Indonesia’s First Premier Challenge
Hi guys! Hashegi is here, again. So, as we all know, Pokémon Trainers around the world are competing in the newly-added Premier Challenges. Today, I’d like to happily share with you stories and pictures of the first ever Premier Challenge in Indonesia.
To have a sanctioned VGC event is a great milestone for competitive Pokémon in Indonesia. In attendance were 104 Masters, 12 Seniors, and 1 Junior! To top it off, the Top 4 from the tournament also were rewarded the position for representing Indonesia in the 2015 Asia Cup that will be a competition between players from Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, with Korea and Japan joining the tournament in the final stages, which will be held from February till April via WiFi. Go on and check Asia Cup 2015!
This event was held in fX Lifestyle X’nter, a mall in South Jakarta, with player registration starting at 10, but the preparation for the event started the day before players arrived. Some of the event staff also stayed at the venue all night and didn’t go home until the morning, and then came back two hours before the event started.
Funnily enough, there was no backdrop during the event because our sponsors decided not to print one at the last minute… but there was always a plan B! If you recall the hanging poster from the Tozka Alkafest Tournament, we actually hung up the dropping banner onto the backdrop stage, and voila! A backdrop poster! It was an event I would never forget; the crowd, the hype, the enthusiasm was greatly appreciated.
Registration for players began at 10am, and many newcomers had shown up to participate in the tournament. Registration went smoothly, the rules were explained shortly afterwards, and then we immediately jumped into the competition. By the time we started the competition, people who weren’t playing also making circle around the floor to watch their friends and family members battle. Some passers-by even stopped to watch the action, which was a great way to advertise competitive Pokémon events to the public.
Trainers from many different provinces showed up to the event, which really shows how much the player base is expanding in our region. For example, people who came from Bandung, West Java, had left their city at 5:30am to make it to the event on time. I do really appreciate that, and I hope their city will also be able to organize their own Premier Challenge soon.
Teams
The metagame here has changed over the past couple months. For example, many top players now use Mega Kangaskhan, but other skilled players in the Top 8 could be seen using anti-metagame teams. Unfortunately, the tournament usage stats with every used Pokémon were accidentally misplaced, but nevertheless, here are the teams for players who made it to the Top 8:
(1st Place) Josua Marbun
(2nd Place) Adhitya
(3rd Place) Ama Bon
(4th Place) Aya Bon
(5th Place) Icun Prayitno
(6th Place) Ditto Amalsyah
(7th Place) Josha Lawrel
(8th Place) Ronan Ramadhan
Honorable Mentions
- 3rd and 4th place were taken by the “strongest brothers” in Indonesia! Congratulations Bon Brothers!
- Ryan, who didn’t reach the Top Cut after misclicking Ice Beam instead of Energy Ball.
- Michael Tamara, who’s team is countered by Charizard and met them 4x in a row.
- My mom who actually let me organize this tournament even though the next day I had finals. (It sucked.)
- James Tamara, the youngest player in the tournament.
- The winner, Josua Marbun, traveling all the way from Bandung, another province.
- Aya Bon, who let me borrow his webcam to stream the videos! #nocapturecardisfine
- Trainers from Bandung who came all the way to Jakarta together.
Shout Outs
- Michael Pond Wijaya as the Tournament Organizer!
- Bima Amalsyah for helping with this report and all the statistics!
- Congratulations again to Josua Marbun for winning the tournament!
- All the trainers who came from other provinces!
- Chalkey who helped me with editing and formatting to make this report more awesome! Of course, thanks to all the other editors who edited my articles!
- Adrian Adi, who was originally a TCG Professor but came to help. No one in Indonesia can handle TOM as fast as he can.
- All of the event staff, including staff from the pkmn-id community! We couldn’t do this without you guys!
- Cashernn Olstore, Duniaku.net and PSenterprise for supporting the tournament!
- Countless other trainers who helped with the tournament. I can’t name them all!
- Thanks to every trainer who participated in the event. See you at the next one!
- And finally, thanks to all you who are still reading this post!
For those in our area, our upcoming Premier Challenge Omega Series 1 will be held inside a Japanese Matsuri of one of the notable universities in Indonesia. We hope to make provide a stream this time. Keep track of our updates, and Get Your Game ON!
About the Author
ryuhashegi Pokemon Competitive Battler Since 2011, but went into VGC since 2013. One of the mastermind in making an Indonesian VGC Community and forum http://pkmn-id.com Right now he is more into building the Community rather than polishing his Battling Skills. But he still has a dream to win the Nationals in his home Country, Indonesia where there would be one some time soon enough.
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12 Responses to Indonesia’s First Premier Challenge
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Always look forward to seeing what kinds of teams the Asian scene can come up with! Nice job as usual hashegi!
Awesome turnout for Indonesia’s first ever PC! There were some really cool teams using some interesting Pokémon, like that Entei.
I sincerely hope that Indonesia can get a Nationals one day. Growing the game is always a good thing
good luck in organising your future events.
Hahaha, what happened to that poor 1 junior?
Plot twist: His name is Josua and he got first.
Those 2nd-4th place teams are awesome, wonder how the worked, and good job to everyone who cut!
Why Thank you!
We do target for a nationals this year!
The Junior called James Tamara, the Senior and Junior have their own battles with a total of 12 participants. While the masters was like jungle for the lions
I am also shocked with the appearance of Mesprit and Volcarona which is not really that popular but seemed to do well in the stream!
Wow. The amount of creativity shown in these teams is astounding.
I’d like to see some of the battles, can I find them somewhere?
Yes it is! I should say the word to the participants!
Sadly it is not available in youtube or online, as it is only streamed during the battle but not uploaded. Sorry
*sad* :c
I am glad to see countries getting official tournaments……I would like to do the same for my homeland but I have stuck with some problems in the way to achieve it ……well done
I’m really interested in #2’s team. I don’t think I have ever seen Serperior and Wigglytuff used before, and their roles in the team? That Mesprit in #3 intrigues me too.