2014 International Challenge — May
The first International Challenge of the VGC ’14 season has been officially announced and with it comes news that the Top 128 players in North America and Europe in each age division will receive Championship Points for their efforts. As there is no guarantee that there will be another International Challenge before the World Championships, it will be an incredibly important part of players’ seasons as they chase that elusive Worlds invite. This will especially be the case for European players who will not receive Premier Challenges until next season at the earliest making this their only chance of breaking ties between players who end up at the same number of points after Nationals.
The International Challenge is an online ladder-based tournament. You will be able to play up to 20 battles per day (which if past tournaments are any indication, will roll unplayed games over to the next day though we make no guarantees) from 00:00 UTC on Friday May 16th, 2014(5:00 PM PDT on Thursday, May 15th ) to 23:59 UTC on Sunday May 18th, 2014 (4:59 PM UTC on Sunday May 18th).
To register, you’ll need to have an account on Pokemon.com and register your game with the Global Link. Your game must be attached to the same account that has the player ID you use to play in Regionals, Nationals, and other events in the Play! Pokémon program if you want to receive Championship Points. You will be able to participate if you are one of the first 50,000 players to register on the Global Link for the event between 00:00 UTC on Thursday May 8th, 2014 (5:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 7th) and 23:59 UTC on Thursday, May 15th, 2014 (4:59 PM PDT on Thursday, May 15th).
The tournament will use the Standard ruleset and should prove to be the most competitive tournament yet with thousands of players worldwide playing to prove themselves and increase their chances at a World Championship invite! All participants who play at least one match and don’t get disqualified will receive an Enigma Berry. Championship Points will be awarded as follows:
| Placement | Points |
| 1 | 10 |
| 2–8 | 8 |
| 9–16 | 4 |
| 17–64 | 2 |
| 65–128 | 1 |
With the Special Ladder on Battle Spot switching from Standard to Inverse Battles on May 12th, this will be the only chance afterwards that we know of to practice with other players online in-game under the same ruleset you’ll be using at the National and World Championships.
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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403 Responses to 2014 International Challenge — May
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I’m very much done now. Last battle was against someone who used Role Play Smeargle on a Machamp, and then proceeded to KO everything with Sheer Cold. By the time I was able to do anything about it, I was down to my last couple Pokemon and then he had Jumpluff Sleep Powder hit through Safeguard on Wigglytuff, and Jynx KOd MegaTtar since it was barely alive after a Dynamic Punch.
The battle right before that I would have won, but my net decided to cut out, and the one before that someone rage DC’d on me but it never counted (yet? maybe?).
For my first competition in VGC, I’d say that sucked. Day 1 was plagued by horrible hax, day 2 was okay and I did a little better, and day 3 I was just royally screwed at every turn. I can handle being outplayed (there were a couple matches I stood no chance and accept defeat), but when I miss with Rock Slide and get crit two times in a row in the same turn against MegaTtar? Whyyyyyyy…
13-18 (a DC on me apparently didn’t count so would have been 14-18?)
I may post my team later and get some advice but honestly there was little to no reason that I did that poorly. Sorry to be a bummer but dang.
I guess it’s name and shame time. Roxas from Canada on 1777 on here? If so, thanks for the dc
Heaters are prone to burning people
Well I’ve just about had it. I’ve got 4 hours for 4 more battles, and I’ve only won 5 out of 16 battles today. My ranking plumetted, I’m probably at 157X now. Team’s got some problems, sure, but I can’t predict right for my life. If someone wants to tutor me, send me a PM.
Anyways, had some great battles today. Pretty sure I battled Styrofoameon, don’t remember much about the match but my notes say that I timer stalled your Rotom-W, so sorry about that. I don’t think I battled anybody else on here.
Yes it was Banded, thanks. I like what Scarf Gardevoir brings but since I’m starting a new team and I like Gardevoir a lot, I was looking into using Gardevoir with specs since most of the time I don’t feel like I need the speed and would prefer more power and bulk.
DCs usually don’t get counted until the next game you finish, which is what screwed up me remembering my final standings exactly. Even with crazy hax, decent teams/players should be able to finish at least a 1 to 1 win/loss. Especially over 60 games. Post the team and stat spreads, someone might be able to help you out.
Also take it as a learning experience. I didn’t really expect to do well enough for my record to matter, I really just wanted experience (even if a few matches hurt my brain). Now you know Jumpluff can carry Infiltrator and put things to sleep through Safeguard.
I actually saved the battle videos where I got screwed. It works consistently good when:
BXPW-WWWW-WWW7-FPWG
Smeargle isn’t Sheer Colding everyone. Though in response, I may bring my Taunt Crobat to stop this before it ever happens again.
I was actually hitting a good W/L ratio on the second day. Out of my 10 battles then I won 8. The losses where from being entirely outplayed and I can accept that.
The other two days were riddled with hax. Day 1 my wins were only through a lot of hax, so not very fun. Today? Rarely hax in my favor, which is annoying.
Having saved all my videos, I would enjoy looking to see how many times I managed to score a crit VS how many times I was crit.
hey guys. May was my first turnament (startete playing 2 month ago). I ended up 38/22 with around 1670.
Can i somewhere see the full rankings? who won the thing and do i get anything?^^ like a scrub medal or so?
it was fun but i cant see any end results or something like this :/
I dropped out a few hours early. Out of 18 matches, I won 9 and lost the other 9. I just flat-out sucked, and I made one lazy, inexcusable error after another. I try to buck up and make careful decisions, and it blows up in my face. *sigh* I just don’t know what went wrong. I just feel like a washed-up scrub, a never-was, and a failure.
Just finished my 60th game. Went 48-12 (D1 18-2 D2 15-5 D3 15-5) Final ranking was 184x. Felt pretty good about it. Got disconnected in 4 games so could have possibly gotten a better ranking. Luckily only saw 1 perish trap team, however saw a lot of smeargle. Overall had fun and it helped me figure out how to fix my team. #Top4NatsOrBust
Just finished my 60 battles, my final record is 38/22 with a rating of 1701 I think. Could have done it better, did some stupid plays that costed me several matches, especially in day 2, where I ended up with a 10/10 record. Hax happened too, but that’s nothing to complain about since I’m kinda used to it.
Fortunately I didn’t face Smeargles at all, only M-kangas, I saw a lot of them carrying Earthquake which put me in some troubles.
Unusual Garchomp sets(choice band, stone edge, poison jab, life orb) caused me a lot of troubles too, after all my opponent only had to take down my Gardevoir and then Garchomp was free to sweep my entire team by spamming earthquake/rock slide.
Just passed battle 30, and my ratio is 13/18 (and about 6 of those were disconnects on my end ¬_¬), ranking somewhere between mid1500 and low1600. Considering how rushed and all over the place this weekend tournament has been for me I’m fairly pleased with that, although I have decided to take a break after just losing a match I was winning against a rain dance team. It was 2 vs 2 and I pretty much had it in the bag, I was against his Ludicolo and Raichu, then I went and tried to Thunderbolt the final slither of Ludi’s health away, only realising too late what I’d done. Encore, blam, there goes that game. Definitely a sign I need a rest. I’ll probably play for another hour or so before calling it a day, I’ve just checked and I’ve got 11 more battle video slots open so I’ll probably play those games, give me as much as possible to analyse the next few days before the UK VGC.
Couple of observations I’ve made;
– Up until recently the trend with Kangaskhan always seemed to be bring it at the start, now it seems to be held back until the end to clean up much more.
– Charizard is getting bulkier. My Rotom’s offensive power has actually increased since I last played regularly, and he used to get ohkos on Y forms all the time. Now about half of them are surviving in the yellow.
– Can anyone explain why there’s so many teams with both Charizard Y and Tyranitar together? I’d have thought bringing two conflicting weather users a really bad idea.
– First Ditto I’ve encountered in VGC, and it was scary. Brought in alongside a Smeargle for added psychological torment. Mind games >.<
– Will-o-wisp sucks. I decided to try it out on Rotom for this event, and of the 6 or so occasions I’ve decided to use it it’s hit once. Fire Fang has burned more than it has. Definitely going back to Volt Switch.
How much longer do we have? Just under 20 battles to do >.<
A little under 3 hours from the timestamp on this post.