SuperWooper
New Member
After some terrible showings at my two Gym Challenges (which explains the absence of any reports), I wanted to have another shot at making it to Anaheim. Nationals was a couple weeks away, so I private message a few people who might be able to give me a ride. The weeks pass and I get no responses, but I continue to test and build decks and such. Finally, I see Melody A on AIM and start freaking out about Origins, and she has no clue what I’m talking about, so the idea of me coming along is slow in the making. Eventually, by some miracle, she gets online enough to be the messenger between myself and her older brother Jon, so that a plan is worked out.
Tuesday, I drop by the Conns’ house and basically steal all their Modified trainers and special energy, as well as their Mynx and Mewtric decks to mess around with. Props to you guys, I’ll return all those cards eventually. <_< Wednesday afternoon, my mom drives me up to Maryland from northern Virginia, and I arrive at the Andersons’ house armed with a box full of illegal cards, a binder full of crappy holos, and four or five deckboxes all containing decks with about twenty proxied cards each. Thankfully, the Andersons have about one jillion Pokemon cards and I’m able to build Dragtrode, the deck I assume I’ll be using at Nationals, as it looks like it has great matchups versus everything in the field besides Blastoise, the bane of my existence. Jon and I test Dragtrode versus BLS extensively, and I get in a game of Dragtrode versus Shedinja on a one hour time limit which I actually lose because David’s Cursed Stone sticks and destroys me. Blah. We build and test Lunasol some, but eventually we throw that aside as it isn’t a real deck.
At midnight-ish, we head upstairs and play some Super Smash Bros. Melee, and I am basically dominated by David’s Dr. Mario because I’m so bad =/. I switch from Fox to Sheik, who is definitely one of the cheapest characters in video game history, and consequentially I start owning him until he figures out how to play against me and we start going about even. At one point somebody plays as Falco and we name his up B attack Internet Explorer since it’s so much worse than Fire Fox =D. After discovering that Ganondorf’s best move is probably his standstill ground A attack (rofl), we go back downstairs and play some more Pokeman cards, then crash at around two or three.
I wake up at around seven on Thursday morning due to Jon’s cell phone alarm, which, although being right next to his head, doesn’t wake him up. Melody is already awake upstairs, so I get some breakfast with her assistance as I have no idea how to get the cream off the top of the milk bottle to pour into my cereal bowl. Why can’t there just be one universal, standardized kind of milk container so that poor dumb children like myself can open them? Anyway, Jon and David finally get up and sort all the cards. I decide to take their proxied BLS deck on a whim since Dragtrode looks to have a pretty bad matchup versus it, and I expect Blastoise to dominate the metagame at Nationals. We all pile in to Jon’s 1992 Toyota Camry and head for Ohio.
We get on to the topic of the GBA Pokemon games, which none of us have played in like a year, so I turn mine on and battle the Elite Four a couple times and get my Ninjask to level 100. It was already at 94 or something like that. Anyway, while talking, we miss a crucial exit, and somehow end up in (The Battle of?) Gettysburg, Pennsylvania or some other bizarre, out-of-the-way place. So we turn around and push 80 mph to make good time after the one hour we lost due to Jon’s attentiveness. Real mature, buddy.
After like six hours of endless quotation from homestarrunner.com, we arrive at the Days Inn in Ohio, which is ten minutes or so from the convention center, but costs a lot less than anything else in the area because we’re all cheapskates. We unpack (sort of) and head to the convention center, but first we have to find some parking, which is a nightmare because this is Columbus. Then we have to walk (gasp!) to the Greater Columbus Convention Center, which is connected to a hotel, and I have to stand in line to get my Origins badge (Jon, David and Melody all pre-registered online and I forgot), which was about a thirty minute wait with only four or five people in front of me thanks to the capable, intelligent personnel running the operation =/.
Then we have to walk for like a million miles to reach the National Championship, which is conveniently located at the very end of the hall. Real mature. I run into Blastoise Shellshocker, who informs us that Magnechu’s father passed away due to cancer just the day before, and who had set up a donation box at the front table. I talk to Mikey later and he tells me that a flower arrangement was present at the wake from “Our Pokemon Friends.” Props to everybody who dropped even just a couple bucks in. It was pretty cool to see that donation box every time I walked by the head table.
I see some other people and say hey, play some practice games and scout around, and then I remember that I’m supposed to meet Jeremy (Ancient Pokemon Trainer) in the lobby of the Crown Plaza Hotel at 9 to get stuff for BLS. I get there just before nine and to my surprise, he actually remembered to account for the time zone difference =O. Tyler (Kenshin’s Garde) is also with him, so we hang out for a bit and talk decks for Nationals. Jeremy is going back and forth between Ludi and Queen, while Tyler seems set on Ludi. I’m still unsure about Dragtrode or BLS, but both are complete and unproxied now, so whichever I choose I’ll be able to play. Jeremy and I agree to meet at 9 AM the next morning at the site of the event. We head back to the hotel and test some more, eat reheated macaroni, and talk decks some more before we go to sleep at around one. Jon and David get a bed, Melody gets a bed, and I get stuck on the floor. No rollaway beds at the Days Inn. Not for fifty bucks a night. =(
The next morning, I wake up, grab a shower, skip breakfast and hurry everybody else along so I can meet Jeremy. We manage to find a better parking site this time, but it’s still seven bucks for the day. We walk a ways to the hotel, through the lobby, get to the convention center, take the escalator, go past the booths, and walk down the long hallway to get to the freaking place. In retrospect, asking Jeremy to get up at 9, which is six o’clock WA time, probably wasn’t the smartest of moves. It takes a little while to find him as he wasn’t where we agreed to meet, but eventually I discover his whereabouts and we sit down to play a couple games. BLS versus Mewtric isn’t the autoloss I thought it was, so that boosts my confidence in my secondary choice a little bit (although it’s still pretty bad). We test some Ludi versus BLS and I get thrashed courtesy of two everlasting Frontier locks in two consecutive games. Five countergyms and two Holon Scientists and still nothing? Bleh.
Jeremy gets up and scouts a little, and Elissa H (CleffaGirl) runs into him and goes “Ohmigosh it’s Jeremy!” I needle him about that for a while. Hehe. The modified tournament for Friday starts and we see a lot of BLS and somehow a lot of Nidoqueen decks show up. Lunasol is also showing in fairly strong numbers, but apparently I made a bad read in expecting the modified tournament to be a good indicator of what would appear at Nationals, because Lunasol was almost nowhere to be found when Nats actually rolled around. I see Ness and Chuck playing Dragtrode and figure they won’t be playing the same deck for Nationals, and I am, again, wrong. We go to the lobby of the hotel and test some “secret tech,” and in the course of this testing, whenever somebody who looks remotely like a Pokemon player walks by, Jeremy slams his hands down on the table and covers as many cards as he can and mutters “spies” under his breath. This behavior may be the result of listening to too much Linkin Park, which is basically the only artist Jeremy had on his iPod besides Green Day (meh) and Papa Roach (bleh). Somehow, “In The End” gets stuck in my head and I draw the line. It’s time for a lunch break.
Jeremy and Tyler stay in the lobby and try to break the format while Jon, David, Melody and I head to the food court. I get a cold cut trio at Subway with this really good Chipotle sauce, and I figure I can just chill out for a bit, but NO! Jeremy comes and asks if we have cards to proxy for this weird “secret deck” with like fifty Stage 1 lines that Tyler dreamed up, so Jon and I dig through our binders and finally we get enough cards so that the deck is proxiable. A) Is that a real word and B) if so, how would you spell it? While we’re trying to break the format in the food court, I get some of my black, already-crappy Ultra Pros covered in Chipotle sauce, so it looks like I’m not playing whatever deck is in those sleeves =/.
We head back to the lobby and mess around with the deck and it loses twice (horribly) to Blastoise, which it’s supposed to have the auto-win against. Real mature, buddy, making us waste about an hour on that failed project. =( Eventually we head back to the convention center and I see Cap (Hot Mustid) and we ask how he’s doing, etc. It turns out he’s in the Top 8 of the Professor Cup, which was a ridiculous sealed format or whatever where you change your deck three times over the course of the tournament. How do you give out even just one Worlds invite based on that crapshoot? I see Matt (Lugia ex) and Johnny (Time For Pain) who attend tournaments around our area. The modified tournament results come up and I think it’s Seena and Jacy who are X-0. It’s all a blur from this point on, but the four of us end up at the hotel room again and I get a bed this time. We test a bunch, and I fall asleep after a lot of thinking about which deck I should play. When I wake up the next morning, I know I’m going with [EDIT]Storm[/EDIT]. ;x
Wake up, shower, skip breakfast again, pay an outrageous amount for parking. Walk all the way through the convention center, and arrive before almost anyone else. I can actually hear myself talk. I fill out decklists for Blastoise and Dragtrode just to be on the safe side, walk around a lot to relieve the knot in my stomach, see a few people and say hey. I give Jeremy a Ludi to borrow, but he ends up going with Queen. Tyler chooses Ludi. I give Melody my Nidoqueen list and she makes a few small changes, and David goes with Shedinja. Jon plays the only deck he’s ever played since EX: Team Rocket Returns came out - Dragtrode. We get in line and within ten minutes I’m registered, my deck is checked (I went with BLS), and I play a couple fun games versus Matt’s Queendom. He gets a really lucky start Game 1 and I get nothing, so we play against, and in Game 2 he gets a decent start and I get - nothing! I’m sort of glad I went with Blastoise at this point.
A series of sheets come up and they post them on the pairings board. I’m at Table 16 - what a coincidence, that’s how old I am. Several other people argue and say that they are at Table 16, so I go back and check and I overhear somebody saying that the number next to your name is your age. Real mature. So I shuffle nervously and walk around a bit. The attendance is announced and the 15+ has 313 players or something around there. 11-14 has 125 ish, and 10- has 90, if I remember correctly. There were 500+ players there, that’s for sure. The play area is really noisy at this point, so I sit down and keep shuffling. The event starts much later than expected, but pairings finally go up and there’s a stampede over to the board. I wish Jeremy and Melody good luck in their age group and head over to the 15+ pairings, and, being the genius that I am, I sneak around behind the board to look at it from the right side, but this ends up backfiring as a few other people had the same idea. So I’m stuck for a while, wondering who I’m paired against. Eventually my question is answered, and the National Championship begins.
Round One versus Rich A with Mynx
Rich was a really nice guy, who informs me that he’s the oldest player at Nats right off the bat. He went through the entire age list to make sure. By his nametag I can see that he’s from Oregon, and he mentions that he has a son who plays, so I’m not sure whether he’s a new player or a vet. I check out my opening hand, and I just drop it on the table. It’s Pidgey, Squirtle, Nincada, Jirachi DX, Holon’s Castform, Holon’s Castform, Latias *. It was pretty crushing to see that kind of hand first round. Rich opens with Mew ex from Holon Phantoms, and says his son built the deck for him last night, so I’m hoping I can beat him at the table with a really great first Wishing Star. He goes first, attaches and passes. I draw an energy and Wishing Star, and I topdeck the Ninjask like a fiend! I don’t show any emotion, though, just attach my energy to Jirachi and pass. He draws and Mentors, going for Wobbuffet, Smoochum and Jynx, and evolves to Jynx and Wobbuffet immediately. He does 30 with Mew and passes. I wake up from the Wishing Star and retreat to Ninjask to buy me time, and eventually get set up. He paralyzes my Ninjask a couple times with Jynx while building his side of the board, ruining my Swords Dances, but I evolve manually into Blastoise ex off a three card Holon Scientist and eventually he misses paralysis a couple times and I kill the Jynx. He kills the Ninjask with Wobbuffet, but I go aggro with Blastoise ex and kill a couple things. Not once in the entire game does he use Mew ex’s power to look at my hand while it’s on the bench. He kills my Blastoise with Devo Crush eventually, which is exactly what I wanted - I candy to another and Latias * the Mew Holon Phantoms, then kill something else to put me up on prizes and I win on time.
1-0
Rich gets me to sign up for a league badge and I get an RH Fire energy and a Phanpy from POP2 as prizes. Wonderful. ;p Recovering from that awful start has boosted my spirits a bit. I check on everybody else. Melody and Jon win their games, but David got the worst start EVER with Shedinja and actually LOSES in Swiss against Steph B’s lone Latias * start. Real mature. Jeremy loses his game to some random Gengar deck in 11-14, and Tyler wins his, I think. I keep predicting that Jon and I are going to play each other in a key match like in last year’s PA Regional Championship, although with a field of 300+ players, I know that it’s very unlikely. We sit around, shuffle and wait for pairings. Nothing of any real consequence happens until they go up, and I head on over to Table whatever it was.
Round Two versus Ivan with BLS
Ivan opened fairly nicely with Jirachi, and I got the Jirachi HL start too, with Squirtle in hand to boot, but with no energy. I went first, so I just passed. He got Pidgeotto out off a Mentor with Squirtle benched. I draw and get nothing, but I evolve Squirtle into Wartortle. He evolves to Pidgeot T2 and gets Wartortle -> Blastoise ex off the Make a Wish attack, so I’m kind of annoyed at my unfortunate luck two games in a row. I topdeck an Admin and play that, get the energy and Make a Wish for Blastoise ex. While Making a Wish, I look through my deck casually to see what’s there and what isn’t, but I realize that something is wrong. All four of my Holon Transceivers are prized! At this point I’m kind of angry as I realize that my mediocre hand off the Admin is going to force me to go aggro with Blastoise. I do so and draw into Transceiver, then get set up. He kills the Blastoise with something, so I put Jirachi back up and Transceiver for the stuff I need, but Holon’s Voltorb is prized. =/ Luckily, I’m able to use his Power Tree, which stayed in play for the whole game, and I set up at a decent speed, and he’s somehow unable to get what he needs to Steelix ex my bird, or else he just didn’t think of it, even though he was basically set up Turn 2. The game gets to be really close, going 2-2 in prizes, I think. He Celebi ex’s for a Holon’s Castform to try and clinch it, but realizes that’s a misplay and asks if he can get the Pokemon Retriever instead. I decide to be the nice guy and allow it, and QS for my Admin, but it’s not there. It’s my sixth prize. I use Pidgeot to Clutch his active Jirachi for one turn since I’m able to figure that he has no switchers left, buying me just enough time to get set up so that there’s nothing he can do. Great game!
2-0
Ivan mentions that if he gets three losses he’ll probably drop. I’m kind of peeved at this, but I figure I’ll just go 7-2 to make it. Jon does the math and miscalculates at first, but later figures that all 7-2 records will make it and 4 6-3s will, as well. I know I can’t count on being one of the 6-3 people, so I have to go 5-2 from here to make it. After recovering from two bad starts, I’m pretty confident that I can do it, but I know that at 2-0 you’re getting to face the upper levels of competition. Ivan’s list looked a lot like Fulop’s, so I figure Ivan must have been pretty well-connected and probably a good player, but I was still on my guard. Melody and Jon had both won, and Jeremy had too. David, of course, won his game. It’s Shedinja. How do you lose?
For some reason I can’t remember when our lunch break was. I think it was after Round 2, but it might have been after Round 3. I’ll stick it right here in any case. Caporelli, Ben K, myself and the Andersons all go to Subway, but since there’s only one (incompetent) person making the subs, it takes almost an hour (we timed it) for the six or seven people in front of us to get their orders filled. Mustid plays his DS Lite that he won for getting second (only first got a trip) in the Professor Cup and loses like five lives on Super Mario. Nice job, you scrub. =D I cut in front of Cap like a FREAK in my haste to get back to the pairings board in case Round 3 starts early (pffft). I order the same thing as last time and speedwalk back to the convention hall, then once I get into the play area, and literally sprint to the pairings board since a bunch of people are gathered around it. All the people sitting at the red tables playing other TCGs yell “Run, Forest, Run!” Real mature, you guys. And original, too.
It turns out it’s only standings, so I did all that for nothing. I’m at the bottom of the pile, the fifth lowest 2-0 since Rich is 0-2 and Ivan is 1-1, and my opponent’s opponent’s win percentage is low somehow, too. I sneak a few bites of my sub because after all that running, the next round didn’t start for thirty or forty minutes. I was freaking hungry, but didn’t eat the whole thing as I was afraid of getting a game loss for eating in the venue or something ridiculous like that. I wouldn’t put it past some of the judges that were there that day. The actual non-standings pairings go up after a while and I’m at Table 5. Cool beans.
Round Three versus Matt E (Rulemaster) with Raichu/Marowak
So I get to play against the infamous Celio. We exchange screen names and stuff, and since I got the table a little late, I’m still shuffling while they announce go. I put my deck down early and draw seven, and my hand is pretty good. Jirachi and Transceiver are both in attendance, as well as a (gasp!) Celio’s Network. I had caught wind of a Raichu/Marowak list before Nationals, so it wasn’t a secret to me, although its seemingly superior counterpart, Raichu/Eggs, was. When he opened with whatever he opened with (either Pikachu or Cubone), I knew I was in for a rough game. I get set up on Turn 3 or something excellent like that. But it’s not the kind of setup that supports an aggro Blastoise, which is the only way to go versus this deck. I take an unintentional three minute Mentor because a second Squirtle is prized and I have no idea what else to get. He says, “You’re going to get Ninjask because I’m weak to grass,” so I grab the Nincada and he laughs. My guys are already in rockable range and he has a pretty good setup, so we both know the game is over. GG, cool meeting you.
2-1
I finish up my sub outside the play area since our game finished fairly quickly. Jon is 3-0 at this point, so we won’t have to play each other for sure. I see Kettler (Patriarch) and we shake hands and talk for a little bit. He’s down in the dumps at 1-2, but he’ll make an amazing comeback later. David and Melody are 2-1, I think. Jeremy is 1-2 because he’s a ten-year-old scrub. ILU APT. =( I have to go 5-1 to make it in. Not impossible, right? Pairings go up and I’ve dropped about fifty million tables. Boooo!
Round Four versus Evan with Kyogre ex/Magcargo/Porygon 2
He started with Kyogre ex HL, so instantly I was pretty confident. I don’t really get set up, but I have Latias * manually powered up by Turn 4, so I kill the Kyogre and my prizes are Blastoise ex and Rare Candy. What a lucksac! I evolve into Blastoise ex and use Latias to kill a Slugma, then aggro Blastoise his Porygon 2 and bench him out. Sorry, dude.
3-1
I have lots of time to burn since this match was over in ten minutes or less. Not much worth mentioning happens here, though. Jon wins, I think Melody loses to put her at 3-1? She goes 6-1 in swiss, but I can’t remember where the loss was. Maybe she was 2-1 and won this round; I know her only loss was to Wes’s Dragtrode. Anyway, pairings come up and the name across from mine is - Alex Brosseau? Who IS that guy?
Round Five versus Alex B (BigChuck01) with Dragtrode
I’m already sitting down at the table, kind of nervous because I have to play an Elite 4 member. Chuck comes up and says, “I got me a Wooper to Woop! I got me some Wooper to Woop!” So I (lamely) respond with “I got me a Chuck to ... Chuck.” And he goes, “He does it, he did it, he went there, ladies and gentlemen! Give the man his money!” We shuffle and set up and put our basics face down. Mine is a Reverse Holo Squirtle, so Chuck says, “What foil is that you cheater?” He repeats this like five times until he starts to guess.
“Lugia ex?” I say nothing.
“Latias *?” I say nothing.
“Rocket’s Sneasel ex? Did you steal my deck?” Nothing.
Then he goes off on this huge tangent, naming completely random terrible foils, and eventually I just start to laugh because I can’t help it. Still nervous but not nearly as much, I kind of settle back into my chair and wait for the round to begin.
But it doesn’t; not for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, anyway. It takes really long to get going because of a computer problem or something. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the guys upfront because I was preoccupied with filling out the survey they handed out prior to the match. Most of us had time to fill it out in the fifteen or twenty minutes after we sat down at the table and before we played. I watch Chuck fill his out and under “Why do you compete in Pokemon tournaments?” he put “to win.” Where’s the SOTG buddy? =(
So finally we flip the basics, and I start with a Squirtle (Chuck is taken by surprise; I TOOK THE 2002 WORLD CHAMP BY SURPRISE!), him with Dratini. My hand isn’t bad, though, as I have Transceiver and PETM in hand. He puts my Squirtle to sleep with Dratini and I fail the sleep, I Mentor for my basics and attach and pass. Fail the sleep again. He draws and passes, I fail the sleep check but evolve to Pidgeotto through PETM, I fail the sleep check, he draws and passes, and I fail the sleep check. =/ We’re both having terrible luck, but the difference is I’m getting set up and his hand is just garbage. I can’t find the Pidgeot, but eventually I wake up and Make a Wish for the bird Turn 4 or 5, then just proceed to get set up and start rolling. Eventually he gets a Sneasel with a couple Darks but I have the Switches for Drag Off and the setup to trade blows with ease, and endgame he just says, “You have the Steelix?” I nod, so he says, “Show me.” I supporter and QS and drop the energy onto the table.
Midgame, when I had gotten the Pidgeot and was starting to take prizes, Ness walks by and gives a thumbs up sign to Chuck, signaling that he won. Chuck gives the thumbs down and then adds, “He got a fast Pidgeot and he plays all this tech. He plays Ninjask and the Latis! He doesn’t deserve to get the fast Pidgeot! He doesn’t deserve to win!” Chuck had seen me discard these cards for Holon supporters over the course of the game, and just couldn’t believe how amazingly fast [/sarcasm] I had set up even though I had used those 4 slots for tech. Just one question: since when was a T4-5 bird a fast one?
I was reminded of Benny’s “act your age” thing at the Rockville GC. Even though it wasn’t a really legitimate game, he just couldn’t handle losing. GG nonetheless.
4-1
I think this is the point at which David’s epic one hour showdown versus John S (the sniper) takes place. It’s Shedinja versus Flariados, which is a disgusting matchup because Fossils can’t be affected by special conditions and Shedinja has free retreat to easily shake conditions. You can’t aggro Flareon because Extra Curse and Cursed Stone puts 5 damage on you, and if you miss your Super Scoop Up flip, Shedinja Rocks and wins 5-6 on prizes. John plays smart and retreats when his guys are too close to 50 damage, but eventually runs out of Super Scoop Ups and hopes to deck David. About thirty or forty people are grouped around them, some are standing on chairs and yelling “Down in front!” David keeps using VS Seeker to get back Holon Farmer and keep himself from drawing the last card in his deck. Eventually he gets enough Cursed Stones to hit Flareon so that a Rock TM can clinch the game. It was a great match, but it definitely delayed Round 6 quite a bit (or whatever round came next; my memory is so bad).
Jon is secure at 5-0 and Melody at 4-1. David is 4-1, too, so we’re all doing exceptionally well so far. Johnny and Matt are faring much worse - they’re in the red but not considering dropping because they love to play the game. Virginia is <3. Pairings, stampede, I go and look, you’re probably getting tired of this part by now.
Round Six versus Adam C (plaidlesspez) with Lunasol
FINALLY I run into one of these and I get to use my Ninjask! =O Plaid and I had played in the Top 16 of the Pennsylvania Regional Championship just recently and he had flattened me pretty badly due to my bad deck choice, my one costly misplay, and my less than stellar luck. I was hoping to win and make the score even, although I knew that he would probably be less than happy with my Ninjask-playing BLS list.
We start off and he has the Lunatone start, I have Jirachi DX. I think I start more with DX Jirachi than HL Jirachi in this tournament somehow, or at least it seems that way, which is weird considering my 3-1 split in HL’s favor. Anyway, I Wishing Star and get the Mentor but I can’t use it since (I think?) I go first. He doesn’t get the Mentor right away, but uses some other supporter and Foresights to ensure 50 or 60 next turn. However, it’s already too late. I Mentor and bench Nincada and Squirtle, the Squirtle only being there in case of Warp Point, and Wishing Star for the supporter that will get me Ninjask next turn. I have the Retriever in my hand and because of this, I decide not to wait for the Candy in case of Reversal. He does have the Reversal, but he rolls the orange POP die and it’s three dots. Bad beat. He kills Jirachi, and I put up Nincada and evolve, and with twenty-four minutes left on the clock and no real way to stall out a tiny 5-6 prize lead, he extends his hand. GG.
5-1
I was glad that Adam was a good sport about losing on a 1-1 tech line, as it (almost) seems imbalanced that a deck can be ruined by just two slots out of sixty in another deck. We pack up our dice and decks and turn in the match slip, then I talk with Patriarch, who has made it back to 4-2, and the Andersons, who are all still doing well. I think Jon is 6-0 at this point. APT is three and three (that rhymes lawl), trying to at least pass the five hundred mark on the day, especially since he’s in 11-14. Somebody comes on the intercom and says that a dinner break will be allowed after Round 7. A dinner break at a Pokemon tournament is new to me, although I suppose I sort of expected it with nine rounds of Swiss.
At 5-1 I knew I would be playing the best. I had to go 2-1 to make it in, as my resistance was dead last of all the 5-1s. Ivan, Rich, and Evan have all dropped, I think, and although I’ve played three Lafonte players and my resistance should be fairly high, it’s not. So when pairings go up and I see a name I don’t recognize across from mine, I’m elated.
Round Seven versus Chris B with BLS
I’m pretty confident coming in, and even moreso when I see his nametag and the fact that he’s an Ohio local. We’re shuffling, and he hands his deck to me and makes a noise that sounds vaguely like “cut.” I do so and allow him to cut mine. He starts with Mew ex LM and I start with Onix; my hand is garbage, save for an Admin. I’m not sure whether to hope to go first or second, as I want to Admin as soon as possible but not get too far behind.
We roll, I go second it turns out, he attaches and has no bench, so he passes. I draw, get nothing and Admin, and he says, “Thank you” in a bizarre tone of voice, and I’m about to ask him to repeat himself, but then I realize that he’s deaf! Even more of a confidence booster, although I shouldn’t have gotten so bigheaded at that in retrospect. I get a Transceiver off the Admin as well as Rare Candy and Celio <3. He has the Mentor and retreats, then uses Make a Wish to get Pidgeotto. He benches his Onix and Squirtle, too, and I see he’s playing the UF Onix and Sleepy Ball Squirtle. In my opinion, these are the wrong pre-evolutions to play, although I suppose it’s not too big a deal. My turn comes, and I Mentor and prepare to evolve to Pidgeot next turn, but otherwise I sit around twiddling my thumbs. He plays Pidgeot and misplays by not searching the Wartortle and MaW’ing straight to Blastoise ex, so he MaWs to Wartortle and keeps the QS card in his hand. I evolve to Pidgeot, and with the help of the bird I grab Wartortle and evolve, then pass. He evolves to Blastoise ex, evolves to Steelix ex, Quick Searches, Energy Rains to Steelix ex, retreats Jirachi and pings Pidgeot for a prize.
I draw, and without Pidgeot but with a decent hand, I know an Admin could ruin me, so I try to approach the prize count as such. 6-4-2-0 seems ideal. I Mentor and load up on Castforms and grab a Latias *, too, then play the Switch to go back to Lati *. I finish up by evolving manually to Blastoise ex, then going berserk on his Steelix. He definitely wasn’t expecting that.
He kills the Latias * with Pidgeot, but not before, for whatever reason, benching his Lugia ex, so I draw and respond by Rare Candying into another Pidgeot (DOES IT!) put up my benched Onix and Quick Search for Steelix and Mudslide the Lugia ex to put the prize count at 2-4. He responds with an Admin - but I figured I was ensured against Admin with Pidgeot back on the field - then Latias *’s my Steelix ex, putting us at 2-2. The difference is that his hand is six cards and mine is two at this point, and the two cards I got were garbage. I draw my other Admin, though, so I play it, taking us both to 2. I draw Power Tree and Jirachi DX, and he already has Power Tree on the field. I shake my head and Quick Search for the Water, then use his Power Tree to get another Water energy and Clutch his Latias * to put the prizes at 1-2.
MISPLAY!
With the disgusting hand I got off Admin, I figured I might be able to win on time, since the clock was ticking and the 1-2 prize lead seemed unbreakable in the three or four minutes we had left, especially since Chris played very slowly. He was shaking his head and mumbling to himself like his hand was as bad as mine. It was a nail biter but I felt fairly secure in the state of the game, even though I only had two Pokemon on the field. It’s either he plays POW and gets the rest of what he needs off the Admin or I win, I thought to myself.
And he didn’t play the Pow. But he played something else.
Chris had actually fooled me with the shake of the head. He puts up Pidgeot, draws and smiles upon seeing his card. His hand at three now, he drops his second Lugia ex, uses Power Tree combined with a Castform from the hand to leave his Lugia ex fully powered and simultaneously leave him with one card in his hand.
He shows me the Warp Point for the game.
5-2
Why didn’t I bench that Jirachi? I should have expected the Warp Point, but I just didn’t see it. In talking with my Pokeman friends online Warp Point in BLS was trashed a while ago even though it works fairly well with Steelix. Switch just ended up being the better card in most cases, and I had forgotten Warp Point was even a possibility. Two Pokemon situation aside, the play was probably to bench Jirachi, retreat to it and Wishing Star to try and get the Retriever and Mudslide the Mew ex for game. I was sickened with my playing after this game and didn’t feel like eating even though there was a dinner break. I chat with a few people, find out that Melody has definitely made it in to the Top 16 in 11-14 with a 6-1 record, and that Jon lost to Martin because he got a prize penalty for playing two supporters in a turn. Real mature, buddy. =P Then I put my head down until the pairings for the next round came up.
Round Eight versus Matt R with BLS
We both start with Jirachi HL, but he goes first and gets the blazing fast setup that I hadn’t managed to achieve in seven rounds (unless my game versus Celio counts - that one was pretty quick). I was getting set up at a decent pace, but by Turn 3 he has his Steelix out and he Mudslides me. My hand is just energy and stadiums and I can’t finish the setup I had started, and althought I kill a few things, I don’t really remember the exact details of this game; just that it was virtually over and done with before he took his last prize. GG nonetheless.
5-3
I was crushed, and considered dropping to be first on the DNF list, seeing no real point in playing on, as my resistance is pretty bad. That position ends up going to TRUK, who was the only 5-3 to drop, making Candyland the winner of the DNF bracket two years in a row; Levi at Worlds 05 and TRUK at Nats 06. Queen Frostine for the loss. =(
I end up staying in it just to go 6-3 and hit the 66% I had hoped to achieve at the very least. I was really expecting that I could do it after that tremendous 5-1 start, but my misplay versus Chris had cost me dearly. Coming into the tournament I was ready to have fun and try my hardest to win a trip, but as the day went on it became all about that trip. By Sunday that mentality was gone, and I was done being bitter with myself about that mistake (although it serves as a reminder of how far I still have to go).
Jon is 7-1 and David is 6-2. David has to win, but Jon can make it either way. There’s not really a question of David losing unless he gets a terrible start, so it looks like my three traveling companions are in the top cut. <3 I check out the pairings board to see who I play in the ninth and final round of the National Championships.
Round Nine versus Andrew M (ARMondak) with Ludicargo
We exchange screen names and shuffle - he mentions that his resistance is decent, but probably not good enough to make it in to the top cut. I know mine is definitely not good enough, but I don’t want to concede because I came to play every game. If he was certain that he could make it in if I conceded the match, I might have done it, but instead we decide to play it out. We flip our basic Pokemon and he has Jirachi from Deoxys. I don’t remember what I start with but I remember that he gets the quick Mentor, but I get a Turn 3 Pidgeot. The game is sort of a stalemate, as I eventually get Jirachi HL up and keep Making a Wish, but he keeps using Wishing Star with his Jirachi. I finally go for the Steelix and take out a Magcargo, I think, and he can’t respond by knocking me right back out, but he puts me at a position where I can’t Energy Rain or else he’ll be able to knock me out next turn. I size up my side of the board, then his, then check my hand for the Mentor and make the trade, hitting his active Ludicolo (I think), then letting him KO my Steelix to make it 4-4. It ends up being the last prize he takes; he runs into a spell of bad luck, and misplays by missing the type advantage my Latis have on his Ludi. He stuck a Frontier at one point and might have made a comeback, but after a few turns of fruitless draw, supporter, attack, go, I draw the Stadium and go to town. The game ends on time but I have a two or three prize lead. GG, nice meeting you.
6-3
(Continued in post #2)
Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:
Jon and David both make it in with 8-1 and 7-2 records, respectively. Melody is in the top cut in 11-14, as well as Patrick T (Ultra Upaa), to represent the Maryland and Virginia area. Nice job, guys. Kettler whiffs on the top cut with 6-3 in a heartbreaking do-or-die ninth round situation. Martin ends up 9-0 in Swiss to claim first seed with Raichu/Eggs, and Eric E (PokeWisconsin) gets second seed with the same deck. Jon is fourth seed, paired up against Brad P with a bizarrely constructed Arcanine ex variant. David is playing against Whicker’s Monarchy, and Melody against Dylan L (Young Giovanni, I think), playing Politoed ex, Nidoqueen’s auto-loss. =(
Fairly exhausted after nine grueling swiss rounds that had twenty-five to thirty minute breaks between each, in addition to two food breaks, we leave at ten or eleven - I can’t remember which as my memory is really fuzzy at this point. We say goodbyes after the Andersons turn in their decks for their Top 32 matches and walk out the doors immediately to the right, deciding to stretch our legs and take the long way. I can’t remember which of us says it, but somebody spots a parking lot right across the street from the Pokemon side of the convention that we hadn’t seen until just then. REAL MATURE. We had walked our legs off for three days for nothing! =/ Jon makes a mental note to park in the good parking lot tomorrow and we head back to the hotel. I’m hungry, though, so I round up my three partners in crime and head over to the McDonalds that’s just a couple feet from the Days Inn. Unfortunately, they close at eleven, and since the tournament took so long to finish up, we can’t get the milkshakes that we deserve! OHEMGEE.
So I eat some leftover macaroni or something like that and fall asleep at or around midnight. It seems like just a few minutes of sleep before we’re woken up by Jon’s cell phone alarm at some unreasonably early time. You have to get to the tournament site really early in the morning for the Top 32, but when we get there almost nobody else is around. I meet up with Patriarch, who won the Mutant Draft with Koga’s Beedrill and Exeggutor d the night before, and he introduces me to Soles (evilcacturne666) and brandonjmatt, two very cool Texas/Oklahoma region players. With the help of these guys and some other Pokemon players who could see who was playing what because they were a full head taller than I am, I was able to gather what decks each of the 15+ Top 32 players were playing, and the breakdown of each round of the top cut. Now I guess I’ll just wait for Flaming Spinach to unjustly attack me for taking credit for his work. ;p
1: Martin M (Raichu/Eggs) v 32: Chris B (BLS)
2: Eric E (Raichu/Eggs) v 31: Matt R (BLS)
3: Tom D (Rock-Lock) v 30: Tom S (BLS)
4: Jon A (Dragtrode) v 29: Brad P (Arcanine ex/Ninetales/Houndoom)
5: Adam M (BLS) v 28: Tara M (Lunasol)
6: Kyle S (BLS) v 27: Michael K (Kingdra d/Pidgeot d)
7: Ryah R (BLS) v 26: Michael R (BLS)
8: Steve S (Flariados) v 25: Jason K (Dragtrode)
9: Jordan D (Monarchy) v 24: David A (Shedinja)
10: Ian R (BLS) v 23: Nancy L (Rock-Lock)
11: Michael P (Mynx) v 22: Chris F (BLS)
12: Ryan B (BLS) v 21: Drew G (BLS)
13: Seena G (Mewtric) v 20: Eric C (BLS)
14: Jin W (BLS) v 19: Paris G (Dragtrode)
15: Ajay S (BLS) v 18: Matt Y (Arcanine ex)
16: Greg D (Dragtrode) v 17: Shawn G (Flariados)
14 BLS
4 Dragtrode
2 Arcanine ex
2 Rock-Lock
2 Raichu/Eggs
2 Flariados
1 Lunasol
1 Mewtric
1 Mynx
1 Monarchy
1 Kingdra d/Pidgeot d
1 Shedinja
So I’m anxiously awaiting the Top 32 to begin to see how my friends do, etc. Melody gets her deck back from the judges and sits across from Dylan, balancing her purple beanie cow Moo Moo on her head the whole game. That is THE win condition. GG Dylan. Jon gets his deck back and sits across from Brad, worried about a Houndoom locking a Frontier but hoping he can still pull out the match, but David isn’t sitting down across from Whicker, and the round is about to start. Judges are everywhere, so I think about approaching one and asking where he is, but after a while I see him and run over to him to ask what happened. At this point the round has started, so I’m freaking out, which just makes David really upset. When I calm down and ask what the matter is, he says he got disqualified.
I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think his deck being in penny sleeves was going to be a problem, and neither did he, because he didn’t bother to unsleeve it and resleeve in opaque sleeves. In hindsight, that would have been the wise thing to do, but I couldn’t believe the ruling they had given. David added that they would consider suspending him from the game for two years and that even though his suspension wasn’t official yet, he wasn’t allowed to play in any side events that day. I was speechless. He went on to tell me that a professor had pulled him off to the side and pressured him about why he used the sleeves he did, and if he was trying to use the warped condition of Deoxys Reverse Holo cards to his advantage by using these sleeves. David said they kept asking him similar questions over and over until he had had enough and confessed to a crime he hadn’t committed. I don’t know why he said he had done it intentionally, but this was all that Mike Liesek needed to issue the disqualification and possible suspension. As more and more people that we know arrived, David had to explain the story multiple times until he was just sick of it and left the building for a while. A couple adults including Mrs. Barlock (who was very helpful, we appreciate it) offered advice on how to appeal the suspension, but after Jon talked with Mike later that day, he said that it appeared like there wasn’t much that we could do, as we would be overridden anyway.
After this piece of very upsetting news, I just kind of sit around and hang out with Tyler and his dad and Jeremy for a few hours. I didn’t eat breakfast, so eventually I wander over to the Gourmet Grill and buy a cheeseburger meal, which wasn’t half bad. After I finish the burger (and the pickle that came with it <3), I leave my fries where they are and check up on Jon, whose Top 32 match is over. Jon ends up losing to Brad after winning the first game in a long, hard-fought match. Brad made a few mistakes, allowing Jon to take Game 1, but both Games 2 and 3 were over within just minutes after Brad donked into two wins where Jon had nothing and he had everything. The judge watching Jon’s game had issued a time extension which he didn’t seem to agree with on a Scott where the third card he wanted was in the prizes and he had to rifle through the deck again to find his final card. David and Jon being eliminated, I hoped Melody had won in the 11-14 bracket, although the odds seemed low in an auto-loss matchup against one of the more recognizable faces in the age group. I also discover that my Round 7 opponent went 0-2 after beating me but still made it at 32nd seed going 6-3, but, being deaf, didn’t hear the call to turn in his deck or to report for Top 32 play the next day, and didn’t check the standings sheet after Round 9, so Martin got a free win and an hour of time to twiddle his thumbs in the first round of Day 2 play. Lawl. By some miracle, Melody managed to pull it off in Sudden Death of Game 3 when Dylan got nothing and Melody ripped through several fossils until she finally killed his stranded Poliwag for the game. Moo Moo is going to WORLDS!
I play some games versus Tyler and his dad while Melody plays her Top 8 match versus the eventual 11-14 champion, Bobby M (Penguinmaster). Wes B (Gengar) ended up getting the trickle down to ninth place, although he was the only one, since Bobby was the only 11-14 player to make the Top 8 with a trip. Zane, Jeremy’s friend from WA, and Patrick T from VA both made the Top 8 as well to get their trips. Well done, guys! In my match against Tyler, I do an incomplete Quick Search and forget to take the actual card out of my deck and just Switch my Steelix ex out of the active, so when I try to play a third Switch, we have to restart the turn entirely, and even with all my misplays and crap, I still pull out the win. We end up laughing so much that my jaw starts really killing me and I don’t feel like eating, so I let David munch on my fries since he decided to come back in after a while. Melody ends up losing to Bobby’s BLS because, for some reason, the Pidgeot d didn’t stick. I don’t know how that’s possible, because she doesn’t remember him Mudsliding it, but I guess she just got outplayed. Oh well, she got the trip. <3
Here’s how the Top 32 ended up playing out:
Winners in bold:
1: Martin M (Raichu/Eggs) v 32: Chris B (BLS)
2: Eric E (Raichu/Eggs) v 31: Matt R (BLS)
3: Tom D (Rock-Lock) v 30: Tom S (BLS)
4: Jon A (Dragtrode) v 29: Brad P (Arcanine ex/Ninetales/Houndoom)
5: Adam M (BLS) v 28: Tara M (Lunasol)
6: Kyle S (BLS) v 27: Michael K (Kingdra d/Pidgeot d)
7: Ryah R (BLS) v 26: Michael R (BLS)
8: Steve S (Flariados) v 25: Jason K (Dragtrode)
9: Jordan D (Monarchy) v 24: David A (Shedinja)
10: Ian R (BLS) v 23: Nancy L (Rock-Lock)
11: Michael P (Mynx) v 22: Chris F (BLS)
12: Ryan B (BLS) v 21: Drew G (BLS)
13: Seena G (Mewtric) v 20: Eric C (BLS)
14: Jin W (BLS) v 19: Paris G (Dragtrode)
15: Ajay S (BLS) v 18: Matt Y (Arcanine ex)
16: Greg D (Dragtrode) v 17: Shawn G (Flariados)
Top 16:
1: Martin M v 17: Shawn G
2: Eric E v 18: Matt Y
3: Tom D v 19: Paris G
29: Brad P v 13: Seena G
5: Adam M v 12: Ryan B
27: Michael K v 22: Chris F
26: Michael R v 10: Ian R
8: Steve S v 9: Jordan D
Top 8:
1: Martin M v 8: Steve S
2: Eric E v 10: Ian R
3: Tom D v 22: Chris F
13: Seena G v 12: Ryan B
Top 4:
1: Martin M v 13: Seena G
2: Eric E v 3: Tom D
Top 2:
1: Martin M v 2: Eric E
Consolation:
13: Seena G v 3: Tom D
Martin ended up winning to a roar of thunderous applause in a mirror match final round for the history books. I heard the clapping and cheering from across the play area and Jeremy ran to tell me that Martin had gone 14-0, undefeated all weekend, to win. First and second seeds in the finals was a pretty amazing feat at a 313 man tournament, too. Seena and Tom, finalists in last year’s National Championship, came back for another Top 4 finish, and Steve S (Squirtle) repeated his Top 8 performance from last year, losing at the hands of the eventual champion (again). Coincidence?
I entered the side event and had to play ARMondak AGAIN (lame!) and managed to win even though he was wise to my Lati strategy. He had some pretty crappy prizes and lost as a result, although I think I might have been able to pull it out even if they had been in his deck for him to fetch. I won on time but made sure not to draw out my turns; shuffled quickly and didn’t think too long on my Mentors and such. In Round 2 I played against AJ D (theAnswer3), who was playing his Raichu/Eggs list, which happened to be the same as Martin’s. According to AJ, he, Pooka and the Celios invented the deck, then leaked to a select few people in the few days before Nationals. And to think somebody said, “I’m quitting this game, there’s a Raichu/Eggecutor deck at Table 1!” early on in Day 1. Anyway, I was able to beat AJ by just going aggro and not worrying too much about the prize count, starting with a Lugia since I was shy of the energy for Hyper Whirlpool, letting him burn a Scramble, then swarming with Blastoise ex, keeping the Rare Candy in hand for a second after the Delta Circled the active. He later told me that he misplayed at one point and should have let Blastoise stay active and Split Bomb the bench, but I ended up winning 0-3 on prizes regardless. Hoorah.
Round 3 I played against Kevin N, Eric’s brother from North Carolina. He was a really cool opponent and a pleasure to play against. He played Metanite and started with Jirachi HL, as did I, and my Wartortle was prized, so I built more slowly then I would have liked. Kevin, however, got off to a tremendous start, getting six Stage 2s in play by Turn 5 or 6 and proceeding to hit 2 Reversal flips on my Blastoise ex and Pidgeot in subsequent turns. Bleh. I was able to double Retriever and candy back into Pidgeot and tried to Admin to make a game of it, but his 2-3 Metagross used Delta Control to give him enough energy to KO the Steelix and seal the game. Ouch! =( I dropped after this because David didn’t want to hang around much longer. I didn’t want to ruin anybody’s resistance, but the tournament was supposed to be seven rounds long (it ended up being only four, so I could have gone 3-1 and gotten some packs =/) and the Andersons were getting restless. I returned Jeremy’s BLS cards and he gave me Dragtrode back, and I said my goodbyes to all the cool people at the tournament and we headed for home. Or our hotel room, rather.
We get back to the hotel room and open Melody’s box, which contains eighteen packs of Legend Maker and eighteen of Holon Phantoms. We get one of each Mew ex (DOES IT!), but nothing else exciting. We go to McDonalds and get milkshakes, then pack up all our stuff for the next day (I do, anyway) and watch Remember the Titans on TV. The television was screwed up though - half the screen gave everything a blue tint. So when the coach said, “We are going to do up-downs until your faces turn blue!” we all had a good laugh. We laid awake and talked for a little while about plans for the summer; Jon said he was going to grind in at Anaheim since Melody got her trip. After a while we hit the sack.
We leave at around noon the next day after double-checking to make sure we didn’t leave any stuff behind and all that. For about an hour, things so smoothly, but as we’re trying to make even better time than we did on the to way to Nationals, Jon decides to keep a constant speed of eighty. We weren’t going too much faster than any of the traffic around us, but a policeman pulled us over and give Jon a whopping speeding ticket anyway. He heads back to his car and we get off the shoulder and keep going, but in just a short time, I hear a rattling noise and point it out. At first Jon doesn’t recognize what I had said, but steam starts escaping from the hood and we pull over and get out of the car to see what’s going wrong. As it turned out, antifreeze was leaking out of the car in all the wrong places (even out the muffler) and it was spilling on to the ground and making for one disgusting sight. Jon calls Triple A and I call my mom and ask her what’s going on, and she fills me in on what the potential problem could be. So we wait and wait and wait for the tow truck guy to show up. Luckily one local body shop had been open even though most of the bigger ones had been closed that day. It was only a forty-five minute wait but it felt like hours, so it was a relief when the guy finally came and hitched the car up to the truck. We rode in the cab on the way to Bob’s Body Shop. Or Bill’s Body Shop. Something with a “B,” I think. I don’t really remember.
David and I play keep-away with Melody’s purple beanie cow while we wait for the guys to diagnose the problem, but after a while she gets pretty angry with us about it so I give the cow back. Sorry Mel. I explore the inside of the body shop and there are pictures of Nascar drivers plastered all over the walls. One is strangely upside-down; I guess the owner of the place had too much to drink one night and tried to put it up while he was still loaded. Either that or Dale Earnhardt Jr. is really talented at standing on his head. Finally they conclude that we blew a head gasket, which is REALLY bad - like $1000 dollars bad. Jon is pretty calm about it as they give us a lift to the nearest Greyhound station, but he’s probably freaking out about it silently.
Cambridge, Ohio is the place we end up, and the lady taking the money and giving the tickets was a smoker if anything. It seemed like every other sentence she wheezed out was interrupted by a huge coughing fit. She also had the yellowed teeth and the rest of the package, but her lungs sounded like they had turned into malignant lumps of useless carbon. Jon asked if the bus ran through Silver Springs, but she said no after squinting hard at the computer screen, so we tried for Washington D.C. and that, of course, was a yes. We all get our luggage tags filled out and David and Melody have to help me get them on because I’m dumb. Jon tries to pay for the tickets with his credit card, but it doesn’t go through (perfect). Luckily, however, he has his mom’s credit card, and blows a bunch of cash on the four Greyhound tickets. We wait around for a while and Melody reads some of her Worlds packet, and I look at the art for the World Championships. The thing with the Mewtwo in the center and the Blastoise and Charizard on either side. The artwork was rather bad, but the Worlds logo was cool. I wish I wasn’t so bad so I could have won a trip. ;/
Eventually we get on the bus and we get separated as it’s jam-packed. Jon and I sit in the back row, and David sits in the second to the back, but poor Melody gets a seat near the front of the bus. I try desperately to fall asleep, but none of my efforts work until we’re about one hour from the transfer station anyway, so I have a rude awakening just in time to get instructions for where to go over the intercom. As we came to a stop in front of the station it felt like the bus’s breaks were failing. I’m never using any form of public transportation ever again. We stop off at the in-between in Pittsburgh and switch buses to get on the one going to Washington D.C. We all plop our stuff down in front of Gate 6 and make sure at least one person stands with our luggage at all times, taking turns going to the bathroom and the vending machines. The station is a lot nicer than the tiny redneck one in Cambridge, with a television playing Law and Order on TNT in the corner of the room. When I grow up, I want hair just like Sam Waterson.
Anyway, we eventually get on the next bus, and the driver announces where our minor stops will be before we hit Baltimore and Washington D.C., and Silver Springs is one of them. =/ Thanks, lady. We all sit in the same row, two on each side of the aisle, and play Pokemon GBA games and discuss Nationals rather loudly and obnoxiously. Jon shows me a bunch of nicknames he gave to his Pokemon in Emerald version like a year ago. He named his Snubbull Fruitydog. Lawl! On each of our pit stops I buy something to eat because I’m starving. I end up getting two ice creams and a Milky War bar on the Greyhound route to constitute my total food intake for the day. Healthy, no?
Jon calls his dad and lets him know that we’ll be stopping in Frederick, so Mr. Anderson picks us up there and drives us home. We get there at around midnight or one in the morning, and we play a lot of Super Smash Bros and I pick up my winning streak for about two games until I start getting dominated again. Melody checks and finds that Bobby won the 11-14 division and Andrew K, Meganium45’s son, won the 10-. I call my dad and tell him that we arrived safely and all that, and he informs me that he’ll be coming early to pick me up because we’re all going to a family picnic thing, then I’m staying over at my cousins’ house for the week (which explains why this report is so unbelievably late). So I get to bed around three and wake up the next morning at seven or so. Four hours and I’m good to go, just like Taco Bell’s spicy crunch wrap supreme (incidentally [that’s my new favorite word - did I say that already?], those are pretty good). I scramble to get my cards and the Andersons’ cards separated before I head out the door. Melody is up already, so I tell her to say bye to her brothers for me, then I’m out the door and my Nationals weekend is over. *whew*
A few people asked me afterward if Nationals was worth the money and the time that it took. I still haven’t given them a clear answer back, because I honestly don’t know. I’m a little short on cash after all the dough it took for hotel, food, gas and Greyhound. And it did eat up a whole weekend, which I profited nothing from (besides an Exploud promo card everybody’s got fifty of by now and a T-shirt that I lost after five minutes). 6-3 is close, but not close enough. I ruined my chances at Day 2 play with a stupid mistake that could have prevented the loss I suffered. Plenty of other players, World Championship quality players, missed the cut, but they have the Grinder and I don’t, and that’s really no consolation for me anyway. I wasn’t in it to do better than them - I was in it to do as well as I personally could. Hanging out with the Andersons, Jeremy and Tyler was awesome, that part of the trip was definitely worth it - but was Nationals itself? I can’t really say for sure. If I decide to go next year maybe I’ll be able to come to a decision.
Seems like I have everything wrapped up! Closing thoughts, Top 32 diagram, match summaries, and lengthy pre and post-tournament reports that nobody ever bothers to read. All seem to be present and accounted for. That just leaves one last order of business to attend to.
Props: :thumb:
-The Andersons for being so cool. Thanks for letting me tag along all weekend. A special shout out to Melody who volunteered to sleep on the floor one night so I could have a bed. <3 You guys were great to hang out with and definitely made the weekend a lot better than it would have been if it had just been me going solo.
-Their folks for letting me crash at their place twice.
-Super Smash Bros.
-Jeremy and Tyler for being cool kids, too. In the end, it doesn’t even matter. =(
-Kettler, your 2006 Nationals Champion (of mutant draft)! As well as Soles and brandonjmatt.
-Whicker for standing up for David even when David’s disqualification gave him a free win.
-Everybody else there that I talked with and didn’t mention here (Johnny, Matt, Cap, Krupa, etc).
-Pickles at the Gourmet Grill.
-Anyone at the convention who showered each day.
-Melody for winning her trip with Nidoqueen.
-Jon for dragging off Squirtles and Pidgeys for 50 damage by Turn 3 and getting fourth seed with a 8-1 record. GG!
-Patrick for getting his trip with Metro! Hope your transition into 11-14 continues to go smoothly (had a rocky start at Gyms but now it looks like you’re getting into the swing of things).
-Mr. Anderson for coming and picking us up.
-BLS for being THE deck for Nationals.
-The minds behind Raichu/Eggs: not the greatest deck in the world, but certainly effective at Nationals; well done.
-Ninjask from EX: Deoxys.
-Everybody who helped me prepare for the event. You guys know who you are...
-Fruitydog.
-Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (just saw it a few hours ago!).
-If I forgot anything, let me know and I’ll put it up.
Slops: :nonono:
-David’s DQ. All Deoxys RH cards are warped like that, I just don’t agree with the disqualification on principle. Not looking for controversy, and not looking for a fight.
-Tyler’s dad stole a Rocket’s Poke Ball from me! ;p Naw, take your time sending it back, really. I don’t really have any use for it. It’s rotating after this format, and this scrub isn’t going to Worlds. Booooo!
-My sloppy playing in Round 7.
-Chris B’s deafness preventing him from playing at Day 2 play when he had earned it.
-55th place (I think I got somewhere around here).
-The head gasket blowing out.
-Speeding tickets.
-70 bucks for a Greyhound ticket?! Slops to Greyhound in general.
-My school summer projects that I still haven’t done.
-AP Calculus. Gross.
-Donksac Arcanine ex wins. What was with Jon losing on Turn 4 twice and Matt Y flipping all those heads? I QUIT THE GAME! =D
-Everyone who didn’t take showers.
-Me missing the opportunity to buy a Furthest Ends box and get Dragonite ex. BOOOO.
-The long wait between matches.
-The lady at Subway and the lady at the Greyhound station. Thanks for making our weekend go smoothly. Real mature of you both.
-You for skipping through most of what I wrote!
There’s always next year!
~SuperWooper
Tuesday, I drop by the Conns’ house and basically steal all their Modified trainers and special energy, as well as their Mynx and Mewtric decks to mess around with. Props to you guys, I’ll return all those cards eventually. <_< Wednesday afternoon, my mom drives me up to Maryland from northern Virginia, and I arrive at the Andersons’ house armed with a box full of illegal cards, a binder full of crappy holos, and four or five deckboxes all containing decks with about twenty proxied cards each. Thankfully, the Andersons have about one jillion Pokemon cards and I’m able to build Dragtrode, the deck I assume I’ll be using at Nationals, as it looks like it has great matchups versus everything in the field besides Blastoise, the bane of my existence. Jon and I test Dragtrode versus BLS extensively, and I get in a game of Dragtrode versus Shedinja on a one hour time limit which I actually lose because David’s Cursed Stone sticks and destroys me. Blah. We build and test Lunasol some, but eventually we throw that aside as it isn’t a real deck.
At midnight-ish, we head upstairs and play some Super Smash Bros. Melee, and I am basically dominated by David’s Dr. Mario because I’m so bad =/. I switch from Fox to Sheik, who is definitely one of the cheapest characters in video game history, and consequentially I start owning him until he figures out how to play against me and we start going about even. At one point somebody plays as Falco and we name his up B attack Internet Explorer since it’s so much worse than Fire Fox =D. After discovering that Ganondorf’s best move is probably his standstill ground A attack (rofl), we go back downstairs and play some more Pokeman cards, then crash at around two or three.
I wake up at around seven on Thursday morning due to Jon’s cell phone alarm, which, although being right next to his head, doesn’t wake him up. Melody is already awake upstairs, so I get some breakfast with her assistance as I have no idea how to get the cream off the top of the milk bottle to pour into my cereal bowl. Why can’t there just be one universal, standardized kind of milk container so that poor dumb children like myself can open them? Anyway, Jon and David finally get up and sort all the cards. I decide to take their proxied BLS deck on a whim since Dragtrode looks to have a pretty bad matchup versus it, and I expect Blastoise to dominate the metagame at Nationals. We all pile in to Jon’s 1992 Toyota Camry and head for Ohio.
We get on to the topic of the GBA Pokemon games, which none of us have played in like a year, so I turn mine on and battle the Elite Four a couple times and get my Ninjask to level 100. It was already at 94 or something like that. Anyway, while talking, we miss a crucial exit, and somehow end up in (The Battle of?) Gettysburg, Pennsylvania or some other bizarre, out-of-the-way place. So we turn around and push 80 mph to make good time after the one hour we lost due to Jon’s attentiveness. Real mature, buddy.
After like six hours of endless quotation from homestarrunner.com, we arrive at the Days Inn in Ohio, which is ten minutes or so from the convention center, but costs a lot less than anything else in the area because we’re all cheapskates. We unpack (sort of) and head to the convention center, but first we have to find some parking, which is a nightmare because this is Columbus. Then we have to walk (gasp!) to the Greater Columbus Convention Center, which is connected to a hotel, and I have to stand in line to get my Origins badge (Jon, David and Melody all pre-registered online and I forgot), which was about a thirty minute wait with only four or five people in front of me thanks to the capable, intelligent personnel running the operation =/.
Then we have to walk for like a million miles to reach the National Championship, which is conveniently located at the very end of the hall. Real mature. I run into Blastoise Shellshocker, who informs us that Magnechu’s father passed away due to cancer just the day before, and who had set up a donation box at the front table. I talk to Mikey later and he tells me that a flower arrangement was present at the wake from “Our Pokemon Friends.” Props to everybody who dropped even just a couple bucks in. It was pretty cool to see that donation box every time I walked by the head table.
I see some other people and say hey, play some practice games and scout around, and then I remember that I’m supposed to meet Jeremy (Ancient Pokemon Trainer) in the lobby of the Crown Plaza Hotel at 9 to get stuff for BLS. I get there just before nine and to my surprise, he actually remembered to account for the time zone difference =O. Tyler (Kenshin’s Garde) is also with him, so we hang out for a bit and talk decks for Nationals. Jeremy is going back and forth between Ludi and Queen, while Tyler seems set on Ludi. I’m still unsure about Dragtrode or BLS, but both are complete and unproxied now, so whichever I choose I’ll be able to play. Jeremy and I agree to meet at 9 AM the next morning at the site of the event. We head back to the hotel and test some more, eat reheated macaroni, and talk decks some more before we go to sleep at around one. Jon and David get a bed, Melody gets a bed, and I get stuck on the floor. No rollaway beds at the Days Inn. Not for fifty bucks a night. =(
The next morning, I wake up, grab a shower, skip breakfast and hurry everybody else along so I can meet Jeremy. We manage to find a better parking site this time, but it’s still seven bucks for the day. We walk a ways to the hotel, through the lobby, get to the convention center, take the escalator, go past the booths, and walk down the long hallway to get to the freaking place. In retrospect, asking Jeremy to get up at 9, which is six o’clock WA time, probably wasn’t the smartest of moves. It takes a little while to find him as he wasn’t where we agreed to meet, but eventually I discover his whereabouts and we sit down to play a couple games. BLS versus Mewtric isn’t the autoloss I thought it was, so that boosts my confidence in my secondary choice a little bit (although it’s still pretty bad). We test some Ludi versus BLS and I get thrashed courtesy of two everlasting Frontier locks in two consecutive games. Five countergyms and two Holon Scientists and still nothing? Bleh.
Jeremy gets up and scouts a little, and Elissa H (CleffaGirl) runs into him and goes “Ohmigosh it’s Jeremy!” I needle him about that for a while. Hehe. The modified tournament for Friday starts and we see a lot of BLS and somehow a lot of Nidoqueen decks show up. Lunasol is also showing in fairly strong numbers, but apparently I made a bad read in expecting the modified tournament to be a good indicator of what would appear at Nationals, because Lunasol was almost nowhere to be found when Nats actually rolled around. I see Ness and Chuck playing Dragtrode and figure they won’t be playing the same deck for Nationals, and I am, again, wrong. We go to the lobby of the hotel and test some “secret tech,” and in the course of this testing, whenever somebody who looks remotely like a Pokemon player walks by, Jeremy slams his hands down on the table and covers as many cards as he can and mutters “spies” under his breath. This behavior may be the result of listening to too much Linkin Park, which is basically the only artist Jeremy had on his iPod besides Green Day (meh) and Papa Roach (bleh). Somehow, “In The End” gets stuck in my head and I draw the line. It’s time for a lunch break.
Jeremy and Tyler stay in the lobby and try to break the format while Jon, David, Melody and I head to the food court. I get a cold cut trio at Subway with this really good Chipotle sauce, and I figure I can just chill out for a bit, but NO! Jeremy comes and asks if we have cards to proxy for this weird “secret deck” with like fifty Stage 1 lines that Tyler dreamed up, so Jon and I dig through our binders and finally we get enough cards so that the deck is proxiable. A) Is that a real word and B) if so, how would you spell it? While we’re trying to break the format in the food court, I get some of my black, already-crappy Ultra Pros covered in Chipotle sauce, so it looks like I’m not playing whatever deck is in those sleeves =/.
We head back to the lobby and mess around with the deck and it loses twice (horribly) to Blastoise, which it’s supposed to have the auto-win against. Real mature, buddy, making us waste about an hour on that failed project. =( Eventually we head back to the convention center and I see Cap (Hot Mustid) and we ask how he’s doing, etc. It turns out he’s in the Top 8 of the Professor Cup, which was a ridiculous sealed format or whatever where you change your deck three times over the course of the tournament. How do you give out even just one Worlds invite based on that crapshoot? I see Matt (Lugia ex) and Johnny (Time For Pain) who attend tournaments around our area. The modified tournament results come up and I think it’s Seena and Jacy who are X-0. It’s all a blur from this point on, but the four of us end up at the hotel room again and I get a bed this time. We test a bunch, and I fall asleep after a lot of thinking about which deck I should play. When I wake up the next morning, I know I’m going with [EDIT]Storm[/EDIT]. ;x
Wake up, shower, skip breakfast again, pay an outrageous amount for parking. Walk all the way through the convention center, and arrive before almost anyone else. I can actually hear myself talk. I fill out decklists for Blastoise and Dragtrode just to be on the safe side, walk around a lot to relieve the knot in my stomach, see a few people and say hey. I give Jeremy a Ludi to borrow, but he ends up going with Queen. Tyler chooses Ludi. I give Melody my Nidoqueen list and she makes a few small changes, and David goes with Shedinja. Jon plays the only deck he’s ever played since EX: Team Rocket Returns came out - Dragtrode. We get in line and within ten minutes I’m registered, my deck is checked (I went with BLS), and I play a couple fun games versus Matt’s Queendom. He gets a really lucky start Game 1 and I get nothing, so we play against, and in Game 2 he gets a decent start and I get - nothing! I’m sort of glad I went with Blastoise at this point.
A series of sheets come up and they post them on the pairings board. I’m at Table 16 - what a coincidence, that’s how old I am. Several other people argue and say that they are at Table 16, so I go back and check and I overhear somebody saying that the number next to your name is your age. Real mature. So I shuffle nervously and walk around a bit. The attendance is announced and the 15+ has 313 players or something around there. 11-14 has 125 ish, and 10- has 90, if I remember correctly. There were 500+ players there, that’s for sure. The play area is really noisy at this point, so I sit down and keep shuffling. The event starts much later than expected, but pairings finally go up and there’s a stampede over to the board. I wish Jeremy and Melody good luck in their age group and head over to the 15+ pairings, and, being the genius that I am, I sneak around behind the board to look at it from the right side, but this ends up backfiring as a few other people had the same idea. So I’m stuck for a while, wondering who I’m paired against. Eventually my question is answered, and the National Championship begins.
Round One versus Rich A with Mynx
Rich was a really nice guy, who informs me that he’s the oldest player at Nats right off the bat. He went through the entire age list to make sure. By his nametag I can see that he’s from Oregon, and he mentions that he has a son who plays, so I’m not sure whether he’s a new player or a vet. I check out my opening hand, and I just drop it on the table. It’s Pidgey, Squirtle, Nincada, Jirachi DX, Holon’s Castform, Holon’s Castform, Latias *. It was pretty crushing to see that kind of hand first round. Rich opens with Mew ex from Holon Phantoms, and says his son built the deck for him last night, so I’m hoping I can beat him at the table with a really great first Wishing Star. He goes first, attaches and passes. I draw an energy and Wishing Star, and I topdeck the Ninjask like a fiend! I don’t show any emotion, though, just attach my energy to Jirachi and pass. He draws and Mentors, going for Wobbuffet, Smoochum and Jynx, and evolves to Jynx and Wobbuffet immediately. He does 30 with Mew and passes. I wake up from the Wishing Star and retreat to Ninjask to buy me time, and eventually get set up. He paralyzes my Ninjask a couple times with Jynx while building his side of the board, ruining my Swords Dances, but I evolve manually into Blastoise ex off a three card Holon Scientist and eventually he misses paralysis a couple times and I kill the Jynx. He kills the Ninjask with Wobbuffet, but I go aggro with Blastoise ex and kill a couple things. Not once in the entire game does he use Mew ex’s power to look at my hand while it’s on the bench. He kills my Blastoise with Devo Crush eventually, which is exactly what I wanted - I candy to another and Latias * the Mew Holon Phantoms, then kill something else to put me up on prizes and I win on time.
1-0
Rich gets me to sign up for a league badge and I get an RH Fire energy and a Phanpy from POP2 as prizes. Wonderful. ;p Recovering from that awful start has boosted my spirits a bit. I check on everybody else. Melody and Jon win their games, but David got the worst start EVER with Shedinja and actually LOSES in Swiss against Steph B’s lone Latias * start. Real mature. Jeremy loses his game to some random Gengar deck in 11-14, and Tyler wins his, I think. I keep predicting that Jon and I are going to play each other in a key match like in last year’s PA Regional Championship, although with a field of 300+ players, I know that it’s very unlikely. We sit around, shuffle and wait for pairings. Nothing of any real consequence happens until they go up, and I head on over to Table whatever it was.
Round Two versus Ivan with BLS
Ivan opened fairly nicely with Jirachi, and I got the Jirachi HL start too, with Squirtle in hand to boot, but with no energy. I went first, so I just passed. He got Pidgeotto out off a Mentor with Squirtle benched. I draw and get nothing, but I evolve Squirtle into Wartortle. He evolves to Pidgeot T2 and gets Wartortle -> Blastoise ex off the Make a Wish attack, so I’m kind of annoyed at my unfortunate luck two games in a row. I topdeck an Admin and play that, get the energy and Make a Wish for Blastoise ex. While Making a Wish, I look through my deck casually to see what’s there and what isn’t, but I realize that something is wrong. All four of my Holon Transceivers are prized! At this point I’m kind of angry as I realize that my mediocre hand off the Admin is going to force me to go aggro with Blastoise. I do so and draw into Transceiver, then get set up. He kills the Blastoise with something, so I put Jirachi back up and Transceiver for the stuff I need, but Holon’s Voltorb is prized. =/ Luckily, I’m able to use his Power Tree, which stayed in play for the whole game, and I set up at a decent speed, and he’s somehow unable to get what he needs to Steelix ex my bird, or else he just didn’t think of it, even though he was basically set up Turn 2. The game gets to be really close, going 2-2 in prizes, I think. He Celebi ex’s for a Holon’s Castform to try and clinch it, but realizes that’s a misplay and asks if he can get the Pokemon Retriever instead. I decide to be the nice guy and allow it, and QS for my Admin, but it’s not there. It’s my sixth prize. I use Pidgeot to Clutch his active Jirachi for one turn since I’m able to figure that he has no switchers left, buying me just enough time to get set up so that there’s nothing he can do. Great game!
2-0
Ivan mentions that if he gets three losses he’ll probably drop. I’m kind of peeved at this, but I figure I’ll just go 7-2 to make it. Jon does the math and miscalculates at first, but later figures that all 7-2 records will make it and 4 6-3s will, as well. I know I can’t count on being one of the 6-3 people, so I have to go 5-2 from here to make it. After recovering from two bad starts, I’m pretty confident that I can do it, but I know that at 2-0 you’re getting to face the upper levels of competition. Ivan’s list looked a lot like Fulop’s, so I figure Ivan must have been pretty well-connected and probably a good player, but I was still on my guard. Melody and Jon had both won, and Jeremy had too. David, of course, won his game. It’s Shedinja. How do you lose?
For some reason I can’t remember when our lunch break was. I think it was after Round 2, but it might have been after Round 3. I’ll stick it right here in any case. Caporelli, Ben K, myself and the Andersons all go to Subway, but since there’s only one (incompetent) person making the subs, it takes almost an hour (we timed it) for the six or seven people in front of us to get their orders filled. Mustid plays his DS Lite that he won for getting second (only first got a trip) in the Professor Cup and loses like five lives on Super Mario. Nice job, you scrub. =D I cut in front of Cap like a FREAK in my haste to get back to the pairings board in case Round 3 starts early (pffft). I order the same thing as last time and speedwalk back to the convention hall, then once I get into the play area, and literally sprint to the pairings board since a bunch of people are gathered around it. All the people sitting at the red tables playing other TCGs yell “Run, Forest, Run!” Real mature, you guys. And original, too.
It turns out it’s only standings, so I did all that for nothing. I’m at the bottom of the pile, the fifth lowest 2-0 since Rich is 0-2 and Ivan is 1-1, and my opponent’s opponent’s win percentage is low somehow, too. I sneak a few bites of my sub because after all that running, the next round didn’t start for thirty or forty minutes. I was freaking hungry, but didn’t eat the whole thing as I was afraid of getting a game loss for eating in the venue or something ridiculous like that. I wouldn’t put it past some of the judges that were there that day. The actual non-standings pairings go up after a while and I’m at Table 5. Cool beans.
Round Three versus Matt E (Rulemaster) with Raichu/Marowak
So I get to play against the infamous Celio. We exchange screen names and stuff, and since I got the table a little late, I’m still shuffling while they announce go. I put my deck down early and draw seven, and my hand is pretty good. Jirachi and Transceiver are both in attendance, as well as a (gasp!) Celio’s Network. I had caught wind of a Raichu/Marowak list before Nationals, so it wasn’t a secret to me, although its seemingly superior counterpart, Raichu/Eggs, was. When he opened with whatever he opened with (either Pikachu or Cubone), I knew I was in for a rough game. I get set up on Turn 3 or something excellent like that. But it’s not the kind of setup that supports an aggro Blastoise, which is the only way to go versus this deck. I take an unintentional three minute Mentor because a second Squirtle is prized and I have no idea what else to get. He says, “You’re going to get Ninjask because I’m weak to grass,” so I grab the Nincada and he laughs. My guys are already in rockable range and he has a pretty good setup, so we both know the game is over. GG, cool meeting you.
2-1
I finish up my sub outside the play area since our game finished fairly quickly. Jon is 3-0 at this point, so we won’t have to play each other for sure. I see Kettler (Patriarch) and we shake hands and talk for a little bit. He’s down in the dumps at 1-2, but he’ll make an amazing comeback later. David and Melody are 2-1, I think. Jeremy is 1-2 because he’s a ten-year-old scrub. ILU APT. =( I have to go 5-1 to make it in. Not impossible, right? Pairings go up and I’ve dropped about fifty million tables. Boooo!
Round Four versus Evan with Kyogre ex/Magcargo/Porygon 2
He started with Kyogre ex HL, so instantly I was pretty confident. I don’t really get set up, but I have Latias * manually powered up by Turn 4, so I kill the Kyogre and my prizes are Blastoise ex and Rare Candy. What a lucksac! I evolve into Blastoise ex and use Latias to kill a Slugma, then aggro Blastoise his Porygon 2 and bench him out. Sorry, dude.
3-1
I have lots of time to burn since this match was over in ten minutes or less. Not much worth mentioning happens here, though. Jon wins, I think Melody loses to put her at 3-1? She goes 6-1 in swiss, but I can’t remember where the loss was. Maybe she was 2-1 and won this round; I know her only loss was to Wes’s Dragtrode. Anyway, pairings come up and the name across from mine is - Alex Brosseau? Who IS that guy?
Round Five versus Alex B (BigChuck01) with Dragtrode
I’m already sitting down at the table, kind of nervous because I have to play an Elite 4 member. Chuck comes up and says, “I got me a Wooper to Woop! I got me some Wooper to Woop!” So I (lamely) respond with “I got me a Chuck to ... Chuck.” And he goes, “He does it, he did it, he went there, ladies and gentlemen! Give the man his money!” We shuffle and set up and put our basics face down. Mine is a Reverse Holo Squirtle, so Chuck says, “What foil is that you cheater?” He repeats this like five times until he starts to guess.
“Lugia ex?” I say nothing.
“Latias *?” I say nothing.
“Rocket’s Sneasel ex? Did you steal my deck?” Nothing.
Then he goes off on this huge tangent, naming completely random terrible foils, and eventually I just start to laugh because I can’t help it. Still nervous but not nearly as much, I kind of settle back into my chair and wait for the round to begin.
But it doesn’t; not for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, anyway. It takes really long to get going because of a computer problem or something. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the guys upfront because I was preoccupied with filling out the survey they handed out prior to the match. Most of us had time to fill it out in the fifteen or twenty minutes after we sat down at the table and before we played. I watch Chuck fill his out and under “Why do you compete in Pokemon tournaments?” he put “to win.” Where’s the SOTG buddy? =(
So finally we flip the basics, and I start with a Squirtle (Chuck is taken by surprise; I TOOK THE 2002 WORLD CHAMP BY SURPRISE!), him with Dratini. My hand isn’t bad, though, as I have Transceiver and PETM in hand. He puts my Squirtle to sleep with Dratini and I fail the sleep, I Mentor for my basics and attach and pass. Fail the sleep again. He draws and passes, I fail the sleep check but evolve to Pidgeotto through PETM, I fail the sleep check, he draws and passes, and I fail the sleep check. =/ We’re both having terrible luck, but the difference is I’m getting set up and his hand is just garbage. I can’t find the Pidgeot, but eventually I wake up and Make a Wish for the bird Turn 4 or 5, then just proceed to get set up and start rolling. Eventually he gets a Sneasel with a couple Darks but I have the Switches for Drag Off and the setup to trade blows with ease, and endgame he just says, “You have the Steelix?” I nod, so he says, “Show me.” I supporter and QS and drop the energy onto the table.
Midgame, when I had gotten the Pidgeot and was starting to take prizes, Ness walks by and gives a thumbs up sign to Chuck, signaling that he won. Chuck gives the thumbs down and then adds, “He got a fast Pidgeot and he plays all this tech. He plays Ninjask and the Latis! He doesn’t deserve to get the fast Pidgeot! He doesn’t deserve to win!” Chuck had seen me discard these cards for Holon supporters over the course of the game, and just couldn’t believe how amazingly fast [/sarcasm] I had set up even though I had used those 4 slots for tech. Just one question: since when was a T4-5 bird a fast one?
I was reminded of Benny’s “act your age” thing at the Rockville GC. Even though it wasn’t a really legitimate game, he just couldn’t handle losing. GG nonetheless.
4-1
I think this is the point at which David’s epic one hour showdown versus John S (the sniper) takes place. It’s Shedinja versus Flariados, which is a disgusting matchup because Fossils can’t be affected by special conditions and Shedinja has free retreat to easily shake conditions. You can’t aggro Flareon because Extra Curse and Cursed Stone puts 5 damage on you, and if you miss your Super Scoop Up flip, Shedinja Rocks and wins 5-6 on prizes. John plays smart and retreats when his guys are too close to 50 damage, but eventually runs out of Super Scoop Ups and hopes to deck David. About thirty or forty people are grouped around them, some are standing on chairs and yelling “Down in front!” David keeps using VS Seeker to get back Holon Farmer and keep himself from drawing the last card in his deck. Eventually he gets enough Cursed Stones to hit Flareon so that a Rock TM can clinch the game. It was a great match, but it definitely delayed Round 6 quite a bit (or whatever round came next; my memory is so bad).
Jon is secure at 5-0 and Melody at 4-1. David is 4-1, too, so we’re all doing exceptionally well so far. Johnny and Matt are faring much worse - they’re in the red but not considering dropping because they love to play the game. Virginia is <3. Pairings, stampede, I go and look, you’re probably getting tired of this part by now.
Round Six versus Adam C (plaidlesspez) with Lunasol
FINALLY I run into one of these and I get to use my Ninjask! =O Plaid and I had played in the Top 16 of the Pennsylvania Regional Championship just recently and he had flattened me pretty badly due to my bad deck choice, my one costly misplay, and my less than stellar luck. I was hoping to win and make the score even, although I knew that he would probably be less than happy with my Ninjask-playing BLS list.
We start off and he has the Lunatone start, I have Jirachi DX. I think I start more with DX Jirachi than HL Jirachi in this tournament somehow, or at least it seems that way, which is weird considering my 3-1 split in HL’s favor. Anyway, I Wishing Star and get the Mentor but I can’t use it since (I think?) I go first. He doesn’t get the Mentor right away, but uses some other supporter and Foresights to ensure 50 or 60 next turn. However, it’s already too late. I Mentor and bench Nincada and Squirtle, the Squirtle only being there in case of Warp Point, and Wishing Star for the supporter that will get me Ninjask next turn. I have the Retriever in my hand and because of this, I decide not to wait for the Candy in case of Reversal. He does have the Reversal, but he rolls the orange POP die and it’s three dots. Bad beat. He kills Jirachi, and I put up Nincada and evolve, and with twenty-four minutes left on the clock and no real way to stall out a tiny 5-6 prize lead, he extends his hand. GG.
5-1
I was glad that Adam was a good sport about losing on a 1-1 tech line, as it (almost) seems imbalanced that a deck can be ruined by just two slots out of sixty in another deck. We pack up our dice and decks and turn in the match slip, then I talk with Patriarch, who has made it back to 4-2, and the Andersons, who are all still doing well. I think Jon is 6-0 at this point. APT is three and three (that rhymes lawl), trying to at least pass the five hundred mark on the day, especially since he’s in 11-14. Somebody comes on the intercom and says that a dinner break will be allowed after Round 7. A dinner break at a Pokemon tournament is new to me, although I suppose I sort of expected it with nine rounds of Swiss.
At 5-1 I knew I would be playing the best. I had to go 2-1 to make it in, as my resistance was dead last of all the 5-1s. Ivan, Rich, and Evan have all dropped, I think, and although I’ve played three Lafonte players and my resistance should be fairly high, it’s not. So when pairings go up and I see a name I don’t recognize across from mine, I’m elated.
Round Seven versus Chris B with BLS
I’m pretty confident coming in, and even moreso when I see his nametag and the fact that he’s an Ohio local. We’re shuffling, and he hands his deck to me and makes a noise that sounds vaguely like “cut.” I do so and allow him to cut mine. He starts with Mew ex LM and I start with Onix; my hand is garbage, save for an Admin. I’m not sure whether to hope to go first or second, as I want to Admin as soon as possible but not get too far behind.
We roll, I go second it turns out, he attaches and has no bench, so he passes. I draw, get nothing and Admin, and he says, “Thank you” in a bizarre tone of voice, and I’m about to ask him to repeat himself, but then I realize that he’s deaf! Even more of a confidence booster, although I shouldn’t have gotten so bigheaded at that in retrospect. I get a Transceiver off the Admin as well as Rare Candy and Celio <3. He has the Mentor and retreats, then uses Make a Wish to get Pidgeotto. He benches his Onix and Squirtle, too, and I see he’s playing the UF Onix and Sleepy Ball Squirtle. In my opinion, these are the wrong pre-evolutions to play, although I suppose it’s not too big a deal. My turn comes, and I Mentor and prepare to evolve to Pidgeot next turn, but otherwise I sit around twiddling my thumbs. He plays Pidgeot and misplays by not searching the Wartortle and MaW’ing straight to Blastoise ex, so he MaWs to Wartortle and keeps the QS card in his hand. I evolve to Pidgeot, and with the help of the bird I grab Wartortle and evolve, then pass. He evolves to Blastoise ex, evolves to Steelix ex, Quick Searches, Energy Rains to Steelix ex, retreats Jirachi and pings Pidgeot for a prize.
I draw, and without Pidgeot but with a decent hand, I know an Admin could ruin me, so I try to approach the prize count as such. 6-4-2-0 seems ideal. I Mentor and load up on Castforms and grab a Latias *, too, then play the Switch to go back to Lati *. I finish up by evolving manually to Blastoise ex, then going berserk on his Steelix. He definitely wasn’t expecting that.
He kills the Latias * with Pidgeot, but not before, for whatever reason, benching his Lugia ex, so I draw and respond by Rare Candying into another Pidgeot (DOES IT!) put up my benched Onix and Quick Search for Steelix and Mudslide the Lugia ex to put the prize count at 2-4. He responds with an Admin - but I figured I was ensured against Admin with Pidgeot back on the field - then Latias *’s my Steelix ex, putting us at 2-2. The difference is that his hand is six cards and mine is two at this point, and the two cards I got were garbage. I draw my other Admin, though, so I play it, taking us both to 2. I draw Power Tree and Jirachi DX, and he already has Power Tree on the field. I shake my head and Quick Search for the Water, then use his Power Tree to get another Water energy and Clutch his Latias * to put the prizes at 1-2.
MISPLAY!
With the disgusting hand I got off Admin, I figured I might be able to win on time, since the clock was ticking and the 1-2 prize lead seemed unbreakable in the three or four minutes we had left, especially since Chris played very slowly. He was shaking his head and mumbling to himself like his hand was as bad as mine. It was a nail biter but I felt fairly secure in the state of the game, even though I only had two Pokemon on the field. It’s either he plays POW and gets the rest of what he needs off the Admin or I win, I thought to myself.
And he didn’t play the Pow. But he played something else.
Chris had actually fooled me with the shake of the head. He puts up Pidgeot, draws and smiles upon seeing his card. His hand at three now, he drops his second Lugia ex, uses Power Tree combined with a Castform from the hand to leave his Lugia ex fully powered and simultaneously leave him with one card in his hand.
He shows me the Warp Point for the game.
5-2
Why didn’t I bench that Jirachi? I should have expected the Warp Point, but I just didn’t see it. In talking with my Pokeman friends online Warp Point in BLS was trashed a while ago even though it works fairly well with Steelix. Switch just ended up being the better card in most cases, and I had forgotten Warp Point was even a possibility. Two Pokemon situation aside, the play was probably to bench Jirachi, retreat to it and Wishing Star to try and get the Retriever and Mudslide the Mew ex for game. I was sickened with my playing after this game and didn’t feel like eating even though there was a dinner break. I chat with a few people, find out that Melody has definitely made it in to the Top 16 in 11-14 with a 6-1 record, and that Jon lost to Martin because he got a prize penalty for playing two supporters in a turn. Real mature, buddy. =P Then I put my head down until the pairings for the next round came up.
Round Eight versus Matt R with BLS
We both start with Jirachi HL, but he goes first and gets the blazing fast setup that I hadn’t managed to achieve in seven rounds (unless my game versus Celio counts - that one was pretty quick). I was getting set up at a decent pace, but by Turn 3 he has his Steelix out and he Mudslides me. My hand is just energy and stadiums and I can’t finish the setup I had started, and althought I kill a few things, I don’t really remember the exact details of this game; just that it was virtually over and done with before he took his last prize. GG nonetheless.
5-3
I was crushed, and considered dropping to be first on the DNF list, seeing no real point in playing on, as my resistance is pretty bad. That position ends up going to TRUK, who was the only 5-3 to drop, making Candyland the winner of the DNF bracket two years in a row; Levi at Worlds 05 and TRUK at Nats 06. Queen Frostine for the loss. =(
I end up staying in it just to go 6-3 and hit the 66% I had hoped to achieve at the very least. I was really expecting that I could do it after that tremendous 5-1 start, but my misplay versus Chris had cost me dearly. Coming into the tournament I was ready to have fun and try my hardest to win a trip, but as the day went on it became all about that trip. By Sunday that mentality was gone, and I was done being bitter with myself about that mistake (although it serves as a reminder of how far I still have to go).
Jon is 7-1 and David is 6-2. David has to win, but Jon can make it either way. There’s not really a question of David losing unless he gets a terrible start, so it looks like my three traveling companions are in the top cut. <3 I check out the pairings board to see who I play in the ninth and final round of the National Championships.
Round Nine versus Andrew M (ARMondak) with Ludicargo
We exchange screen names and shuffle - he mentions that his resistance is decent, but probably not good enough to make it in to the top cut. I know mine is definitely not good enough, but I don’t want to concede because I came to play every game. If he was certain that he could make it in if I conceded the match, I might have done it, but instead we decide to play it out. We flip our basic Pokemon and he has Jirachi from Deoxys. I don’t remember what I start with but I remember that he gets the quick Mentor, but I get a Turn 3 Pidgeot. The game is sort of a stalemate, as I eventually get Jirachi HL up and keep Making a Wish, but he keeps using Wishing Star with his Jirachi. I finally go for the Steelix and take out a Magcargo, I think, and he can’t respond by knocking me right back out, but he puts me at a position where I can’t Energy Rain or else he’ll be able to knock me out next turn. I size up my side of the board, then his, then check my hand for the Mentor and make the trade, hitting his active Ludicolo (I think), then letting him KO my Steelix to make it 4-4. It ends up being the last prize he takes; he runs into a spell of bad luck, and misplays by missing the type advantage my Latis have on his Ludi. He stuck a Frontier at one point and might have made a comeback, but after a few turns of fruitless draw, supporter, attack, go, I draw the Stadium and go to town. The game ends on time but I have a two or three prize lead. GG, nice meeting you.
6-3
(Continued in post #2)
Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:
Jon and David both make it in with 8-1 and 7-2 records, respectively. Melody is in the top cut in 11-14, as well as Patrick T (Ultra Upaa), to represent the Maryland and Virginia area. Nice job, guys. Kettler whiffs on the top cut with 6-3 in a heartbreaking do-or-die ninth round situation. Martin ends up 9-0 in Swiss to claim first seed with Raichu/Eggs, and Eric E (PokeWisconsin) gets second seed with the same deck. Jon is fourth seed, paired up against Brad P with a bizarrely constructed Arcanine ex variant. David is playing against Whicker’s Monarchy, and Melody against Dylan L (Young Giovanni, I think), playing Politoed ex, Nidoqueen’s auto-loss. =(
Fairly exhausted after nine grueling swiss rounds that had twenty-five to thirty minute breaks between each, in addition to two food breaks, we leave at ten or eleven - I can’t remember which as my memory is really fuzzy at this point. We say goodbyes after the Andersons turn in their decks for their Top 32 matches and walk out the doors immediately to the right, deciding to stretch our legs and take the long way. I can’t remember which of us says it, but somebody spots a parking lot right across the street from the Pokemon side of the convention that we hadn’t seen until just then. REAL MATURE. We had walked our legs off for three days for nothing! =/ Jon makes a mental note to park in the good parking lot tomorrow and we head back to the hotel. I’m hungry, though, so I round up my three partners in crime and head over to the McDonalds that’s just a couple feet from the Days Inn. Unfortunately, they close at eleven, and since the tournament took so long to finish up, we can’t get the milkshakes that we deserve! OHEMGEE.
So I eat some leftover macaroni or something like that and fall asleep at or around midnight. It seems like just a few minutes of sleep before we’re woken up by Jon’s cell phone alarm at some unreasonably early time. You have to get to the tournament site really early in the morning for the Top 32, but when we get there almost nobody else is around. I meet up with Patriarch, who won the Mutant Draft with Koga’s Beedrill and Exeggutor d the night before, and he introduces me to Soles (evilcacturne666) and brandonjmatt, two very cool Texas/Oklahoma region players. With the help of these guys and some other Pokemon players who could see who was playing what because they were a full head taller than I am, I was able to gather what decks each of the 15+ Top 32 players were playing, and the breakdown of each round of the top cut. Now I guess I’ll just wait for Flaming Spinach to unjustly attack me for taking credit for his work. ;p
1: Martin M (Raichu/Eggs) v 32: Chris B (BLS)
2: Eric E (Raichu/Eggs) v 31: Matt R (BLS)
3: Tom D (Rock-Lock) v 30: Tom S (BLS)
4: Jon A (Dragtrode) v 29: Brad P (Arcanine ex/Ninetales/Houndoom)
5: Adam M (BLS) v 28: Tara M (Lunasol)
6: Kyle S (BLS) v 27: Michael K (Kingdra d/Pidgeot d)
7: Ryah R (BLS) v 26: Michael R (BLS)
8: Steve S (Flariados) v 25: Jason K (Dragtrode)
9: Jordan D (Monarchy) v 24: David A (Shedinja)
10: Ian R (BLS) v 23: Nancy L (Rock-Lock)
11: Michael P (Mynx) v 22: Chris F (BLS)
12: Ryan B (BLS) v 21: Drew G (BLS)
13: Seena G (Mewtric) v 20: Eric C (BLS)
14: Jin W (BLS) v 19: Paris G (Dragtrode)
15: Ajay S (BLS) v 18: Matt Y (Arcanine ex)
16: Greg D (Dragtrode) v 17: Shawn G (Flariados)
14 BLS
4 Dragtrode
2 Arcanine ex
2 Rock-Lock
2 Raichu/Eggs
2 Flariados
1 Lunasol
1 Mewtric
1 Mynx
1 Monarchy
1 Kingdra d/Pidgeot d
1 Shedinja
So I’m anxiously awaiting the Top 32 to begin to see how my friends do, etc. Melody gets her deck back from the judges and sits across from Dylan, balancing her purple beanie cow Moo Moo on her head the whole game. That is THE win condition. GG Dylan. Jon gets his deck back and sits across from Brad, worried about a Houndoom locking a Frontier but hoping he can still pull out the match, but David isn’t sitting down across from Whicker, and the round is about to start. Judges are everywhere, so I think about approaching one and asking where he is, but after a while I see him and run over to him to ask what happened. At this point the round has started, so I’m freaking out, which just makes David really upset. When I calm down and ask what the matter is, he says he got disqualified.
I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think his deck being in penny sleeves was going to be a problem, and neither did he, because he didn’t bother to unsleeve it and resleeve in opaque sleeves. In hindsight, that would have been the wise thing to do, but I couldn’t believe the ruling they had given. David added that they would consider suspending him from the game for two years and that even though his suspension wasn’t official yet, he wasn’t allowed to play in any side events that day. I was speechless. He went on to tell me that a professor had pulled him off to the side and pressured him about why he used the sleeves he did, and if he was trying to use the warped condition of Deoxys Reverse Holo cards to his advantage by using these sleeves. David said they kept asking him similar questions over and over until he had had enough and confessed to a crime he hadn’t committed. I don’t know why he said he had done it intentionally, but this was all that Mike Liesek needed to issue the disqualification and possible suspension. As more and more people that we know arrived, David had to explain the story multiple times until he was just sick of it and left the building for a while. A couple adults including Mrs. Barlock (who was very helpful, we appreciate it) offered advice on how to appeal the suspension, but after Jon talked with Mike later that day, he said that it appeared like there wasn’t much that we could do, as we would be overridden anyway.
After this piece of very upsetting news, I just kind of sit around and hang out with Tyler and his dad and Jeremy for a few hours. I didn’t eat breakfast, so eventually I wander over to the Gourmet Grill and buy a cheeseburger meal, which wasn’t half bad. After I finish the burger (and the pickle that came with it <3), I leave my fries where they are and check up on Jon, whose Top 32 match is over. Jon ends up losing to Brad after winning the first game in a long, hard-fought match. Brad made a few mistakes, allowing Jon to take Game 1, but both Games 2 and 3 were over within just minutes after Brad donked into two wins where Jon had nothing and he had everything. The judge watching Jon’s game had issued a time extension which he didn’t seem to agree with on a Scott where the third card he wanted was in the prizes and he had to rifle through the deck again to find his final card. David and Jon being eliminated, I hoped Melody had won in the 11-14 bracket, although the odds seemed low in an auto-loss matchup against one of the more recognizable faces in the age group. I also discover that my Round 7 opponent went 0-2 after beating me but still made it at 32nd seed going 6-3, but, being deaf, didn’t hear the call to turn in his deck or to report for Top 32 play the next day, and didn’t check the standings sheet after Round 9, so Martin got a free win and an hour of time to twiddle his thumbs in the first round of Day 2 play. Lawl. By some miracle, Melody managed to pull it off in Sudden Death of Game 3 when Dylan got nothing and Melody ripped through several fossils until she finally killed his stranded Poliwag for the game. Moo Moo is going to WORLDS!
I play some games versus Tyler and his dad while Melody plays her Top 8 match versus the eventual 11-14 champion, Bobby M (Penguinmaster). Wes B (Gengar) ended up getting the trickle down to ninth place, although he was the only one, since Bobby was the only 11-14 player to make the Top 8 with a trip. Zane, Jeremy’s friend from WA, and Patrick T from VA both made the Top 8 as well to get their trips. Well done, guys! In my match against Tyler, I do an incomplete Quick Search and forget to take the actual card out of my deck and just Switch my Steelix ex out of the active, so when I try to play a third Switch, we have to restart the turn entirely, and even with all my misplays and crap, I still pull out the win. We end up laughing so much that my jaw starts really killing me and I don’t feel like eating, so I let David munch on my fries since he decided to come back in after a while. Melody ends up losing to Bobby’s BLS because, for some reason, the Pidgeot d didn’t stick. I don’t know how that’s possible, because she doesn’t remember him Mudsliding it, but I guess she just got outplayed. Oh well, she got the trip. <3
Here’s how the Top 32 ended up playing out:
Winners in bold:
1: Martin M (Raichu/Eggs) v 32: Chris B (BLS)
2: Eric E (Raichu/Eggs) v 31: Matt R (BLS)
3: Tom D (Rock-Lock) v 30: Tom S (BLS)
4: Jon A (Dragtrode) v 29: Brad P (Arcanine ex/Ninetales/Houndoom)
5: Adam M (BLS) v 28: Tara M (Lunasol)
6: Kyle S (BLS) v 27: Michael K (Kingdra d/Pidgeot d)
7: Ryah R (BLS) v 26: Michael R (BLS)
8: Steve S (Flariados) v 25: Jason K (Dragtrode)
9: Jordan D (Monarchy) v 24: David A (Shedinja)
10: Ian R (BLS) v 23: Nancy L (Rock-Lock)
11: Michael P (Mynx) v 22: Chris F (BLS)
12: Ryan B (BLS) v 21: Drew G (BLS)
13: Seena G (Mewtric) v 20: Eric C (BLS)
14: Jin W (BLS) v 19: Paris G (Dragtrode)
15: Ajay S (BLS) v 18: Matt Y (Arcanine ex)
16: Greg D (Dragtrode) v 17: Shawn G (Flariados)
Top 16:
1: Martin M v 17: Shawn G
2: Eric E v 18: Matt Y
3: Tom D v 19: Paris G
29: Brad P v 13: Seena G
5: Adam M v 12: Ryan B
27: Michael K v 22: Chris F
26: Michael R v 10: Ian R
8: Steve S v 9: Jordan D
Top 8:
1: Martin M v 8: Steve S
2: Eric E v 10: Ian R
3: Tom D v 22: Chris F
13: Seena G v 12: Ryan B
Top 4:
1: Martin M v 13: Seena G
2: Eric E v 3: Tom D
Top 2:
1: Martin M v 2: Eric E
Consolation:
13: Seena G v 3: Tom D
Martin ended up winning to a roar of thunderous applause in a mirror match final round for the history books. I heard the clapping and cheering from across the play area and Jeremy ran to tell me that Martin had gone 14-0, undefeated all weekend, to win. First and second seeds in the finals was a pretty amazing feat at a 313 man tournament, too. Seena and Tom, finalists in last year’s National Championship, came back for another Top 4 finish, and Steve S (Squirtle) repeated his Top 8 performance from last year, losing at the hands of the eventual champion (again). Coincidence?
I entered the side event and had to play ARMondak AGAIN (lame!) and managed to win even though he was wise to my Lati strategy. He had some pretty crappy prizes and lost as a result, although I think I might have been able to pull it out even if they had been in his deck for him to fetch. I won on time but made sure not to draw out my turns; shuffled quickly and didn’t think too long on my Mentors and such. In Round 2 I played against AJ D (theAnswer3), who was playing his Raichu/Eggs list, which happened to be the same as Martin’s. According to AJ, he, Pooka and the Celios invented the deck, then leaked to a select few people in the few days before Nationals. And to think somebody said, “I’m quitting this game, there’s a Raichu/Eggecutor deck at Table 1!” early on in Day 1. Anyway, I was able to beat AJ by just going aggro and not worrying too much about the prize count, starting with a Lugia since I was shy of the energy for Hyper Whirlpool, letting him burn a Scramble, then swarming with Blastoise ex, keeping the Rare Candy in hand for a second after the Delta Circled the active. He later told me that he misplayed at one point and should have let Blastoise stay active and Split Bomb the bench, but I ended up winning 0-3 on prizes regardless. Hoorah.
Round 3 I played against Kevin N, Eric’s brother from North Carolina. He was a really cool opponent and a pleasure to play against. He played Metanite and started with Jirachi HL, as did I, and my Wartortle was prized, so I built more slowly then I would have liked. Kevin, however, got off to a tremendous start, getting six Stage 2s in play by Turn 5 or 6 and proceeding to hit 2 Reversal flips on my Blastoise ex and Pidgeot in subsequent turns. Bleh. I was able to double Retriever and candy back into Pidgeot and tried to Admin to make a game of it, but his 2-3 Metagross used Delta Control to give him enough energy to KO the Steelix and seal the game. Ouch! =( I dropped after this because David didn’t want to hang around much longer. I didn’t want to ruin anybody’s resistance, but the tournament was supposed to be seven rounds long (it ended up being only four, so I could have gone 3-1 and gotten some packs =/) and the Andersons were getting restless. I returned Jeremy’s BLS cards and he gave me Dragtrode back, and I said my goodbyes to all the cool people at the tournament and we headed for home. Or our hotel room, rather.
We get back to the hotel room and open Melody’s box, which contains eighteen packs of Legend Maker and eighteen of Holon Phantoms. We get one of each Mew ex (DOES IT!), but nothing else exciting. We go to McDonalds and get milkshakes, then pack up all our stuff for the next day (I do, anyway) and watch Remember the Titans on TV. The television was screwed up though - half the screen gave everything a blue tint. So when the coach said, “We are going to do up-downs until your faces turn blue!” we all had a good laugh. We laid awake and talked for a little while about plans for the summer; Jon said he was going to grind in at Anaheim since Melody got her trip. After a while we hit the sack.
We leave at around noon the next day after double-checking to make sure we didn’t leave any stuff behind and all that. For about an hour, things so smoothly, but as we’re trying to make even better time than we did on the to way to Nationals, Jon decides to keep a constant speed of eighty. We weren’t going too much faster than any of the traffic around us, but a policeman pulled us over and give Jon a whopping speeding ticket anyway. He heads back to his car and we get off the shoulder and keep going, but in just a short time, I hear a rattling noise and point it out. At first Jon doesn’t recognize what I had said, but steam starts escaping from the hood and we pull over and get out of the car to see what’s going wrong. As it turned out, antifreeze was leaking out of the car in all the wrong places (even out the muffler) and it was spilling on to the ground and making for one disgusting sight. Jon calls Triple A and I call my mom and ask her what’s going on, and she fills me in on what the potential problem could be. So we wait and wait and wait for the tow truck guy to show up. Luckily one local body shop had been open even though most of the bigger ones had been closed that day. It was only a forty-five minute wait but it felt like hours, so it was a relief when the guy finally came and hitched the car up to the truck. We rode in the cab on the way to Bob’s Body Shop. Or Bill’s Body Shop. Something with a “B,” I think. I don’t really remember.
David and I play keep-away with Melody’s purple beanie cow while we wait for the guys to diagnose the problem, but after a while she gets pretty angry with us about it so I give the cow back. Sorry Mel. I explore the inside of the body shop and there are pictures of Nascar drivers plastered all over the walls. One is strangely upside-down; I guess the owner of the place had too much to drink one night and tried to put it up while he was still loaded. Either that or Dale Earnhardt Jr. is really talented at standing on his head. Finally they conclude that we blew a head gasket, which is REALLY bad - like $1000 dollars bad. Jon is pretty calm about it as they give us a lift to the nearest Greyhound station, but he’s probably freaking out about it silently.
Cambridge, Ohio is the place we end up, and the lady taking the money and giving the tickets was a smoker if anything. It seemed like every other sentence she wheezed out was interrupted by a huge coughing fit. She also had the yellowed teeth and the rest of the package, but her lungs sounded like they had turned into malignant lumps of useless carbon. Jon asked if the bus ran through Silver Springs, but she said no after squinting hard at the computer screen, so we tried for Washington D.C. and that, of course, was a yes. We all get our luggage tags filled out and David and Melody have to help me get them on because I’m dumb. Jon tries to pay for the tickets with his credit card, but it doesn’t go through (perfect). Luckily, however, he has his mom’s credit card, and blows a bunch of cash on the four Greyhound tickets. We wait around for a while and Melody reads some of her Worlds packet, and I look at the art for the World Championships. The thing with the Mewtwo in the center and the Blastoise and Charizard on either side. The artwork was rather bad, but the Worlds logo was cool. I wish I wasn’t so bad so I could have won a trip. ;/
Eventually we get on the bus and we get separated as it’s jam-packed. Jon and I sit in the back row, and David sits in the second to the back, but poor Melody gets a seat near the front of the bus. I try desperately to fall asleep, but none of my efforts work until we’re about one hour from the transfer station anyway, so I have a rude awakening just in time to get instructions for where to go over the intercom. As we came to a stop in front of the station it felt like the bus’s breaks were failing. I’m never using any form of public transportation ever again. We stop off at the in-between in Pittsburgh and switch buses to get on the one going to Washington D.C. We all plop our stuff down in front of Gate 6 and make sure at least one person stands with our luggage at all times, taking turns going to the bathroom and the vending machines. The station is a lot nicer than the tiny redneck one in Cambridge, with a television playing Law and Order on TNT in the corner of the room. When I grow up, I want hair just like Sam Waterson.
Anyway, we eventually get on the next bus, and the driver announces where our minor stops will be before we hit Baltimore and Washington D.C., and Silver Springs is one of them. =/ Thanks, lady. We all sit in the same row, two on each side of the aisle, and play Pokemon GBA games and discuss Nationals rather loudly and obnoxiously. Jon shows me a bunch of nicknames he gave to his Pokemon in Emerald version like a year ago. He named his Snubbull Fruitydog. Lawl! On each of our pit stops I buy something to eat because I’m starving. I end up getting two ice creams and a Milky War bar on the Greyhound route to constitute my total food intake for the day. Healthy, no?
Jon calls his dad and lets him know that we’ll be stopping in Frederick, so Mr. Anderson picks us up there and drives us home. We get there at around midnight or one in the morning, and we play a lot of Super Smash Bros and I pick up my winning streak for about two games until I start getting dominated again. Melody checks and finds that Bobby won the 11-14 division and Andrew K, Meganium45’s son, won the 10-. I call my dad and tell him that we arrived safely and all that, and he informs me that he’ll be coming early to pick me up because we’re all going to a family picnic thing, then I’m staying over at my cousins’ house for the week (which explains why this report is so unbelievably late). So I get to bed around three and wake up the next morning at seven or so. Four hours and I’m good to go, just like Taco Bell’s spicy crunch wrap supreme (incidentally [that’s my new favorite word - did I say that already?], those are pretty good). I scramble to get my cards and the Andersons’ cards separated before I head out the door. Melody is up already, so I tell her to say bye to her brothers for me, then I’m out the door and my Nationals weekend is over. *whew*
A few people asked me afterward if Nationals was worth the money and the time that it took. I still haven’t given them a clear answer back, because I honestly don’t know. I’m a little short on cash after all the dough it took for hotel, food, gas and Greyhound. And it did eat up a whole weekend, which I profited nothing from (besides an Exploud promo card everybody’s got fifty of by now and a T-shirt that I lost after five minutes). 6-3 is close, but not close enough. I ruined my chances at Day 2 play with a stupid mistake that could have prevented the loss I suffered. Plenty of other players, World Championship quality players, missed the cut, but they have the Grinder and I don’t, and that’s really no consolation for me anyway. I wasn’t in it to do better than them - I was in it to do as well as I personally could. Hanging out with the Andersons, Jeremy and Tyler was awesome, that part of the trip was definitely worth it - but was Nationals itself? I can’t really say for sure. If I decide to go next year maybe I’ll be able to come to a decision.
Seems like I have everything wrapped up! Closing thoughts, Top 32 diagram, match summaries, and lengthy pre and post-tournament reports that nobody ever bothers to read. All seem to be present and accounted for. That just leaves one last order of business to attend to.
Props: :thumb:
-The Andersons for being so cool. Thanks for letting me tag along all weekend. A special shout out to Melody who volunteered to sleep on the floor one night so I could have a bed. <3 You guys were great to hang out with and definitely made the weekend a lot better than it would have been if it had just been me going solo.
-Their folks for letting me crash at their place twice.
-Super Smash Bros.
-Jeremy and Tyler for being cool kids, too. In the end, it doesn’t even matter. =(
-Kettler, your 2006 Nationals Champion (of mutant draft)! As well as Soles and brandonjmatt.
-Whicker for standing up for David even when David’s disqualification gave him a free win.
-Everybody else there that I talked with and didn’t mention here (Johnny, Matt, Cap, Krupa, etc).
-Pickles at the Gourmet Grill.
-Anyone at the convention who showered each day.
-Melody for winning her trip with Nidoqueen.
-Jon for dragging off Squirtles and Pidgeys for 50 damage by Turn 3 and getting fourth seed with a 8-1 record. GG!
-Patrick for getting his trip with Metro! Hope your transition into 11-14 continues to go smoothly (had a rocky start at Gyms but now it looks like you’re getting into the swing of things).
-Mr. Anderson for coming and picking us up.
-BLS for being THE deck for Nationals.
-The minds behind Raichu/Eggs: not the greatest deck in the world, but certainly effective at Nationals; well done.
-Ninjask from EX: Deoxys.
-Everybody who helped me prepare for the event. You guys know who you are...
-Fruitydog.
-Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (just saw it a few hours ago!).
-If I forgot anything, let me know and I’ll put it up.
Slops: :nonono:
-David’s DQ. All Deoxys RH cards are warped like that, I just don’t agree with the disqualification on principle. Not looking for controversy, and not looking for a fight.
-Tyler’s dad stole a Rocket’s Poke Ball from me! ;p Naw, take your time sending it back, really. I don’t really have any use for it. It’s rotating after this format, and this scrub isn’t going to Worlds. Booooo!
-My sloppy playing in Round 7.
-Chris B’s deafness preventing him from playing at Day 2 play when he had earned it.
-55th place (I think I got somewhere around here).
-The head gasket blowing out.
-Speeding tickets.
-70 bucks for a Greyhound ticket?! Slops to Greyhound in general.
-My school summer projects that I still haven’t done.
-AP Calculus. Gross.
-Donksac Arcanine ex wins. What was with Jon losing on Turn 4 twice and Matt Y flipping all those heads? I QUIT THE GAME! =D
-Everyone who didn’t take showers.
-Me missing the opportunity to buy a Furthest Ends box and get Dragonite ex. BOOOO.
-The long wait between matches.
-The lady at Subway and the lady at the Greyhound station. Thanks for making our weekend go smoothly. Real mature of you both.
-You for skipping through most of what I wrote!
There’s always next year!
~SuperWooper
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