one of my goals for this weekend was to come out with a better record than my very, very weak rival
Evan. You see Evan and i have had this rivalry going on for a long time now, and since TPCI refuses to pair us up at nationals, i just own him in records (like having a better nationals record, etc etc). Someday you'll catch up Evan
PS: ilu Evan
In the interest of time, i'll just summarize Friday and saturday. There's no need to go into details about our non-vgc shenanigans anyways.
Thursday/Friday - IT BEGINS:
it all started on thursday night when i decided to stay up all night and try to finish re-watching Avatar the last airbender, and just sleep at Huy's when i arrive in Cali. A decision that would lead to a chain of many events throughout the weekend.
Tale of the great wall of California:
so on Friday i slowly, in zombie mode from no sleep, make my way to the airport and take off for the BAY LIFE. Huy picks me up from the airport. I notice someone sitting in the front seat and for a second think that Duy came along with Huy to pick me up. Alas i wasnt that special as it was one of huy's friends, but he was aight so it all worked out in the end. Huy then informs me that Omegadonut, who was suppose to have taken a bus to Huys place, grabbed the bus heading the other way instead. Now during all of this, huy kept saying Omegadonut was now at the great mall, but i kept hearing "the great wall" instead and actually thought there was a great wall and we were heading to it. And thus the great wall joke was born, a joke that would come up time and again throughout the weekend.
so after we pick Omegadonut up, we head back to Huy's place and the car ride there is filled with funny jokes, explicit language, laughs and just over all shenanigans. Yeap, the weekend had officially begun.
We get to huy's place and are promptly greeted by his very kind parents and VERY ENERGETIC dogs. 2 dogs named Jack and PICHU. Jack likes humans and is cool with us the entire weekend, where as Pichu barks at us until we get close to him and he just BOOKS IT OUT OF THERE. i wish i got a video, oh well.
After we get settled in, Huy goes to work on filling out our TCG forms for the next day as well as teaching Omegadonut and i the Trading Card Game.
Omegadonut (know what, I'll just call him Mike for the remainder of the story) picks the game up better than i do
After a long night of TCG training, Avatar watching and dog chasing, Huy tucks us into bed like a loving father. He gives us some plushies to cuddle with and bring us good pokemon dreams
well, maybe not Mike, i'm pretty sure he got nightmares with that plushie.
and with that, the lights were turned off and we drifted to sleep. Actually it was more like the lights were turned off and Mike and i chatted in the dark for a good half hour
SATURDAY: Pizza tiering, TCG forfeiting, Laser-tagging, In-N-out devouring, pistol whipping shenanigans
as you can tell from the days title, a lot of shenanigans took place this day.
after getting up and getting ready, we head out to pick up the 5th and final member of Team HA, Kurt AKA Kaphotics. Huys house hosted 5 of us and that made up team HA. Huy, Duy, Luy aka Mike, Nuy aka Ninahaza and Kuy aka Kurt aka Kaphotics.
Team Ha (i'm not in it because i am taking the picture, clearly)
so we arrive at the Pleasanton fairgrounds only to find the place buzzing with party people. 3 events were taking place that day
including a beer party thing. its too bad Teej, skarm, DM and Jabba werent with us that weekend.
we get there, trade some cards, gush on some $100 plushies and play some TCG.
CAN YOU SPOT TRAINER DRAGONIGHT?
i also faced Jesus that day (last name on sheet). he was my final opponent before team ha said Funck this, and dropped out of tcg.
after some all around terrible performances, we dropped out of TCG and left the fairgrounds altogether.
we decide it was about time we got some In-N-out. i believe this is a given for California VGC events. you just gotta go man. so huy took me to get my very first ever In-N-out meal
and boy was it good.
after a nice afternoon of chatting over some delicious burgers and shakes, we decide to go play some laser tag. Duy was especially excited and wouldn't wait to get to the laser tag place so he can begin his pistol whipping campaign.
And let me tell you, he ended up getting first place with most kills (no joke). oh that pistol whipping Duy and his hunger for violence
Laser tag shenanigans
Kurt and Duy going at it in-between laser tag rounds.
so after a fun time at the laser tag place, we decide its time to get some pizza, take it home and chow down whiles we start on a long night of team RNG, pokemon abusing and wifi practicing
Team Ha going to town on the pizza before a long night of team building and next day preparations.
