mattj
blatant Nintendo fanboy
Hey all. MattJ here with a quick VGC Report (can't really call it a war story lol).
If you have ADD like me, I'll just cut to the chase for you. Won my first 6 battles, made it to the top 16, and got an invite to Nats. Yay me.
Oh, and before anything at all, gotta give teh shoutouts:
Thanks bunches to Yeti, Bad Intent, Greysong, Huy, Godudette, Massi, Showsni, Xerograde, DragonFE, Elmo, RandomVGC, Sigrrrd, PokemonBattleBrain, Sixonesix, Tyler422, Mingot, Shuttup, Alaka, Wild Eep, Bearsfan, the #skarmbliss and #smogonwifi peeps and SOOOOO MANY OTHERS for battles, team advice, trades, RNG help, etc, etc, etc. I'd be a cockysonofamotha if I was to insinuate even for one moment that I got to top 16 by myself. Thank you guys.
Okay, Long Story Short, I got over Bronchitis, drove around 9 hours from St. Louis MO to Atlanta Georgia, and checked into a surprisingly nice room. PIcked up 616 at the airport the next morning and we headed straight to the Gwinnet Center. 616 thought it would be a good idea to follow this one particular family cuz it looked like they knew where they were going. Yeah... they knew where they were going... straight to their van. Awkward...
Oh, and because I've been busy helping other people with RNG Help, Team Testing, Team Advice, oh yeah and I'm a dad and a husband with a full time job (lo000l) I never really had time to settle on any one particular team. Instead, I just took the last 4 successful teams thatI'd tested, filled out a team sheet for each one, and while waiting in line with Noxe and Orbwhisperer, I just shuffled them and picked a random one.
This is a copy of the one I used:
These are the other 3:
They've all tested perfectly fine for me. Oh and if you want to know IVs/EVs etc feel free to extrapolate them yourself :P
Yeah, so seriously, I had made up my mind to save every single battle vid like I did at worlds because I hate boring play-by-plays, and I even made sure to find and save a strong unlocked wifi signal in the battle area, BUUUUUT everysingle person I played exited seriously fast or something or shut their DS's off or something because I wasn't able to save a single one >_? *facepalm*
waiting in line with Noxe
Anyway, quick rundown:
Pre-Round 1: Obligatory poke-terrorist hack check. Marriland made a B-Line for me from across the battle areas. >_> He had recognized me earlier and and we had chatted.
Round 1: Fairly young boy. Seriously nervous. I was like, "Bro, b ro, chillax lol" and he kind of did. Unfortunatley I don't think he really knew about IVs/EVs, etc but he was a really nice kid. Oh and he got a paralysis and burn on me (Spark Raikou yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah!). As far Ias I can remember that was about the only hax in all 7 of my battles.
Round 2: Yeeeeah... 4/1 or 4/0 or something. Nothing really spectacular IIRC.
Round 3: I believe this one was with Coaster. Man. Had I know you were a smogoner, I totally would have picked someone else bro. Lol, I'll never forget the look on L33tSnowleapord's face when we were originally paired! xD But I chose this dude instead, who turned out to be Coaster. He had a great team and it was a very close match. Came right down to my full HP Aboma versus his very low HP Dialga. I actually called Marrland over because I fearted that if I Ice SHarded his Dialga and it DIDN'T die it would flamethrower my Aboma, IOing it, but then Dialga would die from hail damage too. I thought I had read something in the rules about both of us losing in that particular situationi, so I was planning on just shutting my DS off and forfeiting if that situation actually occured. Didn't want to be a jerk and screw this guy out of a chance ot advance. HOWEVER, Marriland was busy, so we just went ahead and played it out. Ice Shard Crit'd, so the situation never happened. GRANTED, my Aboma was Quiet, 31 AtkIV'd with 252 Atk, it was base 40 STAB neutral damage, the Dialga was aaaalmost down to the Red, and in my testing I had consistently taken that much off of 252 HP Dialgas, oh and Dialga was -2 SAtk due to DMeteor. I still kind of feel like Istole that one though. Maybe, maybe not. Unfortunately, we'll never know.
Oh yeah. Marriland finally came over and automatically hack checked both of us (check #2 for me) even though we explained that wasn't what we called him over for (LOL).
