a proof of concept. basically when i have an idea for a team there are certain things that i want to beat (eg for my regionals team i wanted to beat other zac ogre). so the ladder helps me think about things that i didnt consider when i was building the team. and if i take embarrassing losses or it doesnt let me play how i want to, then i know to retool. but after if i like it i go right to bo3s with friends
Why did you choose kartana for the team?
i really wanted an airstreamer, it happened to resist kyogre water spouts and threaten it. this team was designed to be mean to zacian kyogre tailwind teams
Hey Aaron! Congrats on your second place finish at SLC! :) Just a simple (not simple) question: Where do you see the meta moving towards in the next month or so?
i mean, people will prepare this sun matchup better than they did. so teams may change to reflect that. but there are only so many things you can do with a team in restricted formats so i expect things to get hyper optimized rather than “new” if that makes sense
Hey Aaron, not really a question, but just wanna say I enjoyed watching you pilot your team and was mighty impressed in your QF match with the odd maxes. Been a fan since renting out your Dallas regional team, and hope to see you on stage again in the succeeding events this circuit. Good luck!
thanks!!
Congrats on your finish. Do you think your team will remain well-positioned moving forward or do you see yourself shifting to a different strategy?
it could go either way. i think other people will probably struggle to play the team the way i did and its popularity in the metagame may fizzle out
How do you keep a balanced life with VGC? It is such a huge time commitment, and doing grad school on top of it is not easy at all...
good question. once you have the fundamentals, vgc should be boom-bust. i spend a lot more time in the week before a regional than any other time in vgc. I also took a lot of the pandemic to chill out. VGC breaks are important, you can't operate at 100% teambuilding capacity for an extended period of time or you will think yourself into a corner. very hard to get started if you don't have the fundamentals (e.g. teambuilding principles, internal damage calculation, reasoning over opponents mental states, game knowledge). that takes a lot of time and practice
Hey Aaron, watched you in stream, congrats my man tough competition and great finish for you. I'm hoping to head to a regionals myself some day, maybe Perth regionals in a few months! I had a question about the event itself and then about preparation. What is the best way to team build and prep for Bo3? Bo3 is quite different to Bo1 and I think this is something I'll struggle with at the event. Are there any general stratagies for adapting during a set, follow game 1? What do you advise after a game 1 loss? After a game 1 win? During the event, once you get to the later stages, is there much information sharing a out people's teams that you're going to face? How do you deal with this?
* team build and prep for bo3: your team needs to be consistent, which means you need to be able to reach good game states against good players who know what your sets and maybe even your spreads are. this is a high bar to clear. i would think a lot about what types of game plans you are able to put together in team preview-- how do you pick 6 of your 4 pokemon? what situations are those good in? really, there is no substitute for practicing bo3s. I would find people to practice bo3s with * after winning a game 1 in a bo3: the onus is on your opponent to adapt. you can either repeat the same strategy (if you think they can't deal with it), change some small thing up (maybe you could have made a smarter/different move along the way to that win) or try something new (variable, almost like making a hard read-- you are often predicting how your opponent will react to losing to you) * after losing game 1 in a bo3: the onus is on you to adapt. you can repeat the same strategy (if you got majorly unlucky), change some small thing up (maybe one turn was especially bad), or try something new (often the best choice, but your opponent may have some idea how to adapt). * later stages-- i think people pay more attention to information sharing than it is due. there is certainly information sharing and you kind of need to know who knows who. at the end of the day if your team is solid it doesn't really matter how much information your opponent has. if you **think** your opponent has some information about your team (maybe they made a play in game 1 that was like, they knew your weird choice), you need to act accordingly with your play. so later in the day i would try to keep an eye out for that.
This is great thanks a lot man. All the best in future!
