It was a three day event, and we found reasons to participate in two of the three days. We skipped Sunday, and honestly, we were probably too tired to do any more Pokemon stuff by that time.
Friday night was the League Challenge. Connor picked out a deck of cards on Friday afternoon, and he altered it a bit to make it better for the night. Then we prepared an official deck list and headed over to the hotel after his tennis lesson. We went through registration and had his deck checked. Then, we waited for the event to start.
It was supposed to start around 7:30, but it was probably closer to 8:30 PM before the official games started. Connor didn't mind at all, and he played tons of unofficial Pokemon matches with his friends while we were waiting.
Then, he got a bye on the first round, which is an automatic win! (There was an odd number of players in his age group, so the computer that was determining the pairings for the swiss rounds randomly chose one player for each round to get a bye.)
He actually played in the next three rounds, and at the end of the night, he had two wins and two losses. Which is awesome for being one of the youngest players, and for his first ever League Challenge.
But, by the time that was all over, we left the hotel around 10:30 PM. Which is way past his bedtime. And the next morning had a very early start, too.
Saturday was the Regional Championship. Even though he was up too late the night before, Connor woke up bright and early and ready for more Pokemon!
We had a little trouble with the registration and deck check on Saturday morning. Since it was a bigger competition, the judges were more strict on the deck check. I had re-sleeved his chosen deck the night before in what I thought was a new set of sleeves because I knew that the ones he had his deck in would not pass inspection. It turned out that one of the new sleeves didn't pass either. So, before they could check his deck list, I had to resleeve his deck again. (Connor can do this, but he takes a reeeeaaally long time to do it, and we had a bit of time situation, so I ended up being the one to take care of it.) Finally, the cards were in new sleeves, but some of them had gotten bent while putting the cards in, so the judge rearranged which cards were in which sleeves. Then, he went to check our deck list, but it had gotten lost during the re-sleeving, and I had to write out a new one then and there. Then one of our cards was expired and had just fallen out of rotation, this being the first tournament when you couldn't play it. So I had to get a replacement card and change the list. And then the judge checked the deck one more time, and when he looked at me and told me that I was going to have to re-sleeve them again, I almost screamed. Then he said he was just joking, and that only made me feel slightly better. I was feeling pretty murderous at 8:30 AM, having been stressed out about Pokemon cards and without caffeine.
Pokemon Regionals is serious business, people.
Look at all those tables of Pokemon Players! Connor is on the left hand side, the second from the end of the first table.
There were 46 players in Connor's age group. I forget how many there were in the bigger kid age group, but it was the mid-sized group. Then, the largest was the adult group, which was 249 players large!
Anyways, the competition on Saturday for the Junior level consisted of six swiss rounds. Each round between two players was the best two out of three games during a 50-minute time period. Connor ended up with three wins and three losses. But it took all day to play those six rounds. It was after dinner time by the time they were done.
Connor finished in 23rd place, out of 47 juniors. Which is awesome! He got a ton of cards as prizes, and he was very happy.
Sidebar: His create-your-own-Pokemon-shirt entry also won him a new Pokemon XY Binder to keep his cards in. So he left with a ton of prizes.
Connor and his friends played board games during their breaks from Pokemon.
During the hour long matches, the parents weren't allowed on the side of the ballroom where the kids were playing Pokemon. We kept ourselves entertained with some board games that we brought from home.
After the competition was over, he participated in the Legendary Treasures Pre-Release Event. He got six packs of the newest cards that aren't even available for sale yet, and built a 40 card deck that he used to battle. He got paired up with his friend Parker for this final match, which made him very happy. Then, after the battle was over, he was given some more new cards.
Again, it was almost 10:00 when we left the hotel for the night, but Connor was on cloud nine. He had won a bunch of games, gotten a ton of new cards, and won a shirt competition. He said it was "the best day ever."
So, yes, we will probably do it again. As long as Connor wants to. And I'm fairly certain he will want to.
P.S. During our time at the hotel, Lex finally decided that he wanted to learn how to play Pokemon. So look out, we have another player coming along soon!
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