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Published on May 23rd, 2014 | by Havak

16

2014 United Kingdom National Preview

After an intense German National, and the International Challenge, the second European National tournament of the season is finally upon us. Players from all over the United Kingdom and Europe will flock to Manchester, England this weekend for what promises to be another highly competitive event. Once again I expect a lot of good players to travel abroad in hope of securing that lucrative World Championships invitation, some of which will have increased chances thanks to byes earned in Germany. After seeing 403 Masters take part in the first National tournament in Bochum, I would not be surprised to see even more in Manchester tomorrow as the United Kingdom National tournament is often the highest in participant numbers for the European schedule. This should allow for a top 32 cut, which everyone will be praying for.

Note that the sign up time has now changed for this tournament and the new time is: 09:00am-11:00am (An hour earlier than the previously stated).

Difficulty Rating

suicunemukswalotgoodratentacruel / 5

(Five potentially soggy Pokémon out of five).

Players with Byes

Markus Stadter (13Yoshi37)
Simon Stanford (Falco)
Nemanja Sandic (Porengan)
Matthias Suchodolski (Lega)
Lajos Kowalewski (Lajo)
Zacharias Daum (Mercury)
Stephan Appelfeller (Appi)
Szymon Wojdat (Szymoninho)
Timo Koppetsch (37TimoK1)
Florian Wurdack (DaFlo)
Carlo Arbelli (shinycarletto)
Baris Akcos (Billa)
Steve Edgson (SirSmoke)
Faaiz Ashfaq (Feis)
Ciskejan Giannakos (sagaciousslowpoke)
Jake Birch (WhiteAfroKing92)
Oliver (ImOliLetsBattle)
Lee Watson (Redemption003)

United Kingdom

I’ll have to begin with last year’s champion, Kyriakou. Ben managed to go 17-1 last year, winning the tournament unanimously and sweeping many great players aside in what was one of the greatest tournament performances in VGC history. In Germany, he managed a solid 6-2 finish in the swiss rounds to earn a top 32 placement overall. Falco burst onto the scene in Germany this season making the final and finishing second overall. It’s possible that after basically securing a Worlds invite already that he won’t take this event as seriously, or perhaps use the time to test a new team, but when you’re a strong player that doesn’t matter. I’m sure he’ll still be aiming for a strong display. SirSmoke and WhiteAfroKing92 will both be looking to make sure that their bye comes in handy, as another top cut performance will put them in very good standing. Osirus was the other British player to have a good showing in Germany, narrowly missing out on the top cut with a 6-2 record. Other players who went to Germany and earned some Championship Points despite somewhat disappointing finishes include Havak, Baz Anderson, NidoRich, SeanSymphony, Professor Birch, and SPEevee. Along with this group, SqishyRina, SuperIntegration, El Fenomeno, and Koryo had disappointing showings in Germany and will be desperately looking to make up for this on home turf, (although Koryo redeemed himself greatly with a 2nd place finish in the International Challenge, in Europe).

As for UK players who didn’t travel to the German National tournament, there are still many with a great chance of reaching the top cut and beyond. Toquill came out victorious in last year’s Nintendo UK Winter Event while playing well all season. ThrillerMiller9 finished runner-up in that same event, and also has good performances on Battle Spot and in the third Nugget Bridge Major to his name. Next is Zog who finished third at that same event, while lifting the Manchester Tournament crown for the second time as well. Samuel996 reached the top eight of the third Nugget Bridge Major and maintained a high Battle Spot rating for many months. Rounding off the toughest of the competition are Die2Distroy, Xenoblade Hero, Sol64, and IAmMarti among some others I’m probably forgetting. This would be such a strong tournament with only the UK players, but there are plenty more players from elsewhere with just as good a chance!

