Random Battles Team Tournament 4: Semi-Finals

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Celever

Celever

i am town
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So I'm bad at being sentimental when I'm not drunk but I feel compelled to do so now that we're out of the tour because this has probably been the best thing I've done this year.

When I signed up to this tournament on impulse, I honestly wasn't expecting to be drafted, and if I was then I thought I'd be a sub who plays and loses one or two battles before being benched for the rest of it. I signed up last year too and wasn't drafted, and there was no reason to think this year would be any different. I didn't even bear in mind what day the draft was on and only realised I was drafted because aj showdown messaged me and I saw it an hour afterwards. My prior experience with teamtours had also been ccc1, which was fun but extremely casual, and a couple of tier PLs when I was a much younger teenager which I found to be fairly toxic cultures at the time (but most of the toxic people I remember aren't even on Smogon any more), so I was fairly nervous about joining the discord and being a hoop after not having done it for years and not having the best memories of serious team tours.

But of course, Team Hoopa are a group of fun and awesome people, and I became way less nervous as soon as HOOP HOOP started being spammed in battle chats. It's a small thing, but it's a level of comradery that I hadn't seen in teamtours before. And when from time to time members of our team lost their series, the team was nothing but supportive. If someone was mued, the team would explain how they were mued and so unless their opponent choked they couldn't have won, just to disperse any doubt. Some of the subs were also consistently really active and added to team spirit, as opposed to doing the easy thing and just sort of lurking until they're subbed in to battle. That kind of team culture made the entire tournament extremely fun, and probably actually made us play better. I think most of us put enough pressure on ourselves to perform well (at least I do), so not having pressure from the rest of the team stops things from being overwhelming.

And this isn't only restricted to Team Hoopa. This tournament was an awesome mix of high-level play and was extremely competitive, but no one overstepped into being toxic. Trashtalking was done in fun, and there were some individual sucessess where people from every team would be happy for them. Like, it took me several weeks to figure out that Fragments and sharp_claw were managers because I didn't think managers would be as casual and fun in another team's discord as they were being lmao. And of course, shoutout to my gen 4 borker brother Mas, who I believe has a lot of sauce. The entire culture of this tournament was just founded on being fun for everyone, which is admirable.

On a more personal note, I'm stoked about how I performed in this tournament. When Team Hoopa convened at tour start and Nate and Irpa told me I was the starting gen 4 slot I was even more nervous because I didn't expect to be drafted as a format expert at all. To add onto it, my first battle was against SMB, who was considered one of the strongest gen 4 battlers. So I was very excited when I managed to beat him, and then suffered a crushing defeat in W2. The combination of beating a frontrunner gave me confidence and then losing the next week gave me drive to figure out a strong headspace for the rest of the tour. I've always perceived myself as a bit of a choker in pressurised situations sometimes, but this tournament has proven to me that that's not the case, and it's perhaps not the case because of this tournament. It's probably something that everyone goes through at some point, but this was the tournament where I learned how to give myself pep talks and get into a focussed mindset so that I could perform to the best of my ability. So this tournament may have actually made me a better person, because this is something I've already been applying to my university work.

So uhhh cool tour I guess thanks for the draft GOAT managers Irpachuza and not a racist and to all of Team Hoop and to the cool people from other teams who made the tournament fun, and of course A Cake Wearing A Hat for hosting.

HOOP, and I cannot stress this enough, HOOP.
 
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