2 important things about this. First, it's C&P from another site, so it may or may not make complete sense. Hopefully it will, if not, just roll with it. Secondly, it's more a big story of the day than a war story, as such. Still, I talk about the battles, so it's all good. :D
VGC 2010 account
The day began at 6:00. After arriving at my friends abit later than expected we got a lift to the station (were going to walk, but we have to make up for lost time). Go to buy tickets, expecting them to be about £28 as that's what they were on Thursday. Turns out they're £44 on Saturdays and if you're going to Birmingham, as apparently for that specific combination there's no group saver. Fantastic. Moral of the story; buy train tickets in advance.
The journey itself wasn't much cop either; a series of confusing train times and platform locations, along with no seating meant we weren't entirely satisfied with the trip there. Still, I managed to get all the ev training I needed to done, and we met a few guys from Oxford who were also going to the VGC. I left the remaining moves until we arrived, thought I could do it in the sign ups line.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01334.jpg
So we arrive at the NEC, at about 10:30ish. And i'm properly impressed by the scale of the whole thing. After the smallish re-vamped power station of last year in a relatively rough London area this is fantastic.
Arriving at the section of the building the tournament's to be held at we have just enough time to go inside, check out the building and the current state of the juniors tournament before having the seniors line ushered outside. And it was raining. Not too badly at first, but it got steadily worse until there were drips about a centimeter across in my DS screen. At which point I decided to leave that until we got inside.
(Line outside)
Then we got steadily moved inside the building, into the entrance area in a zigzag, snake like line. Where we'd stay for the next 2 hours.
Not that I didn't have anything to do. Whilst all my Pokemon had been bred or soft re-setted ages ago, with all their EV's sorted on the train if they weren't already, that still left the moves. For most of them, that was fine. Except for Explosion. I didn't have a TM of Explosion. Frantically checking all my DS Pokemon games, I discover I havn't yet claimed the one available in Pearl for getting 10 bonus rounds at the slots. So after asking everyone around me if they had the TM and no-one being able to help I set to work. After about an hour of trying I finally managed to get the TM I needed. Which was helpful as it meant I wasn't too bored in the line, but still, abit tense.
It was about 2:00 before I actually got to start battling. But before we get into that, a rough guide to my team:
Azelf@Focus Sash
-Imprison
-Trickroom
-Protect
-Explosion
Infernape@Life Orb
-Overheat
-Closecombat
-Fake Out
-Taunt
Groudon@Yache berry
-Earthquake
-Dragon Claw
-Sword dance
-Protect
Lugia@Leftovers
-Aeroblast
-Recover
-Calm mind
-Ice Beam
(Thanks to Frawg for getting me the Lugia and psycho86wardbg for originally RNG'ing it)
Plan of action for the team was Imprison, stopping some of the biggest problems flat out: Protect, Trickroom and Explosion. Infernape Fake Outs to ensure this can happen. Then, Azelf stalls with protect (works wonders this, loads of people forget that Protect can work more than once in a row and focus on it after i've used it) whilst 'nape deals as much damage as possible, KO'ing all weather leads bar Kyogre in one. Once he's done what he can either I switch him out for Groudon and protect or just straight out Explode if there's little further use for 'nape. Groudon and Lugia compliment each other well, covering the others weaknesses nicely, as well as giving me some control over the weather (always useful). Generally i found this worked fantastically for the majority of standard VGC teams I faced in testing. The big, big weakness? Giritina. Most teams were completely fine and counter-able, just not if Giritina was on them.
Battle 1 - I was paired with this guy who came across as being quite confident and competitive. Whilst we wasn't arrogant or anything, he certainly thought he had a good chance of winning, and became increasingly annoyed as he started to lose. He began with a Lugia and Typhlosion, finishing with Snorlax and Kyogre, and as far as I can tell he had no idea of EV's or IV's or any of that stuff. He genuinely seemed shocked and gutted that his Snorlax's Rollout only did a few hit points of damage to my Lugia. I tried to say some stuff to console him but I don't think it worked in the slightest. But all the same, onto battle 2.
Battle 2 - This time I was against someone who did know what they were doing. Unfortunatly for him, my team completely countered his. He opened with Gengar and Lickilicky. After my standard Imprison/Fake Out opening it became apparent that he was using a Trick Room team. And assuming that Lickilicky's there to fulfill it's main role in life as the most powerful Exploder in the game, that was completely blocked by Azelf as well. He ended with Kyogre and Palkia IIR, but by that point there wasn't much saving his team.
Battle 3 - Probably the most interesting one. He didn't seem especially talkative, and from overhearing conversations with his friends I assume he's a Smogoner. He led with Roserade and Kyogre. I'd never seen a Roserade in any of the teams i'd faced in practice, so I decided to focus on it. Fake out and Overheat on 'rade whilst Kyogre Calm minded and Substituted up. He then sent out Jolteon. I protected on Azelf, Close combating the substitute away. Next turn, I protect again with Azelf, Kyogre surfs. Knocks out 'Nape, but also knocks out his own Jolteon. Mewtwo's next out, where as Groudon's the one I used next. Explodes, GG. Into the finalists 'lounge' (if 4 tables and a smattering of chairs is your idea of a lounge :p). I hand in my game card for hack checking, then i'm told we all have to wait until 4:00 for the next phase. This left an hour spare.
(Me next to the sign. Yeah :p)
Inflatables! :D
Anyways, all the finalists are called back to the lounge, given instructions, then let loose playing again. This match was against Minijynx (GEC) (who incidentally went on to go really quite far). And basically (being as vague as possible as i'm unsure as to how much of the team he wants revealed, if at all) but he had a 'mon I just couldn't really counter at all. After struggling along for a bit my team fell apart and it was GG to him. Although we had an interesting chat throughout, which was cool.
(photo of said battle is above)
After this we stayed around for abit, downloading Eevee's and the like, watched the final, got my friends to cheer Kinneas, then left. Missed the train by 5 minutes, so we had to wait, but that was fine as we were with loads of other peeps from the VGC, so much trading and battling took place. This continued on the train home, which was quite entertaining. Still no seats though. Got home at just gone 9:00, which is abit later than planned but nevermind. Awesome day, tbh, and i'm quite proud of how far I got, and the people I met through the day were awesome (even though I didn't get the names of most of them. Apologies if you're reading this :p). Good stuffs.
And the rest of the images for thems who wants them:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01353.jpg
^Inflatables
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01348.jpg
^Rawr
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01339.jpg
^Not-Inflatables
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01337.jpg
^Far right of hall, sign ups
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01336.jpg
^Center of hall, queuing and battles (before the line was moved outside)
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01338.jpg
^Left of hall, Eevee download, Pokemon card tournaments, Demo pod, Subway.
VGC 2010 account
The day began at 6:00. After arriving at my friends abit later than expected we got a lift to the station (were going to walk, but we have to make up for lost time). Go to buy tickets, expecting them to be about £28 as that's what they were on Thursday. Turns out they're £44 on Saturdays and if you're going to Birmingham, as apparently for that specific combination there's no group saver. Fantastic. Moral of the story; buy train tickets in advance.
The journey itself wasn't much cop either; a series of confusing train times and platform locations, along with no seating meant we weren't entirely satisfied with the trip there. Still, I managed to get all the ev training I needed to done, and we met a few guys from Oxford who were also going to the VGC. I left the remaining moves until we arrived, thought I could do it in the sign ups line.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01334.jpg
So we arrive at the NEC, at about 10:30ish. And i'm properly impressed by the scale of the whole thing. After the smallish re-vamped power station of last year in a relatively rough London area this is fantastic.
Arriving at the section of the building the tournament's to be held at we have just enough time to go inside, check out the building and the current state of the juniors tournament before having the seniors line ushered outside. And it was raining. Not too badly at first, but it got steadily worse until there were drips about a centimeter across in my DS screen. At which point I decided to leave that until we got inside.
(Line outside)
Then we got steadily moved inside the building, into the entrance area in a zigzag, snake like line. Where we'd stay for the next 2 hours.
Not that I didn't have anything to do. Whilst all my Pokemon had been bred or soft re-setted ages ago, with all their EV's sorted on the train if they weren't already, that still left the moves. For most of them, that was fine. Except for Explosion. I didn't have a TM of Explosion. Frantically checking all my DS Pokemon games, I discover I havn't yet claimed the one available in Pearl for getting 10 bonus rounds at the slots. So after asking everyone around me if they had the TM and no-one being able to help I set to work. After about an hour of trying I finally managed to get the TM I needed. Which was helpful as it meant I wasn't too bored in the line, but still, abit tense.
It was about 2:00 before I actually got to start battling. But before we get into that, a rough guide to my team:
Azelf@Focus Sash
-Imprison
-Trickroom
-Protect
-Explosion
Infernape@Life Orb
-Overheat
-Closecombat
-Fake Out
-Taunt
Groudon@Yache berry
-Earthquake
-Dragon Claw
-Sword dance
-Protect
Lugia@Leftovers
-Aeroblast
-Recover
-Calm mind
-Ice Beam
(Thanks to Frawg for getting me the Lugia and psycho86wardbg for originally RNG'ing it)
Plan of action for the team was Imprison, stopping some of the biggest problems flat out: Protect, Trickroom and Explosion. Infernape Fake Outs to ensure this can happen. Then, Azelf stalls with protect (works wonders this, loads of people forget that Protect can work more than once in a row and focus on it after i've used it) whilst 'nape deals as much damage as possible, KO'ing all weather leads bar Kyogre in one. Once he's done what he can either I switch him out for Groudon and protect or just straight out Explode if there's little further use for 'nape. Groudon and Lugia compliment each other well, covering the others weaknesses nicely, as well as giving me some control over the weather (always useful). Generally i found this worked fantastically for the majority of standard VGC teams I faced in testing. The big, big weakness? Giritina. Most teams were completely fine and counter-able, just not if Giritina was on them.
Battle 1 - I was paired with this guy who came across as being quite confident and competitive. Whilst we wasn't arrogant or anything, he certainly thought he had a good chance of winning, and became increasingly annoyed as he started to lose. He began with a Lugia and Typhlosion, finishing with Snorlax and Kyogre, and as far as I can tell he had no idea of EV's or IV's or any of that stuff. He genuinely seemed shocked and gutted that his Snorlax's Rollout only did a few hit points of damage to my Lugia. I tried to say some stuff to console him but I don't think it worked in the slightest. But all the same, onto battle 2.
Battle 2 - This time I was against someone who did know what they were doing. Unfortunatly for him, my team completely countered his. He opened with Gengar and Lickilicky. After my standard Imprison/Fake Out opening it became apparent that he was using a Trick Room team. And assuming that Lickilicky's there to fulfill it's main role in life as the most powerful Exploder in the game, that was completely blocked by Azelf as well. He ended with Kyogre and Palkia IIR, but by that point there wasn't much saving his team.
Battle 3 - Probably the most interesting one. He didn't seem especially talkative, and from overhearing conversations with his friends I assume he's a Smogoner. He led with Roserade and Kyogre. I'd never seen a Roserade in any of the teams i'd faced in practice, so I decided to focus on it. Fake out and Overheat on 'rade whilst Kyogre Calm minded and Substituted up. He then sent out Jolteon. I protected on Azelf, Close combating the substitute away. Next turn, I protect again with Azelf, Kyogre surfs. Knocks out 'Nape, but also knocks out his own Jolteon. Mewtwo's next out, where as Groudon's the one I used next. Explodes, GG. Into the finalists 'lounge' (if 4 tables and a smattering of chairs is your idea of a lounge :p). I hand in my game card for hack checking, then i'm told we all have to wait until 4:00 for the next phase. This left an hour spare.
(Me next to the sign. Yeah :p)
Inflatables! :D
Anyways, all the finalists are called back to the lounge, given instructions, then let loose playing again. This match was against Minijynx (GEC) (who incidentally went on to go really quite far). And basically (being as vague as possible as i'm unsure as to how much of the team he wants revealed, if at all) but he had a 'mon I just couldn't really counter at all. After struggling along for a bit my team fell apart and it was GG to him. Although we had an interesting chat throughout, which was cool.
(photo of said battle is above)
After this we stayed around for abit, downloading Eevee's and the like, watched the final, got my friends to cheer Kinneas, then left. Missed the train by 5 minutes, so we had to wait, but that was fine as we were with loads of other peeps from the VGC, so much trading and battling took place. This continued on the train home, which was quite entertaining. Still no seats though. Got home at just gone 9:00, which is abit later than planned but nevermind. Awesome day, tbh, and i'm quite proud of how far I got, and the people I met through the day were awesome (even though I didn't get the names of most of them. Apologies if you're reading this :p). Good stuffs.
And the rest of the images for thems who wants them:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01353.jpg
^Inflatables
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01348.jpg
^Rawr
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01339.jpg
^Not-Inflatables
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01337.jpg
^Far right of hall, sign ups
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01336.jpg
^Center of hall, queuing and battles (before the line was moved outside)
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/Cinaclov/VGC 2010/DSC01338.jpg
^Left of hall, Eevee download, Pokemon card tournaments, Demo pod, Subway.