I was extremely excited when I heard from FiveKRunner that Gamestop would be holding a pokemon tournament. I haven't played in a real-life tournament since 2000 (Nintendo's USA RBY tour where they were pimping stadium) and I was now a lot older, not to mention on my own. Anyway, I prepared a lot in the two weeks before the tournament. After roughly 500 practice battles with Yamipoli, I felt that my team was as good as it was going to get. The only way I could be more prepared is if I had 2 B A Master and the Pokerap playing on my CD player as I was driving down to Poughkeepsie. Sadly, I do not have these songs.
Before we go any further, I'll list the tournament rules and my team.
Rules:
1 versus 1 (aka single battles)
- Level 50.
- No sleep clause.
- No freeze clause.
- No anything clause.
- No pokemon after #490 (aka no Darkrai, Shaymin, or Arceus).
- 4 vs. 4. However, this actually becamse 3 vs. 3 because we screwed it up in the first battle and we wanted to keep everything uniform.
So, with those wacky rules, here's the team I built to take advantage of it:
Smeargle @Focus Sash
Timid (31 speed IV), absolute maximum speed.
- Spore
- Agility
- Endeavor
- Night Shade
You probably saw that coming, as I've been pimping it for no-sleep-clause tournaments on #smogon for the past week. I made a pretty key change in putting Night Shade over Extremespeed, however. This is not optimal as now I cannot hit any normal types like Blissey, however, it helps me against a little something I like to call "The Shedinja Factor".
Kyogre @Choice Scarf
- Water Spout
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
Being able to stop this from 6-0ing you (or 3-0ing, in this case) is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak. I think I proved pretty well why Kyogre is uber in the first two rounds of the tournament, where I won without ever switching and just used Water Spout to 3-0 my opponent. Move over Rayquaza. Deoxys-F? You're passe. This is the new "most ridiculous pokemon in the game".
Dialga @Leftovers
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Bulk Up
- Dragon Claw
For a tournament that lacks sleep clause, you'd better have a sleep absorber. This is the one pokemon on my team that I really didn't like, but it was the night before the tournament when I realized it so it was way too late to change anything. This was specifically EVed to be able to survive an Outrage from a Rayquaza holding a Life Orb with one Dragon Dance, with a minimum of one HP remaining. Just a note to anyone who wants to use it in the future: if you're going to do that, go with a special Dialga, because otherwise you won't have enough EVs left over to boost your attack.
Palkia @Lustrous Orb
Hasty (31 speed IV), max speed, max special attack.
- Surf
- Spacial Rend
- Aqua Tail
- Toxic
Yes, you read that right, Toxic. Normally I would have Thunder in that slot, but Toxic helps me against "The Shedinja Factor".
Rayquaza @Life Orb
Adamant
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Extremespeed
- Overheat
Jibaku's boy is no less dangerous than he used to be. I didn't really get a chance to use him however; he is very difficult to set up and use in a 3v3 environment. I also didn't really get the chance to try it.
Blissey @Leftovers
- Psych Up
- Thunder
- Ice Beam
- Softboiled
durrrr I wonder what this does.
So that's the team. A while before the tournament, Carl mentioned how they might force us to do local battles on the DS, which doesn't autolevel your pokemon. I got really paranoid, so I quickly raised them all to level 100.
Tournament day, I wake up at about 11 AM, shower, eat nothing, buy a gatorade for the road, grap my Google Maps directions, and hit the road. For the most part it's smooth sailing...until I get into Poughkeepsie. Google Maps decided to place the "end your trip here" location about a mile and a half away from the actual location of the store. I spent the next 45 minutes making U-turns (some of which I'm sure were illegal), asking directions, and finally calling Gamestop to figure out where the hell they were. I was told I "way undershot it" and immediately cursed Google Maps. Mapquest forever!
I managed to make it to the store before the tournament started, though, and ended up being the second person signed up. There were 11 people total, so one person got a bye (the bracket was weird, more on that later).
After I got signed up there was one other pokemon player in the store with me, who I'd peg around 10 or 11 years old. He challenged me to a battle! I told him I wasn't going to use my 1v1 team because I was waiting for the tournament to reveal it, but I would play him with my 2v2 team. He accepted, and thus began my first and only experience with local wireless on DP. This battle isn't even worth recounting (I can't remember all of his pokemon anyway) -- the difference between a good and bad player in 2v2 ubers is even larger than the difference between a good and bad player in 1v1 uber. I pretty soundly crushed him with my Kyogre / Ludicolo / Qwilfish / Snorlax / Latios / Mewtwo team.
