Andrew Whitman

NA VGC Masters Leaderboard is live! Follow along during NAIC to see how the Worlds race is shaping up. There are two ways you can. First up is a dashboard I created. Link in the second post.

@SwampVGC @_yotam_ This matches my intuition. Regardless of the move accuracies, drift seems like a more active choice that anticipates your opp’s active tera usage. Draco is the default which feels more passive. Most people likely intuitively frame it this way and thus experience regret aversion.

@Andrew_Whit_ @_yotam_ It doesn’t really make sense as it’s a read regardless, but drift feels like me making the play to read Tera, whereas clicking Draco relies on them making the read that I’m going to drift. I guess it feels like I have more agency even though I don’t really?

VGC players, please vote in this poll, for science! It's a 1v1 tournament endgame -- your Miraidon vs. Ting-Lu. They have tera fairy available. They're in range of Draco Meteor/Electro Drift. You're in range of Earthquake. You must call their tera or you lose. What do you click?

@SwampVGC @_yotam_ I think this is a common psychological sentiment. I’m curious your reason(s), but I have my own ideas why.

@_yotam_ I'd feel worse about clicking draco as they tera than I would clicking drift as they don't tera

The race to qualify for the 2026 Pokémon World Championships is near the end and 🇺🇸 Austin Le (@Lepotatochip) is here to breakdown to current Path to Worlds for players in US and Canada. #PlayPokemon 🔗 nimbasacitypost.com/2026/03/us-and…

@Every1IsaGenius I can see that. I think a handful of factors can explain the drift overrepresentation. The psychological stuff like regret aversion is one of them. The key is all the angles matter when making a decision. There’s not a silver bullet unless you can literally read your opp’s mind.

@Andrew_Whit_ I clicked drift not because of the accuracy but because I feel like there is a psycological tendency for the average defending player to click tera to try do something rather than nothing. Of course that falls into the whole wine in front of me issue.

These pure endgames are always fun to think about. On the one hand in a vacuum, mixed Nash equilibrium says to Draco 53% of the time and Drift 47% of the time. And for Ting-Lu to hold tera 53% and tera fairy 47%. Either player doing this locks in 53% win odds for Ting-Lu. (1/x)

It feels like a so-called 50/50 in the end, and in the plethora of VGC skills, this pure endgame decision making can be rare. But, I believe this micro-skill is something that can be trained and that it’s worthwhile to have a framework like this that informs your choice. /fin

But each of these games is unique when you’re in them! Understanding the theoretical best plays, how the “average”opp is incentivized, and how your specific opponent is reading the situation and is conditioned should all be considered. (9/x)

@UncleLouPKMN @_yotam_ The mixed Nash equilibrium is actually ~53/47 Draco to Drift and ~53/47 No tera to Tera tairy with ~53% win odds for Ting and 47% for Mirai. Baseline should be Draco more frequently, but I agree with your second comment regarding awareness of you/opp risky/safe plays.

@_yotam_ Assuming your opponent is competent and randomizes their decisions, the correct answer is Electro Drift between 55-60% of the time and Draco 40-45% of the time Im too stupid to solve a mixed nash equilibrium matrix but poker experience usually gets me where I need to be lmaooooo

@AzazeL_the_God Makes sense. 124/92/28 also doesn’t give the boost to p2 next to bolt though, right?

@Andrew_Whit_ no its so my pon doesnt give P2 a download boost if I lead it with bolt

Won my Cup yesterday, so regulation F2 is finally over for me 😮‍💨 I used the same six for the whole rotation - I'll be sharing the final paste below. Team got me 500 points, but I never pulled off a big finish with it. However, I don't regret sticking to it at all because... 🧵

@AzazeL_the_God Question that may be covered by you in your video. Is the artificially low hp on hearthflame for better side pain split recovery to it? Curious bc there are better spreads like 124/92/28 that cover the surging and power gem rolls slightly better. Looking forward to your vid!

PASTE: pokebin.com/34580ad16c0247… I have a big video coming soon that dives into much more detail about my experiences using this team I also have a good amount of coaching slots open now if you're looking since I don't have a major until NAIC.

When I ask local stores to let me run VG events, the answer is always: "We're a card shop, why should we host a video game tournament?" Having to beg for locals is demeaning. The internet thing isn't gonna help. Please free us from the league system that was clearly made for TCG.

@ShiningAstr For sure. I was calling out the complete package of the recruit as being odd for vgc. There’s even stranger spreads and moves on default recruits I’ve seen.

@Andrew_Whit_ I mean, the only weird thing about this Whimsicott is the ability and moves. If it had prankster, that EV spread would be viable

Part of the reason there’s so much confusion from the PAX footage is because the default recruits don’t have training that’s coherent to vgc. We’ve seen this throughout the entire process! I’m not surprised at all the speed interactions look weird. Look at this whimsicott!

On the one hand you have the edited b-roll is from a defunct build. On the other you have not only are mega and switching now in the same bracket of actions, but also Paralysis changed! Natural cure changed! Priority affects mega timing! I’ll place my bet on the former for now