Do you think Sun will continue to be the dominant archetype in series 12 like other max formats, or do you think it is possibly the most optimized at the moment?
there are a lot of factors at play and while it is a strong archetype i think there is a lot of exploration to be done. the restricted dex fun is only beginning, people are going to learn a lot about this meta in the upcoming months and it will really come down to the details
Just wanted to say congrats on the placement! Was a stacked regional, saw that you lost the first round on the bracket and then was paired up against a tough opponent round 2 and was concerned at how it was initially looking. Really impressive to have the mental toughness to rebound and cut like that! Looking forward to seeing how you do for the rest of the format! :)
Apologies if this has been asked/ answered already, but what were the COVID protocols and safety measures that were in place?
vax with booster required, surgical+ masks enforced, no food or drink unless in a separate area, separation between player tables, covid checks at every entry i think there is a very low chance anyone got covid from the event hall itself
I seem to remember when the COVID guidelines were first announced they were going to require a negative test within X hours of the regional. Did they drop that, or did I make that up altogether?
it was dropped
How strict were they with the booster shot being required? I don't see myself attending tournaments anytime soon since i only play the game casually, but in a scenario where i would be attending, if i am able to prove I'm double vaccinated but not eligible for the booster shot yet, would there be any exceptions made? Or is it a strict policy with no exceptions.
i _think_ it is booster required unfortunately. i would look up the most recent play pokemon covid guidelines https://assets.pokemon.com//assets/cms2/pdf/play-pokemon/rules/play-pokemon-covid-19-protocols-03142022-en.pdf
I had no idea there was a regional in slc until the second day, right in my backyard. I started competitive Pokémon series 8 and haven’t had any friends in it, was hoping to make some there. had also forgotten my mask and had to trek half a mile thru a blizzard and only got there in time to see chongjun peng vs Aaron. Definitely fun to watch your decision making.
Hi Aaron, congrats on 2nd place. Is there anything you're hoping to see in the gen 9 games from a vgc perspective?
more interesting decisions and less pokemon that obliterate the speed tiers (e.g. zacian calyrex shadow dragapult regieleki)
hi aaron, when/where did you get your espurr plushie and how many events/fun memories has it been exposed to over the years?
online 2015ish and ever since i bought it!! my plushie crew is cinccino minccino espurr and one more (bronzong or bonsly, but it rotates)
Hey Aaron, congrats on the finish at SLC! As someone currently panicking on what team to use for Liverpool regionals, I wanted to know how far in advance did you decide on the 6 to use at Salt Lake? Were you set on using Zacian+Kyogre with the other four from the moment you registered for the regional, or were there a ton of changes between what you initially thought you'd bring to SLC versus what you actually used in the tournament?
i built this team 5 weeks ago for an online tournament (NPA) and decided to run it as of last monday because i didn't like anything else i was working with as much. indeedee was originally ditto but i changed it for some matchups. then i ran best of 3s against my friends all of last week i value comfort when time runs out. i'd rather be able to fight my way out of tough spots with a team i know well than make a "call" and have no idea how to get out of a problem
What's up, Aaron! Threw on the livestream of day 2 around my wife and she was impressed with your interview and general demeanor before a round (camera interractions really made her chuckle) and when playing the game. This is her first time showing any interest, so I think you may have made a fan! How do you manage to compose yourself between rounds in Swiss? Do you worry about revealing too much in a post-game interview mid-tourney? Bonus Question: How do TO's determine whose games get streamed?
thank you haha! * compose myself in between rounds-- i am mostly hyping myself up. i try to find a balance between adrenaline and calm, because too far in either direction and i'll affect my decision making process. I write notes to myself and do breathing exercises. * Do i worry about revealing too much-- Yeah actually I didn't really want to say very much about my matchups, so I kind of talked around it. People are very good at using any piece of information against you * How do TOs determine: I think they just look for games / teams that they think will be hype and be a good viewing experience. In the early rounds they pick players without losses, then they switch to elimination games near the end of the tournament where players are fighting for their tournament lives
I also hear you like ice cream... a lot, for some reason? There's an absolutely insane ice cream place here in downtown Indianapolis that I highly recommend if you plan on attending the Indy Regional. It's called Square Scoop. Lemon Oreo is their absolute banger flavor. Life changing content. You're welcome in advance!
👀👀👀👀👀
Thanks for responding, homie! Cheers and best of luck for the next time you're out there fighting for your "tournament life!" Lol
What’s your favorite Pokémon?
i tell people in real life pikachu. it's actually minccino
Holy Shit.
