Pokemon Go Tournament Day – The Climb #604

Sunday 18^th October 2020

Today was the latest in the monthly Pokemon Go PvP tournaments myself and a friend host.

I’m not big into PvP in games, Fortnite is probably the exception. But even in games like Warcraft I prefer the PvE rather than PvP. As a result I don’t even do the Battle Leagues in Pokemon Go.

So when our tournaments loom I do find myself asking why I’m bothering to participate. Even when, like this month, I have a team together, I still end up burning through a load of stardust. And because it’s mid-afternoon, I always find it eats the entire day.

I justify it to myself that I’m making up numbers, that without me – as has been the case in the past – we might not get enough to hold a tournament. But we had a decent number this month.

As usual, I got my arse handed to me. I like to think I am good at team selection but – as was pointed out to me – I was using the wrong charged move in many instances. I don’t mind the failure – heck as a writer, I’m used to it. And I know that any success comes from a string of failures.

But the weird thing is that, although I always ask myself whether I want to do this for reasons more than altruism, I always end up having fun. There’s a good vibe at our PvP tournaments and a wide range of skill levels. We don’t seem to get any dickheads, so people generally have a good time.

And that includes me. I genuinely had a blast, and had to question why I ever thought I might not.

Of course, it means I need to build my stardust up again for the next tournament after spending something like 300,000 on a bunch of Pokemon that didn’t really need a bunch of work to make them tournament ready.

Oh well, I have a month!