I’m going to say right now, I’m sorry for saying so much. This is your warning, it’s a long warstory, just be happy I didn’t win more than I did or it might be twice this size. Oh, and sorry for the lack of pics, I am trying to broaden the imagination of everyone, so just picture everything in your head.
Friday- I had been working on my team for a while, but with the distractions of school (6 projects due), Pokemon Online which helped and distracted me at the same time, and other random stuff, my training came down to the wire. My little brothers birthday party was on Friday and we played laser tag, the whole time knowing that I needed to finish my team. The good news is that I won, the bad news is that I had to stay up until like 3:30 or 4 to finish my team. I had to fight the elite four over and over to get Mewtwo to level 100 for aura sphere, which I never even used in competition...
I designed my team with one thing in mind, countering common leads, but still being able to lead well. I spent a while finding out how to do this, and I still didn’t perfect it, but I will be ready by LCQ. Anyway here it is:
Honchkrow @ Razor Claw
Super Luck
Adamant
252 atk 252 hp 6 s def
Taunt
Brave Bird
Sucker Punch
Night Slash
This was my uber lead killer and my tr counter. Taunt would stop tr and sucker punch is a great stab priority in tr. Brave bird is great for ohkoing hitmontop, abomasnow, and hitting shininja. Now here is the fun part. With super luck and razor claw it has 33% crit ratio with sucker punch and 50% with night slash, making it able to almost ohko anything if it crits, which happened a lot.
Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Dry skin
Adamant
255 atk 255 speed too lazy to add four to something for this one
Fake out
Sucker punch
Earthquake
Low kick
This was made to counter kyogre leads as well as dialga leads. Dry skin heals the heath that life orb takes off almost and with low kick, it can ohko dialga. Earthquake is great because it goes through honchkrow and hits both foes. Sucker punch is great with him because when paired with a honchkrow sucker punch, it can ko most pokemon. It is also great at stopping exploders in their tracks.
Dialga @ chople berry
Pressure
Modest
252 s atk 252 speed 6 hp
Protect
Thunder
Flamethrower
Draco meteor
Basic dialga, deal damage until it dies. FT is there for shininjas and for abomasnows. Thunder handles kyogres nicely. Draco meteor can ohko even a hanab berry palkia.
Mewtwo @ choice specs
Pressure
Timid
252 s atk 252 speed 4 hp
Aura sphere
Flamethrower
Grass knot
Blizzard
I decided to run a specs mewtwo because it rapes. I had to predict well to avoid getting locked into a bad attack. That’s why FT was there, to use and lock into if the last pokemon is unkown for fear of shininja. Mewtwo was a beast and hit everything strong. Usually I send it out last to know what to lock into.
Day of- I woke up and was already exhausted from the night before. After I finally managed to get ready, my brother and I got in my car and headed to my girlfriends house to pick her up. If you saw a girl that looked scared, especially of the pikachu walking around, that was my girlfriend. She does not like pokemon, but wanted to be there to support me.
In line I finished getting the necessary items and gave some pokemon to my brother and my friend that I met up with to use. I finally got the chople berry that I needed and was ready. I saw several people that I recognized from smogon and tried to avoid them in line, though I must have looked inexperienced because omegadonut got right behind my group. After moving up a few places to avoid him I get sent to a table and was starting my first battle!
Round 1 vs Stephen/ Esteban (trainer name was esteban but name on paper was Stephen)
He started with lugia and ayrodactyl. Now I do not like flying leads becaue I cant hit both with eq, and my low kick is useless. After trying to decide between taunt, sucker punch, or night slash with honchkrow and eventually picking night slash on lugia and hoped for a crit, I realized that lugia was level 48 and arodactyl was lvl 44 or vise versa. I fake out aerodactyl and night slash lugia which does not crit and he aeroblasts toxicroak for the ko and lugia is in the red. Now I normally send out mewtwo last but I decided that because of blizzard, now was a good time. Honchkrow sucker punches aerodactyl, no crit, and mewtwo blizzards both for the ko. I do not remember the last two, but I think one was hitmonlee who sucker punches my mewtwo to death but is easily beaten by honchkrow. I 2-0 him and apologize that it had to end in the first round for him.
