DrDimentio

Medal is easier to show off, but a trophy has more of a show off effect if you get people to see it. However, I prefer yours, because my trophy is made of glass; your's is gold coloured (I doubt that it's actually made of gold, but awards always look more impressive when they look gold).

I won my semifinals in the State tournament by disconnection (the rules weren't forfeit if you disconnected, but I was going to win that match). It's a shame that it happened in the finals. Did the large screen look better this year? It was very hard to read what was going on from the crowd last year.

No drought :( I expected better from the AVcon competitors.

I don't predict against most opponents. Most opponents either choose expected attacks, or they choose substandard attacks; very few opponents in Australia actually attempt to predict what the opponent will do.

Hi Dom. I'd love to see the medal! Congratulations on your flawless streak! I have a strong opponent to look forward to next year :)

Unfortunately I didn't attend AVcon. I was sick last weekend. Awful timing. I had planned to use a TR team as well. I saw your semifinal Youtube video. You played well.

I study medicine. I want to become a doctor, but I don't know what speciality yet.

Countering certain strategies without making your team significantly weaker against normal team is a big challenge. Generally I find the best way to do so is to counter it in methods that also work well versus normal teams. For example, Heatran makes a good Drought counter, and it's good against normal teams.

The singles mindset at AVcon is also a big weakness. I've tried using Pokemon dedicated for Singles to beat my friends who used Pokemon dedicated for doubles. It doesn't work. Usually you can tell who has a singles mindset, as those players don't use Protect.

Drought works. Drizzle is better, but it's banned. So I decided to use the next best weather :)

I'm also at Uni of Adelaide. What do you study?
Good players do, or at least should, take into account teams that troubled them. It's a great way to improve yourself. If I use Drought again, there's definitely some changes I'd like to make to my team. Similarly, I'd expect some people to have teams that are better equipped to deal with Drought teams this year. I saw some mediocre attempts to check Drought teams last year that just didn't get the job done.

I do remember you. Well online I do, because I haven't actually met you IRL :) I'll probably go to AVcon again, but only on the Sunday. I can't afford to spend a whole weekend at AVcon during Uni.

I haven't decided on my team either. Not sure if I want to use the same team as last year. I'd like to try something different. Plus I'm not sure how many people will decide to have a 'Drought' counter(s) this year in response to a Drought team winning the tourney.

NWEHEHEHEHE

I'll admit; I forgot about e-sports and major league gaming when I made that post. They takes lots of effort as well. It depends with the individual. For me, sports would be harder, but that's not the same for everyone. I suppose you also need to consider that if you were playing on a competitve level, that you would have played the game for years before you started playing competitively. At least I did for Pokemon. Aaah, the good old RB days! Just to make it clear; I didn't mean any disrespect to professional gamers. I just wanted to say that it would be easier for me to enjoy Pokemon. Also, physical sports generally wield more pay than professional e-gaming; a greater proportion of e-gamers need a 2nd job.

Hopefully our nerd culture will develop over time. As long as Pokemon keeps on cranking out good games, but it doesn't look like that's going to stop any time soon!

Haha. Don't worry; people seem to be a lot more serious on the Smogon forums. Me especially :)

If you're good at sports, it can be your life-career. It's also much more challenging and requires much more effort, so you'd get more out of it if you do well. Sports is more mainstream as well (and it's better for your health). I do enjoy sports (I currently play indoor soccer), though not at championship level. I would rather be good at sports than Pokemon, but I'm not capable of it. I enjoy Pokemon, it takes little effort, and I do have some close friends who play with me. My comment about wishing to be better than sports shouldn't be taken seriously. Actually, it reminds me of one of my friends who was a professional swimmer, who said she'd rather be a professional netballer player ;)

There were problems with Smogon's coding with regards to uploading B/W. Work has been done on it for a long time. An admin said it should be online any day now, with all the technical issues fixed, and sounded 100% confident about it, but he said that 3.5 weeks ago. I also don't know how long it took to upload 4th gen, but I'm guessing it was shorter than this.

True, Smogon doesn't have double battle tiers. Hopefully, it'll start up a proper double ladder (VCG doesn't counter) and it'll become as popular as singles. Doubles is more fun than singles. And then we'll get our double Smogon tiers :)

You really want to win something... try the AVCon@OzAsia's Pokemon tourny this year. If not, there's always next year. If you don't ever win, it's just Pokemon. It means nothing in the real world! I much rather win a sports or academic tournament.

People will always question the banlists. I prefer Smogon's to AVcon's, because Smogon's is based on battling experience with it as opposed to "it looks too good; it must be broken." It was actually the first thing I found out about the Pokemon AVcon tourny; one of my friends was complaining about the list.

I agree with not relying on inaccurate moves. 90% is my benchmark of acceptance; 85% is ok on 1 or 2 Mons. I hate using 80 or less; I fear it'll cost me a match. 90% can still suck though. In the state tourney, I double missed with Heat Wave in my 3rd match, and ironically in the finals, my opponent double missed with HW against me.

It's had to prepare for next year's tournament when I don't know the banlists and rules. But I can still plan by guessing what they'll be if I have a spare moment to myself and I feel like it. There are a few changes I might make to my team if the banlists stay the same. Or if I change the team completely, TR is one of the teams I'm considering :)

I saw the match. It's always fun watching good double matches. I remember playing him as well. We got disconnected though, and my second match with him wasn't as good as the first match; it was much closer the first game.

My reasoning for a Drought ban was if they banned certain Pokemon because AVcon thought they were were too good such as Landorus, they would ban Drought under that logic. However, I rather them unban some of the Pokemon and Drizzle whilst enforcing a Drizzle + Swift Swim ban, though I don't think they will.

I didn't use Victini. My team relied on spamming Heat Wave, which Victini can't learn. I also wanted Fire-type sweepers with higher SpA, and I didn't need the Psychic STAB (if anything, it would have been a hinderance thanks to the extra weaknesses). The accuracy boost would have been helpful but not worth it; it's only 10%. I had Heatran and Volcarona instead; they had qualities that my team needed more.

Trick Room's a good theme for teams, but I didn't think there were that many Trick Room teams at Avcon; from what I remember, I only faced 2, and one of them wasn't able to set it up. Trick Room was more common in the Aussie VGC tourny than in AVcon; many of the good teams utilised it all over Australia (from what I've heard, it was even more common in the other states).

I like the trophy. I prefer 'Champion' to 'Winner,' but despite how impractical this may sound, I would have liked my name ingraved on it! xD

The VCG rules change every year. 4v4 has been common for the last few years, but I think they'll have Pokemon from all gen in the next tourny. It was held in EB games next to Shin Toykiho (I don't know how to spell it). And yes, not getting an invite to the real VGC sucks! :(

I might use the same team for AVcon 2012; it depends if I feel like spending the effort to make a new team and if they change the rules. They banned stuff like Garchomp and Landorus because the AVcon staff thought they were too good, so I have a feeling they might ban Drought for the same reason. Personally I think they should ban Drought, as Drought is too strong with Drizzle and Lati@s banned, even though it means killing my team!

wow i didn't know that pic was going to be so big

Here's the smogon link for the Aussie VCG with rules. Here's a youtube video of the state finals in Sydney (Earthworm, a Smogon mod, won it), showing how the on-screen matches were played. The technology was definitely better, and the tournament was run much more smoothly and taken more serious by the players, though everyone was still there for the fun of it. It was a very close finals. And here's another link of the winners and runner-yps of the tourny in each of the states (you'll need to scroll down). From searching on youtube, I've learnt that at least 2 of the winning teams were Trick Room teams. I'll post a photo of my trophy soon :)

Hahaha. Don't worry, I also didn't know that I would win the final! :)

The state tourny was like the VCG for SA but it was called something else, as Australia doesn't have VCG. It was the official South Australian Pokemon championship. That's where I won my Reshiram & Zekrom shirt. The projector screen there was much better. It involved one of the players placing their Pokemon game in a machine which would connect with their DS. The player could play Pokemon on his DS, and the front screen would go on the big screen (and only the front screen, so the crowd and opponent wouldn't get to see his moves as he thinks about which one he was going to use). And the big screen was much clearer than that at AVcon.

Btw Trick Room is still a very good choice, I'm pretty sure you know that my finals opponent used Trick Room. It's also good at countering Sun teams, which generally have high Speed Mons.

How did you go in the tourny?

I've organised my timetable so that I can go to the tourny on Sunday! xD I'm guessing the projector screen is similar to the one at the State tourny. If you want to find me, look for a guy dressed as a Squirtle (or if I've taken my shell off, a guy in blue clothes). I need to see these 'interesting teams.'

My badge wasn't that hard to earn. Definitely less time involved than completing a Pokedex!

I'm going to AVcon on Saturday and hopefully Sunday as well. If I do go on Sunday, it'll be just for the Pokemon tourny. This will be my very first AVcon. I'm excited!

I am the only Adelaidian badgeholder. I feel lonely :( But I do know have close Adelaide friends who also have Smogon.

Also, I watched your Youtube video. Congrats on getting all 646 Pokemon!

I see. Good job either way :)

Really? That's cool, it's a really good drawing, is it okay with you to use it?

HAHA - NICE THAT IT'S NOT ME CAUSING THE DELAY THIS TIME :) SOUNDS EXCITING - CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR FROM YA!

meh, just discovered caps lock, but can't be bothered fixing :P