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Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
I'm not one for long OPs but the point of this thread is to talk about the IRL component of VGC. Unlike the other sections of the site, VGC participation heavily involves offline play, which means meeting other competitors, going to events, and a ton of other fun stuff. In this thread, I want us to talk about all aspects of that: any events you've gone to or are planning to, experiences you've had at events, potential carpools or travel companions, and anything else IRL!
Events are a lot of fun, and if you're on the fence about picking it up, I really hope you take the plunge and come out, whether it's just a premier challenge or even the continental!
Please take a look at this thread to see if any VGC players are around your area! If you haven't posted your location, please do! VGC Player Location and Carpool Thread
If there's any other resources that can help promote IRL play, let me know and I'll add them here! Get to chatting!
Here's a picture from one of my PCs. We usually get 10-16 people at these nowadays since PCs are more scarce, and next month we have a lot of prizes on the line and freshman interested in competitive mons so I'm hoping for 20+! (Shameless plug for our next PC)
Definitely get involved in the scene. Great to meet new people and travelling to the large events can gain you a lot of friends offline and online as well :)
Who's going to Philly this weekend? I know a bunch of people like me, Jibaku, Nails, SamVGC, RBG, kamikaze, Jio (basically all of American VGC staff!!)
I went to the PC in nottingham a few weeks ago with a yveltal and kyogre team. I felt like the team was pretty ok but I did really badly and came 2-3. Two of my losses were due to really stupid mistakes. This was my first PC and my third ever IRL event. I also hadn't practiced much with this team and hasn't played at all since around march OOPS.
Here's the team I used:
I don't remember where most of these spreads came from or what they survive, so I take no credit for them.
My team doesn't have many ways to hit primal groudon so I have HP water. If I lead with gengar + weavile or something, a lot of people just switch to their primal groudons, which lets me switch in kyogre turn 2 and delete groudon.
Speed is to outspeed weavile since I was having some problems against it in testing.
Pretty standard bronzong. I forgot what it survives. Safeguard + lum berry is for smeargles.
Yveltal @ Assault Vest
Ability: Dark Aura
Level: 80
EVs: 124 HP / 156 SpA / 224 Spe
Timid Nature
- Snarl
- Sucker Punch
- Oblivion Wing
- Foul Play
Thanks blarajan for convincing me to use AV yveltal instead of a supportive black glasses set, I ended up really liking it.
Oblivion wing is for hitting hitmontops and scrafties and for staying alive. Foul play is for dunking on primals and ray. Sucker punch is so it isn't dead weight when it's paralyzed. Snarl is consistent damage and helps bulk up the rest of my team. Again I forgot what the EVs do but the speed is for jolly lando-t.
Weavile @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Icicle Crash
- Taunt
- Fake Out
Pretty standard weavile. I used taunt because amoonguss was being annoying.
Ferrothorn @ Expert Belt
Ability: Iron Barbs
Level: 50
EVs: 100 HP / 228 Atk / 180 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip
- Leech Seed
- Protect
I think the EVs were from my 2015 ferro. In practice I would've changed zong's item to a chesto berry and ferro's to a lum, but it ended up not mattering. I threw ferro on last minute as a tossup between it and amoonguss, since my team just falls over to yveltal + xerneas ones.
R1 was against Ashleigh Holland, and it was her first time at a PC.
I brought:
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)
She brought:
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) [Didn't bring:
]
Replay: BV3W-WWWW-WW57-67EL
I burn and trap the kangaskhan and make it useless. I stupidly switch my kyogre into a full-strength (crit) water spout, but manage to survive the next turn and later KO it with sludge bomb and thunder. Gengar KOs kang and then dies to thundy, who then gets KO'd by my kyogre. Giratina starts shadow forcing things but then yveltal and kyogre clean up. I win.
(Score: 1-0)
R2 was against Euan Woof, who was in an espeon hoodie (so I thought it might be R inanimate) but he had a red streak in his hair (so then I was afraid it was verlisify). Turned out it was neither!
I brought:
(
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He brought:
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) [Didn't bring:
]
Replay: 2PRG-WWWW-WW57-67FX
I have a total brain fart and completely forget that gengar can learn shadow ball, since I was so used to seeing ones without it. Everything else pretty much falls apart after that. Within the first two turns I lose weavile and gengar while he just loses his gengar. I might've been able to recover on turn 4 if I origin pulsed instead of ice beaming his granbull (I was afraid of the groudon switch-in) but then his talonflame and groudon clean up. I lose.
(Score: 1-1)
R3 was against Sherb Stead.
