Results from the 2013 Italy and Korea Pokémon National Championships

80 Responses to Results from the 2013 Italy and Korea Pokémon National Championships

1. Fatum says:

   May 13, 2013 at 2:21 pm

   What?! Are you serious?
   Ok, its known that UK, Germany and especially Spain have a greater number of good players if compared to the smaller italian vgc comunity [specifying that i’m not referring in any way to the quality of the players]; despite this, this time 5/16 of the top cut was Italian, and i can confirm that our players were not ended up there by chance, we were some of the best, and this is also the proof that the new elimination system worked really well.
   You said yourself that many players performances had been determined by hax,[I had been surpringly haxed out as well in my top16 match against Dragoran5 just when i almost had the game]. Please dont speak like if me, Braindeadprimeape and Shinycarletto had no way to make to the top4, cause its not true at all.

   What, I think you totally misunderstood me there. Of course those Italian players made the cut because they were good and I expect no less from anyone who achieves that, and I wonder where you got from that I’d think there would be no Italians other than Matty worthy of top 4. I was actually going in the opposite direction! First, I think, only one player from the soil where the event is held qualifying is pretty meager, but that’s still an old fault of the system. However nice the increased involvement in international communities may be, would you really disagree that something like a region lock would rather harm your country than rewarding more worthy players? Then, assuming Matty remains your only invitee (with Bochum being pretty hard as well and my lack of information who goes to Birmingham at all, it’s a realistic possibility), that would be, well, objectively it would be a repeat of last year’s representation situation. I think no one would argue that he perfectly belongs to Vancouver but for the whole country it’s rather bad if there is only one player that gets basically everything and all the others nothing. I’ve played and heard of quite some decent local players throughout the last days so there’s definitely a chance to build a community that can hold its own against the outside. Doesn’t it feel somewhat disheartening if always the same people take it all? What we can see for sure is that Germany keeps progressing simply because there are always newer players to achieve something worthwhile.
2. TDS says:

   May 13, 2013 at 2:30 pm

   Man seeing Ray win Worlds 3 times in a row disheartens me and makes me want to quit.
3. Flash says:

   May 13, 2013 at 2:45 pm

   First of all I must congratulate Matty and the others who qualified or did well in this tournament. With that being said I’d like to thank you for thinking about me as a strong player and a favourite. Well, I didn’t have a bye but it doesn’t mean I was out of shape, it’s just that not every player have the time needed to do well in wifi tournaments, I participated in every one and played as much games as I could but hadn’t enough time to spend a whole weekend playing countinously.

   About my performance in this tournament I must say a couple of things, I had 0 sleep the night before (as well as Mithos and K-OS) because we had some last minute troubles with the teams we were using and we had to remade completely some of the mons of the team because they awkardly disapeared.

   It didn’t help that the event started sooooo damn late. About 1 am, 5 hours later than the time the organization said. Undoubtely, registering and managing all the players, divisions and all take time, but it could have been done in 2 hours I think or 3 at max, but not 5. This paired with our 0 sleep killed us even before the tournament started. We encouraged ourselves to play the best we could because we ofc prefered to play exhausted than not playing at all or playing with random stuff we weren’t confident with.

   My tournament killer came in 2nd round, a match played perfectly by my opponent and a match to forget by my side, bad play after bad play, not following the guidelines i had against the team composition of my opponent, no one of them, I did almost every turn the opposite move I should be doing, the moves and its I had studied a lot of times before the event. The match was over in turn 1.

   Then my opponents… they were good except maybe one but didn’t do well later giving me a pathetic resistance and what finally killed me, the 5th round, I was still alive and streaking, being 4-1 at this moment and I had a crucial miss in that match against an strong opponent and friend that costed me the match. GG It was almost game for me if that attack landed and the same for my opponent if he avoided it. being 4-2 with my resistance i knew the top cut was unrecheable for me. I’m not complaining about hax, it’s normal to had bad luck in a few matches to the point to lose 1 but It was my fault for having 1 loss already. With 5-1 I could have won the last 2 to 100% top cut or losing 1 and wining the another 1 but with higher resistance that could have made me quialify to the top cut.