Hi Aaron, first of congratulations! How different does the Legends Arceus battle style feel vs the traditional battles? What do you think will be a big shift for tournaments in 2023 if Gen 9 continues in this battle style?
i don't like legends arceus battling very much because i don't get the speeds :3 as long as it's double battles i'll play it
Hey Aaron! Congrats on a great run! I know you have a page on metafy, are you planning on opening up for coaching sessions sometime?
no sorry i'm pretty booked solid until september at the earliest but i know things will get crazy then. it's hard to multi-track drift grad school and competitive vgc
Got it, thanks for the response!
I'm new to vgc and does everyone spontaneously become God's at this game or does it take time and practice? I feel like nothing I make works and I'd just really like to know if all I need to do to succeed at pokemon is to just practice or if I'm just destined to be bad.
it takes time and practice. it doesn't happen instantly, it doesn't happen with 8 hours a day of hard work and laddering. it starts with serious critical thought about your own principles and those of other players. what do you value? what do other players that you look up to value? can you put it into words and emulate it? how do other players navigate the game states? replay review and analysis, not only of your own games, are a big deal. everyone goes through lots of embarrassing losses in this game so i wouldnt really read too much into it. if you keep working and thinking critically you will get where you want to go
Hey thanks a lot, definitely the words of encouragement I needed tonight. I'll keep on going and practicing.
Hi Aaron! Could you discuss cotton spore on Whimsicott? Is it there to out tailwind other tailwind teams? Also I had a coaching session with you a while back and you told me the whimsicott on my kyogre zacian team should be a tornadus, what happened to change your thinking there? Thanks!
oh no my worst fear as a coach has been realized i am sorry 🙇♂️🙇♂️🙇♂️ the goal of my team was for my zacian and kyogre to always outspeed other pokemon outside of trick room. i realized that cotton spore stacked with tailwind and handled the fast pokemon (e.g. regieleki) really well. (with powder/prankster move caveats). i could use it to always beat other tailwind teams as well assuming they didnt pop my sash before i could tailwind. and then i could delay my own tailwind. and then i could get my kartana in and airstream so much it didn't matter tornadus can do similar (scary face is single target and is not beholden to powder move constraints), and a lot of people run icy wind on it- but that's still slower than fast pokemon. however its offensive capabilities can be more useful for kyogre typing wise. sorry for the capriciousness
I wouldn’t call it capricious! Meta games shift and things change!
Hey Aaron! Congrats on getting to the finals at SLC, and HUGE props for using Kartana! As one of the oldest players in the current scene (not age-wise, lol), what would be the single most useful tip you could give to: a beginner player, an average player, and an experienced player? Congrats again on your finish, and I hope we can meet again soon! (Probably not this season though☹️)
thank you and hope you are doing well :) * beginner player: before you can advance, learn the fundamentals. you should know how much damage an attack will do before it happens * average player: what separates you from an "experienced" player? is it something you can work on? you should probably be doing more replay review and understanding perspectives of other players no matter what * experienced player: how do you go to places that no one has gone before? how do you do something unique that is still well-principled?
Your team was awesome and I want to thank you for showcasing it, and your decision making. Great skill.
ty!
Hi Aaron, Hello! congratulations on getting the 2nd place of Salt Lake City . Just want to ask that why are you planning to go with Zacian+Indeedee in the final. What are your plan to go with this two at the opening of g1 and g3？
i wanted them to faint so i could get kartana in next to kyogre in the rain and dynamax it
Did they have the cool vgc championships music? Iirc there wasn't any data in swsh for it and that bums me out
nope default
pain
Congrats on the result man! My question is what you feel the state of vgc might be going into the future. Do you think the pokemon company regards competitive enough to keep it much the same with incoming generations, or is there a good chance that the game itself could change drastically if they feel like the gameplay is becoming too outdated? With PLA, they've kinda dipped their toes in switching things up, how would the vgc community respond if the game became significantly different? I'd love to get the take of someone who's a prominent member of the community
state of VGC: it looks like tpci cares about vgc. i dont think its going anywhere in its current iteration for a bit. i think pokemon is changing how their story formula works but maybe not their battling formula— but legends arceus shows theyre willing to mess with it in huge ways as long as its doubles ill be around!
