eddaket's 2020 and look forward to 2021

I saw a lot of people doing this on Twitter, so I figured I'd do one too. Here's a look to my 2020 Speedrun year, and a look forward towards what I'd like to accomplish in 2021

I won't be including EVERY run I did, but some of the "highlights". If you want to see the complete list, feel free to head over to my SRC page: https://www.speedrun.com/user/eddaket

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PBs achieved during 2020. Runs are in order that I achieved them:

Sword - Any% - 4:12:27
Not an amazing time, but it was top 5 when I set the time so I should be semi proud. I also only worked on it for about a month before getting side tracked with something else. I wasn't a big fan of this route, and if I decide to go back to it, it'll likely be with another route

Let's Go, Eevee - True Co-op w/ Jess - 3:30:57
I'm so glad that I was able to get my wife to join me on stream for this run. We did it twice, and ended up taking first place on our second try! Definitely something I'd like to revisit with her, and I know she'd be up for it, but I think it'd be good to actually do some practice ahead of the run next time, so we might not see it for a while

Sword - Trade Alt Main (Primarina) - 3:47:40
There's really nothing special about this run in particular, however I'm really proud of the idea as it really took over the SwSh speedrunning scene this year. The idea of "Trade Alt Mains" came out of some joking conversations with wartab and others during Wonder Trade races, and I'm so glad that the community latched onto the idea. I had such high hopes for routing a bunch of these, yet Primarina really was the only one that I was able to complete (due to things you'll see later on in the paste)

Shield - Any% - 4:09:45
I wasn't completely pleased with the time, but it was nice to get the sub 4:10 that I was working towards. I really want to revisit this category and push it even lower, but with the SwSh update nerfing runs, I really don't see that ever happening. Maybe with a split category I'd revisit it, but I don't have high hopes

Let's Go, Eevee!/Pikachu! - Diploma - 5:08:37
What a movement we started with this one! Diploma started as a one off thing I asked kerbis to do last year for GDQ submissions and it ended up being one of the most popular categories for late-gen PSR. I take no credit for how the run currently looks, and the community that was built around it, but I am glad I got to be a part of it. I'd like to get a sub 5 at some point in this, but my return to Let's Go is always a little flakey, so it might be a ways off

Sword - Tower of Two Fists (Get Urshifu) - 1:30:41
This is another run where I'm not super proud of the time or anything, but I am proud of the routing I was able to do for it. The final fight of this category is easily one of my favorites that I've come up with

Red - Any% Glitchless (No IT) - 1:53:45
On a whim, I joined the Red Tournament and surprisingly had a blast! I'm not really happy with how it ended up for me, with a forfeit in my last match due to sickness (I would have lost anyway, seeing the final times), but I'm glad I gave it a shot. I maybe should have transitioned to normal Glitchless afterwards to go for a PB there, but I ended up getting a bit sick of Red after my short stint with it

Alpha Sapphire - Any% - 3:10:07
I ran ORAS for like 2 weeks this year. Not nearly enough, but with the category split, I wanted to get a solid Alpha Sapphire PB. This run had a pretty costly mistake late in the run that cost me about 2 minutes, so it's improvable

Let's Go, Pikachu! - Any% - 3:05:14
Very unsatisfied with this, but I don't know when I'll improve it. I'm not the biggest fan of the Pikachu route and this was hard enough to get as is. If I come back to Let's Go, it'll likely be to Eevee

Blue - Catch 'em All - 1:34:38
It all comes full circle. A lot of my current viewers may not know, but Catch 'em All was like... what I did back 4 or 5 years ago. The new route is super fun, but I don't see myself really grinding it. It can definitely go lower than this (1:30 may be possible; 1:32 definitely possible) but we'll see what kind of motivation I get after GDQ

Sword - Any% (w/ DLC) - 4:09:15
I love this. I thought it was going to be boring originally, and maybe it will be after I do it a few more times, but I'm seriously loving this category right now. Part of it is probably due to me working on the "helper" tool for the category, but it's just so fresh each run to spend about 2 hours figuring out how to get through the last few fights. It's like routing with a deadline lol

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Marathons or events I participated in:

Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 - X Any%
Alright I didn't do the run here, but wartab's run here was pretty special for me since it was my first Marathon run (in person) that I was on commentary for! I had an absolute blast and I hope I can do more in the future. One thing I noticed over the course of the year was that I actually really like this dynamic (commentating instead running), and would like to get better at it over time. I still like running in marathons obviously, but I wouldn't be sad to do more stuff like this

PAX East - Blue Catch 'em All
This was a little showcase that the GDQ folks put together and oh god this run is something I'd like to forget. This was prior to the reroute, and I didn't prepare nearly enough for it. I was pretty nervous going into it, did alright through the majority of the run, and then messed up an LG swap somewhere, saved the game, and destroyed the save file. They let me finish out the time with a No Save Corruption run (old route because it was literally a 10 seconds of prep kind of thing lol) but I felt so bad and so embarrassed

ESA Corona Relief - Let's Go, Eevee! Any%
The first (of many) at home marathons that I was able to participate in this year. There really wasn't too much to this run, and it was overall a good showing I think. I'm happy I got to participate in an ESA event as I'll likely never cross the pond to participate in an in person one

ESA Summer Online 2020 - Sword Tower of Two Fists (Get Urshifu)
The first of 7 events that I ended my summer with. This run was a lot of fun to get to show off, as I mentioned earlier how I was proud of the routing work that I (and others) had done for the category

Pokemon Speedruns Marathon 2020 - Let's Go, Eevee!/Pikachu! Diploma w/ kerbis54
One of the highlights of the year for me. The run was a good showcase of the category (shoutouts to Pinsir) and culminated in one of the best screenshots I have in my speedrunning career (see below). I hope to get to do this at an in person event some day, but I'll take the yearly PSR marathon for now
https://twitter.com/eddaket/status/1292188711942328321

Zeldathon Side Quest - Crystal Randomizer Yeecht Yachts w/ Keizaron
I should have mentioned Yachts during the speedrunning section, because man did that blow up this year. This kind of race is really cool, and there have been so many other variants that have popped up. We need more of this stuff

BSG @ Home 2020 - Sword vs Shield race w/ wartab
This one was a last minute addition to my summer-of-marathons, but since I was prepping for the next event on the list, I was ready to rise to the occasion. I'm typically not a fan of races for marathons (especially when starter stats are a thing), but I think we were able to put on a pretty good showing

Summer Games Done Quick 2020 - Shield Any%
Probably the most nervous I've ever been for a run considering this was the FINALE OF THE EVENT! Also, despite the lengthy list of events since then, I still had that Catch 'em All run from PAX in my brain as the last GDQ thing I did, so I was terrified of letting everyone down. We made it through the run however, and had a ton of fun along the way, so I'm happy with this one

SpeedDocsAThon2020 - Let's Go, Eevee! Any%
My best Let's Go run in a marathon in terms of time. Sub 3:10 is a obviously a great time, but to be able to do it in a marathon and with pretty little preparation (keep in mind, the last 5 events in this list happened in less than a month before this run) was crazy

Speed Stuff 4 Charity 7 - Pokemon Shield Any%
The last of the marathons for the year... and it was literally the day after the last one. This run had a lot of good moments in it, and I was glad to be back at SS4C after a couple of years

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Life stuff:

This year was absolutely brutal with COVID and everything. I've been officially working at home since March 11th, and while I definitely prefer it, it hasn't been the easiest transition. I think finally, in DECEMBER, I have a good solution for separating my work area and my stream stuff which should help me immensely

I also got married! Among the chaos that was COVID and lockdowns and travel restrictions, Jess and I were able to get married back in June and it was really amazing. In hindsight, it was probably a bit reckless with everything that was going on, but we knew if we waited, it would just get worse (spoiler, it did). We took a ton of precautions though and were able to get through it very safely, so it all worked out in the end

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2021 Plans:

Marathons:
AGDQ is next week, and my run is in about 9 days. I still have the PAX run looming over me, and although I'm not the finale this time around, I'm still on the final night of the event, so it's a lot of pressure. I'm feeling pretty good about the run, so hopefully it's all in my head

Aside from AGDQ, I really want to try and scale back the amount of events that I sign up for. I'll still submit to GDQs and probably PSR (in addition to helping run it) if it happens next year, but I really overdid it in 2020. For the first time I also got hit pretty badly with the "I can't play what I want because I have to prep for XYZ" during the summer and I want to prevent that. I'll submit to less marathons, and I'll only really submit stuff I want to play

Runs:
After GDQ, I'll focus a bit on Catch 'em All. I know I mentioned I don't really want to grind it, but I think I have some timesaves still that won't require grinding... we'll see though

Sword w/ DLC is another thing I really want to play for a while. It's really fun and the community does races pretty commonly, so I'll probably try to join some of those in the near future. I already have a time better than my non-DLC PB, but if I could beat the non-DLC WR that'd be pretty lit

I want to do my Sword/Shield in general, but it might be and on and off kind of game. I wanna do Candyfloss, I wanna do Galarian Star, and I wanna investigate some Alts and Trade Alts. SwSh is definitely a game that I get "sick of" after a while, so I'm not sure how often I'll be doing it. People love to watch it though, so that's not a bad motivator

3DS games have been on my radar for a while now, and I'd like to do more of them. ORAS has been such an unfinished project of mine for nearly 3 years now, and I'd really like to enjoy XY. Also Sun/Moon I guess

I don't know if Let's Go will have a big part of my stream in 2021. I'd like to continue doing the randos, but in terms of actual runs I'm not sure. When I was on my grind in 2019 for the 3:02, I was having an absolute blast, but this past year when I was just trying to beat a 15 month old PB in Pikachu it was such a drag. I'm not sure if it was the route, or if I'm just not a big fan of the game anymore, but it was honestly pretty unfortunate

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If you made it this far, thank you for reading! I was kinda rambling and there's a lot of fluff in there, but I wanted to get all of my thoughts on paper. 2020 was such a weird year, and although it felt like 3 years combined into 1, I also feel like I didn't really accomplish anything. I want to try and make 2021 a really good year not only for my speedruns, but my stream in general. It's been a goal of mine to go full time streaming and while I'm very *very* far off from that, the first step is to really build up my stream. It's already started, but there will be a lot more "speedrun adjacent" stuff on stream in the future, mixed in with some real attempts for runs. I'm trying to find the good balance of speedruns and "youtube content" so the beginning of the year feel a bit messy, but hopefully we'll figure it out quickly