I've been a pokmon fan forever. My first competitive game was pokemon (good old gen 4 ; though i quit a little bit after platinum came out to fuck everything up. But i still show it some love.
Pokemon's annual VGC/TCG competition was in San Diego this year (at the Hilton Bayfront) and ofc i had to go. I went in 2009 for the first season and had a lot of fun, but this year was a bit different. the rule changes (compared to last year too) were kinda...ehhh. The format is basically 2v2 level 50, bo3s where you get a party of 6 and pick 4 per battle. I think in 2009 it was no uber, 2010 had 2 uber, and this year was only gen 5 pokemon which really fucked up the team selection since there were really only a few choices. also gen 5 is slow as fuck.
there's i think 6 qualifiers in the US, and the top 8something i think go to nationals in indiannapolis (this year anyway). top 8 of that go to worlds i believe. nintendo likes 8s. Other countries have qualifiers too and the winners/top something of each country goes to worlds. So the japanese are basically ballers in pokemon. '09 was won and topped by mainly japanese players. '10 im not sure, but this year the absence of japanese players kinda makes the odds better for team USA.
Japanese are like sc2 koreans i wanna say. not unbeatable, but well ahead. However the earthquake denied their presence this year
Regardless the heavy favorite to win was last year's champion, ray rizzo (aka bluecookies).
the format overall is swiss, theres something between 50-64 people per division per game, and everyone gets 6 matches. TCG and VGC are split into 3 sections: juniors for all under 9, senior for like, 9-16, and master for everyone above. Ill only be covering masters cause i dont know any of the others.
top 8 out of swiss format advance to single elim bo3s. I was only there for saturday (day 2) where they did all of the swiss pairings, so i can't tell you who won. cause they're deciding that in actually a few hours (starts at 10am pst), and im not there anymore...
I do remember that bluecookies (last year champ) went 5-1, along with another strong player who went 6-0. 2 spanards got into the ro8 and idk the rest.
this is basically being as close to being a pokemon progamer as it gets. anyone that qualifies for worlds gets a free vacation with family (i think up to 4 people) paid by nintendo to worlds, both for TCG and VGC. TCG prizes are better, since they get money + scholarship but VGC gets some ok stuff. free DS (although usually they have a personalized one, this year they do not)
also there's this website called skarmbliss where most of the VGC's top players go. if smogon is pokemon's TL, this is like the #1 VGC format competitive pokemon website. also im biased, i know the founder personally sooooooooooooooooo hahah. hes actually the guy i was with most of the time i was there.
they like to spruce up the place even though basically its 2 big ballrooms, the bottom floor one is an open room to play games, and the top one is where all the tournament stuff happens. but there's a giftshop, movie room, people walking around in costumes of pokemon (like, disneyland style costumes)
anyway pictures: (sorry if bad quality, i only had an iphone for pics ><)
That's really awesome! I may not like the competitive scene as much but I appreciate that there are different types of competitive styles in video games :D Maybe one day they'll introduce a more interesting battle system in Pokémon. I've recently started to play again for fun and started to find out more things about the competitive scene which is pretty interesting and actually complex haha.
For anyone that doesn't know how it works (you should have an idea how the fights work but it's fun to see how crazy it can get), you should look up some battles on youtube!
There's really not much to follow. VGC format isnt the standard pokemon competitive play (its one of the largest minorities, but still not standard).
standard is 6v6 :p.
but yeah competitive pokemon is pretty difficult (at least it was when i was 13 lol). you have to know the tierlist and what everything does/can do, judge movesets of enemy pokemon so you know what to use, build your team properly to handle as many threats as best as possible, etc. Its not like, sc level insanity i think (especially because most people play on simulators that keep track of certain things for you, unlike on a DS where if you forget something's moveset you can be fucked where as on a sim you can scroll up on the log)
I used to competitive battle on Marriland and smogon, but then another gen came and I pretty much quit. Nice pics though, always wondered how things would look at a competition. Pretty cool they have those small monitors showing the matches.
oh man this brings back memories. I played the card game competitively for a short time, way back in 1st gen, I believe. I barely remember it but I had some wigglytuff centered deck that I thought was unbeatable. silly me at ~10 years old. I think I got like 9th place in some pretty big competition (flew to San Diego after winning some qualifier, so it must've been at least statewide)...I was young and stupid so I honestly don't remember any details about it but I felt like a pokemon master.
Ahh wish I would have seen this thread sooner! I was there competing in the TCG World Championship and doing coverage for the event. If you saw any guys with red track jackets there that said "The Top Cut," you may have seen me! We even interviewed Ray "bluecookies" Rizzo after his impressive back-to-back championship.
On August 15 2011 01:25 synapse wrote: reuniclus/ferrothorn should be banned =.= same with thundurus, if thats how you spell it =.=
I used to be in the same boat, until I realized that Ferrothorn is one of the only things keeping all these new deadly offensive threats in check. Without it, I don't think I'd like 5th gen battling nearly as much, because the majority of battles would be super-hyper-mega offensive, without much to stop them. Between Chandelure, Excadrill, Reuniclus, and all that other bullshit, I think Ferrothorn is actually helping to keep the metagame from consuming itself.
Yes, I said metagame. If you're a StarCraft player unfamiliar with the competitive Pokemon scene, keep in mind that the word "metagame" is terribly, terribly butchered in the competitive scene. Just gotta deal with it. Thank god we have no bonjwa.
I'm so jealous! It looks awesome. Who hasn't loved pokemon at some point? I'm not up to date on the competitive scene but I love the card game and pokemon is the only reason I even own a ds! I'm sure TL has a lot of fans.
Pokemon my love my childhood the best, I havent followed tournaments but I saw one live in sweden when i was 8 shit was so intense. Loved the pictures 5/5 would of given 100/100 because its Pokemon!!
EPT
though i quit a little bit after platinum came out to fuck everything up. But i still show it some love. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WUyFK.jpg)
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