Favre4Ever+ 4,476 Posted November 22, 2016 Keep us up to date with your progress! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BigBen07 285 Posted November 22, 2016 Keep us up to date with your progress! I can't wait to get the version mascots. They are awesome. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bay 2,003 Posted November 22, 2016 (edited) I'm trying to only use new pokemon + alolan forms on this run. EDIT: Have Munchlax because it has Hold Back, i'll replace it with something else soon enough. Edited November 22, 2016 by Bay 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zack_of_Steel+ 3,014 Posted December 9, 2016 (edited) Been playing the TCG a lot more lately. Finally had the chance to go to a big Regional in Fort Wayne, IN, which was a long, 12 hour drive. I generally wake up at around 2pm, work 4pm-1am, and get to bed around 6am, so this trip was a bit of an adjustment. We hit the sack Friday at around 12am and had to be checked in for the tournament at 8:30am. I couldn't get myself to sleep until about 3am each night and I was worried that I'd be tired and lack focus, but I think I managed well in the end.The Regional was one of the largest ever with 635 people in the Masters division. We played 9, 50 minute+3 turn, best-of-three rounds on Day 1, with the top 32 players advancing to Day 2. Day 2 included 5 more rounds, then cut to top 8 for another 3 rounds. 1st place won $5,000, 2nd $2,500, and 3rd-32nd $250.I had never been to any sanctioned event (League Challenges, hosted by individual leagues once a month, and City, State, Regional, National, World tournaments). My friend had been to a bunch of smaller events and one Regional. He took a list that won a UK Regional and changed one card. Ran hot and made Day 2, luck running out and ending 13th.I ran a list I was comfortable with, but an archetype known for inconsistency. I went in expecting to end with a losing record and to play competitively, but go more for the experience and to prepare for future events.Round 1 I played Mega Gardevoir, the most hyped deck coming into the tournament, something I thought my version of Greninja had a great shot against, even if they hit the nut and went off their first few turns. The round was close as we both opened with dead hands and gained steam slowly. I eventually had a few nice maneuvers and won a long first game. Our second game was a bit similar, but he had a better board built quicker. The second game went to time, giving me the round and some confidence out of the gate. My opponent was friendly and asked if he could tape a few words with me for his YouTube channel after the round. 1-0Round 2 was, once again, M Gard. This time my opponent was a little fuck. He tried to incorrectly play a card a couple times and I had to call a judge. The entire way he kept berating me with incessant questions in order to rush me. On top of that, my deck wasn't helping me out and I was 1 card off of seemingly every play I needed to make. It was a long first game and I couldn't get the energy needed for the final 10 damage (lowest increment) needed to knock out his only powered up Pokemon. I had made him shuffle in and draw only 2 cards and played a Stadium that does 20 damage to Megas in between turns. It would have knocked out his last M Gard, but of course the counter stadium ended up being one of the two cards he drew. So I lost the round by 10 fuckin' damage. Fuck that douche. He ended up going 4-3 and dropping because 7-2 or better was needed for Day 2. 1-1Round 3 was a strange matchup against a deck I'd seen before, but one nobody ever took seriously. The plan is to poison both Pokemon from the bench with your Ariados and then take huge knockouts with Machamp EX, who hits hard if he's inflicted with a status condition. In all, the deck actually ran well for him, but I outmaneuvered him and used Beedrill EX (a tech card not many people ran) to discard 5 tools in all, knocking off valuable HP and retreating ability. Gave me another win to get back on the good side of things at 2-1.Round 4 I played a semi-well known player with Mega Rayquaza, a decent matchup for Greninja generally. He was a cocky cunt that got to look at my opening hand and called it "cute" that I ran a card that, wouldn't you know it, stalled him out for a couple turns. This was the round I expected all tournament and it prevented me from even trying to play down this dickhole. Game 1 I opened with a dead hand and a single Froakie. I couldn't get another Pokemon on the bench and he killed me turn 2 (this is called "donking" and it fucking blows). Game 2 I open with another dead hand and don't even get to play a Supporter card (play one of each turn and they help you draw new hands). Two quick, bullshit losses that lasted probably 7 turns. Games/losses like this are what Greninja is known for. It made it to the Worlds finals and lost exactly in this manner--didn't even evolve into one Greninja. My opponent ended up 6-3 and missed Day 2. Hah. 2-2Round 5, my back against the wall as a tie/loss knocks me out of Day 2. And wouldn't you know it, another fucking Mega Gardevoir. Game 1 was long and close, but he overwhelmed me with quick recovery and took the win. Game 2 my opponent dead-drew like a mortician to start and came up short when he got going. Game 3 looked to be headed toward a draw, but he found a way in the end as I was one fucking energy off for multiple turns. My run came to an end quickly, but I had decided heading in that no matter what, I was playing all 9 rounds. 