Honestly, what was even going on in that tournament? Sand veil garchomp is the absolute worst and is pretty much the entire reason for VGC 2012 being a shitty meta. The amount of times I've said this before, then it goes and actually happens at nationals.
Awful, awful matches going on here to the point where I'd flat out quit pokemon if I didn't know this kind of thing is rare. And I'm only really referring to the hax. When you realise that almost everyone you know on here lost to a worse player who haxed them, something is wrong. (Though Shoe instead got timestalled out by KEEEEEFKAAAAAA jajajaja)
Just going by my own matches, here's something of an indication how bad things were for me (and it was hardly only happening to me):
Round 2 I was critted 3 times, rockslide doubleflinched twice, sand veiled 3 times. Yeah. Saved the vid.
Round 3 I was critted 3 times in a bloody row right at the start of the game.
Round 4 was unusual in that I didn't take any crits at all. Mostly because I didn't even take a single hit, which proves a bit of a point.
By round 5 I just could not take it any more. Forgetting how there were a few crits mixed in with this (though one of my only two crits of the tournament as well) which were why it happened anyway, sand veil going off 4 turns in a row is just not funny. It's complete bullshit, even, and when I find out who decided to invent sand veil in the first place I'm going to personally throw a can of orange juice into his fucking face, this time on purpose. When you withstand all of this and end up losing to the TIMER AGAIN it crosses over from being "bs hax" into "god hates me and all i stand for" and this is just not cool.
I've done some rough maths on how me and gree ended up losing (they're roughly the same odds). It comes out at roundabout a 1/3500 chance for sand veil to go off 6 times with or 4 times without brightpowder in these situations. Combine that with the crits involved and the odds of some of us losing here are considerably higher than those of finding shinies or scoring high on the lottery or whatever. Sand veil going off 7 times between the only 2 games involving garchomp (none of them from my own) is just not right. Only that double water spout crit on Huy in 2010 comes close to this level of absolute shite.
Don't get me wrong, I had a lovely day out today and had a lot of fun. But it has to be pointed out, what actually happened for this year's UK nationals is pretty much taking the piss. For so many good people to get gayed out so early, and for actual noobs to be making the later rounds is absolutely disgusting. And sorry, but that Gary guy, really cool team I know, but I cannot see how it could have coped with any actually good players in a typical fight with no major hax. Just look at how Ruben absolutely destroyed him in the final and it doesn't make sense. The Gary team wasn't even hax-reliant but because of the theme it had so many gaping weaknesses to common mons used by good players. Chandelure on its own basically meant gg for example, which is exactly what happened in the final.
Anyway, it's not often things like this happen in VGC and when they do it honestly depresses me. Not in the "POKEMON IS A SERIOUS THING THESE PROBLEMS MATTER" way but more in a "Things just are not going right for me... why" way. Like I said earlier, I'm all for hax mixing things up and making the game more exciting. I'm even all for how it widens skill levels and stops a battle from being a foregone conclusion. But then again sometimes it's just ridiculous. I know I'm good, yeah, but I'm hardly god. Can't blame you for forgetting sometimes, pokemon, but come on mate loosen up a little and stop being a bastard.
Anyway, I'm gonna try to go to France. The chances of all this happening again are pretty much zero. If it does happen again I'm just going to quit pokemon or something.
Fuck garchomp.