2013 International Challenge — June
The final International Challenge of the VGC ’13 season is upon us! With 11th to 13th place in North America tied and the live events in Europe over, there has never been as much at stake as there is now. North American players will be trying to get the lead they need to best secure an invite at the US National Championships while players within 10 points of the Top 32 spot in Europe will try to ensure they keep that elusive invite to the 2013 Pokémon World Championships. Additionally, everyone who participates in at least 5 battles and doesn’t get disqualified for disconnecting will receive 5 Apicot Berries, 5 Petaya Berries, and 5 Ganlon Berries.
Registration Period
00:00 UTC, Thursday, June 13, 2013, through 23:59 UTC, Thursday, June 19, 2013 (5:00 PM PDT, Wednesday, June 13, 2013, through 4:59 PM PDT, Thursday, June 20, 2013
Competition Dates
00:00 UTC, Friday, June 21, 2013, through 23:59 UTC, Monday, June 24, 2013 (5:00 PM PDT, Thursday, June 20, 2013, through 4:59 PM PDT, Monday, June 24, 2013)
Ruleset
Prizes
- All players who end up on the final rankings (are not disqualified and have at least 5 matches recorded as played) will receive 5 Apicot Berries, 5 Petaya Berries, and 5 Ganlon Berries.
- The top 128 players in North America and the top 128 players in Europe in each age division (Juniors, Seniors, and Masters) will receive an undetermined amount of Championship Points that will count towards qualifying for the 2013 Pokémon World Championships in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Age Divisions
- Junior Division: Born in 2002 or later
- Senior Division: Born in 1998, 1999, 2000, or 2001
- Master Division: Born in 1997 or earlier
Requirements
You must be using a Pokémon Black 2 or Pokémon White 2 game card to participate in these tournaments. You must also have a Pokémon Global Link account synced to your game card. You must have a Player ID linked to your account to receive Championship Points.
Disconnections
You must play 5 full games to be ranked on the ladder and receive your berries.. Those who do not finish their battles and disconnect to try and save their record may lose their placing on the ladder as well as receive a ban in future WiFi competitions.
About the Author
Firestorm is one of the co-founders of Nugget Bridge and the Community Manager for eSports Tournament Platform Battlefy. He has been playing Pokémon since 1999, competitively since 2007, and attending tournaments since 2010. He lives in Vancouver, Canada with a degree in Interactive Art & Technology + Communications. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushanshekar.
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With the ample amount of DC’ers, do you guys actually think it’s plausible to disconnect yourself the first couple battles in order to maybe play against opponents that don’t DC?
Not sure if you mean run or actually DC. I know a bunch of people that run the first few battles to decrease overall DC rate.
I don’t do that, but I like keeping track of my exact DC% to see how realistic it is I end up ranking / see how many battles I need to grind out to decrease my rate. All luck of the draw with your opponents but the issue of DCs have become a lot more reasonable ever since the first Wi-Fi tournament, at least for me.
I tried to run from the first battle last tournament and actually got DCed on before I could hit run.
Other than that I didn’t get DCed on that many times so I guess it varies.
I feel like the running on purpose thing is gaming the system and potentially what that disclaimer everyone is freaking out about covers so I don’t know that I’d suggest it, but I’ve had similar experiences to Aaron… my DC rate has mostly gone down a little every time. I was really anxious during the second tournament, because it wasn’t an instant behavioral change for the rest of the players and so many people got DQed the first time, but I had a pretty low DC rate during the last two for the most part. Wonder if this one will be better or worse, since it means nothing to most people but way more to a few people.
Yeah sorry about that, I meant run. Maybe I’ll try running from the first three battles, only gotten ranked once in the 5 tournaments I’ve been in
FlyCats, BounceCats, DiveCats, anyway, it will be something to troll with, lol.
Hopefully in X and Y, we can use SkyCats!
I ran my first 6 battles one time and it was the lowest DC rate I have ever had. I have heard others say it didn’t make a difference for them. It’s up to you really, but if you haven’t been ranked 4 out of 5 times I doubt it will hurt.
