mattj
blatant Nintendo fanboy
So, where to start? Gotta say thanks to a whole bunch of people. First and foremost thanks to Expert Evan for the amazing HP Ice Heatran and to Syberia for the excelent HP Grass Zapdos. Both helped me immensely! Nextly (I'm pretty sure that's not a word) I'd like to thank a bunch of people in no particular order...
NestW, Trader, HelloIamChris, Megamewtwo, Lightningfusion, ZeusJuice, Tyler422, Kakashi309, BoozeVGC, Dark ryu, Ahlmabird, Jeyre 80, Greysong, TR Jessie, Bad Intent, ChelseaStar, Shuttup And so many more of you. Without all you guys I'd still be a total pokenoob. All of you have traded me items I've needed, helped me move pokes from one cart to another, given me tons of practice battles and MOST IMPORTANTLY given me great advice. Thanks!
So here goes. Just incase you don't want to read the rest, I ended up in 17th place (I'm pretty happy with that) and here's a link to all the pics I took.http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=75438&id=1825142651#/album.php?aid=5789&id=1825142651 Also, incase you just want to skip to the battle info, here's a list of all the vids I took...
So, now for the rest.
Wednesday
pretty view from my room
Left from St. Louis about 11. Somehow just happened to be on the same flight as Dan (mysteryman) and Vikas (his friend, a TCGer). We were supposed to meet up anyway, so it was super convenient. Got to the hotel. Unpacked. I had been asking a lot of questions about how the TCG had changed since I played back in the day and they needed to playtest anyway, so they set up their decks and showed me. It's much faster paced nowadays. Kamal (616) called and brought down his wii and we played SSBB for a bit before deciding to take a walk and get some pizza for lunch from down the street. Later Dan, Vicas and I went walking and found this great little Italian place and I got the best scallops I have ever had in my life! Later that night I actually got around to exploring the hotel. It was a mad house! There were TCG players of all ages everywhere in every corner, under every table, on every patio, some right in the middle of the hallway all scrambling to playtest their decks one last time before the grinders the next day. I just happened to run into Allen (IPL) and Len (Alakapimp) and the whole German Crew. I've gotta say, those Germans were all extremely exited and friendly. I was also very happy that we were able to communicate easily.
Thursday
wonderful li'l mom&pop restaurant just a short walk from the hotel where I got some awesome breakfast Thursday Morning!
Dan and Vikas entered the Grinder (last chance qualifier for the TCG) and I went through the looooooong competitor registration line. While we were waiting in line I played some of the Germans and pwned Marcel's Trash MOLF team with a Techni-Scizor/Techni-top lead. I guess I should have savored it cuz his scarfed salamence creamed me in the actual competition! XD. Got my great "competitor pack" full of awesome TCG related pokecrap (look it up on ebay right now if you want it :naughty:) Ran into Slimceagirl and got a nice hotdog with Dan, Vicas and Kamal. Randomly found Sadman (ultimate unknown) in the theater/gaming room. I noticed his IGN on PBR was "sadman" so I was like "Hey! I'm from smogon too!" and we chatted. Finally got to meet Thomas (PBB). Later that evening, Kamal, Dan, Vicas and I walked down to the nearest Joe's Crab shack and got some great food. Kamal just about flipped when he saw his bill! XD "HOOOOOOO!" XD
After we got back the "Smogon 2009 Pokemon World Championship" started. Christoph (drugduck) organized the whole thing and it was fun. I lost in the 1st round to Viper and Picollo won the whole shabang! Met "pokemom" (greatest username in all of history in my opinion ;D) and had a lot of fun chatting with the Germans.
We (pretty much the smogon crew) took a walk over to Zerowing's hotel (though I was literally walking and battling PBB the whole time, so I still have no clue where we went?!) and had some laughs over there as well. It was getting late and we had the actual championship tomorrow so we all figured we had better get home. Unfortunately though we got stuck behind a train and had to wait there what must have been 30 minutes as it crept along. I seriously thought about rolling under it just to get across.
Friday
Me versus Mano, they guy who came in second. I can't believe he would check out Grace like that! YOU DOG! XD
So the battle begins. After a...weird...opening ceremony with...awkwardly fake...hosts and a...depressingly old..."sneak preview" of HGSS the actual battles began. For some reason they screwed up the first set of pairings. I was set to Battle Grace (slimceagirl) but they rearanged them all and I ended up facing Steve (syrex) first.
Round 1
Steve turned out to be a great guy, though a lil slow at making decisions. The battles lasted foreeeeeeeeever and we didn't actually end up finishing or much less even getting very far in the last battle at all :/ Still I can't fault the guy. I honestly thought at first that he was just stalling for time to run out, but he was man enough to come up to me later and explain that wasn't so, so I'll go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt. I do understand that this was the World Championship, and you don't want to make any hasty decisions. He had a great team. I somehow won the 1st battle (the vid above) and made a horrible prediction on the 2nd. I saw his gyarados (I think) and for some reason assumed he would RD+FO so I switched my Heatran for a Zapdos and BOOOOOM he exploded. -_- yeah. Next match. On the last match...well...who knows what could have happened. We never finished. Just before time was called I landed a critical hit and I believe a lucky burn too...but then time was called... -_-...oh well. It's just a game and I had fun battling with him and talking to him.
Round 2
:/ I beat Mike (omegadonut) 2/0. He is a great battler and had a great team and took it well. Luck just didn't go his way. The first battle I already guessed his team going into it and thought he would use TR, so I brought in my Torkoal instead of my Zapdos. -_- That was a bad decision. I also overpredicted him several times. Still, I got 2 Crits and a lucky burn. For those of you who have seen Grace's craaaazy semifinals matches, that might not seem like much hax to you, but they just happened to be at the exact critical point in the game to just criple his team. It wasn't really fair for him, but you know, that's how it goes. :/ I hope we can rematch someday soon! ;D The second match was the one in the vid listed above. It had less hax (1 critical hit), and was more or less a fair fight. I totally didn't see that exploding meta+no protection coming in the 1st turn, but luckily, my crobat had a sash and my Heatran is...well...steel type so I survived with low health and he lost 1. Next, his infernape dodged 2 FRIGGIN HEATWAVES when it had only 1HP >.< All in all I would say that one was fair. Great matches against a great guy!
Round 3
Yay! I get to fight a Japanese guy! ^.^ I hope this doesn't come across as cocky or something because he did win overall against me and did go far in the Championship, but man, Yanmega!?! Hippowdown with Roar?!?!? How did he make it?!?! Well, he did though! XD Fun kid to play! Match 1 was the vid I recorded. I seriously hope someone randomly recorded that kids face when his Hippowdown used roar to get rid of my Zapdos and brough out Typhlosion in the Sunshine! XD His eyes were sooooo big! XD Anyway, I can't remember what it was, but I think I tried something retarted like a HH Jolteon + scarflosion lead in the second match and totally tanked. Never try untested things at Worlds! >.< Third match was close all the way through. It ended up with my scarftran versus his scarfed Motres with Air slash. My Scarftran did a surprising amount of damage to tres with it's heatwave and tres couldn't really touch my tran. Guess what. Lucky flinch. That's what it came down to. Oh well. He was a great kid and fun to play!
Round 4
Yippee! I get to play Marcel! By this point I was 1/2 I knew I wasn't going to win it all anyway, so I just calmed down and had fun! Marcel had a great team with I believe a scarfed Latios. I knew going into Worlds that my entire team was easily walled by Latios, so it was no surprise that I lost (2 battle vids above, he took one, I took one). I must say, Marcel is a great guy and we chatted and joked and laughed the whole time. In fact, we both got along great the entire trip! It was a pleasure to meet, battle, and hang out with him! I sincerely hope we get to battle lots more here on smogon! ;D
Round 5
Don't ask me how, but somehow, I didn't realize that NestW was going to be a competitor at Worlds?!?!?! He's such an awesome guy and has helped me numerous times on the simple requests and battle now threads with last minute items that I need and VGC practice Battles. I was incredibly happy and surprised that he was my 5th round matchup! He had a great Hail team with a clever Fosslass (that's all I'll say ;D). I won the 1st match. He won the 2nd (it was my crobat with 1HP vs his Weavile or something with 1HP in hail and he just protected! XD) Finally I won the 3rd match (vid above). Needless to say, I was extatic to meet and battle him! That really made my whole day! :D
Grace's Semifinals
There's soooooo much I could say here, but I'll let Grace do it later. Man, I've never seen any matches in all my time playing pokemon that even come close to those crazy matches. Critical Hits everywhere, Freezes, Paralysis, Targeting your own pokemon and blowing up on yourself. Man. I don't care if you hate hax in battles or not. Those were the most exciting and entertaining battles I've ever seen in my life. period.
Saturday
SSB in my room late Saturday night.
I honestly think the picture above sums up my whole trip. 24 hours before we were all competitors fighting for the same one prize. The next night we were all best friends again duking it out on SSB.
It almost seemed ridiculous that the day before, Vash and I had a dispute with Syrex over taking too long in the matches. Late Saturday night however, none of that mattered. The three of us were all in that room playing SSB like it was nothing. I think that was the best part of Worlds 2009. Not the competition, but meeting all the smogon crew who we post with and battle and trade with and whatnot on a regular basis, but never get to meet and hangout with. Sure, a free trip to Japan or a DS would have been nice, but in reality, I'm an adult with a good job and I can buy those things if I really want them. You can't buy friends and memories.
Sunday
So we all shook hands and said our goodbies and I left for St. Louis. Stupid cabby took a wrong turn and charged me 22$ >:( The debit card machine at Mc Donalds screwed up and rejected my card even though I called my wife and we had plenty of money in the bank and still do 0_o. But it was all worth it when I walked out of that gate back in St. Louis and saw my wife and little girl. Heather put Lilly down and she ran up to me with the most surprised look on her face and yelled "DYAAADAAH!" I honestly think she might have thought I wasn't coming back or something. It was really hard being away from them for that long. In the 5 years Heather and I have been married we have literally never been apart before, and in the 2 years since Lilly was born I've never been apart from her for even a day. It was really hard, but I definitely don't want to forget to say thanks to everyone who hung out with me that week. It really helped. Thanks to you guys I had an amazing time. ^.6
NestW, Trader, HelloIamChris, Megamewtwo, Lightningfusion, ZeusJuice, Tyler422, Kakashi309, BoozeVGC, Dark ryu, Ahlmabird, Jeyre 80, Greysong, TR Jessie, Bad Intent, ChelseaStar, Shuttup And so many more of you. Without all you guys I'd still be a total pokenoob. All of you have traded me items I've needed, helped me move pokes from one cart to another, given me tons of practice battles and MOST IMPORTANTLY given me great advice. Thanks!
So here goes. Just incase you don't want to read the rest, I ended up in 17th place (I'm pretty happy with that) and here's a link to all the pics I took.http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=75438&id=1825142651#/album.php?aid=5789&id=1825142651 Also, incase you just want to skip to the battle info, here's a list of all the vids I took...
- Round 1 38-43201-75415 (me beating Syrex ;D lost 1/2)
- Round 2 87-57355-58959 (me beating Omegadonut ;D won 2/0)
- Round 3 13-19664-87094 (me beating Mano ;D lost 1/2)
- Round 4A 66-52221-00776 (me being beat by Marcel XD lost 0/2)
- Round 4B 98-68466-69939 (me being beat AGAIN by Marcel! XD)
- Round 5 69-36127-38910 (me beating NestW won 2/1)
So, now for the rest.
Wednesday
pretty view from my room
Left from St. Louis about 11. Somehow just happened to be on the same flight as Dan (mysteryman) and Vikas (his friend, a TCGer). We were supposed to meet up anyway, so it was super convenient. Got to the hotel. Unpacked. I had been asking a lot of questions about how the TCG had changed since I played back in the day and they needed to playtest anyway, so they set up their decks and showed me. It's much faster paced nowadays. Kamal (616) called and brought down his wii and we played SSBB for a bit before deciding to take a walk and get some pizza for lunch from down the street. Later Dan, Vicas and I went walking and found this great little Italian place and I got the best scallops I have ever had in my life! Later that night I actually got around to exploring the hotel. It was a mad house! There were TCG players of all ages everywhere in every corner, under every table, on every patio, some right in the middle of the hallway all scrambling to playtest their decks one last time before the grinders the next day. I just happened to run into Allen (IPL) and Len (Alakapimp) and the whole German Crew. I've gotta say, those Germans were all extremely exited and friendly. I was also very happy that we were able to communicate easily.
Thursday
wonderful li'l mom&pop restaurant just a short walk from the hotel where I got some awesome breakfast Thursday Morning!
Dan and Vikas entered the Grinder (last chance qualifier for the TCG) and I went through the looooooong competitor registration line. While we were waiting in line I played some of the Germans and pwned Marcel's Trash MOLF team with a Techni-Scizor/Techni-top lead. I guess I should have savored it cuz his scarfed salamence creamed me in the actual competition! XD. Got my great "competitor pack" full of awesome TCG related pokecrap (look it up on ebay right now if you want it :naughty:) Ran into Slimceagirl and got a nice hotdog with Dan, Vicas and Kamal. Randomly found Sadman (ultimate unknown) in the theater/gaming room. I noticed his IGN on PBR was "sadman" so I was like "Hey! I'm from smogon too!" and we chatted. Finally got to meet Thomas (PBB). Later that evening, Kamal, Dan, Vicas and I walked down to the nearest Joe's Crab shack and got some great food. Kamal just about flipped when he saw his bill! XD "HOOOOOOO!" XD
After we got back the "Smogon 2009 Pokemon World Championship" started. Christoph (drugduck) organized the whole thing and it was fun. I lost in the 1st round to Viper and Picollo won the whole shabang! Met "pokemom" (greatest username in all of history in my opinion ;D) and had a lot of fun chatting with the Germans.
We (pretty much the smogon crew) took a walk over to Zerowing's hotel (though I was literally walking and battling PBB the whole time, so I still have no clue where we went?!) and had some laughs over there as well. It was getting late and we had the actual championship tomorrow so we all figured we had better get home. Unfortunately though we got stuck behind a train and had to wait there what must have been 30 minutes as it crept along. I seriously thought about rolling under it just to get across.
Friday
Me versus Mano, they guy who came in second. I can't believe he would check out Grace like that! YOU DOG! XD
So the battle begins. After a...weird...opening ceremony with...awkwardly fake...hosts and a...depressingly old..."sneak preview" of HGSS the actual battles began. For some reason they screwed up the first set of pairings. I was set to Battle Grace (slimceagirl) but they rearanged them all and I ended up facing Steve (syrex) first.
Round 1
Steve turned out to be a great guy, though a lil slow at making decisions. The battles lasted foreeeeeeeeever and we didn't actually end up finishing or much less even getting very far in the last battle at all :/ Still I can't fault the guy. I honestly thought at first that he was just stalling for time to run out, but he was man enough to come up to me later and explain that wasn't so, so I'll go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt. I do understand that this was the World Championship, and you don't want to make any hasty decisions. He had a great team. I somehow won the 1st battle (the vid above) and made a horrible prediction on the 2nd. I saw his gyarados (I think) and for some reason assumed he would RD+FO so I switched my Heatran for a Zapdos and BOOOOOM he exploded. -_- yeah. Next match. On the last match...well...who knows what could have happened. We never finished. Just before time was called I landed a critical hit and I believe a lucky burn too...but then time was called... -_-...oh well. It's just a game and I had fun battling with him and talking to him.
Round 2
:/ I beat Mike (omegadonut) 2/0. He is a great battler and had a great team and took it well. Luck just didn't go his way. The first battle I already guessed his team going into it and thought he would use TR, so I brought in my Torkoal instead of my Zapdos. -_- That was a bad decision. I also overpredicted him several times. Still, I got 2 Crits and a lucky burn. For those of you who have seen Grace's craaaazy semifinals matches, that might not seem like much hax to you, but they just happened to be at the exact critical point in the game to just criple his team. It wasn't really fair for him, but you know, that's how it goes. :/ I hope we can rematch someday soon! ;D The second match was the one in the vid listed above. It had less hax (1 critical hit), and was more or less a fair fight. I totally didn't see that exploding meta+no protection coming in the 1st turn, but luckily, my crobat had a sash and my Heatran is...well...steel type so I survived with low health and he lost 1. Next, his infernape dodged 2 FRIGGIN HEATWAVES when it had only 1HP >.< All in all I would say that one was fair. Great matches against a great guy!