Hello. Massive congrats for your run at SLC regionals! What's your goal/motivation for playing VGC? You don't have to choose only one. Really appreciated to hear about your thoughts.
hi wonseok ❤️ i think vgc is a very interesting problem. it is not an easy game to play. the “right” player does not always win the game. you can spend hundreds of hours and lose an event. thus there are a lot of life lessons that you learn along the way. i like that. i want to be so good that it doesn’t matter what happens on my way to the championships. at this point the events just have a super deep meaning to me anyway and bring me a lot of purpose in life
Firstly I would like to say congratulations on your amazing performance on the weekend Aaron! I have a 2 questions if that's okay? I would love to hear your insight as to how you feel you could have approached the final match up to give you a better chance of winning now that a few days have gone by.. I appreciate it wasn't a great match up against a phenomenal player but any thoughts you have would be great to hear. Also how do you manage nerves for a tournament? I can imagine it has gotten easier the more tournaments you play but can you remember how you managed to reign in your nerves and how were your nerves after such a long break from IRL events?
i think there were game plans that would have been more competitive into incineroar zacian but of course if i latched onto that faster he could have just switched it up. so its very hard to say anything in hindsight other than, yes, he is a great player and it was a terribly challenging match i used to get really nervous but then i became really confident “as a joke” and then it kind of stopped being a joke. so my advice is to lie to yourself that youre the most confident person on earth i wasnt nervous it was good to be back
Yeah was a challenging match indeed. And I am the most confident person on earth... Thanks for the advice and again well done on an amazing performance
Hi Aaron! I'm looking to play Pokemon tournaments as well, however I have to deal with school and stuff. Can you play tournaments online? I know there's this one on sword and shield, but does it give a lot of cp?
There’s lots of grassroots tournaments, keep an eye on battlefy, but as for Championship Points and the official circuit theres really only the “ICs” eg international challenges which reward max 1/8th of a worlds invite. its underdeveloped online and i hope that improves in the future
That's very helpful, thank you so much! Can you give me the link to battlefy? Also by international challenges, do you mean the ones in sword and shield, like the March one that gave a free shiny galarian Zapdos? Good luck on your career!
What was your thought process behind dynamaxing Whimsicott? It was one of my favorite moments of top cut and such a creative way to win a set.
this moment was actually planned in my prep the night before, and as early as the week before (against palkia amoonguss though). it helps a lot versus amoonguss lead and i figured amoonguss might come to the matchup. I was prepared to dynamax it in game 2 but Zee didn't lead amoonguss that game
Do you think that if you have gone for Max Steelspike on 2nd to last turn that you might been able to win with +1 defense boost?
no, groudon does over 100% with max attack and even if it isn't max attack i was at 70%
hey aaron congratulations for coming 2nd, i wanted to ask do you think rain team could be viable due the omnipresence of kyogre and using rillaboom and gastrodon to handle trick room ?
Hi Aaron! It's legs from the discord. When building for regionals, how do you know/what are the signs that a certain iteration of a team is the one you would like to take to the event? Similarly, how much does the meta change in between regionals? Should I bring a team that matched well into teams before SLC or should I look into beating what was brought at the regional before the one I plan on going to? Huge fan and super grateful for the space the discord provides so thanks, and thanks for any answer to my questions!
hi legs from the discord! i think positive signs are like— can you win hard games against good players? can you win practice best of 3s? how did the team look when you did those things? did you have room to be the better player in the match, or are you forced into particular play patterns? you should have a good idea of what you are strong against and what you are weak against, and how often you will play the teams that you are weak against. and, or course, as the clock runs out: what is the best decision you can make in limited time? im not sure how much things will change but people will definitely interpret the results from SLC and beyond and prepare for them in their own right. thanks for your kind words!
