Unsurprisingly sufficient, it looks like Paradox Pokémon have been inflicting fairly the stir and dominating the Orlando Regional Championship that occurred over the weekend.
The high three most used Pokémon within the largest match in Pokémon’s historical past occurred to be Iron Hands at first place with 51.09 % utilization throughout all groups, being seen 400 occasions; Flutter Mane at second place with 41.92 % utilization throughout all groups, showing 327 occasions, and Iron Bundle at third place with 41.15 % utilization throughout all groups, being seen 321 occasions.
These three ‘mons were three parts of The Great Four that were expected to dominate Series Two VGC, and it seems like that’s true for probably the most half, however Roaring Moon, the fourth member, appeared to not garner as a lot religion from gamers in its talents in comparison with its Paradox friends, being all the best way down at sixth place with 28.21 % utilization, showing 220 occasions throughout all groups.
This is to not discredit Roaring Moon—it simply isn’t as splashable as the opposite high Paradox ‘mons, and requires a bit more specificity in teambuilding that the others don’t essentially want. Roaring Moon was nonetheless very dominant, with Ashton Cox piloting all of it the best way to the finals, which is proof sufficient that this prehistoric Salamence can simply pull its weight.
Another pair of Paradox Pokémon which have made their mark within the Series Two VGC metagame by way of their omnipresence and phenomenal leads to the Orlando Regional is Great Tusk and Brute Bonnet.
Great Tusk sat at eighth place within the utilization charges with 16.79 % utilization, being seen 131 occasions throughout all occasions, whereas Brute Bonnet was at fifteenth place with 10.00 % utilization, being seen 78 occasions throughout all groups.
Both of those prehistoric ‘mons were not respected enough before going into Orlando, with people writing off Great Tusk as merely the better Paradox Donphan form of the two, and Brute Bonnet finding itself in heavy contention with Amoonguss to provide a similar role on teams.
Great Tusk did prove itself to be probably the hardest-hitting Pokémon in the tournament with its popular Tera Ground Headlong Rush decimating opponents with a single hit, also possessing a great safety net in the Focus Sash as its most successful item.
Brute Bonnet also showed why it’s value utilizing over Amoonguss because it possesses an incomparable offensive presence with robust strikes comparable to Seed Bomb, Crunch, Sucker Punch, Close Combat, and even Bullet Seed together with the Loaded Dice merchandise. With traditional supportive choices within the vein of its descendant comparable to Spore and Rage Powder, Brute Bonnet makes for a potent hybrid offensive-support ‘mon.
What is also interesting to note is that while Roaring Moon did reach all the way to the finals, it had a significant drop in appearances in the top cut as compared to its usage across the 780 teams in the tournament.
There were 20 Flutter Mane, 15 Iron Hands, and 12 Iron Bundle that earned their way into the top cut of the Orlando Regional, but only four Roaring Moon managed to get into day two of the tournament, showing a negative turnover for this angry ancient dragon.
A Paradox ‘mon that did have a positive turnover was Great Tusk, however, appearing 10 times in the top cut, sitting at the rank of seventh most popular Pokémon that made its way to day two. Have we actually gotten our replacement for Roaring Moon in the Great Four?
If you’re questioning concerning the supply of those statistics, the nice people over at VGCPastes have compiled a doc detailing these stats and a lot extra, identical to they’ve been doing for earlier main Pokémon tournaments.
But now, let’s take a short take a look at how the Orlando Regionals unfolded over the weekend.
Orlando Regional Day One recap
The first day of the Orlando Regional kicked off and we got a take a look at the immensely gifted discipline that made up the large 780-player match. Former World Champions comparable to Wolfe Glick, James Evans, Brendan Zheng, in addition to current-time titans like Emilio Forbes, Chongjun Peng, and James Baek who had been simply among the well-known and highly-skilled gamers that had been all vying for the title of the 2023 Orlando Regional Champion.
The stream matches kicked off with a match between two VGC veterans with the 2020 Dallas Regional Champion Aaron Traylor towards two-time Regional Champion Brady Smith. Traylor managed to navigate his sluggish, exhausting Trick Room crew successfully sufficient towards Smith’s cumbersome offense crew to earn him a clear 2-0 set victory.
