Whenever (and it's rare I do) I write up something like this I try to keep it sort. But, I always end up rambling and going into more detail than necessary. We'll see how this one goes.....
My trip (from the Green Bay, WI area) started off Thursday afternoon around 2pm. I would have left sooner but wanted to wait for the mail to come as I was expecting a bunch of Pokemon cards to come in that day. The cards came and I was on my way. I arrived at the Celio's house (pokewisconsin and rulemaster) around 4:30pm or so. We playtested until after midnight I think it was and then turned in for the night. Friday morning we left at about 10am in route to Chicago where we'd meet up with cursedinfinity (Cory G.) and ST_Pika (Jason Emry). Cory was getting his car fixed so that delayed us a bit. We got to Chicago at about 12:30 but didn't get going from there until 2pm. I got to start off in shot gun but spent about the last 6 hours or more of the drive in the back seat. 3 people in the backseat on a fairly hot day wasn't a whole lot of fun. When we were getting close to Ohio but still in Indiana, we saw a LOT of billboards for Tom Raper's RVs, the number 1 RV dealer in the country apparently. Also saw some signs with the trunk monkey on. 1 interesting exit sign we saw had 2 towns listed on it. I forgot the exact names but one was white-something and the other was brown-something. I was going to take a picture of the sign on the way home, but coming back they weren't on the same sign. I did however get a picture or 2 of the Tom Raper signs but those are on my 2nd camera that has a few pictures left to take. I don't know how well those will turn out anyway. Shortly after entering Ohio, we entered.....*loud echoing voice*...the land......of the Wendy's!!! *end loud echoing voice.* Nearly every single exit had a Wendy's. 1 even had 2, 1 of which was 24 hour. I had never seen so many exits with a Wendy's. Usually I see an exit with a Wendy's every 50 miles or so at best, not every 1-2miles. But that's my favorite restaurant (except maybe Fazoolis) so maybe I'll have to move to Ohio :tongue: . Around midnight, we finally got to our hotel, the Embassy Suites, which is about a 15 minute drive from the convention center. When we got there, we found out that Ice'Cold's (Adam's) mom had gotten us into the room right next to theirs. So Adam and Jeffrey hung out and we did a bit more playtesting. I had been testing a few things. 1 whack red face paint deck and Vileplume ex mostly. Playing against Jeffrey and his rock lock, things just didn't go well with the deck for whatever reason. I though Rock Lock (as it has been winning EVERYTHING in my area, usually with 2 or 3 rock locks in the top 4 of each tourney) was the top deck. So, since I didn't feel my deck could beat it consistently, I caved and through together my own rock lock deck at about 1 or 2am on the morning of nats. Well, Jeffrey showed me his deck and let me jot down the list, I changed a few cards like including a POW! Hand Extension. Cory and I then tested for awhile and I eventually went to sleep at about 4am.
I got up around 7am and headed downstairs for the free breakfast. I took an extra 2 boxes of fruit loops (1 serving size) to snack on at Origins, but I forgot I had them and ended up bringing them home with me. I think I still have 1 of them :tongue:. After we ate we got our stuff together and headed over to the convention center. We got in line for our 2 day badges which didn't take too long. Then we went to the hall where nats was being held, saw some familiar faces and a LOT of new faces, and filled out our deck lists. A little later William Hung came in who I saw for the first time in person. My mom told me I had to get her his autograph while I was at nats. Will--if you’re reading this--my mom was out of town Tuesday so she left me money to buy your new CD. Circuit city didn't have it and didn't know who would. I went to Wal-Mart then for other stuff and they actually had the CD. When my mom came home the first thing she did was listed to the CD. She's obsessed with you I think :tongue:.
Before long, (well...after a long explanation of rules and such that we thought would never end) the tourney was under way. Since it's been a couple weeks since the event and I don't remember everything in detail (well, I might but I don't want to write that much), I included a brief description of each match I played with my pictures that I uploaded to webshots. You can find those pictures here:
http://community.webshots.com/album/395416030JjLlqz
So although I only went 4-4, I didn't really make any big mistakes, just had a lot of bad luck. 1 loss due to just drawing absolutely nothing, 2 losses due to my opponents going 5 for 5 on pokemon reversal flips, and 1 loss because I was a minute late to the start because I was talking with some friends from Florida who were leaving for the day. So although I was 4-4 on paper, I think I did much better than that. I had a lot of fun and met a lot of new people. It was just a great experience that I hope I'll get to do again next year. Especially since I ended up making money (sold a few cards to some of the vendors and such) on my trip. If you don't include the $330 I spent on eBay inventory from some vendors. But the amount I got for the cards I sold covered all my expenses (food, gas, hotel, etc). And I think I've made back over half of that $330 so far.
I could write more, maybe I will later, but for now this will conclude my national's report. I doubt I'll be going to worlds, so hopefully I'll get to go to nats again next year and see a lot of the people I met again :thumb:
My trip (from the Green Bay, WI area) started off Thursday afternoon around 2pm. I would have left sooner but wanted to wait for the mail to come as I was expecting a bunch of Pokemon cards to come in that day. The cards came and I was on my way. I arrived at the Celio's house (pokewisconsin and rulemaster) around 4:30pm or so. We playtested until after midnight I think it was and then turned in for the night. Friday morning we left at about 10am in route to Chicago where we'd meet up with cursedinfinity (Cory G.) and ST_Pika (Jason Emry). Cory was getting his car fixed so that delayed us a bit. We got to Chicago at about 12:30 but didn't get going from there until 2pm. I got to start off in shot gun but spent about the last 6 hours or more of the drive in the back seat. 3 people in the backseat on a fairly hot day wasn't a whole lot of fun. When we were getting close to Ohio but still in Indiana, we saw a LOT of billboards for Tom Raper's RVs, the number 1 RV dealer in the country apparently. Also saw some signs with the trunk monkey on. 1 interesting exit sign we saw had 2 towns listed on it. I forgot the exact names but one was white-something and the other was brown-something. I was going to take a picture of the sign on the way home, but coming back they weren't on the same sign. I did however get a picture or 2 of the Tom Raper signs but those are on my 2nd camera that has a few pictures left to take. I don't know how well those will turn out anyway. Shortly after entering Ohio, we entered.....*loud echoing voice*...the land......of the Wendy's!!! *end loud echoing voice.* Nearly every single exit had a Wendy's. 1 even had 2, 1 of which was 24 hour. I had never seen so many exits with a Wendy's. Usually I see an exit with a Wendy's every 50 miles or so at best, not every 1-2miles. But that's my favorite restaurant (except maybe Fazoolis) so maybe I'll have to move to Ohio :tongue: . Around midnight, we finally got to our hotel, the Embassy Suites, which is about a 15 minute drive from the convention center. When we got there, we found out that Ice'Cold's (Adam's) mom had gotten us into the room right next to theirs. So Adam and Jeffrey hung out and we did a bit more playtesting. I had been testing a few things. 1 whack red face paint deck and Vileplume ex mostly. Playing against Jeffrey and his rock lock, things just didn't go well with the deck for whatever reason. I though Rock Lock (as it has been winning EVERYTHING in my area, usually with 2 or 3 rock locks in the top 4 of each tourney) was the top deck. So, since I didn't feel my deck could beat it consistently, I caved and through together my own rock lock deck at about 1 or 2am on the morning of nats. Well, Jeffrey showed me his deck and let me jot down the list, I changed a few cards like including a POW! Hand Extension. Cory and I then tested for awhile and I eventually went to sleep at about 4am.
I got up around 7am and headed downstairs for the free breakfast. I took an extra 2 boxes of fruit loops (1 serving size) to snack on at Origins, but I forgot I had them and ended up bringing them home with me. I think I still have 1 of them :tongue:. After we ate we got our stuff together and headed over to the convention center. We got in line for our 2 day badges which didn't take too long. Then we went to the hall where nats was being held, saw some familiar faces and a LOT of new faces, and filled out our deck lists. A little later William Hung came in who I saw for the first time in person. My mom told me I had to get her his autograph while I was at nats. Will--if you’re reading this--my mom was out of town Tuesday so she left me money to buy your new CD. Circuit city didn't have it and didn't know who would. I went to Wal-Mart then for other stuff and they actually had the CD. When my mom came home the first thing she did was listed to the CD. She's obsessed with you I think :tongue:.
Before long, (well...after a long explanation of rules and such that we thought would never end) the tourney was under way. Since it's been a couple weeks since the event and I don't remember everything in detail (well, I might but I don't want to write that much), I included a brief description of each match I played with my pictures that I uploaded to webshots. You can find those pictures here:
http://community.webshots.com/album/395416030JjLlqz
So although I only went 4-4, I didn't really make any big mistakes, just had a lot of bad luck. 1 loss due to just drawing absolutely nothing, 2 losses due to my opponents going 5 for 5 on pokemon reversal flips, and 1 loss because I was a minute late to the start because I was talking with some friends from Florida who were leaving for the day. So although I was 4-4 on paper, I think I did much better than that. I had a lot of fun and met a lot of new people. It was just a great experience that I hope I'll get to do again next year. Especially since I ended up making money (sold a few cards to some of the vendors and such) on my trip. If you don't include the $330 I spent on eBay inventory from some vendors. But the amount I got for the cards I sold covered all my expenses (food, gas, hotel, etc). And I think I've made back over half of that $330 so far.
I could write more, maybe I will later, but for now this will conclude my national's report. I doubt I'll be going to worlds, so hopefully I'll get to go to nats again next year and see a lot of the people I met again :thumb:
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My glasses have a funny tint in that picture though, oh well.