2-3Round 6 I started playing middle-tier decks and players because of my record. I continued introducing myself, but began socializing more since I wasn't playing for top 32. This round was against a different version of Mega Gardevoir with a different attack and supporting Pokemon in Xerneas. It's actually not a terrible deck and one made it to Day 2, just not popular. To start I prized 2 Frogadier, meaning I was immediately playing with at max two attackers until I could luck out and draw one after knocking out an opposing Pokemon. This meant I had to stall, maneuver, and pick openings while protecting my only two Greninja because his deck got set up and was in range to oneshot me until I could knock out some of his Pokemon. In the end I won twice and had a great time meeting a sweet guy from Kentucky. 3-3Round 7, a mirror match, something I felt very prepared for and had been looking forward to. I had included a tech card, Pokemon Ranger, in my deck solely for this matchup as it would win me the game. I started off much quicker than my opponent and got out 3 Greninja and Break Evolved (stronger, allows you to snipe) 2 of them while he had only 1 Break ready. This match consists mainly of forgoing the big damage and doing a small attack called Shadow Stitching, which turns off your opponent's Abilities for their turn. Greninja Break has an ability that lets you discard an energy from your hand to do 60 damage anywhere on your opponent's board. So the match is a chip-away stalemate until someone can break the lock. The Pokemon Ranger I mentioned breaks this lock and would've allowed me to clear his board and win. Instead, I had the Ranger in hand for 5 turns with no energy to use for sniping. Then when I finally got a hand, he used a card to make me shuffle in and draw 3. I drew 3 energy and no Ranger. The game swung to his favor because he kept recycling his Greninjas and bringing them back out while I was looking for the cards I needed. We were headed for a tie, but we made it to the "+3" turns and he won on the very last turn. It was a frustrating way to lose and made the inclusion of Pokemon Ranger a worthless card for the entire tournament. Lesson learned. 3-4Round 8 was against maybe the only person in the tournament playing Mega Blastoise. My opponent wasn't the worst, but his deck was outside the meta. In Game 1 I pretty much wrecked him, then Game 2 I bricked and he was on fire, set up 3 'Stoise, but got stalled on the Mega Evolutions because of my Beedrill EX. He was playing smart and knocking my Froakie and Frogadiers out before I could evolve, making me have to find cards to recycle them. He got down to his last Prize Card, meaning he only needed to knock out one more of my Pokemon, before I finally got some shit together and came back to take all 6 of my Prize Cards in 2 turns for the win. The look on his face was priceless. 4-4Round 9 I played a middle-aged mom whose son had qualified for Worlds in the Junior division last year. She was a sweetheart with a middle-tier deck that played out almost exactly like Round 6, except this game I was able to use a Jirachi to discard some of her special energy and stall. I blew up late and won pretty easily and she said she was far too tired to play a second game and conceded. 5-4 Ending with a winning record was something I hoped to do and pretty much anyone I talked to said that was great for a first Regional, let alone tournament. Afterward I saw that the multiple-time Mexican National Champion ran a list only 3 cards different from mine and ended only one win better than me at 6-3. Seeing that made me feel a lot better about my performance. Overall, it was an awesome experience and I'm definitely itching to try my hand at more events. Edited December 9, 2016 by Zack_of_Steel 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bay 2,003 Posted December 9, 2016 Team Moon: Brionne - Water Toucannon - Normal/Flying Charjabug - Bug/Electric Alolan Grimer - Poison/Dark Mudsdale - Ground Salandit - Poison/Fire 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Milla4Prez63 678 Posted December 18, 2016 I've really not touched Moon since the week I picked it up. Not that it isn't awesome, it's epicly great. I just have no time to commit to video games anymore. As for the ever decreasingly popular game Pokemon GO. I feel like they got lazy with their Christmas event just giving us Pikachu with a santa hat. This game has been out for a while now and there is still no trading and you still can't battle other people and all they give us is stupid crap like Santa Pikachu. I like that they finally added the Gen 2 babies, but I haven't been able to hatch one yet despite my best efforts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bay 2,003 Posted December 19, 2016 Loving Moon. Playing whenever I get a chance. Beat a bunch of trials, collecting the Z Crystals and trying to get every brand new species I come across. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BigBen07 285 Posted December 19, 2016 I managed to get a Rank 3 Pharmacy in Festival Plaza. For 60 coins each I can get a set of 4 EV medicines (the ones that give you 10 EVs in a respective stat) per day. Solves EV training for me. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Milla4Prez63 678 Posted February 17, 2017 Pokemon GO has officially added Gen 2, making this game worth playing again. I've caught 30 of the new ones already, got all the Chikorita evolutions in my neighborhood lol. Having a hard time getting Eevee to evolve into Umbreon or Espeon though. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sparty 110 Posted February 17, 2017 (edited) Pokemon Go was NEVER worth playing again, lol. Edited February 17, 2017 by Sparty Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bay 2,003 Posted February 17, 2017 Snivy in a friend ball, amazing. Also got Tepig in a level ball. Totoile in a lure ball - so many awesome combos. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Milla4Prez63 678 Posted February 18, 2017 Pokemon Go was NEVER worth playing again, lol. I'm honestly having more fun playing it now than before. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Favre4Ever+ 4,476 Posted February 19, 2017 (edited) Just rename your Eevee:Sakura = Espeon Tamao = Umbreon Seems like there aren't that many good pokemon with high CPs in this generation. 91% Steelix, maxed out, hits like 2100. Porygon 2, Kingdra, and Scizor all seem to be a bit higher than that.I spent 125 candies getting Jumpluff and he's barely 1000. Maxed out Umbreon at 1800... Espeon got to over 2600 but he has so little health he dies really easily. Politoed is poop... so is Slowking and Crobat. I think Kingdra could be decent. Blissey is awesome though... And I can't wait to get my hands on the Larvitar line and Houndoom of course. Maybe all of these lower CP Pokemon are still decent fighters / gym 'Mon, but it is gonna require some testing. It seems like Niantic had balance in mind more this time around, which isn't inherently bad... I mean people like balance, right?Well, if everything is perfectly balanced, all you have to really do is match up types, and the rest takes care of itself. And there are still Pokemon from Gen I that are far superior. 10 of my Top 12 are Gen I 'Mon, CP-wise. And one of those is Espeon who I am going to say isn't as good as her CP indicates because of such a low health total. I'm waiting for Dragonite / Gyarados / Rhydon / Vaporeon nerfs. EDIT: Oh and they nerfed Lapras pretty bad. Edited February 19, 2017 by Favre4Ever Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zack_of_Steel+ 3,014 Posted March 7, 2017 (edited) I went to my second TCG Regional this weekend in St. Louis. It was supposed to be a 9 hour drive, but that turned into 16 because 2 hours in the transmission began to leak fluid and overheat. So from Lincoln, NE to Collinsville, IL (right near St. Louis), we had to drive 20 minutes, stop 20 minutes. We planned on getting to the hotel around 8pm since we had to be at registration by 8:45am. We ended up getting there after 3am and getting about 2-3 hours of sleep before 12 hours of tournament in the morning. Day 1 is 9 rounds and then it cuts to Top 32 for Day 2. 7-2 guarantees Day 2 and after that tiebreakers are resistance (opp. combined win% and then opp.'s opp.'s win%). To my great luck, I ended up playing a fucking Worlds-level player every other round when I saw none in my first go in November. I went 3-0-1 in my other matches (the tie was sheer awful luck. We had 10 min. left in the round after I won game 1 and I drew nothing and got "donked"). Outside of that I played Bradly Curcio, the guy that won St. Louis last year and also got 8th at Worlds. It was a bad matchup for me and I played an awesome first game against him that I admittedly lost because of a giant misplay. I suck. I played a guy known as the best "Night March" player in the world (the deck that ran rampant all of last season) and