Contest: Win a Copy of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have finally been released worldwide and our friends at Nintendo of Canada have been kind enough to provide us with a digital copy of each game again. As we have for the past two years, we’re going to celebrate the release of the new game with a giveaway! Like our previous contests, we’ll have three ways of entering: Twitter, Facebook, and our ever insightful forums. Much like the European Smash Bros. 3DS and Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Demo contests we held during the fall, these codes are region locked. In this case, they are for North America so you must own a 3DS from North America to win.
Forum Entry
Simply respond to the comment thread for this article with a quick post about your introduction to the Pokémon Championship Series. Did someone tell you about it? Did you find out about it on Google? How was your first event? Let us know how you got involved with the scene!
Our comments section and forums are linked so you only need to reply once on either location and it will automatically sync. Only your first post will count though you’re free to reply to other players to discuss your experiences! One entry will be randomly chosen from the thread and that player will win their choice of Pokémon Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire.
Social Media Entry
The other copy of Pokémon Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire will be given away on Facebook and Twitter in a random draw. Enter both to increase your chance of winning!
Simply follow @nuggetbridge and retweet the following tweet to be entered into the draw.
Want a copy of Pokémon #OmegaRuby or #AlphaSapphire? Follow @nuggetbridge & retweet this for a chance to win! http://t.co/MHfAJ2S5lU #NBoras
— Nugget Bridge (@nuggetbridge) December 3, 2014
Like Nugget Bridge and post an image in the comments for the contest post with your favourite Pokémon item you own — whether that’s a game, a plush, a card, or whatever else! If you’ve got a story to go with it, be sure to include that too!
Contest End
The contest will end at 11:59 PM on Sunday, December 7th, 2014 in Pacific Standard Time. One winner will be chosen randomly from all entries received in the comments thread for this article. Another winner will be chosen randomly from all entries received on either Facebook or Twitter. The winners will be contacted on Monday, December 8th, 2014.
About the Author
Firestorm is one of the co-founders of Nugget Bridge and the Community Manager for eSports Tournament Platform Battlefy. He has been playing Pokémon since 1999, competitively since 2007, and attending tournaments since 2010. He lives in Vancouver, Canada with a degree in Interactive Art & Technology + Communications. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushanshekar.
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Was a singles player who played on smogon and friendcodes until April 2009, when I was 11 years old an saw that there were going to be various regionals around the country based on Pokemon Video Game Championships. Made it past the single elimination rounds, however was disqualified because my Jolteon was hacked (it exceeded 510 EVs). I was seriously upset, however didn’t look back and looked into the game competitively when I ran into Toler Webb on friendcodes.com.
I’ve been playing Pokemon since Emerald, and fell in love with Double Battles. was playing singles casually, but I always observed VGC matches since Black White; I never got into the scene due to the lack of friends playing the VGC format. When X and Y came out, I found people in my college the same love double battles as I do; we practiced against each other and decided to head straight on to compete in the Orlando Regionals. First time being at a Regionals was exhilarating; the rush from decision making and RNG being against you, never ceased. Playing against many good players kept me on my feet constantly; I even had the pleasure of playing against the eventual regional winner, Zach in my round 4 of Swiss. My Score was 6:3 so no there was no chance for me to top cut, but the experience has drawn me to reach further heights and grab any possible potential I may discover in this upcoming season.
I first came into pokemon battling with smogon in 2012, but I never really did itmuch becuse I was a pokemon tcg fan. Me playing tcg and watching worlds made me see the pokemon vgc world championships in 2013 and I decided to try it, and I loved it ever since! Of course I love the tcg still but Ive started to appreciate vgc more
I’ve already got 2 copies of each game, so please select a different response. I just wanted to participate in the discussion.
I’ve played since red and blue but didn’t know what IVs were until about a year ago. After chancing across a post online about how to breed competitive pokemon I started figuring that out and where to practice and stuff. After playing on showdown in the OU tier I was getting a feel for competitive play, and started looking for where I could go to play in person.
It turns out, Smogon didn’t have many big tournaments near me, but VGC had one about a 2 hour drive away, so I decided to learn the doubles game and go that route instead. Around that time Mega Kangaskhan was banned and I switched fully to VGC and never looked back.
Well, I was watching random battle vids on youtube until I stumbled upon the WCS finals of Ray Rizzo in 2012, I think. Right then, I started to play VGC. Attended my 1st tournament in the philippines a few months after, and from there I knew I wanted to be the very best.
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My interest started back in 2009 with OmegaDonut’s warstory with imperfectluck (still an awesome read to this day). It got me hyped that he was using an Empoleon, and it got me more hyped when an Empoleon won worlds that year. I started playing on Smogon in 2010, beating Serendipity R1 (the previous VGC10 tourney champion at Smogon) and got beat R3~. From there, I got hooked up with the format and I’ve been playing VGC ever since. This year, México had it’s first official competition for videogames in the form of a Premier Challenge, where I got 10th/Top16/Top Cut/Swiss 8-1 5th place.
Didn’t really know too much about the game, but this most recent Nationals (2014) I met Logan Castro (who you guys know as Yellowbox) on the bus on the way there. He told me how he was going to enter the VGC tournament, which I thought was cool since I was a TCG player. The day of the tournament I saw that he made top cut and was on the big screen against Gavin M. and in general it was all just a very exciting experience to watch the players and see the community and I wanted to give it a shot. Houston Regionals last month was my first major event, in which I went 6-2 and got 21st which I was satisfied with, but I really enjoyed the community and the few friends I have made as a whole.
So now I can say I ditched TCG for VGC and it has been an amazing experience so far.
I heard of the Official Doubles format but never bothered to play until I saw the matches from 2013 Worlds. Got into it by playing on showdown. Made a competitive team in game and just kept practicing on battlespot. Now I travel across the land, searching far and wide to be the very best like no one ever was.
I first got into the competitive scene playing at JAA. I was just a kid who didn’t know a lot about strategy, so I came in with a super cheesy explosion team. I won a few of my matches, but I ultimately got wrecked by the eventual winner of the tourney (I never expected anyone to protect my explosions XD).
After that, I went back into playing singles on simulators. I was a Singles player from the days of Netbattle (lol) up until Pokemon Online was a thing. I had decent teams at best and I liked playing the game. But, I didn’t feel like I connected to the community at all.
I got first interested in VGC when I found out my buddy Nave was also a Pokemon player. We talked about going to regionals for awhile, back in like 2012. Finally, we decided to go to the Madison Regionals in 2013. We’ve been going together ever since. I’m happy to now be a member of such an awesome community!
I’m a fairly new Pokemon player, as Y was my first Pokemon game. I started playing competitively around spring 2014, but I didn’t get into doubles/VGC until 3-4 months ago when an online friend introduced me to it. I haven’t been to any live events yet (mostly due to my location), but I hope to attend one soon.
I stumbled on competitive Pokemon about a year ago on the Smogon subforum and I’ve enjoyed it ever since n_n been to 3 events so far but haven’t placed very well (my first time being my best lol)
I knew about Pokemon World Championship when a friend told about Pokemon World Championship 2013: Sejun Park vs Ryosuke Kosuge, it was an epic match that inspired me to play VGC
Been around tournament circuit since pre-VGC (2005, 2006). Kept an eye out for tournaments and discover VGS 2008. 2008 was the Coasts regionals where entry was a lottery by email submission. Traveling to coasts was not plausible for last chance lottery and wasn’t selected by email lottery.
Modern VGC came around 2009 where the lottery was done in person at the event. Being less flawed than the previous year, my brother and I gambled and flew out for our first official VGC event in Dallas knowing well in advance we may not get to play. Both of us were selected but organization was silly back then, so we played each other in Top 16 after the Finalists’ Lounge. Wesley won and would face off against eventual champion Alaka. He was one round away from qualifying for Nationals that year but all in all good tournament.
