As the day started, I had a gut feeling that if I did not go to New York for the Pokemon showdown that I would regret it so my son and I both got there at around 8:45am so we could be alternates at least and try to get in. We were all given yellow bracelets with a lottery number on them.
We waited in front of the Altman Building for about 2 hours which almost felt like an eternity and uncertain as to how this was all going to work out so we met some others outside and Jr. got in a few test battles as he was able to make a few adjustments to his team. Among the ones we did see outside was Silv whom we saw at JAA 2 years ago when Jr. faced him in the first round there.
I'm on far left with Jeffrey Jr. next to me, Silv is 2nd from right. Yes I was wearing a Boston Red Sox cap even in New York City as I had claimed that to be my good luck charm actually to the chagrin of some of the Yankee fans working there.
When we saw the junior division accepted everybody it was so hopeful that we would all get in too but they told us that maybe there'd only be room for 10 alternates in the senior division, so I was almost ready to leave if they did not call us. Noticing there was only what seemed to be a handful of seniors with the invitation bracelet I was starting to feel optimistic when they started raffling our numbers. Jeffrey Jr's last 3 numbers were 188 and I was 122 so it was about after a dozen numbers when they called 188 and shortly after mine was called so there was a brief celebration of our getting in. I would later read that only 4 did not get picked so that must be a big bummer for the 4 of you that could not participate as I hope Nintendo would do something nice for you all at least. One of the early highlights was that both Jr & I got interviewed and pictured later on when we were noticed to be father and son participants. Not only did we get in, we got to meet Pikachu!
We also met up with Kindnugs and he too met Pikachu!
and we met Dialga:
and palkia:
Both of us were assigned to the early flight 1 so while we hoped not to even face each other that at least we not disappoint ourselves by losing out in the first round.
In all honesty, I really did not spend much time putting together my team though I made it based on what I saw posted here before:
Jolly male weavile @ Expert Belt
IV: 28/31/27/27/29/31 (actually bred and EV trained him the day before)
EV: 252 attack/speed, 6 HP
- Fake Out
- Ice Shard
- Brick Break
- Night Slash
Relaxed Bronzong @ Chesto Berry
IV=31/31/31/12/31/0 (stefywefy215's)
EV=252hp/152atk/8def/98spdef
- Trick Room
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Explosion
Modest Male Togekiss @ King's Rock
IV=29/1/25/31/26/31 (Marker's)
252 sp.atk/speed, 6 HP
- Nasty Plot
- Aura Sphere
- Air Slash
- Thunder Wave
Hasty Male Gengar @ Focus Sash
IV=31/31/22/31/31/31 (venom_prince91's)
- Shadow Ball
- Thunderbolt
- Counter
- Explosion
Since I wasn't counting on getting accepted and I had read what some of the other top 8 at LA was using, this team was rather put together in the last day. Anyways the idea for this team was basically to counter many threats and mess up other people's strategies. Here's how each round went from what I recall:
Round 1 vs a young woman
I believe she had a glaceon, weavile, frosslas & mamoswine, essentially an all ice team so with weavile I did fake out on foe weavile and bronzong setup the trick room while glaceon's ice beam was ineffective. My play was quite sloppy maybe out of nervousness but bronzong would manage to gyro ball away while weavile would survive and do some brick breaks even in trick room. On final turn, I switched in gengar while bronzong did explosion on foe mamoswine. I was probably the first to finish my match making me the first senior at showdown-NY to win a round 1 (young woman was first senior to lose), and shortly I saw that Jr. won his match too.
Round 2 vs a young guy with yanmega, flygon, blaziken & swampert
Since I predicted yanmega would do protect so to setup the speed boost, I did the easy thing and ice shard on flygon while bronzong setup the trick room. I forgot how my togekiss got OHKO'd but it came down to sending back in weavile for the fake out while gengar did shadow ball enough to finish swampert. Jr. won his round 2 match also so this was going great.
Round 3 vs Dan (friend of Silv) with glaceon, abomasnow, smeargle and another ice type
Another team with ice pokemon, so I knew what to do only this time with hail so focus sash on gengar won't help. bronzong's gyro ball OHKO'd a smeargle and an explosion while switching in gengar would finish off abomasnow.
Once again, Jr. also advanced therefore making us top 4 in flight 1, so we were both going to round 4 where all we had to each do was win our match and get an all expenses paid trip to Orlando for the finals in mid-August. They checked our games and kept in a plastic bag for round 4 as we were relieved to hear our games were valid as I was a bit nervous that a hacked pokemon or other glitch in my box would spoil everything.
While waiting for the other 3 flights to finish we had time to settle and walk around. I would also meet up with XxBlueCookiesXx and a few others that lurked on Smogon including the one that would win. I also saw mysteryman whom was a showdown volunteer there.
Round 4 vs Diego with rhyperior, togekiss, machamp & blissey
Boy was I nervous and therefore accidentally hit ran and almost got disqualified. They were nice enough to let me continue so long as I chose my same starting 2 again. Things really didn't go well early on as while I once again used weavile's fake out on togekiss and bronzong's trick room setup, weavile was OHKO'd by rhyperior's brick break. Rhyperior & togekiss were hard to take down, and my togekiss could not OHKO machamp with air slash. Just when I falsely thought I had the upper hand when foe togekiss was paralyzed and couldn't move, I forgot he had one more pokemon left and that was blissey so a seismic toss was enough to finish me off and despair me from going to Orlando. My son also lost his round 4 match to XxBlueCookiesXx as well so neither of us won the trip as well.
Bonta-Kun(NY Winner) is on left and XxBlueCookiesXx is on the right before round 6 match
Overall it was a great time and it certainly makes up for my disappointing first round loss at JAA few years ago. I know I could've made some further changes to have improved my chances. Oh well hopefully I will have yet another opportunity.
We waited in front of the Altman Building for about 2 hours which almost felt like an eternity and uncertain as to how this was all going to work out so we met some others outside and Jr. got in a few test battles as he was able to make a few adjustments to his team. Among the ones we did see outside was Silv whom we saw at JAA 2 years ago when Jr. faced him in the first round there.
I'm on far left with Jeffrey Jr. next to me, Silv is 2nd from right. Yes I was wearing a Boston Red Sox cap even in New York City as I had claimed that to be my good luck charm actually to the chagrin of some of the Yankee fans working there.
When we saw the junior division accepted everybody it was so hopeful that we would all get in too but they told us that maybe there'd only be room for 10 alternates in the senior division, so I was almost ready to leave if they did not call us. Noticing there was only what seemed to be a handful of seniors with the invitation bracelet I was starting to feel optimistic when they started raffling our numbers. Jeffrey Jr's last 3 numbers were 188 and I was 122 so it was about after a dozen numbers when they called 188 and shortly after mine was called so there was a brief celebration of our getting in. I would later read that only 4 did not get picked so that must be a big bummer for the 4 of you that could not participate as I hope Nintendo would do something nice for you all at least. One of the early highlights was that both Jr & I got interviewed and pictured later on when we were noticed to be father and son participants. Not only did we get in, we got to meet Pikachu!
We also met up with Kindnugs and he too met Pikachu!
and we met Dialga:
and palkia:
Both of us were assigned to the early flight 1 so while we hoped not to even face each other that at least we not disappoint ourselves by losing out in the first round.
In all honesty, I really did not spend much time putting together my team though I made it based on what I saw posted here before:
Jolly male weavile @ Expert Belt
IV: 28/31/27/27/29/31 (actually bred and EV trained him the day before)
EV: 252 attack/speed, 6 HP
- Fake Out
- Ice Shard
- Brick Break
- Night Slash
Relaxed Bronzong @ Chesto Berry
IV=31/31/31/12/31/0 (stefywefy215's)
EV=252hp/152atk/8def/98spdef
- Trick Room
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Explosion
Modest Male Togekiss @ King's Rock
IV=29/1/25/31/26/31 (Marker's)
252 sp.atk/speed, 6 HP
- Nasty Plot
- Aura Sphere
- Air Slash
- Thunder Wave
Hasty Male Gengar @ Focus Sash
IV=31/31/22/31/31/31 (venom_prince91's)
- Shadow Ball
- Thunderbolt
- Counter
- Explosion
Since I wasn't counting on getting accepted and I had read what some of the other top 8 at LA was using, this team was rather put together in the last day. Anyways the idea for this team was basically to counter many threats and mess up other people's strategies. Here's how each round went from what I recall:
Round 1 vs a young woman
I believe she had a glaceon, weavile, frosslas & mamoswine, essentially an all ice team so with weavile I did fake out on foe weavile and bronzong setup the trick room while glaceon's ice beam was ineffective. My play was quite sloppy maybe out of nervousness but bronzong would manage to gyro ball away while weavile would survive and do some brick breaks even in trick room. On final turn, I switched in gengar while bronzong did explosion on foe mamoswine. I was probably the first to finish my match making me the first senior at showdown-NY to win a round 1 (young woman was first senior to lose), and shortly I saw that Jr. won his match too.
Round 2 vs a young guy with yanmega, flygon, blaziken & swampert
Since I predicted yanmega would do protect so to setup the speed boost, I did the easy thing and ice shard on flygon while bronzong setup the trick room. I forgot how my togekiss got OHKO'd but it came down to sending back in weavile for the fake out while gengar did shadow ball enough to finish swampert. Jr. won his round 2 match also so this was going great.
Round 3 vs Dan (friend of Silv) with glaceon, abomasnow, smeargle and another ice type
Another team with ice pokemon, so I knew what to do only this time with hail so focus sash on gengar won't help. bronzong's gyro ball OHKO'd a smeargle and an explosion while switching in gengar would finish off abomasnow.
Once again, Jr. also advanced therefore making us top 4 in flight 1, so we were both going to round 4 where all we had to each do was win our match and get an all expenses paid trip to Orlando for the finals in mid-August. They checked our games and kept in a plastic bag for round 4 as we were relieved to hear our games were valid as I was a bit nervous that a hacked pokemon or other glitch in my box would spoil everything.
While waiting for the other 3 flights to finish we had time to settle and walk around. I would also meet up with XxBlueCookiesXx and a few others that lurked on Smogon including the one that would win. I also saw mysteryman whom was a showdown volunteer there.
Round 4 vs Diego with rhyperior, togekiss, machamp & blissey
Boy was I nervous and therefore accidentally hit ran and almost got disqualified. They were nice enough to let me continue so long as I chose my same starting 2 again. Things really didn't go well early on as while I once again used weavile's fake out on togekiss and bronzong's trick room setup, weavile was OHKO'd by rhyperior's brick break. Rhyperior & togekiss were hard to take down, and my togekiss could not OHKO machamp with air slash. Just when I falsely thought I had the upper hand when foe togekiss was paralyzed and couldn't move, I forgot he had one more pokemon left and that was blissey so a seismic toss was enough to finish me off and despair me from going to Orlando. My son also lost his round 4 match to XxBlueCookiesXx as well so neither of us won the trip as well.
Bonta-Kun(NY Winner) is on left and XxBlueCookiesXx is on the right before round 6 match
Overall it was a great time and it certainly makes up for my disappointing first round loss at JAA few years ago. I know I could've made some further changes to have improved my chances. Oh well hopefully I will have yet another opportunity.
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