was one turn away from tying the round before he flipped the exact card he needed to avoid getting decked out. The other two guys played a deck that was a virtual auto-loss for me and because I was already out of the money, I ended up not even playing round 8 out and dropped for round 9. Seven of us from my town went and four of us have settled on being a "team." Only three of us were in the money after Round 4 and by the end I had the 2nd best showing at 3-4-1 (drop). Of the seven I had by far the highest Resistance at 57.25%. They split the standings into two lists for those that played all 9 and those that DNF (did not finish). Of the 380+ DNF, I was 28th and only 3 people ahead of me had a higher resistance at exactly 60%. When you get near 60%, you ran a fucking gauntlet Day 1. So overall, I'm not upset with my performance, especially when everyone else had a resistance of 30%-50%. Curcio and Kica (Night March dude) got 13th and 11th out of over 700 players. I would've had to win all of my other matches to make Day 2. The next Regional within distance is Salt Lake City on April 8/9. It will be Standard this time, which is to my advantage because it contains about half as many sets as Expanded and I have been playing since before about half of those were released. Expanded was a rough go as there are cards in that format from like 2011 that I have never seen before. I would really like to make Day 2 and if not, at least top 64 so I can grab $250 (or I can just win and get 5K). Edited March 7, 2017 by Zack_of_Steel 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BJORN 679 Posted March 24, 2017 Zack, you never seem to find much luck in these things. Hope you go in April, I enjoy the write-ups. Of those who have gotten sun and/or moon, thoughts? Two of my favorites are Sandshrew & Ninetales so tough decision on that one.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zack_of_Steel+ 3,014 Posted March 24, 2017 Zack, you never seem to find much luck in these things. Hope you go in April, I enjoy the write-ups. Thanks, man. Looks like at least 3 of us are going and I've already told my gf that we're taking her car this time, lol. We also might end up flying from Denver since the owner of a couple restaurants in town has started playing at our league with his son and said he wants to start going to Regionals. I've learned a lot and have decided to play pure consistency for this go rather than much complexity so as to avoid drawing poorly or not hitting what I need. If I fail to make Top 64 I'll be pretty pissed at myself. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BJORN 679 Posted March 25, 2017 Was chaining Poochyena....was half paying attention and accidentally one shot a shiny. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BJORN 679 Posted July 24, 2017 My power went out yesterday so I decided to start up Sun after months of neglect. Probably going to try to manage the XP share better so I don't over-level like I have in the previous two releases. I will miss the dexnav chaining from Ruby. Started with Popplio. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Favre4Ever+ 4,476 Posted July 24, 2017 Anybody else go to Chicago for Pokémon Go fest ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BJORN 679 Posted July 31, 2017 My power went out yesterday so I decided to start up Sun after months of neglect. Probably going to try to manage the XP share better so I don't over-level like I have in the previous two releases. I will miss the dexnav chaining from Ruby. Started with Popplio. Cancel that. XP share is off, kills the challenge of the game. Restarted with Rowlet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bay 2,003 Posted July 31, 2017 Started a new file in Alpha Sapphire. Team: Meditite Numel Swablu Cacnea Shuppet Feebas Trying to use alot of "new" mons meaning ones I haven't tried out before. Milotic is awesome 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BJORN 679 Posted August 7, 2017 (edited) Playing Sun, I have a new found appreciation for the speed stat. Really comes in handy with the SOS system, slow pokemon get beat on. Squad right now: Kangaskhan Lycanroc Cubone Ribombee Dartrix Mareanie Edited August 7, 2017 by BJORN Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Milla4Prez63 678 Posted May 12, 2018 (edited) Gonna give this thread a bump, I just randomly got back into Pokémon Go and I'm playing every day again. New to this raiding and stuff but I finally got my first legendary raid today with Latias. Also got a couple Zapdos with the new research stuff but I feel like an idiot missing out on getting Moltres, Lugia, Raikou, Latios, Groudon, etc. Hopefully they bring them back in research. Anyone else still playing Go? Edited May 12, 2018 by Milla4Prez63 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites