Official Nintendo Pokemon Tournament

[makiri]

k I'll just shed some light on my issues with the officiating. During my match I was pretty much in control but my Snorlax was dying to Abomasnow and Slowbro and probably had 2 more turns in him. My opponent had a Abomasnow, Slowbro, a 1 HP Par'd Weavile, and a mystery Pokemon, I had about 75% Uxie, a dying Lax, and a reserve Shiftry. This turn I have to kill Abomasnow or Slowbro so he can bring out his reserve and Lax can Explode.

This is what I planned happening:

Turn 1
Uxie move
Aboma move
Lax Fire Punch Abomasnow, Aboma faints
Slowbro move
Switch in mystery or Weavile

Turn 2
Uxie Protect or move based on what he switches in
Lax Protect or Self Destruct based on what he switches in

Turn 3 or 4
Shiftry Explodes to end the game

What really happened:
Uxie move
Aboma move
Lax Fire Punch Abomasnow, Aboma lives with 1 HP
Slowbro move

Lax dies the next turn, and leaves Shiftry to get killed the turn after that.


I thought to myself there is no way Aboma can live through that attack and I question an official who pretty much brushes me away. I spoke with Mysteryman who was helping out and he told one of the higher officials and I had a quick word with him but again he brushed me off and they continued into the next round, so had my opponent hacked it was now too late to sub me back in. I was frustrated and just left the area and did the damage calculation, it turns out Aboma can live with some heavy EV investment but I was still angry at the officials for not even trying to check his Pokemon prior to the next round. Before the Top 4 were set to battle I was eating a sandwich and the official I spoke with earlier found me and told me that my opponent was fine and had no hacks, after the fact, when I had 0 chance to get my spot back had he hacked.

I was under the impression that they were going to be very strict with hack checks and check prior to the tournament, but from what I heard they didn't even check until the Top 8, so essentially someone could've hacked their way to the Top 8 and then switch to a normal cart.

I'm disappointed that I lost to something like a 1 HP Abomasnow and I can't do anything about it now so I won't dwell on it, I still had fun meeting everyone and getting autographs from Junichi Masuda and Tsunekazu Ishihara (who had an awesome Kakuna 151 shirt, which is on the 151 website now). Probably no warstory but I'll put up all the pictures I have soon.

 

[dtrain]

hey BKK that Articuno shirt was awesome. I was the tall dude who chat with u just before u received your prizes.
Edit: Yea Zerowing, I think the staff saw how much time the jpn took when they were battling the day before, they were afraid it might delay the time they wanted the tourny to end.

 

[Odinwolf]

If anyone who was there would be kind enough to share, I would love to clone a few of the event Lucarios and pass them around. No "charge" for doing it. I'd just like a copy and I'm sure others would as well.

 

[Halordain]

Hack Checking

Hey all,

My opinion is not worth much in the grand scheme, but it seems like hacking has become a hot topic. Zerowing's first-round opponent, era404's recent posting on YouTube dissecting my trainer pass, and a mother accusing a Japanese junior of a hacked Pokemon... lots of speculation, but not much to show for it. I eliminated zerowing's vanquisher in the next round, I lost in the semifinals, and I don't think the Japanese junior made it much farther.

There really is no way to know for sure, but, from a player's point of view, the risk is too great despite its minor rewards. I know that Pokemon battles are hard to win, but I would prefer to lose a battle with my own hand-raised Pokemon than lose unconditionally because of a hack I brought into battle.

The advantages are also questionable. I don't think any players at this level would dare bring a blatant hack (999 stats); we have too much to lose, as I think everybody at this level is self-confident enough to believe he or she has a shot to win, so that disqualification would seem to be a catastrophic consequence. As far as "legitimate" hacks (ones that fall within possibility, like max IVs), we have to trust the hack checks run on Top 8 game cards. Even if these hack checks falter, however, you have to realize that most of the top players legitimately breed 31/31/31/... Pokemon on their own; after the event, I had the pleasure of trading with Yasuhito, Minori, and Masataka, and, having browsed their PC boxes, I can assure you that they have gone through painstaking amounts of breeding and have obtained several perfectly IVed Pokemon (along with hundreds of imperfectly IVed hatchlings)... just like me, and I'm sure several of you as well. It isn't that difficult, if you have a few good Dittos and a lot of time. It takes a lot of hatching, but it's mostly a matter of time.

