HOLAAAA I am cute user sapppppphireeeee birch! Most of you have probably seen me posting around here or on the skarmbliss PO server. I've been playing vgc seriously since 2010. I made a name for myself during the 2011 season as the "small white girl" on the server. I got top 16 at the newark regional that year and didn't do very well at nats so I was determined to improve a ton by the next year. In the down time I played in smogons NPA and SPL tournaments where me and my teammates were able to win both! I think playing in both these touraments made me a better player as a whole and I met great people along the way. Fast forward to now I've been practicing like crazy. Going from being confident to thinking i'd get bodied. Before I get into the bulk of the warstory there are some shout-outs I need to do because these people helped me SO MUCH in the past few months:
Now to the main parts:
Weeks coming to the event I had to figure out a team and every year I decide my team last minute this year I wanted to do it different. Me and tristan(pacostames101) devised a team and on paper it was really solid and we were very proud of it. We both took the team to regionals and the team was:
(I won't be posting full movesets and evs but I will tell you what roles they served) : also if you guess where all these nicknames are from I will love you forever
Now onto the event. Friday my friends peter, jonathan, and tristan bus to philly to meet up with chibosempai and he drives us to a smash player friend of myself and chibo. Vex kasrani. We stay in a big empty room for the weekend and get ready for tcg the next day. I make a reshiram/typhlosion deck for chibo and a kyurem/feraligatr deck for peter with our leftover cards. I decide to play celebi/mewtwo/tornadus with virizion in my deck. The next day we all enter tcg. after a long day and me forfeiting 2 games to my local tcg friends I drop out the tournament. Hang out with cybertron and meet up with knights of wario land and my friend zeroxjustice(some may remember him as the guy who cosplayed red at newark 2011 regionals and got top 4). We chat a bit and go back to vex's place getting ready for the real main event the vgc. We wake up early the next day so I can bring a team to a friend in the senior division. I then meet up with everyone from smogon/skarmbliss: wolfey, enfuego,tds, trainerthegr8,jivetime,kinderlew,human,dtrain. We all hang out for a bit get registered and then meet up with ditto,solace,biffster,the wolf,jio and cypher and seniors pungent fruit,superpokemon67,hitmonrocker,iss, and drifblim. Masters gets delayed since we have over 350 players so we watch seniors play out. Some seniors like sp67 and hitmonrocker get haxed some rounds which cost them. But pungent fruit cybertron and driblim bossed it up! All getting top 4. Right after that they announced they would have 2 flights for masters and a top 4 cut from each. Eager to see who's in what flight we all are upset to find out almost everyone from smogon was in the pink flight. Which included myself,human,kinderlew,dtrain,OminousOppressor,tds,trainerthegr8,jivetime,solace,ee,shinkou,mosquito,the wolf,jio, wolfey,ben7000,tehderek, and EVERYONE I traveled with. Saddened we were divided and that we had to practically kill eachother just to get top 4 in our flight which only meant top 8 as a whole. the hype this regional got as the hardest regional was very true. I'd even say our flight was the hardest regional. Anyway we get started.
Round 1: bye
Yep I got a bye. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. Yes a free win is nice, but I wasn't sure how it would affect my tiebreakers which would matter A LOT since this flight would be so tough.
Round 2: guy in a team rocket shirt
This guy was telling me about how he saw all the smogon members together and was intimidated hoping he'd avoid them all. He asked me if I was any good and I just replied "I don't know really". I had kinderlew, human and enfuego talk to me and the guy realized I was part of the smogon group. Lol
The match started he lead with froslass/clefable and I lead wth thundurus/hitmontop. I switched thundurus to volcarona to take the incoming ice beam. And close combat the obvious follow meing clefable. But instead of the ice beam I was expecting I got a blizzard outside of hail. Volcarona avoid but hitmontop gets crit/frozen! I was pretty shaken but he didn't have an answer to my qiver dancing volcarona. He tried to thunder wave it but I had the lum. Volcarona then swept through his team of clefable,froslass,bronzong, and gorebyss.
Round 3: vs a smogon lurker.
