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Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
US Regional Qualifier - Seattle, WA - May 8th, 2010 WON BY ZEROWING
- Thread starter Diesel
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IMO best team was the Juniors winner. I am very glad he won. I'm not sure if I'll make a warstory as nothing really exceptional happened. I never got off my strategy as the first match didn't really require it and the second match I played a great player (Good luck at Nationals, Glenn) who killed the strat with a well-timed crit. Unfortunate, but I got to have Charmander follow me on the big screen =) I'm just dissappointed I didn't get to hit the finalists round and at least pull it off once.
I got to the second round, lost to a Mamoswine. Had lots of fun.
The pikachu dancing was amusing, and they also had inflated second gen starters to play with. ^_^
The pokemon I saw on the most teams overall was Rayquaza, which surprised me and almost cost me a match right at the start (they switched it out as bait for an Ice Beam). There were some VERY amusing matches to watch, but I don't know if any will end up online.
Get there early, there's a lot of waiting!
The pikachu dancing was amusing, and they also had inflated second gen starters to play with. ^_^
The pokemon I saw on the most teams overall was Rayquaza, which surprised me and almost cost me a match right at the start (they switched it out as bait for an Ice Beam). There were some VERY amusing matches to watch, but I don't know if any will end up online.
Get there early, there's a lot of waiting!
That was a lot of fun, though I didn't get to meet most of you guys.
I'm glad my first vgc wasn't a total massacre for me, and I reaaally needed a new ds.
Sorry for coughing so much, was on the back end of a cold. hope you guys had a good time too
I'm glad my first vgc wasn't a total massacre for me, and I reaaally needed a new ds.
Sorry for coughing so much, was on the back end of a cold. hope you guys had a good time too
Yeah, you need to burn that coat of yours. I think it's a biohazard by now.
My own impressions (From my limited number of battles):
1) Not as many trick room teams as I had expected.
2) Not as many gimmicky smeargle teams as I had expected.
3) WAaaaAAay more Kyogre teams than I had expected - and I expected a number of them.
4) I found the first rounds actually very competitive. The use of legendaries game just about anyone the ability to hit hard - even those unprepared to really compete competitively.
5) Abomasnow teams dominated. I can't quite remember Zerowing and Fish's teams (and they probably wouldn't want me give them away until the video is up - and it was recorded), but lots in the top 16 had Abomasnow combos.
6) Matchups were not exactly random, but you also didn't fight the person standing next to you. There were a number of tables (40ish in the first round?) and they filled up one side, and then filled up the other side. The people I stood next to in line I didn't even see after the first round - and I certainly didn't play them.
7) Organizationally, the event was pretty good. Lots of waiting, especially while the event staff set up the finalist ladder. But the MC of the event was...eh....okay. At least he kinda knew what was going on. And he was sufficiently cheezy/lighthearted to look like he was enjoying himself. Marilland, on the other hand, was such a limp fish. I was waiting for him to expound on the intricacies of matches that he was watching. Some play-by-play action. He was mike'd up the whole time. But no. Very quiet.
8) Checking for hacks: I didn't see anyone get bounced in the first three rounds, but they checked EVERYONE who made it to the finalist lounge. And I saw between 3-4 people get bounced for having hacked guys. One guy was really irate. I was just jazzed that my Japanese *highly suspicious* Zapdos made it through. But if you cheat, they WILL get you. They take your cartridge and put it in a binder if you make it to the finalist lounge and it's one guys ONLY JOB to check every cartridge.
9) You do have some opportunity to switch items on your guys between rounds, but the pace is pretty fast. And they also scare the bejezus out of you by saying that if you are purposely slowing down play, they will disqualify you.
10) I didn't get a good count of the finalist lounge players, but they gave out 14 byes. It was random. The ones without byes played on, and then the ones with byes came in the next round. My perception was that the extra round for the non-bye'd people thinned the herd a bit and the people with byes ran into some pretty difficult competition. May just be my perception...
I'll leave it at an even ten. Thanks Bug Marc and Bro-to-Bug-Marc. One of these days, I'll figure out how to take down your bro...
As Yeti pointed out, I think those of us who went earlier had harder matches as most of us cared enough to come a bit earlier and poke around.
And I thought the host was awesome. He's apparently hosting all the events! I think we need chaos to be a ref =)
That's probably a fair observation. I was near the front and there were a number of very hard-core players up there.
Was I being to hard on the MC? I'll say that he did a great job at his first event. He'll need a bit more filler, but if he's doing all the events, I'm sure he'll get better and better. Very friendly, young, energetic.
Horrible joke teller.
Okay, you're doing no better than him now. We might as well let the whole thing drop.
