Hello, there! My name is Liam Gilbert, or as most people better refer to me as, Gilbo! I am a 21-year-old Australian VGC player from Sydney, and I have been playing competitive Pokémon since 2015.
As a bit of background, my own personal achievements involve a mixture of both Seniors and Masters division play. In Seniors, I came top 8 at Sydney Regionals in 2015, and then 2nd place in the following year, while also getting top 16 at the Australian Nationals in both years. From 2017 onwards, I was considered a Master Division player, and ended up coming 1st at the Sydney Regionals in 2017, 2nd place at Brisbane Regionals in 2018, 5th place at OCIC 2019, top 16 at Sydney Regionals in 2019, 3rd place at Melbourne Regionals in 2022, and now 1st place at my hometown Sydney once again!
Aside from my own achievements, I am also the proud brother and coach of my younger siblings Jack, Andrew, and James, who have all been playing VGC since the Junior Division for the past 8 years, and their achievements, individually and as a whole, trump mine in comparison.
Enough about me!! I think it’s time to jump into why you’re reading this article, which is to see what the first Regulation Set C tournament was like, what to expect, and how you should potentially approach the metagame!
Table of Contents
Teambuilding process
So first and foremost, Sydney Regionals this year was one of the largest tournaments in the Southern Hemisphere, sitting at 189 players competing. I would be reminisced to see the Regional being discounted because the numbers may not be as high compared to other Regionals across the world. However, this has been our biggest Regional event since 2016, I believe. The players I versed all weekend were phenomenal and insanely good, and they deserve credit amongst the general populace of players that showed up. Playing in a format that was only released on the Switch on the day of the Regional goes to show that everyone pushed forward and did the very best they could, which is all anyone can ask for!
Heading into the tournament, I did not have much practice with Regulation Set C at all, let alone VGC in general. The last tournament I played prior to Sydney Regionals was OCIC 2023, in which i finished top 64, and then never picked up my Switch or booted up Pokémon Showdown again.
Fast forward to like 10 days before the tournament, I totally forgot to get my younger brothers’ teams ready, because unlike me, they actually have a better chance of going to Worlds, and they had already both reached the Day 1 qualification threshold. So the genius I am, I try and do the most basic team possible for them.
This was essentially a cop out team with how cookie cutter it was, or at least in the way I designed it. Both my younger brothers managed to use the team relatively well on such short time we had, especially with Andrew finishing 9th in Seniors, and James finishing top 4. Unfortunately, when I tried the team, I was not doing well with it. In fact, I was stuck in the 1100s on Pokémon Showdown with it. Not the best, am I right? So like most things in life when I start failing, I turned off Showdown and procrastinated fixing my team up until the very end.
Fast forward again to 3 days before the tournament, I totally forgot I was competing. I thought I was chaperoning my younger brothers again. I already paid the $35 entry, and being from Western Sydney, $35 is like a block of gold, so I couldn’t let it go to waste. So with this in mind, I hopped back on Showdown to teambuild, but I did a little bit of a time analysis of how well I could assemble my team in time, and unfortunately, factoring in work and Univeristy, I was definitely in the weeds. So I decided to try and adapt my OCIC team here and there.
I thought the Farigiraf on my team would be great against Dragonite’s Extreme Speed and Palafin’s Jet Punch, while Torkoal just deals insane amounts of damage. The only slight plot twist, is that I was still stuck in the 1100s on Pokémon Showdown!? Something was clearly not working, something was off. I tried adding all sorts of Pokémon to help the team out, like Weakness Policy Ting-Lu at one point, Assault Vest Ting-Lu, Leech Seed Wo-Chien… But none of those worked! I was definitely in trouble, but I knew I had to commit to something.
Through all my losses, I found that Dark types were more common due to the Treasures of Ruin Pokémon’s prevalence, so automatically, I knew I needed a Fighting type. But since Dark types are increasing in usage, then surely Fighting type usage goes up too, and what are both those types weak to? Fairy! So i knew I needed a Fairy type of some sort, hence the Flutter Mane.
I considered Great Tusk as a great Fighting type, but its low Special Defense hinders it too much to be a source of damage and defense. I considered Breloom, because Mach Punch could hit Chien-Pao very easily, and Spore would be incredibly versatile to have, but ultimately I went with the Iron Hands. I then started testing Assault Vest Iron Hands with Trick Room, but the damage output was so low, especially after being Intimidated, it just was not being optimised to its fullest potential. Then I remembered some bloke on Showdown a while back was running a Fire-Tera Type set with Swords Dance in a Showdown tournament. He got completely destroyed, but the set in theory sounded way too good to disregard. And at this stage of teambuilding being so close to the tournament, I was banking on my theory working in practice. So yeah, I decided bulky Swords Dance Iron Hands was the play with the team!
Then I needed to add Pokémon to set up Swords Dance, like a form of redirection, which I considered Maushold for initially, but Amoonguss worked out to be better. I then began to add other pieces to the team like Chien-Pao to meet the Treasures of Ruin quota, despite it not being used most of my games. I added Palafin because I had a Shiny one lying around from an egg I hatched a while back, and it looks like an evil villain when it’s Shiny, plus the Haze on it was my Dondozo counter if i ever faced one… and who doesn’t like a Water type on their team too? The final Pokémon Gothitelle was the last-minute addition to the team, which I literally made on the night before the tournament, and is arguably one of the most fundamental Pokémon on the team.
The Team
Get the team’s paste here!
Iron Hands @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Quark Drive
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 196 HP / 76 Atk / 4 Def / 228 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Swords Dance
– Drain Punch
– Wild Charge
– Protect
Behold and look at the monster that was the driving force behind my team! This Iron Hands set was so incredibly important in every single one of my games. In fact, I brought Iron Hands to every single game I played against all my opponents due to how incredible it was. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to give it a nickname in time, but if I did, I would call the lad Dave, because he sends all his enemies to the grave.
Regardless, this Iron Hands set was built to tank as much damage as possible, get a Swords Dance setup, and then hit back harder with a Drain Punch or Wild Charge. I do remember at one point in my Swiss games, that this Iron Hands tanked a super effective Choice Specs-boosted Dazzling Gleam, which goes to show how bulky it was.
Some Aussie VGC players know about how notorious I am when it comes to EV training, so in full transparency, I have no idea what these EVs accomplish. I just moved the knob up and down on Pokémon Showdown to find those juicy sweet spots. But this Iron Hands was definitely the MVP of my team without a doubt.
Flutter Mane @ Life Orb
Ability: Protosynthesis
Level: 50
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
– Dazzling Gleam
– Moonblast
– Shadow Ball
– Protect
Flutter Mane was kind of a standard pick I had to choose for this team. I required a Pokémon that could beat Fighting and Dark types, and what better to choose from, than a Flutter Mane? The sheer offensive pressure paired with the Life Orb just dealt so much damage. I did consider the Choice Specs, however, I didn’t like my lack of mobility and Protect with it, so I stuck with the Life Orb.
For those wondering, I did consider Perish Song over Moonblast or Dazzling Gleam, yes. But! The reason why I didn’t use Perish Song is because it’s a very passive play that is easily predictable within the team, and if you watched my stream games, I am most definitely not a passive player with this team.
I used standard EVs for this, because I am so incredibly lazy at EV training that I can’t be stuffed, especially at 1am in the morning before the tournament starts. So max Speed, max Special Attack.
Chien-Pao @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Level: 50
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
– Protect
– Ice Spinner
– Throat Chop
– Sacred Sword
There is no denying that the Treasures of Ruin offer good offensive and defensive pressure, but the reason I chose to use Chien-Pao was because of its Speed tier. I just needed a relatively fast Pokémon to help deal with other Flutter Mane, which is why I chose Chien-Pao despite the potential speed ties.
Many people have asked why I opted for Throat Chop over Sucker Punch, and that’s because I needed a more definitive way to attack Arcanine, and everyone is starting to invest into their Flutter Mane to live Sucker Punches, so it became kind of redundant. Unfortunately, I did not utilise Chien-Pao as much this weekend, just because it didn’t synergise as well with the team, and because my Iron Hands was too much of a monster.
