Kinny's London VGC Report

[Kinneas]

The day started off lame because it started before noon. I'm not a morning person but I managed to wake up at 8:30 and walked with Havak all of 50 meters from our hotel to the Circus Space where the London Event was being held. Our hotel was literally across the square from the actual event, and we found out later on that some of the staff for the event had actually been staying in the same hotel as us.

After queuing for around 20 minutes, they began to let people in, but not before filling in a team sheet. Here's a rundown of the team I was using.

MYSTERION
Dusknoir @ Chesto Berry
Trick Room
Memento
Rock Slide
Will-O-Wisp

This is obviously where I get my trick room from, and Dusknoir is also given the job of shutting down any early physical sweep attempts with Will-O-Wisp. Memento is really the only move that stands out as uncommon here. I like Memento as it lets me render an opposing attacker somewhat useless, but still keeps them in the fray while Snorlax comes in and sets up. They can either switch out or stay in, but either way they won't be harming Snorlax much.

TOWELIE
Togekiss @ Lum Berry
Follow Me
Protect
Air Slash
Extremespeed

I chose to use Togekiss as I noticed that a lot of people relied on taunt to stop trick room and weren't prepared for a follow me + trick room combo. This Togekiss is incredibly bulky, surviving things such as Abomasnow Blizzards and Weavile's Ice Punch with ease. Extremespeed beats Fake Out Smeargles to the punch and allows me to KO them with ease.
As a sort of sub-strategy, Air Slash and Rock Slide combo provides me with a brilliant chance to flinch my opponents to death.
If Togekiss survives for long enough, it can use Follow Me again when Snorlax comes in to help it set up belly drum. Overall, I just think that Togekiss is a much safer lead than the popular level 1 Smeargle strategy that was all over the place today.

MANBEARPIG
Snorlax @ Sitrus Berry
Belly Drum
Return
Fire Punch
Protect

AWESOM-O
Metagross @ Shuca Berry
Psych Up
Bullet Punch
Rock Slide
Explosion

These are both pretty standard and well known by now. I don't really need to go into any detail.


I got into the actual event and headed straight for sign ups. Entrant number 59, not bad. After getting my wristband I went back over to Havak who was waiting for me and we spent a few minutes surveying the room for other Smogoners. I found GEC stood playing Fifa DS at the far end of the room and Havak went over to Akira and Ace Matador (I think). While we sat around waiting, an interviewer and cameraman approached us and asked me for a short interview. They bore an uncanny resemblance to the TV crew sprites in diamond and pearl and I honestly don't know if it was intentional or just pure coincidence. They asked me how I found out about the tournament and I briefly plugged Smogon, then they asked if I was nervous about anything and I took this as an opportunity to rant about how unfair the "prize draw" system of being selected was.

Interview over and it was nearly time for the prize draw, where I met another Smogon member Underdawg. GEC's number came up early on and he went off to the final registering phase, a few later and Havak's number came up. I waited anxiously as players disappeared all around me. The final 16 numbers felt like an eternity, and finally, 10th from the last, my number appears on the screen. I let out a Flair-esque Wooo! and swaggered over to register. In front of me in the line here I met Wichu, and his brother - who was quite excited to show me his rain dance team that Wichu had given him. I had a quick look at it and told him he was going to win the Juniors easily (I was right!).

Finally, I made it into the main battling area. By the time I'd gotten in, a lot of people had already started battling, and we had to queue to wait for a battling station. As I slowly made my way to the front of the queue, GEC approached me looking disappointed. Apparently him and his opponent were selected for a random hack check, and they decided to disqualifying for "having too many TMs". This seemed very unfair to me, but there was nothing we could do, so I had to stay focused on my match.

Round 1, I'm facing a guy called Knight, and he has me worried for a second as he sends out Abomasnow, one of the few pokemon I wasn't looking forward to facing. His other Pokémon is Vaporeon and I'm not really sure what to make of this, it opens the match by using Aqua Ring, and by now I'm thinking this guy isn't too experienced. I decide to get some damage down on Abomasnow and set up trick room in case I have to bring in Lax early. Togekiss easily survives his blizzard, which I was very suprised about, and I get Aboma down to low yellow health with air slash before setting up Trick Room.
Predicting an Ice Shard I decide to protect with Togekiss and Rock Slide with Dusknoir. Rock Slide KOs Abomasnow and does a bit of damage to Vaps, his Vaporeon Ice Beams Togekiss to end the turn, doing no damage at all.
He brings in Gengar, but it doesn't stick around long enough to do anything, I Air Slash and Rock Slide again for an easy KO. Vaporeon uses Ice Beam on Togekiss for a KO. He brings in Alakazam, and I send in Metgaross.
'Zam focus blasts Metagross but it's left with plenty of health, and it explodes to get me the win.

On to round 2, and I'm pretty confident when I see that my opponent is running a standard level 1 smeargle, trick room team. I quickly eliminate Smeargle with Extremespeed and Rock Slide as he tried to fake out Togekiss. He puts trick room down but I'm not too bothered as I benefit from it too. He brings in Snorlax and knowing that he's going to belly drum, I decide to WoW. It misses and he gets a belly drum in. I decide to try and fix this next turn by using follow me with Togekiss so Dusknoir can survive another turn and burn it. He takes down Togekiss and I use WoW again to burn his Snorlax. It misses again. I'm pissed off now and showing it, and the guy I'm battling let's out a timid "I guess luck is on my side today...".
I decide to bring in Metagross and Psych Up off his belly drum, the same turn I try this though his Dusknoir burns my Metagross with Fire Punch. Both Dusknoir are dead now and Metagross rendered useless, I bring in Lax and he brings in his Metagross. I start protect stalling in hope that he'll foolishly explode, but to no avail. I'm out because of my awful luck.

I leave the battling zone to find that Havak met a similar fate in his match, so we decide to make the most of the rest of the day by chatting with smogoners and friends from other forums.
We stayed to watch the final and I managed to get a good video of it, but YouTube has screwed up the quality a bit.

Pokémon Video Game Championships 2009 - London Final: Sadman vs Andy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3rMyioiAvc
See if you can spot the Smogoners in the crowd.

Pictures soon.

[Tortured_Soul]

Unfortunately, that happens far too often. WoW is essential to Dusknoir but all to often it misses at crucial moments. Unlucky, but hopefully you enjoyed your time there. I like the idea behind the team, you should have won the match in the end.

[porky]

haha love the south park team. Too bad for the hax though.

[Zog]

I think I saw some of that battle on the plasma screen. But I only remember seeing a shiny Metagross and thinking "Kinneas? Where've I heard that name before...?" lol.

[froggy25]

Originally Posted by Fat Kinneas

then they asked if I was nervous about anything and I took this as an opportunity to rant about how unfair the "prize draw" system of being selected was.

The bad news is that someone of tpc told me they would probably keep this system for next year.

That sucks -_-

[Aiklap]

Nice team, And a great stategy. Shame about WoW's bad luck. It's annoying to lose when you could of won.

[Mcn00b]

cool report bro. i was here too.
unlucky hax though...
oh well :\

[Sparkle Sparkle]

Nice report Kinnie :]
Video is awesome. (Y)

[FrenzyB3ar]

Nice report
thanks for the video too...

Its a shame they couldnt do it in Battle Revolution as it would have made the final that much more epic. But props to both of them :)

[scampy]

Wow, talk about unlucky. I think you deserved the win here; after all, both teams were basically identical aside from you being prepared for Smeargle (wheras the opponent wasn't prepared for Togekiss). It's a shame that players are eliminated after a single loss in this tournament, because this looks like a very solid team that could have taken you far.

Originally Posted by Fat froggy25

The bad news is that someone of tpc told me they would probably keep this system for next year.

That sucks -_-

To keep with the South Park theme... this makes me a sad panda. :[

[UltimateUnknown]

Sorry to hear that you were so unlucky but I think I managed to keep smogon's pride and win this thing(yea I am sadman lol).

Anyway I was going to make a warstory sooner or later but since I have like a f**kload of A-level exams in this upcoming week, i guess I will have to wait for that a little longer.

Btw lol, I dont know if anyone realised yet or not but that Meta is BlakBlastoise's metagross, the gengar and swampert though are bred and trained by me.

[Kinneas]

Congrats on winning Sadman, I was a few places behind you in the queue for the first round, I remember 'cause of your awesome hat.
Good luck in San Diego, you're representing the UK now so do us proud!

[Zog]

Lol hey Sadman. I was the unlucky dude from the quarter finals.
The name BlakChrome rang a bell, come to think of it. I would've won the match had that shadow ball not critted, you know. =P
I guess you won though, anyhow. Good luck at San Diego. You did well against Shoe in the final, too.

[UltimateUnknown]

Yea I do remember you Zog from the quarter finals, I remember you saying that crit on Knoir might have cost you the match.

I was ready to taunt your knoir with gar but then I didnt see any reason for you to actually use trick room since your other starter I think was a fast sweeper iirc.

But anyway taunt really did get me quite far seeing as how I was able to shut down all voidgles/lv1 endevoir ones as well and as I had expected, those were VERY prevalent in the tourney.

In the finals though, i dont know why but for some reason it didnt cross my mind that his knoir would use trick room seeing as how camerupt is really slow, I should have used taunt but it didnt really make much of a difference in the end tbh.

[Zog]

Yeah, I had Gengar out alongside Dusknoir. No trick room at all, just rain dance and gravity.^_^
Had you taunted my noir I would've actually broken your sash with rock slide and killed gross, so you played it well in that sense.

And as you may have noticed, the guy to your left without an opponent was Shoe, who got free entry to the semis because Weegee (who'd beaten my brother in round 3) got DQed. Come to think of it, I knew everyone else who was in the semis: Shoe, Biggenz and McSpam.

Does anyone else remember fighting me, come to think of it? Namely the guy I beat in round 3 who was using Zapdos/Electivire/Salamence/Cresselia? He was my only other opponent who looked to at least EV train (Illegal Blissey Guy obviously hacked).

[Cinaclov]

I've gotta stop being so timid and start talking to new people, I missed out on talking to loads of peeps from here. Nevermind, the day was fun, so it was all worth it. I've written up an account of my day on ONM (not really a war story, I lost 1st round :p), I could C&P that here if people really want... Bearing in mind it's mostly just describing the event with pictures, but meh.

[twash]

Unlucky, but at least you had a good day! :D

(sums up today...BAD LUCK)

[Wichu]

Originally Posted by Fat Cinaclov

I've gotta stop being so timid and start talking to new people, I missed out on talking to loads of peeps from here. Nevermind, the day was fun, so it was all worth it. I've written up an account of my day on ONM (not really a war story, I lost 1st round :p), I could C&P that here if people really want... Bearing in mind it's mostly just describing the event with pictures, but meh.

Sorry about that, I was the one who took you out :(
But then I lost in the second round... Your Bronzong Imprison really made me panic, too.

Kinneas, I remember meeting you :D You were pretty cool, and I think I might have glimpsed one of your battles on one of the TV screens.

Anyway, I hope to see everyone again next year :)

[Kinneas]

Both my battles were on the screens and I was quite late to battle in round 1, so there's a good chance people would have seen my battles.
Wichu what happened in your round 2 match? :(

[Wichu]

I was beaten by a Bronzong :( I knew I should have KOed it first, before worrying about the other Pokémon (Staraptor and Gengar were two of them, I think). It came down to my Magnezone on its own against Bronzong and something else. Unfortunately, Bronzong knew Earthquake...

[Cinaclov]

Originally Posted by Fat Wichu

Sorry about that, I was the one who took you out :(
But then I lost in the second round... Your Bronzong Imprison really made me panic, too.

Kinneas, I remember meeting you :D You were pretty cool, and I think I might have glimpsed one of your battles on one of the TV screens.

Anyway, I hope to see everyone again next year :)

Don't worryabout it, it was my mistake with my use of Imprison, I didn't realise the effects ended if the 'mon that used it fainted. Hence it's entirely my fault, which I feel quite at ease about. If it had been hax I might have been abit more upset but as is GG. I'll try and make up for it next year ;)

[d2m]

Originally Posted by Fat Cinaclov

I've gotta stop being so timid and start talking to new people, I missed out on talking to loads of peeps from here.

But being Timid makes you run faster, right? Right?


Seriously, I should start going to tourneys again, I used to do them for Smash Bros and cards when I was much younger (Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon in reverse age order).

[Diesel]

ROFL at Giant Enemy Crab getting eliminated because of a hackcheck.

[gec]

;____;

It was 2 TMs D: it's a shame I never got to try out OmegaDonut's awesome team, but c'est la vie I guess.

[Team Rocket Elite]

Did you actually cheat to get the TMs or were they traded in from another game?