PICS UPLOADED <3 U NINAHAZA
Hi all, I’m Kid Kadabra, but I generally go by my first name, Bruno. Some of you may know me; last season I attended San Jose regionals, nationals, and then tried my luck in worlds LCQ, losing to life orb shed skin Scrafty that refused to stay asleep. Regardless, all the events were extremely fun, getting to meet a ton of smogoners in real life, and I made some great friends.
But this isn’t a warstory about last year, it’s about this year, so I’ll start with:
Saturday
I slept til 1 in the afternoon, having gone on a League of Legends solo queue marathon until 3 in the morning(9 game ranked win streak). Anyway, I had a boxing match that day. Yes, I box AND I play pokemon and LoL. This isn’t a warstory about my boxing match either, so suffice it to say it was a close game both teams played hard. I get home weary, and ready myself to meet up with my good friend and fellow smogoner Saboros.
Now going off on a tangent, I know Saboros doesn’t make the best posts here on smogon, but having known him since 6th grade, I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’s a pretty cool guy in real life. He is. He came over sometime in the evening, and we readied ourselves for the next day. Well really, he practiced on random matchup while I played more League of Legends. As always, Aaron “Unreality” Traylor, one of my bestest friends, couldn’t join me, because “his grandma was over.” Typical. Whatevs soloQ all day bby ^_^
Saboros and I went on like this for a while, but then I realized my team wasn’t even complete. I only had 5 pokes. Uh ohs. The plan had been for ma boi Collin “v17” Bos to trade me a Whimsicott the night before, but as previously stated, I was on a LoL marathon. I knew he was already on his way up to Pleasanton, so he wouldn’t be able to trade. I decided I could just hunt him down early in the morning, get the Whimsicott, EV train it, level it, and teach it whatever moves I was running. Still had no idea at the time. BAYLIFE.
Getting back on track, Saboros, being the smart dedicated pokemon battler, went to sleep early to improve his performance the next day. I, being the irresponsible, trash pokemon battler, decided to stay up late and play more League of Legends with some friends. Most of that night is pretty hazy, I remember playing ranked teams, and losing every game. In the middle of a game, I think, I just said fk it and went to sleep on my computer, and that was the end of Saturday.
Sunday
I woke up a few hours later to Saboros’ alarm, and telling him to shut it dafuq up. He slapped me around a few times with a large bit of trout to wake me up, then did the same to my dad, and we grabbed our sht and headed out to regionals. Now I think would be a good time to present my team, but before I do, keep in mind that I suck at all forms of competitive pokemon battling—team building, prediction, and whatever else there is to it, I wouldn’t know.
THE TEAM:
“XPeciBRO” the Sableye @ Leftovers
Impish (I think)
-Fake out
-Will-o-wisp
-Confuse Ray
-Recover
Used him after last minute suggestion from Dozz, and I’m so happy. I took this guy every single game and all my wins were mainly due to confuse ray being unbeatable. <3 who needs taunt?
“DyruBRO” the Flygon @ Yache Berry
Bold
-Fissure
-Attract
-Tailwind
-Protect
Yeah bulky Flygon. Saboros actually gave me this idea. I was thinking of mons that were cool looking, and he said Flygon. Thus it earned its spot on the team. Of course, I’m using bulky Flygon to counter Garchomp (tanks dragon claw most of the time and OHKO’s back with FISSURE). And because attract is cool. I assume that most of the good people will be getting RNGed pokemon from the main providers on Smogon, and I also assume that the majority of those pokemon are male, because male is often the desired nature. It honestly didn’t make a difference.
“OddBRO” the Heatran @ Shuca Berry
Timid
-Heat Wave
-Earth Power
-Hidden Power Ice
-Protect
Heatran was a pretty standard mon I decided to use, mainly because it gave me key resistances to fire, flying, and other stuff because it’s steel.
“ChaoxBRO” the Gallade @ Psychic Gem
Adamant
-Ally Switch
-Helping Hand
-Close Combat
-Zen Headbutt
I basically copied the ally switch strat from Saboros, although I know other people have used it. I just use this guy to stomp of the face of every single Hitmontop and trololol with ally switch.
“RegiBRO” the Abomasnow @ Choice Scarf
Timid
-Blizzard
-Giga Drain
-Hidden Power Fire
-Sheer Cold
I just liked the idea of spamming blizzard and getting major freeze hax so I was like, hey lets run Abomasnow. Also lets me bait fire moves for Heatran, but this kind of screws me over later on.
“RAINBRO” the Rotom-W @ Sitrus Berry
Bold
-Will-o-wisp
-Thunderbolt
-Hydro Pump
-Double Team
I just used Rotom because everyone else was using it, so I figured it would be good. I had double team because I totally forgot to take it off for something useful. Anyway, I hardly used this trash washing machine.
Back to the story
Saboros and I got to the fairgrounds, and it was… underwhelming. No inflatable Pikachu, no Nick McCord, no countdown, no Eye of the Tiger!!! Although I was glad to not see Marriland, after him getting in a habit of hack checking me at least twice every event. After moping around a bit at the lack of the Pikachu, I ran into my first smogoner of the week, Nickscor! He was holding up a sign that said, “Hello I am Nickscor (from smogon).” I tried not to laugh (It’s all love though bro) as I went over and introduced myself. Little did I know that he would go on to have an 8-0 record… We hung out for a while, but the lines began to form, and being the only smogoner in the whole wide world to NOT pre register, I sat grumpily in the long, slow-moving line as Nickscor zoomed along and registered.
Fortunately, my mood was brightened considerably by the appearance of my 2nd favorite pokemon trainer of all time, DUY HA! We hugged it out and chatted it up; he introduced me to Kevin “The Lube.” Having pre registered, Duy registered before my spot in the line even changed, so I said bye to him and went back to waiting.
Soon enough I saw Jeremy Fan’s good lookin’ face come bobbing through the exhibition hall doors, and hugged it out too. I introduced him to Saboros, who had thankfully been keeping my place in line as I went to talk to smogon peeps. Now, Saboros had a thing with Jeremy, although Jeremy never really knew, UNTIL HE GOT 2HANDED 360 DUNKED ON, but I’m getting ahead of myself. If you want the full story, you can read Saboros’ warstory, where I’m sure he’ll go into greater detail. But I’ll give a quick crash course anyway.
It all started back at 2011 NoCal regionals. Saboros and I were scrubbing it up in the seniors division. Long story short, Saboros got 4-0ed by Jeremy and he’s been on the warpath for his blood ever since.
Jeremy is… Jeremy as ever and because he pre registered like eeevvverrryoonne else, he was whisked away while I condemned all those people that didn’t follow Firestorm’s advice to get your player ID in advance (which even I had done).
To bring me out of my gloom once again was my 3rd favorite pokemon battler of all time, Huy Ha, followed by my most favoritest pokemon battler of all time, Jesus NINAHAZA, followed by OmegaDonut. Huy gave me a remarkably soft and heart-warming hug, while Jesus gave me a solid manly handshake. More people drifted in, and we formed a solid group. I remember meeting Kaphotics, Age of Kings a lot of other people, and formally introducing myself to OD.
Around this time I managed to get myself registered and was stunned to see Ninahaza posing with a few smexy cosplayers.
Duy was next, followed by OD.
Huy and I took a pic with them to show Duy that we get the ladies too.
After this, there was a ton of waiting. A lot. I think we waited around 3 hours for them to finish registering all those damn people who didn’t get their sht done in advance. It was whatever though, baylife. The round 1 pairings were finally posted along with the announcement that there would be no lunch break, received with groans from all in attendance. Baylife’n it up, I find my table and sit down. Now is where the battle commentary comes in—
Round 1 Vs. Random Scrub
I sat diagonal from OmegaDonut, who politely listened to Random Scrub talk to Random Scrub’s friends about how IV breeding was more efficient than RNG abuse, lol. Then the battle started. Without a countdown. Or Eye of the Tiger. Whatever, baylife.
He had a weird looking team, which included Rotom-flying thing. I wasn’t really sure at all what it did except for get super EQ immunity with air balloon. He leads with useless Rotom and Electivire as I lead with Abomasnow Sableye. I fake out the Electivire and OHKO useless Rotom with blizzard, while doing hefty damage to Electivire, as well as getting it frozen. Yeah buddy. He brought in Volcarona, so I switched in Heatran for Abomasnow to take the Heat Wave. E-vire stays frozen. Useless piece of trash. I think I switch out Sableye for my own Rotom, or something dies, I forget. I end up hydro pumping the Volcarona, giga draining his last pokemon, Swampert, and then killing Electivire, for the 3-0 win.
I think OD has to time stall to win his match, but the rest of us smogoners are already 1-0. Obviously.
Round 2 Vs. Random Scrub 2
Round 2 was actually a close match that should have ended with my loss. But it didn’t because Sableye confuse ray wins so hard. The guy I beat ended going 7-1, his only loss due to my amazing skills.
I forget his lead, but I know I lead with Rotom Gallade. Somehow they both die, and I bring in Sableye and Heatran. I kill some of his stuff, but he ends up with Clamperl and Dusclops out on the field, both at full, with one unrevealed pokemon in the back. He gets the TR up, but I confuse ray the Clamperl. Clamperl hits itself in confusion 3 times as dusclops spams night shade. The third time was pretty clutch. Heatran and Sableye were both around half health, and I didn’t know what Clamperl did, but it was blue so I assumed that it had surf. If it had hit a single surf I would have lost, but NOPE HITS ITSELF. Heatran manages to kill everything with heat wave and the help of Sabaleye, and I end with the 2-0 win.
All other smogon people are 2-0 except for like, Kaphotics because he was having a slightly hard time with battle RNG. I hoped I wouldn’t play someone I know for round 3, and my wish was granted, Hax was smiling on me very brightly.
Round 3 Vs. Random Scrub 3
Right from team select I knew he was using TR, with his weird VGC 11 team. He had your standard VGC 11 TR team minus Fetus plus Snorlax. I decide I need to go balls deep beastdunkmaster Kareem mode. So I lead with Dyrus and Xpecial, Flygon and Sableye.
T1 I attracted his Amoonguss with Flygon and Fake out Reuniclus. Amoonguss gets immobilized, which I banked on, and I started going to work. I confused Amoonguss, and it was then destined to never use anything, although he rage powdered that turn. I tried to attract his Reuniclus, not realizing that it was the same nature as Flygon, but it got redirected to Amoonguss. Reuniclus then got up the TR, but I was like, whatever whatever BRO I should kill that jelly thing but it’s BAYLIFE. Sableye confuse rays Reuniclus, which promptly hits itself in confusion, mirrored by Amoonguss shortly after. The guy starts giving me glares. Bro. Then I decided, “o man gotta make da big plays,” so I predicted that none of them do anything, which is typical for mushroom and jelly thing, and I fissured the Reuniclus. It hit, and the guy gave me a nice 3 second glare. What a douchebag. He sends in Snorlax, which I confused. Snorlax hit itself along with Amoonguss, and I was sorely tempted to ask him, “why are you hitting yourself?” in annoying 3rd grader voice. I refrained, because Flygon hit fissure again on Amoonguss. Random Scrub 3 wailed, “Doesn’t that have low accuracy or something??” I honestly didn’t know exactly what the accuracy was, just that it was low, so going on anecdotal evidence, I replied, “nah it’s 100% bro.” He gave me a big glare—A real doozy—Then forfeited match, signed the form, and walked away. Solid win for me and now I’m 3-0!
