It Runs in the Family- A San Francisco Warstory

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Hey guys, my story of the San Francisco is pretty uneventful when compared to my trip to Seattle with my Ducks. But here it goes. There’s no longer a point in hiding my team seeing as how everyone saw it, however I kind of want to keep the moves I did not use a secret. So sorry about that guys J.

As you all may know, Huy took the San Francisco Regional last year, so I felt pressure that we both, or at least he, had to do well. I just came in relaxed since I already qualified at Seattle and decided to just shoot for the DSi. Not many of you knew me at all, except that I was Huy’s little brother.

The Trip:

Like I said, this was pretty uneventful. I leave Davis Friday evening after saying bye to my fellow floor mates. As I leave, they all pretty much tell me, “You can’t come back unless you bring home a championship.” From there, I felt like it would be a good weekend. I pass out in the car until we get home and I pretty much just relax to “Naturally” by Selena Gomez. We head out the next morning at 10:00 A.M. after I throw on my Mighty Ducks shirt and pick up my cousin and take the 20 minute car ride across the Bay.


GAME TIME:

We arrive at the venue and immediately get stopped by someone who asks for a picture with Huy and I. We find out that it was actually another Smogonite. We walk down the line until we are stopped by PBB and BadIntent who welcome us. We relax in line when TAY comes out of the venue and hang out with us. Rory eventually shows up and takes TAY to Quizno’s while my parents bring Huy and I some Burger King. More hanging out until Destructoid comes to interview all of us. I barely remember what they asked, except me answering that The Mighty Psyducks stand for being strong, fierce, powerful, and of course mighty. DANUKES, Sidd, and more people show up and the line moves in. Huy, TAY, and I start lagging in line so we do not face people we know. We register and get into line, and at the moment I was nervous as fuck.


My Team:

“Patty Cake” the Cressellia @ Chesto Berry
-Protect
-Icy Wind
-Helping Hand
-???

“LRDMT” the Groudon @Focus Sash (yea!)
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- Rock Slide

The job of these leads is to basically Icy Wind the opponent to make them slow first turn while protecting with groudon, and GO TO TOWN the next with a Helping Hand Blitzkrieg. Focus Sash is there to insure that I will at least get one move off, which caught EVERYONE off guard, but that’s the point. Randomness wins championships.

“MLA” the Kyogre @Wacan Berry
- Protect
- Blizzard
- Water Spout
- HP Flying

Take advantage of the Helping Hand blitzkrieg with Water Spout and Blizzard, and if needed HP Flying to get rid of opposing Toxicroaks, Sheddy’s, and Abomasnow’s.

“Liuser” the Abomasnow @Choice Scarf
- Blizzard
- Grass Knot
- ???
- ???

Clean up what my other Pokemon can’t. Hail will instantly kill Sheddy’s and I pretty much spam Blizzard. As you can see, I control the weather with my Pokemon, so that they have a harder time executing their strategy.

So now onto the battles…

Round 1:

I face Carson, a guy wearing a bandana who I think I recognize from somewhere. Possibly he played last year, but for some reason he looked really familiar. He led with Scarfogre and Ludi, which played into my hands since I got my weather off. He switches out Kyogre while he fakes out my Groudon to no avail because of my Protect.. Next turn I Helping Hand my Groudon’s attack and do a nice chunk to Kyogre who switched in for Kingdra. From there, I knew that I had it since Scarfogre was the only thing I was worried about since I controlled the weather. Good game Carson.

