The best Pokémon gamers in the world took part in the Pokémon Video Games World Championships in San Diego last weekend. 59 players from Europe, Japan and America competed and after a weekend of intense Pokémon Platinum battles, Jeremiah Fan from the US won the Junior title while Japan's Kazuyuki Tsuji was crowned champion in the senior division. Of course, the winner of the senior category at the London Qualifier event, Sadman Ali was also competing in the tournament. We spoke to him last week in the build-up to the big event and now, in an exclusive diary, he tells us about his experiences at the Pokémon Video Game World Championships.
Thursday 13 August I woke up excited at around 7am and went straight down to the Sapphire Level Ballroom where the Trading Card Game Last Chance Qualifiers were taking place. It was a spectacle, alright. I had never seen so many Pokémon fans gathered in one place.
There were gigantic Giratina, Dialga and Palkia inflatables, Pokémon posters and, people were buying Pokémon merchandise. It was Pokémon, Pokémon and more Pokémon everywhere you looked - definitely a sight to behold.
Then we went downstairs to check in for the tournament. All the competitors received a bag filled with Pokémon goodies including shirts, cap, stickers, DS decals, tattoos, balloons, towels and more. Later that afternoon, I visited the gaming and movie theatre room when it opened and found a group of participants playing Pokémon Battle Revolution. I joined in and later on I met Matej Huang, the winner of the junior category at the London Qualifier event. We had 2 battles, winning one game each. He was definitely a great player. Later on, the German players turned up and we had a great time playing several matches. By the end of the day, the gaming room had become a gathering place for all the Video Game Championship players.
Friday 14 August The day of the championship! I was extremely nervous when I arrived at the Sapphire Ballroom at 9:15. The atmosphere was very intense and everyone had one goal in mind - to become the world champion! We sat down for the player meetings and wrote down all our team information. Then came the biggest treat for us all - a sneak preview of the upcoming Pokémon games: Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver versions.
The pairings sheet was put up and I went to my assigned desk to meet my first round opponent - Grace Beck, a girl who qualified from St. Louis. I was determined to win but had no idea of what was in store for me. In round one, I won one of the matches but Grace won two. In the first match, I ended up paralyzing my Latios. The paralysis on Latios really cost me a lot in the first game since Latios depends on speed to function properly. I did manage to paralyze her Vaporeon as well but it wasn't as affected since it was already very slow. In match two, I tried using Smeargle's Dark Void and although it missed several times, I still managed to win. Then I made a mistake of not switching around my lead Pokémon for round three, my play was a bit predictable and she did a good job of reading my moves from the beginning. Once again Dark Void missed one Pokémon and hit the other but this time she equipped her leads with Chesto and Lum Berry so Smeargle couldn't stick around for very long. I lost the last match and ended up losing the first round.
After losing round one, I won both matches in the second round. My opponent had a Choice Spec, Adaptability Porygon Z with Hyper Beam and dealt some massive damage. Other than that, I pretty much won both games without problems.
I had my worst matches in round three as I started with Infernape and Smeargle and Dark Void missed on both my opponent's Pokémon at the same time. I was shattered with that opening and even my opponent showed pity. So I ended up losing both matches since Dark Void missed again on one Pokémon in the second match and he brought in some really bulky, hard-hitting Pokémon.
In round four I faced the Japanese national champion, Takahiro Akai. He was using a rain dance team with slightly different Pokémon. These were my best matches of the tournament. The first game was pretty even although he ended up beating me. The second match was decent but I became overly cautious at the end. He had a Zapdos - which had about 30-40 HP left - along with Snorlax while I had Latios - with a double special attack drop from a previously used Draco Meteor - and my Metagross. I would have clearly won that match if I had used Draco Meteor on Zapdos. Instead I used Meteor Mash on Snorlax because, for some reason, I thought that Draco Meteor would probably miss even with its 90% accuracy and so I went for the weaker but 100% accurate Thunderbolt which I thought would surely kill Zapdos. But to my extreme surprise, Zapdos survived and finished off my Metagross with Heatwave before it could hit Snorlax with Meteor Mash. So now I was left with Latios and Smeargle both of which couldn't really do anything to Snorlax and the next turn, he used Protect with Zapdos and Self-destruct with Snorlax to finish me off. So the fourth round ended in a loss as well.
I won Round Five and although my opponent's Shedinja was a bit of a pain to take out, the match wasn't very hard. I found it quite frustrating that Dark Void, even with an 80% accuracy, never managed to hit both my opponent's Pokémon at the same time during the entire tournament
When my battles were over for the day, I had a chat with the others and heard how a few of them had horrible experiences with low accuracy moves like Hydro Pump missing a lot. So by the end of the day, I had a record of 2 wins and three losses which meant I finished in 21st place at the World Championships. Not what I'd hoped for but it was still a fun day. I got to participate in a fantastic event and I had fun which was what mattered most to me. We also got the opportunity to trade with the host of a very famous Japanese show called Pokémon Sunday which was awesome.
Sunday 15 August I saw the Junior Final the next day but missed the Senior match because I was at the beach! I also attended the closing ceremony to see the crowning of the champions. They even announced that next year's VGC will be held in Hawaii.
After that I got together with one of the UK finalists, Andrew Perrott and we found Junichi Masuda (composer of Pokémon music) and had our picture taken with him. I met people who I competed against in the tournament and none of them won but all of them were going home with a smile in their faces.