Oh by the way, do you remember Huy's pizza tier list thread? well we ordered based on S tier and we did some tiering of our own
The group split in two after pizza.
We had Kurt and Duy in the upstairs......living room area?
whiles Mike and Huy chose to abuse pokemons in the guest bedroom, but the two areas were so close to each other that we all chatted with each other with ease.
we then jumped on Wifi and started owning people as we practiced for the next days competition. Here is a friendly battle i had with Huy before Sunday. we randomly met on Wifi (i know) so my Pokemon Nicknames weren't shown.
I also provided my own commentary.........please keep in mind i am joking around.
This isnt serious commentary. i think i was trying to be funny above all else.
After awhile we realized exactly how late it was, and if we wanted to get a few hours of sleep we had to call it a night. so all laptops were turned off, all DS's shut down and the lights went off.
Not before i got this super cute picture though. Man, huy has a lot of pokemon stuff.
SUNDAY: cosplayer shenanigans
alright, we have now arrived to the good part, sunday. Before we get started, let me introduce you all to my team for the weekend.
I had 2 awesome teams to pick from and i am very grateful to those that made that possible. Both teams had the same Nicknames as a show of my appreciation to those behind the teams. I'll save thanking the awesome people in the "thank you" section. as far as who they are, well, just look at the team and you'll find the answers
Biosci (ZAPDOS) @ Sitrus berry
-Tailwind
-Heatwave
-Thunderbolt
-Hidden Power [ice]
BIOSCI: Named after Biosci for providing me with 4 of the 12 pokemon i had going into the weekend. although i ended up going with the 2nd team that did not include his pokemons, my gratitude still remained. standard zapdos. biosci did a lot of work this weekend :).
DittoAmor (CRESSELIA) @ chesto berry
-psychic
-Thunder Wave
-rest
-reflect
DittoAmor: Named after user Ditto and "love" because thats how i feel about ditto. Thank you Ditto my love, thank you for your hard work in helping provide me with some of the 12 pokemons i had. DittoAmor was the star of my team this weekend, i couldnt have won half my battles without it.
Cybertron (LATIOS) @ Dragon gem
-Draco Meteor
-Psyshock
-Thunderbolt
-Protect
Cybertron: I actually got this team around the time of Pokemon states, way before spring regionals, who would have thought it would eventually become my regionals team. I remember jumping on IRC the day before pokemon states (at the very last minute) and asking if anyone wouldnt mind cloning their team for me so that i may partake in the VGC side event at Pokemon states. Guess who answered my desperate call for help? that's right, ma boi, cybertron. He even stayed up way past his bedtime and took some shit for that from his parents, just to clone and trade with me. This is why Aaron is one of my boys and is welcome join my possi/roll with ma crew anytime he wishes. I want to say that Babbytron is welcome to join my crew anytime as well just for being so adorable, but he is just simply too young. Some of the shenanigans you get into when you're with me, as fun as they are, aren't meant for someone so young, sorry Brendan. I mean, half the shenanigans dont even make it on film, let alone the smogon site.
AlphaOmega (TYRANITAR) @ chople berry
-Rockslide
-Crunch
-Low kick
-Protect
ALPHAOMEGA: Ok let me just start off by saying how much of a beast this thing was during the competition. it tore through many of my opponents and got used more than i thought it would. TTar was named after another one of ma boys, Jeremy AKA AlphaOmega. Although Jeremy did not provide me with any pokemons, he sold me the idea of using a soak shedinja team. it wasnt easy to convince me at first, but over time he managed to and that eventually became one of the 2 team options i had going into the weekend. Thank you again Jeremy and i'll hopefully be able to be there in indy this summer so we may do some more hanging. We didn't really have much time on Sunday anyways :(.
Gec's Hair (HITMONTOP) @ fighting gem
-Close Combat
-Wide Guard
-Sucker Punch
-Fake out
Gec's Hair: GECCCCCCCCCCCC <333333333333333333333, MIN DATOOOOOOOOO ~
<3 Gec <3. Min, can you please give my love to Kinneas as well? i miss him so
Huy's House (GARCHOMP) @ Yache berry
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-Protect
HUY'S HOUSE: Nicknamed Huy's house because this pokemon was dedicated to many people, people that came together under one roof. Huy, Duy, Mike Suleski and Kurt AKA Kaphotics. Thank you for such a fun weekend guys.
We get to the fairgrounds and find a ridiculously long line. Luckly we had pre-registered and did not need to stand in line, but man, for a line that did not even include pre-registered players........wow.
After meeting up with a few other people from smogon that were also pre-registered, we went outside to keep the unprepared noobs company. Seriously though, we could tell the competition would be jam packed. At one point i even thought we went over 300 participants
Thanks to the sheer number of participants that day, it took forever to start the competition. We waited for hours, and i mean HOURS. round 1 began between 12 noon and 1 pm i believe (correct me if i'm wrong). So we had about 3 hours to fool around,
and boy did we fool around.
LET THE SHENANIGANS BEGIN:
First we noticed some cute cosplayers walking around the building and we decided to take pictures.
First Duy took his picture. He thought he was so cool with his coolness and thumbs up (totally ripping off Marriland)
It was then my turn and i decided it was time to show Duy how its really done.
Now this is how you pose.
Omegadonut, seeing how cool and creative my pose was, decided to out-do Duy as well.
Super cool, 2 thumbs up.
At this point Duy was very unhappy with mike and I. He wanted a second go at it and asked me to take another picture, no way was he about to be out done by the likes of us.
^_^. such a boss
at this point, others were beginning to notice mike, Duy and I having so much fun with the cosplayers and decided to join the cool kids, to join in on the fun.
PHOTO-BOMBING 101: A lesson with Professor Ninahaza
so whiles everyone else joined in on the fun, i decided to have my own fun and try to photo bomb as many pictures as i could (and others noticed and joined me as well, haha, so much fun)
That Ass of mine
Haha, Kathleen and Mike :3. also i think this picture was being taken by an official staff.... didn't mean to photo bomb any official pictures that were meant for the Pokemon website.....forgive me bigdaddysnorlax
Oh i am such a naughty boy, Bruno joined in for this one.
MAN, its so sad that i had a bigger ass than those girls (dont you dare say its because i'm black). that booty ~
after all of that good, harmless fun, we decided to troll the VGC forum next. We decided to post some fake updates as well as a sentence about Duy being disqualified (it was all Huy's idea I SWEAR)
Duy's DQ shenanigans
After all the fun and fooling around, we broke up and mini groups started forming all over the place. We were all getting sick and tired of waiting for the competition to start.
Researchers Photo (Kathleen with some more photo bombing shenanigans)
Kurt, Mike and Nixhex
The wait was starting to take its toll on all of us. we had SO.MANY.PEOPLE
Finally we get an announcement about VGC. with everyones hearts lifted, thinking the tournament was finally about to begin, we were then told to GTFO instead.
no seriously, we were kicked out v_v. now for some pictures of us outside, wondering wtf was going on.
Shenanigans!
This is a video mostly focused on the chats going on whiles outside. Camera angles were TERRIBLE.....watch to listen i guess
after awhile, we were finally called back in and pairings went up. it had finally began.
I am going to try my best to recall the battles. if anyone battled me and i get something wrong, please feel free to correct me and i'll edit it in.
ROUND 1
Round one i faced a nice guy. i was nervous and shaking all over. In an attempt to calm me down, he told me this was his first year and that it was ok, we were all nervous. He asked me if this was my first year as well and my answer was "no, i've been playing since 2004"............................... i could already see the expression on his face changing.
he had a good stuff team just like me, except his team centered around his ICY WIND Cresselia. he lead metagross + Cresselia and i led cresselia + Garchomp. I immediately saw through his strategy and made perfect prediction after perfect prediction. i won easily, gg.
Record: 1-0
ROUND 2
There's a battle video. thanks to kaphotics for saving it and uploading
Record: 2-0
ROUND 3:
my memory is starting to get shaky; i wish i had a video for all the rounds :(.
i remember this opponent was someone from smogon, zari? oh well. He had a raindance team along with ferrothorn. I had faced this team 2-3 times on random wifi, but it was against Japanese guys.... i didnt lose to it on wifi and i didnt lose to it this day either :).
this game was filled with hax on both sides. he led with raindance leads and i went with Zapdos + Cresselia i believe. i got a critical hit heatwave and he missed leech seed from his ferrothorn. he would later turn around and DOUBLE FLINCH me from rockslide. In the end however, all hax aside, it was i who would claim victory.
