Your plausibly sentient animal enters the ring in order to fight another plausibly sentient animal for glory and wealth. However, this isn’t an underground cockfighting ring, it’s Pokémon! Instead of fighting with claws and beaks, these distressingly intelligent creatures use elemental attacks to defeat one another. 

On Nov. 29th, the Esports Team held their second-ever Pokémon tournament in order to crown their official Pokémon Master. Twelve brave souls entered the tournament seeking glory, victory and wealth. 

“I’m just here to beat Joe [McFarlen]. Honestly, when I win, I will buy 13 motorboats and drive around Lake Michigan,” said junior Anderson Heath. 

Heath did not, in fact, beat McFarlen. 

Students came to the Pokémon tournament for many diverse reasons: like a test of skills, for fun, or even just because there wasn’t anything good on T.V. 

“I’ve been playing Pokémon since I was eight, that’s when I got real into Pokemon,” said freshman Pap Lo. “I’m here to see how good I am.”

Even staff were interested in participating in the tournament!

“I like Pokémon and I work here, so coming was a no-brainer,” said Keirden Dean-Hall, a long term substitute teacher here at Norrix who is currently teaching Algebra. “When I win, I’m gonna go home and eat lasagna.”

The grand prize that students fought over was glory and a role on the Esports Discord. 

Joseph McFarlen won the tournament by devastating junior Clinton Dangler’s Pokémon, Houndstone. McFarlen used his Garganacl, which is basically a salt cinder block. 

The Houndstone’s move called Last Respects was doing about zero damage. This allowed McFarlen’s Garganacl to beat the crud out of Dangler.

“I’m very happy and proud of being the Esports Club’s first Pokémon Master,” said Mcfarlen after his win. 

However, the Pokémon tournament had some difficulty getting set up in a timely manner and ended up running until 5 p.m.

“We didn’t have enough equipment, so we had to make some last minute changes to the rules,” said senior Brayden Fries, who helped set up the event. “As one of the people who set this up, I messed up.”

However the event was a success, and Norrix was able to crown this year’s winner. 

The Esports Club intends to run a number of events throughout the year, on top of participating in statewide tournaments for a variety of video games. 

If you are interested in participating in some of these crazy games or simply want to cavort with other fellow gamers, you can join the Google Classroom with the code “u3wziea” or join the Discord.