Round 2:

A close match against a guy named Noah. That’s all I can say. Usual leads against his Aboma-Two lead. He switches out Aboma for Gira as I do my usual move. Get off a pretty powerful Earthquake that does not kill anything since he protected with Mewtwo and Gira vanished instantly. I continue my assault that brings Mewtwo close to dieing and a chunk on Gira. Cressellia dies and Groudon eats it too, so it’s up to Kyogre and Aboma to sweep the rest. Some stuff happens and it’s his Mewtwo and 1 HP Metagross left after an endure vs my low HP Groudon and full health Kyogre. I think to myself, he’s gonna explode, but his Mewtwo already protected the turn before and so did my Kyogre, meaning Groudon would not be able to take Mewtwo on since he got ride of the negative effects of Icy Wind by switching prior on. So I double attack, he tries to protect, fails, Custap Berry kicks in, and explodes on all of our Pokemon. He loses to Self-KO clause, but the lady says it’s a draw, so I tell them to get Devin since Self-KO clause is intact. They get the Devin that’s not Marriland and I’m pretty sure we were both close to being named losers, but Marriland comes and says that Self-KO clause is intact and that I won. So good game Noah.

Round 3:

After those shenanigans I’m about to be paired up against DANUKES. So we both tell the guy leading us to stations that we do not want to fight each other since we are friends. Nick the emcee of all the events agrees and tells the guy to place us separately. I’m waiting at my station and then I see BadIntent coming and I’m like “Oh Fuck, we aren’t supposed to be facing each other this early.” I signal to him to ask the guy to not let us fight and he nods, and the guy leading him to the station looks at me funny because I seem to have a shit load of friends. So the guy finally signals a guy to my station and looks at me while I just go, “It’s OK, he’s not one of my friends J” He recognizes the Ducks shirt and I could sense that he was scared.

He leads Zapdos, Latios, while I stay with my normal leads. I try to Icy Wind, but Zapdos gets a Thunder off, paralyzing my Cressellia which prevented me from getting the Icy Wind off. He Dragon Pulses with Latios next turn, gets a crit, and what do you know? Focus Sash kicks in. From there I want Groudon to die so Abomasnow can start spamming Blizzard. And I don’t remember much else. Good game.

Round 4:

One more and I finally get to take a break I think to myself. Compared to Seattle, this one was being a lot more difficult. I meet my opponent Davis, who looks like Huy apparently from the back. So TAY and Rory, who have already advanced to the Finalists Lounge are thinking throughout the match, “Oh shit, Duy’s playing Huy.”

He leads Groudon, Cherrim. I Icy Wind and realize Cherrim can kill me with a powerful Solarbeam. I Helping Hand and Fire Punch to make sure that thing is dead. He sends out Weavile and I take an Ice Punch as I Fire Punch again to take out Weavile because I realized that Groudon is Scarfed and locked into Rock Slide, not doing much to any of my Pokemon. He then sends out Ho-Oh and a brain fart occurs where I think that Ho-Oh does not get any powerful spread attacks. Cressellia dies so I send out Kyogre to cut the sun and Water Spout and Rock Slide, but Ho-Oh protect and I kill Groudon with Rock Slide and Water Spout. So then he Earthquakes with Ho-Oh and I’m like “Oh crap it gets earthquake” Since I took a full power Earthquake which killed Groudon, I was scared that it would do a massive chunk to Kyogre making it’s Water Spout do not enough to put it in range for Aboma, but it does enough for Aboma to kill it next turn with a Blizzard. Good Game Davis.

Finals:


Finalist Lounge:

We get to relax for a good hour before we had to battle again, and all I wanted to do was sleep. I was saddened by how DANUKES was eliminated in the third round. But a lot of people also did not make it into the Finalists Lounge with us, including Sidd, BadIntent, and PBB but was excited to see that the Ducks were still four strong in Huy, TAY, Rory, and I. Nick McCord gives TAY his shirt to wear for the rest of the event. They call us back at 4:15 and they tell us that 29 made it to the Lounge, so 3 people will get byes into the Top 16. I was sadly not one of them and had to keep fighting. Before my match began, Nick was interviewing Jeremy Fan, World Champion of last year on who his favorites to win were. He told Nick that either Huy or Duy will win, so I felt motivated to make Jeremy proud.


Top 32:

I don’t even remember this battle. I just wanted to advance as fast as possible to avoid having to face any of my ducks. I just remember me doing my blitzkrieg. He sent out a Sheddy at the end and my Hail killing it while he protected.

