TheGr8's Providence Experience
To start this off, I went alone this year because my friend Rhyder who came with me to Newark last June just got a job, and they made him work on Sunday so it was quite unfortunate. I got up at 5:30am, mainly because we found out the registrations were at 8 am. For those who don't know me I'm TheGr8 or some of you now know me as Tom lol. I'm from Connecticut and I love hockey and I went to my first VGC in Newark last June and it was a blast so on with the warstory. After a 45 minute car ride, which was pretty nice actually, we arrived in Providence after picking up some D&D at 7:15. The guards on the bottom floor wouldn’t let us in till 7:25ish so that was alright too met some competitors waiting outside the doors. I go up the escalator, and there I see my buddy Doug who lives a town away from me in CT. I knew he goes to the VGC events, so we talked for a while, and before letting us in they announced that Juniors/Seniors were at 8am, and Masters wasn’t till 11. We were kinda surprised and it was like wow we could be sleeping lol. Regardless, we went into the Exhibition Hall, and I proceeded towards the booth with plushies while texting Aaron Traylor, who was on his way to tell him about the masters registration. At the booth, they didn’t have a lot of plushies to choose from, but I purchased my first one!
PLUSHIE!
By the time we hung around, people from Smogon finally started to show up! I met quickly with tennisace, Sapphire Birch, and ISS. Then Team Aaron showed up as well at this point it was prob 7:50. So once people gathered from Smogon, we sat down at a table and some were doing last minute trades and what not, it was a smogon table lol. Introduced myself to the Smogoners I didn’t meet before like Charzaro, Solace, Expert Evan, His son, etc. We had a long time to wait for Masters registrations so we were watching Seniors and Juniors play. A group of us went down the street to D&D, because I really wanted a Mountain Dew lol and we had an our before the registration starts for us. So we went there quickly and came back to watch the seniors, and then get ready for our registration. The time in between was really fun, being able to talk to everyone from Smogon about the VGCs and everything like that. So we all go over to register at 11, easy with the POP ID thing now. We have about another hour to kill so we just keep watching I believe Seniors which hasn’t ended yet. So seniors ends after a little while Zheng gets second after being Critted, and ISS got 10th in seniors. Then it was time for the Masters to begin. I was pretty excited for the Swiss format, which was really awesome to keep playing! We get the rules read to us, then our pairings go up! I really shoulda took notes in battles, because I can remember most things, but some not their names I guess. Here are some pictures while we waited for the masters! We also had a great talk with Mike L during the Seniors games, about the future for VGC and just things about RNG and what not.
with Sapphire Birch: Sucha chill dude as well
iss vs Zheng: it's the cute battle!
with tennisace: MY NAME IS LOWERCASED IN ALL INSTANCES
with ExpertEvan: good game EE it was fun nice to meet you!
with Solace Photo credit:EE: candid?
with Cybertron: finally we got a picture bro! :D good to see you again
First the team I just learned how to shiny RNG everything 2 weeks before the VGC so I decided to do 5 pokes shiny :)
Mia the Politoed @Wacan Berry
Nature: Quiet
Ability: Drizzle
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect
Chaos the Toxicroak @Focus Sash
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Dry Skin
- Fake Out
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Protect
Zapdos @Sitrus Berry
Nature: Timid
Ability: Pressure
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power Ice
- Detect
Urge2Dance the Ludicolo @Absorb Bulb
Nature: Modest
Ability: Swift Swim
- Surf
- Giga Drain
- Ice Beam
- Protect
Cybertron the Metagross @Occa Berry
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Clear Body
- Bullet Punch
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Protect
Derpmega the Yanmega @Life Orb
Nature: Modest
Ability: Speed Boost
- Air Slash
- Bug Buzz
- Hidden Power Ground
- Detect
The reasoning for the nicknames are for people who helped me shiny rng, and who helped me in general with parts of my team. Derpmega was for Rhyder who couldn't make it. I just ran a rain team, which it worked out well and I felt pretty comfortable with it.
Note: I prob should have taken notes during the battle, but you learn I guess. at Philly I will be deff be taking notes to make the warstory even better :)
Round 1 vs: Can't Remember his name
His: Musharna-Amoongus-Chandy-Conk
Mine: Yanmega-Toxicroak-Poli-Zapdos
At first looking at his team, I knew it was going to be trick room, the one thing that I was worried about all day. Before the masters started Sapphire Birch really guided me in a way of beating TR teams, since I've had a problem with them before hand. Anyway I lead with Yan and Toxic and honestly don't remember what happened. I know he had trick room out for a while, and taking out his pokes with some bulk on mine, Yanmega came in handy for taking out Mush and damaging Amoonguss. It came down to Conkeldurr and Zapdos, he was guts burned, and he went for the Mach Punch on Zapdos? and I tbolted and it did about 3/4 damage and then was able to detect to stall out TR and win 1-0.
1-0
In between this round we had to go for the hack check, where the whole Sapphire Birch thing happened at our event and that was crazy looking for Mike, but the rest of us had to go play so that kinda sucked and it was cleared up on here a few days later.
Round 2 vs: Joe
His:Mienshao-Dragonite-Absol-Scrafty
Mine: Toxic-Zapdos-Poli-Yan
From his team, I was like alright let's do this and I saw Absol which I was like I love that. Anyway he fakes out my Toxicroak and I go for the HP Ice on Dnite, forgetting about Multiscale :/ He set up a DD and I'm like oh crap. From here it gets blurry but I do know that I take out his Mienshao pretty easily, and Dnite is an issue. Toxic and Poli are out there vs Dnite and Absol, I go for the Drain Punch on absol and ice beam on Dnite, I know Poli fainted and I took out Absol. I can't remember how yanmega fainted but I know it was down to Scrafty vs Toxicroak which I had rain up and he was a DD Jolly Scrafty. He got the one DD in earlier, and his Ice Punch after that boost didn't do too much I just had to pray I didn't get frozen. So last play I protect with Toxic, and get my health back, and right here I should have double protected because he was at half health, and I woulda had enough health if I tried for the double protect to live an Ice Punch if it didn't crit or freeze, and take him out, but I didn't so I congratulated him and wished him good luck!
1-1
At this point I was a little disappointed because I should have went for the double protect, but I put it behind me and used it for reference later on.
Round 3 vs: Cameron
His: Crobat-Rhydon-Cradily-Regigigas
Mine: Poli-Ludi-Toxic-Meta
When seeing his team, I knew what to expect from a few pokes like Cradily to block my surfs and actually use Gastro Acid on Regi. So anyway he leads with Crobat and Rhydon, I lead with Poli-Ludi, because I have no fears of setting up my rain now, and I double protect the first turn to see what he wants to do, kinda predicting him to switch out Rhydon early, but he didn't so yeah. The next turn he does do that though, and I went for the Ice Beam on Crobat with ludi, and Surf with Poli and he brings in Cradily, that's not a problem, I get my boost as well with Ludi and it takes out crobat after being hit with x-scissor on ludi and living with like 40 Hp or something. So at this point I was kinda worried about loosing ludi this early in the match but I kept him in with poli. So he has Cradily and Regi and I have my Ludi and Poli. He uses gastro acid on Regi and theres some stalling here because I recover health with ludi and he does the same with Cradily, so i take out Cradily finally after hitting it a few times and he has Regi and Rhydon. He still hasn't taken out my ludicolo yet. I giga drain Rhydon and KO it, and he KO's Politoed who has taken a lot of damage. I bring in Toxicroak, fake out, and surf. The surf, drain punch to finish the game. I wished him good luck and I said how much I liked his idea!
2-1
Alright, I'm 2-1 and I'm feeling pretty good at this point, day has gone well so far, we go to the pairings and I'm with everyone from smogon, and I know EE is 2-1 too and guess what. we are playing against each other in r4.
Round 4 vs: Expert Evan
Video
The video is commentated by me, and it pretty much explains what happens there. It was a fun battle and one I enjoyed the most that day. I ended up losing but it was pretty good.
2-2
Round 5 vs: Kyle
His:Zapdos-Lickilicky-Garchomp-Latios
Me: Politoed-Toxic-Ludi-Meta
Well I was 2-2 and I was trying to shake it off, from the preview I saw a pretty nice team and a poke that was my first shiny DW RNG Licki :P Anyway the leads were his Zapdos and Licki vs Politoed and Toxic. I'm pretty sure I fake'd out zapdos and hit licki with a surf which did about half to it surf did i think 1/4 to zapdos too!. I prob should have done more protecting this battle, but yeah he gets a crit through my Wacan, knocks out poli :( and he subs with licki as I went for the protect on toxic i think. My memory was fuzzy here because his zapdos was at low yellow and licki was red behind sub. So next comes in Ludicolo, I think his Zapdos was faster than Ludi I ran Modest and SwiftSwim was up he coulda been scarfed I didn't ask, and he CRITS Ludi and KOs him, I break Lickis sup with DP and then he explodes. If he didnt get the crit both of his pokes would have been gone that sucked. Then he brought in Chomp and Latios and I brought in Meta, which if I was still in with Ludi and Croak, I prob would have won :/ but I lost and I shook his hand and he apologized to me, but I said it's okay it's part of the game good luck with your last match. Ugh Crit Hax :(
2-3
I was pretty discouraged at the last point the last few battles didn't go my way but I was trying to at least go even.
Round 6 vs: Jon
Him: Cof-Haryiama-Chandy-??
Me: Poli-Ludi-Meta-??
Once I saw his team, I was like oh crap, this was the team I knew I was toast against. A real TR counter would have been good in this situation because he was going to get TR out anyway. So yeah he won like 2-0 I think I was just kinda bummed overall played well but his team was well rounded.
2-4
I met up with everyone from smogon, to learn Charzaro went 6-0 and everyone else did very good! Congratz guys, me on the other hand well that's another story. I stayed at the convention center for a while and talked to the winners and got pics with everyone! then our smogon group pic which took forever because everyone wanted to talk to Mike L. The group picture will be posted once I get it :D Heres some more pictures!
with Mike L. He's such a chill guy!
with iss: thanks for the confidence bud
with Charzaro: winnerwinner! good job!
with Jio: YES SHELLOS PICTURE!
with Dtrain and EnFuego: Our machamp poses? :D
with Unreality: finally we got to meet and we have the same birthday!
Smogon group picture!
Shout outs mainly team related:
- Cybertron: Thanks for helping me out with my team a bit :) and it was great to see you again!
- Unreality: For calming my nerves the night before lol and nice to meet you!
- iss: For being reassuring during the event!
- TwilightBlade: Thanks for your shiny RNG guide
- ForeverJuly: For helping me figure out what I was doing wrong for my shiny the first time
Props:
- Hanging with all the Smogon People again and meeting people like Solace, Unreality, tennis, Char, Jio ,Dtrain, Enfuego etc.
- Getting my first Plushie!
- SWISS FORMAT
- No freaking out opponents this time :)
- The social part of the day, I loved it and it made everything fun!
- Gained the VGC 2012 metagame grasp
- Motivated to do better in Philly now
- Went 2-4 :(
- Misplaced my bag AGAIN, but it was quickly found xD
- No top cut for the people that it mattered to.
Thanks for reading everyone :) I will be going to Philly, I thought I wasn't going to but I decided that I wanted to go and do better this time and hang out with everyone again because it's a great time at the VGC events. So I guess if the Props outweigh the slops that's a good sign. I may have not done as well as I wanted to, but I had fun anyway and it's always a great time hanging out with everyone from smogon! I am deff motivated even more now for Philly and I can't wait to see you all again!