I brought:
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He brought:
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) [Didn't bring:
]
Replay: FMJG-WWWW-WW57-67FS
I panicked in team preview and ended up running out of time, bringing everything but my two restricted pokemon. Which is a shame, because I feel like I would've easily won if I had brought either one of them instead of gengar. Weavile and bronzong easily deal with his smeargle and xerneas. But then groudon and ferrothorn come in and I can't do anything to them. He later agreed that I would've most likely beaten him if I didn't screw up in team preview but we didn't get a chance to rematch later. At least he said he was interested in buying one of my togekiss plushies later! :^)
(Score: 1-2)
R4 was against Tom Milson
I brought:
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He brought:
(
) [Didn't bring:
]
Replay: 5UZW-WWWW-WW57-67GB
I thought this would go pretty well since yveltal has a good matchup against dual primal teams, but this is where I discovered my team has a big tailwind + groudon weakness. He gets tailwind up on turn two. I trap and KO his groudon and talonflame with my kyogre's origin pulse but it gets heavily damaged in the process. He sends out his own kyogre and kangaskhan. If he didn't have tailwind, I might've been able to burn his kang, but an opulse from his kyogre KOs gengar first. Kang's double edge and another origin pulse defeat yveltal before it can move. My own kyogre manages to survive on 1HP. I hadn't calc'd it, but if my origin pulse could OHKO the kang and dealt enough damage to the kyogre, and then I outsped his kyogre next turn, I might've won. But I didn't think so, so I just went for the thunder instead, then lost my kyogre to a sucker punch. Good game at least!
(Score: 1-3)
R5 was against Joseph Webster
I brought:
(
)
He brought:
(
) [Didn't bring:
]
Replay: DAKW-WWWW-WW57-683L
I remember being afraid at first that I didn't actually have much to hit his chesnaught with, as a good portion of my offensive moves would've been blocked by bulletproof.
Xerneas dies t1 from sludge bomb and poison and only moonblasts my gengar. I sludge bomb his gengar while weavile knocks off aurorus'... quick claw? and is then KO'd by an origin pulse and a... aurora beam? Whatever. Chesnaught is OHKO'd by oblivion wing and aurorus uses hyper beam on yveltal which only does like 50%. I win.
(Score: 2-3)
This PC was at an event with a whole bunch of other pokemon stuff, including a large raffle, so that took about an hour to get through. After that was all finally over I stuck around to watch top cut, while hanging out and chatting with the people who were still there. I ended up doing a multi battle with three of the others with the teams we used, so that was fun (and yveltal kept shitting all over them). (Replays are 24FW-WWWW-WW57-6CSA and DDSG-WWWW-WW57-6CSR for the curious)
The whole event ended up being over at around 7 and although the beginning of the PC had around 30 masters and 15 seniors + juniors (plus their parents), there were probably only around 10 people still there at the end. Got to watch an XRay team get demolished! One of them had a Charm raichu though, which was neat, and the winner got a mudkip plushie.
I had fun! I wanted to go to the bristol PC two weeks after but I was busy househunting then.
i've been wanting to get into irl vgc, but I'm in orange county and the scene is in LA, so that means traffic, yay! I'm not against driving a bit though, but I don't want to show up at a pokemon league and everyone there just being TCG players. Anyone know of a place to play?
i've been wanting to get into irl vgc, but I'm in orange county and the scene is in LA, so that means traffic, yay! I'm not against driving a bit though, but I don't want to show up at a pokemon league and everyone there just being TCG players. Anyone know of a place to play?
MY Smogon account is revived! Let's give this another shot, yeah?
I played a fair bit of BattleSpot Ranked last year. Could've been worse. But this year I plan to at least make a couple of locals. Hopefully regionals.
This IRL stuff has got to be better than sitting around waiting for a match.
EDIT:
Oh hey there's weekly leagues in McKinney and Sherman! That's super close to me! I might hit that up a couple weekends!
This is my first year getting involved in VGC and I would like to make it to Toronto. But I lack a scene where I am, 2 hours away from Toronto in London. There are only a few players who are interested in VGC, so I get stuck watching and playing on simulator most of the time.
*London I mean the small one in Ontario.
Is anyone else from that area? I skimmed through the player finder but couldn't find more players
This is my first year getting involved in VGC and I would like to make it to Toronto. But I lack a scene where I am, 2 hours away from Toronto in London. There are only a few players who are interested in VGC, so I get stuck watching and playing on simulator most of the time.
*London I mean the small one in Ontario.
Is anyone else from that area? I skimmed through the player finder but couldn't find more players
Hit up Waterloo if you can! I'm a Toronto based player but I go to school in Waterloo, both regions offer PCs semi regularly (there's a limit of 2 per tournament organiser per season) so there's lots of players that attend both. Also no offence but I lived in London for a few months and it sucks, there's nothing to do there. Join our facebook group for more info on upcoming events.
Hit up Waterloo if you can! I'm a Toronto based player but I go to school in Waterloo, both regions offer PCs semi regularly (there's a limit of 2 per tournament organiser per season) so there's lots of players that attend both. Also no offence but I lived in London for a few months and it sucks, there's nothing to do there. Join our facebook group for more info on upcoming events.
Yeah, nothing but singles anyways. Not that I dislike playing singles. But for tourneys it just takes too long. The only one I went to ended up going past midnight, it really sucked for those who got eliminated.
I will be attending Anaheim Regionals, various PCs in the Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties, and a Midseason Showdown in San Diego in between now and March. Here's a list of where I'll be, feel free to hit me up if you're attending any of these:
I will be attending Anaheim Regionals, various PCs in the Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties, and a Midseason Showdown in San Diego in between now and March. Here's a list of where I'll be, feel free to hit me up if you're attending any of these: