EE's Showdown-NY warstory

[Expert Evan]

As the day started, I had a gut feeling that if I did not go to New York for the Pokemon showdown that I would regret it so my son and I both got there at around 8:45am so we could be alternates at least and try to get in. We were all given yellow bracelets with a lottery number on them.



We waited in front of the Altman Building for about 2 hours which almost felt like an eternity and uncertain as to how this was all going to work out so we met some others outside and Jr. got in a few test battles as he was able to make a few adjustments to his team. Among the ones we did see outside was Silv whom we saw at JAA 2 years ago when Jr. faced him in the first round there.

I'm on far left with Jeffrey Jr. next to me, Silv is 2nd from right. Yes I was wearing a Boston Red Sox cap even in New York City as I had claimed that to be my good luck charm actually to the chagrin of some of the Yankee fans working there.

When we saw the junior division accepted everybody it was so hopeful that we would all get in too but they told us that maybe there'd only be room for 10 alternates in the senior division, so I was almost ready to leave if they did not call us. Noticing there was only what seemed to be a handful of seniors with the invitation bracelet I was starting to feel optimistic when they started raffling our numbers. Jeffrey Jr's last 3 numbers were 188 and I was 122 so it was about after a dozen numbers when they called 188 and shortly after mine was called so there was a brief celebration of our getting in. I would later read that only 4 did not get picked so that must be a big bummer for the 4 of you that could not participate as I hope Nintendo would do something nice for you all at least. One of the early highlights was that both Jr & I got interviewed and pictured later on when we were noticed to be father and son participants. Not only did we get in, we got to meet Pikachu!

We also met up with Kindnugs and he too met Pikachu!

and we met Dialga:

and palkia:


Both of us were assigned to the early flight 1 so while we hoped not to even face each other that at least we not disappoint ourselves by losing out in the first round.

In all honesty, I really did not spend much time putting together my team though I made it based on what I saw posted here before:

Jolly male weavile @ Expert Belt
IV: 28/31/27/27/29/31 (actually bred and EV trained him the day before)
EV: 252 attack/speed, 6 HP
- Fake Out
- Ice Shard
- Brick Break
- Night Slash

Relaxed Bronzong @ Chesto Berry
IV=31/31/31/12/31/0 (stefywefy215's)
EV=252hp/152atk/8def/98spdef
- Trick Room
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Explosion

Modest Male Togekiss @ King's Rock
IV=29/1/25/31/26/31 (Marker's)
252 sp.atk/speed, 6 HP
- Nasty Plot
- Aura Sphere
- Air Slash
- Thunder Wave

Hasty Male Gengar @ Focus Sash
IV=31/31/22/31/31/31 (venom_prince91's)
- Shadow Ball
- Thunderbolt
- Counter
- Explosion

Since I wasn't counting on getting accepted and I had read what some of the other top 8 at LA was using, this team was rather put together in the last day. Anyways the idea for this team was basically to counter many threats and mess up other people's strategies. Here's how each round went from what I recall:

Round 1 vs a young woman
I believe she had a glaceon, weavile, frosslas & mamoswine, essentially an all ice team so with weavile I did fake out on foe weavile and bronzong setup the trick room while glaceon's ice beam was ineffective. My play was quite sloppy maybe out of nervousness but bronzong would manage to gyro ball away while weavile would survive and do some brick breaks even in trick room. On final turn, I switched in gengar while bronzong did explosion on foe mamoswine. I was probably the first to finish my match making me the first senior at showdown-NY to win a round 1 (young woman was first senior to lose), and shortly I saw that Jr. won his match too.

Round 2 vs a young guy with yanmega, flygon, blaziken & swampert
Since I predicted yanmega would do protect so to setup the speed boost, I did the easy thing and ice shard on flygon while bronzong setup the trick room. I forgot how my togekiss got OHKO'd but it came down to sending back in weavile for the fake out while gengar did shadow ball enough to finish swampert. Jr. won his round 2 match also so this was going great.

Round 3 vs Dan (friend of Silv) with glaceon, abomasnow, smeargle and another ice type
Another team with ice pokemon, so I knew what to do only this time with hail so focus sash on gengar won't help. bronzong's gyro ball OHKO'd a smeargle and an explosion while switching in gengar would finish off abomasnow.

Once again, Jr. also advanced therefore making us top 4 in flight 1, so we were both going to round 4 where all we had to each do was win our match and get an all expenses paid trip to Orlando for the finals in mid-August. They checked our games and kept in a plastic bag for round 4 as we were relieved to hear our games were valid as I was a bit nervous that a hacked pokemon or other glitch in my box would spoil everything.

While waiting for the other 3 flights to finish we had time to settle and walk around. I would also meet up with XxBlueCookiesXx and a few others that lurked on Smogon including the one that would win. I also saw mysteryman whom was a showdown volunteer there.

Round 4 vs Diego with rhyperior, togekiss, machamp & blissey
Boy was I nervous and therefore accidentally hit ran and almost got disqualified. They were nice enough to let me continue so long as I chose my same starting 2 again. Things really didn't go well early on as while I once again used weavile's fake out on togekiss and bronzong's trick room setup, weavile was OHKO'd by rhyperior's brick break. Rhyperior & togekiss were hard to take down, and my togekiss could not OHKO machamp with air slash. Just when I falsely thought I had the upper hand when foe togekiss was paralyzed and couldn't move, I forgot he had one more pokemon left and that was blissey so a seismic toss was enough to finish me off and despair me from going to Orlando. My son also lost his round 4 match to XxBlueCookiesXx as well so neither of us won the trip as well.

Bonta-Kun(NY Winner) is on left and XxBlueCookiesXx is on the right before round 6 match

Overall it was a great time and it certainly makes up for my disappointing first round loss at JAA few years ago. I know I could've made some further changes to have improved my chances. Oh well hopefully I will have yet another opportunity.

[jbomber]

hey, its Diego from the showdown. I was really nervous too. I really thought I was going down a bunch of times, but I guess I just got lucky. Explosion!

[makiri]

Boy was I nervous and therefore accidentally hit ran and almost got disqualified.

I admit, I loled.

Nice story, sadly it seems we won't be meeting up in Orlando.

[McLovinn]

Originally Posted by Fat zerowing

I admit, I loled.

Nice story, sadly it seems we won't be meeting up in Orlando.

Doubled.

Very nice story, shame you're not going to Orlando. I wish they'd bring a tournament to England...

[BlueCookies]

Originally Posted by Fat zerowing

I admit, I loled.

Nice story, sadly it seems we won't be meeting up in Orlando.

Tripled. That was a good read EE, and I'll be sure to include that pic of me in my warstory.

[Hikari Meoru]

Yeah, I remember you all there. Sucks you didn't make it. But you guys were entertaining throughout the day, I kept talking to Silv all day cause we kept running into random situations.

[Venom]

I like that Venom shirt, from the guy with the blue hair

also, that palkia is huge, so is dialga, good read

[Havak]

Nice story and pics, hard luck man. But at least you had a fun time :)

[Silv]

Well, I battled Jr. after the tourney for the first time since JAA. This time around he beat me. No luck involved. Switching out Hippowdon at the right time, to make sure my Sunny Day guy was gone before he came in, pretty much did it. I battled maybe ten guys after the tourney. Had two lossses under my belt. So while my team wasn't perfect, I still feel I pulled together something good. In all honesty, looking at the teams in the final, I really feel I could have taken the thing if I didn't make that stupid last minute switch before my battle that costed me the match. I lost to a smogoner here. I forgot what he said his name was. But I'm sure I'll find his warstory thread here.

The whole time I was shaking with adrenaline... I didn't get any sleep, so I drank massive amounts of espresso which combined with the anxiety of the tournament made me come across as cracked out that day. I was running all over Pikachu, yelling things like, "PIKACHU!!! I LOVE YOU!!! I know I may not get in as an alternate, but they told me I may get a chance to meet you!!!!"

Second time Pikachu came out, I was all like, "PIKACHU!!!! Remember when you lost to Lt. Surge, and Ash wanted to give you the thunderstone, but you REFUSED?!?! THAT WAS SO NOBLE!!!!!"

Btw, I'm the blue haired guy in the Venom shirt.

[Shinkou]

This is EE's son and I decided to post my Showdown team in here because I don't feel like writing up my own warstory.

Impish female hippowdon @ leftovers
IV = 31/31/31/24/31/31 (The Forsworn's)
EV = 252 hp/defense, 6 attack
- roar
- slack off
- earthquake
- ice fang

adamant male gyarados @ lum berry
IV = 31/31/31/7/31/31 (Forbidden's)
EV = (bulkydos spread)
- waterfall
- ice fang
- dragon dance
- taunt


jolly female gliscor @ life orb
IV = 31/31/30/25/18/31
EV=252 HP, 70 attack, 188 speed
ability = sand veil
- swords dance
- roost
- earthquake
- ice fang

jolly female garchomp @ brightpowder
IV = 29/31/30/31/31/31
EV=252 attack/speed, 6 HP
- crunch
- dragon claw
- earthquake
- stone edge

I wanted to stick to something Sandstorm related because it's my favorite Pokemon concept. Of course I didn't have time to try the team out on WiFi and just threw it together. Fortunately, it did pretty well with the Gyarados and Hippowdon lead. I had to stick in Gyarados because everyone else was weak to Ice and being a bulky Pokemon that's immune to Earthquake helps too. All my matches until my top16 match with bluecookie were pretty easy as they all were only able to kill a single Pokemon. Sadly the BrightpowderChomp wasn't as effective as I hoped for. Next time I should probably fit in Bronzong.

[Silv]

Look, we can even see Dan in the background with his Weavile.

[TheMaskedNitpicker]

Congratulations on getting into the tourney and I'm glad you had a good time, EE. Your team confuses me, though. You had a Trick Room Bronzong and the rest of your team had high Speed and was frail (with the exception of Togekiss). Maybe there's something here that I'm missing.

[kindnugs]

an awesome time EE and Gouki Shinkou! it was great to meet you guys! great read as well. i hope you guys had as much fun as i did!

[Expert Evan]

Originally Posted by Fat TheMaskedNitpicker

Congratulations on getting into the tourney and I'm glad you had a good time, EE. Your team confuses me, though. You had a Trick Room Bronzong and the rest of your team had high Speed and was frail (with the exception of Togekiss). Maybe there's something here that I'm missing.

Thanks, well I do wonder if had I had a brave weavile with as bulky stats and different EVs instead of jolly would it have survived Diego's brick break that could've made a difference so I could have used it later on when blissey was used.

Anyways it was great to see you too Kindnugs, Silv and others that I met. And Jay, sorry I didn't stick around to watch the finals and congratulations on your victory. I hope you post here so please feel free to, don't be shy.

Edit: extra thanks goes to Stefywefy215, venom_prince91 & marker617 for their pokemon I had used along with The Forsworn & Forbidden for their pokemon that Jr. used as well.

[dtrain]

It was nice meeting you EE. Unfortunate to hear you and your son didn't make it in.

[Expert Evan]

Same here mysteryman as I look forward to watching the finals when they're posted on youtube.

[FDS]

I would laugh if someone from out of the crowd at one of these just yelled "pokemon battle!" and then ran up and jumped on and tackled down pikachu and got it on camera. They would probably be kicked out or maybe even arrested but it would be worth it if they had a second person who got out of there with the video. As a jackass type stunt thing that pikachu is just asking for it

[dtrain]

your request has been granted on the official nintendo thread :)

[ShinAkuma999]

Originally Posted by Fat Silv

In all honesty, looking at the teams in the final, I really feel I could have taken the thing if I didn't make that stupid last minute switch before my battle that costed me the match. I lost to a smogoner here. I forgot what he said his name was. But I'm sure I'll find his warstory thread here.

That's me. Turns out I've never been registered here. I read warstories and analysis articles and calculations and what not all the time, but I suppose I'm just a lurker :). I hang out at http://www.libelldra.com/ more.

My Togekiss was Calm with 112 Defense EVs and barely survived Explosion. I wasn't so lucky in the next round. My opponent was an older guy (about the same age as ExpertEvan) with practically the same team as me. His Bronzong Explosion was no good for business then I got careless and ended up losing to a Chesto Berry. C'est la vie.

Nice to meet you, Silv. Probably see you next year!

[CaptKirby]

You faggot you said you were not there; I even thought it might be you, but I was like 'I do not know what he looks like well enough, and he said he was not coming so'

[nevada11]

Hopefully there's more tournaments in new york city in the future. I would of loved to attend but I didn't think I could get in the way you did. I thought there was a special online test or something?

[timw06]

Hopefully there's more tournaments in new york city in the future. I would of loved to attend but I didn't think I could get in the way you did. I thought there was a special online test or something?

Those who passed the online test and were selected got an invitation bracelet and were let straight in whereas those who didn't had to wait outside until alternates were called - this is what EE did.

Its about time they brought something like this to the other side of the Atlantic...

[Expert Evan]

@CaptKirby: you should've at least introduced yourself, don't be shy.

Yes when I took the online test, I actually scored all 20 questions correctly, but was disappointed when I did not get the invite. Good thing we decided to go to New York to take that chance as an alternate as we certainly did not regret that at all.

[CaptainKishimoto]

Originally Posted by Fat Expert Evan

@CaptKirby: you should've at least introduced yourself, don't be shy.

Yes when I took the online test, I actually scored all 20 questions correctly, but was disappointed when I did not get the invite. Good thing we decided to go to New York to take that chance as an alternate as we certainly did not regret that at all.

If it wasn't you, he'd be super embarrassed. =/

[Marker]

Wow, I just noticed you were using my Togekiss, too bad you didn't make it to Orlando. Still, cool warstory, and I'm glad to see my Togekiss did something. ^_^