After an average performance at Rhode Island, I decided I wanted to try my hand at the Philidelphia regional. I knew it would be a tough competition (as pretty much all of the Northeast usually is), but I also knew there were so many great people there that I had to see again. While I don't have a huge accomplishment here to boast, I thought I'd tell the stories I remember from the day!
The Ride To Philly
While this was an overall pretty boring ride, I went on IRC a few times and talked to a few people before the competition who wished me luck and whatnot and set up Twitter on my iPhone (which would come in handy throughout the day).
I also ran into this awesome billboard:
Some people just feel really strongly about things I guess!!
Arrival at the Convention Center
So, things got pretty interesting fast as I took the escalator upstairs to where the tournament was being held. First off, the line was basically spanning the entire second floor, which was super crazy. I had no idea that that many people would be coming after such a poor attendance at Rhode Island. I got pretty lucky though, and right away on line ran into Jio and The Wolf, who are two awesome people!
Seniors was finishing up registration when I arrived, so I figured I'd get a great chance to watch it and post updates. I chilled on IRC a bit while waiting for the line to move so we could meet some more people without losing our spots.
As we moved up closer on the line, I found Human, dtrain, kinderlew, Wolfey, SapphireBirch, and TheGr8. Jio, The Wolf, and I joined them where they were on line (which was wayyyyyy ahead of where we were) and got to register pretty quickly. After that, I made my way into the main room where it was already packed with tons of Seniors. An adorable little girl put a green wristband on me, and then I finished my registration.
I went outside to hang out with some other people, and shared some of my awesome cookies that my dad got from some place in the Reading Terminal. Oh my god these cookies......you have no idea. They were really warm chocolate chip cookies that you could die for (ask Jio, The Wolf, and NatGeo!)
Once I went outside, I ran into Cybertron and we hi5'd before the competition. He was wearing his National Champ medal from 2011 (so much swag). I ran into iss shortly after that, and he is actually a pretty cool guy (you can't 9.9 or "lol" irl...maybe that has something to do with it?) After looking around a bit and meeting The Knights of Wario Land, I saw Cybertron again with none other than NatGeo! We pretty much hung out for most of the inbetween time for Seniors and it was tons of fun getting to meet him.
It was really crazy being in a place with so many Smogoners at once! People were coming up to me and recognizing who I was, which was really weird, but not in the bad way! Either way, Seniors began pretty shortly after I met up with everyone again, so I went on IRC while waiting since the staff wouldn't let us spectate any matches without having a fit. I talked to user: Bloo who told me how he lost at the OVGC tournament going on right now and how he is a failure, and then as per the usual we cracked a few jokes about friendly neighborhood admin, Haunter. (Little did I know our jokes weren't that far off).
Just a look at how packed the Seniors division was!
I spent most of the time chatting with people, hunting down Smogon Seniors to find out their records, and updating Twitter. At this point, I had met PungentFruit again, and we shared our awesome thumbs up which definitely brings power to the user (as shown by Newark 2011 and this regional!) Smogon had been doing really well, up until the first match of doom, which was Cybertron vs PungentFruit.
Nice face
Around this point, announcements were made that there would be a 2 hour delay for Masters, leaving it to start at 2 PM. While I was a little miffed, I figure it wouldn't be that huge an issue. The games continued, and we were able to huddle around PungentFruit's DS to check out the game, which was pretty cool. Despite getting yelled at a few times, it was a pretty intense match to watch.
I don't remember everything that happened in between, but eventually we discovered iss would have to be playing Rhode Island Seniors Champ Drifblim. Unreality gave us a call after I was texting him updates to give iss a pep talk, and that was pretty cool. I'm pretty sure Cybertron shouted something into the phone about how much he loves the other half of Team Aaron, and SapphireBirch and Unreality talked about how they are both cute users via text.
Drifblim vs iss!
I tried to watch this match in the same way that I had been able to watch PungentFruit vs Cybertron, but Drifblim is really tall even when sitting down so this made it kinda difficult. Either way, all I had heard was that a Thunderbolt crit turn 1 put iss at a major disadvantage and the match went downhill from there. Although we were all bummed, iss still seemed to have a fighting chance so we made sure to cheer for him.
Master's Division
Well, about 2 and half hours later, at 2:30ish, an announcement is made about who's going to be participating in what flight. The two flights, which were going to divide Masters into separate groups, where the top 4 from each would face each other in a top cut for the final prizes. With that in mind, we all checked out the rosters for the Pink and Yellow/Green flights. To most of Smogon's disappointment, a majority of our users were stuck in the Pink flight, so we'd have to be eliminating each other throughout the tournament.
So, the team I was using was a little weird but it had been working, so I decided to give it a shot at the regional. I'm not going to reveal any movesets, but here are the Pokemon I used. (Major shoutout to Biosci and Cassie and Charzaro and Shii who gave me the Pokemon for this team at different points in time!)
About an hour later, round 1 started. My first opponent was another girl who was wearing a Nyan Meowth shirt. She ran a Trick Room team and I managed to pretty much outpace and OHKO all her Pokemon in a fairly quick match.
1-0
I asked around for more people's records to update to Twitter, and it seemed like most of Smogon had gone 1-0 as well. I met Chill Murray here when I asked him what his record was, and also formally introduced myself to Ditto and Biffster, who was in the Yellow/Green division.
Round 2 started eventually, and this match was really just a trainwreck for me. I really played poorly turn 1 and it killed me for the rest of the match really. I blame my opponent's Crobat, who was named Alucard. (Most of the PO mods should understand why this is really just awful). Also fuck Alucard stalking me even at regionals.................
I was almost able to turn the match around but an Earthquake crit through Shuca basically ended the match for me.
1-1
I don't remember much of Round 3 or Round 4, but I know I won both of those matches fairly easily.
3-1
At this point, I knew my chances of making top cut were slim, and I was getting tired. I knew if I had lost one more time, I'd be dropping out. Unfortunately, I got matched up with The Wolf. I don't want to reveal her team so I won't go into much detail despite this being the only match I really remember, but it was a fun game and I just got straight up beaten. Her team was really unique and it's no surprise she went 6-1!
3-2
With two losses, and it being 6:30pm, I decided I might as well drop out and head home before I was sucked into spending another 2 hours there (like those who made top cut). On the way home, I went on IRC and talked to other people who's regionals had concluded already. The traffic on the way home was absolutely ridiculous and I got home at around 10:30pm, which was crazy for a regional only 2 hours away from where I live.
So basically this leaves me where I am now, with my parents being lame about nationals because of poor organization in these past events, among other things. In short: NO GOOD GRADES, NO INDIANA
I'm not gonna do shoutouts since you're all amazing and I love everyone at VGC. C:
-----------------------
Sorry this was kinda short, but the whole day was just a ton of fun so everything was a big blur. It was hard to remember exactly when I met people, so if there is a next time I'll be making sure to take lots of pictures.
Also I love my Team Seniors.
The Ride To Philly
While this was an overall pretty boring ride, I went on IRC a few times and talked to a few people before the competition who wished me luck and whatnot and set up Twitter on my iPhone (which would come in handy throughout the day).
I also ran into this awesome billboard:
Some people just feel really strongly about things I guess!!
Arrival at the Convention Center
So, things got pretty interesting fast as I took the escalator upstairs to where the tournament was being held. First off, the line was basically spanning the entire second floor, which was super crazy. I had no idea that that many people would be coming after such a poor attendance at Rhode Island. I got pretty lucky though, and right away on line ran into Jio and The Wolf, who are two awesome people!
Seniors was finishing up registration when I arrived, so I figured I'd get a great chance to watch it and post updates. I chilled on IRC a bit while waiting for the line to move so we could meet some more people without losing our spots.
As we moved up closer on the line, I found Human, dtrain, kinderlew, Wolfey, SapphireBirch, and TheGr8. Jio, The Wolf, and I joined them where they were on line (which was wayyyyyy ahead of where we were) and got to register pretty quickly. After that, I made my way into the main room where it was already packed with tons of Seniors. An adorable little girl put a green wristband on me, and then I finished my registration.
I went outside to hang out with some other people, and shared some of my awesome cookies that my dad got from some place in the Reading Terminal. Oh my god these cookies......you have no idea. They were really warm chocolate chip cookies that you could die for (ask Jio, The Wolf, and NatGeo!)
Once I went outside, I ran into Cybertron and we hi5'd before the competition. He was wearing his National Champ medal from 2011 (so much swag). I ran into iss shortly after that, and he is actually a pretty cool guy (you can't 9.9 or "lol" irl...maybe that has something to do with it?) After looking around a bit and meeting The Knights of Wario Land, I saw Cybertron again with none other than NatGeo! We pretty much hung out for most of the inbetween time for Seniors and it was tons of fun getting to meet him.
It was really crazy being in a place with so many Smogoners at once! People were coming up to me and recognizing who I was, which was really weird, but not in the bad way! Either way, Seniors began pretty shortly after I met up with everyone again, so I went on IRC while waiting since the staff wouldn't let us spectate any matches without having a fit. I talked to user: Bloo who told me how he lost at the OVGC tournament going on right now and how he is a failure, and then as per the usual we cracked a few jokes about friendly neighborhood admin, Haunter. (Little did I know our jokes weren't that far off).
Just a look at how packed the Seniors division was!
I spent most of the time chatting with people, hunting down Smogon Seniors to find out their records, and updating Twitter. At this point, I had met PungentFruit again, and we shared our awesome thumbs up which definitely brings power to the user (as shown by Newark 2011 and this regional!) Smogon had been doing really well, up until the first match of doom, which was Cybertron vs PungentFruit.
Nice face
Around this point, announcements were made that there would be a 2 hour delay for Masters, leaving it to start at 2 PM. While I was a little miffed, I figure it wouldn't be that huge an issue. The games continued, and we were able to huddle around PungentFruit's DS to check out the game, which was pretty cool. Despite getting yelled at a few times, it was a pretty intense match to watch.
I don't remember everything that happened in between, but eventually we discovered iss would have to be playing Rhode Island Seniors Champ Drifblim. Unreality gave us a call after I was texting him updates to give iss a pep talk, and that was pretty cool. I'm pretty sure Cybertron shouted something into the phone about how much he loves the other half of Team Aaron, and SapphireBirch and Unreality talked about how they are both cute users via text.
Drifblim vs iss!
I tried to watch this match in the same way that I had been able to watch PungentFruit vs Cybertron, but Drifblim is really tall even when sitting down so this made it kinda difficult. Either way, all I had heard was that a Thunderbolt crit turn 1 put iss at a major disadvantage and the match went downhill from there. Although we were all bummed, iss still seemed to have a fighting chance so we made sure to cheer for him.
Master's Division
Well, about 2 and half hours later, at 2:30ish, an announcement is made about who's going to be participating in what flight. The two flights, which were going to divide Masters into separate groups, where the top 4 from each would face each other in a top cut for the final prizes. With that in mind, we all checked out the rosters for the Pink and Yellow/Green flights. To most of Smogon's disappointment, a majority of our users were stuck in the Pink flight, so we'd have to be eliminating each other throughout the tournament.
So, the team I was using was a little weird but it had been working, so I decided to give it a shot at the regional. I'm not going to reveal any movesets, but here are the Pokemon I used. (Major shoutout to Biosci and Cassie and Charzaro and Shii who gave me the Pokemon for this team at different points in time!)
About an hour later, round 1 started. My first opponent was another girl who was wearing a Nyan Meowth shirt. She ran a Trick Room team and I managed to pretty much outpace and OHKO all her Pokemon in a fairly quick match.
1-0
I asked around for more people's records to update to Twitter, and it seemed like most of Smogon had gone 1-0 as well. I met Chill Murray here when I asked him what his record was, and also formally introduced myself to Ditto and Biffster, who was in the Yellow/Green division.
Round 2 started eventually, and this match was really just a trainwreck for me. I really played poorly turn 1 and it killed me for the rest of the match really. I blame my opponent's Crobat, who was named Alucard. (Most of the PO mods should understand why this is really just awful). Also fuck Alucard stalking me even at regionals.................
I was almost able to turn the match around but an Earthquake crit through Shuca basically ended the match for me.
1-1
I don't remember much of Round 3 or Round 4, but I know I won both of those matches fairly easily.
3-1
At this point, I knew my chances of making top cut were slim, and I was getting tired. I knew if I had lost one more time, I'd be dropping out. Unfortunately, I got matched up with The Wolf. I don't want to reveal her team so I won't go into much detail despite this being the only match I really remember, but it was a fun game and I just got straight up beaten. Her team was really unique and it's no surprise she went 6-1!
3-2
With two losses, and it being 6:30pm, I decided I might as well drop out and head home before I was sucked into spending another 2 hours there (like those who made top cut). On the way home, I went on IRC and talked to other people who's regionals had concluded already. The traffic on the way home was absolutely ridiculous and I got home at around 10:30pm, which was crazy for a regional only 2 hours away from where I live.
So basically this leaves me where I am now, with my parents being lame about nationals because of poor organization in these past events, among other things. In short: NO GOOD GRADES, NO INDIANA
I'm not gonna do shoutouts since you're all amazing and I love everyone at VGC. C:
-----------------------
Sorry this was kinda short, but the whole day was just a ton of fun so everything was a big blur. It was hard to remember exactly when I met people, so if there is a next time I'll be making sure to take lots of pictures.
Also I love my Team Seniors.
