Alaka's VGC Adventure

Status
Not open for further replies.

Alaka

formerly Alakapimp
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Nationals

So yeah I was planning on writing a full warstory and stuff but I kept procrastinating so now its just pictures and some bits of info.


Me and gigantic monster pikachu

After arriving on thursday we (my mom and I) got to St Louis and took the metro on which I up with my first tcgers, we went into the convention center were I saw gigantic Pikachu and met up with Vash.


Me and the arch


The pods of death in the arch

Thursday we went to the arch were we caught a ride up on the tiny glowing pods to the top of the arch and looked at the city


Tyler422 and his brother Jared in the ball pit at the city museum


Me and Tyler on the rope swings

Friday Tyler422 arrived and we went to the city museum, which is more of a giant grown up dangerous playground than a museum, with a ton of slides and caves and stuff.


From left to right, Vash, seattle winner Raze17, me and sixonesix before the beginning of battling in the green flight

Saturday we went up to the convention center and tyler registered for the random draw, for which he was picked, and I got my flight. I was a little nervous because our flight seemed pretty difficult with three regional winners (myself, Raze17 and Zerowing) not to mention vash, and sixonesix and someone ipl said was pretty dang good from the randown draw.


Me and my first opponent Amante

My first round opponent was Amante who used a dark void smeargle that almost won the game for him but my metagross managed to wake up just in time after a long sleep to explode and win me the game.


Me and my second opponent

My second opponent used a combination TR and SS team, but because she led hippowdon and bronzong I was able to taunt bronzong and win the game from there.


Me and sixonesix playing in our third round match

My third round opponent was sixonesix, we had battled with these two teams a couple times before and I had had the advantage those matches but he barely edged me in a close match, out of respect for him I won't give anymore details than that.


Me and my fourth opponent

Suprisingly this was my easiest game, not quite sure how he got to 2-0, but his team wasn't all that competitive, using heat wave staraptor and a crunch drapion. The match was relatively easy dispite a double crit burn one turn.


Me and my final opponent, Chris, winner moves on

Surprisingly I don't remember this match at all, probably because of the hack checking incident just prior but anyway I won in a not to close match assisted by some hax.



The four world qualifiers from our green flight, including vash six and me


Me and Mingot

After are battles they put up the sheets and we found out who got to move on, and then quickly learned who from the other flights. All the smogon people then met up and went to lunch at planet sub where we overwhelmed the one employee there planning on making just a couple of sandwiches that day.


From left to right, me, my mom, tyler, tyler's mom, and his brother

That night we ate dinner at Pi a famous pizza place, and then frozen yogurt at Fro-Yo. The yogurt place was pretty cool, you filled your bucket with whatever flavors you wanted and then topped it with toppings from the topping bar, including fresh fruit and nuts.

[image removed on request of an identified user]
From left right, top row then bottom, Vash, NestW, sixonesix, slimceagirl, mingot's daughter, imperfectluck, somebody I don't know, the fourth qualifier from the green flight, my first round opponent sunday, omegadonut, me, Nick (fly aero, mistball+psychic latias kid), Huy (Batpig), another old guy I don't know.


Me playing omegadounut

Finally to end my nationals experience omegadonut knocked me out in best two out of three after I won the first game with the final one being a very close match






Regionals


So unlike some people I have no long commute, no last minute team cramming, or close calls at not getting there, but I also didn't have any losses, so I thought it was worth a warstory.

The night before I played (and hosted) a few of our Smogon Live tournaments, on #smogonwifi which helped boost my confidence a bit and gave me a bit more practice on rain, which was invaluable. After putting together my team sheet and necessary documentation for the next day I went to sleep around midnight. I woke up about 6:30 and made sure everything was together before heading out to Arlington at 7:30. When we arrived they hadn't started letting people in the center yet so I waited in a long line outside next to a slightly mentaly disadvantaged girl who kept telling me she wanted to pet or hug the piplup doll. We finally make it up to the sign ups and I got #7 - Squirtle wristband, a good number since I would get to know very quickly if I was picked. I got a muffin and water and headed out to a bench just outside the center where I met up with Tyler 422 who took all of the pictures in this thread.

We waited and talked for an hour while they did all of the sign ups and then headed back into the center, they hadn't started putting up pokemon names yet so we went and got our picture taken with Marriland.


Me and the amazing Marriland

When they finally put up the numbers I saw 1-6 and 11-14 missing one number in between due to someones oversized head. At that point I lost all confidence that I had made it but when the numbers came around again I was lucky enough to be the one number in that 5 number gap. We then headed over the the line until we got close to the end when I dropped back to sidd's suggestion to avoid playing Tyler422. But now on to the real exciting part, the matches. But first my team.