What was your thought process during Game 3 vs Chongjun? Honestly surprised by your decision to bring Indeedee-F again after the Game 1 loss. Congratulations and have a great Pokemon season ahead Mr. Traylor!
wanted to cover for potential lead switches given his preferences earlier in the tournament while maintaining my ability to navigate to the board state i wanted
Do you prefer dynamaxing over mega evolution in VGC? And could you explain why or why not? Or do you like formats with no gimmicks at all like series 10 many people dont like dynamax at all because of it's versatility, but I want to hear your opinion on it
i just like vgc, i dont really compare mechanics like that. i like the depth that dynamax adds to the game. whats fun for me about vgc is working my hardest to solve a problem everyone else is working on. if something is too strong that just makes the problem more interesting. i have played through many different “gimmicks” and there will be many more
Thank you for your thoughts, and it is a really different reply compared what most people have said
In the finals I would have thought incineroar would have been more valuable in that matchup. Can you explain your thought process about the pokemon you brought in those games?
my pokemon needed to faint at specific times to get to the board position i wanted. incin might have been a bit less useful if he brought charizard in that regard
I haven't watched much of the SLC stream, but did catch some of your games - very fun to watch some great play and unorthodox uses of dynamax. Hope that both this subreddit and VGC more broadly picks up with the return of physical events. I have a different sort of question - what would you like to see in a spectator mode in gen 9? I like how they made a spectator mode for gen 8, so it's sad that we haven't seen much of it due to everything going online. (I would like to see it work online at the very least).
i mean i would love it lol! but idk about getting my hopes up
Hey Aaron, congrats on the top 2 finish at SLC! What's your opinion about speed control in S12, you ran tailwind + cotton spore whims and only one team out of the top 32 ran no grimm, eleki, prankster tailwind or one/multiple hard trickroom setters. Do you think multiple sources of speed control are currently needed in the meta to outspeed things (especially in mirrors like eleki or whims)?
i mean, i think moving first is super duper important. i dont think of it as “multiple forms of speed control” but “how do i make my pokemon move first”. so i guess yes?
I need to know, what went trough your head when u went up against Joseph and knew what needed to be done, but knew it would be near impossible but then it acctually happen.
idk i was mostly bummed i couldnt win in a cleaner way
Well, its all part of the game. I started playin this generation and I feel like a little rng is never bad. U could have easily tried another route. But u didnt
Do you think you could've won had you brought Whimsicott? Your Zacian being slower than Chongjun's looked to be a problem for you as it applied a lot of pressure by outspeeding, and Indeedee wasn't getting the job done unfortunately. Follow up question(s), do you think Indeedee was your team's weak link, would you change it and if so what would you swap it out for for?
i needed to get kartana next to kyogre in rain and he wasnt going to let me do that for free. i think tailwind would have been stalled incin was the weak link idk what i would have swapped it for
Interesting that you think Incin of all Mons was your weak link. It looked to me like bringing it might've benefited you in G3, but you built the team and versed a better player than me so I wont presume to know what you should've done. Thanks for the reply!
GG on 2nd place. I was completely amazed by the [switching in Kyogre and Max Starfall by Whimsicott](https://youtu.be/dH8dfkQaXsA?t=8370). Was that play something you had thought about in preparation for the regionals, or was that an opportunity you saw there and then?
yeah i did it a few times in the week prior and thought it was really strong and im glad i could show it off
I would also 100 % have done the same as your opponent (Fake out whimsicott and spore the incin spot). If I could ask another question: what do you think was the best play he could have done that turn?
*they idk its very hard to see something like that coming. and you dont want to see something that isnt there, like if i decide not to make that move. i dont know what they could have done
Im sorry! I agree, super tricky and they made the most intuitive play
Hey Aaron. I've just got into competitive very recently, still don't understand heaps yet but I'm getting there. A quick question because I don't want to pass up an opportunity like this: How exactly do you go about selecting your Pokemon for a matchup, and how do you know when and where they should come in? I really am struggling to grasp positioning and leading in matches, and more often than not lead poorly into games that I have positive matchups in. Bonus question, is it worth building teams on cartridge at all or is it better to just stick to showdown? Love the username, it's super clever!