I don't think "hack checks" are the last word on this matter, because clearly some people are unsatisfied with their outcome. I don't know what Nintendo can do better regarding checks except performing them more frequently, and maybe forcing pre-registration of all competitors' game cards and teams. What I'm trying to say is that requesting a check is probably going to be inconsequential, not to mention a gesture of questionable sportsmanship; I can understand it at a lower level, but, at the Showdown, the Top 32, when everybody has a shot at the championship to lose, and most people have had the time to breed perfect IVs anyways, it just doesn't seem like great odds for finding a blatant hacker and gaining something to show for it. Yoshi, zerowing's opponent, could very well have hacked, but I'd much rather just assume he had the perfect Abomasnow like I know Minori has, and beat him fair and square. It's hard to say where to draw that line between the "perfect Abomasnow" and the blatant hack because of the random number generator in damage calculation, and we'd like the hack check to determine that line, but the only solace I can offer you is that, from my point of view, that risk of exposure is too great to hazard, and I'd much rather stay up a few nights hatching an Abomasnow than being embarrassingly ejected during a hack check. From our conversations, I know some Japanese players share my point of view; most of us wouldn't even risk trading over GTS. I made sure to watch a friend pick up his Shaymin before trading it to me, and another player rejected my Cresselia altogether because its IVs looked too good. Showdown players are careful, and I think that's an understatement. Whether or not the hack check that the judges execute is effective will never be known, but I think that the conseqences are much like those of an honor code; even if its violations are seldom seen and punished, its mere presence changes the way that players prepare... to the point that players who feel they have something to lose will raise their teams themselves, and often do as well as any "legitimate" hacking.

~Halordain

 

[omni]

so here are the pics. i might as well post them now and add captions in a little bit:

arriving in orlando. pic taken from our room at the hilton

brian was sleepy coming from the flight. were at the orlando airport waiting for the mears shuttle.

that was me after i walked in the swampy heat. it was total hell coming from the grocery store

i think this was the saturday where brian started playing. opening ceremony. thats pokemom to the left of the pic

yeah thats a big crowd. 421 people from 21 different countries for the tcg. 64 in 2 for the video game showdown :/

brian prepping for battle. yeah, i used that term loosely

brian played chris at table 9. thats bkk on table 13, facing the japanese champ

my bad for the blurriness. my camera had low battery the entire trip and it turned off randomly haha... zerowing to the right. bluecookies in the blur.

brian vs. chris

brian beat chris by a slim margin, but he ended up losing to an LA guy. i couldnt remember his name.

hal in the quarterfinals

a bad pic taken at the final i think.

me and chimchar lol...

and me and pikachu. oh fo sho!

junichi masuda. yes THE junichi masuda

and the CEO of pokemon! digging the kakuna shirt

junichi once again signing an autograph.

 

[omni]

my bad for the double post :(

more junichi hahaha

more Tsunekazu Ishihara, the ceo

brian with lapras

me with lucario, happiny and munchlax haha

mr ishihara drew me a rotom :D

and masuda's autograph!

i look dumb here... :(

well everyone started to play their dses before the closing ceremony. great to see the japanese and american players together.

i thought it was the best time to take a group picture. we gave a referral to the german guy who took the picture to go to smogon. we advertise!

sunday night in orlando, waaaay after the closing ceremony. we played pool as we took the pic.

a multibattle taking place.

and thats where we saw junichi walking by. i asked him for a picture and he agreed :)

mysteryman with mr. masuda!

chris and paul also took a picture with him

and finally a group picture with him.

hopefully we get to see you guys in san diego next year :D

last pictures at the hilton before we headed for the airport

my bad for the bad quality pics. my camera was acting stupid, but at least i got the opportunity to spend a good time in orlando. this was a pretty good experience, and i look forward to see you guys again. :D

 

[POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN]

Nice "smogon" picture. I'm going to show it in my thread. :p


Also I would have loved to have had my picture with Masuda, that would have been wickedly cool. =( Next year I guess I'll snag him if he is there.

 

[Mailbox]

Even though its a year away, is anyone planning for next year so the good ol' US of A doesn't get smoked in the first round again? Are we going to be more open about our strategies like the Japanese players were so we have a better knowledge of the metagame and be able to make the strongest possible teams?

My suggestion is that we scrap our current "competitive" style of play and adopt the VGS rules and format. Even though we lose Shoddy, we need this practice to be able to compete with the Japanese players who clearly outclassed us this year.

 

[obi]

I hope next year they have a better selection process. Selecting such a small number of people essentially at random seems a poor way to do it.

How were the Japanese selected? My guess is that they had minor tournaments to qualify, which obviously means you'll have higher average quality of players.

 

[POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN]

Yes, I do hope they change the selection process as well next year.

The Japanese have a pokemon league, which has tournaments every year. The Japanese contestants for the Showdown were the winners and 2nd placers from each stop in Japan last year("PokemonLeague 2007").