   Knowing I wasn’t topcutting made me play my last 2 rounds not at 100% and I lost 1 and won 1, I barely could walk or keep my eyes opened, well I was just trying to survive, only thinking about going back to the hotel to rest.

   Now you know why I perfomed like that, not telling you as a excuse, it was entirely my fault for not checking before if the teams were ok or if we did some mistakes eving them, giving them the hold items etc.

   And to finish this wall of text i’ll share my opinions about the organization and all. It is far better this system than single elimination, no doubts. But it was evidenced that the organization wasnt used to it and didn’t handle ir properly or fast enough. Excesive waiting time, excesive tournament time, 0 music, 0 speakers, not enough information given to the players, lame battery charge system and more. To sum up, swiss portion: horrific organization. Then the next day: top cut. They ran it really smothly, there were screens, etc there were even a mc at the end of the event, a little bit late, but it is more than nothing. Really good driven top cut day, the sad thing was the attendance, a lot of people just participated the saturday and didn’t came back to the venue the sunday because it was so far from the centre and the peaple didnt want to spend the amount of money and time required to go to and from the venue just for watching the top cut whre they weren’t playing.

   In conclusion, I’m glad for the people who qualified and I’m very happy because it is always a blast hanging out with my ever growing VGC friends, a little sad and disapointed because i know I could have reached top cut without much trouble under normal circumstances because I had 2 teams coming to these event, 2 strong teams that showed they were good enough under the right hands even if they hadn’t use them before (Donstev lost 1-2 in the top 8 with one of the teams and he didn’t know nothing of that teams a couple of hours prior to the event) and sad because this year I think Milan has been my 1st and last VGC of the season, I really can’t afford going to Bochum or Birmingham to prove that not having a bye or not being constantly in the spotlight doesn’t mean anything, I have different training methods.

   Thanks for taking the time to read this and I wish you all the best for the 2 remaining events in Europe and at Vancouver, make Europe proud guys, can’t wait till next year to see you all again D: and thanks TPCi for the step by step improvement you are doing, I hope this year is a transition year and I hope the next year the events will be as they should be (and one event in Spain please).
4. Mean says:

   May 13, 2013 at 2:47 pm

   What, I think you totally misunderstood me there. Of course those Italian players made the cut because they were good and I expect no less from anyone who achieves that, and I wonder where you got from that I’d think there would be no Italians other than Matty worthy of top 4. I was actually going in the opposite direction! First, I think, only one player from the soil where the event is held qualifying is pretty meager, but that’s still an old fault of the system. However nice the increased involvement in international communities may be, would you really disagree that something like a region lock would rather harm your country than rewarding more worthy players? Then, assuming Matty remains your only invitee (with Bochum being pretty hard as well and my lack of information who goes to Birmingham at all, it’s a realistic possibility), that would be, well, objectively it would be a repeat of last year’s representation situation. I think no one would argue that he perfectly belongs to Vancouver but for the whole country it’s rather bad if there is only one player that gets basically everything and all the others nothing. I’ve played and heard of quite some decent local players throughout the last days so there’s definitely a chance to build a community that can hold its own against the outside. Doesn’t it feel somewhat disheartening if always the same people take it all? What we can see for sure is that Germany keeps progressing simply because there are always newer players to achieve something worthwhile.

   Yeah i see, luckily the same fact is happening in Italy as well form an year up to now.
   Speaking of attendance i can tell you that a big chunk of the non-qualified Italians are going to Bochum, while more or less nobody is attending Brmingham, and as i heard its the same for the Spaniards with Birmingham.
   I’d really like more than one Italian to be in the final european top16 too, but honestly, with the only date remained for me and my countrymen being Bochum and our best achieve being the top16, which indeed doesnt mean too much, i just say that it’ll be hard for us to qualify, cause we basically need to make at least to the top8 there.
    
   ps: Glad to knwo that i got what you said wrong ^^”
5. Scott says:

   May 13, 2013 at 3:01 pm

   Hope you find a way to get to one of the other Nationals, Flash. You’re a great player, Worlds would be better with you there. Everyone has bad tournaments once in a while.

