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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Hey Jamesspeed1 I think one of your wins was against me lol
Hey, I’m new here but after reading up on the site and forums for around 5 months now and with what I think is a good team by now I feel comfortable posting.
Being from PR, there really isn’t a VGC community that I am aware of so the May Invitational was a great way to get started on VGC.
I went 15W-5L on my first try at competitive VGC so all in all not bad.
I lost to some really unexpected moveset’s on some Pokémon. I faced a Sword Dancing Talonflame that destroyed my opening and a really creative team at that. But mostly I have been struggling with Mega Gengar teams, even though I EV’d some of my Pokémon to survive its Shadow Balls. I guess in the end always target the Mega’s first and worry about all the other things later (I tend to ignore Mega Gengar on the field for some reason).
In game I am Deseira and I am competing in the Masters division. So if any of you face me go all out! I am looking forward to the great learning experience this is turning out to be!
Dam my first battle on day 1 was a D/C win on team preview and it didn’t count. Yesterday I was told I exceeded my max. Today starting Day 2 it still says I had 19 games
Played against a DV Smeargle user… rather frustrating match, but they DC’d right after losing. They had incredible luck with sleep as it was, I don’t know why they would ragequit, especially since the battle was over anyway… but hey, a win’s a win. My goal here is just fixing up my team, and I’m hoping I can keep working my way up so I can start battling people that are better than me.
Ended up in the trenches after game one and struggled to break away from the batgrimer crazy metagame that is the 1400’s/low 1500’s
In the end i managed to win 10 on the bounce and finish day on around 1650 with a record of 13-3
16-4 for the day. Could have been more but Rock Slide is Rock Slide. Not gonna complain about that record.
Best story so far for me was match 20, in which I led my Kanga/Azumarill into Aromatisse/Slowking and went for a PuP and Belly Drum turn one. Opponent, fearing the Fake Out, Trick Roomed with both his mons… turns out I won that one.
I couldn’t think of a proper team in time, so I just copied Lajo’s german nats team. I’m not the best player out there, but his lead descriptions help so much and I did not face a single opponent who was prepared for trickroom. Definitely one of the best teams I have ever tried, so kudos to him.
My record right now is 12-0, though I didn’t face too strong opponents as of now (or at least they had no answer to this team). I think the reason I won more matches than usually is that I now actually have a plan on what to bring against most strategies out there. I might have played BraindeadPrimeape, but I’m not sure. Now hoping that my record will look similar in the end.
Funny stuff I’ve seen: Choice Specs Sigilyph, Quiver Dance Vivillon
hey, had a very close game with you yesterday.. gg =)
Finishing up Day 1 sitting at 1665 with 16-4 under my belt (would have been 3 but stoopid router kicked me out during team preview T___T). Managed to play a really intense game against Dozz, and he said I’m able to upload it after the tournament is over. Probably the highest ranking I saw tonight was 1776, so that’s pretty insane. Overall, it’s looking like a really nice tournament to be honest.
Bah. Second day started horrible. I double missed Rock Slide against charY and Talonflame, got flinched on Pulses and Slides, many crits and Ice Beam frozing a perfect predict switch and otherwise playing bad against real good teams. I’m right now at 18-10, having lost 5 of the 8 games I’ve already played today. Gonna work and do something to relax my mind, I’ll be back to playing way later, after I cool down.
I got into the tourney with low expectations, but I still want to end it with 45-15 or 40-20, so I have to really be careful, or I’ll throw it into the garbage bin.
Day 2: 8-2
Overall: 24-6
I’ll finish the rest of my 20 for the day tomorrow mourning. I had a good game against Dozz, pretty fast paced back and forth KO’s on both sides.
Sitting at 172X right now
I started the tournament bad at 3-2 but then went on a ten game win streak to 13-2. I played badly for two more games and now I’m sitting at 15-4
O gosh it was a person from Nugget Bridge “Hides from embrassment”. Sorry I had to time stall you. It was my only option to winning of course Aerodactyl has zero hope beating an Aegislash in a Sub. Great game though. Good for my learning
Bro is me Rated, the smash player! Good to see you play this, get at me at facebook. Maybe we could practice together sometime.
Finally someone I know plays it :’)
fair game.. i won some by timer as well
i misplayed the 2nd last turn.. if kanga had went protect i could have won the tie haha..
On another note: kinda disappointed that they dont let you save replays if your opponent disconnects..
Finishing up the first 24 hours of this tournament at 23-7 and about 1680. My worst loss of the night was to a Baton Pass Smeargle that I made the horrid choice of going for a paralysis instead of just taunting it before it ended up getting +4 evasion and then passing those stats onto a Water Spout Blastoise which ended up steam rolling the rest of my team. So far this has been some pretty great practice, realizing I need to start bulking up some of my mons.
Currently setting a few goals for myself: play abut 10 games per session twice in a day and if I reach 15 losses I’ll drop.
I went 12-8. Probably would have gone 11-9. I was getting bodied by a Mega Aerodactyl (didnt know it was a thing) but then it seems he had internet problems and disconnected. He was destroying me, it would probably a 4-0
Not bad.
I did fairly well in my first day 14-6 for my first time playing competitively, most of the losses were due to bad predictions on my part either on the the mons I brought or on a critical turn. The second day started out horribly, 3 losses right away, I was badly prepared for trick room and it destroyed me lol. The fourth battle was a good battle and winning it gave me a confidence boost. so far I’m 19-9.
Ended Up 31-6 with around 1770 Rating.
Because of this event, someone unjustly disconnected me from my own wifi network and Pokemon is banning me from all future events. Thanks for the crappy service, Nintendo. QUITTING. (And if you think it’s a good idea to send me rude messages, go ahead. I don’t give a crap about this game anymore.)
sorry about the misfortune but try sending them a ticket or something? im sure they will understand if you explain to them what happened
I’m just done. Not coming back and I think we all know what Pokemon’s reply would be: “We’re still banning you for using hacked files to compete in Pokemon VGC events.”
I cannot believe the number of Rocky Helmet Chesnaughts I battled yesterday. Is it the new meta? haha Will be signing on for my next round of 20 in a few.
sounds like you need some chill time. gl
*sigh*33 battles and I’m 22-11.I’m such a terriburu player.To be honest, I don’t even know why I’m doing this. >_>I don’t even need to do all the battles to get the Enigma Berry.This is gonna sound rude, but sounds like you’re bsing us here. Or at very least not telling us all you should be.
Wait, just for clarification, you can only battle up to 20 times in one day, for three days, bringing the total battles to 60, right?
I’m just confused ’cause the Global Link site says the tournament lasts 4 days… (May 16-19)
So far, I haven’t really got as much battles done. However, I did notice some, odd things. From Malamar & Gengar using Hypnosis all day to an Eeveelution team with Jolteon as the MVP. There was also one battle that I really should have lost due to a misplayed switch but I was about to capitalize because of timer stall at the end. I’ll probably make a Google file due to NinjaSyao sharing and getting my interest.
Lots of unusual teams on the 1st day for me.. my rating is higher now so i didnt see those as much today
I second that, very odd teams. Saw multiple toxic stall gliscors and physical aegislash’. Don’t be too hasty in trying to get your ranking up, it’s nothing but meowstic up here >_<