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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GS Cup Announced as Pokémon’s 2016 Ruleset →
2016 Pokémon World Championships Date & Location Surfaces →
Unregistering at 1501.
gg
Stopping at 23-4-2 (W-L-DC) for the night with a rating of 1655 (peaked at 1659 earlier today then I faced some good teams and got Pokemon’d a couple times and dropped to 1616). Pretty much all of my opponents have been very respectful about not disconnecting, even if they got Pokemon’d.
I’m quitting this silly tournament. Out of 130 battles, I have 30 DC’s and 25 of them are from Japanese with 19 of them being from 1450-1550 Japanese players. I know you’re mad about not getting into nats but learn your arceusbidoof lesson and next time maybe you will get in. I was at 1820 last night but ever since then, I’ve been taking all my loses to stupid Japanese swagger BS but when I beat them, I get punished for it.
TLDR: Ending at 1709 with a 23% DC rate.
Stopping right now just above 1800. D/C rate of 4%, which is low even for my usual standards through the tourney.
EDIT: Played a few more. 46-3-3, 1826 Rating.
I’m very impressed by one of my opponents. Underestimated him because he was at 1400 ranking. Turn 1 he leads metagross + musharna, so naturally I assume explosion and double protect. He switches out the musharna for politoed. Turn 2 I still suspect a protect+explosion from him, so I switch out to my back two pokemon that I know can take the explosion. Still nothing happens. Turn 3, I assume he doesn’t pack explosion on the metagross and attack.
HELPING HAND NORMAL GEM EXPLOSION HOMG.
GG, whoever you are. Totally caught me off guard. Really deserved that win. There are some losses that make me angry, such as the paraflinch/swagger spam from opponents relying on the RNG, but that was one incredible match. I’d love to rebattle that guy again. Lesson learned – never underestimate anyone.
Still getting DC’s from higher ranked opponents, but at least the ones with lower rankings haven’t started dc’ing on me too like last night. Although I did face one very honourable Japanese player with a 1790+ ranking who didn’t DC when I beat him. Still, every time I face a higher ranked opponent I always have the fear that they’ll just DC. I’m aiming to get to 1700 before retiring from the comp. My current D/C rate is down to about 15%, and I hope it stays that way.
Ahahah Thowra, I had a guy do that to me earlier, too. He Swaggered me pretty hard but it was fairly even to the end, and I was put in a situation where I lost unless I crit him (which I didn’t)…and well, he put up Safeguard 2 turns earlier, so he Swaggered his own NORMAL GEM METAGROSS and killed everything on the field. He had 1 mon in the back and I didn’t have anything left, so he won right there. I had no words, I just smiled and wrote down a loss. So even after a mud slinging swagger flinchfest you can have an enjoyable, justifying ending.
Not sure if I’m out of practice or I just too hastily made this team. I finished making a team earlier today and played a bunch. In the beginning my record was like 2W 2L 1DC haha.
Now it’s 22W 5L 3DC, around 1660-ish I think, not too bad, but nothing to be too proud of. Not sure if I’ll be playing that much more. I think it might be better to make another team. It’s been fun using some of the slightly weird things in this team, but I think I will use something else at Nats. This team is certainly too shaky vs certain pokemon and certain teams.
For those that may be interested, here are a couple 18-turn battles where my opponent didn’t DC:
45-27178-91451
16-21088-22845
I didn’t think I played that well in either of the battles, but o well, it was still fun, especially the first one where I skill swapped Flash Fire onto my Ferrothorn, and then my opponent skill swapped it away… then I try to skill swap it back… hah. Of course then I realized that was stupid.
EDIT: O yeah, I do realize, for the first match, pretty much what gave me a huge advantage was that first turn heat wave burn.
Just had a nailbiter with osirus…gg dude. A little less haxy than our last encounter
Was dreading the rock slide flinch!
Didn’t save the replay only coz i’ve not uploaded my last one
The awkward moment you realise one of your mons is ev’d wrong
Hopefully I’ll pull it back today 
After yesterdays terrible internet spell i can finally play in international challenge! its a shame I missed the day 1 noobs… currently fighting a japanese guy I’m 3-1 up but his last guy is sub chansey urghh
I don’t think I’ve seen any of you folks online. I was quite annoyed when I lost due to a late game crit against rain, where I would have won. his low health ludicolo and moltres(locked in to over heat at -4 under rain). His moltres critted togekiss(L.M Tank) which made me lose, as I would have beaten ludicolo and then KOed moltres.
. Anyway, saved a load of videos. BTW, where do we post these for the article about IC june battle videos?
Hey guys dumb question – how do you save a video without deleting your previous one?
Not possible. You´ll have to upload the first one, then save the second one.^^
IC´s currently going okay for me… After a loss due to a Megahorn and a DM miss and one due to sheer stupidity, I had some pretty cool battles against some japanese players, one of them with a cool team around Fake Tears that reminded me of something Fidget used to play around with.^^
I can´t find any battles right now for some reason, even though I already reconnected several times.. I´ve pretty much done everything but battling in the last two hours,..
Oh right. Darn. I wish we could save multiple ones as I keep forgetting to go into my game and talk to that nurse to upload videos.
Just played against MrZheng aka Cybertron.
Stone Edge on Scrafty provided to be very useful against Rage-volc Terra lead
gg Cybertron
gg, hate playing against that team lol.
Two losses to start the day and the 1714 I had at first is probably like 1650 considering I just lost to a decent 1495 with a good rain team… sigh
Just got haxxed by FENIX….gg
So far…
Not that bad, I suppose.
8W- 3L- 3Disconnections.
I haven’t played a lot, since I have an extremely busy weekend, but I guess today I can play at least 30 moar matches.
The coolest team I’ve faced so far…
Probably a GASTRO ACID SERPERIOR, paired with a SLAKING.
Pretty clever, too bad I get a crit against his Slaking. Still the most fun match was against a Spaniard, very, very great game.
67-49390-13661
Also my apologies to Mr. Scott Glaza. My Wi-fi was definetely the problem, just fixed it
Just got to 1600 after 30 or so matches, lost about 33% of my games but most of them were due to just bad plays on my part or somethin’ dumb like Icy Wind missing everyone twice in a row, but so far I’m gaining very confident with this team.
What I’ve been running into so far is about 75% rain teams and nearly everyone uses the exact same Politoed minus the one guy I faced using Specs earlier, also people are giving every Pokemon possible Earthquake (ran into two EQ Abomasnow and an EQ Bronzong which caught me off guard).
Just payed a Team with Crobat-Latios Lead.
Nothing special, I thougt, switched my Thundurus to heatran and take that Draco and Acrobatics relatively well, found out that Latios was Specsed.
And then he used haze… And killed my Heatran, wow. I was able to shut down the combo with taunt, but… he had Heatran in the back, so I lost;
at least a funny lead, I won´t fall for it again- still gg, japanese.
I’m doing pretty well for not competing in a long time. I find myself barely threading the needle with these matches. I have stalled out a trick room/gravity team that also ran hypnosis and sleep powder. Barely won.
Only matches I have lost were because of crit., paralysis, and flinch hax by rain and sand teams.
My last match I just played came so close. My Bisharp ran out of PP and was choice locked into sucker punch. All he had was a Dusknoir. I managed to get him down to about 5hp with struggle when he shadow sneaked and stole the match. I thought it was hilarious that he almost lost to a struggling Mon.
So far about a 7-3-1 record. Just started.
after having perfect internet yesterday my connection screwed up today, disconnecting in 4 of my last 16 battles (if anyone here is Lance from nowhere sorry for the dc you deserved to win the battle) To make matters worse, I exited my game through the 3ds home button after the last dc not knowing that activates the one hour ban
currently 22-3-7 somewhere around 1690
Currently about 11-6-1 with a modified version of my VGC team. Haven’t been playing at my best, every new thing on the team preview is throwing me off. Taking a break for now since my wifi’s refusing to cooperate.
Wow, so many unique sets/combos I’ve seen so far.
My favourite was an opponent with priority fake tears (liepard) paired with scarf kingdra and life orb latios. I feared encore so I didn’t protect. His strategy was to double target with fake tears+draco meteor, then swap dragons and repeat. Horrifyingly efficient, not to mention he also ran perish song politoed on the same team, presumably for the steel types/clear body menaces like metagross.
Man, I’m so using bisharp in the next VGC.
Decided to play a bit of this at 13-0-4 with an old team.
gg Lati.
Getting a lot of disconnections lately… I probably shouldn´t play much anymore today.
Also, gg R_Inanimate.^^ Would´ve loved to have the same result as our last battle in January but kind of was in a bad position from R1 on – mainly because my only breloom check can be easily avoided by placing a faster Pokemon that can hit it super-effectively next to it. Oh well, still a great battle.^^ I could at least avoid the 4-0 but not in a way that I can be proud of it…
Had a really interesting game where my opponent Thunder Waved his own Pokemon to prevent spore
.
58W – 0L – 12DC 1905 (seniors)
Apparently TPCi has made me the official target of all D/Cers everywhere because I only have about 20 battles in and AT LEAST 30 disconnects. I have no idea how the heck I’m going to pull myself out of this hole
On the plus side, I faced some Japanese Wolfe clone that tried to impress me with his stolen strategy, but a DM crit and paralyze from Tbolt won me the game.
Well, 28-4. 1718. And then suddenly DCs started happening. One during Team preview, one before even being paired and then one during a long drawn out battle. I suspect that it might be down to trying to battle at peak time for my internet and I think someone else might be using it in the house. So, I’ll wait until later and hopefully continue on the good course I’m on. Reaching 1700s was my target but with the way I’m going, I’m hoping to keep it up and see how high I can get.