Hello,

My name is Zarif Ayman and I recently became the Champion of the first ever Asian VGC Nationals event in Singapore. A little bit of background on myself, I’m a Malaysian VGC player who is currently studying for a Master’s Degree at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia. I started playing the game we all love in the days of Red and Blue like many others though I didn’t dive into the world of competitive Pokémon until after XY came out due to introduction of the easier breeding mechanics even though I was somewhat aware of competitive aspects of the game since generation 5.

Since I started competitive Pokémon, I have had some decent success though mostly in grassroots singles format tournaments in Malaysia though I dreamed about being successful in the official VGC format. With some satisfying results from the 2014 season where I was able to finish 81/442 at Aussie Nationals in my first year of VGC, I started the 2015 season with determination to work hard, be more active in the VGC scene and hopefully improve greatly on my tournament results and maybe become the first ever Malaysian to qualify and participate at VGC Worlds.

I was lucky that Aussie Nationals this year happened to fall on the weekend right after all my work for uni was due and after a poor performance at Melbourne Regionals, I decided that it would be the start of my redemption though the heavy workload and a last minute announcement that Nationals would run on a Best-of-3 format did not leave me much room to plan out my team though the Best-of-3 announcement made it much more straightforward. At the end of the day I ended up with a 6-3 finish and placing 57/320 overall. It wasn’t a finish I was happy with, but satisfying enough especially knowing that two of the people that I lost to made it to top cut.

With the winter semester holidays starting, I flew back to Malaysia to enjoy my holidays and with that decided to journey down to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur for the Asian Nationals that was confirmed recently at the time. With the organizers confirming that it will also be Best-of-3 throughout the entire tournament including the swiss rounds, I started work on improving the team I used at Aussie Nationals.

 

The Team:

Khan Senpai (Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 180 HP / 252 Atk / 76 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Double-Edge
– Fake Out
– Sucker Punch
– Low Kick

Nothing much to say about Kangaskhan really, she has always been my go to Mega for VGC and even though I’ve tried using other Megas, I’m most comfortable playing her so obviously I decided the core of my team has to be something I’m most comfortable using even though some of my friends was talking about how a lot of people would be prepared to fight Kangaskhan. Being something I’m used to using, I would also be used to fighting teams that was designed to fight against Kangaskhan. There’s nothing much to say about the EV spread really, I knew I won’t be comfortable with anything lower than max attack and I put just enough speed EVs to be able to outspeed Modest Heatran after I Mega and I put the leftover EVs in HP for some bulk.

Hit Me!! (Amoonguss) (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 164 SpD
Bold Nature
– Giga Drain
– Protect
– Spore
– Rage Powder

For Amoonguss, I didn’t want to go with a minus speed nature simply because I wanted to be faster than other Amoonguss and I also wanted to minimize confusion damage from being hit by Swagger. I actually just went on the Nuggetbridge damage calculator and copied Keonspy Winter 2015 Amoonguss set and from testing and experience at Aussie Nationals, I was very satisfied with the bulk it had so I didn’t change anything.

Umi (Sylveon) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 180 HP / 212 Def / 116 SpA
Modest Nature
– Hyper Voice
– Hyper Beam
– Shadow Ball
– Psyshock

I wanted a powerful Special Attacker and Sylveon looked like it was the obvious choice for me at the time and since I did not fully invest in Special Attack, I felt that I needed to use Choice Specs in order to be able to fully dish out consistent large damage. I found the EV spread on Nuggetbridge though it originally had less Special Attack and a bit of Speed though I decided that since a lot of times, I’ll be setting up Tailwind, I’ll just dump those Speed EVs into Special Attack so I can output more damage.

With the provided bulk, I was guaranteed to be able to survive a Double-Edge coming from either a Jolly Mega Salamence or a Jolly Mega Kangaskhan. Being able to survive a Jolly Double-Edge from Salamence was really important for me as during testing, most of my opponents didn’t bother to double target into Sylveon since they assumed Double-Edge would be able to take it out and being able to KO back with Hyper Voice from Sylveon was something I extremely liked.

252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 180 HP / 212 Def Sylveon: 154-183 (79.7 – 94.8%) — guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Double-Edge vs. 180 HP / 212 Def Sylveon: 162-191 (83.9 – 98.9%) — guaranteed 2HKO

Mizu Doge (Suicune) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 100 SpA / 116 SpD / 20 Spe
Calm Nature
– Scald
– Ice Beam
– Tailwind
– Snarl

I don’t actually remember where exactly I got the Suicune set from. I needed the Special Attack to be able to OHKO 4HP Landorus-T and with 20 Speed, I’ll be able to outspeed Adamant Choice Scarf Landorus-T once I have a Tailwind up. The decision to go with more Special Bulk rather than Physical Bulk helped me a lot throughout the course of the Tournament.

Click RSlide (Landorus-Therian) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 92 Def / 4 SpD / 150 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Rock Slide
– Earthquake
– Knock Off
– Superpower

Nothing much to say here, it’s the standard Choice Scarf Landorus-T set. I simply took Amr97’s winter 2015 BANGxBANG set from the Nuggetbridge Damage Calculator which will allow me to survive a +1 Life Orb Sucker Punch from Bisharp as well as have enough Speed to be able to outspeed Weavile.

Bombalai (Heatran) (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
– Heat Wave
– Protect
– Earth Power
– Flash Cannon

Heatran is the Pokémon I went for last simply because I really needed the Fire coverage as well as give me access to that Fire/Water/Grass core along with Suicune and Amoonguss. I’m not really good with using it and I really didn’t pick it much unless I feel that I really have to or it gives me a huge advantage. The choice of Focus Sash was a very last minute thing I did because it kept dying way too fast for me and when I decided to go for the Ground reducing berry, I always got hit by Fighting moves and vice versa so I just slapped on a Focus Sash on it since as long as it’s not something like Parental Bond hitting me on the other side, I would at least be able to dish out an attack.

 

Day 1: The Shark tank

 

Round 1 Vs. Yang Ze Guan [Jorm] Level51

The name sounded quite familiar though I had no idea who it was. I much later found out he’s Singapore’s infamous VGC player, Level51.

Game 1

He brought

I brought

The first match was pretty much my Mega Kangaskhan being faster than his Mega Kangaskhan and him not being able to handle Hyper Voice from my Sylveon until it was too late for him to recover. He also had Roseli Berry on his Sableye which helped it survive one Hyper Voice though by the time it came out, there was nothing it could do.

Game 2

He brought

I brought

He played much more defensively in the second match bringing in a substitute Heatran and super bulky Mega Venusaur as well as shuffling Landorus-T in and out for intimidate while slowly chipping away my team’s health though after putting everything he had besides Venusaur to sleep with spore, it was just a simple matter of eliminating everything before they wake up and double targeting Venusaur to net the KO. A critical hit on the mega Venusaur also helped me finish the job faster disallowing him any chance to try and win by slowly stalling my team to death which could or could not happen at that point depending on how bulky the Venusaur was though I think I could have killed it regardless.

Win 2-0

 

Round 2 Vs. Daniel Lee [Daniel]

Game 1

He brought

I brought

He went straight for Amoongus with his Zapdos and Kangaskhan bringing Kangaskhan into Hyper Voice KO range after some rocky helmet damage and recoil. Everything got destroyed by Double-Edge and Hyper Voice afterwards.

Game 2

He brought

I brought

He played the paraflinch game attempting to paralyze everything with Clefairy while I took down Clefairy’s partners and proceeded to use Rock Slide with Terrakion. Though with Suicune not paralyzed on my team, I set tailwind up to outspeed the Terrakion and net the win.

 

Win 2-0

 

Round 3 Vs. Liu Jain Tang Sayha [Sayha]

My next opponent was Sayha from Taiwan. I had no idea what to expect going into this match as I’ve heard the meta in Taiwan is quite different than South East Asia or Australia in general.

Game 1

He brought

I brought

I made pretty much went for all the obvious plays in this match and he called pretty much all of them giving him the momentum which I had very little chance to recover from. Though I dragged the match on in order to gain as much information as I can from his team.

Game 2

He brought

I brought

Since he called all the obvious plays the previous match, I decided to up my game predicting all his predictions to the obvious plays and responding appropriately forcing him into a defensive corner from which he wasn’t able to take back momentum from. Once his Safety Goggles Entei was out of the way, Amoongus was able to run wild with spore.

Game 3

He brought

I brought

My opponent didn’t seem to have been able to adapt to the change of pace, he still went for all the plays which counts on me making the obvious plays and with tailwind up, the only thing stopping Mega Kangaskhan from running wild fully was his Aegislash which after a snarl did not pose much of a threat to my team. I was able to take out Entei and Aegislash after he left his Aegislash in Sword form to wide guard against a possible Hyper Voice while I move to single target them with Scald and Shadow Ball respectively.

Win 2-1

 

Round 4 Vs. Max Lee [M]

I somehow ended on stream. It’s a very Se Jun Park Worlds 2014 ish team with the Mega Gyrados and scarfed Gardevoir while replacing the infamous Pachirisu with something much more suitable for the VGC2015 format in the form of Clefable for Follow Me support. I was quite nervous going on stream and at this point I was starting to become slightly tired from all the games as well as me fasting on the day so I was mostly feeling dry though I think I played quite well though looking back, I could have still played better.

You can view the whole match here:

Win: 2-1

 

Round 5 Vs. Yoko Taguma [Yoko ♣]

After looking at the pairings, I very much dreaded this match up. Yoko is quite a famous player in the South East Asian region having had solid performance in most tournaments that she attended in Singapore and Malaysia having top cut quite a few of them. Going into team preview, I recognize the team as the standard Japanese sand team which was quite popular at that time and I’ve faced such teams quite a number of times though it is quite a good team and with Yoko piloting it, I fully expect an uphill battle here.

Game 1

She brought

I brought

Nothing much to say about this game, I was being constantly read like a book here. Gained some valuable information here though after a few turns, I had little chance of winning though a critical hit knock off on Aegislash that took it out from full HP kind of gave me a little ray of hope though Yoko was already too far ahead at this point for me to struggle through and she wasn’t going to allow me to take momentum away from her.

Games 2

She brought

I brought

Game 2 saw the Sand part of Japanese sand making an appearance. I was able to spore her Tyranitar turn 1 and predict the switch into Excadrill the next turn sporing that same slot which allowed me some huge advantage being able to eventually take out her Tyranitar and Excadrill without them being able to wake up and do anything before being KOed.

Game 3

She brought

I brought

Game 3 was quite a long and intense match. She protected Salamence and Spored my Sylveon on the first turn. The next turn she used Hyper Voice chipping my Sylveon and doing major damage on my Amoonguss which did about 60-70% or so but I was then able to Spore her Salamence in exchange. I was then able to switch Kangaskhan in and I went straight for Amoongus to take it out since I can’t afford to have any other members of my team to be put to sleep at this point. Afterwards I still had one more Double-Edge on Rotom-W being Khan finally went down. I was afterwards able to setup tailwind with Suicune and clean up with Suicune and Sylveon.

Win 2-1

 

Round 6 Vs. Zulherryka Yusof [MewzxcVGC]

I actually hung out a bit and had some nice conversations with Zul before the tournament started while we were all waiting for registration to end and the tournament to start earlier in the day. We talked about how we both started playing competitive Pokémon around the time XY first came out though Zul was quite obviously much younger than I am. I actually thought he was a Senior at first before discovering he was in the Masters Division. We were both also quite nervous at this point about this game since we were at 5-0 and whomever won this game guarantees themselves a place in the Top 8 cut. Anyway diving into the match

Game 1

He brought

I brought

I made a huge mistake in this game of leaving the Cresselia alone for far too long allowing it to get several Calm. By late game, I wasn’t able to do much to get rid of the Cresselia and lost the game.

Game 2

He brought

I brought

In game 2, I decided that if I was going to take back a game, I had to go with some hyper offensive leads. I very much still had lots of trouble with his Cresselia though I was able to quickly get rid of all his other Pokémon. Having the advantage of numbers, I was able to slowly chip away at the Cres while limiting the amount of damage it could do with Snarl before bringing Kangaskhan in to finally take it out winning me game 2.

Game 3

He brought

I brought

Not wanting to deal with Cresselia like I did in the last two games, I went with a double physical lead with Mega Kangaskhan and Landorus-T to quickly get rid of it double targeting it with Knock Off and Double-Edge in turn 1 though my Mega Kangaskhan got paralyzed by Thundurus in return. His Mega Charizard Y finally making an appearance in this game though made me worry a bit. A late game flinch from Rock Slide on his Heatran allowed me to avoid being hit by what was probably going to be an Overheat on my Landorus-T allowing me to keep it around long enough until he was not able to protect his Mega Charizard Y any longer giving me the win I needed to secure myself a spot in Top Cut.

Win 2-1

I was super excited at this point, I was able to go through 6 rounds of swiss undefeated which guarantees me a spot in Top Cut which also guarantees me top 8 Championship Points which means that along with the CP I already have, I’m almost guaranteed a spot in Asia Pacific’s Top 18 unless a bunch of players decides to go play in and gain CP from some other National event outside of APAC (which at that point, US Nationals was the only one left as far as I can tell). We were given a short dinner break at this point. I was super tired from the long day and feeling very dry since I had been fasting throughout the entire day and I was able to quickly go to a nearby supermarket to get myself some drinks and snacks as it was finally time for me to break my fast. The most important thing for me at that point was really just to get a lot of water to drink as I was more feeling dehydrated more than hungry or anything.

Coming back from my short trip to the supermarket with my friends, I saw that pairings for the final swiss round has been posted and my opponent was…

 

Round 7 Vs. Wai Yin Low [Yin]

Low Wai Yin is an extremely big name in the South East Asian VGC Community. She previously earned herself a spot in Worlds by going through the gruelling LCQ before SEA had any official support for VGC and she had also have some solid results in many tournaments throughout the season including winning Malaysia’s first VGC Regionals. At this point however, since I was tired and had already guaranteed my spot in Top Cut, I didn’t really play very seriously and played more to gain information on her team for use during the Top Cut matches on the next day. Throughout the game, I divided my attention between attempting to gain information on her team as well as looking at the match that was being streamed at that time which was between Jaryl Chan and Phil Nguyen (Boomguy) since at the time, it was thought that only the winner of that match would get into top cut and it was a very intense match (though Phil who lost eventually still made it into top cut due to some very high resistance). Anyway on to my quick games with Wai Yin.

Game 1

She brought

I brought

Game 2

She brought

I brought

Both games was pretty much very straightforward really, nothing super exciting, we exchanged blow after blow until my Pokémon eventually all got knocked out much faster than hers. I tried to play in a way where I would have some chance to find out whether some of my Pokémon were faster or slower than hers and how much damage some stuff would do but there’s really not much excuse on how poorly I played this round.

I apologize to Wai Yin for not taking our games more seriously and I did kind of wasted a chance I had to battle seriously with one of the best VGC players of the region though I was very tired and hungry at this point and didn’t have much energy to thing ahead that much though I gained some valuable experience from our match.

Lose 0-2

 

Finished Swiss with 6 Wins and 1 Lost and got myself into the Top Cut.

With the long day finally finished and me unexpectedly making into day 2, we quickly went back so that we would be able to reach our hotel area and get some proper dinner before the shops around closed. I was actually extremely tired after day 1, but after dinner and a good shower, I decided I should spend some time looking back on Wai Yin’s team as well look up some information on other Top Cut players that is available online as well as watching back some of their matches that was featured on stream during the swiss rounds on day 1. I ended spending quite some time before eventually getting some sleep.

 

Day 2: Top Cut

The dream, its real.

I woke up for day 2 still quite tired from day 1 though feeling much less nervous about my matches for the day as I was happy enough to make it into Top cut which as I said earlier pretty much guarantees me a top 18 spot in the Asia Pacific giving me my Worlds invite. I’m also aware that even if I were to win the tournament, I won’t be getting the paid invite since I won’t be able to catch up to the points of several players to get myself that Top 2 in the region in Championship Points even with a win. Still though, I was determined to try my best since I was the only Malaysian left in the tournament and any further win from here on out will be icing on the cake with also an increase in prizes I could get as well as some SWAG points I guess haha. It would be a battle where us foreigners try to take the Nationals crown from our host Singaporeans as each battle in the Top 8 involved a Singaporean against either an Australian, Malaysian or Hong Kong players.

 

So my opponent in my top 8 match is Singapore’s Jaryl Chan. Jaryl is another player who has had some good performance throughout the season leading up to Nationals. I actually fought him before during Malaysia’s first ever Premier Challenge where I was only able to turn the game around from what I had thought had been a lost game due to a huge misprediction on his part.

Top 8 Vs. Jaryl Chan [Jaryl]

Game 1

He brought

I brought

I went straight for his Crobat while he protected Charizard. I knew I couldn’t stop him from getting a Tailwind up, but I at least wanted to get rid of it before it caused me more trouble. From there a Fire Blast miss on my Landorus-T meant that his Charizard Y had to eat a Rock Slide and I was able to easily KO his Landorus-T and Conkeldurr with my Suicune and Sylveon respectively while tanking hits from them.

Game 2

He brought

I brought

Knowing that he would very likely protect his Charizard turn Y against my Landorus-T & Kangaskhan Lead, I went straight for a double target on his Cresselia slot to take it out before it could do anything troublesome. I was able to maneuver myself into a good position to start taking out his Pokémon being able to safely bring in Sylveon without taking any damage and having done some chip damage on most of his team while putting his Mega Charizard Y at -1 Special Attack through a Snarl though he was able to land a Critical hit Fire Blast of Sylveon the next turn OHKOing it from full health before I could do anything. I wasn’t able to recover from there losing game 2.

Game 3

He brought

I brought

Jaryl played extremely well during game 3 holding on to is momentum for majority of the game and I did some poor plays during some turns though I was able to keep myself from falling behind. Halfway into the game though, I was in a bad position and I recall thinking to myself that I had only two ways of winning. Either Jaryl’s Charizard Y needed to miss a crucial Fire Blast which he was obviously going to take, or I needed him to go over his allocated turn time for a third time. Players only had 45 seconds for their turn, being an untethered event, judges needed to manually enforce this and Jaryl generally takes a long time to think while selecting moves, he had already received two warnings for going over time at that point and a third time would have resulted in a game loss for him. A crucial rock slide flinch on his Conkeldurr however gave me the chance I needed to turn the entire game around as he wasn’t able to KO my Landorus-T that turn with an ice punch allowing me to seal the game from there.

Win 2-1

 

Top 4 Vs. Edward Cheung [ルギア]

My next opponent would be Edward Cheung from Hong Kong

It was decided that our match would be put on stream and you can watch a recording of it through the following link

Looking at the team during Team Preview, I knew it was going to be very hard for me to win this match with some bad matchups for me.

Game 1

He brought

I brought

Recognizing Amoongus as a huge threat to my team, I went straight for it in turn 1 with a Double-Edge which a critical hit netted me the OHKO on Amoonguss and allowed me to hit his Thundurus with a Single target Hyper Voice putting it into KO range for the following turn. In return to this, I allowed both my Kangaskhan and Sylveon to be paralyzed by his Thundurus though at this point, the momentum was hugely in my favour and Edward wasn’t able to recover giving me the win for game 1.

Game 2

He brought

I brought

I knew that trick room Mega Gardevoir was something that was being used quite a lot nowadays though I noticed that his Mega Gardevoir was quite fast, I decided that it could probably be a good idea to set up tailwind and maybe since its fast, it won’t use Trick Room. This proved to be a huge mistake on my part. That was a downfall which I couldn’t recover from.

Game 3

He brought

I brought

Halfway into the game, I pretty much knew that there was no way I was gonna win at that point. Things was bad for me though remembering some wise words, I kept calm and clicked Rock Slide and a series of rock slide flinches totally changed the tide of the game, three Rock Slide flinches to be exact. As well as him going after Suicune with a giga drain for some reason instead of using Ice Beam on Landorus during a turn where Rock Slide missed his Ludicolo but flinched Heatran and failed to KO Suicune with said Giga Drain. Sorry for the Rock Slide flinches Edward.

Win 2-1

There’s no way to sugarcoat it, a lot of hax and luck on my part was involved in me winning my Top 4 match. Sorry Edward, though I am extremely happy to be able to make it to the Finals and have a chance at the tittle.

 

Finals Vs. Zulherryka Yusof [MewzxcVGC]

Wow I somehow reached the Finals and my opponent is Zul again whom I faced during the swiss rounds in an intense 3 game battle. At this point, we were pretty much familiar with each other’s teams having fought before and watched matches on stream of each other. We had kind of a short break while the Junior and Senior division final matches was happening on stage before it was our turn. It was quite surprising for both of us to reach this far into the tournament compared to some other big names in the tournament.

If you’re interested in watching our entire match, you can do so here

Game 1

He brought

I brought

I went with my Mega Kangaskhan + Landorus-T leads here since from our match during swiss, Cresselia gave me the most trouble I wanted nothing to do with that since this set of leads is the most effective thing I have to get rid of it fast. Breelom is a huge problem for my team especially if starts sporing my mons. It was somewhat a relief when he paralyzed some of my mons as even though I’m now slower, I can’t be put to sleep. With that in mind, I was able to cover my bases quite well and with the RNG not stopping me from moving due to my paralysis, I was able win game 1.

Game 2

He brought

I brought

I saw no reason to change what I was doing so I went with the same leads again this game. He did a very questionable play of switching his Charizard into the Cresselia spot as I could have used Rock Slide that turn or I’ve also showed that I can KO Cresselia with a double target with Landorus-T’s Knock Off and a Double-Edge from my Mega Kangaskhan. In any case, that resulted in Zul’s Charizard being KOed by my double target before it could do anything at all meaning that he lost his Mega and sun setter turn 1 giving me a huge advantage. A double switch into Suicune and Sylveon helped me cover my bases well from there on fighting against special attackers which are good targets for my Suicune’s Snarls. From there all I had to do was get rid of everything else he had before switching Landorus-T and Mega Kangaskhan back in to deal with his Cresselia and I had the win.

Won 2-0

I did it somehow, I actually won a National event further solidifying my Worlds invite as well as make our Malaysian VGC community proud. It was an extremely fun and happy experience. I was able to gain a lot of experience from this tournament and also meet so many players from all over Asia through it. If only there was more time to hang out with everyone after the tournament though since most of us had flights back to our homes that night, we had to leave almost immediately afterwards with just time for a quick dinner. Thanks to the organizers who made these all possible and I hope we can all meet up again in the future whether at more local Asia Pacific tournaments or at Worlds. I’ve meet so many great people through VGC and am extremely proud of how far we have all grown as a community. Thanks as well to all my friends especially fellow KL Raikous who have helped me with training, won’t have made it this far without you guys.

 

Wow if you actually went through and read the entire post, thank you so much for taking your time. I’m honestly not so great with summarising events so there’s a huge wall of text here. Thanks and look forward for more from me =) See you all in Boston for Worlds.