 

[BlueCookies]

Well, I'm currently working on Uploading all of the videos to youtube. My computer takes like, 30+ minutes just to upload one video, and since youtube has a 10 minute limit, I have to make mulitple parts for each match(Since the Japanese players take sooo long to make one move, which made each match very long). I'll try and upload all of the matches tonight, but I may only get to the two semifinals matches. I will edit this post when I finish uploading another video.

As of right now, I only have Part 1 of 2 of the first Semifinal match(Featuring the "Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Guy"). I even managed to get him on tape when he did his few "Kaaaaa!!"'s. Sorry for the poor quality, but its not like it matters, since the words are all in Japanese.

Semifinal 1 - Part 1
Semifinal 1 - Part 2

Semifinal 2 - Part 1
Semifinal 2 - Part 2

I'l try to get the finals up in a few hours

 

[Bluekikatana]

Even though its a year away, is anyone planning for next year so the good ol' US of A doesn't get smoked in the first round again? Are we going to be more open about our strategies like the Japanese players were so we have a better knowledge of the metagame and be able to make the strongest possible teams?

My suggestion is that we scrap our current "competitive" style of play and adopt the VGS rules and format. Even though we lose Shoddy, we need this practice to be able to compete with the Japanese players who clearly outclassed us this year.

All that needs to happen for the U.S. to be able to compete with the Japanese in this type of meta-game better is for shoddy to implement double battle. Once that happens double battle will begin to bloom at its full potential here, and people will become more competitive in that style of play, and just be more ready in general for all types of double battle strategies. PBR just doesn't cut it. The Shoddy programmers need to realize that they're completely neglecting the second side of the Pokemon video game coin.

And for those who don't think double battle will be implemented again, it has already been used in 3 major video game tournaments in the last 2 years. They use double battle over single battle because it takes less time and has less stall. Some of us here need to start some threads on the official Shoddy board if there isn't one already. If they don't care about Pokemon Double Battle, then they aren't representing the true competitive side of video game Pokemon, they're just "shoddy". A true competitor changes and adapts with rules that also change. There should never be "one" way that is obsolete as the "only" competitive way.

It's true that we can try to practice this meta-game among us here via wi-fi, but nothing will be as effective as drilling battles continuously like how it could be done in netbattle or any other type of online battle simulator.

 

[Mailbox]

All that needs to happen for the U.S. to be able to compete with the Japanese in this type of meta-game better is for shoddy to implement double battle. Once that happens double battle will begin to bloom at its full potential here, and people will become more competitive in that style of play, and just be more ready in general for all types of double battle strategies. PBR just doesn't cut it. The Shoddy programmers need to realize that they're completely neglecting the second side of the Pokemon video game coin.

And for those who don't think double battle will be implemented again, it has already been used in 3 major video game tournaments in the last 2 years. They use double battle over single battle because it takes less time and has less stall.

This is true, but let's say Shoddy doesn't get a double battle feature and summer rolls around again. While everyone's busy playing 6v6 Level 100 single battles, Japan is playing in their leagues and playtesting with other top competitors. Over here in America, are we all going to be secretive about our strategies while Japan has more solid strategies and teams? How are we going to better ourselves in an unfamiliar format unless we make it the standard format that we battle with?

On a similar note, I'd like to know how many of the US finalists were Uber players, OU players, and UU players out of curiosity. I'm guessing that you were all OU, with maybe a splash of UU.

 

[ΩDonut]

I'm sure there are some Japanese battle simulators out there; they probably have double battles implemented. If we can find one of those, we won't have to wait for Shoddy to implement it. At least those of us who can put up with the Japanese move names, anyway.

 

[TypeGSiR]

Man you guys that made it all the way are respected in my book i wish i could have gone to LA when they had the qualifiers but i couldnt make it even though i live 4 hours away in Bakersfield Cali but im so pumped to train and breed for next year

 

[TypeGSiR]

plus what Lucario did they give out?

 

[Magnechu]

Adamant Lv 30 Lucario @ Leftovers
Bone Rush/Force Palm/Sunny Day/Blaze Kick

 

[Bonta-kun]

Great pictures and videos guys. It was nice meeting you all in Florida.

I lost in the second round but I can't complain. Winning the trip was good enough. Hopefully I'll see you guys next year (or maybe even sooner). It would be nice to test teams out before the next tournament.

 

[Duckster]

Did any of you guys in the finals end up using your gamepaks for cloning?

 

[Haku16]

i strongly believe that the japanese are laughing at us for how poorly we did at showdown.

can anyone tell me the metagame for the japanese? cause we got beat bad!! and i would like to study it.

also even though it was a doulbe battle tournament style we should have been ready even if shoddy wasnt helping with it we could have still practice on PBR or make a battle me thread for it. and i understand you still might not get a good batlle of that but its still practice.

