Bexleyheath Friday Night Gaming

There is a disappointing lack of regular VGC events happening in the London area. Even just weekly ones where I can meet like-minded people and have some fun battles, let alone full-on tournaments. Between September and the end of 2015 (at the time of writing) there are just two events, and one of those doesn't even issue CP. The other is a Regional, which isn't bad I suppose.

To accommodate for my regular pokémon urges, and get myself into the rhythm of battling people face to face, I decided to join the nearest VGC group I could find. This is in Bexley, south east London, and the complete opposite side of where I live and work.

Getting down there is a mission, usually taking 1.5 hours and a couple of trains. Thankfully, the community there is incredibly welcoming and I felt right at home immediately. They host a variety of different games such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, Vanguard and Pokémon TCGs, as well as the Pokémon VGC. Unfortunately, the VGC is the smallest group there, usually bringing in no more than 8 members a time, most of whom play more for fun and not competitively.

To clarify, I totally understand why people would go to this group for fun over competitive play. I am one of the oldest people there, and I think back to me at their age and I was all about the fun aspect. I think there are two people who are properly competitive, one I've become good friends with and we test each others' teams regularly. Feel free to check out his YouTube channel.

The reason I go to this club is just to have fun with pokémon in real life, and the vibe is completely different to tournaments. In tournaments I get very tense and just think about winning. Don't get me wrong, I'll chat and have a laugh with my opponent, but I can't relax. At these weekly events, with nothing on the line, I can have totally crazy battles and just have fun, regardless of the end result.

It's also great to see new generations of players come through, some of whom are young enough where I can say I've been playing the game since before they were born! The social aspect is great, as it's probably the one thing I've lacked when I've played since the original days of generation one. It's awesome to properly interact with other players, talk about the game we all love, have a couple of trades and some fun matches.

This group gives me the opportunity to use my competitive pokémon for fun and offers a really relaxing change to the pace of tournaments. For those living in the Kent, London and perhaps Sussex areas, I recommend looking into it. We can always do with a few more faces and continue pushing the VGC community forward.

Prologue

Hello!

I am Tolemi (real name Tom Millson) and I have just begun playing the Pokémon video game competitively. At this time I have attended five tournaments since 26th September 2015, with mixed success. The purpose of this blog is to cover my journey as I embark on further competitive play and keep track of what happens.

A bit of background

I have been playing Pokémon since my 9th birthday, when my parents bought me Yellow Version. My strongest memory of the game is my team getting soloed by Lorelei's Dewgong, then me bringing in Zapdos to take the match and the rest of the Pokémon League with nothing but potions and ethers. No, Zapdos was not over levelled.

My generation one experiences were enough to get me to save up £30 worth of £2-a-week pocket money to buy Pokémon Crystal and begin playing what is one of my favourite games of the Pokémon series. Ruby came after, then Fire Red, and a hiatus until I bought Soul Silver, which was enough to get me back into the series with Pokémon White. To this day I have not played any of the DPPt games. I will, one day.

Black 2 is also on my played list, as is X and now more recently Omega Ruby. I vaguely followed competitive play in generation five and played some Showdown. At the time I was awful at team building (and still claim I am) so after building a very standard team for the metagame at the time, then losing every match on Showdown, I gave up after five battles and decided to let the game choose for me and played random battles.

 Pokémon Yellow and Crystal, the two games that began my love affair with the series.

Getting into competitive play

My first real stab at competitive play, and attending a real event, was actually two years ago this month. It was a month after X & Y came out and right now my current self is surprised my past self actually bred a full competitive team in that kind of timeframe. It was an interesting event that ran differently to most competitive tournaments, in that it was an instant knock-out. You got a first round loss, game over.

I got a first round loss.

With that, I wouldn't touch competitive play again until nearly two years later, and here we are now.

So what inspired me to get back into it?

That's easy, three things:

1. Watching Worlds 2014 and 2015
2. That feeling of unfinished business
3. Lanturn

The first two are easily understandable, but Lanturn? That blubber fish with one of the happiest faces you've ever seen? Why that?

On my 24th birthday this summer, I played a sleeplocke of Pokémon Crystal and Lanturn took me to Pokémon League glory where all my other team members had fallen, just like the Zapdos had 15 years ago on Yellow. 

Seeing this complete underdog carry me through to the end brought out such a compelling feeling in me to return the favour, and turn it into a real champion.

The Light Pokémon showed me the light when all hope seemed lost.

My expectations

As it stands I have no expectations for this year. I do not expect to qualify for Worlds nor am I going to go all out for it. I simply want to have fun, attend some real tournaments with no pressure on me, and meet similar like-minded people with a love for Pokémon.

I expect to attend most events local to where I am (London and the surrounding regions) as well as other events around the country if I find them worthwhile to attend.

Essentially, I aim to use this season to learn as much as possible and see where I end up. I'm not holding myself to any leaderboard rankings, ladders, or other scoring systems. Whatever I win (if anything) is a bonus and not the end goal.

The roadmap

With this blog I plan to post my results of the events I attend. I also plan to record every match and upload it to YouTube, so video footage will be available of each match. This will serve as a record of all my matches as much as it may help others to learn about my experiences on the VGC circuit.

With that in mind it will not only cover the matches, but how I get on with other elements outside of battling, such as meeting new people, travelling to events, team building and practice, and anything else that may be important at the time of writing.

Up next will be a post about the weekly VGC meetup I attend in Bexley, Kent. After that it will be straight on with the tournaments. And so, our story begins...