Konnichiwa!

As you may already know, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon Draconid, and although I've unfortunately been pretty busy IRL lately, I'm not going to let that stop me from holding a bunch of cool events here on Paint this year.

First of all, as I had already mentioned in a previous blog, I am currently accepting squares for the Summer SDK Quilt, and I will be until October 1st

I've currently only collected 0 squares for the Summer SDK Quilt, but I'm hoping to collect more, and so any submissions you may have or may want to make for it would be greatly appreciated.

I am also now accepting squares for the regular annual SDK Quilt for 2024. Just like with last year's SDK Quilt, I will be accepting squares for this year's quilt until the end of the year (and possibly beyond), and the theme for this year's quilt is Dragons. 🐉
(Because it's the Year of the Dragon, I like Dragons a lot, and nobody objected to the idea [A=/blog/view.php?id=101747#:~:text=maybe%20a%20Dragon%20theme%20since%20it's%20the%20Year%20of%20the%20Dragon?]when I had mentioned it before[/A].)



Also, I am now accepting messages of appreciation for this year's Member Appreciation Day. Member Appreciation Day is on September 15th, and if you have any messages of appreciation you'd like to share with everyone, please just send them to me via DM or a comment on my profile.

As for this year's chatroom event (once again courtesy of my good friend and fellow admin GuiedGui), it will occur at 19:00 EDT (-4 GMT) on September 15th, the same time as last year.
(Which should be 16:00 PDT, 17:00 MDT, 18:00 CDT, and 0:00 on September 16th for those on London time AFAIK.)



Finally, just like last year, I am going to be holding another Pokémon Showdown tournament this year, which will technically begin as soon as this blog is featured, but (just like last year's tournament) will move at a slow pace that allows everyone interested in doing so to be able to participate.

[Spoiler=SDK Pokémon Tournament 2024 Rules]Just like last year's tournament, this year's tournament will use a NatDex Doubles battle format, only instead of the regular NatDex Doubles OU format, this year's tournament will use a custom ruleset that I have dubbed NatDex Doubles AG, which is essentially the NatDex Doubles OU format without the banlist.

National Dex Doubles AG (Anything Goes) is a 6v6 doubles format that has the fewest restrictions found in any of Smogon's formats. Every Pokémon from any tier is allowed, and because the Species Clause is lifted, you can have up to six of the same Pokémon on your team. Because National Dex Doubles AG is a National Dex format, all cut Pokémon from past generations, as well as cut moves, Z-Moves, Mega Pokémon, Primal Pokémon and Ultra Burst are legal.

Format Rules
This format is played 6v6, at level 100. Anything released is able to be used.

Play Restrictions:

Endless Battle Clause: Players cannot intentionally prevent their opponent's Pokémon from fainting from PP depletion and Struggle recoil.

POKEMON RESTRICTIONS
Players can use all the Pokemon in the National Dex, as well as all 77 CAP Pokémon.

As for the tournament itself, it will be a loose round-robin tournament just like last year's one, but this time everyone will battle everyone will battle each other 3 times in order to determine the winner of each matchup, rather than just once like last time.

As for the prizes, the 1st place winner of this year's tournament will receive a special square commemorating them and their team of 6 Pokémon (just like last year), as well as a special MoDBC character based on them and their team, and (whenever I can actually afford to pay it to them) $500.00 in cash.
(You might be waiting quite a while for that cash prize from me though if you win, lol!)

There may be additional prizes for 2nd and 3rd place depending upon how many participants there are this year, and the current bracket consists of:

Draconid_Jo AKA Dracovish_Jo

Amjam AKA ???

Aeries AKA ???

CdogYEET AKA Mrctothec

Chronophage69 AKA Chronophage69

DCTheGamr AKA Digital Cheese

Flying-Mongoose AKA theflyingmongoose

Peanut1999 AKA Peanut1999

Weeeheeep AKA Weeeheeeep

I am still working on a number of rental teams and rental Pokémon for use in this tournament and this format, but I have already finished these 5, and so y'all should keep in mind that I came in 1st place with 0 losses in last year's tournament, and DCTheGamr came in 2nd place using one of my rental teams back then, and only lost to me with it.
(I come up with some REALLY good teams, in other words.)[/Spoiler]

There's a lot of cool stuff to look forward to from me this year besides these things as well (such as the revival of song trades and the 2views interview series), and although I haven't been able to do much on here these past couple of weeks, I refuse to let RL distractions continue to interfere with my big plans for this year here on Paint, and I truly will try my darndest to make this Year of the Draconid live up to its name.