11/7 VGC Kaohsiung Regional ENG draft.

Hello everyone, my name is Jhou Ya-yi, also known as @ga0620ryTW on twitter. I am a Taiwanese player and start playing VGC since Sword/Shield. Although many tournaments were cancelled during the COVID-19,Taiwan was relatively lucky to have two regional level tournaments during this time, but I didn't have a good result in both of them. At the end of August, I made it to Week 2 of the Asia Player Cup with a 6-1 record in the Taiwan preliminaries, but unfortunately I had to give up my qualification for personal reasons. So this was actually my first experience with Top Cut, and I was very lucky to make it to the final.

The official announcement was made three weeks before the tournament.  The first two weeks I was playing with the Zacian, including the Sun-Zacian / Dragapult-Zacian / LapDog / AST Revolution champion team. Zacian is powerful, but I didn't play it very well.

With a week left, I started to find my instructor and good friend @brandontiongvgc to discuss and practice, in which he asked me if I wanted to try the Solgaleo, and after discussion the team  probably looked like this:

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Support Spectrier activate Solgaleo's Weakness Policy, Tapu Fini prevent status condition, Garchomp and Zapdos aginst weather teams, the last one depends on what you want. Incineroar's Intimidate and Parting shot to reposition, provide Fake out pressure and fire attack. Grimmsnarl set up screens and provide speed control.

This team I played quite handy, but the problem is hard to against weather team. The Global Exhibition just ended and the environment was flooded with Groudon and Kyorge. Whether I was practicing with @brandontiongvgc or testing on SD, it was extremely countered hard by it, so in the end I gave up using it.

The last thing is to find a team to use from the spare team. I make a choice between Zacian, which I practice a lot in first two weeks, or Kyorge core, which I play the most in series 8.

  

This is the team built by @yanagiT_poke, a Japanese player who used it to won the Victory Road Circuit Qualirfier #3 in series 8. Sun and Rain double weather, Tornadus and Porygon2 provide Taiwind and Trick Room. Finally, Urshifu as the team's lack of physical attackers and kill low hp pokemon.

The reasons I chose this team, first is expected Sun core may be a lot. The second is I played in the Asia Player Cup qualifying Top Cut is also using the Venu-koal+Porygon2 team, as well as before the early s8 has formed the Tornadus-Kyorge and achieved good results in some competition.

pokepaste:https://pokepast.es/e7956c2bc32c8bee

the original author's team report (in Japanese):https://liberty-note.com/2021/03/03/vr-tour3-winner/

I think EVs is very common. In terms of moves selection, I prefer Leaf Storm than Franzy Plant, I would rather have a little less damage than a round of inaction. The reason I chose Sludge Bomb instead of Earth Power is in my personal understanding, this team is more inclined to strong offense, and this team is almost special attackers. But after the competition, my experience is I always fight in Trick Room, and set Trick Room twice many times, Max Earth to buff special defense might be a good choice too.

The MVP in this tournament. Ability depend on personal preference, I only have one attack move, so I choose to use Trace. This time really play a great effect that it trace Prankster twice, Intimidate three times, and Triage once. Eerie Impulse has a  good traction effect on Tapu Fini which is difficult to deal with fast. Attack move whether it is Tri Attack or Foul Play have it effectiveness, and I end up keeping the  

Ice Beam, it have good effect on Venusaur, flying type like Thundurus, and even Eternatus.

Damage Cal after Tournament: