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SoSlowpoke's San Diego
Stadium Challenge Report Thingymabobber
Well it started out on
Friday. Our flight left from O'Hare at 10. The flight was OK
but they forgot to flush the urine out the night before so
the plane smelled like @**. We got to the hotel
alright and had lunch. The night before I found out that
IPGeek was gonna be holding a draft at the hotel I was
staying at. So like a weirdo, I go up to all the
service desks asking if someone had a room booked for a
"Po-key-man" tournament. Naturally, they all thought I was a
weirdo, and after finding out that you really didn't need
that much space to run a draft, I felt like one
too.
So at about 4, I
walked down to the Convention Center to see if anyone there
knew a thing about the draft. I found the room where it was
being held after walking around both the entire upper and
lower levels of the center and I saw DMTM and I waved to him
like I was a Panda bear. (inside joke) Eventually he came
out and I asked if he needed help and he said they were
about fine
so I asked him about the draft and he told me that I was
like the 5th one to ask him that and he didn't know anything
about it cause IPGeek didn't have anything to draft
with.
He then explained to me how their flight was delayed, then
cancelled, and then eventually, their luggage was
"misplaced". So all their "Product" (meaning boosters) were
AWOL.
In addition, he had no idea where Juan was even holding the
draft. So I filled him in on what I knew. DMTM then gave me
his cell phone # to give to him when he shows up.
On the way back to my room, I witnessed one of the
most funniest things. I was in the gift shop and there were
these two old guys havin a conversation. I started picking
up on it when one guy said to the other "So where do you
work out,"
and then the other guy said, "Well actually, I have a
spouse, we live in Las Vegas," and I'm listening to this and
I'm like OMG he must be so friggin embarrassed!
So newayz, after dinner,
we returned to the hotel at about 8 where there were about
10 people just sitting in the lobby playing. As soon as I
got outta my car, IPGeek came up and shook my hand and
I gave him DMTM's number and he called him up and then said
that Pat should have about 3 boxes of LC so we should be
fine but it wouldn't be until at least another half
hour until he came. So I just went up to my room and
got my dufflebag full of my cards and stuff and just sat and
chilled out with everyone else that was there. From what my
Soslow
brain recalls, there was...Chrisbo, his daughter Jennifer,
TRCassidy, her friend Bullados, TRCassidy's brother,
Nick15, Firefighter, DVPlume11 (IPGeek's bro), and some
other assorted people (one of which who was in T2 at the 14-
event). So I did some Team Play with TRCassidy against
Chrisbo and his daughter until DMTM, SDPokemon, and Pat
came. We all went into a more "quieter atmosphere" which was
just down the hall and put some tables together for a LC
draft. The older players unanimously voted for Rochester and
I'm like ok..(cause I had no clue what it was, and my
brother didn't even know how to do a regular draft) But it
took about a minute to learn and it was really easy. We were
divided up into 2 pods based on age. (14- and 15+) I guess
DMTM was too old to be in 15+ so he had to go to our
pod to even things out. We used my adorable Slowpoke
beanie that Pure got me from the PokemonCenter as a marker,
and we were all set. I was first in the pod and I drafted
the Nidoqueen line at the beginning (until I couldn't find a
single Nidoqueen) and then moved on to Psychic as I got 5
Haunters, 4 gastly, and 2 gengar. My little brother was
drafting basically Shiny cards but he managed to build a
sub-par lightning deck with 2 Dark Raichu. TRCassidy's
brother was drafting for shiny objects too (hey, I took
reverse hold charizard over a gastly I needed too hehe) and
then I really had no idea what Mason was drafting and
DVPlume was drafting Fighting. Chrisbo's daughter was
drafting Grass and was counter drafting everyone. That girl
was annoying everyone by counterdrafting but she's an
awesome player thought. DMTM was trying to get Gengar but I
got it before him and I was kinda pissing him off half way
through cause I took Boss's way and reverse foil Gengar
hehe.
Oooh I still have DMTM's cell phone #. It's (XXX)
XXX-XXXX
nah...I shouldn't tell on account of he told me about promo
48 hehe...Anywayz I built a Psychic Deck featuring the
Gastly line along with Mewtwo for support and Eevee with 2
Dark Vaporeons and a Jolteon and Flareon for a
Weakness mix. During the draft, I pulled out a Fossil
Kingler and covered up the attack and picture and told
everyone it was promo 48. After showing him the picture of
it, it still took Chrisbo about 5 minutes
to realize that it was just a Fossil one. LOL. I did some
more interrogating of DMTM on what it could be. He wouldn't
budge. Also during the draft, I pulled out my no HP Dark
Persian Promo and was showing it around
to everyone. DMTM was saying something about messing up with
that one, IPGeek would not admit that I had a card in my
hand, Pokemon had mixed emotions, and Nick15 was trying to
convince me that it was a fake he made
for me. I was tempted to say that the card I had actually
looked like a Real card, but I didn't feel like being that
mean. Everyone wanted to hold it and I had to deny certain
shady characters in black and leather
gloves the privelage of touching it. I got out my camera and
told DMTM if he could hold it. He did so and even smiled and
I said "Hold on, I need to turn on my flash," after hearing
that, he immediately dropped the
card and said "That card doesn't exist". I then made a sad
attempt to hold the Persian infront of him and then take a
picture while he was drafting.
Game 1 vs my brother
He was playing Lightning, yet the attacks weren't strong
enough so I wiped him out
Record: 1-0
Game2 vs Jennifer (Chrisbo's daughter)
She was playing a Fighting Deck which wasn't good against my
Eevee's yet I managed to get Haunter out and she couldn't
damage me and I eventually took all my prizes.
Game3 vs DMTM
DMTM was playing a Psychic deck aswell. Unfortunatelly, I
only had a long Eevee as a Basic and it eventually got KO'd
as a Flareon. But since DMTM had to leave, he gave me the
win.
Record: 3-0
Before DMTM left, he gave everyone what appeared to be
just a W Stamped Dark Arbok in the red Lei Cei packet. But
as people opened their's, it ended up that some of them
(including mine),
had not only a Dark Arbok, but also a Dark Charmeleon W
Stamped! And I was like NICE!!! LOL I'm spazzing out.
Speaking of spazzing, you know TRCassidy fro WizPOG and
other assorted places?
Seems like a nice girl right? Well if you meet her in real
life she's a complete SPAZ! She's really hyper and its
really fun being around her. Anywayz, after more
interrogation, we learned that Season 7's promo is a Water
Pokemon
and it has a Pokemon Power since DMTM had to send it back to
design because it didn't say "This Power Stops working while
_____ is affected by a Special Condition". Nick15 and I then
concluded that it had to be none other than Articuno
(due to the fact that DMTM admitted that it was released in
Japanese, and he denied Omanyte and Blastoise, along with
all our other attempts) So Promo 48's Articuno from
Vending...or is it? Hehe.
Game4 (down to Single Elim) vs Chrisbo for Undefeated
Chrisbo was playing Water and I nearly had him until he got
Dewgong out which wiped out everything.
Record: 3-1
I left the Tourney at like 12:30 with 1 Booster (yet a whole
deck of new cards hehe)
Part II
Well, Saturday morning, I got up and took a shower
(cause my hair was all yucky with chlorine) and I walked
down to the convention center. Unlike the Chicago Stadium,
there was NO ONE in line to register for the main event. (My
brother assumed that this was because everyone was at
home
watching the Tyson fight but that didn't start till 6 =\)
And after finding out that I had accidentally cut in line
(gulp) they just told me to get back so I felt really
embarrassed. LOL. So after registering, I set off to find
TRCassidy and give her her stack of W Stamped Brock's
Vulpix's to give out since neither Pure
nor Baracus could make it. :( And surprisingly enough, after
only about 15 minutes compared to the half hour it took at
Chicago, the main event started. We sat down and went
through all that rules stuff and then we got our pairings.
