UPN 2011 Champion League Tournament

[Talon87]

For tournament rules post, click here (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282873&postcount=59)!
For the battle log video list, click here! (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282997&postcount=134)
For tournament standings, click here and scroll down! (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282997&postcount=134)

What You'll Need: some free time this or next weekend, the Pokémon-Online software, and a good attitude :)

Step 1: Sign up! If we get enough interest, I'll edit this post to include more trainers to choose from.

Step 2: We'll roll dice to determine who gets what trainer from the list below. I'll ask someone with a web camera to roll some dice for us on webcam so that there's no arguing about it. Once a character is selected from the list below, they are removed from the list before rolling for the next character begins. In other words, no repeats!

Character Roster: - 11/06/2011 UPDATED - now includes Koga's list. Will include the other three once they confirm their re-roll status.
All teams listed below are based on the creatures used by the characters in their respective appearances in R/B/Y/G/S/C/Ru/Sa/Em/FR/LG/D/P/Pt/HG/SS/K/W. No creatures which these trainers may have had in the anime or in any side-games but not in the main video games proper have been included.
Green / Blue:
Pidgeot
Alakazam
Rhydon
Exeggutor
Gyarados
Arcanine
Venusaur OR Blastoise OR Charizard (pick one)
Sandslash
Magneton
Cloyster
Ninetales
Jolteon OR Vaporeon OR Flareon (pick one)
Heracross
Tyranitar
Machamp
Rhyperior
Red:
Pikachu
Venusaur
Blastoise
Charizard
Snorlax
Espeon
Lapras
Lance:
Dragonair
Dragonite
Gyarados
Aerodactyl
Charizard
Kingdra
Altaria
Salamence
Garchomp
Steven:
Skarmory
Cradily
Claydol
Armaldo
Aggron
Metagross
Wallace:
Luvdisc
Sealeo
Seaking
Whiscash
Milotic
Wailord
Tentacruel
Ludicolo
Gyarados
Cynthia:
Spiritomb
Gastrodon
Roserade
Lucario
Milotic
Garchomp
Togekiss
Braviary
Eelektross
Alder:
Accelgor
Bouffalant
Druddigon
Vanilluxe
Escavalier
Volcarona

Elite Four:
Will
Xatu
Jynx
Slowbro
Exeggutor
Bronzong
Grumpig
Gardevoir
Koga
Koffing
Weezing
Muk
Venonat
Venomoth
Ariados
Forretress
Crobat
Skuntank
Toxicroak
Swalot
Bruno
Onix
Steelix
Hitmonchan
Hitmonlee
Hitmontop
Machamp
Hariyama
Lucario

Karen
Umbreon
Vileplume
Murkrow
Honchkrow
Gengar
Houndoom
Weavile
Absol
Spiritomb
Step 3: You'll select up to six of the creatures listed for your assigned team. Download the Pokémon-Online software, make a Pokémon-Online account, and build your team in the program's Team Builder. Nature, IVs, EVs, moves, held items, battle order, everything's up to you. (No, you do not have to use the moves which the creatures had in the video games.)

Step 4: Battle! :) I'll declare the official battle format once we know how many people are participating. (Eight or fewer, probably Round Robin. Nine or more, probably double-elimination.) I'll hold off on posting rules about scheduling and disqualification until we know what format we're doing. Rules about item clauses, sleep clauses, repeat Pokémon, etc, will be held off for now as well so that all the rules can be posted together.

Step 5: Have fun! Even if you're not participating, feel free to watch the battles in real time by logging onto the battle server with your Pokémon-Online account. Be courteous and have a good time. For the sake of everybody having fun, all battes will be publically-viewable. This is neither the place nor the time to be worried about your competition "scouting" your team to see what moves you use. This is a casual tourney that's meant to be fun for the whole community. :)

[Concept]

You know what? Yeah, I'll sign up for this. I have no competitive experience whatsoever, so it could be amusing.

[Kindrindra]

This is an amazing idea and I love it to bits.

Could the battles be recorded with the Pokemon Online replay maker? (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/)

Not being able to have Pokemon-Online means I'll likely miss out, but I'd be more than willing to watch the battles!

[Tyranidos]

Sign me up, baldy.

[Talon87]

Concept and Tdos, welcome aboard! :)

Could the battles be recorded with the Pokemon Online replay maker? (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/)

Not being able to have Pokemon-Online means I'll likely miss out, but I'd be more than willing to watch the battles!
I record all of my logs by default. However, this is the first I've ever heard of this website. Very neat! I just lost the last 30 minutes to plugging in random matches of mine from the past to see how they'd look. Very fun. I will definitely be encouraging everybody to save their battle logs so that we may upload them to this site and post the links here for everyone to enjoy.

Why can't you have Pokémon-Online, btw? :?

[KratosAurion]

Officially Signing Up.

Hell yeah, as a former Comp. Player, this wil bring back some nice memories.

[blazeVA]

SIGN ME UP!!!!

[Lonely Cubone]

Definitely up for this, I'm trying to train a comp team on Black at the moment but won't have it ready for a while yet, so a bit of Pokémon Online is good by me, and I really like tournaments with themes!

Although Green/Blue seems to be a bit OP.

[Talon87]

Welcome aboard, Kratos, blaze, and LC!

Green/Blue may seem overpowered, but I think that each of the teams has its own strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, yes, there are some teams you'd rather have than others, but that's why this is a casual tourney. You're supposed to have fun, not worry about winning. Great if you do, but I think the best attitude you can have for a tournament like this one is to feel a special bond with your lottery-assigned character. You are representing him (or her). So be the best possible advocate you can be for him/her. Other people talk trash about him/her? You represent! You stand up for him/her! Do that and do it sincerely and I think you'll have a lot of fun with this tourney. :)

The other thing to keep in mind is that the moment we get an eighth person who wants to join (so just two more people), I expand the roster to include the Elite Four. (Not sure if I should start with Gen 5 and work backwards, Gen I and work forwards, or what. We'll see.) So if that happens, intra-Champion imbalance could be the least of your worries. ;-)

This should be a lot of fun for everybody.

[SP-Eevee]

I'm usually lurking on Pokemon Online for VGC so sign me up.

[Talon87]

Welcome aboard, SP-Eevee!

Okay, since we're just one sign-up away from 8, then, I'll go ahead and open the floor to suggestions about which Elite 4 to add. I'll make the ultimate decision, but your advice may sway me! ;-)

Option 1: go in reverse chronological order
The rationale behind this decision would be that the latest Elite 4 were among the hardest many trainers felt that they faced when playing through a main game's Story Mode. Not only that but these Elite 4 have the benefit of all of the newest moves and abilities, arguably lending them more of a fighting chance against the seven Champions.

Option 2: go in chronological order
The rationale here is that nostalgia matters. People care more about Lorelei than Grimsley. They care more about Agatha than Shauntal. And all because these were the people they played dozens of times over. Copy and paste for Gen 2's Elite 4. The argument starts to fall apart around Gen 3. (Poor, poor Sidney.)

Option 3: Start with Gen II, actually
The rationale for this option is that the Gen II gym leaders are the most recently up-to-date ones (barring Gen 5's) and with the most expansive teams. Only Gens 1, 2, and 4 have gotten post-Story Mode team changes, expanding their rosters significantly. Of these, Gen 2's is actually the newest, thanks to HGSS coming out after Platinum.

Option 4: Pick and Choose Based on Perceived Power Level
This would be the option to go with if we want to hand-pick Elite 4 people to add, one at a time as people sign up and create the need for more spots. So like, I think we could agree that a team like Karen's would be more competitively viable than a team like Sidney's; or that a team like Will's might have a better shot than a team like poor Glacia's.

Option 5: just add all five regions' worth of Elite Four members at the same time
Don't worry about the details, Talon! Just add all of them and we'll see who the dice rolls turn up for each of us.

Option 6: Other
I'm currently torn between Options 3 and 4, but you guys may have different opinions. So I welcome them, especially since, due to the chance nature of a dice roll, any one of us might end up getting an E4 member instead of a champion. Which is to say, this decision will very probably affect one or more of us, so it's only fair to at least entertain your thoughts on this matter before I make a decision.

[Concept]

Option 3 sounds good, gen II get least screwed methinks.

[Kindrindra]

Why can't you have Pokémon-Online, btw? :?

Don't currently have access to a computer I have the permissions to. Doing a website on Competetive Gaming in Web Design, this is a bit of a problem. ;^_^

Huge Post of Awesome Ideas

I like Option 4 the most, myself.

[Tyranidos]

I vote Option 3.

[blazeVA]

Option 3 or 5.

Leaning towards five, though, three is good.

[KratosAurion]

Option 4.

[Holy Emperor]

I'll join in. Seems interesting.

[Talon87]

A NEW CHALLENGER!

Welcome aboard, Kuno. That makes eight. So yes, we will be busting out the Elite 4.

=Current List of Competitors=
Talon87
Concept
Tyranidos
KratosAurion
blazeVA
Lonely Cubone
SP-Eevee
Holy Emperor

Continue to vote for which option you like. It's not exactly democratic though: I'll be swayed by a good convincing argument even if it only comes from one guy. Vice versa, even if it comes from the entire group, I won't be swayed by a poor argument.

=Current Tally of Votes=
Option 3: ||||
Option 4: |||
Option 5: |

You guys certainly aren't making it easy for me. ^^; =P I'll have to think about which one sounds better, 3 or 4. Of course, anything could change with one really impressive, persuasive appeal for any of the 5+ options on the table.

[XanderKetsu]

And now I have a new use for Pokemon Online. Sign me up, if still open.

And if still excepted, and as a current Johto fan, I say Option III.

[Lonely Cubone]

I quite like Option 5 but 3 is better than 4 so I vote 3. Yay tactical voting

/upsetsKush

[Talon87]

Tactical voting nothing. ^^; Persuasion, guys, not number of votes. I'm actually leaning more towards 4 right now since the way I see it Karen and Will are in a very different category from Bruno and Koga; and I think Aaron and Flint would prove rather more popular/capable of holding their own against Champions than those two, too.

[Lonely Cubone]

A quick glance at Bulbapedia tells me that Gen II definitely had the best E4.

[Concept]

I can understand why you'd be dubious about including Bruno, but Koga has an alright team set up (including his gym appearances). I don't feel that Koga or Bruno has a particularly worse team than some of the champions we've already included.

If you're going to throw in the four most easily defended, then honestly that basically is picking gen II anyway, with the only real exception being possibly Flint instead of Bruno. Options 3 and 4 are mostly the same option anyway. And if we only need one or two, then they totally are the same option.

Bruno
Onix
Steelix
Hitmonchan
Hitmontop
Hitmonlee
Machamp
Hariyama
Lucario

against Flint:
Infernape
Rapidash
Houndoom
Steelix
Lopunny
Drifblim
Flareon
Magmortar

and for the record as you were debating Koga too:
Weezing
Muk
Venomoth
Ariados
Forretress
Crobat
Skuntank
Toxicroak
Swalot

against Aaron
Vespiquen
Dustox
Scizor
Heracross
Drapion
Beautifly
Yanmega

[Talon87]

Welcome aboard, XanderKetsu!

=Current List of Competitors=
Talon87
Concept
Tyranidos
KratosAurion
blazeVA
Lonely Cubone
SP-Eevee
Holy Emperor
XanderKetsu

I can understand why you'd be dubious about including Bruno, but Koga has an alright team set up (including his gym appearances). I don't feel that Koga or Bruno has a particularly worse team than some of the champions we've already included.

If you're going to throw in the four most easily defended, then honestly that basically is picking gen II anyway, with the only real exception being possibly Flint instead of Bruno. Options 3 and 4 are mostly the same option anyway. And if we only need one or two, then they totally are the same option.

Bruno
Onix
Steelix
Hitmonchan
Hitmontop
Hitmonlee
Machamp
Hariyama
Lucario

against Flint:
Infernape
Rapidash
Houndoom
Steelix
Lopunny
Drifblim
Flareon
Magmortar

and for the record as you were debating Koga too:
Weezing
Muk
Venomoth
Ariados
Forretress
Crobat
Skuntank
Toxicroak
Swalot

against Aaron
Vespiquen
Dustox
Scizor
Heracross
Drapion
Beautifly
Yanmega
I feel that Aaron's team completely wipes the floor against either Koga's or Bruno's, but since you compared the two directly, let's look. I would rather hold off on doing this for any other trainers (please) since it is arguably unfair to the people who will be using them in the tourney, even if this is a mega-casual tourney where we don't care about the wins or losses so much as we do the epic match-ups.
Koga has Weezing (from Weezing's RSE heyday), Forretress, and Toxicroak as far as viability in an OU environment is concerned. Not to say that any of them are OU: merely that they're OU viable. Crobat is one I'm sure fans will want to contest -- I have raised two competitive Crobats myself so I understand your sympathies -- but I think this is really all Koga has going for him. Poison suffers from a terrible weakness to one of the metagame's most popular attacks, Earthquake, and where it doesn't (see: Crobat), the options to OHKO via stab Psychic or Stone Edge still abound on these Champions' teams. Aaron, on the other hand, has a team which if you let Morgoth control it, he could very probably have come very close to winning the entire Summer 2010 tournament. He actually did use Vespiquen to great effect, and I don't think anyone is going to argue against Scizor or Heracross's OU presence. Yanmega's either barely OU, solidly BL, or the god-king of UU, take your pick, making him an excellent fourth addition to the squad. Then there's Drapion, who as Morg showed can be a veritable tank with the right EV spread and Acupressure. Really, the ONLY weak links there are Dustox and Beautifly.
Anyway, I think I've figured out an option which should please all parties. See the official drafting and tournament rules post that I'll write up right now for details I'll hold off on until tomorrow's votes are tallied. (See post below.)

[Talon87]

Okay, before I get too carried away making either a Round Robin chart or a double-elimination bracket chart, I guess I should put this up to an actual vote. You have 24 hours from this posting to vote. At the end of 24 hours, registration for the tournament shall be closed, the votes shall be tallied, and the tournament structure shall be decided. I know which one I'd rather do, but since we have as many as nine people now, I guess it's only fair, given everyone's schedules, that I ask the group democratically which of two awesome goods :D they'd rather do:

Option A: the Round Robin Tournament
Helpful Schematic: click here (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/round_robin.jpg)

How this would work: there would be n rounds, where n is the odd number of participants or the even number of participants minus one. (For example, with nine participants, we'd have nine rounds. With ten participants, we would also have nine rounds.) During each round, there would be n/2 battles rounded down (so four battles for nine people, five battles for ten people, etc). Any odd men out would have the bye that round (meaning they sit out and get a free win). Each round, you rotate around the "table" (hence the name of the format, Round Robin) and square off against somebody new. Whoever has racked up the most wins by the end of the tournament is declared the victor. In the unlikely event of a tie for 1st place, there would be a final face-off match.

Important differences from Option B below:
1. You would face every single person in the tournament.
2. You would only battle any one person once. (Note that this may or may not also be true for Option B.)
3. You would battle as many times as there are rounds minus one.
4. Your ultimate victory or defeat would not hinge on any one particular match-up.
Option B: the Double-Elimination Tournament
Helpful Schematic: click here (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/double-elimination.png)

How this would work: We would randomly seed an upper bracket (termed a winners' bracket) to determine who plays who in the first round of battles. Each round, you would participate in either a best 2 out of 3 match or else a single match (TBD by your votes should you choose Option B). Whoever the victor is at the end of each match moves on in the winners' bracket. Whoever the loser is at the end of each match is demoted to the losers' bracket where he must fight for survival against the other defeated players if he wants a second shot at the crown. In the end, the champion of the winners' bracket and the champion of the losers' bracket square off in a best 2 out of 3 competition for the crown.

Should Option B win this vote, and should you choose to vote for option B-1 in a later vote, you would be voting for the format in which every single match-up is a Best 2 out of 3 match. This would allow for a greater number of battles but would draw the tournament out significantly. It would probably take many weeks to complete. Should you instead choose to vote for option B-2 in a later vote, you would be voting for the format in which every single match-up except the championship battle is a Sudden Death match. This would allow for greater speed throughout the tournament but would also mean that many competitors fight as few as only two or three battles before being eliminated entirely.

Important differences from Option A above:
1. You would only face some of the people in the tournament.
2. (Depending on your votes) you would battle each person you fight multiple times before victory or defeat was declared.
3. (Depending on your votes) you are statistically unlikely to battle for very many rounds. In fact, over half of all contestants will be completely eliminated from the tournament after only three rounds, with one quarter eliminated after only two.
4. Your ultimate victory or defeat could very well hinge on one particular match-up.
Place your votes. With an odd number of people, the majority wins. With an even number of people, in the event of a tie I will be the tie-breaker vote. =P Otherwise, this'll be fairly democratic. Feel free to make appeals for your vote, but you won't be trying to persuade me this time but instead your fellow voters. If you should change your mind, simply edit the post in which you voted. No need to re-post. I will not tally votes at all until the deadline is met tomorrow.

One final thing to note: don't be alarmed that in both formats there are multiple battles which seemingly take place at the same time. For the sake of allowing the audience to watch as many battles as possible, but also for the sake of facilitating a speedy tournament, we can settle on how many battles take place at once later. This applies to both formats and should therefore not influence your vote as to which of the two formats is "better" from an audience perspective.

[Holy Emperor]

I like the Round Robin. Btw who are the two extra trainers?

[Lonely Cubone]

Round Robin is good for me, I'd like to battle everyone if possible.

[Concept]

Concurring with Kuno and Elsie on the Round Robin thing. I just fancy battling people, round robin gives me more chances to do that (as I'd almost certainly go out fast :p)

[Tyranidos]

Square Sparrow.

[XanderKetsu]

I'm gonna go with Option A, as I'd think it would be fun to fight everyone. Longer yes, but entertaining.

[Celebii151]

Signing up. Option A/3 seems plausible.

[Talon87]

How Trainers Will Be Assigned

Btw who are the two extra trainers?
What I've decided to do is is to ask you (if you'd be so kind :oops:) to do the dice rolls for us on Livestream. Everyone needn't be there at once: all we need do is record the stream as evidence so that there are no hurt feelings or this or that regarding who gets what. Once we know how many people we have for certain and who they are, we can go ahead and assign trainers via these dice rolls. This will take place some time tomorrow (after registration is locked and the format has been decided).

As for who the two (or more) extra trainers will be, it will make sense if I explain the dice rolls to you. (Assume there are nine people in the tourney for the sake of this post). We'll get a D10 and roll it. 10 is ignored, 1 thru 9 initially count. Before the stream begins, I will have supplied to you the list of nine trainers and their numbers. Sample below:
1 - Alder
2 - Cynthia
3 - Elite 4
4 - Wallace
5 - Green/Blue
6 - Red
7 - Elite 4
8 - Steven
9 - Lance
We'll just go through the list of UPNers who entered the competition and roll dice for them, one at a time, to assign to them a trainer at random. As each trainer gets assigned to a UPNer, they will be removed from the pool by way of saying "when the D10 turns up that number, it now no longer counts as anything and Kuno will re-roll." When we get down to six remaining trainers, the order of the remaining trainers is preserved but you can switch to a D6 (so you don't keep rolling duds). For example, say I go first and get Wallace. Say Concept goes second and gets Steven. Say Tdos goes third and gets Cynthia. What the list would then look like for the two D6 rolls would be:
1 - Alder
2 - Elite 4
3 - Green/Blue
4 - Red
5 - Elite 4
6 - Lance
Then you'd roll a D6 twice for two more UPNers before we re-scrunch the list and move to a D4. For example, say Alder and Red get picked. Then it'd become:
1 - Elite 4
2 - Green/Blue
3 - Elite 4
4 - Lance
And we just roll the D4 until all four remaining trainers are assigned. Sound good?

Now that I've explained all this, I can finally answer your question. Say someone rolls a dice roll and they get an Elite 4 ticket. What that means is, they sit tight until we've rolled all the other trainers (including the other E4 ticket). After we've finished with the main round, we then bust out the D4 for the first person who got an E4 ticket and we do a special Elite 4-only dice roll for them. The initial pool will be all Gen II Elite 4:
1 - Will
2 - Koga
3 - Bruno
4 - Karen
If he gets somebody that he ab-so-lute-ly does not want, then he may ask you for a re-roll. He's free to nominate one replacement, and he can choose from the entirety of the Elite 4 pool. (Say he rolls Bruno, doesn't want Bruno, and wants Shauntal instead. He would ask you to nix Bruno and add Shantaul to the pool.) You then re-roll the D4 for him one time. Whoever he gets that time, he's stuck with. No take-backs. (So say he abandons Bruno in the hopes of getting Shauntal but now he gets Koga instead and he's like "Neuuuuuuuuu! ;_;" Too goddamn bad. ^^; We don't have all day and this is a very casual tourney that I'm already making way too complex as is. lol Take Koga and proudly represent! The Shinobi Master of Fuschia City!) After his turn is complete, it's now the other guy's turn to roll for his first time. Same procedure, except this guy obviously can't take who the first guy took. Also, the pool is reset to the way it was before (with Will, Koga, Bruno, and Karen all present). So for example, say Guy #2 goes and he rolls a 2. That's Koga's original number. So since Koga was indeed taken by Guy #1, Guy #2 needs to roll again immediately. Say he then rolls a 1 for Karen but is like "Karen? No way! :(" That's the point where he then gets to make his own replacement nominee and ask for one final re-roll.

Folks are encouraged to be there for the livestream if they can be but it's by no means required. However, if you're assigned an E4 ticket, you will need to attend a livestream (whether it's the first one or a later second one) so Kuno can roll for you. And if you're not available for your dice re-roll during Stream #1 (should you even want a re-roll) but the other E4 ticket holder is, you will lose your spot in line for E4 re-rolls and the other guy will get to do his re-roll first. This is just so we can hurry things along and not drag drafting out. For everyone else, attending the livestream won't make a difference: you get who you get and you can't change it. I repeat: for people who successfully roll a Champion on their first try, there are no re-rolls allowed. You get who you get. Re-rolls are only available to E4 ticket holders as a conciliatory measure since (typically) E4 trainers are facing an uphill battle against the majority of the Champion teams. The point of asking Kuno to do it on camera is so that there can be eyewitnesses to the fairness of the dice rolls (i.e. no accusations of lying about RNG rolls). The benefit of doing it on Livestream is that he can record the stream as evidence and you can check it out later at your own leisure if you don't believe us when we tell you who you got.

I realize this is a lot to read. However, I hope it makes sense out of how this will go down.

P.S. If Kuno says "No," then we'll try to find somebody else with a webcam and DND dice. ^^; I have the dice but no camera.

EDIT: Should we happen to break 12 members before registration closes tomorrow, the Elite 4 pool will be expanded to include Gen IV's Elite 4, totaling eight possible E4 you could get on your first E4 ticket holder roll instead of four possible trainers. Just keep that in mind.

[Holy Emperor]

Yeah that's fine. Do you want me to do it now?

[Talon87]

You can't because we don't know how many people wish to compete and therefore what the roll count should be. It can't happen any sooner than tomorrow right after registration closes.

Thank you for accepting, though. Do you have physical dice, too? That would be ideal. You could just have the camera pointing down at your desk as you roll the die.

[Holy Emperor]

Yeah I got the usual. 4s, 6s, 8s, 10s, 12s, 20s.

[Lonely Cubone]

Talon, I appreciate the effort you're putting in here and it's a great idea, but this is a friendly tournament and I don't think anyone's likely to kick off if you just tell them who they are, I'm really not that bothered about watching a video of someone rolling some dice to prove that I got my character by a completely unbiased method.

[YUKI.N]

I'll give this a try. Total newbie here, never done competitive battling before. But it souds fun, so heck, why not? =3

[Talon87]

Lol, I realize I'm going to extreme measures. hahaha It's just that I don't want people feeling gypped out of an opportunity to fanboy it or fangirl it up representing who they want. We can't just allow people to pick who they want because, duh, there's going to be a lot of people picking the same ones and, as per the theme of this contest, I'd rather not allow double-dipping of characters. I think it's more fun to have us each represent a character. But in order to do that, we can't allow people to lay dibs. So we have to assign them. And assigning a character to a child who that child doesn't want is very likely to produce rage-tears. No thanks. ^^; If Kuno's willing to go along with this (and he apparently is), then I'm all the more grateful to him and we should be able to leave no doubts in anyone's minds that they got who they got.

Anyway, we can't assign yet because registration's still open and I promised not to close it until tomorrow. Every time I think I want to close it, someone else signs up. Which shows that there's still interest trickling in. I mean, hell, the thread's only two days old. :oops: It's not like this should be surprising. How long did Loki leave registration open for his more serious tourney? A week? Two weeks? I'm leaving mine open for only three days. XD But it's the least I can do to allow people a chance to sign up.

That stated, I may actually cap registration at 12 members. (Which we're one away from right now with Celebii151's and lilbluecorsola's additions to the roster.) This is so that we don't get too many battles. (6 pairs per round times 11 rounds for sixty-six battles to keep track of if we do a Round Robin tournament with 12 people.) In which case I guess I could ask Kuno to do it today after all. XD But then I'd be a big dirty liar for having promised that registration closed tomorrow. :( Thoughts?

[Holy Emperor]

I think it's fine if a tournament caps at a certain number of people.

Plus this is on PO. It's so easy to organize/get Pokemon ready for battle that doing one again later on (or soon) won't be too difficult.


If it is going to be 12, any chance you can write who the new trainers are and what Pokemon they have? I like to theorycraft based on who is available.


Edit: I'm also pretty sure nobody would want who I want to pick so.. XP

[Talon87]

If it is going to be 12, any chance you can write who the new trainers are and what Pokemon they have? I like to theorycraft based on who is available.
If it's 12, the new additions to the Elite 4 pool would be Aaron, Bertha, Flint, and Lucian. These are the Elite 4 from Generation IV (Cynthia's generation) and are included either for their strength, their team diversity, or else the fact that they're not Glacia. XP (Poor, poor Glacia.) I considered including Gen V's because of how tough many people found them during Story Mode but (1) Story Mode's Story Mode =P and (2) unfortunately they each only have six Pokémon to choose from and some of them are sorely lacking in the defensive typing department. (E.g. that poor bastard Marshal is sporting a ridiculous 2x or 4x weakness to Psychic and a 2x or 4x weakness to Flying across his entire goddamn team of six.) If we were doing "pick the E4 manually" (Option 4 in that one vote from earlier), then I would probably have tapped Will, Karen, Aaron, and Agatha initially and then proceeded to include Bruno, Flint, Shauntal, and possibly Caitlin (dunno about that last one).

I should explain "Why Agatha?" in the next post. It may influence how the Elite 4 people draft. It will also certainly influence how whoever gets Lance chooses to use Lance.

Edit: I'm also pretty sure nobody would want who I want to pick so.. XP
Really? XD I'm such a typical fanboy. I know that my top three picks would be three of the most heavily-desired picks of the lot. (And no, I won't say who, but I'm pretty sure you could figure it out. =P :lol:) But yeah, I keep thinking to myself that even if I get someone I thought was terri-weak when playing the games that I'm not going to let it show during this tourney. I'm going to go full-out with whoever I get and totally represent. :)

[Talon87]

This will be reiterated in the official tournament rules post (to come later), but for now, I want to explain why Agatha might be a preferred choice over some other Elite 4 members. The rationale behind this is, the only species clause in place in this tournament is that you can't use more than what we know the characters owned in the games. Translation: if you're running Steven Stone then you can only have one Metagross because he only ever used one Metagross at a time in battles; however, if you're running Lance, you have the option to run as many as three Dragonites on one team; if you're running Agatha, then you have the option to run as many as two Gengars on one team; etc. Needless to say, this will not only affect how the UPNers using these Champions or Elite Four members decide to use them but it will also affect how their opponents prepare for those matches. It could be a very powerful thing to run three Dragonites on one team but it could also be a very perilous thing. Whether it's brilliant or foolish is up to you and your opponents to determine in the course of battle. But I'm throwing that out there for those of us who may draw Elite Four tickets: don't think that there's going to be a species clause which restricts you to only using one Flygon (Drake) or one Gengar (Agatha) or one Banette (Phoebe). You may use as many members of a particular species as that Elite Four member or Champion demonstrated that they owned separately (by virtue of summoning separately in one single battle).

NOTE: Alternate movesets on a creature in different battles do not mean the person had more than one of that creature! This should be duh-obvious but I'm going to mention it so we avoid any bitching later on: no, I don't care that so-and-so's such-and-such had these moves pre-defeating the E4 but then these moves post-defeating the E4. That isn't the point. If they only ever had the one guy on their team at once, then you can only bring one of those to battle in this tourney. (Make-believe example: if Agatha had had a Dusknoir pre-beating the game and it knew Will-o-Wisp but then she had a Dusknoir post-beating the game with Rest instead, that is not evidence that she owns two different Dusknoirs and so no you may not bring two Dusknoirs into battle in this tourney if you draft Agatha.)
_________________________________

Another thing which I'll bring up in the official rules, and this should also go without saying but I'll say just so it's on the record: no, you may not use higher evolved forms or alternate evolved forms for a given creature if that Champion or E4 member did not own said creature. For example, Karen may not use Bellossum (an alternate form of Vileplume) nor may Agatha use three Gengars (by way of "evolving" her one Haunter). Karen did not have Bellossum, therefore no Bellossum. Agatha did not have three Gengars, therefore no third Gengar.

Anyway, more rules later. I need to draft an official rules post that consolidates it all together.

[Holy Emperor]

Are you going to have more than 12 (provided 12 join) to allow rerolling without taking someone elses roll?

[Talon87]

No. I think I explained it in the long dice roll mechanics post, but I'll try again much more briefly here:

Say there are 12 of us and the randomized list of trainers looked like this:
1 - Steven
2 - Green/Blue
3 - Elite Four ticket
4 - Elite Four ticket
5 - Red
6 - Alder
7 - Cynthia
8 - Wallace
9 - Elite Four ticket
10 - Lance
11 - Elite Four ticket
12 - Elite Four ticket
Seven Champions plus five Elite Four. You would roll the dice (as explained in the first post) to assign people to their characters. The people who are assigned E4 tickets just sit tight and wait until everyone's been rolled a character. Then the round of E4 dice rolls begin, first rolling their initial character, then allowing them the chance for a re-roll, and proceeding like this throughout the queue until all five E4 ticket holders have been assigned an E4 member.

So let's look at this E4 nonsense a bit more closely. This time, there are eight trainers, listed in order because why not:
1 - Will
2 - Koga
3 - Bruno
4 - Karen
5 - Aaron
6 - Bertha
7 - Flint
8 - Lucian
E4 ticket holder #1 rolls and gets a 6. "Bertha!? D: No thank you!" he says. He asks for a re-roll. He nominates Shauntal to replace Bertha. Kuno graciously re-rolls and ... 3. That means ticket holder #1 gets Bruno and is stuck with Bruno.

Now the E4 board is reset to the original list (i.e. no Shauntal is in it). Since Bruno's already taken, it means that if Kuno rolls a 3 for ticket holder #2, then he needs to re-roll automatically. (This does not count as ticket holder #2's free re-roll.) So Kuno does re-roll and he gets an 8 this time. Lucian. Say ticket holder #2 says, "Mmmm...... thanks, but no thanks. Can we re-roll?" He nominates Agatha to replace Lucian for his re-roll. You re-roll for him and ... it's a 3. Bruno again. That means you need to re-roll automatically. So you do, and this time you roll a 2, Koga. That means that E4 ticket holder #2 is the proud owner of Koga. The board resets, and we move on.

So ... I don't think we need to have more than twelve characters if twelve people join, but it turns out that (incidentally) I will have 15 characters if 12 people join because I add E4 in blocks of four rather than adding them one by one. (At least that's the plan.)

[Talon87]

Welcome aboard, Celebii151 and YUKI.N! (A little late, I realize. ^^; )

=Current List of Competitors=
Talon87, Concept, Tyranidos, KratosAurion, blazeVA, Lonely Cubone, SP-Eevee, Holy Emperor, XanderKetsu, Celebii151, YUKI.N

=Round Robin votes=
Talon87, Holy Emperor, Lonely Cubone, Concept, Tyranidos, XanderKetsu, Celebii151

If we do a Round Robin format, which seems likely judging from the votes so far, then each round there are going to be six matches (assuming 12 people). It won't be possible to stagger that many matches so that everyone can watch everyone else play. Now granted, thanks to Kindrindra we now have the lovely option available to us of uploading our P-O battle logs to the web and posting them here for everyone else to enjoy at their leisure. But that isn't quite the same thing as watching a live match.

So, I'd like to propose a "modified Round Robin" where our matches are still going to follow the Round Robin format but we're not going to all fight one another in the same 3-hour or 4-hour window of time like you ordinarily would with a Round Robin tourney. Doing the normal thing would require getting 12+ people across three different continents to agree on a time in which the they could all play for 3+ hours straight. It just isn't going to happen. So instead of doing a traditional Round Robin, instead I think I'll tear a page out of Loki's manual and allow folks to schedule their own battles. However! There will be stipulations for when the Round Robin battles must be completed by and it's going to be pretty harsh. Brace yourselves!

See a sample calendar here. (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/champion_league_tournament_schedule_sample.png) Deadlines are in red, imaginary appointments to meet up with fellow UPNers are in cyan.

Rounds 1 and 2 must be completed by Friday, Nov 12 at midnight GMT.
Rounds 3 and 4 must be completed by Saturday, Nov 13 at midnight GMT.
Rounds 5 and 6 must be completed by Sunday, Nov 14 at midnight GMT.
Rounds 7 and 8 must be completed by Friday, Nov 19 at midnight GMT.
Rounds 9 and 10 must be completed by Saturday, Nov 20 at midnight GMT.
Round 11 must be completed by Sunday, Nov 21 at midnight GMT.

These are hypothetical times but I think they're pretty good. Let me know what you guys think. If I hear pretty good support for them, I'll announce that these are the official deadlines. If I hear pretty solid disapproval of them, then we'll fix things.
If we do things this way, there are two major advantages. The first advantage is the flexibility to make your own schedule. All I'm giving you is a set of ultimate deadlines. But you're encouraged to get your battles done as early as you want: heck, you could start battling mere hours after Kuno's finished livestreaming the dice rolls and you've prepped your teams on P-O, if you like. The second advantage is that if you guys post your appointment times in this thread, then your friends can come and watch when you two square off. This way people participating in the tournament needn't feel like they're not going to get to watch any of the matches live.

[Concept]

I hereby endorse the above post.

[Lonely Cubone]

Sounds good to me, means that people don't have to back out if they're out on the night or whatever.

[Tyranidos]

Goody, I won't have internet access from the 23rd to 26th or something. The week after next will be quite hectic but I could probably squeeze in a couple rounds.

[blazeVA]

I hereby approve all of this. Also, Round Robin please. Tdos is bad and should feel bad

Also, we can use any moveset, right? I might have forgotten.

[Tyranidos]

Tdos is bad and should feel bad

What? I voted for Round Robin.

[Talon87]

You can use any legal moveset, yes. I'm still working on the rules post, and also not wanting to bog this thread down with too many replies. (Makes it less likely people who are AFK today will read through everything when they come back tonight or tomorrow.) But for now, if you're already trying to consider who/want you want to bring -- though that seems a bit premature to me ^^; since you're not statistically likely to get who you want, but whatever! If you're that excited, great! -- then I can go ahead and repeat the following team-building rules:
1 - a modified species clause. No repeats unless your trainer had repeats on their team at the same exact time. (e.g. Lance and his three Dragonites)

2 - any moveset, and not necessarily the movesets the characters used in the video games

3 - any creatures that I listed in the OP post. I'll edit the list to include Elite 4 members once we know which specific ones are being used. The lists are basically restricted to main series games and their remakes only. No Pokemon Stadium stuff or anime stuff or TCG stuff, etc.

Will hold off on more rules till later. But yes. Any legal moveset works. Hacked movesets not only won't be allowed but I don't think can be allowed with the P-O software. I'm pretty sure it barks at you if you try to make a team that is illegal for a particular generation, so never mind (say) trying to give a Steelix the move Teleport.

[Talon87]

With only 90 minutes to go, if you want to sign up, now is the time! So far the participant count is at 11. The tournament format votes are at 7 for Round Robin, 0 for Double-Elimination, and 4 not yet voted. The tournament calendar votes are at 4 for what I proposed yesterday, 0 against, and 7 not yet voted.

Still working on the fully-fleshed out Tournament Rules post.

*thread bump* to see if Kuno's awake and to ask him to get ready for the Livestream. Should be fun. I look forward to signing in and watching the dice rolls live. :)

[Holy Emperor]

I'm around.

[Talon87]

Aaaaand that does it! Registration is now closed! That means the competitors in this year's Champion League Tournament are Talon87, Concept, Tyranidos, KratosAurion, blazeVA, Lonely Cubone, SP-Eevee, Holy Emperor, XanderKetsu, Celebii151, and YUKI.N!

With seven votes in favor of Round Robin, it looks like Round Robin automatically wins. With no votes contesting the suggested "modified Round Robin" style, I think we'll go ahead and go with that. Last but not least, with no votes contesting the suggested tournament deadlines, I think we'll go with those as well. (If a majority of members voice complaints with that schedule, I will still be amenable to changing it. But for now, consider it the official schedule.)

Given how we'll be doing the dice rolls, it's not as though it matters, but I'm going to go ahead and use this RNG on Random.org (http://www.random.org/) to go ahead and generate the rolling order for the eleven of us. Kuno's rolls, the real randomness, are what matter anyway. I'm just doing this so there's absolutely zero grounds for complaints about non-randomness. (Temporarily 1 = Talon, 2 = Concept, etc. Order in which you signed up.) So now the rolling order Kuno will do shall be:
XanderKetsu
SP-Eevee
KratosAurion
Lonely Cubone
Concept
YUKI.N
Tyranidos
Talon87
Celebii151
blazeVA
Holy Emperor

Since he's our gracious dice-rolling host, I suppose Kuno is free to veto this random rolling if he hates the fact that the RNG turned his name up last XD, but other than that, this order doesn't really matter anyway since we're randomly rolling to assign characters.

See you in the Livestream! Uhh ... well, once Kuno posts a link to it. :oops: (If it's Regamening, I'm already there. Otherwise, link please!)

EDIT: How silly of me. I forgot to list the dice-rolling identities of our seven champions and four Elite Four tickets. They are:
1 - Steven
2 - Red
3 - Elite Four ticket
4 - Elite Four ticket
5 - Green/Blue
6 - Alder
7 - Wallace
8 - Elite Four ticket
9 - Cynthia
10 - Elite Four ticket
11 - Lance

[Talon87]

Expand to see how the dice rolls went.
Xander gets 3 from the original list. Elite Four Ticket. Scrunched list for D10 is ...

1 - Steven
2 - Red
3 - Elite Four ticket
4 - Green/Blue
5 - Alder
6 - Wallace
7 - Elite Four ticket
8 - Cynthia
9 - Elite Four ticket
10 - Lance

Speevy gets Steven Stone (1). KratosAurion gets Wallace (6). Scrunching the list for a D8, we get ...

1 - Red
2 - Elite Four ticket
3 - Green/Blue
4 - Alder
5 - Elite Four ticket
6 - Cynthia
7 - Elite Four ticket
8 - Lance

LC rolls a 5 for an Elite Four ticket. Concept rolls a 7 for an Elite Four ticket. Scrunching the list for a D6, we get ...

1 - Red
2 - Elite Four ticket
3 - Green/Blue
4 - Alder
5 - Cynthia
6 - Lance

YUKI.N rolls a 5 for Cynthia. :O Tyranidos rolls a 4 for Alder.

Scrunched (and final) list for a D4 is ...

1 - Red
2 - Elite Four ticket
3 - Green/Blue
4 - Lance

Talon87 rolls 1 for Red. Celebii151 rolls 2 for an Elite 4 ticket. blazeVA rolls a 3 for Green/Blue. And so Headmaster Kuno automatically gets Lance.

Then we entered into E4 rolling. Only Concept was present >( ^^;, so we gave him priority. The possibilities were:
1 - Will
2 - Koga
3 - Bruno
4 - Karen

Concept rolled a 2 and got Koga. He decided to keep, making it a moot point for any of the other E4 ticket holders who might have wanted Koga.

The other three -- Xander, LC, and Celebii -- weren't present, so Kuno suggested a rules change that we went with. Here it is: we rolled you guys a Gen 2 E4 for now. (Randomly and fairly.) We're then going to say that if you don't like who you got, ask me and tell me who you would want instead. (It has to be somebody new and it can't be an E4 somebody else has already taken.) We'll go in the order you rolled for priority. The roll then will be a coin flip: you will have a 50-50 shot. 50% chance of getting who you already have, 50% chance of getting the person you ask for. So, having said that ...

Xander rolled a 1 and gets Will for now. LC rolled a 4 and gets Karen for now. That means that Celebii151 automatically gets Bruno for now.
So the list is!

Team Red: Talon87
Team Green/Blue: blazeVA
Team Will: XanderKetsu
Team Koga: Concept
Team Bruno: Celebii151
Team Karen: Lonely Cubone
Team Lance: Headmaster Kuno
Team Steven: SP-Eevee
Team Wallace: KratosAurion
Team Cynthia: YUKI.N
Team Alder: Tyranidos

Okay! Scheduling info, round info, rules, etc all in the next colossal post!

[Lonely Cubone]

I'm out for the next few hours, so will accept whoever I get and trust you all...

[Holy Emperor]

Wait, nobody got green/blue?

I thought it was just Lance left at the end and that's who I defaulted to. :x I didnt actually roll for myself. Why aren't you on AIM talon.

Edit: NVM it's blaze.

[XanderKetsu]

Fuck, remembered I van't make it next weekend, if held then. Throwing this out there now otherwise it might lead to confusion later.

Edit: I wish to make this clear for my confuzzed head. All 'mom used by a trainer can be used in this tournament? Ex: Me having a Flareon since Will had one in Staduim 2. And we are not limited to the Pokemon's original moveset, just whatever P-O gives us, correct?

[Talon87]

I'm writing the full rules post right now, Xander, but I've said this many times already so please listen carefully: you may only use monsters you had in a main game. All tournament-legal creatures have been listed for the seven Champions in the OP post. The E4 listings will come eventually, but they follow the same basic guidelines. Stadium 2 is not a main series game and therefore does not count. If we allowed the Stadium games, it would produce a ridiculous advantage for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 trainers. I made this clear from Day 1, so I don't expect this to be something anyone would try and contend right now. :|

Also, you needn't make it next weekend: you need only make sure you get your Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, and Round 6 battles completed by their appropriate deadlines (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night for each respective pair). You could start battling today if you wish. I probably will try and find people to start battling with either some time later tonight or else tomorrow.

[Talon87]

Tournament Rules

I. Team Making
II. Matches
III. Disqualification

Team Making
Pokémon-Online's Basic Rules & Clauses:
It will be up to each competitor to make sure that the appropriate boxes are checked or left unchecked on P-O. If someone refuses to play you unless you agree to check (or uncheck) a box and if you believe that they are in violation of the rules outlined below, notify me and I will deal with that member.

Generation and Default Mode: the generation should be set to B/W (5th Gen). You should set this in the Team Builder window by clicking on "Gen." on the top and then selecting "B/W (5th Gen)" in the drop-down menu. You should select creatures and moves such that you are automatically placed in P-O's Wifi OU bracket. (No, we will not be doing WiFi battles. However, you need to make sure that you are in the WiFi OU bracket. See "Other Rules & Clauses" below for more details.)

Sleep Clause: this box should be checked on P-O. You can only put up to one (1) creature to sleep at a time.

Freeze Clause: this box should be checked on P-O. You can only freeze up to one (1) creature at a time.

Disallow Spectators: this box should be left unchecked on P-O. For the purposes of the tournament, we are encouraging audience attendance. Thus, all battles are public.

Item Clause: this box should be checked on P-O. Because P-O does not allow us to customize this, you are going to be restricted to having only one copy of an item per team. Originally I was going to let people have up to two (2) of the same item but P-O is all-or-none and we don't have the resources to make sure that people aren't spamming six Choice Scarfs or six Choice Bands, etc, so ... sorry. :\ But yeah, regular Item Clause is in effect.

Challenge Cup: this refers to P-O's Challenge Cup mode and should be left unchecked. Checking it will automatically ignore your teams and create two new random teams for you.

No Timeout: this box is up to the participants to agree upon. When in doubt, No Timeout is the rule of thumb for this tournament and so this box should be checked. But if both participants agree to a timed match, then that's their prerogative.

Species Clause: this box should be left unchecked on P-O. Creature repeats are allowed provided you have evidence that the trainer had as many creatures of that stage on his or her team at once. For example, Steven Stone may not use two or more Metagrosses but Dragon Master Lance may use as many as three separate Dragonites on one team.

Wifi Battle: this box should be left unchecked on P-O. If you check it, two things will become possible. First, before the battle even begins you will be able to see all six of your opponent's Pokémon and he/she will be able to see all six of yours. Second, you will each be able to rearrange the order of your teams.

Self-KO Clause: this box should be left unchecked. For the purposes of this tournament, if a Pokémon KO's both itself and its opponent and there are no Pokémon left standing, the battle will be a tie. This happens in the anime all the time and this is a casual tournament anyway.


Other Rules & Clauses:
It will be up to each competitor to honor these rules or clauses. We do not have any way of enforcing them via the Pokémon-Online software.

Eligible Creatures: you may select any creature which your trainer used in the main video games. The full creature list is provided in the OP post. Using any creatures not listed for your trainer is not permitted. If you see someone doing that, you should report it to me immediately.

Eligible Moves: you may use any moves you wish so long as they are creature-legal, something P-O enforces anyway. OHKO moves like Fissure or Sheer Cold will be limited to two (2) iterations per team but are tournament-legal.

Eligible IV spreads: any and all.

Eligible EV spreads: P-O enforces a maximum distribution of 508 EVs across all six stats and a maximum deposit of 254 EVs for any one stat (with 252 representing max efficiency). You have complete freedom within those confines to choose how to spread your EVs.

Abilities and Dream World abilities: Pokémon with Dream World abilities that have been released to the public in any region are allowed, provided your trainer can use them in the first place. Dream World abilities not yet released to the public in any region are not allowed in this tournament. The way you can know if you're doing this right is to see whether P-O automatically preferences you for "DW OU" (or any other Dream World tier) or whether it automatically preferences you for "WiFi OU" (or any other WiFi tier). If it says DW in front, then you've done it wrong and selected an ability which is illegal for this tournament. If it says WiFi in front, then you've done it right. However, keep in mind that when you then challenge one another to a fight, you will uncheck the checkbox which says "WiFi Battle." (See "WiFi Battle" section above.)

Shadow Tag/Arena Trap: these two abilities will be allowed in this tournament. This is a casual tournament and these frightening abilities are meant to be explored, not shelved. You are representing your trainer: so think how you would try to defeat these terrifying abilities if you were faced with them in an actual battle!

Sturdy: this ability is allowed and does not count towards your Focus Sash item count should you choose to use one.

Weather Clause: all weather forms are allowed. Only tournament-legal moves or abilities which trigger weather are allowed.


Matches
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_deadlines_th.jpg
click to see full-res (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_deadlines.png)

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_rounds_rough_draft_th.jpg
click to see full-res (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_rounds_rough_draft.png)

Where To Fight: click on "Go Online" from the program's splash menu. From there, double-click on "Pokémon Online" on the very top of the server list. This is where battles should be held, just to make sure everything's consistent. If for some reason you can't log in to the P-O server, try at a different time.

Record Your Logs: please record your logs! This will allow the community to watch your battles later and to also verify that these were in fact your tournament matches (and not just casual matches you later played). What you need to do is, when the battle screen loads up, you should immediately make sure of two things! First, make sure that the "Save log" checkbox is checked. This will record your battle log to your computer. Second, you will want to type into the chatbox "tournament match" (or similar words) to let us know that this is the tourney match. Your opponent should also type those words in.

Report Your Victories: the winner of each match should report it here in the thread. Be sure to mention both of your names.

Share your battles logs: find where on your computer your logs are being saved. (It differs from person to person. I am running Windows XP and have had logs save to C:\Program Files\Pokemon Online\Logs before and I have had them more recently save to C:\Documents and Settings\[my name]\Logs, so check both file paths. No clue for Vista, Windows 7, MacOS X, etc.) Once you find the appropriate log file, upload it here: http://pokemon.aesoft.org/ Then, post the link it generates in this thread (along with your victory report). This way, we can all enjoy watching the match: even those of us who were away at the time! If everybody cooperates, we should be able to have a great archive of UPN battles to share with folks. :)


Disqualification
Deadlines: you are expected to complete your matches by the dates and times provided in the calendar above. If neither player notifies me of a win/loss and if neither player can provide evidence that they tried to contact the other person (a PM is preferred as Kuno can verify that this was sent), the match will be registered as a Draw and neither player will be awarded points. If only one player notifies me that they tried to contact the other person but he/she wouldn't respond, on good faith that person will be awarded the auto-win and the other person the auto-loss. (Again, evidence is required for this or else you'll be given a draw.) However, if the other person can provide evidence of a good excuse for having missed the match, then I will extend the deadline for that pair and no winner will be immediately declared.

(going to go ahead and post this so that you guys can start building your teams)

[Concept]

My piss poor team is prepared.

[Ethereal]

Signing up.
Free next weekend.

[Concept]

Sign ups closed and we already sorted who everyone is, Ethe.

[Ethereal]

Well, I should have read the thread.
Thanks anywho!

[Holy Emperor]

Sorry, you just missed this by a few hours. D:

[Tyranidos]

Fuck Vanilluxe.

[Celebii151]

Sorry, Ethe.

Well, I have to download PO on my new laptop, as I only had it on my old one. Does anyone know how to give abilities to Pokemon? I can't figure out how to do that.

[Celebii151]

Fuck Vanilluxe.

I suppose you're saying the same for Escavalier?

On another note, Bruno's team sucks. :(

[Concept]

My piss poor team is prepared.

Tested it. Got spanked.

Yay!

EDIT the first: Tested again and won. Yay!

[Holy Emperor]

Questions:

1) Do I have to use the same team for all the battles? Like, can I have reserve mon for other trainers? Or do I have to use the same 6 for all battles?

2) Are logs going to be public from the get go? It seems kind of.. unfair since you can look at other battles and see everyones movesets from the start.

[Talon87]

The rules post isn't finished yet. Still need to copy&paste the DQ stuff I wrote on the very first day but saved to a .txt file. ^^; But I need to go get lunch, so that comes first. =P So be sure to check back on the rules post.

Also, I need confirmation from Xander, Celebi, and LC who they are/want to be. LC is afk today, but Xander and Celebi, want to confirm for me your results? If you like who you got, say so and he/s yours. If you don't like who you got, let me know, let me know who you'd rather have a shot at (THAT HASN'T ALREADY BEEN PICKED), and we'll let you re-roll. (Or screw it: since this is a very casual tourney anyway, we could even let you just have them so long as nobody objects. If anybody objects, though, then you gotta roll for it. I don't object. :oops:) Once we sort out who you are, I'll update the main post to include your guys' creature lists as well.

[Tyranidos]

I have completed my team.

EDIT: How the fuck do I playtest this team? PO keeps forcing me to play Challenge Cup.

[Holy Emperor]

Team is ready as well. If you were gonna be so lazy you should of just let some pick who we wanted. I doubt anyone was gunning for Karen. XP

[Talon87]

1) Do I have to use the same team for all the battles? Like, can I have reserve mon for other trainers? Or do I have to use the same 6 for all battles?
I've waffled on this a lot in my mind, and this is something I've yet to incorporate into the official rules post above, but my final verdict is ... yes, you may have reserve Pokémon, no, you may not have more than one of that particular creature. (So for example, as Red, I cannot both have a physical Charizard and a special Charizard which I rotate between depending on who I am fighting. Charizard is Charizard, my one and only, so he's gotta be consistent.) This leads into your next question, which is ...

2) Are logs going to be public from the get go? It seems kind of.. unfair since you can look at other battles and see everyones movesets from the start.
Casual tourney. =P :lol: Don't worry about it so much, man. If I said "you can change your moves around," then everybody would be trying to out-game everybody else every bloody round. It'd be a mess. I mean, you could do it, but that really isn't the point of this tournament. This idea was inspired by reading about your guys' ASB and thinking about the anime. I thought it'd be fun for us to represent the Champions and Elite Four and to bring their creatures to life. You're free to use whatever moves you like, but I don't know if I want to let that extend to switching between battles.

This isn't meant to punish you (who want to change the moves to avoid being predictable) so much as it's meant to protect the people you face (who shouldn't have to be like, "Well fuck it. :| He has a team of six OUs and I have a team of two OUs, three UUs, and one NU. I'm screwed. I may as well forfeit now." I want everybody to have fun during this tournament, casual or not, and I don't want it to so easily turn into a "Cynthia or Green or Lance is going to totally fucking win this tournament no matter what anyone else tries."

tl;dr whoever is running Wallace should not have to worry that his opponents are going to magically all learn electric moves just in time for their match-up and just as magically forget them before they move on to the next round. Either you always had the electric move or else you never had it. Otherwise it's completely stacked against Wallace, Koga, etc. And that just ain't cool. I mean, would you like it if a team that didn't have a single Psychic move across it suddenly all knew Psychic and Earthquake when they showed up to face Koga if you were Koga? :|

I understand your concerns about people figuring out each others' teams, but ... casual tourney, dude. Let's just have fun and knock out these eleven battles apiece, win or lose. :)

[Talon87]

Team is ready as well. If you were gonna be so lazy you should of just let some pick who we wanted. I doubt anyone was gunning for Karen. XP
WTF, it's 1:09pm and I haven't eaten anything since Saturday morning. (No lunch or dinner yesterday, unfortunately. Had some crackers and peanut butter before bed but only a couple.) I'm busy with stuff too and I'm not being lazy. XP

As for letting people pick who they want, ARGH, I've said this before already: I personally, Talon87, am cool with that idea. But I didn't allow it because I 100% knew that if I did there would be kids fighting over the same two or three Champions and other kids crying that they were unfairly forced to have somebody else. The fairest way was a dice roll. The end. I am personally down with letting the E4 people pick who they want or letting people trade, but like Concept said, it's way too much hassle, only the people who got less fortunate rolls are going to pester the people who got more fortunate rolls, etc. So I just said "No, forget it, you get who you get."

[Tyranidos]

Alright, I figured it out. I'm ready to battle anyone who's willing right now.

[XanderKetsu]

Oh sorry. I'm fine with Will.

Just want to know, where exactly do I find the boxes for clauses to check and uncheck?

[Talon87]

Just want to know, where exactly do I find the boxes for clauses to check and uncheck?
When you double-click on somebody's name to issue a challenge, or when somebody else has already done that to you and you receive the challenge, a box will pop up with all the clauses.

BTW, on the main P-O menu once you've logged in, up on top there is a drop-down menu tab which says "Options." Click on that and make sure that where it says "Show team" there is no checkmark. If you have a checkmark, uncheck it. "Show team" allows anybody to double-click on your name and see your team.

[Lonely Cubone]

Ooh, Karen. Awesome quotes ahoy.

[XanderKetsu]

When you double-click on somebody's name to issue a challenge, or when somebody else has already done that to you and you receive the challenge, a box will pop up with all the clauses.

BTW, on the main P-O menu once you've logged in, up on top there is a drop-down menu tab which says "Options." Click on that and make sure that where it says "Show team" there is no checkmark. If you have a checkmark, uncheck it. "Show team" allows anybody to double-click on your name and see your team.

Thanks. One more noob question: Was the OP post ever posted, or am I being delusional? That happens a lot. If it was posted, would you kindly point me in the right direction?

Edit: I'm translating OP as overpowered, but I think in this case it's opening, correct?

[Talon87]

OP means "opening," yes. At lunch right now, so can't edit in your list atm.

[Holy Emperor]

What server do we get on? I'm new at this.

Ps. Talon want to do our battle when you get on? ^_____^

[Talon87]

I explain it in the Matches section. :p :) The top-most server, the one which says "Pokemon Online."

And yes, but I need to make my team first. Still thinking about that moves rule, too, and how it might choke the inexperienced battlers.

[blazeVA]

>Got Green

FUCK YEAH!! This is going to be awesome! My team will be destroy you all. And it all revolves around Pidgeot.

[Holy Emperor]

What moves rule?

[Holy Emperor]

Wait you said only 1 of each mon, but I thought Lance could have 3 Dragonites. Special rule just for me? =D

[Concept]

My team is up and ready (as I cba to make backup members), so whenever people feel like going just bug me.

[Talon87]

The "can we change our moves between battles?" question you asked and the "No =\" I replied with. On the one hand, I do not (DO NOT) want counter-teaming, but on the other hand I don't Yuki or Concept to feel like they have to get their twenty-four moves right the first time OR ELSE! So ... decisions. I may just have to judge on a case-by-case basis, but that's likely to be very unpopular with the people I turn down. So ... yeah.

[Holy Emperor]

The "can we change our moves between battles?" question you asked and the "No =\" I replied with. On the one hand, I do not (DO NOT) want counter-teaming, but on the other hand I don't Yuki or Concept to feel like they have to get their twenty-four moves right the first time OR ELSE! So ... decisions. I may just have to judge on a case-by-case basis, but that's likely to be very unpopular with the people I turn down. So ... yeah.

Screw it. Keep the moves or you'll have someone with thunder on their entire team to fight wallace, etc.

Also I have no idea how to set like, challenge cup or item clause rules etc. Where are those settings at?

Ps Talon lets fighto.

[Concept]

The "can we change our moves between battles?" question you asked and the "No =\" I replied with. On the one hand, I do not (DO NOT) want counter-teaming, but on the other hand I don't Yuki or Concept to feel like they have to get their twenty-four moves right the first time OR ELSE! So ... decisions. I may just have to judge on a case-by-case basis, but that's likely to be very unpopular with the people I turn down. So ... yeah.

I'm cool with it as is, even if all my moves turn out to be pants (as my now 1-3 battle record indicates they might be :p).

[Talon87]

Wait you said only 1 of each mon, but I thought Lance could have 3 Dragonites. Special rule just for me? =D
You are allowed to have three Dragonites. They can have the same or different moves from one another. Same with IVs and EVs.

What you asked earlier (and I said No to) was, "Can I have different Charizards in my box? And only use one at a time in fights but be able to rotate them between fights?" And to that I said, "No." Lance only owns one Charizard, so you may only build one Charizard. Use him or don't use him, it's up to you, but once you decide that he's going to be a (say) 252 Def/252 SpDef ToxicStall Charizard, then that's what he is. And if people report that you've started using a Bellyzard with Body Slam and Slash and 252 Att, then I'mma have to pull you aside. =P ;-) THAT'S what I was saying.

But yes, you are in an (arguably) huge position of power. You can choose to use your Dragonite version A, your version B, your version C, or even all three in any given fight. Beware the ice, though, Dragon Master! :)

[Holy Emperor]

Ah ok. I got you. Ps I also want to fight Talon first so he can help me set up everything. I have my team but no idea where these options are at and how to battle etc.

[Talon87]

Do a test battle with a make-believe team of two (e.g. Alakazam and Mamoswine) to test that out. I'd love to help, but ... Chinese restaurant.

[Holy Emperor]

Can I (or someone) make a UPN room to chillax in? Too many idiots in main one and I don't know the others.

[Concept]

Re: The items rule: If I have a reserve pokemon with the same item as one of the first six, but never use these two together (so never have more than one of any item on the team of six in any one battle), is this allowed?

[Talon87]

To the best of my knowledge, no. P-O doesn't even sport a Buddy List feature. =\ But it's the best free online competitive battler I've ever seen, that's for sure. Maybe make a chat room on AIM?

Will head home in the 20 or so.

[Talon87]

Re: The items rule: If I have a reserve pokemon with the same item as one of the first six, but never use these two together (so never have more than one of any item on the team of six in any one battle), is this allowed?
Absolutely. Item clause refers to the instances of items on the Active Battle Roster, not to your boxed Pokémon too. So long as you only have one [item] out on a team of six at a time, you're good.

[Holy Emperor]

Well there are a bunch of random chat rooms. Was wondering if anyone could make there own.

I still don't know where to do item settings, challenge cup settings, etc etc.

[Talon87]

Kuno, I PM'd the person named "Kuno" twice but got no response, and then they disconnected a few minutes later. Was that you? Or was that somebody else? I looked for other aliases you might have used (like Holy Emperor) but Kuno was the only one I found.

[Lonely Cubone]

Elsie 5-0 Concept.

And that one was a Weavile I forgot to put any moves on.

It's a shame it was a friendly run really!

[Talon87]

If you guys want to hang out with us, the channel is UPN. (If the channel ever dies because we all leave and you're back on, be the one to create it by simply saying "UPN" in the field that says "Join: __________" in the channels list.) Kuno and I are there right now. On the top left, you should see three tabs, kinda obscured, that say "Players", "Battles", and "Channels". Click on Channels. Scroll down for UPN. That's how you do it. It'll then open as a tab on your main window screen. (You've got to click on the tab manually to switch to the channel proper.)

[Talon87]

Elsie 5-0 Concept.

And that one was a Weavile I forgot to put any moves on.

It's a shame it was a friendly run really!
Uh, no log? ^^;

Please save your logs, guys. And upload them here: http://pokemon.aesoft.org/ That way we can all watch. I've explained in an earlier post (possibly the rules post?) how you go about finding your logs.

I'll try to update the scoreboards either daily or else every other day.

[Concept]

This was a friendly run I think. Test match, we've both edited our team since.

Otherwise Elsie's stuck with his no-moves Weaville :p.

[Tyranidos]

If you guys want to hang out with us, the channel is UPN. (If the channel ever dies because we all leave and you're back on, be the one to create it by simply saying "UPN" in the field that says "Join: __________" in the channels list.) Kuno and I are there right now. On the top left, you should see three tabs, kinda obscured, that say "Players", "Battles", and "Channels". Click on Channels. Scroll down for UPN. That's how you do it. It'll then open as a tab on your main window screen. (You've got to click on the tab manually to switch to the channel proper.)

There is not a option for me to click on "Channels."

[blazeVA]

Here is my test battle with Concept:

http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Concept186-vs-blazeVA--2011-11-06

[Lonely Cubone]

Er, isn't posting test battles a little silly?

[XanderKetsu]

I would have lol'd if Concept won with Forretress alone.

[Talon87]

Didn't realize it was a test. lol

Announcement: we've had to make the channel private because there were partycrasher children who get their rocks off by crashing channels and acting like morons. So anyway, here's the deal: everyone who joins is going to be made into a channel operator (or Op) so that you can auto-join without having to be invited every time. The name of the channel is UPN. Kuno and I are currently the channel "owners." We'll see how long that lasts or if it's reset after everybody leaves the room, after 24 hours have passed, etc. Who knows. But for now, that's the deal. If you want to chat in the chatroom on P-O, you have to PM me or Kuno there and have one of us turn you into an Op.

Once Kuno comes back, I can see if he doesn't mind if I just make everyone a channel co-owner so he and I don't even have to be around to do this. But he's AFK right now so yeah. :|

[Talon87]

I went ahead and updated the very first post. It now has a hyperlink to the rules post conveniently stationed at the very top for you guys to click on.

I also went and edited the list of legal creatures in that post. It's totally updated now. Keep in mind that I don't list repeats, so you'll still want to check your characters on Bulbapedia to see if you have access to some repeatmon. If I have time/energy/passion, I may update it all for you. =P But I think you guys can handle that for yourselves.

Have done some test matches. Kuno disappeared (figures =P) but I went ahead and played Blaze and won ... and then lost ... and then lost again. :lol: Helped playtest Concept's team ... and now I think I'll sign off. Have some things to work on.

But I'll be PM'ing my first four appointments, and I may even sign back on to do stuff tonight if that's the time that works best for you.

[Talon87]

Double post, yes, but ... FIRST OFFICIAL MATCH?

Red vs. Koga! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Concept186--2011-11-06)

You can watch the battle here: http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Concept186--2011-11-06

Commentary edited in below. Enjoy! I try to make it entertaining for you as you read, but you may want to watch the video first and then go back to it, or you may want to read it as you watch the video (which is how I wrote it, turn-by-turn).

Turn 02: I got greedy, and Concept handsomely punished me with a Toxic that would direct the course of the battle. So much for a Zard sweep!

Turn 04: I wasn't thinking! XD Right as I clicked, I "neuuuu! ;_;"'d and tried to cancel the move order but it was of course too late and my Charizard proceeded to Earthquake ... a poisonous skunk ... floating atop a balloon. XP See in-video commentary for my thoughts on how you guys would react to this. lol

Turn 05: Roar, eh? Venusaur against Skuntank isn't exactly a favorable match-up, but at least I can't be poisoned. Let's go ahead and turn on the lights in here with a Sunny Day!

Turn 06: Substitute!? Mother Effer! D: Concept, you're good! Thank goodness for me Venusaur's Solarbeam does at least 25% damage to you despite resisting grass-type attacks!

Turn 07: I really thought that Snorlax's EQ would do more damage to the Skuntank. =\ That skunk's beefy!

Turn 08: Here, I proceed to completely forget about the fact that Concept's sporting Roar -- you know, the very same move which roared my Snorlax into the battlefield in the first place? XD -- and decide to go for some Curse action. Concept is not aware (or doesn't care, one of the two) that I have Rest and am not too concerned about Toxic as a result.

Turn 09: "He rested? :O Mwahahahaha! >3 I shall use this opportunity to Curse it on up! >D"

Turn 10: Stupid Talon. Should have EQ'd here. Instead, I allow Turn 11 to happen ...

Turn 11: ... where I feel I gotta Rest before he wakes up and "attacks" me. Little do I realize that Concept's lol'ing all the way to the bank. ^^;

Turn 12: ROAAAR! And so what came in as a healthy Snorlax exits as a healthy sleeping Snorlax. Dammit. >_< And out comes ... Blastoise? D: Dammit. It's Toxic Time for my poor turtle. :(

Turn 13: ... or not! ;D CHARIZARD! [/SSBB Pokemon Trainer voice]

Turn 14: Here I commit to losing Charizard if it means taking this skunk down. A risky move seeing as Zard is definitely one of Red's powerhouses.

Turn 16: Concept says "I've had enough of this! :|" and switches out to levitating Weezing.

Turn 17: And doing decent damage, and yet at the same time not really ^^;, Charizard exits the battle. Wuh oh. And in comes ... Psychic Cat!

Turn 18: Oh crap, I forgot. Forretress. :| Dammit. Guess I'm going to have to let him set up for free this round, huh?

Turn 19: IT'S PIKACHUUUUUUUU! At this point, I'm doing pretty poorly. ^^; But I figure that maybe Pikachu can eat Forretress's Gyro Ball or Explosion while I try and figure out what to do ........................... no? No Gyro Ball or Explosion? Instead Stealth Rock? Okay, we can play this game. :3 Pikachu, go!

Turn 20: THUNDERBOLT! And so Animechu did as he was told. And he haxed it up as he does in the anime, giving the Forretress paralysis -AND- lowering its HP by 71% -AND- the Forretress being unable to move THAT SAME TURN from its paralysis. And Concept was all "D:". And I was all "^^;" with a dash of ":D".

Turn 21: Animechu strikes again! And knocks out the Weezing (at 62% HP) in one hit! Go, go, paper bag Pokemon! ^^;

Turn 22: CRITICAL HIT OHKO! XD Well, not "XD" for Concept. ^^; But XD for me! ^^; Because lol: the Animechu strikes again!

Loki: Hax. :p

Yes, I knew you'd say--

Loki: HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX. XP

Yes. ¬_¬ Shall I continue?

Loki: Please.

Turn 23: Toxicroak Sucker Punches my Animechu ... and it miraculously, MIRACULOUSLY survives. Sure, it just lost 97 percent of its life in one hit ^^;, but still: Toxicroak is no slouch and Pikachu's defenses are piss-poor, so I'm kinda surprised actually. So was Concept. :| ^^; "THUNDERBOLT, NOW!" [/Ash Ketchum voice] And Toxicroak is brought down from 100% to 20% HP. DAYUM. Pikachu just killed two creatures (the skunk and the gas ball) and really fucking dented two others (the bagworm and the sadistic frog). After all the beta tests I'd done where Pikachu was good for nothing, this was actually very surprising. ^^;

Turn 27: Skipping ahead, Blastoise comes out and, after clearing the field of Stealth Rock, manages to take out the frog and the bagworm. But not before incurring serious damage himself. He's on Death's doorstep at this point. Now, the score is 5 to 1. I have five still alive, Concept is down to his last Pokemon. It's time for Crobat. If you believe in miracles, dear Reader, now is the time to start praying.

Turn 28: Crobat outspeeds the cumbersome turtle and one-shots it with a Brave Bird. Down to a respectable 83% HP remaining.

Turn 29: He outspeeds Animechu as well and finishes it off. And just like that, the score is 3 remaining to 1 remaining. Could it be ...?

Turn 30: Out goes Espeon. In my head, I'll be quite honest with you, I was already thinking this was "gg." Espeon? Versus Crobat? No contest. And yet ... BRAAAAAVE BIIIIIIIIIRD! My beloved Brave Bird, the signature move of my beloved Staraptor, attached to a measely little weakling like Crobat ... manages to OHKO my full health Espeon. D: Can this really be happening? Is this really real? D: The score is 2-1, and it's not looking good for Red.

Turn 31: Out goes the sleeping Snorlax. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease wake up. ;_; ROOOOST!? MOTHER EFFER!

Turn 32: Still asleep (goddammit), and I'm whirlwinded out anyway. In comes Venusaur to meet his maker.

Turn 33: BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRD! Venusaur is OHKO'd. Just like that. D: IT IS THE AGE OF KOGA!

Turn 34: PLEEEEEEEEEASE, WAKE UP! ;_; Just Return the damn bad! Crobat taunts me anyway. Just because he can. Goddamn bat. D:

Turn 35: WAAAAAAKE UUUUUUP! ;_; Crobat roosts because he can. At max health now.

Turn 36: FINAAAAAALY! Crobat Brave Birds but doesn't do enough damage. Meanwhile I wake up and Return and do ~one-third life bar damage. Could this be it?

Turn 37: Now it's a stall war. Whose PP or patience will run out faster? Will it be Koga and Roost? Or Red and Return? We shall see!

Turn 40: It is Koga who snaps first. "Ohhhhh poo! BRAVE BIRD, my chiropteran friend!" The ninja commands and the bat obeys. This brings his health down just low enough that I can ... "SNORLAX, RETURN, NOW!" "SNORLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX!" *smush* The bat is crushed beneath fold after fold of Pokemon fat-jelly. And when the gentle giant picks himself up off the ground, what do we see but ...

"Crobat is unable to battle! Red wins!"

...

...

...

Red 1-0 Koga. Unbelievable match. Concept really proved he has what it takes to be an awesome Pokemon battler and I--

Loki: Only thanks to hax. :p

And I--

Loki: Goddamn Animechu.

*ahem* And I scraped out a victory. ^^;


Great match, Concept. It was a lot of fun.

[DaisyInari]

^_^ I will wait until the video link is up to watch it~

GOOD LUCK YOU TWO AND HAVE FUN~ I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS~

[Concept]

>Comments on Red vs Koga

My only main comment is that I made a serious mistake sending Weezing out against Pikachu in turn 21 - Weezing dies before doing anything, but it's built as a physical tank and has toxic. I reckon it could've survived a single return from Snorlax and managed to toxic it, whilst Crobat with taunt (to prevent 'lax from resting), brave bird (for added damage) and roost (for dealing with recoil/return damage) might've been enough to swing it in my favour. Note, might - idk. On the other hand, Talons early mistake attempting to earthquake my air balloon Skuntank allowed me to roar his DD Charizard out, don't think Skuntank would've survived a hit had Talon gone for a different move, and I may well have been swept then and there.

[Tyranidos]

I battled Concept and won. Here (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Concept186-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-06-private1883673486) is the fight.

[Concept]

Should've roared the Volcarona straight back out again. Ah well.

[Tyranidos]

Alright, comments:

Firstly, I agree with Concept in that he should have Roared Volcarona instead of subbing. Also, I think he should have used Brave Bird after Stuffalont missed the first Stone Edge, but he used Roost instead.

Anyway, a lot of my shit missed and it sucked. I'm glad Accelgor had like 1% left so I could see Concept's next Pokemon without sacrificing a good Pokemon. And I'm very happy about Volcarona's sweep at the end. It was pretty even (I'd even go as far as saying Concept had the edge) before I Quiver Dance'd. But after that, it was over.

[Holy Emperor]

Where'd talon go? Something came up while waiting for your stupid butt to finish making your team.

[Talon87]

Where'd talon go? Something came up while waiting for your stupid butt to finish making your team.
I was on ALL EVENING and you went and disappeared like THREE HOURS AGO. Don't give me that. XD Okay, fine, I'll sign back on REAL FAST. =P

[Talon87]

Red vs. Lance! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Kuno--2011-11-06)

Red, the Champion of the Indigo League! Vs. Lance, the Dragon Master of Blackthorn City and current stand-in for the Champion of the Indigo League! Lance got tired of waiting for Red to return. Will he snatch the champion title away from the Pikapal? Or will Red defend his title? We shall see!

Watch the video replay here: http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Kuno--2011-11-06

I won't be providing much in-depth commentary for this match since things got off to a very wrong foot on Turn 1. Click the spoiler to read the commentary.
The moment I drew Red for this tournament, I knew that my biggest problem was going to be making sure Charizard didn't die to Stealth Rock. That was why I had a godsend in Espeon, one of only seven Pokémon available to me but one with the wonderful Magic Bounce (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Magic_Bounce_%28ability%29). Switch it in against Stealth Rock and it'd bounces the SR back onto the opponent's side of the field!

But going up against Kuno, I knew that the most likely user of Stealth Rock -- Aerodactyl, a classic suicide lead -- would probably make mincemeat out of my telekinetic cat. So it was ballsy, but I decided, "You know ... I really can't risk Stealth Rock going up. So I may as well lead with the cat instead of switching it on a predicted Stealth Rock. Because at least that way, the bad news is that Kuno definitely won't Stealth Rock and instead he'll take out my cat. But the good news is, I can at least fire off one Psychic attack, really hurt Aerodactyl, and then bring in Lapras to clean up with Ice Shard. Maybe. Hopefully."

So I led with Espeon. But then something terrible happened -- Kuno tried to use Stealth Rock anyway.

You can see for yourself in the video what happened. The match can pretty much be summed up in three phrases:
(1) Stealth Rock backfire
(2) Animechu hax
(3) Ice Shard

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about the battle. Sorry that it was a cruddy end to an already terrible day, Kuno. :( Really sorry. If you would like a rematch -- official, unofficial, whichever -- the offer still stands.

[Lonely Cubone]

I've just witnessed a Pikachu OHKOing a Salamence.

And a Dragonite.

Animechu wins.

[blazeVA]

I've just witnessed a Pikachu OHKOing a Salamence.

And a Dragonite.

[KratosAurion]

OK, I've returned from the depths of the oceans of Hoenn to reclaim my title as Champion!

Now, I've installed Pokemon Online and I'm finally ready to take the world by storm! Prepare to witness my Pokemon dance gracefully and strike like lightning! Bwaha!

[Concept]

Koga vs Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Concept186-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07)

An epic and haxy battle with a very close finish.

[Lonely Cubone]

My notes on the battle:

Phew.

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Karen! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-06-1-private1616957648)

Another Volcarona sweep.

[Lonely Cubone]

Alder vs Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07)

Gg Tdos.

[KratosAurion]

Hey boys, mind waiting for good ol' Wallace? I'll have my Team sorted out in a bit.

[Talon87]

I really have to go. I signed back on to fight Kuno and got roped into some other things, but I have a lot of work to do and only four hours in which to do it. Maybe some other time?

[KratosAurion]

Aye. Any other members of my group ready to Battle?

[Talon87]

Kratos, ... I'm still on. ¬_¬ But you'll have to be the last one, I MEAN IT. :lol: XD What is your P-O name? I will look for you and invite you to the chat channel we're in.

EDIT: Yeah, I don't see any KratosAurion right now in the Tohjo Falls (main channel). Are you online?

[Holy Emperor]

Where'd Concept go?

[KratosAurion]

Kratos, ... I'm still on. ¬_¬ But you'll have to be the last one, I MEAN IT. :lol: XD What is your P-O name? I will look for you and invite you to the chat channel we're in.

EDIT: Yeah, I don't see any KratosAurion right now in the Tohjo Falls (main channel). Are you online?

Oh oh, I still need about 5 more minutes. Just adding some finishing touches here 'n there. I'll be on in a bit, but I assumed you'd be leaving to do your work.

Although please do if I'm taking too long, no worries o'er here.

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Lance! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Kuno--2011-11-06-private550793451)

Gyarados sweep killed me.

[KratosAurion]

Ready to roll. However, I don't see any UPN Channel about. Mind C/Ping the Advance Conection?

[Celebii151]

I know this is late, but, I'm fine with Bruno (not that I could change it now)

Prepping the team as we speak. Should be ready in 10-20 minutes.

[Talon87]

Battle Log Video List

The following is a list of all the battle logs and the comments people have offered on them. Note that some comments are quite detailed, others no more than a few words. Just hover over the names of the battles to find the video links, the thoughts to find the URLs to the commentaries.

The format for the videos is always person whose perspective we're seeing it from vs. person who seems to be the opponent. For example, Alder vs. Karen is from Alder's perspective while Karen vs. Alder is from Karen's perspective. Users are encouraged to upload their own personal battle logs, even if their friend has already uploaded his or her version of the events. I am compiling the full list here so as to give people the chance to watch the videos from whichever perspective they prefer.
_______________________________________________

Round 1
Alder vs. Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-06-1-private1616957648) / Karen vs. Alder (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282980&postcount=123), Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282981&postcount=124))
Green vs. Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Xander-Ketsu-vs-blazeVA--2011-11-07)
Bruno vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-08)
Red vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-09) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283699&postcount=244))
Cynthia vs. Koga - still waiting on a battle log, but results have been reflected in the W:L counts and the chart below

Round 2
Alder vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-06-private495475428) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283004&postcount=138))
Bruno vs. Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Xander-Ketsu--2011-11-07)
Green vs. Lance (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-blazeVA--2011-11-07) (Green's Thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283237&postcount=200), Lance's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283238&postcount=201), Green's salt (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283239&postcount=202))
Red vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-09) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283615&postcount=237))
Karen vs. Cynthia (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Karen-LC-vs-YukiN--2011-11-11) (Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284092&postcount=260))

Round 3
Red vs. Koga (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Concept186--2011-11-06) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282953&postcount=109), Koga's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282955&postcount=111))
Alder vs. Cynthia (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-YukiN--2011-11-06-private645351925) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283045&postcount=154), Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283046&postcount=155))
Karen vs. Bruno (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07) / Bruno vs. Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07-1)
Green vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-11) (Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284125&postcount=264), Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284127&postcount=266))
Lance vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-14-private141611120) (Lance's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284635&postcount=284))

Round 4
Alder vs. Koga (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Concept186-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-06-private1883673486) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282963&postcount=114), Koga's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282962&postcount=113)
Lance vs. Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Xander-Ketsu--2011-11-07-private1009528013) (Lance's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283211&postcount=192))
Red vs. Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-09-1) / Karen vs. Red (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-09) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283629&postcount=239), Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283624&postcount=238))
Green vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-11) / Steven vs. Green (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-12) (Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284137&postcount=268))
Bruno vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-19) (Bruno's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=285746&postcount=301), Wallace's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=285748&postcount=302))

Round 5
Bruno vs. Cynthia (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-YukiN--2011-11-07)
Lance vs. Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07-private1800608325) (Lance's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283200&postcount=185))
Alder vs. Red (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07-private550045731) / Red vs. Alder (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07) (Alder's Thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283343&postcount=218), Red's Thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283350&postcount=220))
Green vs. Koga (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Concept186-vs-blazeVA--2011-11-11) (Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284081&postcount=256))
Wallace vs. Will - battle log not yet uploaded. C'mon, guys! Upload 'em if you got 'em! W:L results reflected in tournament standings list below.

Round 6
Lance vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-06-private483222970)
Bruno vs. Koga (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07) (Bruno's Thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283190&postcount=182), Koga's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283191&postcount=183))
Red vs. Cynthia (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283494&postcount=231) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283494&postcount=231), Cynthia's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283501&postcount=235))
Green vs. Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-11) (Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284085&postcount=257), Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284092&postcount=260))
Steven vs. Will - no battle video log uploaded yet, but W:L results reflected below

Round 7
Lance vs. Cynthia (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-YukiN--2011-11-07-private669972534)
Koga vs. Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Xander-Ketsu-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07) (Koga's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283217&postcount=195))
Alder vs. Green (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07-private1806969461) / Green vs. Alder (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283329&postcount=216), Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283330&postcount=217))
Red vs. Bruno (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Kotone--2011-11-08) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283436&postcount=226), Bruno's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283441&postcount=229))
Karen vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Karen-LC-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-14) (Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284654&postcount=285))

Round 8
Alder vs. Bruno (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Celebii--2011-11-06-private921999497) / Bruno vs. Alder (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283041&postcount=152))
Lance vs. Koga (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07-private1409196233) (Lance's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283151&postcount=170) Koga's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283152&postcount=171) Lance's thoughts Pt.2 (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283153&postcount=172)
Green vs. Cynthia (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-YukiN--2011-11-11) (Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284051&postcount=248), Cynthia's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284055&postcount=249))
Steven vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-ElegantWaterArtist-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-12)
Karen vs. Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Xander-Ketsu-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-14) (Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284480&postcount=281))

Round 9
Red vs. Lance (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Kuno--2011-11-06) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282969&postcount=117), Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282972&postcount=118), Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282973&postcount=119))
Green vs. Bruno (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07) / Bruno vs. Green (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07-1) (Green's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283246&postcount=205))
Alder vs. Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Xander-Ketsu--2011-11-07-private81303666) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283329&postcount=216))
Koga vs. Wallace - not yet uploaded, but the results are reflected below
Cynthia vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-YukiN-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-13) (Cynthia's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284465&postcount=279))

Round 10
Alder vs. Lance (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Kuno--2011-11-06-private550793451) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282992&postcount=131))
Steven vs. Koga (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Concept186-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-09)
Karen vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Karen-LC-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-11) (Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284126&postcount=265), Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284132&postcount=267))
Cynthia vs. Will - battle log not yet posted, but W:L results reflected below
Red vs. Green (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Kotone--2011-11-14) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284672&postcount=286))

Round 11
Koga vs. Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Concept186-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07) (Koga's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282975&postcount=121), Karen's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282976&postcount=122))
Lance vs. Bruno (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Celebii--2011-11-06-private916031113) / Bruno vs. Lance (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07) (Bruno's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283039&postcount=150))
Alder vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-09-private545200622) (Alder's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=283589&postcount=236))
Red vs. Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Xander-Ketsu-vs-Kotone--2011-11-13) (Red's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=284456&postcount=278))
Cynthia vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-ElegantWaterArtist-vs-YukiN--2011-11-15) (Cynthia's thoughts (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=285114&postcount=300))

Note: this post is linked to on the first page near the top. It's also going to be edited throughout the tournament so check back frequently! :)
____________________________________

Tournament Standings
Last Updated: November 19 @ 12:20pm EST

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/UPN%202011%20Champion%20League%20Tournament/tournament_results_th.png (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/UPN%202011%20Champion%20League%20Tournament/tournament_results.png)
click thumbnail to see full-size version

Pure-text Last Updated: November 19 @ 12:20pm EST

Will (Xander): 0W, 10L
Speevy (Steven): 3W, 7L
Wallace (Kratos): 7W, 3L
Karen (LC): 4W, 6L
Koga (Concept): 1W, 9L
Cynthia (Yuki): 5W, 5L
Alder (Tdos): 5W, 5L
Red (Talon): 7W, 3L
Bruno (Celebi): 6W, 4L
Green/Blue (Blaze): 9W, 1L
Lance (Kuno): 8W, 2L

Bar Graph Version - click here (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/UPN%202011%20Champion%20League%20Tournament/upn_2011_champion_league_results_toscale.png)

[KratosAurion]

Never mind, found it. Just need higher authority to get in.

[Talon87]

Kratos, what is your P-O username? I don't see any KratosAurion's online. (If you see me, I am Kotone. Go ahead and PM me on P-O.)

[Holy Emperor]

Lance vs Wallace

http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-06-private483222970

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Wallace! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-06-private495475428)

Got wrecked by Rain Dance team. Alder is the worst champion ever.

[Talon87]

Got wrecked by Rain Dance team. Alder is the worst champion ever.
Oh, come now. =P You kicked my ass in our practice match, didn't you?

Besides: people have been underestimating weather teams ever since Gen II when it was first introduced and I became a huge fan of it. And then in Gen III they listened to the fans who were nagging that weather sucked balls and they gave us perma-weather in the form of Groudon and Kyogre ... and then in Gen IV they listened to the majority of fans yet again who were now nagging that weather still sucked balls because it sucked balls in non-übers play and so they gave us the glorious Damp and Heat Rocks ... and then as if that were not good enough, they gave us in Gen V perma-weather on non-über creatures ... thereby LOL making them über/banned from most communities' casual OU circuits, particularly when in combination with ridiculous other abilities (like Swift Swim or Solar Power, respectively).

I don't want to dissect others' teams too early in the tournament since it's arguably unfair to them, but I will just say this: there are some teams which I knew from the day I opened this thread that people were going to say, "Man, I sure hope I don't get that team!" about only to discover, once they went up against them, that those teams packed ridiculously powerful punches. To be quite honest, it is those Champions' and Elite Four people's matches that I am most excited to watch from a purely competitive perspective.

Of course, from a fanboy perspective I am thrilled to watch the epic throw-downs like Red vs. Green/Blue, Red vs. Lance, and Red vs. Cynthia. :D But that's just the fanboy in me.

[YUKI.N]

Red vs. Cynthia

You're probably going to be sorely disappointed. XP

(Need to start actually making my team... >.>; )

[DaisyInari]

:D Watching all these videos is really entertaining, especially the close ones. Haha, if you watched me watching them, you'd hear a lot of shouting and cheering. ^_^;

You guys keep battling so I can keep watching~ XP

[Tyranidos]

Oh, come now. =P You kicked my ass in our practice match, didn't you?

I meant like I haven't won against a single other champion. I doubt I'll win against Cynthia.

I have better chances against Steven though.

[Celebii151]

Could someone instruct me on how to download PO on my laptop? It doesn't seem to be working here properly.

[YUKI.N]

I doubt I'll win against Cynthia.

> see response to Talon

[Talon87]

Could someone instruct me on how to download PPO on my laptop. It doesn't seem to be working here properly.
Questions about platform compatibility are really best addressed by the P-O staff. None of us can magically tell you why you can't get it to work, especially when all you tell us is "I can't get it to work! :(" Not very informative. :| How can't you get it to work? Can you not even download it? (Which is what half of your post suggests. But then in the other half you talk about "getting it to work," suggesting you CAN download it.) Can you download it but not install it? If you can't install it, what sorts of things are you noticing? (Error messages? Lack of messages?) So and so forth. But really, any technical questions would best be answered by the P-O people. We can try and help, but if you're able to install this software on one computer but not on another and you're asking us to assess why there's a difference between the two platforms, I don't think anyone here is going to be able to help you with that.

First of all, are you downloading the right version? (See here.) (http://pokemon-online.eu/downloads/Client_17.html) There's a Windows version for Windows and a Mac version for Mac OS X. There's even a Linux version here (http://pokemon-online.eu/downloads/Package_19.html), though you'd have to build it yourself. (But if you're running Linux, this is probably fine by you.)

Second of all, have you read all of these to see if they can help you out?
http://pokemon-online.eu/none/Getting-Started_20.html
http://pokemon-online.eu/community/FAQ_23.html
http://pokemon-online.eu/forums/forumdisplay.php?16-Help
If not, what are you waiting for? If so, then it's not likely that we can help you either since we'd just have to read these ourselves in order to try and help you.

[Celebii151]

Thank you, Talon I have installed and downloaded it successfully as of now. But I an't get into UPN. I need higher authority. Name's Celebii, by the way. In Tohjo Falls.

[Holy Emperor]

Talons not on and I don't see you on. :x

[Celebii151]

Talons not on and I don't see you on. :x

Check again, please.

[Holy Emperor]

Lance VS Bruno


http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Celebii--2011-11-06-private916031113

[Celebii151]

Lance VS Bruno


http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Celebii--2011-11-06-private916031113

Warning: Contains copius amounts of stalling and phazing.

[Holy Emperor]

Hey where'd ya go? There's still TDos and Yuki on. :x

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Bruno! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Celebii--2011-11-06-private921999497)

Alder loses again. Stealth Rock sucks and Fighting types kinda rape my team anyways.

[Talon87]

I like Alder. Do you watch the DP anime? I loved him in Episode 54. :oops:

Adeku the Ladies Man - 01 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_001.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 02 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_002.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 03 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_003.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 04 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_004.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 05 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_005.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 06 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_006.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 07 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_007.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 08 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_008.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 09 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_009.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 10 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_010.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 11 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_011.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 12 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_012.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 13 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_013.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 14 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_014.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 15 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_015.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 16 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_016.jpg)
Adeku the Ladies Man - 17 of 17 (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/Pokemon/adeku_the_ladies_man_017.jpg)

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Cynthia! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-YukiN--2011-11-06-private645351925)

Unfortunately, Yuki's inexperience is probably what did her in. Volcarona literally swept through her entire team.

[Talon87]

Alder vs. Cynthia! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-YukiN--2011-11-06-private645351925)

Unfortunately, Yuki's inexperience is probably what did her in. Volcarona literally swept through her entire team.
Awwww, just watched it. :( I think Yuki should be given the opportunity to practice a few rounds with people off-the-record. I mean, we all practiced a bit earlier and most of us have had quite a bit of experience with competitive battling. XP

Kind of like the Magic Bounce debacle from earlier, Yuki's failure to recognize who Volcarona was / what Volcarona is capable of doing until it was too late pretty much spelled doom for the team. But Milotic could have easily, easily scared away a one-QD-only Volcarona. STAB Surf or STAB Hydro Pump from Milotic is simply not something Volcarona can afford to deal with. And to be honest, my pal Togekiss would have been frightening for the fiery moth as well. Air Slash may not have had a chance to flinch after Volcarona had sped up, but did you see how beefy my adorable little paper airplane was? :oops: Took a Quiver Danced, STAB hit to the face like a champ and lost less than half max life. Now that's what I'm talking about! :D

So yeah. I think this was just a case of Alder being able to set up the Volcarona sweep. Same thing with Lance and his Gyarados. Same thing with Red and his Charizard. So far, the opening battles have seemed to be the stories of "the Sweepers and the Sweepees," and it's almost always either:
a) "you killed my Dragon Dance / Quiver Dance sweeper, I surrender! D:" or else it's
b) "mwahahaha, my Dragon Dance / Quiver Dance sweeper's unstoppable! >D"

Not always, but I've definitely noticed the pattern with Alder's and Lance's matches. They really seem to hinge on whether the Dancer gets to stay in play and be alive or whether it's forced to retreat or is hax-killed. (ANIMECHU!)


EDIT: I would like to remind everybody, though, that this is a casual tourney and it's all about having fun and representing your awesome trainers. Don't worry about winning or losing. If you lose, lose in character and in style. If you win, win in character and in style. LC and Concept have each done especially good jobs of this so far (what with the avatars and the quotes and such), so kudos to them both.

[Holy Emperor]

Cynthia vs Lance


http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-YukiN--2011-11-07-private669972534

[Sneezey12]

Man, I wish I had seen this before so I could have gotten in on it. Looks like so much fun.

[Talon87]

Red vs. Lance - the Rematchening! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Kuno--2011-11-06-1)
(NOT Tournament Battle)

You can watch it here: http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Kuno--2011-11-06-1

This was a much better battle. Though as many have come to expect now from teams controlled by Talon87 ^^; Red's anime magic-infused team, hax is ever present. Who wins in this colossal match-up between the two great titans of the Indigo League? You'll just have to watch to find out.

Or you could infer things from my spoiler comments below. =P
There's a crucial Draco Meteor miss on Turn 5 that could have easily put a huge dent in Red's ability to pull through.

On Turn 7, Kuno does the sensible thing and brings in Gyarados to set up on what should soon be becoming a confused Lapras. However, the unexpected happens on Turn 8 when a Dragon Dance'd Gyarados EQ's Lapras only to deal a meager 22% HP damage. Kuno then decides to power up some more -- again, totally the sensible thing to do -- and yet paradoxically this Lapras, who is doing colossal damage to the enemies it hits, does only 5% damage to itself when it hurts itself in its confusion.

Then on Turn 10 it becomes apparent why EQ wasn't hurting so much: Espeon's Reflect had still been up. But now it's gone, and Lapras eats a twice-DD'd Earthquake. Ouch. And yet ... it still survives.

And it snaps out of its confusion. And it deals 33% HP damage to Gyarados via non-STABbed Body Slam. And this Body Slam paralyzes the Gyarados who was meant to sweep the rest of Talon's team. It's at this point that I realize the anime gods must be smiling on me for using Red's team and I call Lapras "Animepras." Doesn't quite have the same ring as "Animechu," so I doubt it'll catch on, but hey, you never know.

Well, Animepras definitely earns its keep -- as it KO's Gyarados the very next turn. From there, it's Ice Shard City. Except ... what's this? Lapras is almost dead? And there's no Stealth Rock to bust up Dragonite's Multi-scales? :O Wuh oh! Yes, Turn 12 is where the battle will no doubt prove to be an interesting turn for most spectators.

But needless to say, the hax goddesses ever smile on Talon87 the anime gods ever smile on Red's team ^^;, and Charizard manages to Outrage three times despite being paralyzed for three of them and confused for one of them. Ridiculous.

Skip to Turn 21 if you want to see the icing-on-the-cake hax of the match. I think what we said then says it all:
Kotone: ...
Kuno: oh come on
^^;

[Tyranidos]

Bruno vs. Cynthia! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-YukiN--2011-11-06-private1164003038)

They forgot to save the logs or something, so here it is. Cynthia won I believe.

[Talon87]

If Celebi or Yuki can upload their video recordings, that would be preferred, but we can definitely settle for a spectator log if it's the choice between that or nothing at all.

A friendly reminder that you should save your logs after all of your battles and then upload them for us to watch by visiting Pokémon Replay Viewer (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/), uploading your log file to it, and sharing the link with us here.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/logs_tutorial_th.jpg (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/logs_tutorial.png)
(click to see full size)

The above image shows you how to enable automatic Battle Log saving on your P-O account. That way you don't have to worry about forgetting to check the checkbox. Mine has been checked for ages thanks to this! :) And now yours can be too.

[YUKI.N]

And to be honest, my pal Togekiss would have been frightening for the fiery moth as well. Air Slash may not have had a chance to flinch after Volcarona had sped up, but did you see how beefy my adorable little paper airplane was? :oops: Took a Quiver Danced, STAB hit to the face like a champ and lost less than half max life. Now that's what I'm talking about! :D

*hi-fives fellow fat airplane fan*

Hm, I should've named my Garchomp GARcher instead. =O

"So as I pray... UNLIMITED RAGE WORKS."

[Talon87]

Togekiss is the best. I use one on my competitive team, Yuki. IRL. :) Bred it and EV trained it and all myself. :D

Loki: God damn you and your Flinchhax.

And I don't even run Paraflinch Togekiss. :3

Loki: And yet you flinch me EVERY TIME. ¬_¬

I think Togekiss is one of those "love it or hate it" Pokémon. Love it because it's adorable, beefy as heck, and can pack a wallop with its impressive SpAtt stat. Or hate it because you choose not to run one and then when one is run against you you don't know what it's capable of and you lose 2-3 Pokemon before being able to take it out as a result or you do know what it's capable of and you still lose 1-2 Pokemon before being able to take it out and that really pisses you off because FLINCH HAX.

What's also appealing about Togekiss is the versatility. You can run Serene Grace special sweeper. You can run Serene Grace Paraflinch. Or you can run the Hustle physical sweeper variant. And they all work fairly well. (Though I'm partial to special sweeper myself.) But Togekiss is a something-for-everyone kind of Pokémon.

*Togekiss Fan Clubs it up*

[Lonely Cubone]

Moxiedos is the proverbial beast. Whoever at Game Freak thought that was a good idea is a sick, sick man.

[Celebii151]

Moxiedos is the proverbial beast. Whoever at Game Freak thought that was a good idea is a sick, sick man.

I agree, unless I am the one using it.

[Holy Emperor]

Moxiedos is the proverbial beast. Whoever at Game Freak thought that was a good idea is a brilliant, brilliant man.

I agree.

[Talon87]

I still prefer Intimidate, actually. Moxie is good, but if you're going to Dragon Dance anyway, it's superfluous. I like Intimidate for its Stone Edge-minimizing effects. Doesn't do shit against a Thunderbolt to the face, but then again, neither does Moxie. XP

Then again, it seems to be doing quite well for you, so whatever. =P :)

I do like Moxie on the Krookodile I used to beat Pokemon White, though. Pretty much is the most broken ability ever for sweeping through Story Mode. Just lead with the crocodile and let his ability do the rest. This is especially true since most Gym Leaders lead with their weakest and save their strongest for last: a good strategy ordinarily, maybe, but a disastrous one in a game where Moxie exists.

[Holy Emperor]

I can't always bring Gyarados on a 'mon I want to intimidate. Sometimes the best Pokemon to set up on are weaker or walls.

[Concept]

Anyone home?

[Holy Emperor]

Whos Zantilin? >.>

[Holy Emperor]

Lance vs Koga

http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07-private1409196233



What a clusterfuck.

[Concept]

My perspective (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07).

If you're wondering, that last turn when I got paralysed out of moving, I was trying to rest.

[Holy Emperor]

I figured as much. I was like 100% he's going to rest, it'd be nice if paralyze ever kicked in why am I so unlucky with paralyze.

[Kindrindra]

I like Round Robin, myself.

[Celebii151]

Bruno vs Lance (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07)

Bruno vs Alder (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07)

Bruno vs Cynthia (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-YukiN--2011-11-07)

Found all these logs.

[Holy Emperor]

Whos left for me to fight?

Blaze, Speevy, LC, Xander?

[Tyranidos]

I need to fight Xander, blaze, Talon, and Speevy.

[blazeVA]

I'll be there after school. Don't worry!

Also, going to need a new team for Kuno. He could troll mine.

[Holy Emperor]

New team? >.>; Pretty sure you can't change moves and stuffs after you used them.

[Kindrindra]

I considered including Gen V's because of how tough many people found them during Story Mode but (1) Story Mode's Story Mode =P and (2) unfortunately they each only have six Pokémon to choose from and some of them are sorely lacking in the defensive typing department.

I know I missed a shiton, but this stood out me- The Gen V E4 do not have only six mon, as they completely shuffle up their team with National 'Dex mon on the rematch. Ex: Grimsley gets a Sharpedo.

It is totally likely I just missed something about the rules, though.

[Talon87]

Just remember: you're not allowed to change EVs, IVs, moves, or abilities on any Pokémon you've already used competitively. And if people provide evidence that a given 'mon of yours has used 5+ moves during the tournament, you will be disqualified from all matches forward from when the fifth move first appeared. Which reminds me, when I get home, I need to finish writing out the Disqualifications rules and draw everyone's attention to them so they know. But IT SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING that you shouldn't violate any of the rules I've already laid out or else punishments await ye -- and the "moves are set in stone once you start competing" rule is one I did make clear when Kuno posed the question before any tournament matches had even taken place.

So to give an obvious example since I think everyone knows what you're thinking/referring to ...
- if you've already used Blastoise in a tourney match, he's locked in
- if you've already used Vaporeon in a tourney match, he's locked in
- if you've already used Charizard in a tourney match, he's locked in

So like ... if you were running Modest Solar Power Charizard, you can't now suddenly switch to Jolly BlazeZard with physical stat spread and Dragon Dance because you're all like "OMG I WILL NEED THIS TO WIN :O". Vice versa, if you haven't used Charizard yet in a tourney match and you do decide to make it a physical blend, then you're locked in and cannot later change it (say) for your match against Koga and have it be a Solar Powered Charizard.

I'm directing this at you, blaze, since you mentioned it, but it should be obvious that THIS APPLIES TO EVERYBODY IN THE TOURNAMENT. If you suspect someone has created a Pokémon or multiple Pokémon just to defeat you -AND- (not "or": "and") you have evidence that they then later changed the moves or abilities on that creature to gain an advantage against the opponent in that other match, report it to me immediately.

EDIT: Here are the relevant posts. All the way back on Page 3 (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showthread.php?t=3595&page=3) of this thread.
Kuno asks about teams and their movesets (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282888&postcount=69)
Talon answers, saying ... (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282892&postcount=73)
If I said "you can change your moves around," then everybody would be trying to out-game everybody else every bloody round. It'd be a mess. I mean, you could do it, but that really isn't the point of this tournament.
This isn't meant to punish you (who want to change the moves to avoid being predictable) so much as it's meant to protect the people you face (who shouldn't have to be like, "Well fuck it. He has a team of six OUs and I have a team of two OUs, three UUs, and one NU. I'm screwed. I may as well forfeit now." I want everybody to have fun during this tournament, casual or not, and I don't want it to so easily turn into a "Cynthia or Green or Lance is going to totally fucking win this tournament no matter what anyone else tries.
tl;dr whoever is running Wallace should not have to worry that his opponents are going to magically all learn electric moves just in time for their match-up and just as magically forget them before they move on to the next round. Either you always had the electric move or else you never had it.
It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal: YOU STOLE FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS! ... I mean, it's all there. ^^; So if you missed this somehow and have already violated the rule, Hypothetical Battler, then that's your own fault but don't sweat it so badly. Casual tourney, meant to be fun, not meant to be about who wins and who loses. All I would do is DQ the rounds in which your fifth+ move(s) first showed up and we would revert to your latest match in which you were using your original four tourney-locked moves. If you haven't violated the rule yet, even better: we caught it just in time and averted disaster. If a majority of your matches have been with the new movesets, I would be amenable to leaving those matches in and DQing all the others. (E.g. you used a BellyZard in Round 1 and used a SpAtt Zard in seven other rounds? I would only DQ your first round match and commit you to using the SpAtt Zard for the rest of the tourney.) One way or the other, something of yours would be tourney-locked.

[Talon87]

Double post!
I know I missed a shiton, but this stood out me- The Gen V E4 do not have only six mon, as they completely shuffle up their team with National 'Dex mon on the rematch. Ex: Grimsley gets a Sharpedo.
The Gen V E4 only start off with four creatures apiece. They then each gain two new creatures post-the first time you beat the game, bringing their total count to six Pokémon.

[Celebii151]

Bruno vs Koga (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07)

A very close match

[Concept]

Yet more Koga-based fail. I do feel I'm letting the ninja master down here a bit.

[Lonely Cubone]

Coming online for a bit now if anyone needs to battle me (Karen)

[Holy Emperor]

Karen VS Lance

http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07-private1800608325



Holy fucking comeback, batman. How did that happen? I got so fucking unlucky lol.

[XanderKetsu]

I still have yet to fight, as team was finally constructed yesterday. Then I used Rest. I assume we just fight who we need to in order?

[Holy Emperor]

I still have yet to fight, as team was finally constructed yesterday. Then I used Rest. I assume we just fight who we need to in order?

Any order is fine.

[Talon87]

Yet more Koga-based fail. I do feel I'm letting the ninja master down here a bit.
Concept, you have had time and again the closest matches I've seen this tournament. You are not letting the ninja master down.

[Lonely Cubone]

Celebii (Bruno) vs Lonely Cubone (Karen) (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07)

Guess who wins?

[Kindrindra]

Double post!

The Gen V E4 only start off with four creatures apiece. They then each gain two new creatures post-the first time you beat the game, bringing their total count to six Pokémon.

Oic.

Disregard me, I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Celebii151]

Bruno vs Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-07-1)

[Holy Emperor]

Will VS Lance

http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-Xander-Ketsu--2011-11-07-private1009528013


We need Talon to verify if Double Team is allowed. :x either way doesn't matter too much since I won somehow. D:


Where'd you go Xander? There's still a few more people to fight that are on. ^^;

[XanderKetsu]

We need Talon to verify if Double Team is allowed. :x either way doesn't matter too much since I won somehow. D:

Where'd you go Xander? There's still a few more people to fight that are on. ^^;

Need to fix moves, since they're illegal. And stuff.

[Celebii151]

Bruno vs Will (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Xander-Ketsu--2011-11-07)

Watch it to see the results.

[Concept]

UPN proudly presents an Indigo Plateau grudge match of epic propotions...

KOGA vs WILL (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Xander-Ketsu-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07)

[Talon87]

Why would Double Team not be allowed? P-O will tell you if a given move is creature-legal for a given generation and format. (In fact, it will not allow you to enter that generation+format cobmination if it is!) If it's a question of Double Team's cheapness or haxness or whatever ... *ahem* ... deal with it.

(I go on a rant here. Could be barking up the wrong tree. You tell me. ^^;)
(1) For God's sake, guys, he's gotten Will! You guys are acting like Double Team Will is suddenly six Choice Bands Gary or something. For the love of ...! Some of you have some of the best NPCs the game has ever known. Ordinary measures won't allow the Elite Four to stand much of a chance. Which is why each and every one of them has come up with some pretty clever strategies for winning. And they seem to be working. (Or in poor Concept's case, coming ridiculously close to working.) If Double Team is how Xander intends to even the playing field between himself and the Champion-wielding competitors, then I say good for him. He's gotta do what he's gotta do.

(2) It's your own fault if you chose not to run Haze or Roar, Dragon Tail, Whirlwind, or other pHazing moves. (Some did. I have already seen at least one person use the Haze and countless others use Whirlwind and Dragon Tail during this tournament. Kudos to them for their foresight and planning ahead.)

(3) If it's a question of "But I don't liiiiiiike hax! D:", deal with it. "Hax" is a part of the game and, while we all like to joke about it, sometimes it can go too far when people take themselves too seriously and think that pure aggro is somehow inherently "superior" to other, more haxy strategies. Paraflinch Togekiss is legit. ToxicStall is legit. If you don't like them, I'm sorry, but tough.
If there's something I don't know -- like if P-O is glitching and is allowing Double Team on an illegal creature or a legal creature but with a moveset that would then be illegal -- then that's one thing. But if this is just a case of people saying "But I don't like it :(," I'm sorry, but I've zero sympathy for that. :| If Will (Xander) has been able to beat any of you guys by making good use of a DT strategy, then good for him.

I mean, FFS, guys: in-game B/W Cynthia's Spiritomb's strategy is to 6 DT it up and have Pressure wheedle away your best moves. It doesn't always work for her, but I can't tell you the number of times I sat there for 20+ turns trying to hit this 6 DT'd Spiritomb and all because I'd gotten greedy with Volcarona and tried to go for the Quiver Dance sweep.

[Holy Emperor]

I assumed it wasn't allowed because Double Team (and evasion boosting moves) are generally not used in the normal competitive community.

And me telling him it wasn't allowed cause him to change the move and he fought other people with new move after that. Oops.


I mean, I won and all so I don't mind that he did it. >.>;

[Talon87]

Watching Lance vs. Will right now, I noticed something that I didn't illegalize in the rules, and I probably will still not illegalize it given the nature of this tournament and how it's very open-environment (with everybody knowing what everybody else has by like Day 2 :lol:). But I'm still going to discourage people from doing it because it's just plain bad manners and bad sportsmanship. And that's telling the other person what someone has or is planning to do.

Tournament Do's:
Example: Daisy sees that Kuno is planning to Dragon Dance sweep Yuki. Even though she and Yuki are best friends, she doesn't say anything because that would be cheating. It's up to Yuki to figure it out for herself and defuse it somehow.

Tournament Don'ts:
Example: In the Lance (Kuno) vs. Will (Xander) match, someone warns Xander to watch out for Kuno's Dragonite, specifying "It is a stalling beast." It's one thing to say "Watch out for Dragonite! :o" I'm actually very okay with that in a tournament like this one. (Under ordinary circumstances, no. ^^; In a tourney like this where we all know Lance will run at least one Dragonite, sure.) But it's something else entirely to tell Xander what to expect of that Dragonite. Kuno has no idea what to expect of Xander's team, and so -- even though this isn't about winning or losing -- people still get bitter if they feel cheated out of a win, and if that win was cheated out of them by someone from the audience feeding the other guy insider information, then that's just uncool. I won't penalize anybody for this given the open-air nature of this tournament, but I really do frown upon it and hope people don't do stuff like this again.

I assumed it wasn't allowed because Double Team (and evasion boosting moves) are generally not used in the normal competitive community.

And me telling him it wasn't allowed cause him to change the move and he fought other people with new move after that. Oops.
Whatever. So long as he picks one from here on out and sticks with it, we're good. What is the new move? (Or is it a secret for now?) Whatever it is, once he uses it, it means he's committed to it and can't return to Double Team. Once he uses Double Team again (on that creature), it means he's committed to that and can't use the new move again. For sake of argument, the decision will go into effect the moment he completes his first match 30 minutes after this post, whatever that match may be.

[Holy Emperor]

He actually lost to me because he had double team. He had no offensive attacks on it. If he had the attack he has now, he would of beaten me easily. So yeah, I think the new move helps more lol.

[blazeVA]

GREEN VERSUS LANCE! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kuno-vs-blazeVA--2011-11-07)

Comments:
This match was largely decided by the fact that Kuno used Earthquake and it did not kill my Exeggutor. Other than that, Exeggutor swept while Stealth rock supported. Finally, he became useful! lolololll

[Holy Emperor]

My thoughts:

There's a reason why drought + chlorophyll is banned in regular matches. -.-

[blazeVA]

My thoughts:

There's a reason why drought + chlorophyll is banned in regular matches. -.-

Actually, if ti was not for the Speed boost from Flareon, he is pretty slow for a Chloro user. ;)

[blazeVA]

GREEN VERSUS WILL! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Xander-Ketsu-vs-blazeVA--2011-11-07)

Not much to say here.

[Talon87]

Drought + Chlorophyll:
As I explained to Blaze in the chatroom on P-O, I had honestly quite forgotten about Gary having a Ninetales ... even though I was the one who wrote it on the very first day in Post #1 of this thread. ^^; Had I remembered that, I would have probably banned Drought Ninetales. However, my mind was so focused on Drizzle Politoed + Swift Swim Kingdra or Hydration {various} that it completely slipped past me.

However, I quite like the idea of Green having a Drought Ninetales. A, he's supposed to be one of the most powerful trainers that ever was. He became the Champion at the age of 10, only a year into his training. He then went on to become the owner of the renovated Viridian City gym at the young age of 13. So I quite fancy the idea that Green ought to be somebody who is very, very difficult to defeat. Even Lance lost to him in the story. (And apparently history repeated itself today in the match. ^^; :)) Whether Red can withstand him or not remains to be seen -- Blaze is taking the competitive aspects of this tournament a leeeeettle too seriously XD and with his huge arsenal of Pokémon and my pretty predictable seven, he already has the metagame upper-hand in terms of being able to craft a team hand-picked to beat mine. But even I welcome that challenge. It's okay if I lose to Gary.

'Cause if I beat Gary ... oh yeah. 8) *puts on shades*

In our practice matches, I won the first round, but then he figured out my team and won the next two while switching things up on his end. It's a very uphill battle, and I encourage everyone to try and check it out whenever it happens.

Tournament Standings:
The battle video logs and the tournament standings (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282997&postcount=134) have both been updated. I have an exam tonight so (1) no battles for me and (2) you guys can suffer the lack of an updated image file for one night, can't you? =P But in the mean time, all of the newest battle videos and scores are posted.

Please check your scores! If you think I got a number wrong, let me know.

Please check to see that all of your rounds are in the battle video log section! If there are any missing battles, it means I didn't get a tournament battle log. If it wasn't posted, please post it here. If there wasn't one, I'll need both of you to PM me confirmation regarding who won. If there was one and it was also posted, then I missed it, and would appreciate it if you just PM'd me the link. I apologize for missing any links I may have missed. Went through the thread pretty meticulously but you guys just keep battling while I try to edit these posts! :lol:

Disqualifications Section On Hold:
Like I said, I have an exam here in a few hours and still haven't prepped dinner, so yeah. That's going to have to wait until tomorrow. For now ... just don't break any rules! XP If you have questions or concerns, post them here. Thanks.

[blazeVA]

GREEN VERSUS BRUNO (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07)

Another match for a win. This one was a little bit more undecided than the last two, but, this was still a good one and I enjoyed it.

[Holy Emperor]

However, I quite like the idea of Green having a Drought Ninetales. A, he's supposed to be one of the most powerful trainers that ever was. He became the Champion at the age of 10, only a year into his training. He then went on to become the owner of the renovated Viridian City gym at the young age of 13. So I quite fancy the idea that Green ought to be somebody who is very, very difficult to defeat.

This attitude seems counter-intuative to the whole "fun tournament". Even allowing people to switch their main 6 seems stupid to me now since everyone knows each others team. Hell, even the second time I fought you talon you threw on two water types just for me. That's kind of gay.

[Kindrindra]

Why would Double Team not be allowed? P-O will tell you if a given move is creature-legal for a given generation and format. (In fact, it will not allow you to enter that generation+format cobmination if it is!) If it's a question of Double Team's cheapness or haxness or whatever ... *ahem* ... deal with it.

(I go on a rant here. Could be barking up the wrong tree. You tell me. ^^;)
(1) For God's sake, guys, he's gotten Will! You guys are acting like Double Team Will is suddenly six Choice Bands Gary or something. For the love of ...! Some of you have some of the best NPCs the game has ever known. Ordinary measures won't allow the Elite Four to stand much of a chance. Which is why each and every one of them has come up with some pretty clever strategies for winning. And they seem to be working. (Or in poor Concept's case, coming ridiculously close to working.) If Double Team is how Xander intends to even the playing field between himself and the Champion-wielding competitors, then I say good for him. He's gotta do what he's gotta do.

(2) It's your own fault if you chose not to run Haze or Roar, Dragon Tail, Whirlwind, or other pHazing moves. (Some did. I have already seen at least one person use the Haze and countless others use Whirlwind and Dragon Tail during this tournament. Kudos to them for their foresight and planning ahead.)

(3) If it's a question of "But I don't liiiiiiike hax! D:", deal with it. "Hax" is a part of the game and, while we all like to joke about it, sometimes it can go too far when people take themselves too seriously and think that pure aggro is somehow inherently "superior" to other, more haxy strategies. Paraflinch Togekiss is legit. ToxicStall is legit. If you don't like them, I'm sorry, but tough.
If there's something I don't know -- like if P-O is glitching and is allowing Double Team on an illegal creature or a legal creature but with a moveset that would then be illegal -- then that's one thing. But if this is just a case of people saying "But I don't like it :(," I'm sorry, but I've zero sympathy for that. :| If Will (Xander) has been able to beat any of you guys by making good use of a DT strategy, then good for him.

I mean, FFS, guys: in-game B/W Cynthia's Spiritomb's strategy is to 6 DT it up and have Pressure wheedle away your best moves. It doesn't always work for her, but I can't tell you the number of times I sat there for 20+ turns trying to hit this 6 DT'd Spiritomb and all because I'd gotten greedy with Volcarona and tried to go for the Quiver Dance sweep.

Talon, I love you forever.


Just popping in to say I love how this style forces people to come up with unorthodox strategies for mon that aren't usually used.

[Lonely Cubone]

This attitude seems counter-intuative to the whole "fun tournament". Even allowing people to switch their main 6 seems stupid to me now since everyone knows each others team. Hell, even the second time I fought you talon you threw on two water types just for me. That's kind of gay.

In hindsight, I probably should have whacked Murkrow and Honchkrow on my team to fight Blaze, but I like the six I have.

[Kindrindra]

My thoughts:

There's a reason why drought + chlorophyll is banned in regular matches. -.-

Uh, Drought+Chlorophyll ISN'T banned in regular matches. Only Drizzle+Swift Swim.

[Talon87]

UPN proudly presents an Indigo Plateau grudge match of epic propotions...

KOGA vs WILL (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Xander-Ketsu-vs-Concept186--2011-11-07)
There are many matches I've wanted to comment on, but this was one of the most thematically epic of them all, both for IRL reasons and for in-universe reasons.

IRL, Concept entered this match with 0 wins to 5 losses. Almost each and every last one of those losses had been an 0-1 loss, meaning he had brought the opponent down to his very last Pokémon before dying. And yet each time, Fate ripped victory from Concept's clutches and handed it to his opponents. So for that reason, this turn-around battle was pretty friggin' epic. I felt bad for Xander, who himself is now 0 and 4, but it was a great win for Concept and one hell of an underdog story, becauuuuuuse ...

... in addition to the IRL reasons for this match being epic, there's also the in-universe reasons. Meaning this: Koga and Will are fellow Elite Four members. The anime has suggested in more recent seasons that the way the Elite Four ranks are determined is by its members battling amongst themselves for supremacy every so often. It's also been suggested that this is how an Elite Four might challenge the Champion for the championship title without having to go through the entire rigamarole of Indigo Plateau (like everybody else has to). So in that sense, this match-up between Koga and Will is pretty epic. They're fellow Elite Four members for the Indigo League, meaning that their match is basically one which will determine who is the bottom rung of the ladder and who is the one above him. But there's an extra layer in-universe which just adds to this story's juiciness: and that's the fact that, quite simply, Koga is the poison master, Will is the psychic master, and psychic trumps poison. :lol: So Koga, even though he's allegedly better than Will, is fighting a real uphill battle here. And it's not hard for us to imagine at all that Koga might lose his challenge to Will and, consequently, his position as E4 No.3 out of 4.

That's why this match was electrifying for me. Not every match plays out or can play out in a way that is fandom-satisfactory, but this was certainly one which did. Here you had Koga, Will's senior in age and Pokémon veteranship alike, defending his crown (so to speak) despite the enormous elemental disadvantage he was facing. Only one of Koga's team resists Psychic. In fact, the other five are all weak to it and one of them (Toxicroak) is 4x weak to it. And Will was naturally sporting six Psychic Pokémon. Insanely stacked-against-him odds for Koga. AND YET! The ninja master of Fuschia City proved why he deserves to be a member of the Elite Four and why he deserves to be ranked superior to Will.

Epic, epic match. Maybe not as epic metagame-wise as some of the others. Maybe not as epic hax-wise as some of the others (*cough* *cough* :oops: ANIMECHU!). But definitely epic when seen from a thematic POV. When you allow yourself to look at these battles not as Concept fighting Xander or Kuno fighting Talon or Speevy fighting Kratos, but as Koga defending his title against Will, as Lance challenging Red to see if the boy still has what it takes to be Kanto's Champion, as Steven challenging the fabulous water-type Gym Leader Wallace who up and moved into the Ever Grande League's HQ and made himself cozy on Steven's sofa ... when you look at the battles like that, when you use your imagination, the possibilities for entertainment blossom before you like petals on a spring cherry tree.

And what a spring cherry this battle was. :D

[Holy Emperor]

Talon you are such a fanboy. Did you set this whole thing up for your sick, perverse desires?


Ps. That's a joke. XP

[Talon87]

I'll put this in words you guys can understand:

CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP

Jokes aside, glad you enjoyed the mini essay. :) :oops: At least one person read it! But yeah. That's how I see this tourney. That's how I'd love for you all to see this tourney. This was never, ever about being very serious. It was meant, and continues to be meant to be, a laid-back, fun tourney where we try to bring these characters to life and pit them against one another. It's like ... haven't you ever wondered who would win in a re-match between Blue and Red? Haven't you ever wondered who would win between Red and Cynthia? Haven't you ever wondered how the f00k Wallace replaced Steven as Hoenn's champ? :lol: Haven't you ever wondered why two of the four original Elite Four are gone but Bruno's still around while Lance fills in for Red as Kanto Champ? Even if our battles can't answer those questions -- even if the outcomes of our battles produce the opposite outcomes we may desire to see unfold -- the very fact that these clashes are happening should be like a thermite ball, sparking everyone's imaginations and making them wonder, "Hey yeaaaaaah ... I doooooooo wonder who would win between Bruno and Koga! 8O And yeaaaaah .... I dooooooo wonder who would win between Alder and Cynthia! Oh man, this is so neat! :D" People can walk away from this tournament and fanfic it up (not literally, I just mean in their minds they can XP) and imagine all sorts of ramifications from a Champion League were we to ever see one in the anime and were it to be an all-inclusive rumble 'n' tumble between all 5+ regions. Can you seriously imagine a competition where the likes of Cynthia, Steven, Alder, and the mythical Red all do battle in order to attain the title of Pokémon Master? It's cool stuff. :D

[Raptor Jesus]

Wish Salamence seems kinda borked. Salamence gets it from glitched breeding with NYPC Wish Blissey. It's not really designed to have Wish. While it's "legal" in the sense that you could get it in the game, it's comes at the price of a possible save data corruption in-game. No penalty on PO.

[Tyranidos]

I am on PO awaiting Talon, blaze, Xander, or Speevy.

[blazeVA]

I am on if you want to battle!

Also, Green may be weak to Daisy birds. I lost, by a lot. ;;

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Will! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-Xander-Ketsu--2011-11-07-private81303666)

Alder wins. Accelgor and Stuffalont performed nicely.

Alder vs. Green! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07-private1806969461)

Alder loses rather pitifully to a Cloyster.

[blazeVA]

GREEN VERSUS ALDER (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07)

Comments:
This one was close. If I did not have Whit Herb on Cloyster, he could have kissed his ass goodbye. Accelgor got a lucky crit, and otherwise, Stufallont is mad at me. Shell Smash Cloyster is awesome.

Smell ya later!

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Red! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07-private550045731)

Alder wins! It was a close match, but flamehead prevailed in the end. Stu and Druddigon starred in this match.

[Firewater]

...what server is this run on? I'm interested in giving this a try, lol.

edit- not in the tourney obviously, but battling some UPN'ers I mean

[Talon87]

Red vs. Alder (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Tyranidos--2011-11-07)
(same as above, just a different POV)

Good game.

Though I don't know how others will feel about it. ^^; If I had been a more competent battler, I would have known to bring Snorlax in on Volcarona. And possibly won the game there. Instead, I sent out Espeon and Venusaur to die before thinking, "Well, let's try Snorlax. XP" Stupid me.

That stated, few battles hinge on any one decision, and this battle was no such one. Tdos earned his victory with some good tactical decisions and there was back-and-forth throughout. I thought I was going to lose ... then win ... and then I lost. If a battle goes like that, then at least something right is going on, I feel.

Hope it was enjoyable for you guys to watch. Hope Tdos wasn't disappointed by fighting a Talon who's operating on only 3 hours of sleep (3am to 6am today = when I slept). No excuses, though!

Tdos: Yet you keep making them.
Talon: XP

Too tired to write the anime comparison for this battle, but I guess what it would be is, interpret Red as Satoshi/Ash and basically have this be where Alder kicked his ass in BW054. ^^; "You've still got much to learn, young one!"

[SP-Eevee]

:o I'll have to get on this evening and have some matches.

[Concept]

I'll post the video later, but Koga vs Cynthia has been completed. Suffice to say it was a total whitewash, and I suck at representing Koga ;;.

[Celebii151]

Bruno vs Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-08)

Bruno vs Green (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-Celebii--2011-11-07-1)

[Talon87]

No one's approached me asking for permission to change anything. I thought I'd throw out there (as an example) that I am okay with letting Xander replace Dive on his Slowbro with something else and to hell with the rest of you if you say he can't do it. =P ;-) That stated, yeah :|, to keep things fair, for the most part making changes is banned. If you've royally botched any EV spreads and would like to re-do them, notify me and we'll see what we can do. Worst case scenario, you forfeit any matches which you may have won while using your old EV spreads. But it's something to think about if you think you've got the wrong EVs or strategy or something. It's kind of like declaring bankruptcy: it's something that comes with penalties to prevent everybody from doing it, but when you're penniless, it's certainly an option to consider. Same principle applies here. If something is costing you matches which shouldn't be, I'm open to letting you change it. You'll just have to pay the price (i.e. forfeiting previous wins accrued with the old method).

Will update the scoreboard and the scoreboard image some time later today.

[Kindrindra]

I have to say, I LOVE that Hitmonchan. I finally know what to breed for when I get my DS back.

[Talon87]

Red vs. Bruno (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Kotone--2011-11-08)

In the match-up between the mountain ascetic and master of the Fighting type versus the boy champion of the Indigo League, who wlll triumph? Watch the video to find out!

Was really disappointed by my performance in this match, which sees me brought down from 2-0 to 2-2 in less than twelve hours. :| That stated, Celebi was gracious enough to let me have an unofficial rematch, which you can watch here (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Celebii--2011-11-08), and that restored my confidence a little bit. It definitely identifies, though, that the problem was with me and not the team match-up. So let's look at my mistakes, shall we?

Right from the get-go, I lead with Espeon. Bruno's is a very physical team and my intent is to lead with a Reflect. But when I see that he's lead with the special defensively-weak Onix, I get greedy and opt for a 2HKO via Psychic instead. My greed punishes me and it turns out that Bruno's Onix is more specially tough than I thought it could be. Sassy or not, SpDef-invested or not, without the Steel-type of Steelix's to back it up, I honestly expected Espeon's ridiculously powerful SpAtt + STAB Psychic to do more damage. :| Mistake #1.

On Turn 2, Pikachu gets to use one of the two moves he hasn't used yet all tournament: Grass Knot. (So now that cat's out of the bag.) He takes out Onix, but in comes Hitmontop. I know from seeing some of Bruno's previous match-ups that Hitmontop favors a priority-based aggression with Fake Out and Mach Punch, so I'm thinking the little mouse is toast. So I just leave him out to die, rather than bringing out somebody else to absorb the hits. I figure that in this fight, I'm really going to need Venusaur and Charizard, and I'd sooner lose Pikachu than Blastoise or Snorlax. Perhaps this was mistake #2, I dunno.

At this point, the peanut gallery starts getting really excited. That's great. ^^; But as we'll see as the battle progresses, they're bordering on Nuremberg-level hate for my team, which didn't do wonders for my confidence level. Out goes Venusaur and the strategy's pretty simple: get the sun up and have three options:
(1) Sleep Powder
(2) Solarbeam
(3) Charizard if I die

Venusaur handily whittles away Hitmontop's health and I'm starting to feel a little more confident about the match again. It was not to last.

Venusaur KOs Hitmontop and out comes Hitmonlee. I use Sleep Powder and ... success! Now here where's the Goddess of Luck abandons me.

(1) I switch to Charizard the turn that sunlight fades. :| Thought I had at least two more turns.

(2) This forces me to DD up immediately. I would have taken advantage of him being asleep anyway, but ...

(3) He wakes up the very next turn (the same turn I Dragon Dance in), selects Stone Edge, and it hits. Yes, it's 80% accurate, that isn't my complaint. My complaint is that it both hit and got to even be used in the first place. Really? You sleep for only ONE ROUND?

Anyway, it wouldn't have been so bad -- I have fun with Pokemon even when I'm losing so long as we're all being good sports -- but the peanut gallery gets a little too ... "eager" to rally behind my team's imminent doom, starting with Charizard. "Oh snap," one writes. "Wow," mutters another. This is true. I'm wowing myself. IN RAGE! =P ;-) But it continues. Espeon is one-shotted by the Hitmonlee too -- stupid Sucker Punch! -- and the crowd goes wild. Hitmonlee progresses to one shot my entire team -- Venusaur dies in one hit to a Blaze Kick and a MAX HP Snorlax dies in just one hit to a STAB Hi Jump Kick -- and pretty soon it's gg. We return to the chatroom and Kuno writes, "Thanks for AVENGING ME." At this point, I was pretty ticked. No offense to Celebi, but I had expected to win this round and handily, too. Bruno? Against Red? With Red's Venusaur AND Blastoise AND Espeon? Are you for real? So the 4-0 sweep left me pretty bummed out and the audience sure hadn't helped. Nobody offered any consolation until I said, "You guys could be a little kinder," at which point then, way too late, the apologetics "You did good too Talon" started to pour in. A word to the wise: try and be a little nicer to both sides in these matches. It's fine if you want to root for your friends and not root for strangers or enemies or whatever, but you don't need to be obnoxious about it.

Why do I make such a big deal about such a mole hill anyway? Because I think it played a big part in my loss in this battle. If I'd been more calm during the latter third, and if I'd been less cocky during the middle third, I think things might have been different. That's pretty much how I approached the rematch and you can see the results for yourself. So I'm writing all this so that other people, too, who have been feeling disheartened by the audience siding against them can learn from my example. One big mistake I made was, when I sent Espeon out, to not use Reflect! I should have done that. Not only would Sucker Punch have failed, but (even without the hindsight knowledge that he was going to use that exact move) I would have had priority, gotten the wall up, and provided my team with 7 additional turns of buffed defenses.

Im going to try not to let the audience shake my confidence or ruin my mood in future battles. (So be warned, haters! =P I've got my ears plugged and my eyes covered from now on! =P) Kudos to Celebii for being a very good sport throughout -- during the tournament battle proper, during the rematch I asked him for, and even after in the chat room and in several battles we tested out. If you're a big time Red fan, sorry I let you guys down. :( I'll try harder to represent and, if at all possible, win this tournament. I don't know that I can, but I'll never give up until it's over! :D And if you're wondering what an alternate version of the events might have looked like, you can check out the friendly rematch link posted above.

[Holy Emperor]

(16:24:05) Kotone: RUMBLE AT THE BRONX
(16:24:11) Kotone: TALON VS. KUNO IN THE CC DEATHMATCH OF THE MILLENIUM
(16:24:18) Kotone: SOLOSIS VS. PATRAT LEAD THE WAY
(16:24:18) ±Exploud: Kotone was muted for caps for 15 minutes.

[DaisyInari]

Was really disappointed by my performance in this match, which sees me brought down from 2-0 to 2-2 in less than twelve hours. :| That stated, Celebi was gracious enough to let me have an unofficial rematch, which you can watch here (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Celebii--2011-11-08), and that restored my confidence a little bit. It definitely identifies, though, that the problem was with me and not the team match-up. So let's look at my mistakes, shall we?

Right from the get-go, I lead with Espeon. Bruno's is a very physical team and my intent is to lead with a Reflect. But when I see that he's lead with the special defensively-weak Onix, I get greedy and opt for a 2HKO via Psychic instead. My greed punishes me and it turns out that Bruno's Onix is more specially tough than I thought it could be. Sassy or not, SpDef-invested or not, without the Steel-type of Steelix's to back it up, I honestly expected Espeon's ridiculously powerful SpAtt + STAB Psychic to do more damage. :| Mistake #1.

On Turn 2, Pikachu gets to use one of the two moves he hasn't used yet all tournament: Grass Knot. (So now that cat's out of the bag.) He takes out Onix, but in comes Hitmontop. I know from seeing some of Bruno's previous match-ups that Hitmontop favors a priority-based aggression with Fake Out and Mach Punch, so I'm thinking the little mouse is toast. So I just leave him out to die, rather than bringing out somebody else to absorb the hits. I figure that in this fight, I'm really going to need Venusaur and Charizard, and I'd sooner lose Pikachu than Blastoise or Snorlax. Perhaps this was mistake #2, I dunno.

At this point, the peanut gallery starts getting really excited. That's great. ^^; But as we'll see as the battle progresses, they're bordering on Nuremberg-level hate for my team, which didn't do wonders for my confidence level. Out goes Venusaur and the strategy's pretty simple: get the sun up and have three options:
(1) Sleep Powder
(2) Solarbeam
(3) Charizard if I die

Venusaur handily whittles away Hitmontop's health and I'm starting to feel a little more confident about the match again. It was not to last.

Venusaur KOs Hitmontop and out comes Hitmonlee. I use Sleep Powder and ... success! Now here where's the Goddess of Luck abandons me.

(1) I switch to Charizard the turn that sunlight fades. :| Thought I had at least two more turns.

(2) This forces me to DD up immediately. I would have taken advantage of him being asleep anyway, but ...

(3) He wakes up the very next turn (the same turn I Dragon Dance in), selects Stone Edge, and it hits. Yes, it's 80% accurate, that isn't my complaint. My complaint is that it both hit and got to even be used in the first place. Really? You sleep for only ONE ROUND?

Anyway, it wouldn't have been so bad -- I have fun with Pokemon even when I'm losing so long as we're all being good sports -- but the peanut gallery gets a little too ... "eager" to rally behind my team's imminent doom, starting with Charizard. "Oh snap," one writes. "Wow," mutters another. This is true. I'm wowing myself. IN RAGE! =P ;-) But it continues. Espeon is one-shotted by the Hitmonlee too -- stupid Sucker Punch! -- and the crowd goes wild. Hitmonlee progresses to one shot my entire team -- Venusaur dies in one hit to a Blaze Kick and a MAX HP Snorlax dies in just one hit to a STAB Hi Jump Kick -- and pretty soon it's gg. We return to the chatroom and Kuno writes, "Thanks for AVENGING ME." At this point, I was pretty ticked. No offense to Celebi, but I had expected to win this round and handily, too. Bruno? Against Red? With Red's Venusaur AND Blastoise AND Espeon? Are you for real? So the 4-0 sweep left me pretty bummed out and the audience sure hadn't helped. Nobody offered any consolation until I said, "You guys could be a little kinder," at which point then, way too late, the apologetics "You did good too Talon" started to pour in. A word to the wise: try and be a little nicer to both sides in these matches. It's fine if you want to root for your friends and not root for strangers or enemies or whatever, but you don't need to be obnoxious about it.

Why do I make such a big deal about such a mole hill anyway? Because I think it played a big part in my loss in this battle. If I'd been more calm during the latter third, and if I'd been less cocky during the middle third, I think things might have been different. That's pretty much how I approached the rematch and you can see the results for yourself. So I'm writing all this so that other people, too, who have been feeling disheartened by the audience siding against them can learn from my example. One big mistake I made was, when I sent Espeon out, to not use Reflect! I should have done that. Not only would Sucker Punch have failed, but (even without the hindsight knowledge that he was going to use that exact move) I would have had priority, gotten the wall up, and provided my team with 7 additional turns of buffed defenses.

Im going to try not to let the audience shake my confidence or ruin my mood in future battles. (So be warned, haters! =P I've got my ears plugged and my eyes covered from now on! =P) Kudos to Celebii for being a very good sport throughout -- during the tournament battle proper, during the rematch I asked him for, and even after in the chat room and in several battles we tested out. If you're a big time Red fan, sorry I let you guys down. :( I'll try harder to represent and, if at all possible, win this tournament. I don't know that I can, but I'll never give up until it's over! :D And if you're wondering what an alternate version of the events might have looked like, you can check out the friendly rematch link posted above.

D: Waaaah, I'm sorry Talon! I say "OHSNAP" whenever anything happens, regardless of who's doing well or not. But you really did battle well!

[Celebii151]

Thank you, Talon. You fared excellently as well. I think that after the tournament is over, we should reveal all our Pokemon's movesets, EVs, items, etc.

[Talon87]

As always, you can load the first page of this thread to find a direct link (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=282997&postcount=134) to the most up-to-date tournament standings and list of battle log videos. But I'll go ahead and draw your attention to the new, up-to-date visual representation of the current standings.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_rounds_Nov-08-2011_th.png (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_rounds_Nov-08-2011.png)

I've selected colors for you which tie in to your respective characters. (Or, in Lance's case, a nice solid blue. ^^; ) The grid on the bottom tells you who you're supposed to face in each round, where the numbers representing you are found above your names. Those rounds which have been completed are now filled in with a color. The color represents whichever character won that round. (So say for example Bruno beat Red. Then in the box which originally said 8-9, it's now solid brown because brown is the color which represents Bruno.)

Please be sure to check that the wins and losses reported in your boxes are correct as of this post. Please be sure to check that the number of colored boxes representing your wins is correct and that they're all in the correct spots. They should be, but just be vigilant in case I made any errors.

As you can see, Rounds 1 and 2 are coming along nicely. But we still need to finish two battles in each of them! So let's try and knock those out before Friday, okay? :) (And yes, I realize that two of them are mine. :oops:)

[Talon87]

Red vs. Cynthia (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-YukiN--2011-11-08)

Where regions collide! The Champion of the Indigo League, Red vs. the Champion of the Sinnoh League, Cynthia! Who will emerge triumphant from this clash between two titans?

The stars of today's show were Espeon in the red corner and Togekiss and Milotic in the blue corner. Hax was ever Talon's Red's friend in today's match-up; and Turn 5, wherein Togekiss was frozen, is sure to turn a lot of stomachs. It single-handedly, without any shadow of doubt, is what decided this match. Poor Togekiss was to remain frozen for seven turns, thawing out on the eighth turn it was out; and starting on Turn 12, Espeon began to set up four Calm Minds, producing a whopping 1044 for its Special Attack stat. This pretty much decided the match, although Milotic put up an impressive fight by withstanding the 1044 SpAtt'ed, STABbed Psychic attack. And Roserade was to take revenge for her fallen comrades, felling the psychic feline against all odds, managing to one-shot a max health Espeon with just one Leaf Storm. That's one powerful little plant! But in the end, Espeon's sweep through four of Cynthia's six Pokémon -- Togekiss, Garchomp, Gastrodon, and Milotic -- all but decided this match.

Yuki later said that if she had switched Milotic in before Garchomp and Gastrodon that she might have then had a chance, given that Milotic hung in there and hazed away all of those Calm Minds. This could be true. Indeed, if you had had Togekiss and Milotic die at Espeon's hands, the battle might have been leaning heavily in my favor, but Yuki still would have had Garchomp (!!), Gastrodon, and Roserade working for her. I can definitely relate to the frustration of doing things in what later seems like a stupid order: I did the exact same thing when I fought Tdos last night. If I had switched Snorlax in first against Volcarona, instead of sending Venusaur and another guy to their deaths before him, I might have easily won the whole thing. But I didn't. And that's frustrating. :(

Aside from the freeze hax and my greedy Calm Mind spree, I hope this was fun for you, Yuki. Really impressed with your Milotic (holy cow!) and your Roserade.

[Raptor Jesus]

Talon loves his Solarbeam too much.

[Talon87]

Talon loves his Solarbeam too much.
Would be happy to address this criticism after the tournament.

[Raptor Jesus]

Is it because in-game Red does it?

[YUKI.N]

I did have fun, and it was a good lesson to hammer home for me (especially after my already spectacular loss to Volcarona). ^^; Thanks for the compliments on my Pokémon; I'm starting to feel like I'm growing much more familiar with and attached to them as my teammates. Even if I failed this time, it served to highlight some of their strengths and weaknesses, so that in the future I'll hopefully be more comfortable and confident using them. =3

[Tyranidos]

Alder vs. Steven! (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Tyranidos-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-09-private545200622)

Alder loses. Cradily kinda wrecked my team. I'm happier being done than anything else.

[Talon87]

Red vs. Steven (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-sp-eevee--2011-11-09)

Steven Stone, one of my all-time favorite characters in Pokémon, crosses paths with the legendary Red in this meet-up between Kanto and Hoenn. From a kamikaze Charizard who says "TO HELL WITH STEALTH ROCK!" and takes 50% damage on the switch-in just so he can kill his prey to a Curselax who engages in a stat-boosting arms race with a Cosmic Powering Claydol, this battle is sure to entertain.

More commentary to come later, maybe. ^^; But for now, enjoy the video!

[Lonely Cubone]

Karen v Red (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-09)

Beaten largely by a backfiring Lum Berry leaving my 3-Curse Absol Burned. Funny how these things happen. Gengar remains my best Pokemon by some distance.

[Talon87]

Red vs. Karen (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Karen-LC--2011-11-09-1)

RUN, ESPEON! RUN!

Like I told LC in the chat, this battle had me sweating bullets on several occasions. Right from the get-go, it was 110 base speed Timid Espeon vs. 110 base speed (Timid?) Gengar. I couldn't chance the speed tie favoring Gengar -- I just couldn't! -- and so I bailed on Turn 1, calling Espeon back in exchange for Snorlax. LC immediately beat himself up for overthinking what I would do, but I think Snorlax could have still handled a Thunderbolt or two from Gengar. (Or so I'd like to hope. ^^; ) A predictable switcheroo took place again as I had to call Snorlax back else he get pummeled by Gengar's powerful Focus Blast. In went Venusaur and the true battle began.

I had some real negative luck with the double miss on Sleep Powder :|, and back in came Espeon. I'll happily take two Sleep Powder misses, though, if it means winning the two speed ties that allowed me to kill the ghost.

Like LC said, things really backfired with Absol and the Lum Berry. But let's rewind to Umbreon, shall we? I cannot believe that I would forget the classic Gen II approach to raising an Umbreon: you Curse, you Baton Pass. How could I have been so foolish? The moment I saw the words "Baton Pass" on the screen, my stomach literally sank several inches. I knew a sweep was impending, and when I saw that it was going to come from Absol, I figured it was gg right then and there. This is why you don't give up mid-battle, people! ^^; Anything can happen in Pokémon, and Red's battle against Karen was no exception. Who in a million years would have guessed that Blastoise would survive for two turns in the ring with a 3x Attack-stat boosted Absol?
Would give further commentary but again, as with my battle with Speevy above, I think I'll pass on that for now. I think it was an exciting battle for both parties as well as the audience and it's one I don't think you'll want to miss. Do yourself a favor and watch it turn-by-turn instead of fast forwarding through it. Turns 16 and 17 are what the beginning all leads up to.

[Kindrindra]

Red vs. Bruno (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Celebii-vs-Kotone--2011-11-08)

In the match-up between the mountain ascetic and master of the Fighting type versus the boy champion of the Indigo League, who wlll triumph? Watch the video to find out!

Was really disappointed by my performance in this match, which sees me brought down from 2-0 to 2-2 in less than twelve hours. :| That stated, Celebi was gracious enough to let me have an unofficial rematch, which you can watch here (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-Celebii--2011-11-08), and that restored my confidence a little bit. It definitely identifies, though, that the problem was with me and not the team match-up. So let's look at my mistakes, shall we?

Right from the get-go, I lead with Espeon. Bruno's is a very physical team and my intent is to lead with a Reflect. But when I see that he's lead with the special defensively-weak Onix, I get greedy and opt for a 2HKO via Psychic instead. My greed punishes me and it turns out that Bruno's Onix is more specially tough than I thought it could be. Sassy or not, SpDef-invested or not, without the Steel-type of Steelix's to back it up, I honestly expected Espeon's ridiculously powerful SpAtt + STAB Psychic to do more damage. :| Mistake #1.

On Turn 2, Pikachu gets to use one of the two moves he hasn't used yet all tournament: Grass Knot. (So now that cat's out of the bag.) He takes out Onix, but in comes Hitmontop. I know from seeing some of Bruno's previous match-ups that Hitmontop favors a priority-based aggression with Fake Out and Mach Punch, so I'm thinking the little mouse is toast. So I just leave him out to die, rather than bringing out somebody else to absorb the hits. I figure that in this fight, I'm really going to need Venusaur and Charizard, and I'd sooner lose Pikachu than Blastoise or Snorlax. Perhaps this was mistake #2, I dunno.

At this point, the peanut gallery starts getting really excited. That's great. ^^; But as we'll see as the battle progresses, they're bordering on Nuremberg-level hate for my team, which didn't do wonders for my confidence level. Out goes Venusaur and the strategy's pretty simple: get the sun up and have three options:
(1) Sleep Powder
(2) Solarbeam
(3) Charizard if I die

Venusaur handily whittles away Hitmontop's health and I'm starting to feel a little more confident about the match again. It was not to last.

Venusaur KOs Hitmontop and out comes Hitmonlee. I use Sleep Powder and ... success! Now here where's the Goddess of Luck abandons me.

(1) I switch to Charizard the turn that sunlight fades. :| Thought I had at least two more turns.

(2) This forces me to DD up immediately. I would have taken advantage of him being asleep anyway, but ...

(3) He wakes up the very next turn (the same turn I Dragon Dance in), selects Stone Edge, and it hits. Yes, it's 80% accurate, that isn't my complaint. My complaint is that it both hit and got to even be used in the first place. Really? You sleep for only ONE ROUND?

Anyway, it wouldn't have been so bad -- I have fun with Pokemon even when I'm losing so long as we're all being good sports -- but the peanut gallery gets a little too ... "eager" to rally behind my team's imminent doom, starting with Charizard. "Oh snap," one writes. "Wow," mutters another. This is true. I'm wowing myself. IN RAGE! =P ;-) But it continues. Espeon is one-shotted by the Hitmonlee too -- stupid Sucker Punch! -- and the crowd goes wild. Hitmonlee progresses to one shot my entire team -- Venusaur dies in one hit to a Blaze Kick and a MAX HP Snorlax dies in just one hit to a STAB Hi Jump Kick -- and pretty soon it's gg. We return to the chatroom and Kuno writes, "Thanks for AVENGING ME." At this point, I was pretty ticked. No offense to Celebi, but I had expected to win this round and handily, too. Bruno? Against Red? With Red's Venusaur AND Blastoise AND Espeon? Are you for real? So the 4-0 sweep left me pretty bummed out and the audience sure hadn't helped. Nobody offered any consolation until I said, "You guys could be a little kinder," at which point then, way too late, the apologetics "You did good too Talon" started to pour in. A word to the wise: try and be a little nicer to both sides in these matches. It's fine if you want to root for your friends and not root for strangers or enemies or whatever, but you don't need to be obnoxious about it.

Why do I make such a big deal about such a mole hill anyway? Because I think it played a big part in my loss in this battle. If I'd been more calm during the latter third, and if I'd been less cocky during the middle third, I think things might have been different. That's pretty much how I approached the rematch and you can see the results for yourself. So I'm writing all this so that other people, too, who have been feeling disheartened by the audience siding against them can learn from my example. One big mistake I made was, when I sent Espeon out, to not use Reflect! I should have done that. Not only would Sucker Punch have failed, but (even without the hindsight knowledge that he was going to use that exact move) I would have had priority, gotten the wall up, and provided my team with 7 additional turns of buffed defenses.

Im going to try not to let the audience shake my confidence or ruin my mood in future battles. (So be warned, haters! =P I've got my ears plugged and my eyes covered from now on! =P) Kudos to Celebii for being a very good sport throughout -- during the tournament battle proper, during the rematch I asked him for, and even after in the chat room and in several battles we tested out. If you're a big time Red fan, sorry I let you guys down. :( I'll try harder to represent and, if at all possible, win this tournament. I don't know that I can, but I'll never give up until it's over! :D And if you're wondering what an alternate version of the events might have looked like, you can check out the friendly rematch link posted above.

I read 'Red VS Bruno' and had a Manga nostalgiagasm. Talon, you're right- this is fanboy candy. :D

[DaisyInari]

DX My internet derped and suddenly the match wouldn't continue for me... So, so sorry Elsie. D:

At least you won! But you were going to win anyway. ^_^;

[Talon87]

The tournament is coming along smoothly and as a special treat the battle chart has been updated less than 24 hours after the previous update. :o Here's what it looks like now:

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_rounds_Nov_09_2011_th.png (http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/tournament_rounds_Nov_09_2011.png)
click thumbnail to see full-size version

Click the spoiler box below for a more detailed run-down on the tournament's leaderboards.

Here are the scores for our eleven contestants:
Lance (Kuno): 7W, 2L
Bruno (Celebi): 6W, 3L
Alder (Tdos): 5W, 5L
Red (Talon): 5W, 2L
Green/Blue (Blaze): 4W, 0L
Steven (Speevy): 2W, 2L
Wallace (Kratos): 1W, 1L
Cynthia (Yuki): 1W, 3L
Karen (LC): 1W, 4L
Koga (Concept): 1W, 6L
Will (Xander): 0W, 5L
However, it's still very much anybody's game as nearly half of the tournament battles have yet to be fought and the current leaders of the scoreboard are mostly individuals who are out or nearly out of battles to fight to boost their winning counts by.


Here's a list of the competitors in order of the number of battles completed, from highest to lowest:
10: Alder (Tyranidos)
9: Lance (Kuno), Bruno (Celebi)
8: ---
7: Red (Talon), Koga (Concept)
6: ---
5: Karen (LC), Will (Xander)
4: Green (Blaze), Steven (Speevy), Cynthia (Yuki)
3: ---
2: Wallace (Kratos)
If you see your name in the bottom half of this list, be aware that there are probably some people whose Round 1, 2, 3, or 4 battles depend on you! Try to arrange for a battle time before the deadlines. For Rounds 1 and 2, that's this Friday at 7pm EST (so 12midnight between Friday and Saturday in the UK, or 4pm on the US West Coast). For Rounds 3 and 4, that's this Saturday at the same time, 7pm EST.

[Tyranidos]

Well, at least I'm first in something ;-;

[Talon87]

Red vs. Wallace (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-Kotone-vs-ElegantWaterArtist--2011-11-09)

Remember that game you used to play as kids where you'd all put your hands on top of one another's? A hand pile, as it were? And then the kid with his hand on the very bottom of the pile would pull it out from under the weight of all the other hands and slap it on to the very top of the pile? And then the next kid? And then the next? And so on and so forth? So that you were all basically fighting for supremacy, to see who could have their hand be the hand that stays on top?

Yeah. I've got six words for you then: that game, Rain Dance, Sunny Day. ^^;

The game was dominated by the (I'm starting to feel is) semi-broken Chlorophyll Venusaur. Such a meaty creature should perhaps not have been allowed to double its speed in the sun! 1-Turn Solarbeam and priority to go first? Sure, many other elements boast the same luxuries without even having to waste a turn on weather -- Electric, anyone? -- but as I think you'll see in this match, Solarbeam just completely dominates a team which unfortunately, due to Wallace having been a Water-type Gym Leader and not an Elite Four proper in Ruby and Sapphire, is completely overrun by STAB Grass. Wallace had some unlucky breaks with what I predicted vs. what he predicted, not to mention a few crits which certainly didn't help matters much for him. To be perfectly honest, though, I think the strategy here is a sound one and, if the opponent is anyone other than somebody who owns a Chlorophyll Grass-type in the sunlight, they might have a hard time of it beating Wallace. Guess we'll just have to wait and see as Kratos continues to play more matches. GG, Kratos. I look forward to seeing your upcoming matches.

[Talon87]

Just a friendly reminder that the first deadlines are only six and a half hours away! Rounds 1 and 2 should be completed by 7pm EST today, which is 12midnight in the UK and 4pm on the US West Coast. If you and your partner have both tried to arrange a battle but neither of you has been able to make it for the other person's available times (e.g. Person 1 has said "Thursdays don't work for me, any other day does" and Person 2 has said "Thursdays are the only day I have available"), you should both notify me and we'll see what to do. If I get a notification from one person but not the other, I will PM that other person to see what's going on. Am going to hold off on official round disqualifications until I give people ample time to report in about weddings, GREs/SATs/other all-day exams, hospitalizations, etc. Which reminds me: still need to post that disqualification information. Will try and do that later today. -.-;

[Concept]

I've fought Yuki (round 1), and lost - just noticed that's not on the table. I'll dig out the log and post it a bit later.

[Talon87]

If it hasn't been posted in this thread, log or no log, I can't possibly know that it's happened. If it was posted in this thread and I missed it, sorry for that. I go through each and every post that's newer than the last update before updating again, so I shouldn't miss anything (log or no log), but it could happen.

That still leaves one round for Friday -- Karen (LC) vs. Cynthia (Yuki), the battle between the only two female characters in the tournament. Should be an interesting match. :)

Then for Saturday, we have a number of matches. It'll be the first Saturday since the tourney began so here's hoping it sees a pick-up in activity after the past few days' comparative lull.

[blazeVA]

GREEN VERSUS CYNTHIA (http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-blazeVA-vs-YukiN--2011-11-11)

Nice one here. I can honestly say that I was a little bit pissed at the amount of hax found in this match, on my Cloyster. If that had not happened, it would have been much faster. Green is the best champion ever!

[YUKI.N]

Darn Subtitutes. =x I spotted a few mistakes I made that might've tipped the battle a little more in my favor, but overall I think I'm improving. ^^ Good match, Blaze.

[Concept]

If it hasn't been posted in this thread, log or no log, I can't possibly know that it's happened. If it was posted in this thread and I missed it, sorry for that. I go through each and every post that's newer than the last update before updating again, so I shouldn't miss anything (log or no log), but it could happen.

I'll post the video later, but Koga vs Cynthia has been completed. Suffice to say it was a total whitewash, and I suck at representing Koga ;;.

Blaze/Kratos, either of you around anytime soon? I need to fight both of you (I think both by this weekend? I forget).