Here is a little precursor before I get to the story of competing, because a lot stuff went down before I could even get to the tournament that almost didn't become reality.
Before I even get to that, the last tournament I was able to play in due to either money constraints or time restraints was the JAA. Proof, I am mentioned in Skarm's war story from so long ago. To recap that tourney in a nut-shell, it came down to my Mewtwo at one HP vs an Extremespeedless Rayquaza, with my Mewtwo knowing Ice Beam in round one, but the six minute timer went out and my opponent won due to time limit's stupid rules. *grumble*
So, flashforward to this year and about two months ago I notice the tournament will be held in Indy for the Last Chance Qualifiers and the Nationals only an hour away from where I live (West Lafayette on Purdue Campus). Due to the bitter taste of losing miserably at the JAA, I talked to my roommates about going to this year's tourney and they convinced me to do so because it would be a blast. They told me, liquor up, go in there and show them my Pokemans, and I couldn't resist. Losing aside, meeting everyone at the JAA was a blast so I decided to hit the grindstone and go this year. Worse case scenario, I have my JAA team to play with so I have a team regardless.
Two months ago I was only working two jobs, marketing for a bar and a game retailer. Plenty of time to drop into retraining a new team, relearning Gen Four since I really didn't care for it, and rediscovering Silver and Gold. After a couple of days, I convinced my roommate Jyunyar to join me in competing (I pestered him to death). So we start learning the trends in the metagame and trying to craft a good team. Then we found out about RNG abusing. It was simultaneously thrilling and horrifying because three weeks ago I started managing a firework store where I work 70 hours a week, which meant my time for actually sitting down and playing were beginning to get smaller and smaller. Besides, covering all the shifts required for me to even compete was expensive. Paying friends and what not.
So Jyunyar and I split up the work load, we would help each out the best we could. He RNGd both of our teams, and I worked through multiple copies of Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, and Silver to get us Master Balls, items and anything else we may have needed. After acquiring all the Master Balls we needed, I then starting grinding through the Elite to get all the moneys we needed for EV training. Then fighting through the Battle Tower for a move Jyunyar needed, and when all was said and done, we finished our last bits of training the night before we took off for Indy.
Thursday June 24th
I wake up as I have had for the last two and a half weeks without a day off and go to my firework store and do my thing, planning on going home right after work to get sleep so we can get up at 5am and head to Indy. At 7:30pm, an hour and a half before I close, I find out I am going to get four pallets of fireworks delivered at around 10pm. . .Luckily, I have great friends and I got home around midnight. But when I actually went to bed, sleep didn't come. NO SLEEP AT ALL O_O
Friday June 25th
After arriving in Indy, we headed straight for the tourney. Took a while to find parking, but we finally found a spot. Now I promised my friends I would drink before the tourney, so I downed two beers on an empty stomach. I bring this up because when we got in line I was more then a little relaxed and was having fun goofing around talking smack, talking with people, finding out who they were, where they came from etc when a couple of guys in Mighty Psyducks shirts walked by the line. Don't remember who was there, but Huy, sorry mate. I was trying to make a joke about how the Mighty Psyducks have become a staple in serious competing and was trying to make a funny about how I didn't wanna have to play you. But, my humor sucks. Whatever. Sorry about that. Moving forward...
So we were chilling in line behind a group of I believe four 13 year old sisters, in front of a dude from Fort Wayne in an IU t-shirt, which I HAD to make fun of (Boiler Up!!), as well as a father and his son who was competing for the first time in the senior division after making it to worlds in the junior division. After killing some time we get in and go straight to battle!!!
My Team:
Gene Star (Abomasnow) Perfect IV EXCEPT for Speed @ Focus Sash
Nature: Quiet
EV: 136 Sp At, 136 Attack, 232 HP
Blizzard
Grass Knot
Ice Shard
Protect
Yusuke (Mewtwo) @ Life Orb Perfect IV
Nature: Timid
EV: 252 Sp, 252 Sp Att
Blizzard
Grass Knot
Protect
Psychic (Ran out of time to get Aura Sphere)
Spike (Metagross) Perfect IV EXCEPT for Speed @ Occa Berry
Nature: Brave
EV: 252 Attack, HP
Explosion
Earthquake
Bullet Punch
Protect
Lupin 3rd (Lugia) @ Leftovers Perfect IV
Nature: Timid
EV: 76 Def, 176 Sp Def, 255 HP
Recover
Protect
Dragon Pulse
Aeroblast
R1 against a 13 year old girl running a Sleep Talk team. She did well for her team, but unfortunately three out of her four characters were weak to a double Blizzard opening. I felt bad about beating her, but it got worse when the Emcee decided to cut off her competitor band and put an X on her hand, realizing her sadness proceeded to put a happy face OVER the X...*face palm* 4-0
R2 against a young chap, overly confident. First time in seniors, swearing and being very cocky. He actually had me very intimidated. His team was well made for trick room, Dialga and a Smeargle with some interesting moves, but I was prepared for such an attack with an extremely slow Aboma and Meta. A random freeze didn't help, 3-0.
R3 against Tyler
Ironically this picture was taken during round one of my sets, and his round two I believe. I am directly to Tyler's left with my hands behind my back (Nervous habit). He will remember a lot more about this match then I will.
Regardless, I took an early lead against his team, but it came down to his Abomasnow versus my Lugia. Now instead of being smart and allowing him to waste his PP by Recovering and Protecting, I foolishly tried to Aeroblast him away, but he got the upperhand and Blizzard me enough to take me out. 0-1.
It was a lot of fun meeting a lot of people. Infinitely better then the last time I competed at a tourney.
I am kind of bummed I couldn't talk with more people, apparently GoDudedette was besides me on one of the rounds and Skarm and I must have walked by each other too many times to count, but I didn't notice. Lame. Besides I had to book early to get back to the firework store. I had a friend covering my shift.
But I could not leave without doing one more thing:
Looking forward to next year.
Before I even get to that, the last tournament I was able to play in due to either money constraints or time restraints was the JAA. Proof, I am mentioned in Skarm's war story from so long ago. To recap that tourney in a nut-shell, it came down to my Mewtwo at one HP vs an Extremespeedless Rayquaza, with my Mewtwo knowing Ice Beam in round one, but the six minute timer went out and my opponent won due to time limit's stupid rules. *grumble*
So, flashforward to this year and about two months ago I notice the tournament will be held in Indy for the Last Chance Qualifiers and the Nationals only an hour away from where I live (West Lafayette on Purdue Campus). Due to the bitter taste of losing miserably at the JAA, I talked to my roommates about going to this year's tourney and they convinced me to do so because it would be a blast. They told me, liquor up, go in there and show them my Pokemans, and I couldn't resist. Losing aside, meeting everyone at the JAA was a blast so I decided to hit the grindstone and go this year. Worse case scenario, I have my JAA team to play with so I have a team regardless.
Two months ago I was only working two jobs, marketing for a bar and a game retailer. Plenty of time to drop into retraining a new team, relearning Gen Four since I really didn't care for it, and rediscovering Silver and Gold. After a couple of days, I convinced my roommate Jyunyar to join me in competing (I pestered him to death). So we start learning the trends in the metagame and trying to craft a good team. Then we found out about RNG abusing. It was simultaneously thrilling and horrifying because three weeks ago I started managing a firework store where I work 70 hours a week, which meant my time for actually sitting down and playing were beginning to get smaller and smaller. Besides, covering all the shifts required for me to even compete was expensive. Paying friends and what not.
So Jyunyar and I split up the work load, we would help each out the best we could. He RNGd both of our teams, and I worked through multiple copies of Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, and Silver to get us Master Balls, items and anything else we may have needed. After acquiring all the Master Balls we needed, I then starting grinding through the Elite to get all the moneys we needed for EV training. Then fighting through the Battle Tower for a move Jyunyar needed, and when all was said and done, we finished our last bits of training the night before we took off for Indy.
Thursday June 24th
I wake up as I have had for the last two and a half weeks without a day off and go to my firework store and do my thing, planning on going home right after work to get sleep so we can get up at 5am and head to Indy. At 7:30pm, an hour and a half before I close, I find out I am going to get four pallets of fireworks delivered at around 10pm. . .Luckily, I have great friends and I got home around midnight. But when I actually went to bed, sleep didn't come. NO SLEEP AT ALL O_O
Friday June 25th
After arriving in Indy, we headed straight for the tourney. Took a while to find parking, but we finally found a spot. Now I promised my friends I would drink before the tourney, so I downed two beers on an empty stomach. I bring this up because when we got in line I was more then a little relaxed and was having fun goofing around talking smack, talking with people, finding out who they were, where they came from etc when a couple of guys in Mighty Psyducks shirts walked by the line. Don't remember who was there, but Huy, sorry mate. I was trying to make a joke about how the Mighty Psyducks have become a staple in serious competing and was trying to make a funny about how I didn't wanna have to play you. But, my humor sucks. Whatever. Sorry about that. Moving forward...
So we were chilling in line behind a group of I believe four 13 year old sisters, in front of a dude from Fort Wayne in an IU t-shirt, which I HAD to make fun of (Boiler Up!!), as well as a father and his son who was competing for the first time in the senior division after making it to worlds in the junior division. After killing some time we get in and go straight to battle!!!
My Team:
Gene Star (Abomasnow) Perfect IV EXCEPT for Speed @ Focus Sash
Nature: Quiet
EV: 136 Sp At, 136 Attack, 232 HP
Blizzard
Grass Knot
Ice Shard
Protect
Yusuke (Mewtwo) @ Life Orb Perfect IV
Nature: Timid
EV: 252 Sp, 252 Sp Att
Blizzard
Grass Knot
Protect
Psychic (Ran out of time to get Aura Sphere)
Spike (Metagross) Perfect IV EXCEPT for Speed @ Occa Berry
Nature: Brave
EV: 252 Attack, HP
Explosion
Earthquake
Bullet Punch
Protect
Lupin 3rd (Lugia) @ Leftovers Perfect IV
Nature: Timid
EV: 76 Def, 176 Sp Def, 255 HP
Recover
Protect
Dragon Pulse
Aeroblast
R1 against a 13 year old girl running a Sleep Talk team. She did well for her team, but unfortunately three out of her four characters were weak to a double Blizzard opening. I felt bad about beating her, but it got worse when the Emcee decided to cut off her competitor band and put an X on her hand, realizing her sadness proceeded to put a happy face OVER the X...*face palm* 4-0
R2 against a young chap, overly confident. First time in seniors, swearing and being very cocky. He actually had me very intimidated. His team was well made for trick room, Dialga and a Smeargle with some interesting moves, but I was prepared for such an attack with an extremely slow Aboma and Meta. A random freeze didn't help, 3-0.
R3 against Tyler
Ironically this picture was taken during round one of my sets, and his round two I believe. I am directly to Tyler's left with my hands behind my back (Nervous habit). He will remember a lot more about this match then I will.
Regardless, I took an early lead against his team, but it came down to his Abomasnow versus my Lugia. Now instead of being smart and allowing him to waste his PP by Recovering and Protecting, I foolishly tried to Aeroblast him away, but he got the upperhand and Blizzard me enough to take me out. 0-1.
It was a lot of fun meeting a lot of people. Infinitely better then the last time I competed at a tourney.
I am kind of bummed I couldn't talk with more people, apparently GoDudedette was besides me on one of the rounds and Skarm and I must have walked by each other too many times to count, but I didn't notice. Lame. Besides I had to book early to get back to the firework store. I had a friend covering my shift.
But I could not leave without doing one more thing:
Looking forward to next year.