Round 3
Yay! I get to fight a Japanese guy! ^.^ I hope this doesn't come across as cocky or something because he did win overall against me and did go far in the Championship, but man, Yanmega!?! Hippowdown with Roar?!?!? How did he make it?!?! Well, he did though! XD Fun kid to play! Match 1 was the vid I recorded. I seriously hope someone randomly recorded that kids face when his Hippowdown used roar to get rid of my Zapdos and brough out Typhlosion in the Sunshine! XD His eyes were sooooo big! XD Anyway, I can't remember what it was, but I think I tried something retarted like a HH Jolteon + scarflosion lead in the second match and totally tanked. Never try untested things at Worlds! >.< Third match was close all the way through. It ended up with my scarftran versus his scarfed Motres with Air slash. My Scarftran did a surprising amount of damage to tres with it's heatwave and tres couldn't really touch my tran. Guess what. Lucky flinch. That's what it came down to. Oh well. He was a great kid and fun to play!
Round 4
Yippee! I get to play Marcel! By this point I was 1/2 I knew I wasn't going to win it all anyway, so I just calmed down and had fun! Marcel had a great team with I believe a scarfed Latios. I knew going into Worlds that my entire team was easily walled by Latios, so it was no surprise that I lost (2 battle vids above, he took one, I took one). I must say, Marcel is a great guy and we chatted and joked and laughed the whole time. In fact, we both got along great the entire trip! It was a pleasure to meet, battle, and hang out with him! I sincerely hope we get to battle lots more here on smogon! ;D
Round 5
Don't ask me how, but somehow, I didn't realize that NestW was going to be a competitor at Worlds?!?!?! He's such an awesome guy and has helped me numerous times on the simple requests and battle now threads with last minute items that I need and VGC practice Battles. I was incredibly happy and surprised that he was my 5th round matchup! He had a great Hail team with a clever Fosslass (that's all I'll say ;D). I won the 1st match. He won the 2nd (it was my crobat with 1HP vs his Weavile or something with 1HP in hail and he just protected! XD) Finally I won the 3rd match (vid above). Needless to say, I was extatic to meet and battle him! That really made my whole day! :D
Grace's Semifinals
There's soooooo much I could say here, but I'll let Grace do it later. Man, I've never seen any matches in all my time playing pokemon that even come close to those crazy matches. Critical Hits everywhere, Freezes, Paralysis, Targeting your own pokemon and blowing up on yourself. Man. I don't care if you hate hax in battles or not. Those were the most exciting and entertaining battles I've ever seen in my life. period.
Saturday
SSB in my room late Saturday night.
I honestly think the picture above sums up my whole trip. 24 hours before we were all competitors fighting for the same one prize. The next night we were all best friends again duking it out on SSB.
It almost seemed ridiculous that the day before, Vash and I had a dispute with Syrex over taking too long in the matches. Late Saturday night however, none of that mattered. The three of us were all in that room playing SSB like it was nothing. I think that was the best part of Worlds 2009. Not the competition, but meeting all the smogon crew who we post with and battle and trade with and whatnot on a regular basis, but never get to meet and hangout with. Sure, a free trip to Japan or a DS would have been nice, but in reality, I'm an adult with a good job and I can buy those things if I really want them. You can't buy friends and memories.
Sunday
So we all shook hands and said our goodbies and I left for St. Louis. Stupid cabby took a wrong turn and charged me 22$ >:( The debit card machine at Mc Donalds screwed up and rejected my card even though I called my wife and we had plenty of money in the bank and still do 0_o. But it was all worth it when I walked out of that gate back in St. Louis and saw my wife and little girl. Heather put Lilly down and she ran up to me with the most surprised look on her face and yelled "DYAAADAAH!" I honestly think she might have thought I wasn't coming back or something. It was really hard being away from them for that long. In the 5 years Heather and I have been married we have literally never been apart before, and in the 2 years since Lilly was born I've never been apart from her for even a day. It was really hard, but I definitely don't want to forget to say thanks to everyone who hung out with me that week. It really helped. Thanks to you guys I had an amazing time. ^.6