I also EV trained it the same as the Flutter Mane, except max Attack instead of Special Attack. EV training takes too long, and everytime I do, I get hungry. I had to put a Focus Sash on this Pokémon, since it was fairly frail and I did not want to keep losing it on my first turn of games like I did prior practicing on Showdown.
Sea World (Palafin) @ Mystic Water
Ability: Zero to Hero
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 76 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 172 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Jet Punch
– Wave Crash
– Haze
– Protect
Now that we’re halfway through the list of Pokémon I used, Palafin is one Pokémon on the team that worked and didn’t work too well. I would say 9 out of 10 times, I was only utilising Palafin for reckless plays like Helping Hand + Jet Punch into Flutter Mane to try and knock it out. I also mainly used the Palafin in Zero Form and not Hero Form for some odd reason, I’m just built different like that, I suppose.
Once again, I have no ideas what the EVs do. I think it was built for Regulation Set B living high amounts of special-attacking damage while dealing out as much damage as possible. Regardless of how the EVs turned out, the Palafin was still incredibly useful in my games, especially the Wave Crash and Jet Punch being nice sources of damage output. I chose to use Mystic Water because of its popularity and sheer damage output being insanely high.
Amoonguss @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
– Pollen Puff
– Spore
– Protect
– Rage Powder
Amoonguss was a Pokémon added to the team primarily for redirection to help old mate Iron Hands out, but it also worked insanely well at healing Iron Hands and its buddies up to with Pollen Puff. I had no clue how amazing Pollen Puff was, to be honest, and it worked so tremendously well with the team.
My Amoongus EVs were kind of the basic stock standard. Max HP, enough Special Defense EVs to hit that little sweet spot, and the rest in Defense. If you ended up watching my stream prior, you can tell how dodgy these EVs ultimately were, as I barely lived a Dragonite’s Choice Band-boosted Extreme Speed, and it fainted to a regular Arcanine’s Flare Blitz that wasn’t even holding a Choice Band or boosted. So suffice to say, I should have definitely booted up the damage calculator for this one. The item was a Wiki Berry because Gothitelle has the Sitrus Berry, and it was the only other item I had on hand.
Gothitelle (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
Level: 50
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Calm Nature
– Trick Room
– Fake Out
– Psychic
– Helping Hand
The final Pokémon of the team was indeed the Gothitelle, the notorious last-minute addition to tie everything together. As I stated in my round 3 interview, I did come up with this as I was cooking up a brisket at work. I had a moment of clarity as I was breathing in some wood pellets and thought, “Wait a sec, what if my opponent just can’t switch out their Pokémon, they can’t deal with my Iron Hands”, and then the second I got home, I pulled an old Gothitelle out, reset the EVs and went to town on it.
The idea was Fake Out with it so that Iron Hands could use Swords Dance, but I rarely even got to use that combination unfortunately. Trick room was also nice to have since it gave my Iron Hands and Amoonguss speed control, and I could reverse the opposing team’s Trick Room quite easily. Psychic was a must to have, I needed to hit Amoonguss hard, and I just needed some form of damage in case I got taunted. The final move was a throw up between Helping Hand and Protect, both of which would have been good, but I ultimately chose Helping Hand just so I could go for fast hyper-offensive plays to get fast knockouts, which I did a few times throughout all my matches.
The EVs I hate to say were just moved around with the Showdown knob. I’m not sure what the EVs do, but I ended up living like 9 Choice Specs-boosted Shadow Balls from Flutter Mane the entire weekend each and every time! I know, right? What an insanely awesome coincidence… The numbers agreed with me for once. But yes, this Gothitelle was absolutely insane, I love it so much.
How to use the team
For those wondering how to use the team, I would recommend testing and working around it first to kind of sus out what feels comfortable to you. My ideal plan was to Fake Out with Gothitelle + Swords Dance as mentioned above, but ultimately I went for plays such as Helping Hand + Moonblast, Helping Hand + Jet Punch, or Trick Room and offensive pressure. My aim for using the team was to definitely throw all my opponents off and hit them where it was unexpected, since my play style is very unorthodox sometimes. But to get things started, definitely try positioning yourself in Trick Room so your Iron Hands can be set up to sweep, since that was the key to all my game successes.
Tournament run
This was my run at Sydney Regionals!