At that point, more people were starting to filter in. I went out to make a phone call to my friend Senia (post here more often Senia), to tell her I was actually in a real-life pokemon tournament because that is pretty unbelievable, but sadly she did not pick up the phone. I went back in and saw two more people battling...one, a teenager I would peg around 14 years old. I saw he was using Arceus, and I told him that Arceus wasn't allowed in the tournament, to which he was like "...uh-oh". I hung out with a lot of parents because I was the oldest pokemon player there...I was pretty sad to see no father/son duos like Expert Evan and his son. I also started pimping Smogon to the masses.
At this point, the tournament began!
Round 1
This was me vs. a little girl of about 9. I felt really bad about this match. She picked Infernape, Uxie, and something I cannot recall, and I went with Kyogre, Palkia, and Rayquaza. The tournament runner immediately went "Uh-oh, that's not good" he saw my Kyogre vs. her Infernape. She switched it out for Uxie, and I mentioned that that was probably worse than staying in and taking the hit. Uxie was OHKOed by the incoming Water Spout, as was her next pokemon and Infernape. I felt pretty bad about this match...but I told her about Smogon and that she would get a lot better at competitive battling if she came here!
I met a guy here with the ingame name of Leroy (PokemonMasterLeroy on these forums). He knew about IVs, EV training, and Smogon, and mentioned that he had read a lot of the analyses. I told him that I was an administrator here, and I think I kind of intimidated him by mentioning that I wrote about half of the uber analyses for Diamond and Pearl. He came with his brother, and was a pretty cool guy. More on him later though.
Round 2
This was one of the more experienced guys in the tournament, a teenager of around 14 or 15. Problem was, he was entirely unprepared for this kind of tournament...he didn't have any ubers at all. I went with Kyogre, Dialga, and Palkia, and he went with Shuckle, Wobbuffet, and Weavile. Kyogre's Water Spout OHKOed his Shuckle right off the bat. He sent in Wobbuffet, which was immediately OHKOed by another Water Spout. Weavile came in and survived a Water Spout thanks to a Focus Sash, but was killed by the next one.
I didn't feel as bad about this match because he was like 14 or 15 and, seriously, you bring ubers to an uber tournament if you want to win. He played pretty well in first round, with a Stealth Rock / Toxic strategy...however, that really does not work so well in a 3v3 format. I told him about Smogon, let's see if he arrives!
This person had an ingame name of Roy. I remarked how we had a supermod here by that very same name! At this point I was informed that there was a pool going on among the other two (non-tournament running) Gamestop members...one had $5 on me to win the tournament, the other had $5 on Leroy.
Round 3
At this point there were 3 people left, with a rather screwy bracket. The tournament director decided to give someone a bye by coinflip...I got the bye. Much to the delight of the person who had $5 on me, and to the anguish of the person who had $5 on Leroy. It was Leroy vs. another kid, who was decent for his age but not good enough...he was using stuff like special attacking Groudon.
Leroy led with Wobbuffet while his opponent led with Groudon. Leroy guessed wrong and Mirror Coated an Earthquake. Then he guessed wrong again and Countered a Solarbeam. At this point he made a much more intelligent move and Encore'd the next move, an Eruption (Eruption Groudon is the new Fly Rayquaza). Wobbuffet was killed the next turn. Leroy then sent out Rayquaza, Dragon Danced twice while his opponent did practically nothing to Rayquaza with two Eruptions. Leroy then OHKOed Groudon and whatever his opponent's next Pokemon was, and then killed himself from confusion damage. Whatever his last pokemon was, it killed his opponent pretty quickly. It would be me vs. Leroy in the finals!
Finals
They mentioned now that they only had one T-shirt...so the winner wouldn't get one. Argh! I really wanted the T-shirt, to be honest.
Leroy and I connected to the Wii and spent about two minutes looking at and choosing our pokemon. I knew he had a Smeargle with Focus Sash that had, Spore, Endeavor, and Baton Pass, so I made sure to include my sleep absorber. I also figured that he would likely lead with Smeargle since he had seen Kyogre before and could put it to sleep, Endeavor, and be rid of one major problem from the first turn. Knowing this I picked Smeargle as my lead, as I knew I had, at worst, a 50-50 shot at beating his to the Spore (max speed + timid). I grabbed Dialga and Kyogre as my other two team members. Match begin!
As I expected, he led with Smeargle. I beat him to the Spore and he immediately went to sleep. I then switched out to Dialga, because I figured Smeargle could be useful later while his slept a second turn. I prayed he wouldn't wake up and hit the button for Dragon Claw and...Dialga was faster? I guess he hadn't EV trained his Smeargle in speed at all, otherwise it would have easily outsped Dialga. Dragon Claw knocked it to about 30% health; his Smeargle then woke up and used Endeavor on Dialga. I knocked out his Smeargle with another Dragon Claw.
