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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Interesting to see that stat, though I don’t think how direct the correlation is should surprise anyone, even though it will. Thanks for that data — it should be illuminating.
I maintain what I wrote before, but I hope that data helps convince people who think it works for everyone to be allowed to play 100+ games that the wrong attribute gets measured with that many games in so little time.
I’m looking forward to the tournament at any rate. I’m surprised by how much I missed these.
The rules on the competition website on the Pokémon website say you should only play with one of your two registered games.
I wanted to see if the competitions webpage on the GL actually prevents you from registering with more than one of your games, now both of them are registered.
I assume as long as I don’t lock my Battle Box with the second game there won’t be any problems for me? Because I don’t think there’s a button anywhere on the competitions page to leave a tournament again.
Soooo, on the pokemon GL website, under event calendar it says the tournament starts 5/15 @ 8 PM to 5/18 @ 8 PM, but when u click for details, it says 5/16 @ 00:00 to 5/18 @ 11:59.., which is it?
Both. The first time range you listed is in Eastern Time. The second is in UTC.
Ahhhhhh, duh! Thanks!
I had a hell of a time staying above 1500 today. Weird gimmicks and Wifi problems tanked me right at the start.
Ended the first day with a W/L record of 14W/6L (Master’s Division).
Not sure of my exact ranking, but going into the 20th battle, my ranking was 1604, and I won my last battle for the day.
Also, on a side note, I battled someone named “Zach” that said he was from Washington. Wonder if it was the same Zach from here? If it is, sorry about the brutal amount of hax against you. Your team was better. I saved the battle, but no spoilers here in the thread. I might post it later.
My only complaint is the curfew.
10 1/2 year olds need their sleep
Aren’t you in Seniors these days?
Skeet Skeet
Entering right now, but apparently it’s already been going on for awhile? Tch! Timezones are a pain, but luckily I heared something about the number of plays left carrying over to the next day so no biggie.
I joined and have played 1 battle so far. Although it seems like the best strategy would be to try playing the games as late as possible? Someone correct me if I’m wrong but logically it seems like doing that would mean more time for others to settle into their deserved rankings
Finished day 1 16-4. Had some hax going both directions, as I lost one match to three consecutive flinches but also won a match after a couple clutch misses. No complaints in that department.
To speak to to battle limit, after playing 20 straight battles I was ready to be done. I’m glad there’s a daily limit or I’d be tempted to keep going, and I’d probably lose focus and start losing battles I should be winning. Granted, I could have spaced them out better instead of binge battling for a few hours late at night, but I also don’t have a great desire to dedicate a whole day to play Pokemon until my eyes fall out. This is my first wifi tournament, however, so I can’t really speak to the alternative. Excited for the next couple days.
I’m guessing it’s both give and take. There is probably certain hours where a person could get more wins. For example, here in the U.S, most people under 18 would be at school, while most of the Asian players would likely be in bed, so you would be competing for the most part versus the European players.
If you battle the said Europeans, you probably will run into higher competition, but that would most likely be just a few matches, so the bulk of your battles would maybe be versus players of lesser experience.
The down side of this though would be that the lesser the experience of the players, the less points you would receive for your wins.
I personally have a lot of experience during separate hours of the day and night as to when what nationalities would most likely be battling. When day three comes, if I manage a score of 1800+, in the rankings, I will probably start my da three battles around 6am (US Central Time). This is so I am more likely than not going to stay above that 1800.
During the first two days though, gotta stay balls to the wall, and hope to be paired versus higher ranking opponents, and hope to get the wins that way, so you can get the high rank score faster, then try for to just keep the score stabilized during day three.
I’m still ironing out my team after not really playing for about a month. Am I right in thinking the match’s you don’t play on one day carry over to the next (so if I only managed 10 today I could play 30 tomorrow, or is it strictly 20 per day)?
Well, first official tournament I am playing, and it’s the only one I can, since Brazil doesn’t have official VGC tourneys yet, and I’m quite happy. I hadn’t battled once after the last round of NBM, and I was able to get a 15-5 record. I was over 1600 when I entered battle 20, and I won it, so I guess I’m in a good position for day 2. My objective for this first tournament is to get Top 1000 worldwide, and top 3 in my country, since I used to be fighting for the top spot in Brazil before I stopped playing due to muggle world problems.
I’ll be anxiously waiting for next day. Just a question: the 20 games limit resets every day at the same time? I mean, at 9 pm (GMT -3 – the time the tourney started) I’ll be able to get more battles?
Keep in mind that Day 2 doesn’t start until 5PM PDT / 8PM EDT / 1AM BST
Thanks a lot. It helps me to know it, since I’ll be able to focus a little more in my work before the day starts, and then get into competition as soon as it opens… Or would it be a better idea to wait a while before getting in?
Finished day 1 with a 18-2 record and 169x points! Anyone with 19-1 or even 20-0?
Ray and Birch both are 19-1 I believe.
Should enter this tonight, likely also streaming my endeavors for a bit, unsure if ill actually go and play 20 matches. Spending all night for that might be a bit much with other stuff to do (like uploading more NB major vids for one)
i only manage a 15-5 as well….if anyone needs the cp bidoof bad pls let me know….i am willing to drop the matches if u let me know before hand….i am entering just so i can play vgc rules seeing the battlespot specials changed to inverse….
Finished Day 1 with 14-6 and a rating of 1620-ish. Pleased with that and my Mamoswine addition has been putting in some serious work!!!
External
^ Data from the battles, detailing their teams/rating/region. Was very glad to finally have far more western players to fight against than having to fight Japanese players all the time as only 1/3 of them were Japanese. European players (same was true for the German National) seem to be more about raw offense and set-up tactics than high level mindgames with Protect and other stuff. Anyone with more experience in European meta who can confirm this?
Funny things I encountered:
– Basculin/Mega Venusaur/Trevenant core to take advantage of Basculin’s Soak and Trevenant had Natural Cure o.O
– Mega Gyarados with normal Manectric team
– Day 1 Swords Dance Aegislash with Shadow Sneak! I thought those had gone extinct!
– Dugtrio and Zapdos duo to utilise DisQuake and Arena Trap at the same time.
PS
Only encountered one Dark Void Smeargle and it was Choice Scarfed so a free kill for Mamoswine xd
PSS
20 fights per day is a good limit imo as I was pretty drained around fight 16 and started making stupid mistakes even with taking small breaks every 3-4 fights…
GGs Sol64! Sorry about that end game crit.(it was a damage roll to ko btw)
Pachirisu!
Ended Day 1 15-5, can’t really complain about that. 163x rating and hoping to improve on it for Day 2
Had a lot of fun and really loving my team, hopefully I’ll get to play some of you guys later!
Also, Greninja. Greninja everywhere.
Not bad for me — 13-7. I made some stupid mistakes in my losses but overall, I played pretty well. I had three DCs on me so my actual games played record was 10-7. Live and learn, I guess. I would have won two of the dcs, but the third one was at team preview!
There was a start and end time? Woops. I just woke up and still need to ev one of my Pokémon.
I’m eving and levelling 5 of mine ;D
Went ahead and maxed out my Kangaskhan’s happiness, forgot to take off the soothe bell. #top8USNatsorbust now….
Finished 15-5 for today, not bad for someone without much experience in competitions like these.
Using Zach’s Spreadsheet (thanks for sharing the spreadsheet with everyone, it’s really good), the Pokémon that were in most teams as of right now were:
Garchomp > In teams 8/20 times
Gardevoir > In teams 6/20 times
Manectric > In teams 5/20 times
Lucario / Aerodactyl / Azumarill / Mawile > In teams 4/20 times
Hope this helps those of you who haven’t battled yet.