   EDIT: Trolling aside, I think that Matty winning again is GOOD for the underdeveloped Italian community. It gives them a hero to look up to. One of the things that got me to be a better player is when Ray won worlds in 2010 and showed us that the Japanese were not invincible. How discouraging would it be to us if all 4 Americans lose to their Japanese opponents in top 8?

   While “hero” is pretty melodramatic, I definitely agree with your line of thought here. The US playerbase is probably a lot better for having Ray in a similar way to how, say, the Spanish playerbase is probably better for having Ruben (as bad of a role model for them as I think he is). It’s good for countries to have that star player to look up who has shown it can be done and is kind of the measuring stick for players to compare themselves against.

   2010 Nats and Worlds is kind of what got me into VGC from Singles, so it was a little different for me being an outsider at that point, but I think the drama of it was a big part of what got me into VGC and Ray winning is a big part of that (I wonder if this site would exist without that win). I think Sejun is kind of a similar player for Korea… having people like those four is important.
6. Matty says:

   May 13, 2013 at 4:36 pm

   Despite the quality of the tournament being so much higher than ever, it also delivers good proof of my thesis that you simply can not win Master Division tournaments these days without being lucky (or not unlucky, however you may put it). Let’s start this with the champion himself: I think he used a pretty threatening team to achieve his first victory at an official live event but also a daring one: large focus on standard Kingdrunk, many Pokémon with Thundurus issues but no way to OHKO or even 2HKO him without Helping Hand, and a Breloom that’s susceptile to 1-turn sleeps and 2-hit Bullet Seeds to add to that. And then this strange top 8 match, of course, which I still confuses me in some ways… 

    
   You know…the perfect team doesn’t exist, especially in this metagame that’s so varied and complex. I found two thundurus in swiss rounds, another in top16, thundurus-t in the semi final and another thundurus in the final. I hit 2 times with bullet seed and faced 1 sleep turns, like in my first top8 match (probably it costed me the battle). Every team has his defects and problems…the important thing is knowing what to do in certain cases and playing smart.
   I don’t know what you mean about the top8 match, but if there is someone who has been penalized by what happened it was me, because I would have won the game but had to repeat it due to a technical problem, beating my opponent 3 times after losing game 1.
    
   I’m pretty sure that I won’t be the only italian at worlds this year…and I’m really happy that 5 italians ranked in top16. Alberto, Arash and Carlo had good chances to do better, and hopefully they’ll do in Bochum. Italian vgc community is slowly growing…don’t forget that here vgc was introduced in 2011 (in germany you have nationals since 2009)…probably we just need to wait some time for a solid and stronger community.
7. Sapphire Birch says:

   May 13, 2013 at 5:18 pm

   Seriously, what is with all these weird perish trap teams popping up? Only a limited numer of players can use perish trap teams effectively and I keep meeting people on random matchup who have no idea how to use their Wolfe Glick clone teams. Just because a good player like Wolfe Glick uses some obscure strategy everybody suddenly starts copying him. Come on people, where did your originality go?!

   This post gave me cancer.

   The way perish trap is played now is insanely different from what wolfe used. Perish trap became an insanelyy solid concept once gothorita was released. Originality? Seriously? Since when did that even matter in competitive gaming? You play what you feel is the best team not for style points. Perish trap is a ridiculously good strat now and I’m glad someone had the balls to use it finally. I’ve been preaching about its greatness for months glad to see it finally saw success.

   Now someone go win with eelektrik.
8. Baz Anderson says:

   May 13, 2013 at 6:51 pm

   Wow. Well, where to start…
    
   Since I have arrived back from the weekend I have seen so many people wishing me luck and predicting me to do very well, and it really makes me happy to see – so thanks for all that. I was not so confident myself going into the event because, although I have been winning a lot of live tournaments, I don’t have a good record of real life events. Granted, I am a much better player than last year and I had the worst pairing at top 8 at Manchester #5 a couple of months ago, but without real life success and the added expectation I wasn’t sure how I would do at all.
    
   My very first game of the tournament was against Eloy Hahn, who I had not previously heard of. I wasn’t too comfortable in the game, and it ended extremely closely with Eloy having his last remaining Pokémon at 10%. So I lost my first game and had the dinner break to stew on my loss, fearing that things were just going to go from bad to worse and I’d end up flopping at another real life event. I got into the swing of things for the rest of the afternoon though and went undefeated until I was 5-1 where I came up against BraindeadPrimape. He got a Scald Burn which went a long way to giving him the win, we talked a little afterwards and he’s a really cool guy though – he apologised about the Burn, but these things happen in Pokémon and should be expected. So at 5-2 I have to win my final game to have a chance to top cut. My last game was an almost mirror match, but I am extremely comfortable with my team having built and worked on it for a good few months before this style of team became more popular. I went 6-2 and made the top cut at 7th place with the highest opponents’ win % of the 6-2s (and the second highest to Matty of the whole Swiss rounds having lost to only 2nd and 3rd place).
    
   The next day I know my opponent in the top 16 round will be Bellanko, and I know he knows my team where I didn’t have any great detail on his team. I was nervous, and the first game didn’t start too well for me, but I pulled it around and won. The second game was a little more scary too, but I managed to win this also. I was a little sad to knock Bellanko out because we have been in contact with each other for a while now and he’s a cool guy. Not only was Swiss rounds and top cutting uncharted territory, but now I had made it to top 8 and knew one more game would get me to Worlds. For some reason I was under the impression I would be playing the winner of BraindeadPrimape’s top 16 game, but found out my top 8 opponent would be Eloy Hahn – the guy who kicked my day of so wonderfully the previous day.
    
   The first game was close, as it was the previous day. A few less full Paralysis’ and perhaps I could have won, but unfortunately I was a game down. The second game couldn’t have gone much worse for me than it did too. His Hitmontop managed to just cling on to a big hit – had it gone down I had a good shot at winning – but unfortunately for me it survived and with a pretty cool Custap Berry dealt massive damage to my team. I think there was a Dark Pulse Flinch and a full Paralysis or something to run salt into the wounds too, but I knew this was the end for me. With hindsight I would have played the games very differently, and although his team seemed to have a great matchup against mine I feel like it was a case of me letting my team down as opposed to my obsessively-tweaked team’s fault. Eloy deserved this one though, he showed by reaching the final that he’s a very good player.
    
   It hurts to lose in the top 8, it still hurts now. I feel like I let everyone who expected me to do so well down, and I fear I won’t get such a good chance to do it again. Even if I made top 16 in Europe after Birmingham, without a travel award – money is going to be a problem for Worlds. The 3DS XL is of course a nice consolation, and I can take away Swiss and top cut experience for the remaining Nationals too. I love my team, it is the best thing I have created, and I hope to give it justice in the next three weeks.
    
   Aside from the tournament, it was fantastic to meet and talk to so many people in person that I hadn’t met before. At the end of the day, the community is the best thing about this whole VGC thing. You guys I met are all great, and I hope I’ll get chance to meet the North American bunch in August – but I suppose we’ll have to wait for parts 2 and 3 of the European tour to see how it all pans out!
9. Recon X says:

   May 13, 2013 at 9:40 pm

   Show some respect to Jordi at least, this post is incredibly condescending and just not necessary, and he is clearly one of the people who know how to use perish trap effectively. I personally praise him for taking an interesting strategy and winning an invitation/trip to Worlds with it. Wolfe’s team was also pretty unique (Kingdra, Gengar, Delcatty) and just because someone uses a perish trap team does not mean they are copying Wolfe 9.9 And you are overexaggerating the use of Perish Trap, I played one person in the entire April International who had Perish Trap and it was far from Wolfe’s team.

   also http://nuggetbridge.com/forums/topic/1522-all-offense-teams/?p looking at Wolfe’s worlds team to help someone build their team and tell them to use Swagger just because it can get you out of tough spots… ok yeah preach originality 

   on another note congrats to Sejun, Wolfe, Anilcan and Luca for qualifying, love these guys

   Whoa, just whoa. Okay, first of all I never intended to piss anybody off with my post and I can see that it appalled a ton of people. Allow me to clarify a few things. First of all, I would never knowingly insult any Nuggetbridger, and in fact I give my congratulations to everybody who qualified for Worlds in Italy and Korea. I don’t recall mentioning a single word about Jordi and I wasn’t referring to him. I DEFINITELY didn’t intend to diss his team. Secondly, I was referring to a fair sized group of inexperienced random matchup players and not experienced VGC players when speaking about “Wolfe Glick clone teams”. I’ve seen many poorly played teams created in this manner that are very close to what Wolfe was running and was I was personally a little annoyed. I am NOT saying that everybody running a perish trap team is copying Wolfe Glick! I even thought of running one myself! On the issue of advice I gave to somebody on teambuilding, I simply said that Wolfe’s 2012 Worlds team was a good example, not to copy it. I recommended swagger simply because it’s a great move and a many people use it. I am not condemning people who use the good ideas of others, I’m saying that it’s more rewarding to come up with a good idea by yourself every once and a while.
   Please accept my apologies, Cybertron, Jordi, Sapphire Birch and everybody else on Nuggetbridge who might have been offended by this. I really don’t want to get off on the wrong foot, considering I’m a bit new.
   Sincerely,
   Aaron S.       
10. Huy says:

    May 13, 2013 at 9:45 pm

    Let’s not forget Chris Tsai using Perish Trap in 09 and IPL using Perish Trap in 10.
     
    Also Perish Sleep Trap being banned in GSC.
     
    But congrats to Sejun and Matty for winning their respective tournaments! It’s not an easy feat to qualify for Worlds 3 years in a row. Hopefully I can join my fellow Korean brother in Worlds by grinding in this year =]
11. Lati says:

    May 14, 2013 at 2:34 am

    I never had to fight so much with myself not to clarify that the way a certain person suggested using Swagger simply is wrong and that you can do so many better things with a moveslot other than donating it to the RNG but that´s for another topic, unfortunately. One short comment on that for that certain person, though: Watch some of Ray´s Worlds matches. He had MUCH better stuff to do with his turns.^^
     
    Hmm, guess I should actually start talking about on-topic stuff…
     
    My confidence for Milan wasn´t that high, unfortunately. I had some pretty bad losses with my team the day before, so I kinda started doubting what has filled me with confidece the last weeks. Still,I decided to run the team regardless because it worked consistently well for me if I didn´t choke badly…^^
     
    My first match was against someone with… something that could be called a rain-paranoid sandstorm team (Ttar/Exca/Chomp/Gastrodon/Ludi/Volc). My team being RainRoom, I didn´t really know how to react to it, so I just decided go into rain mode and lure his counters out which turned out to be the right decision. This didn´t make the match an easy win, tough… His sets were pretty strange and ranged from Outrage Chomp to Blizzard Gastrodon (that always hit) to Icy Wind Ludicolo, the last one almost costing me the game. Because of this randomness, I never really knew how to react safely and had to make some risky calls which, fortunately, worked for me. I was kinda glad when the match was over, though, because I can´t remember ever having such a difficult match against someone who ran Outrage in doubles…
     
    My second match was against someone who seemed to be more into doubles and ran a rain team featuring MetaCress. Long story short: He got into a great position after a miss but the actual end of the game was me not abusing a bad play on his part in the late-game.
     
    The next 3 matches weren´t too interesting… Standard stuff that couldn´t handle a T-Wave immune Swift Swimmer too well.^^
     
    My 6th match was against my first non-italian and someone who I never liked to face due to him constantly beating me on PO when I faced him – DaFlo. Even though the match was embarrasing yet kind of cool for me, I don´t wanna go into detail about it. Two things about it, though: Time Limit on picking can be quite annoying but mispicks don´t have to result in losses.^^
     
    The 7th match was by far the coolest one in my opinion, at least team-wise. I had to face Arbol Deku and he ran a pretty interesting team featuring Bronzong and Eruption Heatran. I never really got why he didn´t pick Gassy against me, though, since it´s have gotten him into a really great position against my team… Still, a very good game and an even cooler team. The crit on his Bronzong most likely was the deciding factor, though…
     
