Apex 2013 - Cash Prizes for Pokémon at World's Largest Smash Bros. Tournament

[SHUCKLE MAN]

Originally Posted by Fat Eraddd

evan and ray doing a strong commentating job.

I agree the commentating was very good. They kept it interesting even during those times when the players took a long time to choose their moves.

[BlakDragon]

Yo that 4-0 comeback in grand finals. That team composition for Volcarona is so stronk

[[K-12] The Madchine]

Congrats Ben7000.

[MikeDecIsHere]

Ben smashed god damn. Sorry Aaron

Nice meeting everyone today. 9th place not too shabby, even though I got bodied when I lost in losers haha

[Bass]

I only tuned in briefly as I don't play very much Pokemon these days, but the commentary by evan and Ray was superb. Very much on par with what I would expect from some of the professional casters in other e-sports.

[Cybertron]

Gave Ben a run for his money in our first set, then just could not find any way to beat his Volcarona/Latios combo in the grand finals. Great games, and it was a ton of fun, thanks everyone!

[Hulavuta]

Congrats to everybody,

I thought Evan and Ray did a great job commentating too. Some really good insight by Ray but I felt like Evan was just stating the obvious. Although it is probably just because we know so much about the game already. I suppose it's helpful for people who aren't as knowledgeable, for example not every viewer might know that when two weather starters are out, the slower Pokemon gets their weather up. So I guess in that case, Evan did a great job of being able to keep less-knowledgeable viewers informed about what was happening.

[onionchowder]

Hey Smogon,

I'm mostly a Melee player, but I tuned in for a lot of the Pokemon livestream. The commentary was lively and informative, though I wish Ray did more analysis; having the players able to hear the commentators seems like a bit of an oversight. Are there other Pokemon tournaments with livestreams and commentary? I'd love to see more of this kind of stuff.

[inanimate blob]

Where can one currently view the Pokémon livestream? They mentioned it, but it wasn't touched on again.

[MikeDecIsHere]

It's over now

[Cybertron]

Apex 2013 Winners Semis - tad38 vs ben7000 - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Winners Semis - Cybertron vs iss - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Losers Quarters - Cypher vs iss - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Losers Quarters - tad38 vs Big Shofu - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Losers Semis - iss vs tad38 - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Winners Finals - Cyberron vs ben7000 - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Losers Finals - ben7000 vs tad38 - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Grand Finals - Cybertron vs ben7000 - Pokemon

Apex 2013 Grand Finals Set 2- Cybertron vs. ben7000 - Pokemon

[smashlloyd20]

thanks guys, I need to watch archives later! Are the full results anywhere?

[tlyee61]

Originally Posted by Fat smashlloyd20

thanks guys, I need to watch archives later! Are the full results anywhere?

http://nuggetbridge.com/news/pokemon...-2-pm-pacific/ has top 8 of Pokemon

[Pokemasta77]

Damn. Finally a tourney real close to where I live and I just find out about it :(

[evan]

So finally getting around to posting a little something about this. Day started off kind of rough, bunch of organisational and communication issues but ultimately I think things worked out. I'm really happy people stuck around to check out the end of the tournament as we got to broadcast some really great matches there to close it out. It did get very late and I was pretty exhausted for it but I think that Ray and I managed to keep our energy up regardless and I hope y'all at home were entertained. Of course congrats to the top three placers (Luke, Aaron and Ben) and extra congrats to Ben for a dominating last three sets (Going 6-0 to win the tournament? Incredible). It was really great to see everyone, especially people like tad who I won't get to see next week at Regionals (Regionals? Next week? YAMS) and those that I don't normally get to spend a lot of time with at an event like Nationals and completely new people that I've never really interacted with even online (MikeDec, etc).

I really appreciate everyone's feedback on the commentary portion. I'd like to take a moment to sort of talk about where I was coming from in this (and really most) tournament. Since unlike the Nugget Bridge Major or International Challenges Nugget Bridge has been covering we would be catering to an audience that was much larger than our friends, I wanted to make sure that we focused on some of the things that seem like second nature to those of us on Nugget Bridge or other sites (I think weather wars was brought up re: this and I actually had people talking to me before the tournament that they didn't know the slower weather ability got their weather set up so I made a point of talking about that) to keep people in the loop. Also, I was casting alongside Ray. I don't think I'm as terrible a player as i (repeatedly) let on in the cast, but I am compared to Ray. There was no way any of my insight would match whatever Ray had, so I focused on letting him talk about the deeper aspects of the game while I made sure that some of the newcomers could keep up, either by filling in the gaps or prompting Ray to explain himself a little more thoroughly. I think it worked out very well and Ray was a true champ throughout.

Also, I can't even begin to explain how amazing Chibo and Clash Tournaments' setup was. Multiple cameras and professional gear (though those headsets ruined my hair!!!) and Chibo being behind the boards meant that Ray and I could focus on the games and casting and not worry about anything else. Scott and I talked about this a little bit during the International Challenge w/r/t the work Cathadora was doing, but I seriously cannot overstate the importance of a "producer" type role for these casts. Only thing I would have changed would be to place the players farther away so that they couldn't hear us, but that only became a problem at about 2 AM when everyone else had already left and it was probably unreasonable to assume that we would make it all the way to 2AM anyway.

I think that about wraps it all up for me. Please continue to let me know any comments you have on the cast/ways I can better myself going forward.

And don't forget to follow @NBplaid!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mekkah**]

Incredible casting job, guys. As someone who might get into VGC this spring this was really what it took to get me interested. The camera angles and the two of you adding to each other just made this so easy and accessible to watch and follow. Even from the spectator's POV it felt really intense, a great sight to see high level players duke it out and perform so well in a consistent manner.

The only criticism I have is that the APEX bar on the bottom of the screen was blocking out some of the text. It didn't take away that much since you can mostly tell what it says and even if you can't there's an animation, but that is one thing that might further improve production value if you can do something about it.

As someone who has tried before on TCG matches, it's really hard to talk almost non-stop during a game (or during a moment of pause) and keeping it interesting, but since you guys (especially Ray) have so much to talk about due to understanding the game so well I almost kind of didn't want the battlers to follow up with their next move, since I wanted to hear more analysis!

so yeah Gamespot this is how it's done

[Joeyboy]

Commentators are awesome! Seriously made these, I'm genuinely interested in learning vgc doubles now :)

[Gbosley]

Wasn't able to be there. What happened? Any highlights?

[Gymdude]

Those were some really great matches. Gives me ideas for my next team :)