Top 16: I’m in Nationals… Again

I arrive to see that my opponent is one of the people who got a bye. Thinking to myself, I just want to finish this battle fast so I don’t have to face any Duck. He leads Dusknoir and Clefable so I can tell instantly it’s Follow Me Trick Room. I Patty Cake my Earthquake and do a nice chunk of damage, including KO’ing his Dusknoir before he can get the Trick Room off. I think I had it pretty handedly by then. I then proceed to move on to the first station in the Orange section, my battle area for the rest of the tournament.

Top 8:

By now, I’m pumped up to have made it this far again. I was saddened by the fact that Huy, TAY, and Rory were eliminated. I face Joel, who was a good opponent. I do not remember much of the battles, but I remember he faked out my Cressellia, which made me think I was done for. But I forget what else happened in the battle except that my Sash kicked in and it was my Kyogre and Aboma versus his Palkia. I finished it off and was very excited that I had won a DSi. I had to relax since I was hauling ass that the other 6 were still battling. They put Deagle vs. Chris Tsai on the bigscreen, while I waited for an opponent. The staff member told me that I wouldn’t be facing a guy who just finished, but I’d be facing the winner of FMasamune and another guy instead of the winner of Deagle vs. Chris. So I just chilled in the back getting to know the staff member I talked to. He ended up telling me how he was a TCG player years past and that he got the job by having connections with Liesek. Deagle and Chris are done, and then they pair me up with Deagle, so I walk over to the big screen after the staff member wishes me luck and that he’s rooting for me. And so I entered the zone…

Top 4: This one’s for you Firestorm…

I lead normal and he leads Toxicroak, Palkia. I protect with Groudon to prevent a Fake Out, but he switches to Kyogre and I get an Icy Wind off. That Surf did a shit ton damage to a Kyogre which led me to believe that Palkia was Specs’d. So I proceed to Helping Hand and Earthquake while he surfs with his Kyogre, which was Scarfed seeing as how it out sped my Groudon after an Icy Wind. I’m pretty sure he gets excited to see me die until THE FOCUS SASH KICKS IN. I hear a “oh…” from him as the crowd goes “OHHHHH!” It kills his Kyogre and brings Palkia damn near death as he gets off another Specs’d Surf. I’m down 3-2 at this point and am starting to doubt myself. He sends back in Toxicroak while I put in Liuser and MLA. I stop to think of all his options. He is at -1 speed on his Palkia so I will definitely out speed it. However, he has a Fake Out coming probably, so I need to do something with both Pokemon of mine. I choose to double Blizzard, which was the safest move since I wanted Palkia dead and deal damage to Toxicroak even if he faked out one of my Pokemon. I’m surprised when he does not Fake something Out and my Blizzard goes through and I kill his Palkia and his Toxicroak freezes. Now, I know what you guys may think that I pretty much haxed him out here, but here is my view. My Blizzard immediately missed after that freeze, which meant that if I did not get the unlucky miss then I would have killed it normally. However, if I did not freeze him, I recall him saying he targeted my Kyogre, which meant that it would not OHKO my Kyogre, even with Life Orb. However if he had Choice Band, then it had a chance. Now if he targeted my Abomasnow, then maybe it would have come out different. But he sends in Abomasnow as his last Pokemon. And I know I have this in hand. I Blizzard with Abomasnow and HP Fly his Abomasnow for the win. I did something I normally do not do, which is yell out in joy a nice and fierce “LET’S GO” as this happens. I’m in the finals.

Finals: It was a good game… both teams played hard.

I face Matt, a guy from LA. I found out later that he was the one who beat TAY, which meant I had to avenge my fallen Duck since Ducks fly together. He leads Hitmontop, Palkia, which damn near made mye shit my pants. A HITMONTOP.

Turn 1: I do my usual move but he fakes Cressellia out, which leads me to believe that everyone seriously hates Cressellia. It did quite a chunk. He gets off a trick room. I’m thinking that I am kind of screwed since he will probably Mach Punch my Groudon breaking Sash.

