Darkmalice

hey
i wanna take you to a doubles bar
i wanna take you to a doubles bar
to a doubles bar doubles bar
doubles bar

Joking aside, I'm off EST. I should be avalible pretty much any time tomorrow, and from 3 PM to 9 PM est M-T, till 12 PM EST F, and any time saturday.

My school server is really bad right now, I'll have trouble staying online :(

I'm online. I just PMed you on Showdown

I'm on PS right now, gimme a call when your ready.

(My PS name is Great Spirit, just in case)

I'm on PS right now, gimme a call when your ready.

(My PS name is Great Spirit, just in case)

I'm sorry, I should have checked for any messages in the afternoon, I was busy doing other stuff :|
I actually have school at that time, but it's during lunch so maybe I can manage.
I should be available between 12:00~12:25pm (which, I assume, is 9:30~9:55pm for you).
Or, if that's not possible, I'm also shortly available during 10:35~10:45am (which is 8:05~8:15pm for you). I'll be online on both of these breaks.

Btw, your name on PS is also Darkmalice, right? I'll try to find you when I'm online.

I've been waiting for 1.5 hours...I hope I didn't get the time wrong again :(
(I'm pretty sure Germany is GMT +1...)

So I guess that's 3 hours and 8 minutes later. I'm fine with that, see you then.

Btw, my account on PS is called Great Spirit.

Hey :) We're paired for the Smogon Doubles tourney, I'm GMT +1 and available in the afternoons / at night. When can you play?

It's been a while, I just wondered if you're concerned that the event page for the upcoming singles tournament only has 11 people saying they'll attend? I wonder if people are less interested in singles, although that would be strange as it's the simplest battle type. Also, if Smogon decides to banish something to Ubers shortly before the tournament, I wonder what time period is considered too late to change the rules regarding that Pokemon.

I'm glad Smogon is finally embracing Doubles with rules less restrictive than VGC and quite similar to AVcon rules. Do you play on the simulator much? I tried using Pokemon Showdown but it didn't work... nothing happened when I pressed the button to find a battle.

I hope they still have the paper where they wrote down my prize to claim later - if not, hopefully Daniel Moraw could convince them since he witnessed my victory and not using the prize.

I wouldn't do Gingy?

Did you huffle and puff and blow his house down?

That really sucks about your busy schedule, but it will hopefully pay off once you graduate. It's impressive that you win tournaments despite your lack of time to prepare.

I found it boring to use such common Pokemon on that winning team, and I might consider a more innovative one to test before AVcon. That selection by Wolfe definitely ruined his chances, although Ray seems to get through anything. It's weird, I've watched most of his battles that are on YouTube, and his playstyle just seems... normal, without taking many risks from what I've seen. He even leaves in Metagross on Gastrodon which OHKOs it with Gem-boosted Earth Power, and still comes out on top.

By the way, I didn't claim the $25 prize in late December as I don't play any card games... they wrote down my name so I can claim it later, but I might have to do a deal with someone who does play any of the games they sell.

That sucks about uni starting so soon for you - also, your attendance will probably be the main factor in whether I get to the finals or not. I'm mainly interested to see how you play in singles.

Do you spend much time watching world championship battles? I actually never did that until after AVcon 2012, but I've learned a lot since then. I particularly enjoy 'gimmick' teams or strategies, especially when they consistently defeat more standard ones. For that reason, I would've preferred for Wolfe to win against Ray Rizzo. Getting to the world final with Exeggutor is impressive in itself.

Even if he'd set up TR, with his weird team it probably wouldn't have been too problematic. I usually have no trouble controlling whether TR goes up or not (you're the only one who has made it too hard, partly because of the wide-ranging speed tiers of that team you used).

You didn't say whether you'll be at the singles tournament on the 10th of Feb (they changed the date), is there any chance you will be?

I suppose they made the 5th-gen for DS to get the most sales out of it, although it now makes sense to move on from that outdated technology. I agree that the story was better, but overall the games didn't feel like a real generation leap.
I wonder if X/Y will still allow battle animations to be turned off - would seem weird in 3D without them. It now seems clear why there hasn't been a successor to Battle Revolution, as they might release one after 6th-gen for WiiU. It would make for very spectacular HD finals at AVcon, although the improved graphics on 3DS might make such a game seem redundant.

It certainly was a TR team, and he should've used it since my Pokemon were clearly faster. Perhaps he was put off for the same reason I didn't use it against you - the possibility of it being reversed.

Contrary is an interesting ability that one of my VGCS opponents tried to use in a complex way, but it required too many turns of setup, by which time my Scrafty had done its job. By the way, will you attend the next tournament on the 3rd of Feb? I'd like to see if you're as good at singles - I have barely any singles experience aside from the Battle Tower (record streak 646 in Platinum). I've practically forgotten how it's played.

Pokemon X/Y was the first game announcement in years to make me excited. However, it makes 5th-gen seem like an awkward "4.5" - the graphics didn't improve much, it was on the same system, etc. The surprisingly close release date makes sense from a business perspective, of course.

Sounds good, I'd much rather be in a cold place right now... I've been to 10 countries, including Germany and Austria which you visited.

Thanks, although it's true those crits made it much easier. Bronzong wasn't much of a problem anyway, but as for Reuniclus - the opponent complained since he targeted the incoming Hydreigon with Focus Blast, but even without the crit he only had a 70% chance to not flinch from Iron Head, then 70% to actually hit. I chose Iron Head not just for reliability, but also for the flinch chance which is very relevant in TR conditions (or without TR, in this case). Would you agree that his team seemed weird? E.g. Bronzong using a pitifully weak EQ, Gastrodon using the same move weakly and thus wasting Storm Drain boosts, and Reuniclus having one of the most unreliable moves in FB. That's why I was surprised he made the final.