Day 1 Swiss rounds
Click on the tabs to see some notes about my matches!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | WW |  David Posniak (Ser Davos) |   |  |
I have the memory of a goldfish, but against David in the first round, I saw his team being incredibly formidable against my team. The Kingambit and Great Tusk were the two I was the most afraid of due to their sheer damage output.
I forgot how Game 1 went, but I do remember that in Game 2 the final turns came down to him predicting Sucker Punch into the correct slot, which I fortunately was able to read.
David was also an incredibly nice player to verse, so massive shoutout to him, and he did great with his Regional run too!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R2 | WW | Patrick Gregorowski (EVERLANCE) |   | |
Against Patrick, he had quite the formidable team once again. Sydney is relentless at providing me with challenges to face, and Patrick lived up to it with his six. From my perspective, that Dragonite was an immediate threat, and I did not want to play against it.
I do not remember how the matches went entirely, but all I can recall is that I was able to position my Iron Hands into a spot that allowed me to provide pressure against his Chi-Yu + Flutter Mane combination which helped me win both games fortunately.
Just like David before, Patrick was a top bloke and player, and he finished really great too!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R3 | WW | Chamath Abeyawardana (Samus) |   | |
Chamath was an absolute blast to play and he was so delightful to talk to. I believe he told me he and his friend came all the way down from Brisbane, which is quite the journey having trekked up there a few times. Chamath ended up using a team which once again was quite strong against my core. Most notably, his Ting-Lu had Fissure on it, which was quite scary, seeing how a 30% chance to KO me is 30% too much for my liking.
My mindset going into this game was like prior games; get Trick Room set up and put Iron Hands into a position where it can sweep. Unfortunately his Arcanine carried Safety Goggles which was a bit of a pickle to work around, and the Choice Specs Flutter Mane dealt so much damage to my Gothitelle that he had a lot of offensive pressure on me. Ultimately, the Iron Hands in both games I believe was positioned in a spot next to Amoonguss that allowed me to redirect moves and apply large sums of damage to him.
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R4 | LWW | Nicholas Kan (Nicholas) | | |
Out of everyone I could have faced at the Regional, it just had to be a Kan, and not just any Kan, but the one that recently came 2nd at Worlds in 2022, and won a World Championship in 2017. Nick is definitely not a player to sleep on despite being a first-year Master. He is a phenomenal Master Division player and it goes to show in his tournament runs and play styles.
Going into the matchup, I was already nervous being on stream since everyone on Twitch can see me! I get very camera-shy as I’m sure you could all see in my interviews, but I tried to focus on push through the games. You can watch the full rundown of how all the games went on Twitch, but ultimately, I played Game 1 awfully with the turn 1 Water Tera Type-boosted Wave Crash at -1 Attack not picking up the knockout. However, I was able to pull it back in Games 2 and 3, thankfully.
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R5 | WW |  Xiong Ziyue (goodwill) | | |
In Round 5 I versed Xiong Ziyue, who I unfortunately did not get the opportunity to talk to as much, but he was still fun to play against regardless. Ziyue had a team in which 5 out of 6 of his Pokémon were the same as mine. So in a sense, this was a mirror matchup aside from him having Arcanine over my Gothitelle.
I can’t remember the matches too much, but I distinctly remember Gothitelle setting up Trick Room, and providing a substantial amount of pressure with my own Iron Hands. Since he did not have Clear Smog on his Amoonguss, I was able to have my Iron Hands sweep through pretty uncontested.
I saw that Ziyue also finished really strong this tournament too, so massive congratulations to him on that!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R6 | WW | Emma Williams (Cobalte) |    | |
In Round 6, I played against Emma Williams, who I believe is quite the reputable player in the Australian VGC community. I had heard of her name many times in previous articles from years ago about how good of a player she was, and I did not want to take any chances against her.
Seeing the matchup, I immediately knew that Iron Hands was my key to success in it, especially how there were 3~4 Pokémon weak to Fighting-type attacks. I also knew Flutter Mane would be fundamental in the matchup too, and that I could work around how she positions her team. I do unfortunately forget how the games went, but it finished with my Iron Hands in every one in a dominant position. The Ting-Lu was quite the problem in all honesty, due to it underspeeding my Iron Hands in Trick Room, and being incredibly bulk. Emma played extremely well, and am glad she finished strong this tournament too!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R7 | WW | Alister Sandover (Alister) | | |
Out of everyone to verse, I had to play against one of the greatest Australian VGC players in history, especially seeing how he just recently came 2nd at Perth Regionals only less than a month prior.
Alister’s team was incredibly well-balanced and provided flexibility to adjust. Knowing that I couldn’t use a cookie-cutter type of play against Alister, I had to go for harder reads every now and then throughout our matches, and had to predict things like using Spore into his Wo-Chien slot to predict the Dragonite switch-in, and set up multiple Swords Dances to account for Intimidate being recycled in subsequent turns. I was fortunately able to clutch things out within 2 games only, which solidified my Day 1 invite as I had made top 16 at this point. I was extremely happy and over the moon!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R8 | WW | Daniel Walker (Daniel) |    | |
Daniel Walker is one of the best VGC players to have ever been a part of Sydney, and I consider him to one of the best teambuilders out there. Out of all the teams I had played against the entire day, Daniel’s had incredible offensive pressure with the Chi-Yu + special attackers combinations, and his Scizor was a major threat for my Gothitelle.
In Game 1, I did have to make numerous reads such as the turn 1 Helping Hand + Jet Punch with my Zero Form Palafin on his Flutter Mane. Higher-level players like Daniel require more to work around, and I had to go hard with my reads to secure the wins. Game 2 went a lot more in his favour, and we danced around for quite a bit, rotating Pokémon and healing with Pollen Puffs. At one point towards the end, I managed to gain an advantageous position and was hoping to wrap the game up, but the timer for our match went off, and declared me the apparent victor. This was very strange for me since I had never won a game due to the timer, but apparently that was how the timer was set up to work. Still, I wished we could have seen how the game played out, as we were both eager to see the final turns of the game happen.
I have to say, Daniel is an amazing player and person, and every match I’ve had with him ever has been tremendously fun, all the way back since 2017. I really hope that Daniel manages to clutch up and go to Worlds, because he definitely deserves to be there!
You can watch my Round 4 set versus Nicholas here!
Day 2 Top Cut
Click on the tabs to see some notes about my matches!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 8 | WLW | Alister Sandover (Alister) | | |
Going into top cut, I was not looking forward to versing Alister again. Despite my 2-0 win against him in Swiss, it would be reckless of me to underestimate him, and it went to show, as our games were incredibly close and decisive towards the end.
In Game 1, I had to go for the high-risk, high-reward play and Fake Out his Flutter Mane predicting the Steel-type Terastallization. In these storts of games, playing too passively against offensive Pokémon would definitely not have worked out for me, so I had to adapt my play style to go bold and offensive on the leads, and then passively adapt to set Iron Hands up in a strong position later. Game 1 fortunately did go in my favour, but Game 2 was a mess for me, especially when his Great Tusk came out and went for the Ground-type Terastallization to minimise the weakness from my Gothitelle’s Psychic. I lost Game 2 which was fair, as Alister played phenomenal and adapted well. Game 3 was the most decisive game, as it came down to a mixture of predictions in the first turn, and predictions as to whether his Great Tusk would protect or not on the final turns. I also brought Chien-Pao for once, which was the only proper way I had to deal with his Great Tusk, aside from my Palafin, but that was threatened by Amoonguss, which is why I did not bring it. Fortunately, I managed to win the third game and advanced to Top 4.
I have to give a massive shoutout to Alister as well. Just like the rest of the VGC players I played against, he was great to talk to, play against, and is a phenomenal VGC player. I wish him the best for EUIC, because I know he will smash it over there.
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 4 | WW | Galvin Hui (Huid) |  | |
Top 4 was quite the experience to be a part of. I was very excited that I made it to this position, and to have matched my results from Melbourne in 2022. Out of all the players, I was up against Galvin, who I believe I had never played before. I didn’t realise until before the start of the match that Galvin was actually @Huid_VGC, which was quite the pleasant surprise! Glad to meet people that match the profiles from Twitter!
Of all the Pokémon on Galvin’s team, the Chien-Pao + Dragonite combination was still giving me terrifying memories of Day 1, however, the Azumarill was the big threat that threw a spanner in the works for me. Our game was streamed and should be available on Twitch to watch for a more comprehensive review, but suffice to say, Galvin played incredibly well.
In our first game, I automatically knew I needed to go for a hard read turn 1 to apply immediate pressure. Instinctively, I had a feeling that since we had never played each other before, we might both play passively in the first game to gauge each other’s play style. I decided to opt more aggressively since I knew there was a clear reason Galvin went 7-1 at this stage, and that’s because he’s good at the game, so my hyper-offensive first turn ended up paying dividends in the end. Ultimately, Galvin and I had many speed ties, one of which he won in Game 1, and the remainder, I fortunately won in Game 2. I will not deny that I did get lucky in Game 2 winning both Sacred Sword speed ties to win the match. If he had won those speed ties, we most definitely would have gone to a Game 3.
Massive shoutout to Galvin once more for being an amazing VGC player and person. He was definitely a thrill to talk to and play against!
| Round | Result | Opponent | Opponent’s team | List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finals | WLW | Sam Pandelis (♥Misaka♥) |  | |
Out of all the finalists, it had to of course been Sam Pandelis I was facing, who is arguably Australia’s best VGC player of all time, so it was definitely terrifying to play him again, since the only times we’ve ever played before were Melbourne Regionals in 2022 and the Players Cup III qualifiers.
Going into the matchup against Sam, I felt a lot more confident since it was similar to most of the teams I had played prior. However, I knew the main issue wouldn’t come entirely from the team I was facing, but rather the player himself, in which he played phenomenally. The stream should speak for itself with how things went down. Game 1 worked out fortunately in my favour. Game 2 went a bit more rocky for me, and Game 3 ended up working fortunately for me in the end.
Regardless of the games, Sam played to his outs in every single game, and it definitely shows why he is one of the best players out there, especially this year, with his insane results at OCIC and Perth to say the least. Sam is also a great guy to talk to and be around whenever the opportunity is there.
You can watch my Top 4 match versus Galvin here!
And finally, you can watch my Finals match versus Sam here!
Closing words
Since Regulation Set C will be played all the way up until Worlds, I think it’s important that whatever you’re teambuilding with, you’re having fun with it. Take Daniel Walker for example. He put a Scizor on his team, which I absolutely loved to see, and kept on telling him during our match how cool it was to see it! Another example is Galvin Hui and his Azumarill. That Azumarill was so uncharacteristic, but was such a momentous threat in the end. In reality, there is no right or wrong to teambuilding and getting ready for tournaments. The best piece of advice I would give for teambuilding in Regulation Set C and just teambuilding in general, is to start small and build big.
What I mean by this, is to start with 2 cool Pokémon you like, or think are viable, and work around them. It could be Iron Hands and Bronzong, for example, and if your idea is to use Fake Out and set up Trick Room in some sort of way, start building around that idea, and adding Pokémon to the team to help reinforce your idea. It’s all about testing, experimenting, failing, and then redesigning to find success. And in a format like Regulation Set C, that demands the heavy use of Treasures of Ruin, really start to consider how you can use these Pokémon to synergise and work well with your team. Think about how you’re able to utilise the Abilities of these Pokémon, and how they can work well with other members of your team. If you don’t want to use the Treasures of Ruin, no worries at all, because you don’t actually need to use one if you don’t want to. It’s just an option you have in case you decide you want to pursue it with an idea you might have in mind!
Overall, I had an amazing time playing in this event. I was planning to retire soon from VGC as i’m ready to close the chapter on this book and move on soon, and there’s no better event to finish on a high, then my own local Regional event! I want to give an enormous shoutout to the entire Australian VGC community. We’re a very tight-knit community where everyone basically knows each other, or a friend of a friend at the very least. If you watched the stream, you would have seen the amazing commentary by Paul Amedee (Mastodon) and Henry Rich (Hobbit), who are not only talented at commentating, but are deeply rooted in the heart of the Australian VGC community, like many other Australians out there. I hope to attend Worlds this year, and I will do my very best for the rest of this year!
