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Published on January 24th, 2014 | by Scott

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2014 North American Winter Regionals Preview Part 3: Florida

With four of the first set of XY Regionals down, only Florida is left until Spring. As typically expected of the final event of this part of the season and of a Regional taking place on an isolated weekend, the competition looks to be fierce this week, so anyone coming down to Florida expecting the event to have a shallow field like last year is likely to be in for a nasty surprise. What might wind up being a bit of a surprise is the attendance after last week. I think most of us expected Virginia would be one of the higher attended Regionals after its seemingly impressive numbers on the first week of XY, but we ended up with Missouri’s Regional being slightly larger than that and California’s Regional being so much larger that it actually ended up having more rounds than Nationals did in 2012. I’m not expecting Florida to be nearly as large as California was, but I’d imagine it’ll have a similar turnout to Missouri and Virginia, which I think is a really heartening increase in attendance that we’ll hopefully continue to see more of, thanks in part to the vastly improved game in XY.

I don’t have anything too out of the ordinary for community news that can’t wait until the Regionals retrospective next week, so I guess I’ll just remind everyone to patch your game to version 1.2 if you haven’t already, think about purchasing one of those battery packs if you haven’t already (my 3DS was definitely on its last leg during top cut last week), and to come down and join the fun in Florida if you’re close enough to attend!

Florida Regional

Difficulty Rating:

/ 5

(Five Pokemon flying far away from the blistering cold out of five)

Tournament Organizer: Heidi Craig

Last Year’s Winner: Zach Droegkamp (Zach)

The Story

Last year, Florida was an event with very few known players, including a couple of which made the Regional seem even more disparate by not having very strong events. This year, however, we should see a completely different story. Some of the bigger names from each of the other Winter Regionals are flying down to enjoy Southern Florida and try to earn some extra Championship Points, so Florida may well have gone from the second or third weakest Regional to the second or third strongest Regional in the span of a year. Last year’s champion was Zach Droegkamp (Zach), who was starting off his 2013 season very similarly to some of this year’s hotter players like BadIntent and Wesley Morioka, both who have had two appearances in the finals. Zach won over Rick Guerra, who we haven’t seen too much of outside of Florida beyond a top 32 loss at US Nationals to the eventual champion, kingofmars. I’m not completely sure if Rick is going, though I do know that Zach’s semifinals opponent, Sam Haarsma (DrFidget), is. Both Zach and Sam had events they’d like to improve on in Seattle last week, going 4-3 and 4-2-1 respectively, so like many players attending Florida they’ll be motivated to get some redemption here.

It’s hard to have a Regional finish without it being compared to how much better the Northeast Regionals are, so this should be a fun opportunity to see how this event may mimic the National Championships for once. Many of the top players from the northeast, midwestern, and western players will be vying for the Regional win this time.  Obviously, the biggest name out east is the three-time World Champion (and now first-time Regional Champion) Ray Rizzo (Ray). I feel like every time I write about him in one of these previews I comment on how unprepared he seems, but as his Regional win last week indicates, Ray reads the game so well both in and out of battles that it just doesn’t seem to matter. One of his Swiss opponents last week was Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar), whose reward for getting through a difficult schedule with an 8-1 record was having to play eventual finalist Enosh Shachar in the round of 16, which he ended up losing. I think Matt’s situation is one of those that reminds us that no tournament’s format is going to create perfect justice, but I think his odds are much better in Florida. Trista Medine (ryuzaki) had a mediocre run in Virginia, but turned around and had a pretty good run at APEX so she seems to be getting more comfortable with XY and is likely to be one of this event’s main contenders. Simon Yip (Simon) and Dan Levinson (dtrain) only have 12 CP combined this season after top cutting together on their trip to Toronto last season, so we’ll see if they can finally get it going this year after their Slow Start.

The group of players coming to Florida who played in St Louis last week are headlined by Wesley Morioka (Wesley), who finished second after winning the previous midwestern Regional in Ft Wayne. Wesley is also the player with the most CP attending the event, currently sitting at fourth overall with 230 CP. What may be more surprising to most of the people reading this is that another player attending this event who played in St Louis last week is tied for second-most CP of the players who will be attending (and tied for seventh overall by our count): Ashton Cox (linkyoshimario). He’s sort of come out of nowhere, but a top four finish in St Louis and top 16 finishes in both Virginia and Ft Wayne have him in excellent CP position right now, though he’ll need to make it to the top eight to increase his point total because of the best finish limit. The two other players I know are attending who top cut in St Louis are myself and Tiffany Stanley (Shiloh), who will hopefully get some extra CP because I can’t help but notice she’s in the familiar position right now at two spots out of range for the World Championships.

While there are fewer big names from California attending (probably because they have Disneyland so they lose half the appeal), we will be seeing appearances by at least three players from that area who have nice chunks of CP. Mike Suleski (OmegaDonut) is in that three way tie for 7th with a couple of other competitors, though it’ll be a little easier for him to increase his point total than Ashton because he is currently counting a top 32 finish. Len Deuel (Alaka) has attended like 60 Regionals or something already, but something strange always seems to happen to him. This time it was going 8-1 in Swiss, losing only to his flight’s 9-0 finisher and eventual tournament semifinalist Paul Hornak (makiri), then losing in top 32 for a nearly irrelevant sum of CP. Matt Souerby (matt) was one of the big surprises of Fall Regionals (picking up 120 CP over two events) but he’s yet to make a mark in XY. Apparently XY streamer Tiffy is also attending the event, who made it to the top 16 of California’s Regional last week before joining the ranks of people who had unfortunate run-ins with kingofmars.

In spite of only having approximately twelve players attend it, two of which were mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, Oregon is also sending a decent chunk of players. In addition to Zach and DrFidget, runner-up Evan Falco will be attending Florida. He’s the third player in that 7th place tie with Ashton and Suleski, so it’ll be interesting to see who breaks free. Like Suleski, he is counting a top 32, so just making the top cut would lead to a point increase for him. One of the favorites to win Oregon was Stephen Morioka (Stephen), who surprised most of us by not making it into top cut this time. He’s still sitting in 10th overall with 170 CP after two Regionals thanks to a win in the Fall, so with any CP at all here he should shoot up the standings a bit. JTK was amid some controversy in Oregon because of the intentional draw in her 5-1-1 9th place finish. I can say from experience coming that close to top cut and missing it is pretty heartbreaking, especially because I don’t think she’s ever been in one before, so hopefully she’s able to recover and get in this time. Aryana Welch (feathers) had a rougher road in Oregon after going undefeated in Swiss the year before, but maybe she’ll be able to turn it around in Florida.

Harrison Saylor (Crow) always seems to finish top eight at Nationals and then go back to his secret lair until next year. Here’s hoping he actually manages to show up and collect some CP so he can make it to a second Regional this year and finally get the spot in Worlds he tends to deserve every year. DeVon Ingram (Dingram) made a pretty big splash by finishing second in his first event in Masters last Fall, though he’ll be facing stiffer competition here, especially considering I think most people are expecting him to use a team very similar to one that was showcased heavily on stream last weekend. Jason Fisher-Short (Fish) and Mike Papagianis (skarm) are both playing in their first events of the season, but as a 2010 Regionals runner-up and Worlds participant respectively, they seem to have all the qualifications needed to excel this season. David Mancuso (Mancuso) started off the season with a chunk of points by top cutting in Ft Wayne, but has had a tough time adding to his stash in XY. Garrett Cresenzi (araluen7) and Patrick Donegan (Pd0nZ) stand out for players who could do well but don’t have a top cut finish for me to reference as proof. Angel Miranda (Sapphire Birch) could be a pretty big threat, but since he managed to make it to the top 8 in Virginia’s TCG event I’m assuming he’s going to be using his millennium rod to convince people he’s a girl or something while playing card games instead.

Outside of a handful of players like Wesley and Ray, I feel like this is a field compiled almost exclusively of players who have had a finish or two this season that was at least a bit below what they were hoping for, so Florida should be a Regional where a lot of players are desperate for some redemption. I think a good chunk of us are attending more for the vacation than the Pokemon tournament, but I’d be really surprised if a lot of these players didn’t care much more about this event than they’re letting on…

The Smart Money is on…:  Matt Coyle (PrettyLittleLiar). While I joked a bit about the northeastern guys self-promoting a bit, I do actually buy into the hype, so I’m expecting one of them to come out on top. I think with Ray having gotten one win this season already, Matt and Trista are the two most likely to win… and I didn’t want to predict Trista over Matt because he’s bigger than me and I’m going to see him in a couple days. Hopefully predicting him doesn’t curse him like usual, though…

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

About the Author

Scott started playing VGC in 2011. He finished 17th at US Nationals, then lost in the final round of 2011 Worlds LCQ. He finished 10th in the 2012 World Championships and qualified for Worlds again in 2013 after going into US Nationals second in CP. Instead of playing, he commentated at US Nationals and the World Championships in 2013 and 2014. Follow him on Twitter @NBNostrom!

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