    My 8th and last match was the most embarissing one for me imo. I had to face Matty.^^ Even though my surprise Safeguard got me into a decent position because of it enabling me a safe TR setup against his team, I realized too late that I misclicked on the mon choice and sent in the wrong mon shortly after TR went up. After that, the battle just couldn´t go to my favor anymore because I kinda gave up inside after I realized my mistake. The game ended in a 4-0 and me not even seeing more than his leads… Still, a great game regardless. Matteo could perfectly abuse my mistakes which led to a deserved loss on my part.^^
     
    I gotta admit that I was incredibly happy after I´ve seen that I barely made Top Cut when the results were posted.^^ Or so it seems… After a little walk though Milan and a meal with my fellow clan members, I checked my Whatsapp and saw a message from Sewadle saying that he´s sorry for what happened to me. After a little research, I found out the story that has been discussed in the other Milan thread already… Wow, way to ruin the remaining day.^^
     
    The next day kind of was a mixed bag for me: On the one hand, I really wanted to see the matches and all the awesome people I met yesterday or didn´t get to see yesterday but on the other, I didn´t really feel like it because it´d always remind me of how I got screwed out of top cut because of another dumb mistake from TPCi. (not the only organization fail but I guess there were enough rants about that) What also was kinda funny was that some other person had exactly the same problem as Mean but they told him that “it couldn´t be fixed”… These guys are by far the best trolls I´ve ever seen and they don´t even intend it.
    Regardless, the matches were pretty good (I even had some cool discusions with Szymoninho, Kyriakou, Mean and Baz about what what Matty and Sekiam would do next during one of their games^^), the people were awesome (shoutouts will follow in the warstory or team report that I´ll write after Bochum) and some stuff like Billa´s bro doing the Balotelli after one of his matches or some answers from the top 4 after being asked whether they wanna say something made the day extremely awesome and unforgettable.^^
     
    And for those wondering what my “compensation prize” for their mistake was: Nothing.^^ I got a textbook-excuse from one of the judges and the whole situation felt extremely awkward because I just couldn´t think of any other polite way to answer them other than “yes” or “thanks” and believe me, there was a lot that I´d have loved to say but would´ve probably been a little… counter-productive, to put it gently.^^ And as soon as I´ve heard that they´ll “try their best” to get something, I knew I´d go home empty-handed since this sounded like they´d be trying to avoid giving me something this way… (I should know – I like to do it that way, too xDD) Oh well, the event was still extremely fun because of all the awesome people I finally got to see in real life!^^ 
12. Firestorm says:

    May 14, 2013 at 2:45 am

    Oh wow, they didn’t even just give you some TCG booster packs? That was a really crappy of them =( I’m sorry for what happened to you but I’m happy the rest of the tournament was enjoyable! In a few months you’ll probably remember the good parts more than the bad parts at least
13. PrettyLittleLiar says:

    May 14, 2013 at 6:34 am

    Yeah the only way to win a Pokemon tournament is by getting lucky. Look at the world championships, the top 8 are pretty much randomly picked by who gets the most luck.

    Look at Matty, because two of the Pokemon on his team used less than 100% accuracy moves, all of his matches were decided by luck. Using the move spore is also luck-oriented because you obviously need to wait 2 turns to attack the sleeping pokemon and hope it doesn’t wake up.
14. NidoRich says:

    May 14, 2013 at 8:38 am

    Yeah the only way to win a Pokemon tournament is by getting lucky. Look at the world championships, the top 8 are pretty much randomly picked by who gets the most luck.

    Look at Matty, because two of the Pokemon on his team used less than 100% accuracy moves, all of his matches were decided by luck. Using the move spore is also luck-oriented because you obviously need to wait 2 turns to attack the sleeping pokemon and hope it doesn’t wake up.

    You make it sound like players like Matty and Ray win things only because of luck. This is so wrong, yeah people can get lucky BUT these players are the most highly skilled players in the world and they win things more because of their skill rather than luck.
15. honchkro13 says:

    May 14, 2013 at 8:51 am

    Something tells me PrettyLittleLiar was just being sarcastic
16. TDS says:

    May 14, 2013 at 9:07 am

    The number of people who don’t know PrettyLittleLiar’s true identity is pretty funny.
17. PrettyLittleLiar says:

    May 14, 2013 at 9:59 am

    The number of people who don’t know PrettyLittleLiar’s true identity is pretty funny.

    I am obviously Alison dilaurentis’s secret evil twin that kills the good twin and takes her place
18. Scott says:

    May 14, 2013 at 10:00 am

    I don’t think you even need to in order to see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch in some of these comments, it’s like the concept of sarcasm is totally foreign…
19. TDS says:

    May 14, 2013 at 10:04 am

    I had cinnamon toast crunch this morning and I couldnt see the sparkles, either I am getting old or becoming blind.
20. NidoRich says:

    May 14, 2013 at 10:34 am

    Sorry, I can’t see sarcasm in text…..yet

    If I lived in the US i’d probs know…..all the more reason for me to attempt to make it to worlds so I can get to know you all better :3
21. BraindeadPrimeape says:

    May 14, 2013 at 2:21 pm

    Fantastic weekend: a great opportunity to meet old friends, make new ones and have fun fighting with high level players. Honestly, I left for Milan on bad omens, in the last days of tests the team hadn’t convinced me so I had started to think I wouldn’t have gone over 5-3 on the first day, losing the opportunity to qualify for the top-cut. Even in the tests for the International Challenge this team hadn’t convinced me but it still proved to be very solid bringing me and my brother to good results so this made me hopeful. I played against opponents of high level, sometimes I was lucky (as with BazAnderson or ‘bob), sometimes my opponents were a bit lucky (for example in the defeat in round 4 or in Game 2 of TOP16) but I think this is part of the game, so that’s ok. I ended the day one with a surprising 7-1, momentarily third behind Matty and Eloy. By the way I would like to say one thing: a team that has a record of 15 wins and 1 loss in day one can only be a team builded very well and this was the thing that made me happier. Obviously when you are in TOP16 and see the opportunity to qualify for Worlds you always want to win but in the end my opponent deserved the win so I shaked his hand and gave him my congratulations, I started playing pokemon a year and a half ago and this was the first national which I was well prepared for so I’m happy with my result. I hope to get a good result in Bochum, obviously reach top4 and win the trip would be fantastic, but mostly I hope to have fun and have a good time in good company as in Milan. I stop annoying you with my post congratulating especially with my brothers Matty and Nicola but also with all the other guys who reached the top4 and thanking all the friends who made this great weekend!
22. Firestorm says:

    May 14, 2013 at 2:40 pm

    Article Correction: It seems that when putting Mean into Top Cut, they put him in at 15th rather than 14th (which is where his tiebreaker should have seeded him). The standings have been changed to reflect that. This means Mean lost to Dragoran5 in Top 16 and Donstev lost in Top 8 after beating BraindeadPrimeape.
23. Baz Anderson says:

    May 14, 2013 at 3:19 pm

    Article Correction: It seems that when putting Mean into Top Cut, they put him in at 15th rather than 14th (which is where his tiebreaker should have seeded him). The standings have been changed to reflect that. This means Mean lost to Dragoran5 in Top 16 and Donstev lost in Top 8 after beating BraindeadPrimeape.

     
    Yes, this is correct. Mean was given the choice to be placed either 14th or 15th for some reason, so he chose 15th to play Eloy instead of Alberto.
24. Recon X says:

    May 14, 2013 at 9:05 pm

    To a certain person:
    I have a watched many of Ray’s worlds matches and he is incredibly perceptive and crazy good at pokemon in general. For people who aren’t top level players and don’t have great prediction skills (and even for those who are), swagger is a wonderful move that really can throw a wrench in your opponent’s strategy. With priority from prankster, it becomes even more deadly. Sure, if your’e feeling like a 3 time world champ, there are infinite options for that empty moveslot, but swagger is an excellent move for turning a match around, screwing up your opponent’s strategy, or just giving you that critical free turn to take down a threatening pokemon. Back on topic, congrats again to our qualifying Nuggetbridgers.   
25. Mean says:

    May 15, 2013 at 9:23 am

    Here are the senior and master finals
     
    Mprox vs Billabro in the mid screen, Dragoran5 vs Matty on the right screen.
     