Round 4: Some guy who said he wasn't really into competitive pokemon anymore. Fairly easy match.
Got my black "top 37 or whatever" wristband, got hack checked again (Hack Check #3 for me LOL) and was told round 5 would start in around an hour. Talked to a TON of people and got a(n expensive) bite to eat.
Oh, and Nick kept announcing over the loudspeaker that people who had already lost should exit the hall because there were so many people in the room that the Fire Marshall was threatening to shut down the event. He had to announce this like 10 times. It was so crazily packed!!
Pre Round 5:
So before Round 5 started, they had to "even out the number of players from 37 to something divisible by a pwer of two" whatever Mike meant by that (lolzers). They decided they would remedy this by having 27 of us do one battle to get to the top 16... and... yeah... the other 10 of us would have to do TWOOOO BATTLOLZZ!!!!!
The way Mike Liesik handled this was by shuffling 27 Psychic energy cards with 10 grass energy cards and having us all draw one. Psychic = 1 battle, Grass = 2. I thought about it and decided that heading to the back of the line was in my best interest,. I figured since the ratio was 10/27 chances were that they would all be drawn by the time Mike got to me. El oh el. I drew grass...
Round 5:
Against some kid who said he hadn't had much time to prep because of swim meets. Life > pogeymanz. JAHJAHJAH!!! 4/1 I think.
Round 6: Against Tichu, one of the FSU gamers. A genuinely nice young lady. Very fun battle, very excellent and well thought out team, she played very competently. Ended it with Muddy Water in the rain agaisnt her Scizor and TTar (I was seriously thinking about using Scizor lol!)
Whew. I'm into the top 16 now. It's all coasting from here. Don't care if I win or lose. The trip money would be nice, but I've had a fairly hax free tournament thus far. I realize that can't last forever, so I just go into coast mode and see how far it can go...
Round 7:
Wesley in yellow.
This one was against Wesley, who turned out to be the brother of the ONE dude who smoked me last year at Nats. We agreed it was all for fun now and started the battle.
IIRC Wesley lead with Palkia Top. I knew from the start this would be a problem as I was using a very old Brave 0spd Technitop. Chances were his was adamant and he would have the speed advantage over me the whole time. And that really was what made the game, his speed advantage. By the time I got rid of his Top my Aboma was down and it was downhill from there.
It was still a decently close game. Came down to his mostly full HP Ogre versus my 30%ish HP Aboma. Fearing that by some freak occurence he didn't have Ancient Power or was weajk or something and my Wood Hammer would KO both of us and screw us BOTH out of the top 8 I double checked with Marriland who said that wasn't the case. I then happily selected WoodHammer, got KO'd by Ancient Power First, shook his hand, congratulated him, collected my invite
omgz! it's HALF of TeamRose! :0 Oh and that's a little fold up chair in my hand. Gawd I was tired...
Overall it was a great trip. Met some great people. got an invite. Had an excellent time. :)
The "plan" is to try to get the money for Nats but we'll seee. Because of some...unforseen circumstances... this trip cost significantly more than I planned for. However, I've got 2 weeks worth of overtime coming so... we'll see if that's enough. :/
Either way. I don't have anything to prove to anyone. I made top 16 at Nats last year 17th at Worlds (lol) and top 16 at Atlanta (actually winning enough battles to place in top 8).
OH BUT!
If you live between HERE AND HERE
Props:
- Jesus Christ for a safe 9 hour (1 way) drive, good weather, and no car trouble
- Beautiful Sunrise over the foggy Illinois plains
- Huuuuge Double Rainbow after the rain
- My car for not breaking down
- Mingot forthe kind of help with directions tha tonly a local can provide
- Motel Six Express in Duluth for a surprisingly nice room
- The VGC staff for letting me not battle my friendds
- Smogon and Skarmbliss peeps who were there for being so kewl
- Mike Liesik for seriously listening to the players
- NOxe for being uuber cool
- Orbwhisperer for fulfilling my secret fantasy of being mugged at Knife Point by a Rocket
- Marriland for lettin gme use my lil chair (yesssssssssssss)
- Oh and Mingot again for like 1/2 the pictures lol
Slops:
- Confusing Highways that go by like 4 names
- grass Energy Cards
- Reserving a frigging room with 2 beds