Duy and Huy lost their first game of the tournament, but most other people were 3-0. I checked in on my bud Saboros and find that he was 2-1 because of BS parahax. Understandable. Goddam thundurus. At this point, people started getting hungry, and good guy Huy ordered us pizza. I hoped dearly that I’m not paired against anyone I know, but I get worse. I’m paired against the legendary SHOFU. Funny enough, I had no idea who he was at the time, it was only when Huy was like, bro I just met shofu, that I was like, o I played him r4 meng.
Round 4 Vs. Shofu
You can watch our battle here.
Now, if you’ve never seen Shofu in real life, you’ve just seen his narrated battles, imagine the person speaking in those videos and you have Shofu. He’s like 8 feet tall, buffer than 3 Ninahazas, and pretty good looking. I wondered how the hell he got into pokemon as his crew started shouting unintelligible stuff at him. He put on some bigass headphones and we went to work.
Afterwards he let me know that he’d be uploading our battle to his channel, so I kinda feel free to reveal his team here.
T1- He led with Chandelure Zapdos as I led with Abomasnow Gallade. I really wanted the Chandelure to NOT be scarfed. I spent almost the full minute deciding whether it was, and in the end decided, fk it lets bank on Lady Luck again. She didn’t let me down as Chandelure protected and I nail Zapdos with a blizzard. I forget what else happened; as soon as he uploads the video I'll edit in a link.
The whole match there was minimal hax, which is incredibly remarkable for a battle with my team. All in all, I really just outplayed him, the first time I’ve ever really done that to anyone good, and the first time I’d ever beat anyone well-known. And then I’m 4-0!
The pizza was brought back (thaaank you nixhex's girlfriend), and we all dug in. Ninahaza, Nickscor, OD, Age of Kings, and I were all 4-0 (might be forgetting someone.) The rest were 3-1 except for Duy, who was 2-2, because he forgot his American flag. I figured we’d start playing each other.
So far I’d accumulated 4 more wins than I’d expected the whole tournament. Unfortunately, my luck was about to end as my next opponent was Mike Suleski.
Round 5 Vs. OmegaDonut
You can watch the battle here. For those of you with trash internet, or who like reading, or who stick it to da man by not watching youtube, or whatever, I’ll write what happened too.
I decide immediately, oh man gotta hit fissures and bs hax him or I lose. Well that didn’t work, and I lost, but not because of that.
T1- He leads Terrakion Mienshao; I lead Sableye Flygon and we exchange fake outs.
T2- Mienshao wide guards, expecting the EQ from flygon. Heh. WoW hits Terrakion but lum berry gets rid of it. I’m like “o sht” as he safeguards. Finally, I get up tailwind with Flygon, not that it was super useful.
T3- I switch out Sableye for Gallade and he drain punches flygon, protecting with Terrakion as I vainly attempt to fissure it.
T4 made us both laugh because of how hard I get outplayed. He switches Terrakion out to level 1 Aron, which DOESN’T DIE TO FISSURE BECAUSE OF OP STURDY, and switches mienshao out to TTar as I try to zen headbutt it. Mannnng.
T5- I swap trash flygon for Snow yeti thing to get hail so I can kill the damn Aron. I predict the protect on TTar and CC the Aron with Gallade to get it to use whatever health regen thing it had, berry juice. Aron ends with an endeavor on Abomasnow, leaving it at 12hp.
T6- Abomasnow blizzards to take out the Aron, and TTar crunches Gallade, thinking it would die after a defense drop and hail/sand damage. NOT BULKY GALLADE. Somehow I had squirmed my way back into the battle. He sends in his last 2 pokemon, Mienshao and Terrakion, and I just stop thinking.
T7- I don’t know if he’ll wide guard or just drain punch. I thought he might go for the wide guard and rock slide, not knowing Abomasnow was scarfed and could outspeed Terrakion, but he makes a great play and protects Terrakion as I try to giga drain it, and drain punches Abomasnow to take it out. Sableye, in the meantime, is firing off WoW’s. I send in Flygon and hope for the best.
T8- I make another stupid play here. I was just like, oh yeah they can’t do anything to bulky Flygon! Welp, at 70% from the drain punch close combat and flight gem acrobatics took it out. I have no idea what I was thinking there. I knew he couldn’t touch Sableye except for with acrobatics, and Flygon’s fissures were more of a threat than Sableye’s WoW’s. I should have protected and stalled, but it might not have mattered unless I could have gotten a triple protect off.
T9- Sableye just recovers as he acrobatics and rock slides, but it does < 50%.
T10- Time runs out and he wins because of greater number of pokemon.
FK IM 4-1
I still like to think of myself as the unofficial winner, because in 5 or so turns, things would have died to burn, but timers are an important part of VGC’s, and OD used them very effectively to his advantage. All in all, no hard feelings. He outplayed me pretty hard, and I honestly think I deserved to lose to someone good, instead of haxing them out for a change. At least it was someone from Smogon. Plus he’s still a really friendly guy, and it was great hanging out with him. GG man.
Somewhere in this time, Huy got the idea that he could beat me at arm wrestling. Now I’m an arm wrestlin’ guy. I love it. But Huy is a very strong man. He can probably bench press like 300. I think he curls twice as much as Ninahaza. He made me go left-handed, but it’s baylife so I rolled with it. After a bit of derping and trying to understand if he was actually trying or not, I realized he was going all out, so I ended his misery quickly, and we moved on to the right handed match. I won pretty hard. I wanted to try Ninahaza but his two personal goals for VGC this year were to not arm wrestle anyone and to keep his shirt on. Solid.
Back to the rounds, my next match was a nightmare against another smogoner.
Round 6 Vs. Age of Kings
She led with Volcarona Sableye as I lead with Abomasnow Sableye. We exchanged fake outs, and I decided again that I needed to go balls deep beastmode. She knew I had a Heatran on my team, so the obvious move would be for me to switch it in for Abomasnow. I assumed that she would predict that and go for the quiver dance, or whatever cool move Volcarona gets. I decided to leave in Abomasnow and blizzard figuring if everything goes wrong I can still get freeze hax. I blizzarded, got no freeze hax, and she heat waved, killing Abomasnow. Nuuuuuuuuu. The game just went downhill from there, and she beat me without much hax (without any iirc). She straight up outplayed me and won 3-0 or something. GG Age of Kings. 4-2.
I knew after that loss that I couldn’t get top 4 so I was like whatever whatever BAYLIFE BRO. I don’t remember much of the next round at all except that there was some intense trolling.
Round 7 Vs. Random Scrub 4
I have no idea what he led, but I decided to lead Abomasnow Flygon for the double OHKO spam!!!! I used fissure and sheer cold, they both missed, and I raged at Random Scrub guy, who looked absolutely petrified. I think he set up screens or something as I sheer colded and fissured for the second time, and for the second time, they both missed. I then forfeited the match and decided to kick it with my boi Duy. F u Random Scrub 4 prolly used brightpowder or some stupid sht like that.
Checking in on the peeps
Nickscor was the only smogoner that’s 7-0, Ninahaza and OD having lost a battle. In the seniors division Jeremy was 7-0, and, thinking that there were only 7rounds of swiss for seniors, he was convinced that he won. He keeps telling me, “Bro I won wwassupp.” I kept telling him that there was another round, but he thought I was trolling until the pairings for the next round were posted lol. We all rooted for Nickscor as he went against his last opponent and I went to my last match, and prepared to troll some more.
Round 8 Vs. Random Scrub 5
I remember trying to lose this match. I tried pretty hard; I didn’t attack my own pokemon or anything, but the only moves I used were sheer cold and fissure. Sucks for him cause they hit. A lot. He kept protecting with Garchomp, obviously terrified of Abomasnow, while I consistently fissured his other mons. He took it good-naturedly though, and for that I thank him.
I passed by Nickscor and saw his opponent with only one pokemon left. Lookin solid. I went over to Jeremy and found that he had already won. Congrats bro! Won your first regional! People milled around for a while, took some group pictures
and lifted up Nickscor for the awards ceremony!
credit to blakblastoise for the gif
After
People generally dispersed, but not before Saboros got to battle Jeremy! I don’t really remember much of the battle—I’m sure Saboros has it covered in his own warstory—but JEREMY GOT DUNKED ON SO HARD. SABOROS WENT KAREEM MODE AND DID THE FRONTFLIP SPIN 2HANDED SLAM DUNK ON HIM BAM.
Jeremy #1 noob
After that, and some good-natured teasing that went along with it, Saboros and I said our goodbyes, mine incredibly tearful, and we headed home. I had a few tests next day, but like the rest of the story, fk it, baylife.
Props and Slops
Props
- Baylife
- League of Legends for being #1 game
- Team Solo Mid for inspiring my team’s nicknames
- Biosci and Cassie for the two pokemon I was too lazy to RNG myself <3
- Me for RNGing the rest
- Me for getting 5 more wins than I expected, and going 4-0 early on.
- Me for doing mad work with fissure and sheer cold
- Huy FOR AMERICA
- Ma boi Duy for being awesome <3
- Ninahaza for being just as awesome <33
- Epic cosplayers
- Nickscor for winning regionals! Congrats man! You deserved it!
- Jeremy for winning regionals and going beastmode on his SAT’s. You’re my bro, bro.
- Dozz for giving me the Sableye idea the night before regionals.
- NixHex for having a girlfriend and for getting multiple Byes.
- His girlfriend for picking up our pizza
- And lastly, Saboros for slam dunking on Jeremy with ally switch and a crit.
Slops
- Me for playing a shitload of League of Legends soloQ instead of making my team
- Duy for not bringing the American flag
- Saboros for getting DUNKED on and not making top 4
- Jeremy for getting DUNKED ON by Saboros
- Time limits for losing me a match
- Me for being bad at pokemon in general and making trash predictions
- Me for missing with fissure and sheer cold
- Me for trolling when I could have gotten a record like everyone else (no one was 5-3 9.9)
- Me for being self-centered and putting myself in all the sections
PS- This is my first warstory so let me know if I messed up with anything and I'll edit. Thanks <3
EDIT: If you guys want to add me on League of Legends my name is Bru Bear. I accept friend requests from all those without "X"s or numbers in their name! :)
Hi all, I’m Kid Kadabra, but I generally go by my first name, Bruno. Some of you may know me; last season I attended San Jose regionals, nationals, and then tried my luck in worlds LCQ, losing to life orb shed skin Scrafty that refused to stay asleep. Regardless, all the events were extremely fun, getting to meet a ton of smogoners in real life, and I made some great friends.
But this isn’t a warstory about last year, it’s about this year, so I’ll start with:
Saturday
I slept til 1 in the afternoon, having gone on a League of Legends solo queue marathon until 3 in the morning(9 game ranked win streak). Anyway, I had a boxing match that day. Yes, I box AND I play pokemon and LoL. This isn’t a warstory about my boxing match either, so suffice it to say it was a close game both teams played hard. I get home weary, and ready myself to meet up with my good friend and fellow smogoner Saboros.
Now going off on a tangent, I know Saboros doesn’t make the best posts here on smogon, but having known him since 6th grade, I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’s a pretty cool guy in real life. He is. He came over sometime in the evening, and we readied ourselves for the next day. Well really, he practiced on random matchup while I played more League of Legends. As always, Aaron “Unreality” Traylor, one of my bestest friends, couldn’t join me, because “his grandma was over.” Typical. Whatevs soloQ all day bby ^_^
Saboros and I went on like this for a while, but then I realized my team wasn’t even complete. I only had 5 pokes. Uh ohs. The plan had been for ma boi Collin “v17” Bos to trade me a Whimsicott the night before, but as previously stated, I was on a LoL marathon. I knew he was already on his way up to Pleasanton, so he wouldn’t be able to trade. I decided I could just hunt him down early in the morning, get the Whimsicott, EV train it, level it, and teach it whatever moves I was running. Still had no idea at the time. BAYLIFE.
Getting back on track, Saboros, being the smart dedicated pokemon battler, went to sleep early to improve his performance the next day. I, being the irresponsible, trash pokemon battler, decided to stay up late and play more League of Legends with some friends. Most of that night is pretty hazy, I remember playing ranked teams, and losing every game. In the middle of a game, I think, I just said fk it and went to sleep on my computer, and that was the end of Saturday.
Sunday
I woke up a few hours later to Saboros’ alarm, and telling him to shut it dafuq up. He slapped me around a few times with a large bit of trout to wake me up, then did the same to my dad, and we grabbed our sht and headed out to regionals. Now I think would be a good time to present my team, but before I do, keep in mind that I suck at all forms of competitive pokemon battling—team building, prediction, and whatever else there is to it, I wouldn’t know.
THE TEAM:
“XPeciBRO” the Sableye @ Leftovers
Impish (I think)
-Fake out
-Will-o-wisp
-Confuse Ray
-Recover
Used him after last minute suggestion from Dozz, and I’m so happy. I took this guy every single game and all my wins were mainly due to confuse ray being unbeatable. <3 who needs taunt?
“DyruBRO” the Flygon @ Yache Berry
Bold
-Fissure
-Attract
-Tailwind
-Protect
Yeah bulky Flygon. Saboros actually gave me this idea. I was thinking of mons that were cool looking, and he said Flygon. Thus it earned its spot on the team. Of course, I’m using bulky Flygon to counter Garchomp (tanks dragon claw most of the time and OHKO’s back with FISSURE). And because attract is cool. I assume that most of the good people will be getting RNGed pokemon from the main providers on Smogon, and I also assume that the majority of those pokemon are male, because male is often the desired nature. It honestly didn’t make a difference.
“OddBRO” the Heatran @ Shuca Berry
Timid
-Heat Wave
-Earth Power
-Hidden Power Ice
-Protect
Heatran was a pretty standard mon I decided to use, mainly because it gave me key resistances to fire, flying, and other stuff because it’s steel.
“ChaoxBRO” the Gallade @ Psychic Gem
Adamant
-Ally Switch
-Helping Hand
-Close Combat
-Zen Headbutt
I basically copied the ally switch strat from Saboros, although I know other people have used it. I just use this guy to stomp of the face of every single Hitmontop and trololol with ally switch.
“RegiBRO” the Abomasnow @ Choice Scarf
Timid
-Blizzard
-Giga Drain
-Hidden Power Fire
-Sheer Cold
I just liked the idea of spamming blizzard and getting major freeze hax so I was like, hey lets run Abomasnow. Also lets me bait fire moves for Heatran, but this kind of screws me over later on.
“RAINBRO” the Rotom-W @ Sitrus Berry
Bold
-Will-o-wisp
-Thunderbolt
-Hydro Pump
-Double Team
I just used Rotom because everyone else was using it, so I figured it would be good. I had double team because I totally forgot to take it off for something useful. Anyway, I hardly used this trash washing machine.
Yeah my team is NNed after TSM. Yeah I have Rainman. Why? Well pokemon teams have 6 pokemon, so I needed one. I originally NNed flygon after Rainman, because I figured flygon was useless and Rotom was the good pokemon, but then I realized. Bulky flygon is the 2nd best pokemon ever. So I NNed him Dyrus. And I put BRO after all their names because, well, they’re BROS. And that is why you ignore this section unless you watch TSM members stream.
Back to the story
Saboros and I got to the fairgrounds, and it was… underwhelming. No inflatable Pikachu, no Nick McCord, no countdown, no Eye of the Tiger!!! Although I was glad to not see Marriland, after him getting in a habit of hack checking me at least twice every event. After moping around a bit at the lack of the Pikachu, I ran into my first smogoner of the week, Nickscor! He was holding up a sign that said, “Hello I am Nickscor (from smogon).” I tried not to laugh (It’s all love though bro) as I went over and introduced myself. Little did I know that he would go on to have an 8-0 record… We hung out for a while, but the lines began to form, and being the only smogoner in the whole wide world to NOT pre register, I sat grumpily in the long, slow-moving line as Nickscor zoomed along and registered.
Fortunately, my mood was brightened considerably by the appearance of my 2nd favorite pokemon trainer of all time, DUY HA! We hugged it out and chatted it up; he introduced me to Kevin “The Lube.” Having pre registered, Duy registered before my spot in the line even changed, so I said bye to him and went back to waiting.
Soon enough I saw Jeremy Fan’s good lookin’ face come bobbing through the exhibition hall doors, and hugged it out too. I introduced him to Saboros, who had thankfully been keeping my place in line as I went to talk to smogon peeps. Now, Saboros had a thing with Jeremy, although Jeremy never really knew, UNTIL HE GOT 2HANDED 360 DUNKED ON, but I’m getting ahead of myself. If you want the full story, you can read Saboros’ warstory, where I’m sure he’ll go into greater detail. But I’ll give a quick crash course anyway.
It all started back at 2011 NoCal regionals. Saboros and I were scrubbing it up in the seniors division. Long story short, Saboros got 4-0ed by Jeremy and he’s been on the warpath for his blood ever since.
Jeremy is… Jeremy as ever and because he pre registered like eeevvverrryoonne else, he was whisked away while I condemned all those people that didn’t follow Firestorm’s advice to get your player ID in advance (which even I had done).
To bring me out of my gloom once again was my 3rd favorite pokemon battler of all time, Huy Ha, followed by my most favoritest pokemon battler of all time, Jesus NINAHAZA, followed by OmegaDonut. Huy gave me a remarkably soft and heart-warming hug, while Jesus gave me a solid manly handshake. More people drifted in, and we formed a solid group. I remember meeting Kaphotics, Age of Kings a lot of other people, and formally introducing myself to OD.
Around this time I managed to get myself registered and was stunned to see Ninahaza posing with a few smexy cosplayers.
Duy was next, followed by OD.
Huy and I took a pic with them to show Duy that we get the ladies too.
After this, there was a ton of waiting. A lot. I think we waited around 3 hours for them to finish registering all those damn people who didn’t get their sht done in advance. It was whatever though, baylife. The round 1 pairings were finally posted along with the announcement that there would be no lunch break, received with groans from all in attendance. Baylife’n it up, I find my table and sit down. Now is where the battle commentary comes in—
Round 1 Vs. Random Scrub
I sat diagonal from OmegaDonut, who politely listened to Random Scrub talk to Random Scrub’s friends about how IV breeding was more efficient than RNG abuse, lol. Then the battle started. Without a countdown. Or Eye of the Tiger. Whatever, baylife.
He had a weird looking team, which included Rotom-flying thing. I wasn’t really sure at all what it did except for get super EQ immunity with air balloon. He leads with useless Rotom and Electivire as I lead with Abomasnow Sableye. I fake out the Electivire and OHKO useless Rotom with blizzard, while doing hefty damage to Electivire, as well as getting it frozen. Yeah buddy. He brought in Volcarona, so I switched in Heatran for Abomasnow to take the Heat Wave. E-vire stays frozen. Useless piece of trash. I think I switch out Sableye for my own Rotom, or something dies, I forget. I end up hydro pumping the Volcarona, giga draining his last pokemon, Swampert, and then killing Electivire, for the 3-0 win.
I think OD has to time stall to win his match, but the rest of us smogoners are already 1-0. Obviously.
Round 2 Vs. Random Scrub 2
Round 2 was actually a close match that should have ended with my loss. But it didn’t because Sableye confuse ray wins so hard. The guy I beat ended going 7-1, his only loss due to my amazing skills.
I forget his lead, but I know I lead with Rotom Gallade. Somehow they both die, and I bring in Sableye and Heatran. I kill some of his stuff, but he ends up with Clamperl and Dusclops out on the field, both at full, with one unrevealed pokemon in the back. He gets the TR up, but I confuse ray the Clamperl. Clamperl hits itself in confusion 3 times as dusclops spams night shade. The third time was pretty clutch. Heatran and Sableye were both around half health, and I didn’t know what Clamperl did, but it was blue so I assumed that it had surf. If it had hit a single surf I would have lost, but NOPE HITS ITSELF. Heatran manages to kill everything with heat wave and the help of Sabaleye, and I end with the 2-0 win.
All other smogon people are 2-0 except for like, Kaphotics because he was having a slightly hard time with battle RNG. I hoped I wouldn’t play someone I know for round 3, and my wish was granted, Hax was smiling on me very brightly.
Round 3 Vs. Random Scrub 3
Right from team select I knew he was using TR, with his weird VGC 11 team. He had your standard VGC 11 TR team minus Fetus plus Snorlax. I decide I need to go balls deep beastdunkmaster Kareem mode. So I lead with Dyrus and Xpecial, Flygon and Sableye.