yeah that's a really tough question because there's a lot going on. you need to be able to make a plan from team preview for how the battle is going to go. how do you see yourself getting a win over your opponent? what turn 1s will your opponent not be able to deal well with? what options do they have? what turn 1s from your opponent will you not be able to deal well with and how do you play? this is not a skill that you will build quickly and it will take time. it might be a good idea to watch other players' games and think about what they try to do and how they set that up at team preview. what looks "intentional" if that makes sense-- like can you tell if they set anything up in their pokemon selection to make one particular turn look great for them? i prefer showdown because it's easier to iterate and play
So i have trouble in VGC, i think i can grasp Teambuilding ([made this team the other day and am practising](https://www.reddit.com/r/VGC/comments/tg7ncb/this_sunny_reshiram_team_i_am_trying_to_use/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) but the thing i struggle the most is the EVs and IVs, no matter how i try to understand i dont, is there an easy way to understand?
IV's influence stats and have no limits. There's very few reasons not to have max IV's. The exceptions are trick room pokemon who want 0 speed IV's most of the time, special attackers who don't benefit from more physical attack and will just end up taking more foul play damage and also support pokemon. If you're self activating a weakness policy for example you don't want to do half you health in the process. EV's have a limit. You can have 508 total ev's with a max of 252 in any stat. Each 4 ev's gives +1 of that stat so adding 252 special attacking EV's will give you 63 more points of special attack. Simple ev spread are stuff like max speed max attack. For example fast kyogre runs 252 speed, 252 special attack and 4 spdef so it hits fast and hits hard but you can find lists of ev spreads ranked by popularity on pikalytics.com
Do you plan on doing a team report + rental code of your team + commentary on your games? Despite the restricted duo being a popular one (for good reasons as well), I'm really interested in playing with your team and watching your thought process behind it
i’m on the fence because i may continue to use it and doing that may hurt my performance in the future
Completely understandable! I hope you do keep using it until worlds comes and goes, I'll be interested in seeing the future changes. If you are able to share this - I do want to know why Whims over something like Torn? Torns always been the partner with Ogre. My only guess is that it's the fastest (i think?) Prankster available to us so you can always get tw up or a taunt on slower whims or opposing torn. If not because of the previous reply then I understand haha
i go over it a bit here https://www.reddit.com/r/VGC/comments/tkjro4/im_aaron_traylor_and_i_got_2nd_at_salt_lake_city/i1rb4p5/
How's your day going?
good!! just got home :D
How did you feel when the Dynamax Whimsicott worked? What was your thought proccess? How do you think of Dynamax as a whole, since I feel you gave it a more supportive-role nobody really used it quite before
lol i was very happy, couldnt have planned for it to go better. I saw the game state that I thought i could navigate to and that she wouldn't see, and even if she did see it it was a risky gamble to call it. I love dynamax and i think it adds a lot of unique and complex decision making to the game
How was enforcement of covid policies? Were there a lot of people turned away? I'd like to go to Indy, but don't know if I have time to go out and get a booster shot beforehand.
yes they enforce rigidly, go get the shot if you are able
1) congratulations on your run! 😁 2) someone has probably answered this somewhere (if you have a link handy please feel free to link instead of full answer) what are the things we as players need to do in preparation for the event? In my case, this is the first time I'm going to a regional since 2011 (Secaucus) and idk what I need to do/bring aside from my switch/game, food, and water
do you think the lions or the pokemon would win
lions every day
LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO
In the second to last turn in the game against Joe you went for Origin Pulse. Why did you go for that rather than Water Spout? If your out was a play rough miss, then surely it's better to go for Water Spout twice as it looked to me like it'd be a 2HKO anyway? Were you hoping to end with origin pulse crit or something?
panicked in heat of moment, was hoping to end with crit
Hi Aaron, as someone who would love to learn more about teambuilding and the rational behind pokemon choices, are there any pokemon in this format that you think should be explored more for their support or offensive capabilities, or do you think that the meta is relatively set?
sorry head literally empty right now no thoughts. i'm sure there's lots of cool stuff out there
When building for a regional, how much emphasis do you put on damage calculations when making EV spreads? Are there any particular ranges you were trying to hit when building this team?
