Official Nintendo Pokemon Tournament

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Not really.

http://www.pokedex.jp/

is one of the better known ones. They have a team rating board, and a general discussion for each generation.

era404 updates his site as well: http://error404.fc2web.com/
There are several other sites linked to on there. Most of the players seem to abide by battle tower rules when playing on wi-fi, with the inclusion of sleep clause. level 50 standards as opposed to level 100. sometimes they ban Cresselia, too.

I don't speak Japanese by the way, so please don't ask me to translate anything.
 
Hmm. My first thought was that perhaps the Japanese metagame was more oriented on doubles, but I suppose level 50 could have something to do with it.

I think to have a better shot at next year's tournament, we need to get more players into doubles. The lack of a doubles simulator means that you actually need a team to work with, and you have to either settle for PBR random matches, or the "Battle Me" thread, neither of which is guaranteed to get you a good match. So I guess it's understandable that fewer people would likely have as much doubles experience as they do singles.

What intrigues me though, is how the Japanese seem to have a better grasp of double battles themselves, assuming they indeed don't have an equivalent competitive community like Smogon. Sure, Smogon isn't the be-all-end-all of competitive battling, but I'd say it's a large part of its core. If anyone knows of an explanation, please speak up. If not, I think this deserves to be looked into.
 
Arceus, what were the 'bans' from next year's tournament, and where are you getting these rules from?

Also, Japan probably has 10 times as many Pokemon players as 'we' do, and then some. People congregate, they have tournaments like this every year, they have the Pokemon Centres in Tokyo where the staff willingly battle customers. Hell, a lot of these competitors have already seen each other in previous tournaments, not just in 2007 either. era404 and seadraDS, for example, both have several videos taken of themselves and their friends playing some of the previous world chamions and national contenders in PBR free battles. And yes, they have 'the internet' for resources too. If you look at the team rating board I posted, you'll find nothing 'amazing' there in terms of originality and strategy compared to our standards. In fact, even level 1 Smeargle was a concept we already knew about before DP hit the shelves; it was in our ADV analyses. They just tend to have a playing style that better suits Nintendo rules, and therefore naturally do better during these types of tournaments.

Although, a win two consecutive years in a row in a game where this much luck is involved to begin with, definitely says something about a players skill.

I know for a fact Chris studied the hell out of his competitors, and the Japanese metagame, too.
 
The bans aren't listed yet (hence why they could be different), and the rules are found here : http://www.pokemon.co.jp/special/wcs0809/game/

Unfortunately, it's Japanese. Google translator does help out for the most part though, and the rules appear to be the same as this tournament's, albeit Diamond and Pearl are excluded.

Also, the page links to other pages, but some of them have the text as images, so not even the small help from Google is usable :(

EDIT: Also, my handle is "Arseus" with an "s" rather than the "c" in the Pokémon "Arceus".
 
This is from memory, so I might've messed a few things up, but this is roughly how the final battle went:

Turn 1:
P2 swaps out Zapdos for Metagross. P1's Smeargle uses Fake Out on Cress. Cress flinches, P1's Zong uses Trick Room.

Turn 2:
P2's Metagross uses Bullet Punch on Smeargle, who survives with 1 HP. P1's Smeargle uses Dark Void. It hits both and wastes both berries, Zong uses Hypnosis which hits Metagross successfully. Cress finishes Smeargle off with Psychic. P1 sends in Snorlax.

Turn 3:
P1's Bronzong is switched out for Metagross. Snorlax uses Belly Drum, regains 30% health with Sitrus. Cress uses Psychic on Snorlax for insignificant damage. P2's Metagross snoozes.

Turn 4:
Lax uses Return on Cress for about 95% damage. P1 Metagross uses Hammer Arm on P2 Metagross, Speed goes down. Cress uses Psychic on Snorlax again. P2's Metagross continues to sleep.

Turn 5:
P1's Snorlax uses Fire Punch on Metagross for the kill, and P1's Metagross finishes off Cress with Bullet Punch. Zapdos and Latios are sent in. Trick Room ends here.

Turn 6:
Metagross uses Bullet Punch on Latios, knocking off about half of its health. Latios uses Draco Meteor, which nearly kills Snorlax. Zapdos finishes Snorlax off with Thunderbolt. Bronzong is sent in.

Turn 7:
Metagross uses Bullet Punch on Latios for the kill. Zapdos uses Thunderbolt for just over 50% damage on Metagross. Bronzong uses Hypnosis on Zapdos.

Turn 8:
Metagross uses Bullet Punch on Zapdos for roughly 30% damage. Zong uses Psychic for something like 15% damage, Zapdos sleeps.

Turn 9:
Metagross uses Bullet Punch again for another 30%-ish damage. Zapdos wakes up and just barely manages to finish off Metagross with Thunderbolt. Bronzong uses Psychic again.

Turn 10:
Zapdos uses Detect to get lefties recovery. Bronzong uses Trick Room.

Turn 11-end:
From here on out it was something of a stallout between Bronzong, who tried to keep Zapdos to sleep with Hypnosis while wearing it down with Psychic, and Zapdos who would try to detect for lefties recovery while using T-bolt for offense. Ultimately, Zapdos only got 1 Thunderbolt in on Zong for roughly 35% damage (which didn't have leftovers), but Bronzong finally got a sp def drop and finished Zapdos with Psychic.

I'm not 100% sure if turns 7-9 are correct, but the final stall definitely started with Zapdos at something like 30-40% after a few Bullet Punches vs Bronzong at full health.



I don't remember the Junior division finals quite as well. The winner (an American called Knight) led with Bronzong and Hippowdon, and used a Bronzong set with Safeguard/Swagger (he also used Trick Room on his Zong to stop the enemy from setting up TR). His opponent led with Bronzong/Dusknoir and used pretty much the same strategy; fast-forward a bit into the battle, it's +2 Metagross and a Snorlax (Knight's opponent) versus Bronzong and Garchomp (Knight, who still had 1 more Pokemon in reserve). Garchomp uses Earthquake and deals a fair amount to Metagross and Snorlax, but Metagross uses Ice Punch. Ice Punch misses due to Sand Veil, though, and Garchomp KO's both next turn, giving Knight the win.
 
zerowing said:
UPDATE: Pretty much every US player was knocked out Round 1, myself included. Chris, the LA winner, is top 4, but they aren't doing those matches until 1 PM today. I have a few problems with the officiating but I won't delve too much into that now.
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I had a feeling something like this would happen. The minute I saw the machines in NYC I knew big trouble would be around, and considering I did have issues with Nintendo at JAA regarding a few things AND some issues with Nintendo regarding PowerFest '94 14 years ago, I am not at all surprised something came out of it.

I was in NYC, but I refused to reveal myself because of these issues. I kept an extremely low profile so people wouldn't recognize me there.

Looks like I'm going to have to take this Japanese guy myself, though it'll be on fairer terms than this tournament, that's for sure.

-James
 
Does anyone care to elaborate on said 'issues'? It might make an interesting warstory!

I suppose zerowing will be posting his soon enough, though.
 
my brother lost in the second round against an LA guy. he had no match anyway. still, im proud of him how far he got, especially getting us to orlando. hopefully i get a chance to participate (and he does too hopefully) so that we can once again take a trip like this.

hopefully its held in Las Vegas, or LA even.
 
Duckster said:
Does anyone care to elaborate on said 'issues'? It might make an interesting warstory!

I suppose zerowing will be posting his soon enough, though.
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure what James/Nightmare is talking about but I know that skarm has always been suspicious of the battling machines that Nintendo uses.

I don't remember the full extent of the rotten luck he had in his finals match in Seattle but I'm pretty sure that FlyQuaza CHed his Blissey. I know for sure that after his Exeggutor hit Ray with a Sleep Powder and he had the win in the bag by using Psychic, it woke up on the first turn after being put to sleep, used Fly, and took the win. God only knows how Darling even made it that far in the tournament to begin with (he was even called up as an alternate).

Some could make a case for the same such thing happening at the JAA with Calvin's Hydro Pump missing against Mewtwo twice in a row, something that was like 10% odds, but I think that would be stretching it.

Regardless, something extremely odd always happens at these tournaments, whether it be how it was set up (Darling managing to make it all the way, all of the Smogoners on one side of the tournament tree at JAA) or how it turns out.



Also, now that I looked at it again, I'm even more disappointed with our round 1 wins. Of the 5 Americans that advanced, 3 of them did so by beating other Americans. Our 7 wins in the first two rounds came against fellow Americans 4 times. Only 2 of us made it to round 3 and one to round 4.

In the end though, I guess the odds were stacked against us. We came into it with just 2 qualifying tournaments, both of which admitted participants on a random basis. There was no second chance for good players who caught a tough break, let alone be able to qualify for or make it to the tournament.
 
I doubt the contest was rigged, but you guys have your reasons to believe otherwise. I thought perhaps he just meant the way they dealt with 'foul play' in general, pointless shit like cloning and GTS hacks, something like that.

And to further answer your question, Arseus, this is what era404 (personal friend of Izuru) had to say about competitive Pokemon in the description of his most recent video. (Funny enough this was all irrelevant to his video, but a fairly relevant answer to a question I had previously asked him)

era404 said:
There was no method of doing the game of GBA online in Japan.
Instead, the promotion and the research have developed online.
The strategy has developed by off-line meeting.
(Is narrowness in the country related?)
http://pokemon-underground.com/(Webmaster:Kajiwara.Showdown 2nd,07Makuhari,05Makuhari,99 2nd)
http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~saburoh/(Webmaster:Saburo-!. 04 1st)
therefore, the material of the strategy of GBA is a little.

It came to obtain the material of the strategy by wiki since DS.
http://www18.atwiki.jp/dppokekousatsu/
http://www25.atwiki.jp/poke-doublebat... etc

The strategy has developed by NetBattle in other countries.
However, neither the promotion nor the research have developed.
(The research is EXP/EV BASE and PokeBlock, etc.)
Click to expand...

Apparently Yashuito administers one of the more competitive oriented sites in Japan. The video the response came from can be found here.
 
Stray Thoughts

Duckster, I knew the opponents remaining in the final three and I had ideal matchups for each of them: Trick Room Hail with Slowking and Machamp for the Cresselia/Latios/Latias/Metagross team and the champion's Smeargle/Bronzong/Snorlax/Metagross, Rain for Yanmega/Snorlax/Latios/Metagross, and Sun for Hail teams.

Unfortunately, I played for fun against Yasuhito the day before and saw Hippowdon/Bronzong/Relicanth/Level 1 Cubone, and a year has passed since the DP 2007 finals; then, shortly before our match, when the junior champion summoned his Bronzong/Hippowdown in his finals, Yasuhito gasped. Naturally, I was expecting to see some variant of Trick Room, and it cost me. My Slowking proved dead weight with no Fire attack.

Still, this is no excuse for not Protecting my Kingdra. Aggression on that key turn cost me the battle. I wanted to ensure that I'd KO the Latios regardless of its target, but in retrospect, it was obvious he would hit the greater threat, Kingdra. That move was the game.

I am going to lose a lot of sleep over that one.. =(

~Halordain
 
Yea I met up with everyone there. We all had a blast. Hopefully someone posts a few of the pics we all took. Everyone was so cool.
 
It was great meeting all you guys, can't wait for Next Years, where Worlds will be in Cali instead of Florida. I think all of us who lost in the first round lost to the extremely common Abomasnow. I'll let Zerowing tell you guys how he lost, if he wants to. It did suck that the guy who won had the same exact team as me, so if it weren't for the fact that I had a bad matchup first round, that could have been me. I also managed to battle the champ for fun, and won, and most of us played a lot of matches with the japanese guys(Multi-Battles were Very popular, and fun!) On the last night, this lady gave us all a pack of pokemon cards in different languages, and I managed to pull an incredibly rare "Smogon" card, that was so rare it wasn't even on Ebay. Zerowing tried to trade me his shiny Palkia that was worth $5, but I could not part with Smogon. I had a great time, and can't wait for Next Years.

Oh, and I will be putting the Senior top 4 matches on youtube tomorrow, or the day after. I even managed to get the "Ka Guy" having his seizures in the video! Here's a site that has a ton of info about the event, and I only watched one video so far, and me, PBB, and Marc(I think he said he was Legend on here, but with only 1 post or something). http://www.go-pokemon.com/worlds/
 
For those who are interested, here are the full teams of the Junior and Senior champions, albiet without Natures/EVs and such of course. From the website.

Junior Champion Knight Silvayne

Bronzong, @ Lum Berry
~ Safeguard
~ Swagger
~ Trick Room
~ Explosion

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
~ Earthquake
~ Dragon Claw
~ Protect
~ Crunch

Metagross @ Life Orb
~ Earthquake
~ Meteor Mash
~ Protect
~ Explosion

Hippowdon @ Persim Berry
~ Earthquake
~ Crunch
~ Protect
~ Stone Edge


Senior Champion Izuru Yoshimura

Level 1 Smeargle @ Focus Sash
~ Dark Void
~ Endeavor
~ Fake Out
~ Follow Me

Bronzong @ Chesto Berry
~ Hypnosis
~ Psychic
~ Trick Room
~ Explosion

Snorlax @ Sitrus Berry
~ Return
~ Fire Punch
~ Protect
~ Belly Drum

Metagross @ Lum Berry
~ Bullet Punch
~ Rock Slide
~ Hammer Arm
~ Psych Up
 
well there was a double dq between U.S. and JPN sadly so the kaa guy in top 16 got a bye. The competition there was tough. So many hail teams lolz.
 
mysteryman said:
well there was a double dq between U.S. and JPN sadly so the kaa guy in top 16 got a bye. The competition there was tough. So many hail teams lolz.
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Aww I would've loved to face some of the hail teams as I had dominated a few of them back at Showdown-NY in rounds 1 & 3. If only I made at least one change and not made some nervous mistakes with my round 4 match with jbomber (Diego) I could have been in Orlando this past weekend. No room for error.
 
Quote of the trip:


"Hey, are you POKEMAN????????????????????????????????????"







I'm back, and lost round 1 due to IMO some bad luck. I'll be typing up a warstory though, and posting it sometime later today or tomorrow.
 
It was interesting going to the Showdown, although for only a few hours, and seeing the Semi and Final Matches in person. The Lack of my Teams being at Lv. 50 stopped me from playing others but overall it was a cool event and hope that the Qualifiers are more Widespread next year :)
 
There were a few major factors imo which ultimately led to the Americans getting slaughtered by the Japs.


-The Japanese got about 1 year to train for this particular tournament in advance. (We got barely a month)

-America focuses too much on 1vs1. For JAA all the best American battlers trained fiercely using *netbattle. It has always been our main way of testing multiple strategies for competitive Pokemon. This time around there was no shoddy or competitor available for 2vs2 (which is a BIG shame), so the competitive 2vs2 we could expose ourselves to for practice was very limited.

-When I arrived on the 14th I noticed a lot of the Japanese practicing with each other. This was a pretty different picture compared to most of the Americans which tried keeping their main strategies secret most of the time, and in return didn't give their teams enough test time.

I'm sure there were a few more factors which contributed, but anyhow I am not at all bitter about it. I had a lot of fun being in Florida with my gf (Ryouchan) for those many days. I also never lost so early in a tournament ever, or have never seen so many other of the best players I know lose so early, so that was kinda crazy and funny in a weird way. It was a good experience over all. I really hope Nintendo can put the Video game and the TCG together in one place again, like they did here.
 
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