Pokémon

My favourite Pokémon VGC teams from the 2022 Indianapolis Regionals

The 2022 Indianapolis Regional Championships took place last weekend across three Pokémon competitions: VGC (Video Game Championships), TCG (Trading Card Game), and Pokémon Go. Victory Road compiled a list of the top 64 teams and I’m going to pick out my favourites (some of which I watched during the regional).

Jeremy Rodrigues’s team (finished 2nd)

Team members: Calyrex-Ice, Reshiram, Incineroar, Tapu Fini, Porygon2, and Regieleki

I caught a couple of matches with this team and I loved the diversity. It notably isn’t a weather team and centres on Reshiram as its main Dynamax option but Calyrex also offers speed control with Trick Room and immense attacking power as a secondary Dynamax pick. The real dark horses though (heh) are Tapu Fini and Porygon2, the latter of which has Eerie Impulse, Trick Room (for Calyrex if it can’t set it up by itself), Foul Play, and the Trace ability. Oh, and no Zacian. We love to see it.

Alex Underhill’s team (finished 3rd)

Team members: Calyrex-Ice, Palkia, Incineroar, Rillaboom, Gothitelle, and Regieleki

An interesting team from 2x regional champ Alex Underhill featuring Calyrex-Ice (a common feature in top cut), Palkia, and Gothitelle, used for trapping its opponent. It can be tough to pull off in a best-of-3 but a third place finish showed how effective the team was.

Leonard Craft’s team (finished 7th)

Team members: Calyrex-Ice, Reshiram, Incineroar, Amoonguss, Gastrodon, and Mimikyu

I’ve featured Leonard Craft before on Distant Arcade when I published a video showing how a Lv 1 Snom could beat a Lv 99 Charizard (with Wolfe Glick). His team also featured Reshiram and Calyrex-Ice as the restricted pair alongside the standard Incineroar, redirection and sleep setter Amoonguss, Gastrodon to nullify water movies, and Mimikyu with a Disguise and a ton of possible tricks up its ghostly sleeve.

Adrien Hurley’s team (finished 9th)

Team members: Calyrex-Ice, Reshiram, Amoonguss, Porygon2, Urshifu, and Grimmsnarl

Adrien’s team shared half the Pokémon of Jeremy Rodrigues’s (Calyrex-Ice, Reshiram, and Porygon2) and came away with a 8-2 finish, just missing out on a top-8 cut.

Jon Hu’s team (finished 26th)

Team members: Lugia, Groudon, Incineroar, Venusaur, Grimmsnarl, and Regieleki

It’s Weakness Policy Lugia with Sun. Major respect to Jon for running Lugia in spite of its poor offensive abilities (which is what the WP is for but very difficult to get off after the first reveal).

Foster Hughes’s team (finished 36th)

Team members: Dialga, Solgaleo, Rotom-Heat, Landorus, Latias, and Thundurus

Unfortunately no matches on stream but I had to give this team a shoutout for its unique dual-Steel restricted pairing and seeing Rotom-Heat and Latias finish so high in a regional. Props to Foster!

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