Turn 2: To my joy, he tries to Sucker Punch Cressellia, but it failed. Helping Hand Earthquake does massive damage to everything, but does not kill anything. His Draco Meteor missed, but I would have gotten the Earthquake off anyways because of my Sash.

Turn 3: I just want that Hitmontop dead. I decide to protect with Groudon and Icy Wind with Cressellia to get it to die, but it used Detect. Palkia still cannot pull off a Draco because I protected.

Turn 4: He breaks Sash by Mach Punching (which killed itself due to Life Orb damage) the Groudon and trying to Draco, but another miss just happens. I felt bad for the guy. A time like this to have Draco miss twice. Sad day L. I end up killing his Palkia with another Earthquake. From there, I know I have a big upper hand.
Turn 5 and 6: He sends out Togekiss and Metagross. Counting in my head, I double Protect to get rid of the effects of Trick Room as he tries to Bullet Punch and Grass Knot. From there, I count Metagross as the biggest threat because a well timed Explosion could very well cheat me out of a trip to Indianapolis. I Earthquake and one shot it as he tries to Grass Knot.

Turn 7: I know I have it now because my Abomasnow can clear it with Blizzard, but first I need Groudon to die. You’ve served me well Groudon. I decide to Helping Hand Fire Punch because Nick McCord was asking about fire type moves in the sun to Marriland, so I let Nick see it. He kills my Groudon with Togekiss and Grass Knot.

Turn 8: I send in Abomasnow, and I Helping Hand Blizzard the Togekiss. Right when the HP hit 0, I could not believe that I just won.


And Finally:



I shake Matt’s hand and I tell him I hope to see him in Indianapolis. All of the top 4 get their pictures taken and are awarded our prizes. I get interviewed by the PR of TPCI and they actually tell me that they might get IGN or Destructoid to do a story on the Ducks because they thought it was cool that we had a lot of people across the country in the group and that the group had already taken two regionals. But nonetheless, I go home with trophy in hand with my family, still in shock that I just won it all.



Props:
- Venue being only 20 minutes away from my house.
- Support from family and friends.
- Huy, Zerowing, and myself for building this cool team.
- Focus Sash Groudon
- Great matches all day
- Nick and Marriland for being great hosts.
- Jeremy for believing in me.
- Meeting Smogonites
- Ducks



Slops:
- Hax playing into the Finals... still sorry about those misses Matt :(
- Not enough Ducks in the top 8 :(


If I can I'll come back and add pictures. Hope you enjoyed reading this!
 
You know, that Thunder hax paralysis wouldn't have happened to your Cresselia if you had given it a Lum Berry instead of Chesto. The fact that you don't have Lum on any of your other Pokemon yet still use Chesto on Cress makes me think that its fourth move is Rest. Am I correct?
 

Xia

On porpoise
is a Contributor Alumnus
Every time I read one of these it makes me want to try the VCG. :cloud:

Great comments and here's to seeing a Duck go all the way!
 
Every time I read one of these it makes me want to try the VCG. :cloud:

Great comments and here's to seeing a Duck go all the way!
This. I'm now officially going to go to this next year. Unless I quit Pokemon, which is not going to happen.
 
Great job with the sash Groudon. That was a good one. And you won with it! Making random a winner.

Somewhat like Arti's Parasect team...

Anyway, congrats, hope to see you again in Indy.
 
To makes matters worse, the hax followed me throughout the whole trip back home, causing me to lost like every single battle with my friend. It's all good though man, no need to apologize over something that wasn't in your control. Though luck did play a factor in your victory, it all comes down to you have a better team, and being a better strategist in this. I predicted incorrectly most of the match, and I constantly went after the wrong Pokemon, so it cost me the match.

Good luck in the Nationals! You better damn well sweep the competition in the Nationals too (unless somehow we're facing each other again in the finals over in Indianapolis... in which then I'll be getting sweet revenge).
 
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