Gengar@Lum
-Shadowball
-Sludge Bomb
-Taunt
-Protect

Garchomp@Yache
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Sandstorm
-Protect

Mamoswine@Life Orb
-Ice Shard
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-Protect

Zapdos@Leftovers
-Discharge
-Heat Wave
-Thunder
-Detect

Match 1 - Round of 128

My first match was relatively uneventful, he lead with Swampert and Aerodactyl. Me not liking chances for flinch hax or things outspeeding my leads I shadowball and Dragon Claw'd his Aero after all it had a chance to do was rock slide for little damage. I don't really remember what happened from there but I won 3-0.


Match 2 - Round of 64

I was fairly confident from the beginning as he lead jolteon and poryz, but became even more so when garchomp out sped his jolteon and brought it to its sash and jolteon attacked protected gengar. Poryz then used Blizzard which missed. Next turn, now not fearing the jolteon due to its complete lack of speed I sludge bomb'd poryz and EQ'd killing both. He then sends in Salamence and something else I don't remember, I killed the other poke with gengar and protected with garchomp who he dragon claw'd. Next turn his lax incense cause my dragon claw to miss and sludge bomb didn't kill. He then critted garchomp to kill it, but I brought in Mamo and ended it with ice shard before any more hax could happen. Again, I win 3-0.


Match 3 - Round of 32

This person was clearly better than the others as he had one made it this far, and two led with a real team of Ludicolo and Jolteon. Rain Teams in general don't scare me all to much, but Jolteon Ludicolo the least. He set up rain while I sludge bomb'd the Ludicolo who surprisingly survived (this had never happened in practice but occurred twice on the day of the event). From here its a cloud but I kill his kingdra in a lack of rain due to Sandstorm and then ended up 4-1 on his lapras who took two sludge bomb's and two EQ's to kill during which time it killed garchomp and I won 3-0.


From left to right: Tyler422, annoying new york kid, and my final 8 oppenent Wesley, all in the finalists lounge


Me and Tyler422 lounging in the finalist lounge

Final 16 time, they send me into the lounge where I sit and talk to Tyler and the irc, while Sidd spazzes and tells me I'm going to battle Tyler. I was number 15 for the Final 16 and was the last one other than my opponent to be sent out to battle.

Match 4 - Round of 16

This match was against the second of three rain teams I would see that day which plays a large part in my confusion over the battles. This one was against "yellow shirt guy" so named because of his world finalist 2006 t-shirt which was very intimidating (he is also imawario). He led with azumarill and something else which died before I could really commit it to memory. The azumarill set up rain while I attacked and killed the other. He aqua jetted my gengar which survived and Garchomp killed the rain with Sandstorm. From there again the match is a blur but I know that I ended up zapdos and mamo v zapdos and azumarill. The azumarill aqua jetted my mamo but it survived and ice sharded zapdos, then fainting from life orb recoil while zapdos discharged and killed azumarill and zapdos before his zapdos attacked me. My zapdos then finished off his for the win, 1-0.


Tyler and I both doing our first round of 16 matches, me against Imawario, and Tyler against annoying new york kid

Match 5 - Round of 8

This was the most important match of the day as it was the one for the spot in St. Louis. This was against another rain team the third one of the day. This one led with jolteon and something else and started similarly to the other jolteon rain team I faced with him putting up rain and me killing it with sandstorm. The next turn he set up rain again which i didn't expect but now I had finished off his leads. He brought in Ludicolo and Kingdra, in the end it came to Garchomp surviving a dragon pulse and killing the rain so that I could finish off his team, 3-0.

Match 6 - Semifinal

I had made it to St. Louis the stress was mostly relieved as that was the main goal for the day. Just prior to the match my opponent told me he was NestW of smogon recognizing me do to my avatar sticker. We had just had a practice match the night before in which he beat me so I was nervous about the battle. I killed both his abamasnow and typhlosion leads with a combination of sludge bomb and EQ. He then sent in his Froslass and Machamp who frightened me. I knew from the battle the night before that his Froslass was not especially quick so I went for the shadow ball on froslass and sandstorm to kill the hail and make killing them easier. Well snow cloak kicked its haxy ass in to play and his froslass dodged my Shadow Ball as he killed gengar though garchomp dodged it. Then his ice punch brought garchomp to yache. I brought zapdos in and finished off his last two but not before loosing garchomp. I won 2-0.


Me and NestW during our semifinal match

Match 7 - Final

I'll go thought the final turn by turn since it is the final and everything. Here is the battle

I send out my usual leads Gengar and Garchomp and he leads with Azelf and Hariyama. Azelf is the most frighting thing for me to see as a lead, because it outspeeds and kills gengar before it moves and 2hko's everything on my team. Because I thought he might overpredict and expect a protect I went ahead and shadowball'd the azelf and dragon claw'd it aswell. Well neither of my attacks went through due to the fake-out and psychic so I was down a clean 3-4 very quickly.

I brought in zapdos because it can handle azelf well enough and I wanted to save mamo for the end game incase he had a dragon waiting in wings. He psychics my zapdos for nearly 50% and but then I kill it with a dragon claw and discharge, both of which critted unnecessarily. Hariyama takes little damage from discharge and then fires of an ice punch that doesn't worry me until it freezes me and leaves me in a worse position than death. With garchomp out there as a lame duck he can focus all of his attacks on zapdos and just leave garchomp there in an ice cube.

