Hi, My Name is Pat's Blog

Look! I'm Actually Doing It! Hi Friend! :)

An Introduction to this Blog

I've been meaning to write a competitive Pokemon Video Game blog for some time. I have various team reports, Video Game Championship (VGC) tips, and various thoughts about playing this circuit that I want to share. I want to tell you my stories so that they may help you out on your journey. Like Professor Oak, I've seen myself become a bit of a mentor to my younger friends, but I know I've learned plenty from others in this community and hope to continue to do so and share my lessons with this blog. 

A blog of dreams and adventures with Pokemon awaits! Lets Go!

A Quick Autobiography

I started playing the Pokemon series from the first generation of games. I was the biggest fan of my cousins who lived a few blocks from me when I was young. They felt a bit like my older brothers to me since I only had older sisters. We did everything together--playing tennis, biking on the bike trail--but a lot of time was spent playing video games. I was super impressionable, so I watched my older cousins play Pokemon, among other video games. Eventually I got Pokemon cartridges of my own and made my own first clumbsy playthroughs of the series. Still, many of my childhood memories were made playing Pokemon--a Christmas, a birthday, encountering MissingNo., random journal entries playing fictitious battles against my best friend, Everett:

The transcript: "Everett sends out Koffing and I send out Charizard. Koffing did [explosion] almost wiped me out charizard was at 1 hp. Koffing was knocked out. Everett send out donut [doughnut]! A small little donut! Donut did runaway. A wimpy attack. Charizard did fire blast! A smashing attack that wiped it out. I won the battle! That was the end of our match! I won [2 pokeballs] to [0 pokeballs] I was now 26-0 and everett was 40-1"

Even then, I knew enough that doughnuts were a terrible call in the competitive Pokemon metagame, despite faring quite well in the delicious snack metagame. This would be the beginning of my hunger in the competitive Pokemon circuit, though. I also wonder why my Charizard didn't just eat the doughnut (maybe he wanted it warm? 🤔)

I'd eventually have a sizable collection of carts from the series, and Pikachu was my early hero. I had the Yellow Version, The Pikachu N64, and even the Hey You Pikachu game. A bit later, I remember watching my older cousin play online ROM Japanese ports of the Gold Version before it was released, and that got me super pumped to play through my own Gold Version. I completed the Pokedex even. That glory was not long-lived, however, as my save battery died shortly afterward. 

I played a bit of Ruby and Sapphire when they were released. Then I grew up a bit and started thinking that I was too cool for the series, like many other high-schoolers in my day. I took a break until the Summer of my senior year at West Liberty University, when out of boredom, I picked up the Black Version to see how different the series had gotten. It piqued my nostalgia and growing interest in e-sports enough that one day I looked up to see if there were World Championships for Pokemon. I found Nugget Bridge and became a huge Ray Rizzo fanboy after finding out he had won 3 straight World Championships. I got into the scene slowly after winning my university's small club-sponsored Pokemon tournament. I had my heart set on attending Nationals in Indianapolis that year...only to go 3-6. If I hadn't played Marriland at 1-5 or met my first VGC good friend Nathan Powell, who knows if I'd even be typing this out.

2014 was a year of mediocrity for me. I couldn't get much above a .500 finish at a live tournament. It was only after I started winning some Premier Challenges that I started getting any sort of confidence in this game. Then, in the Fall of 2014 (2015 season), something clicked and I ended up making Top Cut of both the Philadelphia and Ft. Wayne Regionals. I started out getting 2nd in Championship Points after the Fall season, and ended up 14th in the United States after Nationals, getting my third Top Cut in the Massachusetts Regionals and making US Nationals Day Two Swiss. I wouldn't do particularly well at either Day Two of Nationals or Day One of the World Championships, but making even Day One Swiss of the World Championships was a huge goal achieved for me. It made me feel like I accomplished something somewhat significant in my second season of play.

Now, I'm in a bit of an odd position. I had a breakout season last year, and I'm not quite sure if I took for granted what I accomplished last year. I decided to not immediately publish my team report on Nugget Bridge for various reasons, some of which had to do with NPA scouting, some of which were because the metagame was changing and the team would quickly be outdated, some of which because it was really long and needed a lot of though and trimming to make it better. I wanted to start something away from Nugget Bridge as a place where I could publish not just these old team reports, but just various topics on my mind that I wish to get off my chest. I hope that what I write enriches not just your competitive career, but your life as well.

Here's to getting the ball rolling.