Battle Blog - Euphoria X

The first memory I can recall regarding wanting to join the battles… I wanted to join, but vaguely recall seeing a post that the Pro Trickers would be the ones battling, so I thought the battles were closed off to the public.

If I had researched it, I would have learned that there was an open entry pokemon battle on the 1st night of the event, but I didn’t, so in my mind I honestly kind of wrote myself out of it.

When I saw Euphoria’s itinerary, which I had already planned to go visit just to film and check out the event again (2nd time returning), I noticed that there was an entry level Pokemon Battle. I noticed that I missed the deadline though lol. So I reached out to Euphoria on instagram.

Whoever was on the other end of the chat was a saint because, not only was I allowed to participate ( I guess they still had open slots ) but I got to ask a lot of questions because honestly, I didn’t really know how the pokemon battles worked.

Pokemon Battles is a rare format. I feel like it was invented by Tricia, but I could be wrong. I know it’s been around for a long time ( 2014 ). Apparently, originally, it was that there were trainers who would have trickers as their pokemon, and they would announce combos to do against the opponents. The format has changed though. Currently, battlers would submit combos of their own, however other people would contribute to your pool of combos via instagram, and the oganizers added their own. All combos would be thrown into a paper bag which you would draw from blindly.

I was requested to submit a video asking for combos, and either people trolled me or the hosts added in combos they wanted me to do, but I was given some super-ultra basic and troll combos to do. Which was kind of funny, but only a couple of them. I submitted combos ending in snapu, ending in dub, etc. Medium level stuff.

Anyways, here’s breakdown of battle !

Battle 1 - DMV Tricker
I don’t remember his name, I feel like it’s Jackson, but I’m not sure if that is his first or last name, or if that’s even his name at all. But he is good. I’ve definitely noticed his tricks before. Strong vert kicks, strong swings. Clean, sharp, but wasn’t landing his tricks. He was definitely given hard combos. Dub vanish 9 combo, I think he was asked to do dubdub… I remember doing btwist > c9 > hook > snapu for my first pass .. twice because the judges wanted me to fix my kick in the snapu, but I landed everything. In fact I didn’t fall once the entire competition. Second pass I had hook x10 > cart > dub. I think because I finished 2 points to 0 we didn’t go into round 3.

Battle 2 - Pat Chu ?
I don’t really remember when I had to battle Pat. It’s been a busy weekend, so much on my mind. I did ask someone to film, and I appreciate that the battles were filmed.. but I think there was some technical difficulties getting the footage to me.. some of it did but like, some stuff that wasn’t battles.. I even asked for the rest of the footage but it wasn’t sent to me so.. kind of awkward to keep bothering someone.. kind of upset me, but, looking back, I was focused on battles. I did my own filming for the Pro Battles to really make sure I get the battle footage out for the youtube channel. Anyways, onto Battle 2. In this Battle he did get.. I think 1 point to my 2. Or 2 points to my 3. I don’t remember. I do remember getting the easiest combo in the world to do. A simple Round Kick > c9. Easily the easiest combo done in the competition. Pretty much a free point. I did end up stomping a combo into masterscoot > dub afterwards, and also some swag basic kick combo. I think Pat had the hardest combos in the battle to do. So it wasn’t fair. I made sure to let Pat and Jackson(?) that they had it wayy harder than me. I felt guilty.

Battle 3 - 3 way Finals
I don’t remember who was the 3rd person, but I do remember that someone named Nathan was in there. Talflow told me about him. He’s really good. Really clean kicks, can throw dub corks, etc too. I don’t even remember what he did, but I remember he didn’t execute. Pokemon Battles aren’t about overpowering your opponent, it’s about not falling. Everything I got was medium to easy for me. I would say that most everyone in these battles, was pushing themselves at a Pro Level. Some did even way better and had way harder combos than the Pro Battlers did the day after. Since I was participating in an entry level (non-pro) battle .. I didn’t really adopt a pro battler mindset or pushed myself to be at that level. I kind of just did medium stuff at most. I did feel guilty, but I also felt guilty submitting combos before the event started because well.. I kind of thought either kids or like, people who are new to tricking would be competing.. if some kid named Timmy came out whos like 10 years old who is pushing his first combo doing like Aerial > Scoot > Flash or whatever .. I didn’t want to smash a big power combo or whatever. It would just intimidate new comers so I wanted to scale my difficulty to match a non-pro division. In my mind I thought the open entry division would have people who were at the entry level, so I had the mindset to just be friendly rather than go in and stomp shit, being considerate towards who the competition would be. I was wrong though.

But just about everyone that entered was pro level.

Ended up being in an unofficial pro division.

So if I won, it was more the luck of the draw. I didn’t get my hardest combos that I submitted, got some troll easy ones, and other people kept falling down. I even qualified for the pro division the next day.. but I felt too guilty. I didn’t feel I truly earned the win at the time. Thought about it all night.

Until I saw the pro division the next day.

There wasn’t really much of a skill difference. I think the “Pro” division is more of a political term for people who are social-media influencers who are participating in the battles vs non-social media influencers. Not a skill level thing but rather a political sort of perceptual thing. In terms of skill level, both divisions were actually close enough. There were some big hitters I would say in the pro division, but my division had longer complex technical difficulty combos where as Pro had big tricks, I think. Pros still had some troll-easy level combos to do too, so standards were actually pretty similar.

Winning Battles is about strategy. Not falling down is a big deal. I won because I played it safe and stayed in my lane. I have respect for people who play it risky and push themselves, but TBH, I went in thinking I’d get knocked out Battle 1. I just kept winning, didn’t really have expectations, just enjoyed the experience. I didn’t mean to win the whole thing ! It was my first time doing Pokemon Battles. Happy I got to learn !

I prefer the regular battle format, turn based. Thats where I feel the most competitive. Pokemon Battles are more for fun. I had fun n took it easy, surprised myself with the wins. Won a cute pikachu pillow lol. Considering it a trophy !

It’ll serve to remind me to both play it safe and take risks, pushing myself and taking that chance to really feel fulfilled.