Zappy
By Sean G(ProfessorCFK).
Town and Country Convention Center
San Diego California
Friday, August 19, 2005
Grinder Report
252 people in 15+


Tuesday: 4:00AM
I head off to Dulles International Airport in D.C. for my flight to San Diego, nothing quite like the red eye flight -_- Arrive in San Diego in the afternoon where my grandparents pick my mom and me up and take me to lunch. Afterwards, we went to my grandparents house and I helped my grandfather with the work that needed to be done around the house (they are about to move into a retirement home, so part of my trip revolved around aiding them).

Wednesday
More of the same old same old. I help my grandparents fix up their place.

Thursday
See Wednesday

Friday
I wake up at 9 and get ready to head off to the town and country. My grandparents drive me to the hotel and wish me good luck in the “Pokeman Contest.” After arriving, seeing as I don’t have a room, I head off to Levi’s and pramAwful’s room, when I first called they didn’t wanna let me in, but when I told them I had brownies they told me to rush over right away. Once I get there, they obsess over the brownies(apparently my grandmother makes really good brownies). I test with dark slowking a little bit and decide that I’d rather play my trusty (well, it didn’t win me a trip) zapdos deck. After much ridicule, I head off to the convention center to register for the grinder. Turns out registration starts at 2 and the grinder begins at
6 -_- Long story short, I meet up with the gang (Freddy K, Pooka, Patriarch, Pablo, etc) and play a couple of games with my deck. Sooooo, after waiting for 4 hours, the grinder begins. 252 players and 5 rounds, its pretty much single elimination. I knew that only 5-0s would make the cut.

The Deck:
4 zapdos ex
4 voltorb
1 electrode ex
1 electrode(mass explosion)
4 electrike
15 lightning energy
4 pokemon reversal
4 steven's advice
4 dual ball
4 super scoop up
2 scott
2 battle frontier
2 lanette's net search
2 space center
2 copycat
2 rockets admin
2 strength charm
1 pokemon retriever


Round 1: Niels … from Denmark with Ludicolo This was my first international game in a long time(well, since the team multiplayer championships at gencon 03), and I was excited to see what he was playing. Long story short, I got the start that I needed with zapdos and ended up winning. Niels was a real good sport and I signed one of his fake cards and he gave me one to commemorate our match in the grinder.
1-0

Round 2: IDK with IDK
Yeah, I lose this and don’t remember anything. I know that I can’t make it into the tourney, but I’m not one to drop from tournaments)
1-1

Round 3:IDK with IDK
See round 2
1-2

Round 4: Lee(…Killa) with Tyranitar(although this might have been round 3…) I got masterfully outplayed -_-
1-3

Round 5: Adv1sor with Zapdos
Man, the grinder always seems to end with a game against a local friend. Last year’s grinder ended with a game against Javier who is the person that gave me the name thecrossformatkid. Oh well, he goes first so I'm sure that I am going to lose this. However, he doesn’t get energy. On my turn, I attach and recharge.
His turn, still no energy, but he plays a 2nd basic. I go, attach, legendary ascent and kill his active.
There’s pretty much nothing he can do. I eventually win this game, but I only won because of his misfortune.
2-3

So yeah, I guess I qualified… for side events :-[

After that, I go around trying to trade for Bakufan(erm typhlosion…) ex’s from the Japanese players, and for some reason they don’t want to trade them(even though they are a theme deck card…) Finally I get to sleep(oh wait, I stayed up all night watching martin and Chris fulop play test because they actually
qualified)

Saturday
SIDE EVENTS,
Jav and I both sign up for the team limited tournament. We work out what to pick and the person running the draft even lets us use the cards that came in the 2 pop2 packs in our decks(this is important for later). After the drafting ends, we go to assemble our decks. We get a few solid lines(ludi= amazing), but it turns out our most amazing card is luvdisc from pop2.
Autoparalize = broken. That won all of our games. We end up going 2-1 and come in second I believe.
Later in the day, I noticed people playing unlimited and apparently it was a tournament. JohnnyBlaze lets me borrow his son’s unlimited deck(raindance) so I can play :-D I think I end up going 1-2 with it, but get 3 packs. Night comes and I go to sleep, erm, try to:
Fulop and Colin are in my room drafting VS, so I jump in and draft with them(even though I don’t know how to play the game). I pick the worst cards and we never end up playing because we are all exhausted. NOW I fall asleep.

Sunday
I wake up at 11 just in time to watch the end of top 16. Sadly freddyk lost but I find out Pablo and Jeremy made the cut. Matches occur, blah blah blah, and my grandparents arrive during the finals. I had to explain to them how the tournament worked and kind of let them in on how the game itself works, I think it went over their head. Jeremy wins, and we cheer, good times. Pablo comes in 3rd. Later that night, brooks is running a booster draft and I get in on it. 4 rounds swiss with cut to top 4. I win my first and 2nd games I think, and then lose the last two, not making the cut. Eventually, the Japanese crew shows up and we have lots of fun. Again, I stay up all night(along with Go Miyamoto who stayed up all night playing and swimming in the pool).

Monday:
I leave the hotel at 11:00 and chill with my family again in S.D. My flight is at 10:45 pm, so we have a lot of time to spare. Eventually, the flight comes and I arrive in Virginia at 8:00 AM -_-

I had a great time, etc etc etc

Props:
Dunford- Cosby = rofl
Pablo- American M&Ms are delicious, no?
Jeremy- POJO IRC!!!
Martin and Fulop- You guys make me crack up
Grandparents- Nothing quite like family when you are away from home PUI for running a great event All of my Grinder Opponents, first premier event I have played in where I feel that there was no funny business in any of my games, I lost and won fair and square

Slops:
Long flights and expensive hotel food :-[ Zapdos for failing me :-[

There's always next year :-)

nintendofanboy2002@yahoo.com