    
     
    
26. Dim says:

    May 15, 2013 at 11:18 am

    It’s not just not being from the US, NidoRich. I took that comment seriously too. Seriously, if you are of the mind that sarcasm is EVER well translated over the Internet when you don’t know how the person is in real life, then you are sadly mistaken. You have to know someone’s sense of humor to get it.
27. seasicknesss says:

    May 15, 2013 at 2:33 pm

    To a certain person:
    I have a watched many of Ray’s worlds matches and he is incredibly perceptive and crazy good at pokemon in general. For people who aren’t top level players and don’t have great prediction skills (and even for those who are), swagger is a wonderful move that really can throw a wrench in your opponent’s strategy. With priority from prankster, it becomes even more deadly. Sure, if your’e feeling like a 3 time world champ, there are infinite options for that empty moveslot, but swagger is an excellent move for turning a match around, screwing up your opponent’s strategy, or just giving you that critical free turn to take down a threatening pokemon. Back on topic, congrats again to our qualifying Nuggetbridgers.

    I think you’re trying a little too hard here to validate luck-based strategies in hopes of screwing over your opponent who outplay you. Yes, swagger can get you out of a tight spot if the RNG is in your favor, but really using it to that degree and just hoping that both your opponents mons sit there hitting themselves so you can get a win and say “GG outplayed” is a bit ridiculous. Obviously Ray is more than “crazy good,” but I think the reason the others have brought him up is because he uses swagger, not to hopefully screw someone over with RNG, but to create win conditions for Metagross to yams on things at +2. Clearly para-fusion-rockslide-flinch spam is a very potent strategy, but i’m fairly certain top level players build teams around knowing that RNG exists, but never really wanting to RELY on it to win their matches.
28. peng says:

    May 15, 2013 at 3:46 pm

    “cybertron likes this” 
    currently using a team with swagger on both thundurus and liepard but nothing to recieve the boosts
    !
     
    on topic: Backing up what Mean said. People are always very quick to shit-talk these events regardless of how big a step forward was made. I’m very glad I’m not in AlphaZealot’s shoes right now – it must be annoying to come onto the forums and just get swarms of (mostly non-constructive) criticism from people who don’t seem to appreciate the fact that TPCi has just given us the swiss format we’ve been asking for for years.
     
    European VGC is clearly in a transition phase and its bound to be shaky the first year – I’m not saying don’t be critical of the events but can we try and at least keep it constructive. TPCi needs to know what worked just as much as what didn’t, and most of the posts I’ve seen in the feedback thread are just slating the organisation and delays, and almost demanding a bigger top cut. I’ve yet to see any comments on whether the actual venue / city was a good location in particular, including how accessible it was by public transport, any nearby parking for anyone who drove, what the range of lunch options (if any) was like etc.
     
    edit: also congrats matty!
29. Sapphire Birch says:

    May 15, 2013 at 4:11 pm

    I think you’re trying a little too hard here to validate luck-based strategies in hopes of screwing over your opponent who outplay you. Yes, swagger can get you out of a tight spot if the RNG is in your favor, but really using it to that degree and just hoping that both your opponents mons sit there hitting themselves so you can get a win and say “GG outplayed” is a bit ridiculous. Obviously Ray is more than “crazy good,” but I think the reason the others have brought him up is because he uses swagger, not to hopefully screw someone over with RNG, but to create win conditions for Metagross to yams on things at +2. Clearly para-fusion-rockslide-flinch spam is a very potent strategy, but i’m fairly certain top level players build teams around knowing that RNG exists, but never really wanting to RELY on it to win their matches.

    actually you’d be surprised at how many players refuse to accept that RNG is part of the game.

     
30. Zog says:

    May 15, 2013 at 4:41 pm

    actually you’d be surprised at how many players refuse to accept that RNG is part of the game.

     
    But they’re scrubs so it doesn’t matter.
     
    Anyone who’d prefer to take coinflips THAT AREN’T IN THEIR FAVOUR (90% accuracy) is a NOOB HAXER!!!!! who should learn how to play a game.