Record: 3-0
I check in on Omegadonut and discover that he too was undefeated so far, 3-0 record. i check in on the Ha brothers and my heart sank, they had both suffered a loss, and so early on as well.
Duy was pretty down, reflecting on his loss. He was probably replaying the battle in his head in order to figure out what went wrong (like we all do i bet)
Although Huy wasnt showing as much emotion, i knew he too was a bit down. Before i could cheer either of them up however, pairing went up and it was time to continue battling.
ROUND 4:
I dont remember much of this battle. he had garchomp on his team as well as metagross, and i too had brought my garchomp along.
The only reason i even remember that much is because this game was decided by a speed tie between his Garchomp and my Garchomp. Fortunatley for me, i went first and ultimatley took the win. gg
Record: 4-0
ROUND 5: vs KATHLEEN
My heart sank a little, i would have to face Kathleen this turn. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but i also knew from the start that it would be a difficult road to the top. She leads Sableye + Zapdos and i believe i led Cresselia + Tyranitar with latios and zapdos in the back. i had a funny feeling she would use sableye and that it had the move will-o-wisp, so i didn't want to bring too many physical attackers.
HOWEVER, the poke-gods must have wanted me to win badly because from turn one i haxed Kathleen and it didnt end there. after thunder waving zapdos, it was fully paralyzed each turn until i took it out. she missed a bunch of will-o-wisps amongst other things. it wasn't pretty. i take my win but feel sorry for her.
Record: 5-0
Huy went around collecting money in order to order some pizza. We were all starving and gladly paid him. Nixhex's Girlfriend kindly offered to go pick up the pizza for us, and thus she was forever dubbed "pizza girl". thanks again for your kindness pizza girl :).
by the time round 5 was over, the pizza had finally arrived and some of us had already started devouring it
and everyone else just watched, drooling as we ate the pizza (nah, we were nice :). the pairings went up soon after and i was off to face my next opponent
ROUND 6: vs MikeyFromSantee
this guy would end up coming in 2nd, but i felt that it should have been i whom got to face Nickscor in the finals that day, allow me to elaborate.
first off, i dont hold anything against mike. He turned out to be a pretty chill guy and earned all his wins. ok now to the battle.
Mike had a very good rain team. he lead ludicolo + politoad with Musharna and Kingdra in the back. I saw he had a scizzor in team preview and i knew how dangerous that thing was to my team (between all the berry eating and weaknesses). I went with Cresselia + Zapdos with Latios (water/grass resist + it had Thunderbolt) and Hitmontp in the back (intimidate for scizzor, just incase).
After a long battle, and i mean long (battle was decided by time), it came down to a situation of "time about to run out". we had just 1 more turn to decide things. i still had all 4 of my pokemon still alive whiles he only had 3 left. I had cresselia + latios out and he had Kingdra + a paralyzed musharna out. i decide to stall that last turn out and win with numbers. i protect on latios and go for the rest on cresselia. It came down to a surf. With my cresselia at around 40% health, his kingdra uses surf and i knew it was over, i had it in the bag. Cresselia would easily be able to take that surf, even in rain, and rest up for the win. however, my heart sank completely as i witnessed a crit from the surf on cresselia. cresselia faints and the game ends. its now a 3 vs 3 pokemon remaining situation. even then, i felt confident i would get the win seeing as i had a FULL HP ZAPDOS in the back + my other 2 pokemon, but the game gave him the win................. he accompanies me to one of the refs and we try to sort this mess out. in the end the final word was that the game calls it pretty even and that its final decision......well that was it, it had final say.
with me replaying that surf crit on my cresselia over and over in my head, i started to feel bitter about losing to hax, despite the fact that i haxed Kathleen to death not to long ago. My spirit was broken as i went into round 7.
Record: 5-1
ROUND 7:
I came into this battle mentally unprepared. i couldnt stop replaying that moment from the previous round in my head, that surf crit haunted me to unhealthy levels. My round 7 opponent had a trick room team. He lead Dusclops + volcarana with clamperl and Scizzor in the back.
The poke-gods werent done with me as this game just made things worse. in this battle, my opponent would end up getting a double protect not only once, BUT TWICE. sigh, at this point i was just ready to give up. he got a double protect on his volcarana, and later on he would get another double protect on his Clamperl (although he did go ahead and tell me during that turn, that he mis-clicked, or something along those lines). with the odds so strongly in his favor, he rolled over me with ease.