Before my first game, I realized that my deck was missing a
lone Water Energy (which appeared in my bag after
the tournament) I found a replacement, but not a sleeve for
it. I found DMTM and told him that, and I was told to take
my cards outta my sleeves and then he asked, "You have
Japanese, don't you" and I'm like yea. And the expression on
his face at that time was like "Your screwed, son" I then
went on a mad chase for a Blue Deck Protector and managed to
find one
soon enough and we were set.
Game 1 vs ??
Yea I kinda forget this stuff, but I losteded. He got a Dark
Blastoise out turn 2 and I nearly had him with Croconaw but
Focusband pulled through and he managed to get more Basics
out.
Record: 0-1
Game 2 vs ??
Again, I forgotted who this was. Heck I even forgot what he
was playing! All I know is that I won this one.
Record 1-1
In between this round, I go to where TRCassidy and co. are
sitting. I ask if anyone wants to trade and Joe
(firefighter) was interested. So I showed him my trade
binder and he had an outburst when he
saw my extra prerelease clefable. Unfortunately, he really
had nothing that was worth it. (He had 1st ed gym foils, but
I didn't need those that much) He started to jump up and
down and get really wild and I felt really guilty telling
him I wasn't able to trade him :(.
Game 3 vs ??
Same story. He was playing a Typhlosion deck with what
appeared to be Houndours. He couldn't get his Energy out
which led him to lose.
Record 2-1
Game 4 vs ??
This kid was playing a Donphan deck. I'm like WOW. I managed
to KO his Donphans but more kept comming! He had like 2
Prizes left before I actually started to KO anything. I had
the oppertunity to stall and only give him 2 points, but I
decided that was the wrong thing to do. Damn Focusbands lost
it for me...
Record 2-2
Game 5 vs ??
Now this one was playing a Giovanni's Machamp deck. Now I'll
tell you, this kid was extremely unlucky with Fortitude and
sometimes Focusbands which is how I won- by a coin flip.
Record 3-2
Lunch break- nothing like a 1 sqare foot pretzel
covered in salt to give you a triple bypass. My mom came
about half an hour later with Jack in the Box. (I'm like,
what the hell is this?) But it was ok. You kinda get fed up
of eating the fries after a while.
I was feeling depressed that I lost so many times so I
decided to buy something and calm my nerves. I bought an
E-Card 2 pack for 3 bucks. I didn't realize that the reason
why they were so cheap was because there were only 5 friggin
cards in the pack! The lady told me
that the foil odds were 1:2 and just to my luck, I wounded
up with a non holo Nidoking. Still an interesting card
though... I also managed to get Pat to hold my no HP Persian
and I also managed to snap a picture of him with it ^_^
Game 6 vs Dean
Now this is where things get interesting. About 5 minutes
into the game, he plays a Gold Berry on his Rocket's Zappy
that had 3 damage counters on it. Next turn, he plays a
Rainbow on it. So the Zappy now has 4 damage counters on it,
a goldberry, and 2 Lightning, 1 Psy, and 1 Rainbow (which
would have to be used as Lightning to use Electroburn) So he
uses Electroburn and I tell him he's KO'd as well. (Cause
he'd take 30 from the LL and the Rainbow needed to count as
L) So then we have to call a judge and about 3 other judges
agree that he'd be KO'd. Now the kid wants to take back his
attack
which is a big no-no. But since this was "Rules Enforcement,
Level 1" he was allowed to, put he was left with a written
warning. (He was in tears by this time, but he shook it off
eventually) So the game goes on, my Focusbands don't work
cause of his stupid Slowking. And I lose due to time. After
the game, MTM gave me a Charizard Boxtopper as a thank you
for understanding on how these things happen. He also asked
me if I was going to worlds. I told him it was a 50-50 shot
and he told me they'd be having a Card-e prerelease provided
the set is ready by the time worlds comes around. I'm like
sweet! I gotta
go to this. I go and tell Nick15 and he starts spazzing
off...but he's always like that? Isn't he?
Record 3-3
Game 7 vs Little kid
Now we had an arguement at the beginning of the game about
Heads/Tails dice. According to Chrisbo (head judge) we
weren't allowed to use them. But now we are =\ Didn't really
matter. This kid was playin some strange Erika's Weepinbell
deck. (I'd say Victreebel, but I didn't actually see one in
there lol) I managed to beat him eventually.
Record 4-3
Standings came out and I was 35 due to tie breaker. I was so
pissed!! But it didn't matter, better stuff is to come
;)
After the tournament, I promised my little brother we'd
enter a draft together so we signed up. While the T8
were playing, I was talking to DMTM about Card-e. He said
that once MMF kicks in, Gatr won't be that powerful, Fire
and its varients will prolly be the strongest, Fighting only
has Donphan now :(. Psychic has a chance now and sadly, now
that Zappy's gone, Lightning's pretty much unplayable. I
also asked him about not having Buzz
in LC and he said he's trying to get Base Buzz made into a
promo to give Lightning a strong basic. He also said that
Card-e will be similar to what we saw in Japan with some
changes. He also said there won't be any real Powerhouse
cards in Card-e, but it will get players to think about
which version of a card they wanna play since there will
be
so many different versions of cards like Charizard.
Like an hour later, they finally started our draft @_@. In
our pod, there was:
Pikachu89
Me
My brother
Some tall kid who had a really high voice
That kid's brother
Some kid with a high pitched voice that looks like that fat
wrestler with bleached blonde hair (Its like Riksha or
something like that)
Some other kid who didn't know how to draft
Some old guy who looked like he was having a hangover
So we drafted. I drafted a Psychic deck but I didn't have
enough Sabrina's Haunters to include them so I ended up
having Sabrina's Drowzee/Hypno along with Sabrina's
Abra/Kadabra.
Round 1 (only round =\) vs Tall kid with really high
voice
The game was otay... He had colorless but Sabrina's Drowzee
managed to deal with that. He was gonna deck out at the end
but then he pulled something amazing. He benched a Koga's
Grimer
and got heads on the "switch out and poison" attack and
managed to KO one of my Poke's with 10 HP left. That was
very frustrating.
So we went back to the hotel and I had dinner at Seaport
Village (very nice place)
And MTM had stated earlier that he'd take the left over
"product" to the Marriot at around 10 that night and we'd
play. So on our way back to the room, we could see everyone
gathered in the lobby through the window so I just stopped
off and see what they were doing. I found DMTM and he asked
me "Are you playing" and I'm like, "playing what?" and he
just asked his question again and I'm like alright. So I
finally found MTM and asked what were doing and he said
sealed. So I'm like sweet and I ran up to my room and got my
stuff and came back down. They started to distribute the
boosters. Everyone got:
4 Gym: Heroes
4 Gym: Challenge
1 Neo: Genesis
1 Neo: Destiny
1 Legendary Collection
I opened my backs and I swear I was getting no holos :(
(Nick 15 managed to get Rocket's Moltres and Zappy) So
anywayz, I built a Psychic deck (Again!) With a Sabrina's
Gastly line (with a Gengar!) with a LC Machop in there for
Weakness purposes and Elekid.
A half an hour later, everyone was done and MTM announced
since it was like 11, we'd just make it casual and everyone
would play 4 games. (15 minutes) And they'd pick who'd they
play each round. After the game, each player would pull a
booster from a box DMTM had. It could have been from any
set. The winner chose which booster they could keep, and the
loser got the other one. Also, anyone who went 4-0 would get
more prizes at the end.