My friend looses this battle but my brother (with a team of my pokemon) advances.
Round 2
The person I battled was amazing and I am in his debt, read on to see.
He leads with scizor and mewtwo. I decided to avoid the possible blizzard, ice beam, or tbolt from mewtwo before I could attack him, so I sucker punch it and toxicroak fakes out scizor. Sucker punch leaves mewtwo in the red and it turns around to ice beam my honchkrow, good prediction. I send out dialga next to take care of scizor. Toxicroak sucker punches mewtwo and dialga FT scizor for the ko on both. With only life orb damage dealt to me. The next pokemon are Wobafett and ??? When deciding what to do, I accidentally hit the wrong attack with dialga. Hitting cancel to change attacks I accidentally hit run also! I had the game in the bag, and I ran. Well before it even shows that I ran I explain, and he offers a re-match. After numberous thanking him, we start over and he leads foretress instead of scizor. I do the same attacks, but this time sucker punch crits, koing mewtwo. He sends out wobafett and I double attack it and bring it down to red, but he counters and ko’s my honchkrow while foretress toxic spikes. I send out dialga and ft foretress and ko wobafett with toxicroak. The last pokemon is easy also, I think it was a palkia that I ohko with draco meteor. After again apologizing and thanking for the run situation, he says that it didn’t matter, I still would have won and he pokesav’d his pokemon anyway. 3-0
My brother lost in this round along with some cool people I met in line that we wanted to avoid battling. It was all me from my group now.
Round 3
My avoiding OmegaDonut without openly saying it now had to end. We got to the station and I got paired with him. After telling her that I knew him, then whispering who I was and asking him to play along, she let me battle someone else. She pointed at a guy in a Ducks shirt, Biff I think, and I said that I knew him also. I briefly talked to him earlier and said I was from smogon, so he played along.
My next opponent comes, we introduce, shake hands and whatnot and get ready to battle. He lead with a ludicolo and ??? and I had my usual leads. I fake out ludicolo to find out that it is somehow faster than my 252 ev and 31 iv speed toxicroak. The only way possible with out swift swim is by hacking… ??? did something that I cant remember but missed while honchkrow did night slash. Next turn ??? uses blizzard but misses on both my pokes while I proceed to ko it with toxicroak and brave bird ludicolo for the ko. The last two were just as easy, I 4-0 this guy, which makes me very happy.
Biff lost in this round but me and Omega advanced.
Round 4, the round where I cant seem to stop screwing up
I once again got paired with Omega, but we once again avoided battling each other. I get sent to a table and wait for my next opponent.
He leads with a smeargle and dialga. For some reason, I think that dialga is the real threat… I know how bad smeargles are, and I know that it is the only lead that I have trouble countering, but like the title says, I’m an idiot. Toxicroak low kicks dialga and honchkrow night slashes smeargle, but neither work because of dark void. If I had just fake out smeargle, I would have won. Dialga then proceeds to ko honchkrow with ice beam or t bolt? Idk. I send out diagla and immediately protect and low kick dialga with toxicroak hoping that it will wake up. It does not, but at least dialga targeted dialga and smeargle uses dark void so nothing happens. Next turn I use flamethrower on smeargle and find out that it was not scarfed! It sash kicks in and it dark voids dialga for the sleep. His dialga uses aura sphere on mine but the chople kicks in not even putting it in yellow. Toxicroak is still asleep. The next turn smearble endeavors on my toxicroak bringing it down to 1 hp while dialga ko’s my dialga with aura shpere. Toxicroak wakes up and ohko’s his dialga with low kick, but dies from life orb… gay orb. I send out mewtwo and he sends out mewtwo. I ko smeargle before it puts me to sleep and mewtwo does something but I think it misses. He then sends out blissy and I know that I am screwed because I am locked into flamethrower. I FT mewtwo and eventually ko it, but then die from a sesmic toss from blissy.
The whole time, I thought something was fishy about his team, but like the title suggests, I am an idiot. I walk the walk of shame after coming so close to the finalist area. I watch my opponent and eventually, after talking to the people at the desk, walks away. I did not see him for the rest of the day, even while the finalists were competing. I think he failed the hack check. I should have advanced, but since I did not call it when playing, it didn’t matter. If I am wrong, please let me know, I’m going by what I saw. Anyway, after being pissed about that I start to follow some of the smogoners battles and realize that Omega won and got in finalists followed shortly by Tyler. Alaka lost right after I did at the same side of the same station. It must be jinxed. I then got some food and waited for the finals matches and battled some random people, beating them all but one guy who got lucky when his palkia lived with 1 hp then got a double protect off to live through his team mates explosion. I lost to my brother also. Anyway, despite losing, I had a great time. I am hoping to go the LCQ, I just need to convince my parents.
Props
-AromaFlora for the dialga and mewtwo, couldn’t have done it without you!
-making it as far as I did in my first tourney.
-having a great time!
-meeting a lot of cool people
-watching my girlfriend be scared of the dancing pikachu
-seeing some great teams with some great battles
-second round opponent (forgot name, sorry), who gave me a second chance after I ran. You're amazing.
Slops
-losing to a hacked team
-not quite making it to finalists, though I did sit on a bean bag and battle Alaka for the third round of the double battle smogon wifi tourney.
-my girlfriend got hit on by a lot of random guys while I was battling, including some smogoners, but I will not say names out of respect.
-loosing to my brother after the tourney, though idk how. It was haxy.
-expensive food
Congrats to everyone who made it to Nats, and good luck to all those competing elsewhere!
If anyone got some tips to convince my parents to let me go to LCQ it would be great. I am thinking about pulling the “its my last chance to bond with my little brother before I leave for college” card. Any other ideas.
Friday- I had been working on my team for a while, but with the distractions of school (6 projects due), Pokemon Online which helped and distracted me at the same time, and other random stuff, my training came down to the wire. My little brothers birthday party was on Friday and we played laser tag, the whole time knowing that I needed to finish my team. The good news is that I won, the bad news is that I had to stay up until like 3:30 or 4 to finish my team. I had to fight the elite four over and over to get Mewtwo to level 100 for aura sphere, which I never even used in competition...
I designed my team with one thing in mind, countering common leads, but still being able to lead well. I spent a while finding out how to do this, and I still didn’t perfect it, but I will be ready by LCQ. Anyway here it is:
Honchkrow @ Razor Claw
Super Luck
Adamant
252 atk 252 hp 6 s def
Taunt
Brave Bird
Sucker Punch
Night Slash
This was my uber lead killer and my tr counter. Taunt would stop tr and sucker punch is a great stab priority in tr. Brave bird is great for ohkoing hitmontop, abomasnow, and hitting shininja. Now here is the fun part. With super luck and razor claw it has 33% crit ratio with sucker punch and 50% with night slash, making it able to almost ohko anything if it crits, which happened a lot.
Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Dry skin
Adamant
255 atk 255 speed too lazy to add four to something for this one
Fake out
Sucker punch
Earthquake
Low kick
This was made to counter kyogre leads as well as dialga leads. Dry skin heals the heath that life orb takes off almost and with low kick, it can ohko dialga. Earthquake is great because it goes through honchkrow and hits both foes. Sucker punch is great with him because when paired with a honchkrow sucker punch, it can ko most pokemon. It is also great at stopping exploders in their tracks.
Dialga @ chople berry
Pressure
Modest
252 s atk 252 speed 6 hp
Protect
Thunder
Flamethrower
Draco meteor
Basic dialga, deal damage until it dies. FT is there for shininjas and for abomasnows. Thunder handles kyogres nicely. Draco meteor can ohko even a hanab berry palkia.
