ImperfectLuck said he wasn't going to post, but it was okay if I posted about our trip and his team.
Sadly, as far as I know, none of the group came up with terribly interesting battles (myself especially), but I have to post eventually since I met tons of Smogoners. (Smogonites?)
Shaking hands with at least twelve people legally requires a post. Look it up!
The Before
The Team (the interesting part)
The Battles
tl;dr bits:
1) Arnold family = awesome battlers.
2) I hated the outcome here. I can take a loss just fine, but when the rules gimp the game, it's not very fun. Dear VGC: Next tourney, provide more time and less ubers. Stagnant metagames are meh.
The After
Sadly, as far as I know, none of the group came up with terribly interesting battles (myself especially), but I have to post eventually since I met tons of Smogoners. (Smogonites?)
Shaking hands with at least twelve people legally requires a post. Look it up!
The Before
I met IPL last year when I timidly decided to pick someone out to test my VGC team against. I greatly feared his strategy, but managed to beat him. This was accompanied by about an hour of shaking from the adrenaline, along with mental assurance that I could make an impact in the VGC if I went. (Long story short, I ended up seventeenth place nationally, and didn't get to go to world, which required top 16. Insert expletives of your choice.)
We stayed in occasional contact after then, which became more frequent with the oncoming and dreaded VCG 2010. We both had teams to test as it approached, after all.
Before the tourney itself, the general reaction I got was that people didn't like this year's VGCs. Not sure if it changed during or after nationals, but when I was going through my theorymon, I realized I wasn't enjoying it either. It felt more like Rock Paper Scissors than Pokemon Strategy.
Then one day, ImperfectLuck descended in a beam of light and completely ruined one of my hard-worked teams without breaking a sweat, accompanied by a choir of angels on to rally his Pokemon to victory. (note: some of this may or may not be true)
This was the team I'd been looking for! Something unique. No potential mirror matches, and not any big worries from any kind of lead at all, save a few that became fairly rare. (Taunt users)
A deal was struck up. A hotel room for a team. Scheduling was crazy, so my friend Jeremy (who is not on Smogon as of yet) and I drove to Indianapolis, starting at 11 PM, switching timezones and stopping enough that we arrived at 5 AM. ImperfectLuck was there to greet us.
The team wasn't EV trained, though. If anyone noticed the guy sitting in line frantically mashing buttons next to IPL? Yeah, that was me. :D
Anyway, the team got done, and the battle was on. LCtQ, baby.
We stayed in occasional contact after then, which became more frequent with the oncoming and dreaded VCG 2010. We both had teams to test as it approached, after all.
Before the tourney itself, the general reaction I got was that people didn't like this year's VGCs. Not sure if it changed during or after nationals, but when I was going through my theorymon, I realized I wasn't enjoying it either. It felt more like Rock Paper Scissors than Pokemon Strategy.
Then one day, ImperfectLuck descended in a beam of light and completely ruined one of my hard-worked teams without breaking a sweat, accompanied by a choir of angels on to rally his Pokemon to victory. (note: some of this may or may not be true)
This was the team I'd been looking for! Something unique. No potential mirror matches, and not any big worries from any kind of lead at all, save a few that became fairly rare. (Taunt users)
A deal was struck up. A hotel room for a team. Scheduling was crazy, so my friend Jeremy (who is not on Smogon as of yet) and I drove to Indianapolis, starting at 11 PM, switching timezones and stopping enough that we arrived at 5 AM. ImperfectLuck was there to greet us.
The team wasn't EV trained, though. If anyone noticed the guy sitting in line frantically mashing buttons next to IPL? Yeah, that was me. :D
Anyway, the team got done, and the battle was on. LCtQ, baby.
The Team (the interesting part)
Wobbuffet @ Leftovers
Sassy, 0 Spe
EVs: 252 SpDef, 140 Def, 116 HP
~ Charm
~ Encore
~ Mirror Coat
~ Safeguard
Survives... Everything? So the plan goes. I'm in no condition or state of mind to run battle damage calcs right now, but it should be able to take two Water Spouts if Light Screen comes up after the first. Not that it wants to.
Charm is for shutting down all the physical attackers. Better than Counter. I didn't believe IPL at first about that, but after battle number two I was far more than convinced. Thinking about it now, it's rather obvious. It's much easier to stall with Charm than with Counter, duh.