Anyways... do we figure that Seattle's turnout is less than the other events? I can see Newark being much more crowded. I guess I'm curious as to how much of an indicator Seattle is in regards to the quantity of participants.
I heard it was 493+15 DQed peeps, for a grand total of 508. Hmmm, I don't think Dallas will max out either, or maybe Phoenix. However, San Fran and Atlanta will be maxed out I predict, probably to about 900-1000. NEWARK is going to be hell. Last year was over 1000, and now people aren't afraid this year, since there's no lotto. Also remember this is the last qualifier before the LCQ, and Newark is literally ACROSS THE HUDSON RIVER from NEw York City. I'd say 2000 people.
Nah I thought Ho-Oh was the money maker on that team. He just kind of bossed around everything.
Seattle either maxed out (what zw was told) or had ~500 people (they announced they had 493 people but who knows if that was the cap).
Either way it's over twice as many as we had last year. Juniors had a lot more too.
Yes we did have the same team, and funnily enough the guy who beat me lost to zw/the same team.
Seattle either maxed out (what zw was told) or had ~500 people (they announced they had 493 people but who knows if that was the cap).
Either way it's over twice as many as we had last year. Juniors had a lot more too.
Yes we did have the same team, and funnily enough the guy who beat me lost to zw/the same team.
Okay, to mature-up this conversation, I'll chime in.
I can see Newark's being much more crowded. It seemed that Seattle's event drew from a very small radius. Mostly Seattle, Seattle burbs, a few Canucks, and some people from Portland.
Newark just draws from such a more densely populated area.
I would say that trashing the lottery system made a lot of first-time people show up. I met many people this time who said it was their first event (it was mine. And I didn't go last year because of the lotto - and other reasons...).
I made it to round 4, but was DQ'd due to one of my leads having 514 EV's - yeah, I'm lazy. I had a great time anyway, and my wife and I had a great time rooting for Cake in Juniors (dude, why didn't you use Shadow Ball?) along with my own 3 battles. Short semi-warstory:
Round 1: Was in line in front of this fellow, and got into a conversation with him before I realized we would battle. He asked me what my team was, and I politely stated that it was a secret. Then he asked me if had any shiny pokes... well, I wrote down the URL for the RNG help thread and told him to PM me. 3-0
Round 2: This one had me lined up against a very pleasant guy who was wearing a lot of punk rock patches on his jacket. As a punk rocker, I naturally felt some solidarity, but his strategy was fatally flawed. Lesson learned: never run Scizor in VGC. 3-0.
Round 3: This was the first solid team I had seen, but I had over-predicted some on the first turn. I didn't mind, since it bought me momentum, anyway. This opponent was very emotive, and his expressions pretty much told my wife what my progress was in the game. 2-0.
I may have been the first person DQ'd in the Seniors in the US- I didn't hear anyone before me, but I was very focused, so I may have missed it. I admit that I cut corners, but that advantage of an extra stat point would not have caused me to win/lose any of the matches that led me into the finalist's lounge. In the end, I did my best, and I make no excuses for my mistakes. I'd like to give a shout out to Dr. Cossack, who helped me perfect my team through a series of grueling test battles. I'd like to think it could have progressed further in the tourney had I checked my arithmetic the night before, but whatever - it was a lot of fun! Seriously - even if you don't plan on competing, compete - a Smogoner has an instant edge on any noob from another forum, and there's 700+ slots to be had.
Round 1: Was in line in front of this fellow, and got into a conversation with him before I realized we would battle. He asked me what my team was, and I politely stated that it was a secret. Then he asked me if had any shiny pokes... well, I wrote down the URL for the RNG help thread and told him to PM me. 3-0
Round 2: This one had me lined up against a very pleasant guy who was wearing a lot of punk rock patches on his jacket. As a punk rocker, I naturally felt some solidarity, but his strategy was fatally flawed. Lesson learned: never run Scizor in VGC. 3-0.
Round 3: This was the first solid team I had seen, but I had over-predicted some on the first turn. I didn't mind, since it bought me momentum, anyway. This opponent was very emotive, and his expressions pretty much told my wife what my progress was in the game. 2-0.
I may have been the first person DQ'd in the Seniors in the US- I didn't hear anyone before me, but I was very focused, so I may have missed it. I admit that I cut corners, but that advantage of an extra stat point would not have caused me to win/lose any of the matches that led me into the finalist's lounge. In the end, I did my best, and I make no excuses for my mistakes. I'd like to give a shout out to Dr. Cossack, who helped me perfect my team through a series of grueling test battles. I'd like to think it could have progressed further in the tourney had I checked my arithmetic the night before, but whatever - it was a lot of fun! Seriously - even if you don't plan on competing, compete - a Smogoner has an instant edge on any noob from another forum, and there's 700+ slots to be had.
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