T1 I attracted his Amoonguss with Flygon and Fake out Reuniclus. Amoonguss gets immobilized, which I banked on, and I started going to work. I confused Amoonguss, and it was then destined to never use anything, although he rage powdered that turn. I tried to attract his Reuniclus, not realizing that it was the same nature as Flygon, but it got redirected to Amoonguss. Reuniclus then got up the TR, but I was like, whatever whatever BRO I should kill that jelly thing but it’s BAYLIFE. Sableye confuse rays Reuniclus, which promptly hits itself in confusion, mirrored by Amoonguss shortly after. The guy starts giving me glares. Bro. Then I decided, “o man gotta make da big plays,” so I predicted that none of them do anything, which is typical for mushroom and jelly thing, and I fissured the Reuniclus. It hit, and the guy gave me a nice 3 second glare. What a douchebag. He sends in Snorlax, which I confused. Snorlax hit itself along with Amoonguss, and I was sorely tempted to ask him, “why are you hitting yourself?” in annoying 3rd grader voice. I refrained, because Flygon hit fissure again on Amoonguss. Random Scrub 3 wailed, “Doesn’t that have low accuracy or something??” I honestly didn’t know exactly what the accuracy was, just that it was low, so going on anecdotal evidence, I replied, “nah it’s 100% bro.” He gave me a big glare—A real doozy—Then forfeited match, signed the form, and walked away. Solid win for me and now I’m 3-0!
Duy and Huy lost their first game of the tournament, but most other people were 3-0. I checked in on my bud Saboros and find that he was 2-1 because of BS parahax. Understandable. Goddam thundurus. At this point, people started getting hungry, and good guy Huy ordered us pizza. I hoped dearly that I’m not paired against anyone I know, but I get worse. I’m paired against the legendary SHOFU. Funny enough, I had no idea who he was at the time, it was only when Huy was like, bro I just met shofu, that I was like, o I played him r4 meng.
Round 4 Vs. Shofu
You can watch our battle here.
Now, if you’ve never seen Shofu in real life, you’ve just seen his narrated battles, imagine the person speaking in those videos and you have Shofu. He’s like 8 feet tall, buffer than 3 Ninahazas, and pretty good looking. I wondered how the hell he got into pokemon as his crew started shouting unintelligible stuff at him. He put on some bigass headphones and we went to work.
Afterwards he let me know that he’d be uploading our battle to his channel, so I kinda feel free to reveal his team here.
T1- He led with Chandelure Zapdos as I led with Abomasnow Gallade. I really wanted the Chandelure to NOT be scarfed. I spent almost the full minute deciding whether it was, and in the end decided, fk it lets bank on Lady Luck again. She didn’t let me down as Chandelure protected and I nail Zapdos with a blizzard. I forget what else happened; as soon as he uploads the video I'll edit in a link.
The whole match there was minimal hax, which is incredibly remarkable for a battle with my team. All in all, I really just outplayed him, the first time I’ve ever really done that to anyone good, and the first time I’d ever beat anyone well-known. And then I’m 4-0!
The pizza was brought back (thaaank you nixhex's girlfriend), and we all dug in. Ninahaza, Nickscor, OD, Age of Kings, and I were all 4-0 (might be forgetting someone.) The rest were 3-1 except for Duy, who was 2-2, because he forgot his American flag. I figured we’d start playing each other.
So far I’d accumulated 4 more wins than I’d expected the whole tournament. Unfortunately, my luck was about to end as my next opponent was Mike Suleski.
Round 5 Vs. OmegaDonut
You can watch the battle here. For those of you with trash internet, or who like reading, or who stick it to da man by not watching youtube, or whatever, I’ll write what happened too.
I decide immediately, oh man gotta hit fissures and bs hax him or I lose. Well that didn’t work, and I lost, but not because of that.
T1- He leads Terrakion Mienshao; I lead Sableye Flygon and we exchange fake outs.
T2- Mienshao wide guards, expecting the EQ from flygon. Heh. WoW hits Terrakion but lum berry gets rid of it. I’m like “o sht” as he safeguards. Finally, I get up tailwind with Flygon, not that it was super useful.
T3- I switch out Sableye for Gallade and he drain punches flygon, protecting with Terrakion as I vainly attempt to fissure it.
T4 made us both laugh because of how hard I get outplayed. He switches Terrakion out to level 1 Aron, which DOESN’T DIE TO FISSURE BECAUSE OF OP STURDY, and switches mienshao out to TTar as I try to zen headbutt it. Mannnng.
T5- I swap trash flygon for Snow yeti thing to get hail so I can kill the damn Aron. I predict the protect on TTar and CC the Aron with Gallade to get it to use whatever health regen thing it had, berry juice. Aron ends with an endeavor on Abomasnow, leaving it at 12hp.
T6- Abomasnow blizzards to take out the Aron, and TTar crunches Gallade, thinking it would die after a defense drop and hail/sand damage. NOT BULKY GALLADE. Somehow I had squirmed my way back into the battle. He sends in his last 2 pokemon, Mienshao and Terrakion, and I just stop thinking.
T7- I don’t know if he’ll wide guard or just drain punch. I thought he might go for the wide guard and rock slide, not knowing Abomasnow was scarfed and could outspeed Terrakion, but he makes a great play and protects Terrakion as I try to giga drain it, and drain punches Abomasnow to take it out. Sableye, in the meantime, is firing off WoW’s. I send in Flygon and hope for the best.
T8- I make another stupid play here. I was just like, oh yeah they can’t do anything to bulky Flygon! Welp, at 70% from the drain punch close combat and flight gem acrobatics took it out. I have no idea what I was thinking there. I knew he couldn’t touch Sableye except for with acrobatics, and Flygon’s fissures were more of a threat than Sableye’s WoW’s. I should have protected and stalled, but it might not have mattered unless I could have gotten a triple protect off.
T9- Sableye just recovers as he acrobatics and rock slides, but it does < 50%.
T10- Time runs out and he wins because of greater number of pokemon.
FK IM 4-1
I still like to think of myself as the unofficial winner, because in 5 or so turns, things would have died to burn, but timers are an important part of VGC’s, and OD used them very effectively to his advantage. All in all, no hard feelings. He outplayed me pretty hard, and I honestly think I deserved to lose to someone good, instead of haxing them out for a change. At least it was someone from Smogon. Plus he’s still a really friendly guy, and it was great hanging out with him. GG man.
Somewhere in this time, Huy got the idea that he could beat me at arm wrestling. Now I’m an arm wrestlin’ guy. I love it. But Huy is a very strong man. He can probably bench press like 300. I think he curls twice as much as Ninahaza. He made me go left-handed, but it’s baylife so I rolled with it. After a bit of derping and trying to understand if he was actually trying or not, I realized he was going all out, so I ended his misery quickly, and we moved on to the right handed match. I won pretty hard. I wanted to try Ninahaza but his two personal goals for VGC this year were to not arm wrestle anyone and to keep his shirt on. Solid.
Back to the rounds, my next match was a nightmare against another smogoner.
Round 6 Vs. Age of Kings
She led with Volcarona Sableye as I lead with Abomasnow Sableye. We exchanged fake outs, and I decided again that I needed to go balls deep beastmode. She knew I had a Heatran on my team, so the obvious move would be for me to switch it in for Abomasnow. I assumed that she would predict that and go for the quiver dance, or whatever cool move Volcarona gets. I decided to leave in Abomasnow and blizzard figuring if everything goes wrong I can still get freeze hax. I blizzarded, got no freeze hax, and she heat waved, killing Abomasnow. Nuuuuuuuuu. The game just went downhill from there, and she beat me without much hax (without any iirc). She straight up outplayed me and won 3-0 or something. GG Age of Kings. 4-2.
I knew after that loss that I couldn’t get top 4 so I was like whatever whatever BAYLIFE BRO. I don’t remember much of the next round at all except that there was some intense trolling.
Round 7 Vs. Random Scrub 4
I have no idea what he led, but I decided to lead Abomasnow Flygon for the double OHKO spam!!!! I used fissure and sheer cold, they both missed, and I raged at Random Scrub guy, who looked absolutely petrified. I think he set up screens or something as I sheer colded and fissured for the second time, and for the second time, they both missed. I then forfeited the match and decided to kick it with my boi Duy. F u Random Scrub 4 prolly used brightpowder or some stupid sht like that.
Checking in on the peeps
Nickscor was the only smogoner that’s 7-0, Ninahaza and OD having lost a battle. In the seniors division Jeremy was 7-0, and, thinking that there were only 7rounds of swiss for seniors, he was convinced that he won. He keeps telling me, “Bro I won wwassupp.” I kept telling him that there was another round, but he thought I was trolling until the pairings for the next round were posted lol. We all rooted for Nickscor as he went against his last opponent and I went to my last match, and prepared to troll some more.
Round 8 Vs. Random Scrub 5
I remember trying to lose this match. I tried pretty hard; I didn’t attack my own pokemon or anything, but the only moves I used were sheer cold and fissure. Sucks for him cause they hit. A lot. He kept protecting with Garchomp, obviously terrified of Abomasnow, while I consistently fissured his other mons. He took it good-naturedly though, and for that I thank him.
I passed by Nickscor and saw his opponent with only one pokemon left. Lookin solid. I went over to Jeremy and found that he had already won. Congrats bro! Won your first regional! People milled around for a while, took some group pictures
and lifted up Nickscor for the awards ceremony!
credit to blakblastoise for the gif
After
People generally dispersed, but not before Saboros got to battle Jeremy! I don’t really remember much of the battle—I’m sure Saboros has it covered in his own warstory—but JEREMY GOT DUNKED ON SO HARD. SABOROS WENT KAREEM MODE AND DID THE FRONTFLIP SPIN 2HANDED SLAM DUNK ON HIM BAM.
Jeremy #1 noob
After that, and some good-natured teasing that went along with it, Saboros and I said our goodbyes, mine incredibly tearful, and we headed home. I had a few tests next day, but like the rest of the story, fk it, baylife.
Props and Slops
Props
- Baylife
- League of Legends for being #1 game
- Team Solo Mid for inspiring my team’s nicknames
- Biosci and Cassie for the two pokemon I was too lazy to RNG myself <3
- Me for RNGing the rest
- Me for getting 5 more wins than I expected, and going 4-0 early on.
- Me for doing mad work with fissure and sheer cold
- Huy FOR AMERICA
- Ma boi Duy for being awesome <3
- Ninahaza for being just as awesome <33
- Epic cosplayers
- Nickscor for winning regionals! Congrats man! You deserved it!
- Jeremy for winning regionals and going beastmode on his SAT’s. You’re my bro, bro.
- Dozz for giving me the Sableye idea the night before regionals.
- NixHex for having a girlfriend and for getting multiple Byes.
- His girlfriend for picking up our pizza
- And lastly, Saboros for slam dunking on Jeremy with ally switch and a crit.
Slops
- Me for playing a shitload of League of Legends soloQ instead of making my team
- Duy for not bringing the American flag
- Saboros for getting DUNKED on and not making top 4
- Jeremy for getting DUNKED ON by Saboros
- Time limits for losing me a match
- Me for being bad at pokemon in general and making trash predictions
- Me for missing with fissure and sheer cold
- Me for trolling when I could have gotten a record like everyone else (no one was 5-3 9.9)
- Me for being self-centered and putting myself in all the sections
PS- This is my first warstory so let me know if I messed up with anything and I'll edit. Thanks <3
EDIT: If you guys want to add me on League of Legends my name is Bru Bear. I accept friend requests from all those without "X"s or numbers in their name! :)