Another power-packed match was lucky sufficient to make it to stream the place we noticed two behemoths in 2016 World Champion Wolfe Glick and 2022 SLC Regional Champion Chongjun Peng battle it out. It was an in depth set the place Wolfe tried to pilot his hardcore Perish Trap crew to the perfect of his potential, however Peng was one step forward, incomes him a 2-1 set win.
Speaking of shut units, the match between James Baek and Toler Webb was most likely probably the most unlucky endings we’ve seen in VGC just lately. The two gamers took one win off of their opponent every earlier than going through down within the third and remaining sport, the place Webb’s Iron Bundle managed to get off a clutch freeze by way of Freeze Dry on Baek’s Brute Bonnet, resulting in a 2-1 set victory for Toler Webb.
With Day One wrapping up, the match was going to see robust gamers like Emilio Forbes who went on a 10-0 undefeated rampage in Swiss—because the participant normally does—Paul Chua, Wolfe Glick, James Evans, and lots of extra making it into Day Two.
Orlando Regional Day Two recap
Day two of the Orlando Regional kicked off with a reputation that has turn into synonymous with the Pawmot-DondoGiri core—Chuppa Cross IV—going through off towards a brand new title in VGC however a veteran in Pokémon singles play—Bhushan Thumsi, popularly often called Freezai.
The first match resulted in a win for Cross because the viewers, commentators, and gamers needed to sit by way of a 20-minute mirror match of DondoGiri continuously clicking Substitute and Order Up till the match timer ran out with Thumsi having a lesser quantity of Pokémon than Cross.
The second match additionally resulted in a win for Cross as he rapidly overpowered Thumsi along with his Tera Electric Pawmot and clever reads, resulting in a 2-0 in Cross’ favor and an finish to Thumsi’s distinctive first match run in VGC.
The Top 32 was whittled right down to the Top 16, with extremely robust expertise left on the sector comparable to Emilio Forbes, Wolfe Glick, Brendan Zheng, and James Evans.
The subsequent match on stream featured former Seniors division World Champion Brendan Zheng up towards veteran VGC professional Ashton Cox. Cox managed to win the set with a 2-0 victory by skillfully piloting his non-Order Up Dondozo to do sufficient harm to Zheng’s crew the place the remainder of his ‘mons picked up the rest of the knockouts.
The following streamed match was between the undisputed Swiss king, Emilio Forbes, and the biggest name in VGC, Wolfe Glick. Unsurprisingly, Emilio went on an undefeated 10-0 run in Swiss this tournament but Wolfe managed to end this beast’s profitable streak and get rid of him from the match by masterfully piloting his Perish Trap crew to a 2-0 victory.
We ultimately get to the Top Four the place we’ve got James Evans towards Wolfe Glick, and Chuppa Cross IV towards Ashton Cox.
Wolfe displaying unimaginable consistency on Day Two of the match having not dropped a single sport up to now continues to go undefeated as he took one other clear 2-0 victory towards the reigning North American International Champion James Evans, in what was a masterclass of a set from Wolfe to piloting a Perish Trap crew.
On the opposite aspect, we get a clear 2-0 from Ashton Cox in addition to he sends Chuppa Cross !V residence on one other near-to-victory top-cut outcome for the promising North American VGC expertise after a Dondozo mirror which Cox occurred to pilot by way of just a bit bit higher.
This left Wolfe Glick and Ashton Cox within the finals of a Regional for the nth time. While these two have been no stranger to staring one another down throughout the remaining throes of a match, again within the 2015 Massachusetts Regional, Wolfe introduced a Perish Trap crew that was up towards Ashton within the finals the place Glick managed to take residence the victory, the precise state of affairs seeming to repeat itself as Cox faces down Glick and his present Perish Trap crew within the 2023 Orlando Finals.
And if the little historical past lesson wasn’t sufficient of a foreshadowing, Wolfe managed to beat Ashton with a 2-1 set, crowning himself because the 2023 Orlando Regional Champion. We can solely think about the flashbacks Cox should’ve had all through the video games.
Cox was the one particular person to make Glick lose a sport on Day Two, nevertheless, after giving out an unimaginable run all through each days of the match. Both finalists ought to be going residence with their heads excessive, regardless of the ultimate consequence.