 

[FiveKRunner]

i strongly believe that the japanese are laughing at us for how poorly we did at showdown.

can anyone tell me the metagame for the japanese? cause we got beat bad!! and i would like to study it.

also even though it was a doulbe battle tournament style we should have been ready even if shoddy wasnt helping with it we could have still practice on PBR or make a battle me thread for it. and i understand you still might not get a good batlle of that but its still practice.

It's been said already but one of the main reasons we lost so badly was because of the qualification process.

We had 2 tournaments in the furthest corners of our nation. That right there severely limits who will be able to even make it to the qualifiers. Now you have to count on the only good players who live within a few hours of LA and NYC. Of those that live nearby, they have to be picked in a random drawing, to just compete. It's not like only people who will attend enter either, everyone across the U.S. tried to qualify.

So if you're a decent battler, live in the tournament area, and somehow got into the tournament, you're still not guaranteed an easy way to the finals. Some bad luck or facing another good opponent early on in the tournament limits your chances also.

When you look at Japan, they had 8 tournaments, with only the top 2 qualifying. You're only taking the best from 2 each area and there are multiple chances for those who didn't get in due to luck to have another shot at qualifying.

Simply put, they were able to bring more of their best players into this thing.

 

[Ashenlock]

Not only that, but the Japanese players that battled in Orlando had already won their local tournaments ages before the West knew they had a chance in it.

 

[Haku16]

It's been said already but one of the main reasons we lost so badly was because of the qualification process.

We had 2 tournaments in the furthest corners of our nation. That right there severely limits who will be able to even make it to the qualifiers. Now you have to count on the only good players who live within a few hours of LA and NYC. Of those that live nearby, they have to be picked in a random drawing, to just compete. It's not like only people who will attend enter either, everyone across the U.S. tried to qualify.

So if you're a decent battler, live in the tournament area, and somehow got into the tournament, you're still not guaranteed an easy way to the finals. Some bad luck or facing another good opponent early on in the tournament limits your chances also.

When you look at Japan, they had 8 tournaments, with only the top 2 qualifying. You're only taking the best from 2 each area and there are multiple chances for those who didn't get in due to luck to have another shot at qualifying.

Simply put, they were able to bring more of their best players into this thing.

yes that maybe true but even so the people who did make it didnt so hot against the japanese. i really thought we had a chance. even some people either re-made the team back in pokemon rocks japan or used something close like in the junior division a sandstorm / trickroom team.

 

[POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN]

Not only that, but the Japanese players that battled in Orlando had already won their local tournaments ages before the West knew they had a chance in it.

In addition to FiveKRunner's post, I think this was also a factor in the mass losses for the Americans. The Showdown was announced in the middle of May, which gave me about two months until LA showdown, and then one more month until Florida. That gives an American two months to prepare for Showdown(if they are even selected by the random drawing), and then if they make it into the top 8, another month or so to prepare for Florida. The Japanese had their PokemonLeague 2007 finals in middle/late August 2007(not to mention qualifiers, etc). That gives everybody over there around 9 months until the Showdown is even announced, and then an extra two months or so until the actual Showdown. They got way more time to perfect their teams or make totally new ones and test them. I would have loved an extra month or two to perfect my teams and test them comfortably, but I didn't have much of a chance to do that.

Now I'm not sure if they knew they would be competing in an American contest the next year(Showdown), but there is a high chance they knew they would be going to something with the US in 2008. I just hope for next year's competition they give everybody a reasonably even starting time as far as a contest announcement is concerned.




"also even though it was a doulbe battle tournament style we should have been ready even if shoddy wasnt helping with it we could have still practice on PBR or make a battle me thread for it. and i understand you still might not get a good batlle of that but its still practice."


PBR is terrible practice for quality teams in doubles. You maybe get 1 semi-decent opponent every 6 matches(if that); good Japanese trainers are even harder to find IMO. If I am testing on PBR, and I keep battling poor opponents, I am not practicing, I am just killing a noob. BKK mentioned this to me in Florida when we were talking with Omni, and he made a very good point; that if a person keeps battling sub-par quality opponents, his skill goes down because he isn't used to the quality opponents. You aren't used to how a smart opponent(Japanese trainers specifically) would think, you just kill the other guy and the other guy just uses his attacks, no switching or anything really smart.


IMO Shoddy should have doubles. That would allow the Americans to have a better shot at actually winning more than 3 matches in the first round.

 

[Duckster]

You can find a steady flow of good Japanese players on Wi-Fi from about 2-4AM EST, or so I've found.