Skill Swap was even more useful than I expected. Apart from spamming Intimidate every turn, it can give Levitate to Metagross, take Jellicent's Water Absorb to defend against rain teams, and more. I survived a ridiculously long battle by taking a Vaporeon's Water Absorb and then passing it to Metagross, so it couldn't be burned by Scald. Guts and Flash Fire were particularly fun to steal. Some opponents complained about my tactics because they were unconventional (all of them were surprised by Swagger, so they clearly haven't seen VGC finals). What would you say to people who think these tactics are 'stupid', as some said?

That's okay, I suspected you were away - where did you go? If you went somewhere cooler, today's weather would've been a nasty surprise (could make a nerdy joke about Groudon, Ninetales or Fire-type moves, but I won't).
Yeah, I should've won the Sand Veil battle since I was outplaying him. I won 21 of 24 battles in the online VGCS tournament, which is pretty good since I faced quite a few competent players.

Thanks, but notice how I only win things when you're absent!? I've only lost to you and Athan so far (hax favoured him that time, but I also made some mistakes). Not sure if you've seen, but here's the final if you have access to Nintendo Wi-Fi:
48-94545-42198.
I really don't know how he also won all his battles before the final... what do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkVKXSRgHT4
My latest video is of a hax-filled VGCS Winter battle where Sand Veil worked more than a few times. My video can be used as evidence to support Smogon's ban of the ability. I put a lot of effort into the video... note the perfectly-timed appropriate music (e.g. the song Sandstorm).

So you easily came first in yet another tournament... you're definitely more impressive than I'll ever be. You mentioned the VGCS Winter tournament as well - how have you gone in it? I've won about 80% of my battles, mainly losing to unconventional tactics such as heavy stalling in doubles (Leech Seed Ferro, Substitute + Protect Zapdos... it was Rain-focused), and an extremely long battle where I couldn't overcome Thundurus spamming status moves. I'm still using my AVcon team since I haven't had time for a new one.

If I was the next closest to winning, with only 2 KOs... that's a bit scary. It's a shame about that triple Protect - I try to avoid having to risk even a double Protect. It's best to avoid chance scenarios whenever possible (hence why I often used Rotom's Thunderbolt instead of Hydro Pump, but that was also due to predictability). It would've been interesting to see your Water-focused team - we might as well try riskier concepts since if the meet-ups are regular. I'm quite a fan of Water, Psychic, Dark and Dragon-types... but I don't always use those types!

I forgot to ask, did you have any interesting battles apart from the ones with Henry? I know you won 4/5 of the main rounds (same as me), but I wondered if anyone put up a decent fight... probably better than my poor effort against you.
When you mention your team for AVcon last year, do you mean one you never got to use? I made my team by taking the 3 most effective Pokemon from AVcon 2011 (with slight changes), and adding more effective supporters to that solid core. Also, I never go through entire lists of Pokemon for possible threats... the most I did was read a list of released Dream World abilities since they're harder to remember.

I suppose that was a smart move, considering that Hariyama was one of your main sweepers and Breloom was probably not going to survive long against a Hail team anyway.
My new team will probably be 100% new, although it's hard to adjust back to 'normal' speed conditions after being used to going first most of the time. Do you find it hard to decide on your teams? I'm struggling to even choose my 6 Pokemon, let alone their movesets and everything else.

Thanks for the video link, it was useful to watch that battle again. Switching out Hariyama at the start surprised me. Landorus and Jirachi were interesting choices for a Hail team... I bet it felt satisfying to KO Landorus with HP Ice. I have a new team idea that seems good on paper, but I won't have much time to prepare it. Also, I had the most frustrating moment: While breeding Pokemon to fill the National Pokedex, I used one of my AVcon Pokemon as a parent... it happened to be very close to leveling up, which it did while in the Day Care. Also happened to learn a new move, replacing one that only its prior evolution could learn. With its essential move gone, a Pokemon was made useless by the game's stupid mechanics.

Yeah, that Occa Berry on Amoonguss tripped up a lot of people, and at AVcon I remember it once survived with 4 HP thanks to that. However, it wouldn't have helped against that Hail team you faced (I never battled him, but he was clearly a strong opponent).

It's funny that I outpredicted you with the 2 leads I chose, but the offensive threat of your leads still messed me up. One of my team's strengths is its reliability in setting up TR - either Scrafty + Reuniclus or Porygon2 + Amoonguss work well together.
It was good to see Hariyama being used - I'm guessing you chose it for its combination of Fake Out, slowness and powerful Close Combat, which make it arguably better than Guts Conkeldurr.

But the battle was so short (13 turns) and one-sided, it's boring to watch! Most of it was just me switching while you outplayed me. Do you really want to see it, though? I'd be more interested in watching your final battle, since it was intense.

Btw, you were one of the coolest guys at the tournament. I was fairly sure I recognised you from 2011 when you walked in.

That was certainly an interesting battle, although I'm ashamed that I only KOed 2 of your Pokemon. One of the reasons I messed up was that I expected you to use Trick Room to reverse it, and I wasn't sure if all or only some of your Pokemon were optimised for TR. I also forgot Hariyama outspeeds Scrafty in TR. Also, your double Ghost lead was an effective counter to Fake Out - did you always lead with that combo? Anyway, the two main things I learned from our battle: 1. My team is a bit too reliant on certain Pokemon such as Scrafty gaining momentum, and doesn't have enough offensive presence. 2. Your team works surprisingly well considering that it has Chandelure on a Rain-focused team, and a Pokemon as frail as Jolteon.