AS children, everyone dreamed of becoming a Pokémon Master, but only a few have managed to claim that title.
While Karen from the Elite Four may have told us that “Truly skilled trainers try to win with their favourites.” in the real world this usually isn’t possible.
Pokémon like Incineroar, Flutter Mane, Wellspring Ogerpon, and Urshifu are dominating the meta game, and almost every team consists only of Pokémon from the top 20.
However, a recent regional tournament held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, proved that players can in fact win with their favourites.
Kantonian Articuno has just 0.29% usage, meaning it is a rare find if you are watching competitive VGC.
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It was popular in Pokémon Red and Blue, but in future games it was severely nerfed, and no longer had the attack stat to compete at the top level.
Nikhail Reddy took home the whole tournament in Utrecht with his Articuno team, while team building partner Emir Abdulovski managed to place sixth after being knocked out by Reddy.
Not only was Articuno a strange pick for the meta game, but the set it had was also unusual.
With Alolan Ninetails as support setting up snow and Aurora Veil to boost Articuno’s defenses and Evasion with Snow Cloak, Articuno was able to sit on the field without being knocked out.
Reddy and Abdulovski’s Articuno was Ice-tera type, one of the least popular in VGC, and held Choice Specs to boost its attack with four Ice-type moves.
This Articuno had Blizzard, Ice Beam, and Freeze-Dry to deal huge damage to most of the popular Pokémon but the final move was the most special.
Sheer Cold is a move that has just 30% accuracy, but will instantly kill any Pokémon it hits.
Moves like this are rarely used in VGC, and used even less with Choice Specs, but with the fact that Articuno was very hard to take down, you get a lot of time to take down competitors.
Following a huge win like this, the usage for certain Pokémon usually rises, and we expect to see more Ice-types in the game moving forward.
If you want to read more about Pokémon, check out all 33 ‘mons in the Pokémon Legends: Z-A trailer.
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Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.