Encore is to make Fake Out leads (read: everyone) absolutely useless because they can't switch out, effectively reducing the Pokemon on the other side of the field to one.
Mr. Mime @ Focus Sash
Timid
EVs: Goofed. Outspeeds Modest Kyogre and can survive specials well enough.
~ Reflect
~ Light Screen
~ Fake Out
~ Encore
Faster than most other Fake Outers. Go for the partner of the Fake Outer, so Wobby can Encore the Fake Out.
For Giratina, Reflect.
Set up appropriate screens, Encore slower things that Protected last turn or other stuff you'd like to repeat.
Secondary function: Look pretty (read: scary) before dying. Can be switched out once everything's set up, too.
Lugia @ Lum Berry
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Spe, 4 SpD.
~ Icy Wind
~ Calm Mind
~ Double Team
~ Roost
Bring this in on the dragon trio when things are set up. Faster than Palkia, hooray! Stall annoying moves down with Pressure while even crit Spacial Rend fails to OHKO. Set up, grind down. Beautiful. Drops the speed of Choice Scarfers and Palkia so Giratina can come in safer when or if it becomes time to do so.
IPL said Featherdance worked better in testing instead of Double Team, I think? It might have been Icy Wind, but Icy Wind's important to bring down Palkia's speed. Still, outright stalling Palkia out might be possible as well.
Giratina @ Chesto Berry
EVs: 252 HP, 76 Def, 148 SpDef, 32 Spe.
~ Calm Mind
~ Dragon Pulse
~ Rest
~ Double Team
IPL called the EVs 'random'. I'm inclined to agree, since I don't immediately see anything special to them.
I imagine he changed them on his own team.
Giratina's simple. Don't die, make the other guy do that. Calm Mind quickly turns Giratina into a stalling machine as well as an offensive one. Doesn't mind Abomasnow's Blizzards all that bad, and can Rest after two Calm Minds in the ice. Being faster helps.
What kills this:
Anything with Taunt completely ruins the team. IPL actually managed to face a Weavile when he used this team's equivalent going through the Nationals itself. See also: jRank's post.
He also got critted to death in three matches, or he would have gone 5-2, I believe? So yeah, ImperfectLuck is a pretty apt name. Sucks, because the team's pretty cool.
On his own team, he used Jynx instead of Mr. Mime. "Extra 5 base speed is all I care about." he said. Not sure what the replacement move for Encore was.
The best part of the team is knowing what they think when they see the lead: Oh good, a newbie.
...And then they're crushed by the combined might of Sanpei Hayashiya and Marcel Marceau.
Or in IPL's case, Zwarte Piet. Whatever floats his boat.
Sassy, 0 Spe
EVs: 252 SpDef, 140 Def, 116 HP
~ Charm
~ Encore
~ Mirror Coat
~ Safeguard
Survives... Everything? So the plan goes. I'm in no condition or state of mind to run battle damage calcs right now, but it should be able to take two Water Spouts if Light Screen comes up after the first. Not that it wants to.
Charm is for shutting down all the physical attackers. Better than Counter. I didn't believe IPL at first about that, but after battle number two I was far more than convinced. Thinking about it now, it's rather obvious. It's much easier to stall with Charm than with Counter, duh.
Encore is to make Fake Out leads (read: everyone) absolutely useless because they can't switch out, effectively reducing the Pokemon on the other side of the field to one.
Mr. Mime @ Focus Sash
Timid
EVs: Goofed. Outspeeds Modest Kyogre and can survive specials well enough.
~ Reflect
~ Light Screen
~ Fake Out
~ Encore
Faster than most other Fake Outers. Go for the partner of the Fake Outer, so Wobby can Encore the Fake Out.
For Giratina, Reflect.
Set up appropriate screens, Encore slower things that Protected last turn or other stuff you'd like to repeat.
Secondary function: Look pretty (read: scary) before dying. Can be switched out once everything's set up, too.
Lugia @ Lum Berry
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Spe, 4 SpD.
~ Icy Wind
~ Calm Mind
~ Double Team
~ Roost
Bring this in on the dragon trio when things are set up. Faster than Palkia, hooray! Stall annoying moves down with Pressure while even crit Spacial Rend fails to OHKO. Set up, grind down. Beautiful. Drops the speed of Choice Scarfers and Palkia so Giratina can come in safer when or if it becomes time to do so.