Out came Rayquaza. I had EVed Dialga to survive one Outrage from a Rayquaza with Life Orb having a single Dragon Dance, but I was at about 35% health right now. I punched in Dragon Claw, but it didn't matter because Rayquaza immediately finished Dialga off with an Earthquake. I guess that was its fourth move!
I sent out Kyogre, then, and Leroy said something along the lines of "Well, I know there's an Ice Beam coming for Rayquaza, guess I'll have it go out with a bang." He was then pretty shocked when Kyogre outsped his Rayquaza and OHKOed with an Ice Beam. He revealed his last pokemon to be Salamence, said something about how Salamence could hold so many items (Choice Band and Choice Specs), and I said that it didn't matter because Kyogre had Choice Scarf. He went "Ahhh damn, Choice Scarf!" I suppose he forgot about it. Kyogre OHKOed his Salamence with an Ice Beam to win me the tournament. We shook hands, and I told him to come to Smogon!
They gave Leroy the T-shirt and gave me the copy of PBR that they used for the tournament. I got out of there pretty quickly (a regret I had), and got directions back to the main road I needed to take to get home from the mother of the player I had knocked out in the first round. When I was leaving I ran into Kisheh, who had just gotten out of work. He stopped me, I said I had won the tournament, I asked him if I knew him, he said sort of. Internet introductions for the win! Anyway I asked him if he wanted to have lunch or something at the Subway next door, completely forgetting I had no money whatsoever. We sat down and chatted a little while, but I was getting kind of nervous about my car being parked with so much stuff in it in the middle of what I call a city that I said I was going to get back, and left. Ah, well. Kisheh seemed like a pretty cool guy; a shame he couldn't be the 12th man in the tournament because he had to work.
After that I got directions one more time from the same person, and headed back to Bard.
I have a few regrets, namely:
- Not hanging out a little longer with Kisheh.
- Not sticking around and doing some more battles after the tournament was over...I really never battle irl, ever. Arceus kid said something along the lines afterward about how he would have won if he could have used Arceus...I should have taken the opportunity to just challenge him to a full 6v6 on PBR and smash him. I -hate- it when people talk like that.
Other than that, it was a pretty awesome day. And a free copy of PBR, woo! I hope Leroy and some of the guys I directed to smogon post here!
edit: Hey cool looks like my Smogon advertising worked!
Before we go any further, I'll list the tournament rules and my team.
Rules:
1 versus 1 (aka single battles)
- Level 50.
- No sleep clause.
- No freeze clause.
- No anything clause.
- No pokemon after #490 (aka no Darkrai, Shaymin, or Arceus).
- 4 vs. 4. However, this actually becamse 3 vs. 3 because we screwed it up in the first battle and we wanted to keep everything uniform.
So, with those wacky rules, here's the team I built to take advantage of it:
Smeargle @Focus Sash
Timid (31 speed IV), absolute maximum speed.
- Spore
- Agility
- Endeavor
- Night Shade
You probably saw that coming, as I've been pimping it for no-sleep-clause tournaments on #smogon for the past week. I made a pretty key change in putting Night Shade over Extremespeed, however. This is not optimal as now I cannot hit any normal types like Blissey, however, it helps me against a little something I like to call "The Shedinja Factor".
Kyogre @Choice Scarf
- Water Spout
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
Being able to stop this from 6-0ing you (or 3-0ing, in this case) is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak. I think I proved pretty well why Kyogre is uber in the first two rounds of the tournament, where I won without ever switching and just used Water Spout to 3-0 my opponent. Move over Rayquaza. Deoxys-F? You're passe. This is the new "most ridiculous pokemon in the game".
Dialga @Leftovers
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Bulk Up
- Dragon Claw
For a tournament that lacks sleep clause, you'd better have a sleep absorber. This is the one pokemon on my team that I really didn't like, but it was the night before the tournament when I realized it so it was way too late to change anything. This was specifically EVed to be able to survive an Outrage from a Rayquaza holding a Life Orb with one Dragon Dance, with a minimum of one HP remaining. Just a note to anyone who wants to use it in the future: if you're going to do that, go with a special Dialga, because otherwise you won't have enough EVs left over to boost your attack.
Palkia @Lustrous Orb
Hasty (31 speed IV), max speed, max special attack.