Mewtwo @ choice specs
Pressure
Timid
252 s atk 252 speed 4 hp
Aura sphere
Flamethrower
Grass knot
Blizzard
I decided to run a specs mewtwo because it rapes. I had to predict well to avoid getting locked into a bad attack. That’s why FT was there, to use and lock into if the last pokemon is unkown for fear of shininja. Mewtwo was a beast and hit everything strong. Usually I send it out last to know what to lock into.
Day of- I woke up and was already exhausted from the night before. After I finally managed to get ready, my brother and I got in my car and headed to my girlfriends house to pick her up. If you saw a girl that looked scared, especially of the pikachu walking around, that was my girlfriend. She does not like pokemon, but wanted to be there to support me.
In line I finished getting the necessary items and gave some pokemon to my brother and my friend that I met up with to use. I finally got the chople berry that I needed and was ready. I saw several people that I recognized from smogon and tried to avoid them in line, though I must have looked inexperienced because omegadonut got right behind my group. After moving up a few places to avoid him I get sent to a table and was starting my first battle!
Round 1 vs Stephen/ Esteban (trainer name was esteban but name on paper was Stephen)
He started with lugia and ayrodactyl. Now I do not like flying leads becaue I cant hit both with eq, and my low kick is useless. After trying to decide between taunt, sucker punch, or night slash with honchkrow and eventually picking night slash on lugia and hoped for a crit, I realized that lugia was level 48 and arodactyl was lvl 44 or vise versa. I fake out aerodactyl and night slash lugia which does not crit and he aeroblasts toxicroak for the ko and lugia is in the red. Now I normally send out mewtwo last but I decided that because of blizzard, now was a good time. Honchkrow sucker punches aerodactyl, no crit, and mewtwo blizzards both for the ko. I do not remember the last two, but I think one was hitmonlee who sucker punches my mewtwo to death but is easily beaten by honchkrow. I 2-0 him and apologize that it had to end in the first round for him.
My friend looses this battle but my brother (with a team of my pokemon) advances.
Round 2
The person I battled was amazing and I am in his debt, read on to see.
He leads with scizor and mewtwo. I decided to avoid the possible blizzard, ice beam, or tbolt from mewtwo before I could attack him, so I sucker punch it and toxicroak fakes out scizor. Sucker punch leaves mewtwo in the red and it turns around to ice beam my honchkrow, good prediction. I send out dialga next to take care of scizor. Toxicroak sucker punches mewtwo and dialga FT scizor for the ko on both. With only life orb damage dealt to me. The next pokemon are Wobafett and ??? When deciding what to do, I accidentally hit the wrong attack with dialga. Hitting cancel to change attacks I accidentally hit run also! I had the game in the bag, and I ran. Well before it even shows that I ran I explain, and he offers a re-match. After numberous thanking him, we start over and he leads foretress instead of scizor. I do the same attacks, but this time sucker punch crits, koing mewtwo. He sends out wobafett and I double attack it and bring it down to red, but he counters and ko’s my honchkrow while foretress toxic spikes. I send out dialga and ft foretress and ko wobafett with toxicroak. The last pokemon is easy also, I think it was a palkia that I ohko with draco meteor. After again apologizing and thanking for the run situation, he says that it didn’t matter, I still would have won and he pokesav’d his pokemon anyway. 3-0
My brother lost in this round along with some cool people I met in line that we wanted to avoid battling. It was all me from my group now.
Round 3
My avoiding OmegaDonut without openly saying it now had to end. We got to the station and I got paired with him. After telling her that I knew him, then whispering who I was and asking him to play along, she let me battle someone else. She pointed at a guy in a Ducks shirt, Biff I think, and I said that I knew him also. I briefly talked to him earlier and said I was from smogon, so he played along.
My next opponent comes, we introduce, shake hands and whatnot and get ready to battle. He lead with a ludicolo and ??? and I had my usual leads. I fake out ludicolo to find out that it is somehow faster than my 252 ev and 31 iv speed toxicroak. The only way possible with out swift swim is by hacking… ??? did something that I cant remember but missed while honchkrow did night slash. Next turn ??? uses blizzard but misses on both my pokes while I proceed to ko it with toxicroak and brave bird ludicolo for the ko. The last two were just as easy, I 4-0 this guy, which makes me very happy.
Biff lost in this round but me and Omega advanced.
Round 4, the round where I cant seem to stop screwing up
I once again got paired with Omega, but we once again avoided battling each other. I get sent to a table and wait for my next opponent.
He leads with a smeargle and dialga. For some reason, I think that dialga is the real threat… I know how bad smeargles are, and I know that it is the only lead that I have trouble countering, but like the title says, I’m an idiot. Toxicroak low kicks dialga and honchkrow night slashes smeargle, but neither work because of dark void. If I had just fake out smeargle, I would have won. Dialga then proceeds to ko honchkrow with ice beam or t bolt? Idk. I send out diagla and immediately protect and low kick dialga with toxicroak hoping that it will wake up. It does not, but at least dialga targeted dialga and smeargle uses dark void so nothing happens. Next turn I use flamethrower on smeargle and find out that it was not scarfed! It sash kicks in and it dark voids dialga for the sleep. His dialga uses aura sphere on mine but the chople kicks in not even putting it in yellow. Toxicroak is still asleep. The next turn smearble endeavors on my toxicroak bringing it down to 1 hp while dialga ko’s my dialga with aura shpere. Toxicroak wakes up and ohko’s his dialga with low kick, but dies from life orb… gay orb. I send out mewtwo and he sends out mewtwo. I ko smeargle before it puts me to sleep and mewtwo does something but I think it misses. He then sends out blissy and I know that I am screwed because I am locked into flamethrower. I FT mewtwo and eventually ko it, but then die from a sesmic toss from blissy.
The whole time, I thought something was fishy about his team, but like the title suggests, I am an idiot. I walk the walk of shame after coming so close to the finalist area. I watch my opponent and eventually, after talking to the people at the desk, walks away. I did not see him for the rest of the day, even while the finalists were competing. I think he failed the hack check. I should have advanced, but since I did not call it when playing, it didn’t matter. If I am wrong, please let me know, I’m going by what I saw. Anyway, after being pissed about that I start to follow some of the smogoners battles and realize that Omega won and got in finalists followed shortly by Tyler. Alaka lost right after I did at the same side of the same station. It must be jinxed. I then got some food and waited for the finals matches and battled some random people, beating them all but one guy who got lucky when his palkia lived with 1 hp then got a double protect off to live through his team mates explosion. I lost to my brother also. Anyway, despite losing, I had a great time. I am hoping to go the LCQ, I just need to convince my parents.
Props
-AromaFlora for the dialga and mewtwo, couldn’t have done it without you!
-making it as far as I did in my first tourney.
-having a great time!
-meeting a lot of cool people
-watching my girlfriend be scared of the dancing pikachu
-seeing some great teams with some great battles
-second round opponent (forgot name, sorry), who gave me a second chance after I ran. You're amazing.
Slops
-losing to a hacked team
-not quite making it to finalists, though I did sit on a bean bag and battle Alaka for the third round of the double battle smogon wifi tourney.
-my girlfriend got hit on by a lot of random guys while I was battling, including some smogoners, but I will not say names out of respect.
-loosing to my brother after the tourney, though idk how. It was haxy.
-expensive food
Congrats to everyone who made it to Nats, and good luck to all those competing elsewhere!
If anyone got some tips to convince my parents to let me go to LCQ it would be great. I am thinking about pulling the “its my last chance to bond with my little brother before I leave for college” card. Any other ideas.