I´m not sure whether I´ll go all-out or just troll again… I´d like to give my Milan team that did so well for me there a decent success other than that (I mean a negative scramble record and 75th place in Bochum aren´t something to be proud of, really) but on the other hand, there´s this cool idea of a Castform team that I´ve been toying around with for a while. Considering that I only got ranked once when I used serious teams and everytime except once when I trolled, I might just troll again – just because I want to be ranked (which should work, according the the pattern xD). My serious teams always get DQ´d… ;_;
But then again, my season´s over so why bother trying to do well? Hmm… Tough decision^^ You´ll see, I guess.
Yeh the whole running thing helped me last time. I ran like 3 to start with and then got going and I didn’t get anywhere near as many DCs as the IC before it. Went down from like 20 odd DCs against me to like 7/8 so I was happy. Whether it was just luck of the draw I don’t know but you’ve got nothing to lose really, especially if you haven’t been ranked a lot before like others have said.
I’m in with something really close to my nationals team
Bzzzt
I’ll be in with Wolfe’s Perish Trap/Normalize team. Talk about trolling. Every time I go on free I get disconnects the moment they can’t do anything
I’ll be giving this a go with my nationals team since I have a player ID now, wish I’d had one sooner or I might have played in more of these.
While you don’t need to, you’re at a point where every additional cp you can get increases your odds by a fair amount for making it through with a top 8 finish
I’ve got nothing to play for and the season’s over for me in truth but I might as well give it a go. I think I’ll use the team I had for one of the people I was going to Nats with who never showed. I’m curious to see how this “Autopilot Rain” idea fairs in actual competition.
i am going on vacation during this… but the first day i am still home, so i’ll probably stay up till 4 or 5 playing and then sleep in the car xD
The ban thing has been there since the begining. Maybe they are doing it to people with the highest DC ratio (accounting a decent amount of games played) and we don’t know it because if we get disqualificated we are not one of those people, who knows. I think it is for scaring people but it seems it doesnt worl because the people who dc dont usually read the rules xD
Back on topic I’ll participate with my first Nationals team just for fun. I’ve never been afraid of pokecheck and I won’t start now. To be honest I’ve never used it, I knew they give you detailed team info because I tried it once when they released it but never crossed my mind to use it for scouting lol, i didn’t thought It was being used for scoting. I suppose I’m a enough of a good guy xD Maybe now I know I’ll use it even if I don’t like it just for not being at a disadvantage. Well if I think about it I’ve been at a disadvantage since it was released and I’ve doing quite well since then so I’m not really worried.
Anyways good luck for all
I never intentionally run, aside from that one time in a previous tourney where my D/C rate started high due to a cordless phone interfering with my Wi-Fi connection. I’ve been in the rankings, every time.
Last time I tried an experimental team, and got burned badly for doing so. I’ll stick to something more tried and tested this time.
Didn’t someone back in March try running for a bunch of battles at the start and got kicked from the rankings anyways?
most likely entering with JP b2 cart and ENG w2.
look out for Tommy from CA, Behold my BALL SAWK!, Seniors
(oh and a female japanese player in Masters)
I’ll probably be entering granted school doesn’t kick my butt. Mathematics major might be a bad idea.
I’m in this. So close to 300 CP.
-Daniel from California
-Seniors
I´m sure I´m already in the Top32 europe and I´m also sure I won´t make it to worlds anyways, but well, I love those ICs and give my sun team another shot. Pokécheck doesn´t really bother me, because I post a report about my Nats team after scramble is over, anyways
-Yoshi from Saxony Anhalt, Germany
– Masters
I’m going to DC on each of you who might need those CP so you get banned, haha!I’m not sure if I want to play more than 5 games just to get the berries, really… I like the tournaments, but we don’t get any fun formats like Japan does :/
Estelle (Nurse) from Poland, Subcarpathia
I owe my victory
to CRITICAL HIT!
Masters, ofc.
Might as well go for it, will probably just end up using a modified version of my VGC team because I’ve got attached to it now and making a whole new team for a tournament that in the grand scheme of things doesn’t mean anything is a bit pointless.
I’ll be in this hopefully not to be DQed.
Like always for all you fellow GBUer’s out there I’m Aaron from Texas, USA.
My last chance to get some championship points from California USA
I’m Javier
I’m quite excited for this, as this will be the first time in my life that I’ve entered the competitive field.
I hope my team does well, it looked quite solid on showdown. If course people say playing irl is much different compared to simulated, but we’ll see how we go.
Okay, I don’t usually like posting about DCing and such, but a few questions that come up that I’ll answer clearly here (correct me if I’m misinformed, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got this right):
WHAT DOES DC MEAN?!?