- Surf
- Spacial Rend
- Aqua Tail
- Toxic
Yes, you read that right, Toxic. Normally I would have Thunder in that slot, but Toxic helps me against "The Shedinja Factor".
Rayquaza @Life Orb
Adamant
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Extremespeed
- Overheat
Jibaku's boy is no less dangerous than he used to be. I didn't really get a chance to use him however; he is very difficult to set up and use in a 3v3 environment. I also didn't really get the chance to try it.
Blissey @Leftovers
- Psych Up
- Thunder
- Ice Beam
- Softboiled
durrrr I wonder what this does.
So that's the team. A while before the tournament, Carl mentioned how they might force us to do local battles on the DS, which doesn't autolevel your pokemon. I got really paranoid, so I quickly raised them all to level 100.
Tournament day, I wake up at about 11 AM, shower, eat nothing, buy a gatorade for the road, grap my Google Maps directions, and hit the road. For the most part it's smooth sailing...until I get into Poughkeepsie. Google Maps decided to place the "end your trip here" location about a mile and a half away from the actual location of the store. I spent the next 45 minutes making U-turns (some of which I'm sure were illegal), asking directions, and finally calling Gamestop to figure out where the hell they were. I was told I "way undershot it" and immediately cursed Google Maps. Mapquest forever!
I managed to make it to the store before the tournament started, though, and ended up being the second person signed up. There were 11 people total, so one person got a bye (the bracket was weird, more on that later).
After I got signed up there was one other pokemon player in the store with me, who I'd peg around 10 or 11 years old. He challenged me to a battle! I told him I wasn't going to use my 1v1 team because I was waiting for the tournament to reveal it, but I would play him with my 2v2 team. He accepted, and thus began my first and only experience with local wireless on DP. This battle isn't even worth recounting (I can't remember all of his pokemon anyway) -- the difference between a good and bad player in 2v2 ubers is even larger than the difference between a good and bad player in 1v1 uber. I pretty soundly crushed him with my Kyogre / Ludicolo / Qwilfish / Snorlax / Latios / Mewtwo team.
At that point, more people were starting to filter in. I went out to make a phone call to my friend Senia (post here more often Senia), to tell her I was actually in a real-life pokemon tournament because that is pretty unbelievable, but sadly she did not pick up the phone. I went back in and saw two more people battling...one, a teenager I would peg around 14 years old. I saw he was using Arceus, and I told him that Arceus wasn't allowed in the tournament, to which he was like "...uh-oh". I hung out with a lot of parents because I was the oldest pokemon player there...I was pretty sad to see no father/son duos like Expert Evan and his son. I also started pimping Smogon to the masses.
At this point, the tournament began!
Round 1
This was me vs. a little girl of about 9. I felt really bad about this match. She picked Infernape, Uxie, and something I cannot recall, and I went with Kyogre, Palkia, and Rayquaza. The tournament runner immediately went "Uh-oh, that's not good" he saw my Kyogre vs. her Infernape. She switched it out for Uxie, and I mentioned that that was probably worse than staying in and taking the hit. Uxie was OHKOed by the incoming Water Spout, as was her next pokemon and Infernape. I felt pretty bad about this match...but I told her about Smogon and that she would get a lot better at competitive battling if she came here!
I met a guy here with the ingame name of Leroy (PokemonMasterLeroy on these forums). He knew about IVs, EV training, and Smogon, and mentioned that he had read a lot of the analyses. I told him that I was an administrator here, and I think I kind of intimidated him by mentioning that I wrote about half of the uber analyses for Diamond and Pearl. He came with his brother, and was a pretty cool guy. More on him later though.
Round 2
This was one of the more experienced guys in the tournament, a teenager of around 14 or 15. Problem was, he was entirely unprepared for this kind of tournament...he didn't have any ubers at all. I went with Kyogre, Dialga, and Palkia, and he went with Shuckle, Wobbuffet, and Weavile. Kyogre's Water Spout OHKOed his Shuckle right off the bat. He sent in Wobbuffet, which was immediately OHKOed by another Water Spout. Weavile came in and survived a Water Spout thanks to a Focus Sash, but was killed by the next one.
I didn't feel as bad about this match because he was like 14 or 15 and, seriously, you bring ubers to an uber tournament if you want to win. He played pretty well in first round, with a Stealth Rock / Toxic strategy...however, that really does not work so well in a 3v3 format. I told him about Smogon, let's see if he arrives!
This person had an ingame name of Roy. I remarked how we had a supermod here by that very same name! At this point I was informed that there was a pool going on among the other two (non-tournament running) Gamestop members...one had $5 on me to win the tournament, the other had $5 on Leroy.
Round 3
At this point there were 3 people left, with a rather screwy bracket. The tournament director decided to give someone a bye by coinflip...I got the bye. Much to the delight of the person who had $5 on me, and to the anguish of the person who had $5 on Leroy. It was Leroy vs. another kid, who was decent for his age but not good enough...he was using stuff like special attacking Groudon.
Leroy led with Wobbuffet while his opponent led with Groudon. Leroy guessed wrong and Mirror Coated an Earthquake. Then he guessed wrong again and Countered a Solarbeam. At this point he made a much more intelligent move and Encore'd the next move, an Eruption (Eruption Groudon is the new Fly Rayquaza). Wobbuffet was killed the next turn. Leroy then sent out Rayquaza, Dragon Danced twice while his opponent did practically nothing to Rayquaza with two Eruptions. Leroy then OHKOed Groudon and whatever his opponent's next Pokemon was, and then killed himself from confusion damage. Whatever his last pokemon was, it killed his opponent pretty quickly. It would be me vs. Leroy in the finals!
Finals
They mentioned now that they only had one T-shirt...so the winner wouldn't get one. Argh! I really wanted the T-shirt, to be honest.
Leroy and I connected to the Wii and spent about two minutes looking at and choosing our pokemon. I knew he had a Smeargle with Focus Sash that had, Spore, Endeavor, and Baton Pass, so I made sure to include my sleep absorber. I also figured that he would likely lead with Smeargle since he had seen Kyogre before and could put it to sleep, Endeavor, and be rid of one major problem from the first turn. Knowing this I picked Smeargle as my lead, as I knew I had, at worst, a 50-50 shot at beating his to the Spore (max speed + timid). I grabbed Dialga and Kyogre as my other two team members. Match begin!
As I expected, he led with Smeargle. I beat him to the Spore and he immediately went to sleep. I then switched out to Dialga, because I figured Smeargle could be useful later while his slept a second turn. I prayed he wouldn't wake up and hit the button for Dragon Claw and...Dialga was faster? I guess he hadn't EV trained his Smeargle in speed at all, otherwise it would have easily outsped Dialga. Dragon Claw knocked it to about 30% health; his Smeargle then woke up and used Endeavor on Dialga. I knocked out his Smeargle with another Dragon Claw.
Out came Rayquaza. I had EVed Dialga to survive one Outrage from a Rayquaza with Life Orb having a single Dragon Dance, but I was at about 35% health right now. I punched in Dragon Claw, but it didn't matter because Rayquaza immediately finished Dialga off with an Earthquake. I guess that was its fourth move!
I sent out Kyogre, then, and Leroy said something along the lines of "Well, I know there's an Ice Beam coming for Rayquaza, guess I'll have it go out with a bang." He was then pretty shocked when Kyogre outsped his Rayquaza and OHKOed with an Ice Beam. He revealed his last pokemon to be Salamence, said something about how Salamence could hold so many items (Choice Band and Choice Specs), and I said that it didn't matter because Kyogre had Choice Scarf. He went "Ahhh damn, Choice Scarf!" I suppose he forgot about it. Kyogre OHKOed his Salamence with an Ice Beam to win me the tournament. We shook hands, and I told him to come to Smogon!
They gave Leroy the T-shirt and gave me the copy of PBR that they used for the tournament. I got out of there pretty quickly (a regret I had), and got directions back to the main road I needed to take to get home from the mother of the player I had knocked out in the first round. When I was leaving I ran into Kisheh, who had just gotten out of work. He stopped me, I said I had won the tournament, I asked him if I knew him, he said sort of. Internet introductions for the win! Anyway I asked him if he wanted to have lunch or something at the Subway next door, completely forgetting I had no money whatsoever. We sat down and chatted a little while, but I was getting kind of nervous about my car being parked with so much stuff in it in the middle of what I call a city that I said I was going to get back, and left. Ah, well. Kisheh seemed like a pretty cool guy; a shame he couldn't be the 12th man in the tournament because he had to work.
After that I got directions one more time from the same person, and headed back to Bard.
I have a few regrets, namely:
- Not hanging out a little longer with Kisheh.
- Not sticking around and doing some more battles after the tournament was over...I really never battle irl, ever. Arceus kid said something along the lines afterward about how he would have won if he could have used Arceus...I should have taken the opportunity to just challenge him to a full 6v6 on PBR and smash him. I -hate- it when people talk like that.
Other than that, it was a pretty awesome day. And a free copy of PBR, woo! I hope Leroy and some of the guys I directed to smogon post here!
edit: Hey cool looks like my Smogon advertising worked!