I detect with zapdos hoping for one of 2 things and knowing I would get one. I was hoping that either he would kill garchomp and allow me to get mamo out freely to kill sala, or B. he would focus attacks on Zapdos and garchomp would thaw itself. Well neither happened and he got a free dragon dance with sala, thought that didn't worry me too much as even through yache ice shard is a 0hko on sala. I did get the burn damage on hariyama which was crucial to its death.

Thankfully he gets rid of my garchomp with bullet punch and for some reason aerial aces zapdos. This turn was probably the turning point to my favor as an probably uneeded, but helpful paralysis on sala as it took half health damage and hariyama dies.

Now its time to see both of our fourth's, I send in mamo which I'm sure he had mixed thoughts about, knowing he could 0hko it with his fourth golduck but also that it could kill sala before this ever happened. To me his fourth was again mixed feelings. I was thankful to see that one discharge off could likely end the game, but also worried about it killing mamo. Now I had almost no idea what a golduck would do in doubles, I expected it to surf but really had no idea so I double protected to scout his plan and gain some leftovers recovery on zapdos. Then the unexpected but beautiful happens, he endures with golduck hoping to take the discharge and gain salac boost and EQ's with sala, probably not expecting it to go through, but it does go through and sends his golduck to the brink.

Now I expect that after seeing EQ on sala that the reason that he aerial aced zapdos was not due to brightpowder concerns but because it was the only attack that would even touch zapdos because he had protect as his fourth, and when is the best time to protect but when you are facing death but your partner could with an attack that would otherwise hurt you kill your assailant. So being relatively assured of the protect I went ahead and Ice sharded golduck for the kill while discharge did nothing. Now even without all of that prediction ice sharding golduck would have been the best move, because I knew it was in kill range and so if sala didn't protect it could either attack zapdos (and not kill it due to a lack of dragon claw) or attack mamo. Even with a crit on zapdos one would be left alive and finish off sala, but they were both alive and I finished off sala even more easily winning 2-0.


Capt. K and I during our final match

I was then interviewed by the MC and by the people for the go-pokemon article, filled out paperwork for receiving a cash prize, and took a picture with the rest of the final four.


Me being interviewed by the MC

Afterwards I actually had kids ask me to autograph things for them, and I recieved a few challenges from kids feeling they could beat me, most of whom did <_<.


Me and my plaque
 

Tyler

No Longer Live
won the 1st Smogon VGC Tournament
first post. LOL. Congrats. I wish I could of "mashed" *haha in my head* that New York Kid.
 
Nice warstory, let's just hope we don't get paired with each other at StLouis.

Also, are you mexican or white?
 
Alakapimp, how good were the IVs of the Zapdos you were using? I'm looking for a better one than the one I have. :P Unless you have mine, in which case lol.

Anyways, congrats on first, and good luck in St. Louis and beyond! Hopefully if the cards are all played right(and with a little luck) I can be there to compete/watch as well; only catch it I have to be taken as someone's guest and then get in via the lotto. >_> So that's probably not happening.

anyways, congrats, and I'll try to get on Irc a bit more.
 

Alaka

formerly Alakapimp
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Alakapimp, how good were the IVs of the Zapdos you were using? I'm looking for a better one than the one I have. :P Unless you have mine, in which case lol.

Anyways, congrats on first, and good luck in St. Louis and beyond! Hopefully if the cards are all played right(and with a little luck) I can be there to compete/watch as well; only catch it I have to be taken as someone's guest and then get in via the lotto. >_> So that's probably not happening.

anyways, congrats, and I'll try to get on Irc a bit more.
the zapdos is syberia's, its given away as a prize during smogon live turnaments on the irc, so you could win it then
 

Jimbo

take me anywhere
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Pretty nice. Wow that Tyler422 kid is obviously a combination of Twash and me. Me because of the 422 and Twash because ... he looks really similar to him!!
 



Congrats Alakapimp! Nice read.

I'm sorry but this photo is just HILARIOUS! I know its not ala but OMG!
 
I feel bad for that kid...
but LMFAO. What was with his team?
Kingdra, Gengar, LUXARY? *sigh* I hope PA is really this easy for my brother >.<
 
In the second pic on the Match 3 section, see that kid on the right cutoff in the yellow shirt? thats me.
 
Is that really Marriland? lol NOT what the fanboys are imagining.
This.

I can't believe that is Marriland. I imagined some enigmatic guy in a cloak who bleeds pokémon when you cut him.

But the reality is a chubby ginger guy :S Hmm. My love for pokémon has been shaken tonight.

But ah well, congratulations Alakapimp!
 
Marriland looked like a character out of wacky races O_O
That said, he is great at commentary and even showed up with a little micro-phoned headset to prove it xD.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top