Round 1 vs my brother
My brother was playing Lightning again (bad choice) and I
felt really bad about beating him :(
Record: 1-0
Boosters
1st ed Heroes
Unlimited Heroes
I didn't realize that one booster was 1st ed but we both got
foils in them either way :D
Round 2 vs Mr. Anderson (Mason's dad)
He was playing a Fighting deck. And I had those loveable
Sabrina's Gastlys which had F Resistance. He
forfeiteded.
Record: 2-0
Boosters
1st ed Heroes
Unlimited Hereos
This time I did realize the difference and I took his back
mwahahaha!
Round 3 vs SDPokemon's son (Kevin? =\)
He was playing a Water deck and he was lucky enough to get
Dark Blastoise out >_<. It eventually got KO'd due to
the magnificent Elekid with its Pokemon Power (that Applies
weakness) and its baby effect.
Record: 3-0
Boosters
1st ed Heroes
1st ed Heroes
(I really wanted LC but meh)
Round 4 vs Chrisbo's daughter (Jennifer)
Now you may think I'm just targeting little kids here but
for the record, she challenged me to a game.
She was playing Fighting unfortunately, and once I got
Haunter out to work its magic (and eventually Gengar) there
was no stopping me.
Just to let you know, she is a really nice girl, and a good
player.
Record: 4-0
Boosters
1st ed Challenge
1st ed Challenge
bah is all I can say.
So since I went 4 and 0 I just sat and chilled by MTM while
waiting for everyone to get done. I asked him about his
plans for league next year. He said that it'd be much more
tournament oriented and that there will be promos for
showing up, promos for being the best in your league,
winning a lot, etc. He also said that he'd rerelease the
foil energies. (He wouldn't tell me what Season 8's foil
energy would be =\) I also asked him what he thought about
the 'Supporter' rule. He doesn't like it at all, thinks its
stupid actually.
So he's
hoping he can change that but he prolly won't be able to.
MTM also discussed how WOTC won the battle
on changing backs. It appeared that Japan was forcing them
to do so until Japan realized that it destroyed their
market.
So at about like 12:40
AM. MTM finally "distributed" the prizes. It ended up there
were 6 of us going 4-0, so DMTM looked what he had. He gave
everyone a Pikachu World Collection to start with, and then
he divided up the remaining boosters amoung us. Then he
realized that he didn't have enough box toppers to give
everyone one, so he gave 5 of us one (I got a Dark raichu)
and the other person got another stack of boosters.
Now at this time, DMTM was
showing off his "forbidden binder" After a page of Promo 47
Mews there was a page that had 3 No HP Dark Persians across
the top, then some 5/82 nonholo dark dragonites, and then at
the bottom, in all its glory, Prerelease Raichu. Some weird
guy was looking through the binder and was too amused by the
foil Psychic Energys on the next page or the complete
reverse foil LC set on the pages after that to notice the
prerelease raichu. DMTM said to him "You haven't seen the
best thing yet" The guy points to a foil Fire Energy.
"Nope!" he said. After about 5 more minutes of guessing,
DMTM finally pointed to the Prerelease Raichu and the guy's
like "oh.." and he then starts spazzing off and takes it
outta the binder. He then hands it to me. (OMG I held
Prerelease Raichu!!!! LOL) I then hand it back to him and
DMTM tells the guy off for holding it. The guy then puts it
back in and sees the foil psychic energys again and then
jerks the binder up in amusement. It knock's over DMTM's
drink that was on the table (which luckily was empty) But
the glass broke. At this point, I decided I was gonna leave
cause thingswere getting quite ugly. (Also, the MTM's had to
leave cause they were parked at the convention center and
they tow at midnite and this was about 1 AM now)
So after that is a whole bunch of personal stuff but overall
this was a great event. The whole Wizards staff are very
generous and I thank them all for that.
Now if only I could get to Worlds...
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