IPL said Featherdance worked better in testing instead of Double Team, I think? It might have been Icy Wind, but Icy Wind's important to bring down Palkia's speed. Still, outright stalling Palkia out might be possible as well.
Giratina @ Chesto Berry
EVs: 252 HP, 76 Def, 148 SpDef, 32 Spe.
~ Calm Mind
~ Dragon Pulse
~ Rest
~ Double Team
IPL called the EVs 'random'. I'm inclined to agree, since I don't immediately see anything special to them.
I imagine he changed them on his own team.
Giratina's simple. Don't die, make the other guy do that. Calm Mind quickly turns Giratina into a stalling machine as well as an offensive one. Doesn't mind Abomasnow's Blizzards all that bad, and can Rest after two Calm Minds in the ice. Being faster helps.
What kills this:
Anything with Taunt completely ruins the team. IPL actually managed to face a Weavile when he used this team's equivalent going through the Nationals itself. See also: jRank's post.
He also got critted to death in three matches, or he would have gone 5-2, I believe? So yeah, ImperfectLuck is a pretty apt name. Sucks, because the team's pretty cool.
On his own team, he used Jynx instead of Mr. Mime. "Extra 5 base speed is all I care about." he said. Not sure what the replacement move for Encore was.
The best part of the team is knowing what they think when they see the lead: Oh good, a newbie.
...And then they're crushed by the combined might of Sanpei Hayashiya and Marcel Marceau.
Or in IPL's case, Zwarte Piet. Whatever floats his boat.
The Battles
Chapter the first:
First up, I honestly don't believe this person knew what they were doing. They were nice enough and we both had fun though.
I admit it it had me worried, since ridiculous things can have amazing payoff against careful planning. I'm not sure I remember the battle all too well, but it wasn't especially amazing anyway, graphics aside.
Lead was: Dialga, Palkia.
Roar of Time and Spacial Rend, to Wobb and Mime respectively. Everything lives, and I've Encored a Spacial Rend and set up a Light Screen. Goody gumdrops. Mirror Coat gets lucky and nukes Palkia as I bring out Lugia and start Calm Minding and Roosting.
The back two were Staraptor. It did Fly then Brave Bird, but it never went through Wobb nor Lugia, obviously. I finished off Dialga and Staraptor at the same time. All that's left is a Surfing Wishcash. Don't remember how I finished the game, but I knew it was done at that point.
Battle number the secondeth:
Wherein I face mine most mighty of opponents, one of the Arnold kids. He's the only battle that actually had me sweating bullets (not literally, but figuratively enough). Choice Scarf Giratina and Hitmontop. Not so bad.
1) I goofed a bit, Faking Out and Charming the Top instead of setting up a Reflect.
2) Top breaks Mime's sash, Giratina rips it apart. Whoops. Another mistake here as well. I Charmed Top /again/ instead of doing it to Giratina. Really moronic.
Gira vs Gira isn't where I want to be, so I send in Lugia.
3) Giratina goes for another Shadow Force. Lugia Double Teams. Hitmontop does nothing with Sucker Punch, takes another Charm and is completely nerfed.
4) Shadow Force misses, thank god. Nerfed Giratina's speed with Icy Wind, Hitmontop does Mach Punch for pitiful damage on Lugia, and is Encored by Wobb. Now it's totally dead weight.
5) Double Team with Lugia. I'm getting up some momentum. My memory starts to blur out a bit here. I can't remember his last two team members at all, and I won't try to fake it.
What I do recall is feeling threatened the entire match.
Definately a good game. Did some stupid things, got lucky to save my butt. He wasn't too pleased with me, and after I learned who he was afterwards I understood why. I did convince him to give a handshake after a while, though.
Battle number three:
Lugia and Dusknoir lead.
1) I see Will-O-Wisp coming on Wobby a mile off, but there's no way to avoid that. I Fake Out Lugia, Dusknoir Will-O-Wisps Wobby for a burn that later costs me the match for reasons other than fainting, and
2) Hydro Pump from Lugia. Mime takes it painfully, and uses Encore on Dusknoir. Dusknoir has fun spamming Will-O-Wisp against random Safeguarded targets. Wobbuffet Charms Dusknoir.
3) Reflect from Lugia. Mime sets up Reflect. Wobbuffet Encores Lugia. Life is beautiful, as my opponent is now trapped doing useless things and I have both screens up.
4) In comes Lugia, out goes Mime. I guess I was worried about Giratina getting hurt somehow, but it didn't matter in the end. I easily set up, forcing my opponent to endlessly repeat useless things.
#) Eventually he gets free and starts Rain Dance with Lugia, but Hydro Pump can't touch mine at all. Six Calm Minds and three Double Teams happen. I'm in a good place, until the judge comes over. Time's running out, apparently. Three turns left until it's decided by KOs and HP. I'm fairly sure I've lost, because nobody's KOed yet and Wobby is super low on HP.
I switch Wobby out and pull in Giratina. I try and fail to KO his Roosting Lugia. Maybe I should have Calm Minded with Giratina and aimed for Dusknoir. In any case, the three turns run out with no KOs from anything, so I 'lose'.
I met the guy the next day, and he agreed he was toast, having nothing to hurt Giratina with at all. He also did rather poorly in the tourney itself, so I'd say everyone lost thanks to the timeout. Lame.
First up, I honestly don't believe this person knew what they were doing. They were nice enough and we both had fun though.
I admit it it had me worried, since ridiculous things can have amazing payoff against careful planning. I'm not sure I remember the battle all too well, but it wasn't especially amazing anyway, graphics aside.
Lead was: Dialga, Palkia.
Roar of Time and Spacial Rend, to Wobb and Mime respectively. Everything lives, and I've Encored a Spacial Rend and set up a Light Screen. Goody gumdrops. Mirror Coat gets lucky and nukes Palkia as I bring out Lugia and start Calm Minding and Roosting.
The back two were Staraptor. It did Fly then Brave Bird, but it never went through Wobb nor Lugia, obviously. I finished off Dialga and Staraptor at the same time. All that's left is a Surfing Wishcash. Don't remember how I finished the game, but I knew it was done at that point.
Battle number the secondeth:
Wherein I face mine most mighty of opponents, one of the Arnold kids. He's the only battle that actually had me sweating bullets (not literally, but figuratively enough). Choice Scarf Giratina and Hitmontop. Not so bad.
1) I goofed a bit, Faking Out and Charming the Top instead of setting up a Reflect.
2) Top breaks Mime's sash, Giratina rips it apart. Whoops. Another mistake here as well. I Charmed Top /again/ instead of doing it to Giratina. Really moronic.
Gira vs Gira isn't where I want to be, so I send in Lugia.
3) Giratina goes for another Shadow Force. Lugia Double Teams. Hitmontop does nothing with Sucker Punch, takes another Charm and is completely nerfed.
4) Shadow Force misses, thank god. Nerfed Giratina's speed with Icy Wind, Hitmontop does Mach Punch for pitiful damage on Lugia, and is Encored by Wobb. Now it's totally dead weight.
5) Double Team with Lugia. I'm getting up some momentum. My memory starts to blur out a bit here. I can't remember his last two team members at all, and I won't try to fake it.
What I do recall is feeling threatened the entire match.
Definately a good game. Did some stupid things, got lucky to save my butt. He wasn't too pleased with me, and after I learned who he was afterwards I understood why. I did convince him to give a handshake after a while, though.
Battle number three:
Lugia and Dusknoir lead.
1) I see Will-O-Wisp coming on Wobby a mile off, but there's no way to avoid that. I Fake Out Lugia, Dusknoir Will-O-Wisps Wobby for a burn that later costs me the match for reasons other than fainting, and
2) Hydro Pump from Lugia. Mime takes it painfully, and uses Encore on Dusknoir. Dusknoir has fun spamming Will-O-Wisp against random Safeguarded targets. Wobbuffet Charms Dusknoir.
3) Reflect from Lugia. Mime sets up Reflect. Wobbuffet Encores Lugia. Life is beautiful, as my opponent is now trapped doing useless things and I have both screens up.
4) In comes Lugia, out goes Mime. I guess I was worried about Giratina getting hurt somehow, but it didn't matter in the end. I easily set up, forcing my opponent to endlessly repeat useless things.
#) Eventually he gets free and starts Rain Dance with Lugia, but Hydro Pump can't touch mine at all. Six Calm Minds and three Double Teams happen. I'm in a good place, until the judge comes over. Time's running out, apparently. Three turns left until it's decided by KOs and HP. I'm fairly sure I've lost, because nobody's KOed yet and Wobby is super low on HP.
I switch Wobby out and pull in Giratina. I try and fail to KO his Roosting Lugia. Maybe I should have Calm Minded with Giratina and aimed for Dusknoir. In any case, the three turns run out with no KOs from anything, so I 'lose'.
I met the guy the next day, and he agreed he was toast, having nothing to hurt Giratina with at all. He also did rather poorly in the tourney itself, so I'd say everyone lost thanks to the timeout. Lame.
tl;dr bits:
1) Arnold family = awesome battlers.
2) I hated the outcome here. I can take a loss just fine, but when the rules gimp the game, it's not very fun. Dear VGC: Next tourney, provide more time and less ubers. Stagnant metagames are meh.
The After
Best part. It was fun coming back to Nationals with Jeremy and IPL who did manage to make it, even if they both wound up 3-4. No top 16 for us. Maybe next year.
I got to catch up with some of the others, and talked about my upcoming project: A way to see what Pokemon can get two moves in tandem. Wanna see all the double screeners in a few seconds? So do I. Looking up move combos is hard, and I got a lot of agreement that this project could be worthwhile.
I also got to meet Mingot, which was pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned. Not to mention a bunch of other folks. You know who you are!
Was gonna go with Mingot and crew for lunch, but got stopped for an interview.
Went out for Coldstone icecream. $4.99. Used the penny to make a wish at the fountain: no more ubers in VGC. :D
Supposedly you can't get a wish if you tell what it is, but Latias and Blissey seem to have no trouble, so I'll just roll with that style.
On the way back, we talked about fifth gen, and the mythos and design decisions behind Pokemon. Lots of mythbusting happened. Topics covered were: Themes behind elemental types, Pokedex entries, Pokemon reproduction, evolution, what Poke Balls do, how elemental attacks function, and a few others. All the big points got hit, though. IPL and Jeremy both seemed to enjoy the explainations.
However, none of it is written up anywhere yet, so no links. Jeremy has it all written down in a notebook, so maybe someday. Still, it would probably go somewhere other than Smogon. :P
We crashed one more time, and it was wonderful sleep. I wanted to go back and see the finals, but my body decided sleep was even more awesome than that, since I was out until 10 AM.
Drove IPL to the airport, and then drove home. Even if I lost, having a stall team so good that it stalled the entire VGC was worth it. It definitely works, that's for sure! And if I didn't go, I would have regretted it. Plus, meeting lots of Smogoners plus others and hanging out with IPL and Jeremy made it all worthwhile.
I got to catch up with some of the others, and talked about my upcoming project: A way to see what Pokemon can get two moves in tandem. Wanna see all the double screeners in a few seconds? So do I. Looking up move combos is hard, and I got a lot of agreement that this project could be worthwhile.
I also got to meet Mingot, which was pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned. Not to mention a bunch of other folks. You know who you are!
Was gonna go with Mingot and crew for lunch, but got stopped for an interview.
Went out for Coldstone icecream. $4.99. Used the penny to make a wish at the fountain: no more ubers in VGC. :D
Supposedly you can't get a wish if you tell what it is, but Latias and Blissey seem to have no trouble, so I'll just roll with that style.
On the way back, we talked about fifth gen, and the mythos and design decisions behind Pokemon. Lots of mythbusting happened. Topics covered were: Themes behind elemental types, Pokedex entries, Pokemon reproduction, evolution, what Poke Balls do, how elemental attacks function, and a few others. All the big points got hit, though. IPL and Jeremy both seemed to enjoy the explainations.
However, none of it is written up anywhere yet, so no links. Jeremy has it all written down in a notebook, so maybe someday. Still, it would probably go somewhere other than Smogon. :P
We crashed one more time, and it was wonderful sleep. I wanted to go back and see the finals, but my body decided sleep was even more awesome than that, since I was out until 10 AM.
Drove IPL to the airport, and then drove home. Even if I lost, having a stall team so good that it stalled the entire VGC was worth it. It definitely works, that's for sure! And if I didn't go, I would have regretted it. Plus, meeting lots of Smogoners plus others and hanging out with IPL and Jeremy made it all worthwhile.