Record: 5-2
at this point i couldnt tell whether what i was feeling was anger, bitterness or hatred towards how much this game relies on luck. i had my head down and did not even want to talk to people. yeap, i was acting like a class A baby.
ROUND 8:
There's a battle video. I came into this round not being able to make up my mind on whether to give up and just play for the sake of finishing, just play for fun at this point, or whether i should muster up whatever remained of my shattered confidence/believe in myself, and FINISH STRONG. Which did i go with in the end? lets watch the video and find out.
PS: high prediction battle, i was impressed at both of us.
With that, the tournament was over. Despite all the hax my final opponent got against me and the whole "me being in shambles after losing to hax back to back", I would end up with a final record of 6-2. I finished strong, But still, even then i felt that i should have been the one to face nickscor in the finals. I felt like i was cheated out of the chance thanks to losing to hax, but now i realize just how childish all of that was. i really was acting like a big baby (i didnt show it, not even a hint, but it was happening).
The final rankings go up and i wonder if i made top 10, or even top 12 out of ALL THOSE TRAINERS, but most of all, if i made top 12 so i could get a sweet prize hehe.
YES, WOOT BABY. i was glad to see Badintent had made a comeback from his 1 loss and even almost made top 4. Oh well, at least he would be part of the people to get prizes
Mini Picture dump from in-between rounds]
hehehe, oh metabou
:). thank you guys, it was great meeting many of you for the first time. I will hopefully see some of you this summer
TOP 4 mini ceremony:
The top 4 are crowned.
This is the part where we carry Nickscor in, haha. seems like carrying champions is becoming a thing now.
so after the top 4 are crowned, Duy asks me to get a picture of him and
KANU-SHO
i couldnt resist, i too wanted a picture with the one and only
KANU-SHO
Yo man, i really hope you make it to nationals :).
so then the top 4 line up to receive their prizes and sign stuff
Then the top 12 line up to get their prizes, i quickly join the line ^_^. after prizes where handed out, i got some pictures with fellow winners.
~_~
^_^
xD
:3
Alex and i always get a picture together, ALWAYS. its become a thing now. You better make it to nationals, I SWEAR IF YOU DO NOT
Mike, a champion himself, talking to fellow champion Nicksor
So as people started saying their goodbyes, i had a crazy idea. I decided to go around getting ass shots of people that where in the group that day :). i shall remember you all by your asses.
WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
so with that, we said our goodbyes and headed into the sunset.
It was another fun vgc event and another fun weekend.
actually it was more like, we got some boba tea, then Huy Dropped Mike off because he had to catch a 8:30 plane. After dropping Mike off, we went to grab dinner. The team of 5 had sadly turned into 3 now, just Huy, Kurt and myself. the weekend really was over. after grabbing dinner, Huy dropped me off at the airport. i Got out, got some hugs and then watched Huy and Kurt drive off into the night.
CONCLUSION:
Unlike Omegadonut, my flight wasnt actually until 6:30 am on Monday. Huy had dropped me off around 8:40pm on Sunday. I didn't want to trouble him with waking up super early to drive me to the airport, plus this had been the plan all along. I now had two options.
1: get some sleep at the airport, or
2: Write my warstory or make a video
i decided to go with option 2 and stay up all night making videos. i did what i could on my laptop, i even included the real conclusion in the last video i made. its towards the end. I think i am addicted to making "airport" videos with one of my favorite songs ever. i also made a similar video for nationals last year.
~ CONCLUSION ~
Thank you
I wont make a shout outs list. each and everyone of you were awesome and i had a blast meeting and hanging with you all. I will however thank a few people
Bluecookies, AlphaOmega: thank you for helping me build and decide on a team through PO. thank you Jeremy for soak shedinja team and thank you Ray for taking the time to answer so many of my questions.
Ditto, Biosci, Cybertron: thank you for providing me with the 2 teams i had, for providing all 12 pokemon. I appreciate your hard work and kindness
Kurt aka Kaphotics:thank you for your help with Nicknaming, battle saving, etc etc. it was great meeting and hanging out with you, let us do it again soon.
Huy Ha and the entire Ha household: thanks for providing me a warm bed among many other things during this entire weekend. Thank your parents for me Huy, and pet the dogs for me, yes, even Pichu. hahaha
ugh, i feel like i am forgetting someone(s) or something. I'm too tired i guess v_v