REPORT: Pre Release STURGIS MI * POKE BLOWOUT TOURNEY* 9/7

[annisarich]

A Super event at Sturgis.

Farbsman made a perfect weekend out of the Pre Release and his 1600 foil "Pokemon Blow Out" Tourney

First I want to state that if any Nintendo Staff members read this that they should concider Farbsman for any Premier events in the future.
He had a passion to get it right. The members of the Pokemon Leagues in Sturgis and LaGrange chipped in to set up and tear down. It was great to see. Anyone else have the pre-release advertised in the local News Papers?

I want to compare this to the last two Battle Zones I attended. I really enjoyed them. This has a bit more polish.

Battle Zones in Detroit Metro. First impression when entering...? IS this where the pokemon is being played?

First impression of Sturgis.
(From the parking lot.)
Hey thats where the Tourney is.
Enter and be greeted by Pokemon Displays and professionally set up registration tables and even a small corner for some retail sales of gaming cards and supplies.

Food
Farbsman worked out deals with a pizza place in the shopping center that opened Sunday just for us. They even took orders Sunday early and had the food ready at our lunch break. (Scheduling a lunch break also a big plus )

Lodging
Hotels that he listed were all fine for families.
I know several people who traveled and stayed over night for both days events.
It was nice that he did that research for "us" out-of-towners. That personal touch was missing at the super battlezones.

Location
Hey, its a bit rural but..... 2hrs from the Chi Burbs (south) 20 min from South Bend. A few hours from Grand Rapids, Kzoo, Ann Arbor etc. I think having these sized events in places where people who don't live near Gotham can get together and play is a good idea.

Judges
We were perfect ....weren't we?
Nice having two sets of judges (one set for each day.) One day judge the other play.

Side events
Sat's prerelease Game Boy event was enjoyed by the players. There were 10 (corrected # thanks farbsman) kids who linked up. They DID enjoy themselves. I think it was a good idea. The prizes, TCG cards, could help bring in new players to TCG.
Sundays LC Collection Limited event was fun. Farbsman offered this to everyone not in the top eight of the main event. So some kids had a second chance to win some product
What a great idea. More involvement :clap:

I WILL PARTICIPATE IN ANY OF FARBSMANS EVENTS I CAN IN THE FUTURE.

NICE JOB


As a judge for the Sat Pre Release .
We did Ok concidering nobody had seen any cards before. we didnt really come up against anything hard to figure. Mostly helping younger kids and new players with basic game play. Verteran players usually just looked for a confirmation on their interpretation of the new cards and we all always seemed to agree.
The swiss rounds with three age groups seemed to bog down with ties at the end. We ran an extra round to break them and award prizes. (only the tied players)

Sunday I got to play.
Dark T-Tar/ Evee Dark Espy and Umbreon went 3-3 and missed top eight.

But I beat a few good players and had a few very close losses. Played my best game against PsycoDad, It was fun to even be at the same table as he was that late in the tourney. ( But not good for my chances for making top 8) I could have possibly gotten in with a win in my last game but drew only a Rockets HitmonChan to start. My opponent came out with a Slugma and Howelled the Entie got 4 fire and drew Cargo second turn. No draw or pokemon my next turns and It was over in about 90 seconds later. (we played for fun again and Dark T-Tar was eating Cargos for lunch)

My son got a Fist Full of Cards from the pre-release (3rd I think in 10- Sunday)(2nd or 3rd in GameBoy)
I got a fist full of best and foil energy for Sunday

Again a fun weekend.

Thanks Derek

 

[farbsman]

Side events
Sat's prerelease Game Boy event was enjoyed by the players. There were 8 kids who linked up. They DID enjoy themselves. I think it was a good idea. The prizes, being cards, could help bring in new players to

Actually there were 10 players. Since I hadn't run a Ruby/Sapphire Challenge, I had no link cables to run the event. Luckily we had just enough people with link cables to run it without me making a run to WalMart.

The event ran really smooth. As Rich said, the Restaurant behind us in the plaza Mancino's opened just for us that day. In fact, I went over to pick up my food, ate for a minute, went to thank them and they were closed and gone!!!

 

[Sands]

I agree with Rich on the quality, details and effort that Farbsman put into his tournament.

He arrange a building to play in, the insurance for it, a bathroom, listed hotels to stay at, signs and banners to great people, table and chair space and had a restaurant open to do business just for us on their day off!

Thank you Derek!

 

[duanojo]

A Super event at Sturgis.

Farbsman made a perfect weekend out of the Pre Release and his 1600 foil "Pokemon Blow Out Tourney"

Well, said, Annisarich. My son and I were only able to make it on Sunday, as he had a soccer game on Saturday, but this was probably the best-organized and smoothly-run tournament we've been to. Well worth the two and a half hour drive to and from Sturgis. The little extras like Mancino's being open make all of the difference. It was also nice to have a whole building just to ourselves. Much easier to focus when you don't have to step over a bunch of Yu-Gi-Oh players at the card shop.

My seven-year-old son went 2-4 with the Typhlosion/Electabuzz deck we put together the night before when he decided he didn't want to take Poliwrath/toed. He was quite excited to be ahead of his dad after the first three rounds. These were his first tourney wins (it's only the second one he's played in), and he was thrilled to get them.

I went 4-3 with a Gyarados/Octillery/Starmie lockdown deck that my son originally conceived of. Even though I was seldom able to get the big guys out, Starmie water gunned or core blasted well enough to get me some wins. I lost in the first round of the top eight to a tightly constructed Venucenter deck in one of the best battles I've ever had. We were both down to two prizes when he knocked out my remaining Starmie. Since the big dragon is weak to grass, he was no help, but Pichu Zzzapped his way to a lot of damage before he went down fighting. It was all over after that. Good match, Sean(?).

We were quite happy to get several boosters of R/S and Sandstorm, along with several foils and promos, and my son was thrilled to get an Eon ticket so he can catch Latias.

Props to:
Derek for a great tourney and for holding on to my son's Gameboy case.
Whoever (Annisarich?) loaned me his cell phone to call the wife.
All of my opponents. Sportsmanship and fairness reigned supreme.
The only Pokemon-playing mom I've seen at a tourney.

Slops to:
The boys who were bugging the judges to announce final eight.

BTW, who was the eventual champ on Sunday?

 

[SomethingElse]

i won it, the one who played the venucenter...

 

[psycodad]

something else

Yes,
A great tourney by Farbsman. I can't say enough about how organized and how nice the people are out there in Sturgis. And yes, after a close game in swiss, I got killed by something elses Venasaur deck in the finals in a no contest kind of game with my Muk/starmie/buzz deck. And Rich, great game! You better get use to the top tables!