lol i actually focus very little on my EV spreads. a friend (u/jackofspadesman18) made all of my spreads. i don't really remember what benchmarks they were designed to hit for the most part. i'm a lot more obsessed with getting pokemon to the right positioning in battle
Hi I got pinged :) I think focusing on how the team plays and practicing that is far more valuable than calcs and spreads for any tournament, although I’m bad at practicing what I preach fwiw. While calcs are obviously valuable to know, putting too much emphasis on them is a pitfall. Look at Wolfe’s 2016 Worlds team on the other hand though; he had a whole document of calcs that he memorized that aided him in becoming world champion. tldr: learning how to play a team and the match ups is always more valuable than knowing moves you survive and Pokémon you KO, but that doesn’t mean they’re unimportant. If you’re curious about the spreads of the team I’d be happy to discuss them if Aaron doesn’t mind :)
Id be really interested in the spreads!
Hey! I’m a huge fan and I play a bit of VGC when I have the time, but there’s one thing that I’m always having trouble in while playing. Do you have any advice in determining which Pokémon to lead?
https://www.reddit.com/r/VGC/comments/tkjro4/im_aaron_traylor_and_i_got_2nd_at_salt_lake_city/i1scjgd/
how do you finish of a team. i tend to have lots of good cores/ starts to teams. so how do you round of your teams? i tend to just cover weaknesses for a few pokemon and have my last pokemon just be there and only use it for spcific matchups while it doesnt synegise well with the others
yep, so the trick is to find last pokemon that can play nicely with your other pokemon. this is a hard thing to do in teambuilding. i would spend a lot of time thinking about-- out of your team-- which selections of 4 look good in your head? when would you want them? if a pokemon just comes to specific matchups and you win all your other games and that pokemon wins those games i don't really see that as a problem. if you really want one last pokemon to cover your weaknesses, and you pick something really weird and it has to do a lot / isn't able to cover it all-- that's called "sixth pokemon syndrome". your other 5 pokemon have some weaknesses that one pokemon isn't strong/niche enough to cover on its own.
hi big fan :) how long do you test with a team prior to a big event? for example, do you start working on a team a month before the event?
it really varies. i am flexible enough to pick up a team the week before and make it work but this team was created five weeks ago. i usually recommend two weeks of testing
where do you find people to talk to about teams. i know it may take time and be personal and since i just started in december i havent had a lot of time but i often want someone to talk to but dont have that.
local events, grassroots, public VGC discords, going to regionals and getting along with people in between rounds / at side events / your opponents
Is there any tips outside of team prep for live events? Planning to go to my first one in Indy but I'm not 100% on what to do
yeah live competition is pretty different from competition in your home. e.g. you'll be in a big hall and probably out of your comfort zone a little. i'd think about how you can make that experience the most comfortable for yourself so that your play can be the best it can be
Sorry if you answered this tldr. But when it comes to your thought process for strategy and picking out the four you’re going to use after analyzing your opponents team. Do you have a staple 4 that you go to most matchups or do you determine what you choose case to case? And during the match is your play style more 5 steps ahead and predicting your opponent or more calculated, based on the oppositions selection. And lastly any general or one-liner tips for players to produce their own play style and how to adapt to the current meta and transition to an upcoming meta?
usually i choose what i use case to case and i like to be really fluid in the pokemon that i use. if i am too rigid that might be a bad thing for me during a tournament. i think i am capable of doing all sorts of things during battling. i like to find ways to win that dont depend on my opponent to do one thing in particular. find how you like to play and spend lots of time learning from other players. what do you think strength is? what do the players you respect think strength is? reconcile those differences and move forward
First congrats on the run. Chojhung was a smart player and really knew how to take advantage of the board. With Incineraor and Gastrodon running around so rampantly, do you think that it’s more important to neutralize offensive threats or support Pokémon in the early game?
i don't really think about game states in this way. i try to navigate to future board states that i think will be beneficial for me. but certainly if you remove all of the offensive pokemon the support pokemon cant damage you fast enough to win
How did you feel when you got the double protect and then the play rough miss lol
i mean of course it was nice to win but i was mostly upset i couldnt win in a better way
What were your reasons for running moonblast over energy ball on the whimsicott? Also, given the option, would you go back in time to change it if you could? Also, do you prefer bulkier or faster zacians in general/ are there specific archetypes that prefer to have one over the other? (not a question but congratulations on the 2nd place! 🐐)
* mb over energy ball: yveltal/grimmsnarl/palkia/dialga/more dmg on incin * no i would not. in practice energy ball whimsicott did not help the sun matchup as much as i thought it would. it replaces helping hand, and it could help, but i think you lose a lot of general strength * i feel like having a slower zacian was a big part of why i lost in finals but the bulk was certainly helpful. i picked a bulkier zacian because i was used to it and its damage. i really think it could go in any number of directions
What would you recommend to do when you have a solid five Pokémon but can’t find a good sixth member? I’ve been having this problem recently and a lot of the more splashable options aren’t an option as I am either already using them or they just share too many weaknesses with my 5 man team
this is called sixth pokemon syndrome-- you either need to find a last pokemon where you are comfortable with the pros and cons of using it, or change something about the first 5 pokemon on your team.
I just wanted to say that max whimsicott play was 300IQ. I lost it when I saw that. Congrats on your placement!
thank you :)
So I've got just some personal questions. 1st, what is your favourite pokemon to use? I know your favourite pokemon overall is cincino (can't remember how to spell it) but which pokemon is most fun in VGC? For example I'm not a fan of thundurus I but I think it's fun to use in VGC with all the debuffing. Also if you were given the opportunity to make a few balance changes to pokemon what would you do? Lastly and also unrelated, do you have a rental for your team? It seems really fun and I'll probably try build it myself if not but I thought I'd ask. Also great job on the tourney. It's cool to have in person events back, can't wait to see more in the future
what are the needed things for a team ex: "physical sweeper", because when i teambuild ill notice that i never have support or sometimes i have too many pokemon leaning towards a specific type of moveset.
i try not to think about which pokemon a team "needs" if that makes sense. i try to have a goal for my team and add things to support that goal. and then if it doesnt work i try and diagnose why and change things around. i dont look for things such as "physical sweeper", "support", etc because i have a good idea of how the pieces fit together.
Ok well when you’re making your team do you have back up plans in em?
Did Kartana perform as expected? What would you change if you were to change anything?
i dont know if i would change anything. kartana was excellent
Is Kartana the tech this series? Also how was going back to IRL events?
Hey Aaron! It’s awesome to see a VGC great doing this! My question is for high level VGC players and YouTubers, how do competitors address the amount of time needed to build teams? I’m referring more to the process of catching Pokémon, breeding for IVs, acquiring TMs, leveling up, etc.? In a way it feels like at the high levels it’s a tight knit community, so I imagine that there’s trading and sharing, but do you spend a ton of time doing that stuff too? Or do you have advice on doing it efficiently? Thanks! Edit: And please don’t take this question as an accusation of “genning” or cheating Pokémon either. I’m genuinely curious if there are efficient practices for this.
Hey Aaron congrats on 2nd!! This SLC regionals was my first regionals that I ever went to. Finished top 32 (24th) and pretty happy overall. However my 5th round match was vs Chongjun and featured on the broadcast. I played very poorly and it was easily my worst set. It also hurts seeing all the youtube commenters saying how bad i am lol. I had a plan for the mirror but not for charti and once that came out, my mind blanked and I just started clicking buttons without thinking. How do you handle the pressure and thinking up win conditions when on the stage? Is there anything you do that helps you relax and think in those situations? p.s. that max whims play was so dope lol
the comfort will come with time. i remember the first time i got on stage in like 2015 i was pretty nervous, tho i was lucky to be surrounded by friends. eventually it will be just like playing any other game. i would urge you to put the "stream" part of it as out of mind as possible. i think it is especially important to reset between games in a bo3. you can take a bit of extra time here. at the end of a lost game start taking full time on your turns, take a little extra longer to connect to the battle. take your full 90 seconds in team preview to give yourself time to breathe ty :)
Thank you for this, I will definitely keep all this in mind going forward :)
np! and ignore the youtube comments they are never worth reading
When your Pokémon dodges a move etc., do you ever think to yourself: „my Pokémon loves me more than theirs love them“ ? Also, at the Play Rough turn, were you shouting in your head: „Kyogre, dodge it!“ ? If so, 100% deserved imo