Unsurprisingly enough, it seems like Paradox Pok\u00e9mon have been causing quite the stir and dominating the Orlando Regional Championship that took place over the weekend.<\/p>
The top three most used Pok\u00e9mon in the largest tournament in Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s<\/em> history happened to be Iron Hands at first place with 51.09 percent usage across all teams, being seen 400 times; Flutter Mane at second place with 41.92 percent usage across all teams, appearing 327 times, and Iron Bundle at third place with 41.15 percent usage across all teams, being seen 321 times.<\/p>
These three \u2018mons were three parts of The Great Four that were expected to dominate Series Two VGC, and it seems like that\u2019s true for the most part, but Roaring Moon, the fourth member, seemed to not garner as much faith from players in its abilities compared to its Paradox peers, being all the way down at sixth place with 28.21 percent usage, appearing 220 times across all teams.<\/p>
This is not to discredit Roaring Moon\u2014it just isn\u2019t as splashable as the other top Paradox \u2018mons, and requires a bit more specificity in teambuilding that the others don\u2019t necessarily need. Roaring Moon was still very dominant, with Ashton Cox piloting it all the way to the finals, which is proof enough that this prehistoric Salamence can easily pull its weight.<\/p>
Another pair of Paradox Pok\u00e9mon that have made their mark in the Series Two VGC metagame through their omnipresence and phenomenal results in the Orlando Regional is Great Tusk and Brute Bonnet.<\/p>
Great Tusk sat at eighth place in the usage rates with 16.79 percent usage, being seen 131 times across all times, while Brute Bonnet was at 15th place with 10.00 percent usage, being seen 78 times across all teams.<\/p>
Both of these prehistoric \u2018mons were not respected enough before going into Orlando, with people writing off Great Tusk as merely the better Paradox Donphan form of the two, and Brute Bonnet finding itself in heavy contention with Amoonguss to provide a similar role on teams.<\/p>
Great Tusk did prove itself to be probably the hardest-hitting Pok\u00e9mon in the tournament with its popular Tera Ground Headlong Rush decimating opponents with a single hit, also possessing a great safety net in the Focus Sash as its most successful item.<\/p>
Brute Bonnet also showed why it’s worth using over Amoonguss as it possesses an incomparable offensive presence with strong moves such as Seed Bomb, Crunch, Sucker Punch, Close Combat, and even Bullet Seed in conjunction with the Loaded Dice item. With classic supportive options in the vein of its descendant such as Spore and Rage Powder, Brute Bonnet makes for a potent hybrid offensive-support \u2018mon.<\/p>
What is also interesting to note is that while Roaring Moon did reach all the way to the finals, it had a significant drop in appearances in the top cut as compared to its usage across the 780 teams in the tournament.\u00a0<\/p>
There were 20 Flutter Mane, 15 Iron Hands, and 12 Iron Bundle that earned their way into the top cut of the Orlando Regional, but only four Roaring Moon managed to get into day two of the tournament, showing a negative turnover for this angry ancient dragon.<\/p>
A Paradox \u2018mon that did have a positive turnover was Great Tusk, however, appearing 10 times in the top cut, sitting at the rank of seventh most popular Pok\u00e9mon that made its way to day two. Have we actually gotten our replacement for Roaring Moon in the Great Four?<\/p>
If you\u2019re wondering about the source of these statistics, the good folks over at VGCPastes<\/a> have compiled a document<\/a> detailing these stats and so much more, just like they have been doing for previous major Pok\u00e9mon tournaments.<\/p>
But now, let\u2019s take a brief look at how the Orlando Regionals unfolded over the weekend.<\/p>