This battle was haxy on both ends. I lead gastrodon/volcarona to his chandelure/cress. He shadow ball crits my gastrodon as his icy wind misses my volcarona as I quiver dance. And he misses a heat wave on my volc too. After gastrodon dies I send in latios and sweep the rest of his team which included rotom-w and abomasnow. 3-0
Round 4: vs ZeroxJustice
I'm very upset I have to play a friend. He tells me he's been waiting for this battle for awhile and looking at team preview I'm scared of the suicune he has. He leads suicune/terrakion vs my hitmontop/volcarona. Already a bad start. I see his terrakion has white herb so I know it doesn't have sash. I protect with volcarona and close combat the terrakion. But he protects and scald's my top. Thank god no burn. Not a goos start though. Trn 2 I wide guard and quiver dance. He makes the mistake of icywinding AND rock sliding giving me a free turn. Next I repeat my first turn and he doesn't protect terrakion and rock slides instead he scalds my protecting volc and rock slide FLINCHES my top who was going to CC the terrakion. Next turn I wide guard and bug buzz suicune. He close combats top and scalds volc. Top goes down and I send in latios. He switches terrakion for something I don't remember but I end up sweeping with latios/volc. 4-0.
Round 5: vs Human
Another friend I didn't want to face. Looking at his team I feel unconfident he has politoed,metagross,thundurus,terrakion,latias and ludicolo I think
He leads thundurus/metagross to my top/scizor. Another bad lead matchup. After some switching around and his thundurus survivng draco meteor and him zen headbutting my hitmontop on the obvious switch I knew the game was over. Scizor crit his politoed but it didn't matter as the game was already won. It was a good game and I was outplayed. 4-1.
Round 6: vs Expert Evan
Another smogon member! I see his team and I see a ferrothorn which my team handles very well and a gliscor which my only answer to was latios and gastrodon since my thundurus didn't have hp ice. We both lead hitmontop/latios but I know my is slower since I'm using hp fire. I fake out his latios and switch to gastrodon. I then switch top for volcarona and icy wind with gastrdon as he switches top for ferrothorn. Gasrodon tanks the draco meteor and next turn I bug buzz his latios which was the biggest threat and protect with gastrodon. He protects with ferrothorn. He sends in rotom-w. I know I have the match won since he can't hit volc with gastrodon there. I heat wave and ko ferrothorn and he forgets about gastrodon and hydro pumps into the storm drain. I win from there. 5-1.
Round 7: vs Trainerthegr8.
Another friend and smogon user! Give me a breakkkk:( didn't want to face him. We start and I lead latios/top to his ttar/gastrodon. I fake out ttar breaking a chance at a sash and draco gastrodon koing it. He sends in latios. I switch latios for gastrodon and cc his protecting ttar. He dragon pulses gastrodon revealing life orb. He then psychic ko's my top and ttar rock slides flinching my gastrodon! A key turn since I was going to icy wind. I basically lose from there since I can't outspeed his latios with my last mons since my latios is slower. He wins from there and my run ends! 5-2. I'm saddened since I didn't do as well as I liked. I sat there looking sad for a bit letting it all sink in haha I hope it didn't seem like I was mad at you gr8!
Sadly trainerthegr8 didn't make the top 4 but the top 4 of our flight was wolfey,jivetime,human, and ben7000. I end up getting a 14th place. not bad but I didn't feel to proud. On the bright side my friend peter whom I had given a team too and hasn't really played competitive much also went5-2 and got 12th place and I am proud of that! Everyone else I traveled with didn't do as hot but it was a fun weekend nonethless.
I stayed around to watch top 8. The other flight's top 4 included civ,biffster,chilebowl and 1 other person. Our flights top 4 had to play the other flights top 4 and all of the pink flights top 4 won their matches. Which ended up with these semi final matches. Ben7000 vs wolfey. And jivetime vs human. Jivetime and wolfey won their matches to get to the finals which jivetime won. Congrats to all of them!
It was a great weekend and it was tons of fun I can't wait to see everyone at nationals.
Post shout-outs!
Again congrats to wolfey,ben7000,human and jivetime on their top 4.
I'm gonna miss you all
cya at natss.
Zachdro/Lucien Lachance/Epic demise/Infinity.Cypher/wolfey) : I always practiced with these guys on the server the most and they always help boost my confidence. I talk to zach about teams a lot and I always get good input from him. No shocker to me he won his regional!
GEC/Chaser/all my teammates in spl/npa: these guys always cheered for me and made me feel at ease. GEC being the cutest brit of all time supporting me throughout npa and chaser forever supporting me all these guys were great helps along the way.
Team Chodesmugglers(namely ryuzaki, cybertron, OminousOppressor, human) : these guys all helped in different ways. Getting team ideas and just being pushed as a player to meet up to their standards. Ryuzaki helped me test teams sometimes(EVEN THOUGH SHE MEGA HAXED MY MUK TEAM) and I think I get the best practice playing her. OminousOppressor always gives me great advice and human gives me set ideas. Cybertron is always in my corner and we always bounce ideas off of eachother in both tcg and vgc!
Chibosempai/pacostames101: these guys were my other source of practice. We always gave eachother ideas and tested teams(even though I was mainly the one giving team ideas) me and pacostames ended up testing and calcing a team together which lead to our team at his event. More on that later.
GEC/Chaser/all my teammates in spl/npa: these guys always cheered for me and made me feel at ease. GEC being the cutest brit of all time supporting me throughout npa and chaser forever supporting me all these guys were great helps along the way.
Team Chodesmugglers(namely ryuzaki, cybertron, OminousOppressor, human) : these guys all helped in different ways. Getting team ideas and just being pushed as a player to meet up to their standards. Ryuzaki helped me test teams sometimes(EVEN THOUGH SHE MEGA HAXED MY MUK TEAM) and I think I get the best practice playing her. OminousOppressor always gives me great advice and human gives me set ideas. Cybertron is always in my corner and we always bounce ideas off of eachother in both tcg and vgc!
Chibosempai/pacostames101: these guys were my other source of practice. We always gave eachother ideas and tested teams(even though I was mainly the one giving team ideas) me and pacostames ended up testing and calcing a team together which lead to our team at his event. More on that later.
Now to the main parts:
Weeks coming to the event I had to figure out a team and every year I decide my team last minute this year I wanted to do it different. Me and tristan(pacostames101) devised a team and on paper it was really solid and we were very proud of it. We both took the team to regionals and the team was:
(I won't be posting full movesets and evs but I will tell you what roles they served) : also if you guess where all these nicknames are from I will love you forever
hitmontop(tomoya):
The standard fight gem hitmontop but ev'd to be pretty speedy
Volcarona(ayuzawa):
The standard volcarona. Hitmontop/volcarona combo is very strong and if unprepared for it WRECKS through teams. Shout-outs to daflo for the idea.
Latios(usui):
Dragon gem draco latios with hp fire with some bulk to survive dark gem sucker punches from hitmontop.
Gastrodon(nagisa):
Super bulky gastrodon. Had enough bulk to tank draco gems and fight gem combats with ease. It was there to icy wind and beat rain and rotom-w
Thundurus(sunohara):
the 2012 version of ray rizzo's world's thundurus. The EVs and moveset are what made this unique. Best pokemon on the team. Superbulky and annoying.
Scizor(kotomi):
Standard acrobatics scizor with enough speed to outrun cresselia.
The standard fight gem hitmontop but ev'd to be pretty speedy
Volcarona(ayuzawa):
The standard volcarona. Hitmontop/volcarona combo is very strong and if unprepared for it WRECKS through teams. Shout-outs to daflo for the idea.
Latios(usui):
Dragon gem draco latios with hp fire with some bulk to survive dark gem sucker punches from hitmontop.
Gastrodon(nagisa):
Super bulky gastrodon. Had enough bulk to tank draco gems and fight gem combats with ease. It was there to icy wind and beat rain and rotom-w
Thundurus(sunohara):
the 2012 version of ray rizzo's world's thundurus. The EVs and moveset are what made this unique. Best pokemon on the team. Superbulky and annoying.
Scizor(kotomi):
Standard acrobatics scizor with enough speed to outrun cresselia.
Now onto the event. Friday my friends peter, jonathan, and tristan bus to philly to meet up with chibosempai and he drives us to a smash player friend of myself and chibo. Vex kasrani. We stay in a big empty room for the weekend and get ready for tcg the next day. I make a reshiram/typhlosion deck for chibo and a kyurem/feraligatr deck for peter with our leftover cards. I decide to play celebi/mewtwo/tornadus with virizion in my deck. The next day we all enter tcg. after a long day and me forfeiting 2 games to my local tcg friends I drop out the tournament. Hang out with cybertron and meet up with knights of wario land and my friend zeroxjustice(some may remember him as the guy who cosplayed red at newark 2011 regionals and got top 4). We chat a bit and go back to vex's place getting ready for the real main event the vgc. We wake up early the next day so I can bring a team to a friend in the senior division. I then meet up with everyone from smogon/skarmbliss: wolfey, enfuego,tds, trainerthegr8,jivetime,kinderlew,human,dtrain. We all hang out for a bit get registered and then meet up with ditto,solace,biffster,the wolf,jio and cypher and seniors pungent fruit,superpokemon67,hitmonrocker,iss, and drifblim. Masters gets delayed since we have over 350 players so we watch seniors play out. Some seniors like sp67 and hitmonrocker get haxed some rounds which cost them. But pungent fruit cybertron and driblim bossed it up! All getting top 4. Right after that they announced they would have 2 flights for masters and a top 4 cut from each. Eager to see who's in what flight we all are upset to find out almost everyone from smogon was in the pink flight. Which included myself,human,kinderlew,dtrain,OminousOppressor,tds,trainerthegr8,jivetime,solace,ee,shinkou,mosquito,the wolf,jio, wolfey,ben7000,tehderek, and EVERYONE I traveled with. Saddened we were divided and that we had to practically kill eachother just to get top 4 in our flight which only meant top 8 as a whole. the hype this regional got as the hardest regional was very true. I'd even say our flight was the hardest regional. Anyway we get started.
Round 1: bye
Yep I got a bye. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. Yes a free win is nice, but I wasn't sure how it would affect my tiebreakers which would matter A LOT since this flight would be so tough.
Round 2: guy in a team rocket shirt
This guy was telling me about how he saw all the smogon members together and was intimidated hoping he'd avoid them all. He asked me if I was any good and I just replied "I don't know really". I had kinderlew, human and enfuego talk to me and the guy realized I was part of the smogon group. Lol
The match started he lead with froslass/clefable and I lead wth thundurus/hitmontop. I switched thundurus to volcarona to take the incoming ice beam. And close combat the obvious follow meing clefable. But instead of the ice beam I was expecting I got a blizzard outside of hail. Volcarona avoid but hitmontop gets crit/frozen! I was pretty shaken but he didn't have an answer to my qiver dancing volcarona. He tried to thunder wave it but I had the lum. Volcarona then swept through his team of clefable,froslass,bronzong, and gorebyss.
Round 3: vs a smogon lurker.
This battle was haxy on both ends. I lead gastrodon/volcarona to his chandelure/cress. He shadow ball crits my gastrodon as his icy wind misses my volcarona as I quiver dance. And he misses a heat wave on my volc too. After gastrodon dies I send in latios and sweep the rest of his team which included rotom-w and abomasnow. 3-0
Round 4: vs ZeroxJustice
I'm very upset I have to play a friend. He tells me he's been waiting for this battle for awhile and looking at team preview I'm scared of the suicune he has. He leads suicune/terrakion vs my hitmontop/volcarona. Already a bad start. I see his terrakion has white herb so I know it doesn't have sash. I protect with volcarona and close combat the terrakion. But he protects and scald's my top. Thank god no burn. Not a goos start though. Trn 2 I wide guard and quiver dance. He makes the mistake of icywinding AND rock sliding giving me a free turn. Next I repeat my first turn and he doesn't protect terrakion and rock slides instead he scalds my protecting volc and rock slide FLINCHES my top who was going to CC the terrakion. Next turn I wide guard and bug buzz suicune. He close combats top and scalds volc. Top goes down and I send in latios. He switches terrakion for something I don't remember but I end up sweeping with latios/volc. 4-0.
Round 5: vs Human
Another friend I didn't want to face. Looking at his team I feel unconfident he has politoed,metagross,thundurus,terrakion,latias and ludicolo I think
He leads thundurus/metagross to my top/scizor. Another bad lead matchup. After some switching around and his thundurus survivng draco meteor and him zen headbutting my hitmontop on the obvious switch I knew the game was over. Scizor crit his politoed but it didn't matter as the game was already won. It was a good game and I was outplayed. 4-1.
Round 6: vs Expert Evan
Another smogon member! I see his team and I see a ferrothorn which my team handles very well and a gliscor which my only answer to was latios and gastrodon since my thundurus didn't have hp ice. We both lead hitmontop/latios but I know my is slower since I'm using hp fire. I fake out his latios and switch to gastrodon. I then switch top for volcarona and icy wind with gastrdon as he switches top for ferrothorn. Gasrodon tanks the draco meteor and next turn I bug buzz his latios which was the biggest threat and protect with gastrodon. He protects with ferrothorn. He sends in rotom-w. I know I have the match won since he can't hit volc with gastrodon there. I heat wave and ko ferrothorn and he forgets about gastrodon and hydro pumps into the storm drain. I win from there. 5-1.
Round 7: vs Trainerthegr8.
Another friend and smogon user! Give me a breakkkk:( didn't want to face him. We start and I lead latios/top to his ttar/gastrodon. I fake out ttar breaking a chance at a sash and draco gastrodon koing it. He sends in latios. I switch latios for gastrodon and cc his protecting ttar. He dragon pulses gastrodon revealing life orb. He then psychic ko's my top and ttar rock slides flinching my gastrodon! A key turn since I was going to icy wind. I basically lose from there since I can't outspeed his latios with my last mons since my latios is slower. He wins from there and my run ends! 5-2. I'm saddened since I didn't do as well as I liked. I sat there looking sad for a bit letting it all sink in haha I hope it didn't seem like I was mad at you gr8!
Sadly trainerthegr8 didn't make the top 4 but the top 4 of our flight was wolfey,jivetime,human, and ben7000. I end up getting a 14th place. not bad but I didn't feel to proud. On the bright side my friend peter whom I had given a team too and hasn't really played competitive much also went5-2 and got 12th place and I am proud of that! Everyone else I traveled with didn't do as hot but it was a fun weekend nonethless.
I stayed around to watch top 8. The other flight's top 4 included civ,biffster,chilebowl and 1 other person. Our flights top 4 had to play the other flights top 4 and all of the pink flights top 4 won their matches. Which ended up with these semi final matches. Ben7000 vs wolfey. And jivetime vs human. Jivetime and wolfey won their matches to get to the finals which jivetime won. Congrats to all of them!
It was a great weekend and it was tons of fun I can't wait to see everyone at nationals.
Post shout-outs!
Chibosempai/pacostames101/zeroxjustice/peter/jonathan: my traveling partners always fun to hang out with and a big reason this weeknd was fun.
Team seniors: as always super fun to hang out with I hope to see you all at nationals!
Team chodesmugglers/kindergang: I love you guys. You are all the best. Chilling with you all was great as always! Glad we all did really well.
Everyone else I saw/talked to(biffster,solace,shinkou,expert evan, trainerthegr8,jio,thewolf,soul_survivor,stormfront,knights of warioland, and cypher) : it was great seeing you all. I hope we can see eachother at nationals again.
Team seniors: as always super fun to hang out with I hope to see you all at nationals!
Team chodesmugglers/kindergang: I love you guys. You are all the best. Chilling with you all was great as always! Glad we all did really well.
Everyone else I saw/talked to(biffster,solace,shinkou,expert evan, trainerthegr8,jio,thewolf,soul_survivor,stormfront,knights of warioland, and cypher) : it was great seeing you all. I hope we can see eachother at nationals again.
Again congrats to wolfey,ben7000,human and jivetime on their top 4.
I'm gonna miss you all