Germany

13Yoshi37 is obviously the first player to spring to mind, going 16-0 in the German National tournament and he’ll be gunning for even more success in Manchester. Lajo, LegaPorengan, DaFlo, and Billa all earned a good amount of Championship Points in Germany along with what could be a crucial bye. If we get a top 32 in Manchester then I think this strong set of German players will all make the cut. Rounding off the players who already played in Bochum are Massi, Lati, and Picollo. Germany are definitely sending the majority of their very best players and it’s hard to see most of them failing to top cut. However, there is one player due to untimely circumstances that missed his home nation’s National. That player is Bjart. Bjart will have some catching up to do on some of his fellow Germans who already have Championship Points and byes, but he’s definitely proven to be a great player already this season and is someone who will be expected to cut or at least get close to it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see around a quarter of the top cut made up of German players as they seem really strong as a nation this year.

Other Countries

World Champion Mean and his fellow Italians Matty and BraindeadPrimeape will be taking the trip to sunny Manchester. Even though all of them had a rather average tournament in Germany earlier this month, that will quickly be forgotten and all have as good a chance as anyone to cut this event, no doubt about it. Last year’s runner-up, Flash, is travelling from Spain again and has to be another serious contender given his past performances. It’s very likely that more Spanish players will join him, but once again information is scarce in this regard. I know there is still a strong interest in VGC from Spain, but their online presence isn’t the same since they haven’t had a National tournament of their own. The same obviously goes for France, although their amount of top players was never that high (as seen in 2012 when none of the top four in Paris were French). There will definitely be more players from the rest of Europe, but it’s hard to write about them when they don’t post on the forums!

Who will win?

Shamelessly stealing ideas from Scott again…

The smart money is on…: Lajo. He’s having a great season so far, has a bye, and recently topped the Showdown Ladder with a new team. Strong favourite and is my main pick. If he doesn’t win, he’ll definitely come out with an invite to Worlds practically secured and be a strong contender there.

The outside bet is on…: Koryo. I just have a sneaking feeling that he’ll stand up and make everyone take notice this time. Had a strong performance in 2013 despite falling short in most of the Bo3 games he played. He only went 4-4 in Bochum earlier this month, but that helped him fix the flaws in his team and his reaction was finishing 2nd in Europe in the International Challenge. One to watch.

I’ll be tweeting from this event when possible, so follow @HavakPkmn and @NuggetBridge on Twitter for updates. See you in Manchester tomorrow!


About the Author

has competed in the VGC series since 2009 when it was first introduced to Europe, qualifying for the World Championships in 2011. Since 2009, he has also been a big influence in the United Kingdom's competitive scene by helping run local tournaments.



16 Responses to 2014 United Kingdom National Preview

  1. Dragoon124 says:

    Toquill-senpai will prevail!

  2. Mean says:

    uhm, there must be a mistake, I won’t be there.

  3. Ace2014 says:

    Personally I think Zog is gonna pull this one out, in every event he has played in he has played extremely strongly and he’s always got something crazy so far this season, or Yoshi might take it

  4. kingofmars says:

    Personally I think that CT_AngelMikotoSapphireBirchMisakaMirandaUguu is gonna pull this one out, in every event he has played he has gone 5-0 and he’s always got something Japanese so far this season, or OmegaDonut might take it and avenge his top 16 performance last year.

  5. Scott says:

    I felt like Yoshi was a pretty obvious standout before Germany, but it’s a lot harder to call this time, especially because German Nationals kind of asked more new questions than it answered old ones. There were a lot of players with sort of underwhelming runs in Germany, especially big names from the weaker flight, which would make me hesitant to bet on the otherwise safe bets in this event. It’s hard to say from the outside how much was the players’ faults and how much was best-of-one play in Pokemon, but a lot of people who I’d normally expect to be favorites here (Kyriakou, Baz, the Ginis, Koryo, and Massi stand out) didn’t even cut in Germany. Most of the bigger names who did cut are also probably going to need to switch teams this time, which makes it hard to rely too much on what happened last time. The people who didn’t play in Germany haven’t been in action in a serious event in a very long time, so it’s a little harder to bank on, say, Zog or Flash than it would be with all things equal. I think this tournament is going to come down to two things: who’s actually prepared and byes.
     
    There are a lot of evenly(ish) matched players here. The byes go a long way toward getting people into top cut, and I think in some ways if you have a solid bo3 team sometimes it’s more difficult to get to that stage to begin with than it is to go deep in it. Havak mentioned Lajo, Lega, Porengan, DaFlo, and Billa all in one breath in the preview and I think with byes I would be surprised if more than one of the missed cut here, assuming it winds up being 32 players. I do not think the bye system works at all in Europe with the way the format is set up and I would expect essentially all the people who did well in Germany to end up making Worlds and at worst coming very close to trips if they play in three events as a result.
     
    Hard to narrow it down to a couple names to win the whole thing. I think when they’re on, Kyriakou, Matty, Massi, Lajo, Zog, and Flash have the best track records of the players participating, but like I wrote before, it’s all about who’s actually in practice with this metagame/has the team that completes them right now. I’d expect with top cut on a second day the UK players will probably have an easier time getting information after swiss and I’d expect a winner from the UK as a result, though I tend to root for Flash in Europe because I learned a lot about how to make things work in Worlds from his 2012 team. I’m just hoping to see as many of the people as I mentioned in this post in top cut as possible, though — I would definitely like to see as many of those people as possible playing in DC.

  6. TwiddleDee says:

    Personally putting my biased money on Toquil and NidoRich, but it’s gonna be one heck of a tough competition. So many players of such a high caliber, it’s uncanny! Does anyone know if there will be any matches streamed? I know Havak will be tweeting about it, but it would be nice to get to actually watch the games!

    Good luck to everybody participating! =)

  7. Cache says:

    Can’t wait to see how this tournament goes, I really want to know about the teams, and if people are now ready to hard counter Kangaskhan, after reading Yoshi’s thoughts.

    About Spanish players, as far as I know there will be a fair amount of them, including Flash, Repr4y, Sekiam, Deku and more… I hope some of them to achieve the Top Cut, but it will be a very hard tournament. I think Lajo and some Italian guys will make a great performance. Good luck to everybody!

    Off topic, today is also the (Football/Soccer) Champions League Final, Real Madrid vs Atlético de Madrid, what a interesting weekend here in Europe!

  8. DaWoblefet says:

    Is there any streaming planned for the event?

  9. nbalberlolz says:

    I gotta say embc is gonna win this he topped 1920 on the special ladder when it existed and he has some ridiculously awesome strategies

  10. Havak says:

    Filling in usernames for the top cut bracket:
     
    Phillip de Souza = P3DS
    Steve Edgson = SirSmoke
    Niall Crallan = The Last Sheikah
    Jamie Miller = Blaze_King7
    William J = StarKO
    Lee Watson = Redemption003

  11. Gilbert says:

    Got second in seniors 🙂 Got completely out played in the last match but gg’s all round.

  12. Toquill says:

    honestly the worst tournament I’ve ever played, the team I brought was the worst decision I’ve ever made, it was beaten by everything relevant and my mindset with it was really bad
     
    I ended up dropping at 1-2, my r1 loss ended up dropping at r2 because he had to go home so there was nothing to fight for and my team actually hurt to play, it was just so bad that it wasn’t enjoyable to use at all… this was my one chance of making worlds and I totally blew it, I’m so sorry to everyone who supported me
     
    regardless, I had a good time watching people who were actually good at this game and this community really is amazing. Congrats to Deku for winning the whole thing, you totally deserve it man <333

  13. ChicoMono says:

    I cane 9th in Seniors… Missed top cut by one place ;_;
     
    Had lots of fun though, came thinking I was in Masters, apparently placed into Seniors, all in all a fun couple days though!

  14. Toquill says:

    I cane 9th in Seniors… Missed top cut by one place ;_;
     
    Had lots of fun though, came thinking I was in Masters, apparently placed into Seniors, all in all a fun couple days though!

    that reminds me, I forgot to mention how god awfully this tourney was run. Everyone who was born in 1998 were put in seniors instead of masters… we had to drop manually and they had to reshuffle the flights or w/e I guess you didn’t know about this Chico lol it was gross 
     
    also we started later than last year ahahahAHAHHAHHARHGAHEFKMJ

  15. Arbol Deku says:

    Thank you Cache and Toquill!

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