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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So, I’m at 1630-ish. 14-6.
Mega Lucario put in more work than I thought it would, scaring out all those Megamoms, Ttars, Gardevoirs, and whatnot.
Feint was useful a couple of times, too, although I’m not too sure whether it’s worth running in the long-run… Well, too late for now.
But dammit, I feel like I did terrible. :<Just realised that battle box locks even without wifi connection and have Australia Regionals tomorrow…fml. Team is alright but still had last min changes for regionals.
Today have had 5 matches and they all seem to be in game teams. Hoax is very predominant every time I go for rockslide against charizard-y it misses every time and it’s the main one I need to hit lol
Pretty sure you can unlock your box via cancel participation.
After three D/Cs in a row I’ve learned that my home’s internet will be undergoing maintainence this weekend. Whelp looks like that’s it for me.
Timer stalling is such a cheap way to win though.
15-5 at this point.
Out of 20 matches, I’ve seen 8 charizards and 5 of them were Y-megas.
Should’ve brought my sunscreen…
Good that you won that match, but you gotta think from other side he did what he could do to win because that’s what we all want. But I know for my next team that’s something I do not want to happen
finished day 1 at 16-4. One of my losses was to a DC and the last one came down to a damage roll. Really really intense match, I should upload the video soon, mbe after nats
Yeah a win’s a win. We have a timer because literally no one wants to spend 30 minutes chipping your Ferrothorn or playing Sucker Punch-Return-Return-Sucker Punch with your Aegislash.
I finish day one 15-5, not bad.I’ve seen an eeveevolution team,a marowak and a mega absol and a non mega houndoom. Also good game to Danny, i’m Leonardo in game.
After seeing/hearing some of the things that happened yesterday (not gonna go into detail), I dislike the game limits even more, especially with it being so low. I finished all 20 battles, a few going close/to timer, I had finished in about 3 hours, not a whole lot of time in the grand scheme of a day. A few more battles wouldn’t have taken too much more time.
A. Any player who actually cares will find a way to put in the time for at least 100 battles if the limit was expanded to around 100.
B. The limits hurt those who are unlucky are in worse shape, or those who have a string of 3 or 4 bad/tough games (mostly their fault, but still).
C. It means less practice for a lot of players, especially with the special ladder being removed.
So my little boy went 16-4 in Juniors
Good start and promising for Manchester.
Now it’s my turn as he’s gone to bed lol
So my little boy went 16-4 in Juniors
Good start and promising for Manchester.
Now it’s my turn as he’s gone to bed lol
Wasn’t going to play, but then I ended up putting 6 things in the battle box and getting to work. Ended up 14-6 for the day, with 9 on the bounce to see out the day. Apparently when I figure out what I’m doing things sort of come together.
12-8
Eh, could’ve been better. But not bad considering I’m not really much of a competitive battler.
A few ill predictions on my part, a timer stall (he was locked into EQ and I had rotom W who just ran out of pp for hydro pump) Almost won due to confusion damage alone but … timer stall.
I didn’t know poison jab garchomp was a thing.
It isn’t, it’s just a small handful of people using it for bad reasons.
Are you kidding me? I LOVE watching Ferrothorn v Ferrothorn “RACE TO DA FINISH”s. It’s like watching snails race!
Not blaming the player, playing to win is the name of the game. Just irritated with Game Freak allowing that to be a possibly effective strategy. If Game Freak is so concerned with the length of matches, they need to design battle mechanics with that in mind. Being in a position that is guaranteed victory without a timer, but potentially losing simply because there is a timer is incredibly frustrating.
Went 16-4, saw a ton of Mawile and Kang. Bumped into QD Vivillion, level 49 Shell Smash Crustle, and Ally Switch/Heal Pulse Gardevoir partnered with Mega Garchomp.
Now to decide if I should go in with my modified Madison team or my gimmick-of-death team… To have fun or be serious…
15-5 after day one.
I “lost” twice thanks to my suddenly crappy internet connection, once due to time, once because I played poorly, and once because I was completely outplayed. All in all, not a bad day.
I played EmbC, which was the game I was completely outplayed. Not sure if I played anybody else. I played a Joey from Colorado, which is ringing some bells, but I might just be remembering wrong.
11-1 ’till the moment… I’m taking some breaks before doing battles… but I think I’m doing it well.
The only lost was for failing Draco Meteor (And I failed 5 of 7 at this time, my luck sucks)
My IGN is Danny from Mexico for whoever who meet me.
Went 9-5 after posting here, then I just lost again to effective Aerodactyl. He always get the job done.
Now I’m 9-6
Not doing as well as my son
lol
Currently 7-7 with 2 DC wins that haven’t registered (what’s the deal with that? They normally give you points on Battle Spot but don’t seem to in Tournaments!)
So today I finished on 13-7. Not one legit loss without some sort of hax. Well apart from one where I played my bro and lost on timer on the turn I was going to win >.<
This game, gotta love it haha
Running 16-4 with my Mega Gardevoir with 1600+ in the Masters Division. SCREW THE HATERS, YO!!! m/ m/
A Mega Char X team blew me up though. I would have lost if I didn’t get a flinch (I aimed for it though, so there’s at least that + it was the only flinch I got that whole match (too bad it was the only hax in the match at all)). I mean, my Garchomp was all ready for combat, and then BAM in my mouth. x_X
Also, I have a horrid weakness to rain teams…=/
Did said Zach have a Dragonite that knew Surf and a Politoed with Earthquake and Waterfall? We may have battled the same person.
I wasn’t able to play all 20 battles, but only 17, my current record is 14-3, pretty decent
All 3 teams I lost to, had Aerodactyl, hahaha
Aside from one CharX and one CharY, I’ve only faced M-kangas so far
15W-5L 3 Losses to hax, 1 dark void smeargle and 1 actual legit loss.
A loss is a loss no matter what it was against.