Tournament: Raid Group Toxic Cup

As always, when the SLA theme turns over, my raid group has to host the tournament (the "cup") for the respective theme. However, as I've noted in some posts recently and especially the previous one from yesterday, these times are strange at the very least and have other unsavory qualities as well. They too have affected this tournament as well as other similarly held tournaments in a major way, but I'll detail the specifics when I see that the time is right. For now, the tournament at hand is the one to be explained in this post.

The place of the tournament is different as well, but that ties into the above and therefore I won't explain it now. As for the participants, they are almost entirely different. There are many active Trainers from my raid group, "detached" members of my raid group, the "extended family" of my raid group, and still others that are even further distanced from my raid group, including two of the national top Trainers. Altogether, this came to 41 participants, which is more than most of the recent ones I've been in.

Before this tournament began, circumstances from the previous day allowed me to test out the team of Pokémon I planned to use in the tournament with one of the more deft Trainers in my raid group, which I have to say is quite a rarity. On evaluation, my team seemed to be pretty good except for one Pokémon, which needed to be replaced with something else, and so I did at that moment. While I couldn't test out the change before the tournament began, I tried to sense how things might go when the actual tournament came with the change, and then execute the tournament itself.

Because of the increased number of participants, the tournament lasted for six rounds. I didn't fare too well in the first two, losing both overall while only winning one battle. This was followed by a close win in the third, with two out of three battles. I then proceeded to a total blowout in the next two rounds, and in the last round I almost made it through. Overall, I finished third from the bottom; it was a worse turnout than the previous tournament, though it had been said that my performance was a little better this time.

As with the previous tournament, there were some surprises, or lack of them. The two top Trainers dominated the matches and shared the win... along with four other Trainers in a six-way tie, something that every so often happens but seems especially so when my raid group hosts a tournament. Further, over the course of the matches, I got paired with my "sparring partner" from the previous day, which became the way I received the comment above. The tournament also suffered from match delays and dropouts due to the changes in effect, though arguably they can occur regardless.

It can be said that the changes in effect have resulted in a more lively tournament in some way, which seems to be the only one good thing in these strange times and beyond. Still, it may be perceived that some things are not meant to be, including those changes, these strange times, and everything associated with them. They all remain as things to consider as the SLA continues to progress and my raid group keeps up following that progression for future tournaments down the line.

One year ago: Gender Appeal
Two years ago: At a Loss... in Lavender Tower
Three years ago: GSC Nendoroid Series #425: Red