Casual Pokemon Draft (Week 1)
August 9 2026
I was invited by a good friend of mine to do a VGC draft league! It's been awhile since I've been super competitive in Pokemon. I keep falling off due to time constraints and the myriad of hobbies and social obligations I end up having. But I figured if I had a regularly scheduled thing, I could absolutely do it.
It took a bit longer to draft than I had anticipated. I have to give credit to the organizer, Rebecca, for keeping everything afloat and making the space comfortable for everyone. Love you long time, gurl.
Anyways, here's my team!
I had to go with my favorite Pokemon for my first pick. Contrary to my friends' warnings, Whimsicott needed to be on my team. It helps that my favorite Pokemon is one of the best utility mons in the format. Picking Whimsicott first means I have a lot of flexibility with my team.
Maybe after the draft, I'll go through each of the picks and why I picked them. We'll see!
Week 1 Opponent: Eden
I think the matchup here is pretty good. My original plan here was to bring Whimsicott and Mega Pyroar, set up the sun, and sweep with Flamethrower + Helping Hand. After talking it over with ChaHari and 67Ghosted, there was one BIG thing that I missed here. Snorlax. The Pokemon is completely unassuming but has a varied movepool. Did you know this dude gets Gunk Shot? I sure didn't. So what's the pivot here? How do we make sure that we're safe with any 2 mons my opponent decides to lead? We bring The Bull.
Tauros' Water/Fighting typing deals with 5 of their mons, Ditto, Abamasnow, Blaziken, Snorlax, and Cinderace. At this point, I'm thinking of having it hold the Utility Umbrella so I can still set up the sun for Mega Pyroar to OHKO the Mega Metagross or the Ditto without any issues.
We're also running a little bit of a cheeky strat. Sylveon's ability, Pixelate, makes all Normal-type moves into Fairy-type and increases the damage by 30%. Paired with Hyper Voice and the item, Throat Spray, this could be a bit of an issue. Just in case, we're running Worry Seed on Whimsicott to completely turn off Sylveon's ability, making it practically useless.
Here's the pokepaste if you want to follow along!
I will follow up here after the game and detail how it went. Out of respect to my opponents' privacy, I will only be talking about my plays, mistakes, and thoughts. Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out tomorrow!
Match is done! I won 2-0. But there's some takeaways I have for myself.
It's difficult in the moment to decide which "mode" we're picking. Both games I brought Whimsicott, Aqua Tauros, Mega Pyroar, and Gastrodon. Gastrodon and Aqua Tauros were definitely the strongest picks here, and I could've leaned heavier into that. I think if we were to do to it again, I would bring Ariados over Whimsicott for Rage Powder coverage. I also made a big mistake and forgot to make Tauros Adamant natured. Its Close Combats were only doing about 70-80% on the Snorlax. Adamant would have made it 80-100% with a 12% chance to OHKO. Umbrella might have also been a bit too cute. We ended up going for nothing but Close Combats anyways, and there should never be a time where we went for Sunny Day and Blaziken is out. Definitely think for my next match, I'll do more calc'ing and more prep work.
Overall, great games. Thank you to my opponent for the matches! It was a nightmare to try to get working but we got there in the end. And she sent me over a link to some cryptid stickers I know my fiance would love.
Catch y'all in a couple of weeks for my next game!