Disconnection.
if you’re asking this, you probably are reading the wrong post, js
How do you calculate DC rate?
((Wins + Losses + Disconnections) / (Disconnections)) * 100
In human speak, Step 1: add up your disconnections, wins, and losses. Step 2: divide the number you got in step 1 by your disconnections. Step 3: multiply by 100. Step 4: slap a % on the end of that number. Congrats, you have your DC rate.
What DC rate disqualifies you?
There isn’t really a concise answer on this one, but it’s assumed to be around 20%. I was disqualified at 22% in April but qualified with 18% in March, but I also had different patterns at which they happened in each tournament and had different amounts of trainer card / pre-battle disconnections in each, so it may not be accurate to assume it’s based on your rate.
(The reason people really don’t often answer this question is because of the way this knowledge can be used in a negative manner. Please don’t use this to try to game the system if you have a low DC rate, but rather to help yourself understand how much longer you have to play to get to your desired range.)
Does running your first battle help pair you with people who don’t DC as much?
No. There is nothing that determines whether or not you will get paired with DCers, the system only looks to pair you with the next available competitor. If someone did this fully believing it made a difference and ended up with a better rate, their psychology entering the tournament was the factor contributing to them having a more likely lower DC rate. That sounds crazy, but it’s likely the case. There’s nothing we know here, nor any concrete evidence that can (or anything we could actually test) that would suggest this to be true; it is entirely superstition at this point.
Does running from your first 20-30 battles help lower your DC rate?
Mathematically, yes. You’ll get more losses added to your total and this will in turn bring down your average DC rate (less relevant the more matches you play). However, I’ve seen people that do this get disqualified in the end more often than not, so there’s one of two things going on here. One, which is also mostly superstition at this point with a bit of logic behind it, is that there is a pattern of wins/losses/disconnections that the tournament program detects when a person is just trying to work around the system. Two, which is pretty obvious, especially in one particular case I know, is that the person is simply lowering their DC rate earlier to in turn be able to DC more often later on in the tournament since their rate would technically be lower and allow them to do so. It could be a combination of the two (the system detecting a ton of DCs at the end of the tournament and booting the player, regardless of their DC rate), or it could just be bad tracking by the players who do this. If you’re going to run your first 20-30 battles, make sure you’re at least tracking your DC rate if you want to make a case for/against this working later on.
Again, use this knowledge in a positive manner- do it to help get yourself qualified while NOT DCing on others, not to run up your DC rate as high as you are able to as to both stay qualified and keep your precious fake, manipulated rating up so you can push +1 on the ego/CP button.
Do disconnections at the team selection screen count as a DC?
Most likely. The moment you find your opponent, it logs the information that the pairing happened in the system, thus noticing a non-result after you’re paired with another opponent. I’m pretty sure this is technically unconfirmed, but I’ve heard from people who better understand how these tournaments’ particular program works that it is more likely counted than not. I’d say you can safely mark any DCs at the team selection screen as a legitimate DC.
Do disconnections at the trainer card count as a DC?
Most likely (“most of the time” is the correct way to put this if the program is understood correctly). Again, the people who know more about this are pretty convinced that these do, but we don’t know for sure afaik (or should this be afaidk here?). Count these in your DC total as well.
Do disconnections while searching count as a DC?
Most likely no. Unless a match was already registered in the system, which is unlikely considering the trainer card never came up, this wouldn’t count as a DC. I’m not going to completely debunk that it could count, since there might be a no-notice report to the server that a disconnection happened, but it’s pretty unlikely that these count against you.
Do disconnections while sending count as a DC?
Well yeah, of course, assuming the data didn’t send. There are some battles where the game’s result is registered, upping your battle count, but give no rating gain or loss. I have no idea why this happens or whether or not these count as a DC, but they do count as a respective win/loss if your total battles updates to represent that it was recorded.
I want to try to DC! What is the safest way to do so?
I heard that the DC won’t actually count if you shove your DS far enough down yo…actually let’s not go here
Don’t do it. You create http://nuggetbridge.com/forums/topic/713-2012-vgcs-winter-battle-results-released/page-6?p You’re causing the exact thing you probably blissey about afterward on here.
Just a small mistake but it’s the other way around, number of disconnections divided by total amt. of battles.