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UK Nationals - 18th June - PokeGuru

Greetings to all the Pojo-goers!

I'm reporting on my experience of the UK Nationals, held on Saturday 18th June at the wonderful Woburn Safari Park, coincidentally right next door to Woburn. =\

I met up with my TO, Scottish League Leader and good friend, Gordon White (better known as Chalkey) and my friend, Allan at around midnight on Friday (or was it Saturday? Curse you, stupid time transition details!) in Livingston. We had a weird experience, because first, the 16 seater minibus we were getting was cancelled, then another 16 seater was found, but too expensive, so we had to get a smaller one and nearly couldn't cope, but luckily, another one of the Scottish players in 15+, John Fotheringham, was going to Nationals via car with his two kids, so he agreed to "share the load", as it were. I finally get the cards to complete my bird deck and sleeve them as we head off in the minibus. We make several stops picking up the other players and meet up with John at a service station somewhere. I switch over to the much quieter car with Alastair, John's son, and Ross, one of our great 10- players, who's running DragTrode, with barely any previous experience! So, I spend most of the start of the journey explaining to him how it works. The rest of the journey was great with amazing banter and we started playing Scissor Sisters and Green Day at max volume on Ross's Portable DVD Player...hilarious and sweet.

By the time we've made it to Woburn, I've had only an hour's sleep, but the others had more. We spend our first half hour looking for which entrance to the park is the OPEN one. We end up accidentally going into some private residence and into a restaurant! We eventually found the open gate around 7.40am and met up with Gordon and the others. Still 2 and a bit hours until it's supposed to begin. So we start to look around the park and we see the Safari Lodge, where the tournament would be taking place. It was amazing; they had Nintendo DSs set up for random fun, a display of the prizes and a stall to buy all your goodies. We get our decklists and start filling them in as we see the English players start to file in. I finish my decklist, sticking with Birds and hand it in...to recieve a goodie bag of free stuff! I got Gym and Stadium Challenge badges along with the Nationals promo and badge, several promos (and a Rocket Returns boxtopper), 3 POP boosters (filled with more Pikachu rip offs), one pack of Pokemon deck protectors (cunning, makes you tempted to buy another...lol ), an issue of Pokemon World and a giant Marshtomp promo with the winner's stamp. Sweet...

Met several new English friends from the PokeGym/Underground forums and that's the tournament just about to start, when something goes wrong with the tournament software and it gets delayed by an hour. :-( So match one began at 11...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Round 1 vs. Dan (Gardevoir)

I didn't get a good set-up for this one and he ended up beating me quite quickly. He did the real damage with the RS Gardy and Boost Energy.

0-1

Round 2 vs. Chris (Rock-Lock)

This young player seemed a little confused; he forgot to add weakness when he attacked my Electrike and attempted to evolve Dark Flaaffy into Ampharos ex. Ended up destroying the rest of his Pokemon quickly with Moltres and Zapdos.

1-1

Round 3 vs. ??? (sorry, can't remember name) (Monarchy)

This guy was hilarious. We just randomly chatted whilst playing, which was fun. His Monarchy couldn't get set-up as quick as mine and I knocked out his last Pokemon, Nidorino, with Rayquaza ex to pick up the victory.

2-1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lunch Break - Looked around the park and took advantage of their FREE BBQ for players in the tournament . Bought some boosters and got 2 EXs in 2 consecutive boosters! Also got some sleeves and that random Rayquaza Collector's box. =)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Round 4 vs. Shaun (DragTrode)

This was quite a close one, but I ended up beating him after using a late game Battle Frontier and Zapdos ex to KO the Dark Electrode to take last prize.

3-1

I figure out that I'm guarrenteed to be in T16 if I win this next match, so I hope for the best as I sit down.

Round 5 vs. Kate (???)

Don't know her deck as I beat it in 2 Turns. I'll describe it quickly as she went first.

Kate T1: Clamperl HL, no bench, attaches water, end turn.
Guru T1: Electrike DX, no bench, attach Lightning, Lanette for Zappy, Moltres and Quaza, Recharge, end turn.
Kate T2: Evolve to Gorebyss, does 10 damage and puts trike to sleep.
Guru T2: Play Zapdos, Legendary Ascent, attach, GG.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, I'm in Top 16, as is Allan, Alastair and anotehr Falkirk 11-14, Zak. Our 5th 11-14 player missed the cut, so he runs off to enjoy the park. Ross makes T16 in 10- and no-one from Falkirk makes it to the 15+ T16 (Gordon was 17th). 3 Rounds of Swiss to decide T4.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Round 6 vs. ??? (Water)

He kept trying to annoy me with Cloyster, but I ended up beating him with a Zappy ex/Rayquaza ex combo which keeps killing his remaining Pokemon.

5-1

Round 7 vs. Nicholas (DragTrode)

Nicholas so far had been UNBEATEN with his DragTrode, so he's impressed, as am I when we start playing each other. It was close, due to several stadums and counter stadiums, but he ended up getting his last prizes KOing Rayquaza ex with R Sneasel ex. GG.

5-2

Discover at the end of the match that Allan dropped from the tournament at the end of Round 6, which was rather disappointing, but we had to keep going, so I ignored it and went into the last T16 match.

Round 8 vs. Dan (again...Gardy)

Was remarkably close this time, but a last minute Gardy ex on his part did Feedback after my Copycat to KO my Zappy. So I lose.

5-3

Miss the cut to T4. Nicholas ended up winning 11-14; a victory well deserved and he only ended up losing one game all day in the best 2/3 match in the semis vs. Shaun. Ross came 3rd in 10-, which was pretty impressive and I came 7th and got 12 boosters, getting a nice R Suicune ex.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not gonna let getting 7th in Nationals stop me from going to Worlds that easily. I'm gonna try and ask the parents to pay for my trip as my birthday present (moving to 15+ on 30th June... ) or if people want to donate to the "Get Guru to Worlds, you l33t n00bs!" fund, I'd be happy to accept. :-)

So, best of luck to our champions and the 2nd placers heading to Worlds in August! Hope I can be there to help PWNing the others.

Later,
~PokeGuru



E-mail: pokeguru@gmail.com