The ink is just about to dry on the final pages of Regulation Set F and the format was a story of the strength of double Fake Out, bulk is mightier than offense, and few amounts of viable spread moves. All these aspects were important considerations when teambuilding the minutia of the six, for example Ghost-Tera Type Amoonguss and Flutter Mane knowing the move Substitute. Regulation Set F was also initially a format that we, my brother Daniel Daertni and I, had difficulty innovating or deriving a team that fit my playstyle. We were rather confident in that our Liverpool team, however, while very fun to play and achieving a Top 16, was too linear in its playstyle for the rest of the format.

While traveling back to Sweden, and over the coming months, we were sent down a confusing rabbit hole of testing everything from standard Incineroar + Rillaboom teams to Rain Archaludon teams without overwhelming success from anything we tried.

Thankfully, our Norwegian friends had planned a weekend filled with tournaments, a Midseason Showdown + Premier Challenge combo, that had a great attendance of top-tier Scandinavian players. One of the tough opponents we faced was Brede Stavø, that used a Kingambit, Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon, Amoonguss, Incineroar, Porygon2 and Ursaluna team that he had built together with Jamie Kean. The last four pieces of this team made me at times feel like a wall was being built in front of me that was too high to climb over despite my best creativity and planning. Even though we did not win as many games that weekend as we had hoped, it was a necessary ice bath for us as it forced a reconsideration of our philosophy for Regulation Set F that so far had been ineffective.

The first iteration of our adaptation of Brede’s and Jamie’s core came about ten days before EUIC, after having explored some additional ideas. We decided to try Gholdengo and Wellspring Mask Ogerpon instead of Kingambit and Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon.

This evolved into Rapid Strike Style Urshifu and Flutter Mane as these Pokémon helped diversify the team with a faster option. Roaring Moon was a consideration for about one day, inspired by the Vancouver Regional, as similar teams to ours that used Roaring Moon performed well. However, after losing a practice game against an Incineroar + Rillaboom team during which Roaring Moon ended the game at -4 Attack, we pressed delete and reconsidered. The same was true for Glimmora, that we theorized could support a Porygon2 late-game stall victory, thanks to Toxic Spikes and Recover. However, in testing, we realized that it lacked synergy with the other four Pokémon.

Tuesday, the week of EUIC, was the deadline we set for ourselves to lock in the final six Pokémon. We felt that they exhibited the best mixture of offense and bulk, which had performed well during testing especially in matchups we expected to face in London.