My first experience with the championship series was eight years ago when I went to the website on the back of booster pack. I then found out about pokemon leagues and started attending to play the card game. My first experience with the video game circuit was when I tried my hand at 2013 Nationals since I did poorly the day before in card game.
I found out about the Pokémon Championship Series back in 2011. I was listening to a Pokémon podcast called It’s Super Effective and at the time, the hosts were really into competitive Pokémon, particularly the VGC. So hearing their experiences at Nationals and Worlds really piqued my interest in the series, and got me to start trying to do some more research into the format. Eventually led me to Nugget Bridge, where I was able to really start getting my feet wet in higher level competitive play.
hahah XD I have only competivily played pokemon for 3 years, and played it for funzies for ever:) I remember my friend squir2 always playing pokemon and going to tournements and things…so one day I finaly said I’d go when he invited me:) so we went out the next day and bought pokemon white, and I rummaged through my room trying to find my dsi:p then I had a week to beat the e4(thought I had to do this) and try to build a team:) I ended up siting the car untill the event opened trying to level my pokemon XD I tottaly didnt make it 🙂 but luckily my squir2 was there to save me and let me borrow some of his pokemon:) I did however mannage to train and level my kingdra, so I only had to borrow 5 pokemon:) so I go into the event and am super nervous and don’t know what is going on at all. I get to my first battle and bamb! turn one, two of my pokemon faint! Now being a smrt person I had no idea how to switch pokemon…so I sat there for a solid 14 seconds trying to switch my pokemon(you had to select what slot it went into) before my opponent helped me out:) Proceeded to lose to him:) then I went to my next opponent who had a blizzard spam team that just ate through me! On my third round magic struck! My opponent tried to fake out my gengar! but bhahah Gengar is a ghost type! XD we laughed about it because neither of us were any good and were just super nervous…and she became a solid pokemon friend from then on:)
It was fun reliving this event, thank you:)
I came across competetive pokemon a few years back. Through time i’ve found a good number of YouTube channels that covered different metas. Aaron Zheng’s channel was the one that introduced me to the VGC meta and i’ve been hooked ever since.
After getting X and Y I simply wanted to know if there was an actual competitive scene because I would see ribbons pokemon can get for competing in them or special VGC event pokemon. I have only done the international challenges. I really want to go to a regionals or a premiere challenge one day. I found NB just from looking up a VGC website and a lot of people on youtube suggest this site for VGC.
Introduction to the Pokémon Championship Series
an event called Pokémon Festa 2007: Pokémon PalCity that toured Japan
Did someone tell you about it?
a group of school friends and their families were going, so I tagged along
Did you find out about it on Google?
no
How was your first event?
really crowded, but fun for everyone
Let us know how you got involved with the scene!
saw lots of other girls doing well, winning, so I knew the WCS was accessible to people like me
Well, I was looking up online tournaments on Nintendo and I happened to stumble across VGC which probably changed my life from training wild pokemon and being in the 1000- ranked online play to always being around 1700+ and me breeding a whole lot of pokemon and actually learning about teams/strategies/moves/tutors/etc 🙂
Back in 2012 I searched for a battling format where Arcanine shines, then I learnet about VGC format where I could support My Arcanine with Ninetales and its ability Drought.
I got back into Pokemon thanks to X&Y (they looked so extraordinary that I just had to get a 3DS for them) Played frantically until the end of December and then left it again until March, finished the game and then got into competitive by looking for communities (I reached Smogon somehow first) Then, on their FB page they started promoting the World Championship watched them, got hyped about apache winning world champion and then started to look for communities or sites with doubles as their main theme, this way I got into competitive, trying to qualify into worlds 2015 and getting more and more hooked into the world of Pokemon, specifically doubles!
I had sporadically been playing Pokemon since Diamond/Pearl, played a little bit of online but not overly much. Stumbled upon YouTube videos of the 2012 World Championships and got super hyped to commit myself to learning VGC and competing in 2013 but unfortunately life got in the way and I was never able to attend any events.
However, after getting back into it with the release of X/Y, a link popped up on the side of Facebook of all places, advertising the 2014 Melbourne Regionals, which I attended as my first ever competitive event. It was a fantastic atmosphere and while I haven’t done anything of note YET, I feel my knowledge and abilities have taken leaps forward and I fully intend to continue competing for as long as I can.
i watched the 2008 and 2009 worlds matches on youtube and one of my friends and I wanted to try the events so i went to the Seattle Regionals in 2010 and i was unaware round one loss would eliminate me. i still have the team sheet for the tournament (lol i was a total noob when it came to stats back then). then in 2011 my dad flew me to san diego for the LCQ in the senior division at worlds and when i won my first ever tournament round i felt a bit pumped with a load . then i faced “the” Kamran Jahadi (aka Kamz) and he wiped me 4-0. then when Kamz told me he made to top 2 I couldn’t watch the finals because i had to leave early because my dad got tickets for us to leave on the day the finals were going on. when i heard Kamz won worlds I ended up sticking with the competitive play because i not only wanted my revenge but I was comfortable playing the games. I ended up taking the whole 2012 season off and decided to learn certain combinations and study the formats. and now I’m glad I’m sort of apart of what we call Esports.
I started playing competitive Pokemon in 10th grade to help escape the stress of school. I’ve did fairly poorly at my first (and only) event, Philadelphia 2013 where I went 4-4, losing to Kristian (Mosquito), Jeudy (SoulSur), and Cameron (StormFront). I plan to attend more events once the new rules are released, assuming college is going well. NuggetBridge has a great community of people. Although I have a very small role, I’m happy to be included.
I started playing in 2010 when I downloaded Shoddy Battle, but it took me less than a week to realize how boring singles was. So I went looking for a simulator that hosted Double Battles and discovered Skarmbliss on Netbattle Supremacy. I had heard about VGCs the previous year and I wanted to compete. Doubles has always fascinated me more than Singles and I knew I was a doubles players from that very first battle on Route 104 in Ruby Version. Kind of interesting how drastically my life changed from one single relatively insignificant trainer battle.
I watched the live stream from worlds earlier this year, and I also found Cybertron’s youtube channel, which introduced me to many aspects of competitive battling, and I’ve been hooked ever since! My first event was a local premier challenge, which I ended up getting 2nd at.
I started my competitive Pokemon journey when I was in ninth grade (boy time sure flies). I attended a regional in 2009 that year in northern California with zero knowledge of competitive play and yes, with my in game team. I unfortunately was not picked in the lottery but I learned about the competitive Pokemon scene there. I first went to smogon and started wifi battling in the OU tier But got quickly bored with fighting the same types of teams and with the slow play style of singles Which didn’t really work well with me taking AP classes and playing high school football at the time. I eventually found out that their would be more VGC tournaments in the future so I searched for a different website to practice the rule set for VGC 2010. My search ended at the first sight I found, the original VGC website Skarmbliss. VGC worked out perfectly for me as a tier as it didn’t take too much time to play one game so I could play a couple games before summer football practice without fear of being late. I never posted once on skarbliss but I did play in a few live tournaments there on the weekends. After that I never looked back and hope to continue playing in both live and wifi VGC tournaments
My first regionals were at Philadelphia 3 years ago. I found out about them on the Pokemon.com website accidentally. I had been searching around for local leagues to join when I saw a listing for fall regionals in Philadelphia. I was so excited that something like this existed that I couldn’t wait to go and give it a try! Even though I did horribly at those regionals, I still had a fantastic time and I met and played against so many wonderful people and I’ve been going to events ever since. I’ve now managed to get my boyfriend into Pokemon and he attended his first regional with me in Philly this past fall.