2014 VGC Championship Points, Invite Structure, and Regional Prizes Revealed
The official Pokémon website just updated and just about everything we’d been waiting for in regards to this year’s tournament structure has been revealed. Information revealed in the last update hasn’t changed, but we do have some new information and clarifications.
2013 Pokémon World Championships
Let’s start with the carry-over from last season. The top 2 players from last year’s World Championships will be receiving a fully paid trip with invite to the 2014 Pokémon World Championships in Washington, DC just as they have for the last several years. However, this year, the rest of the Top 8 will be receiving prizes for this season as well:
- 1st – 2nd: Travel Award and Invite to Worlds 2014
- 3rd – 4th: Invite to Worlds 2014
- 5th – 8th: 120 Championship Points
Earning an Invitation to Worlds 2014
Like last season, players in North America and Europe will once again need to be among the top players with Championship Points in their region and age division to receive an invitation to the World Championships. This number will be Top 32 in Europe and has been increased to Top 16 in North America.
Championship Points will be calculated for this on July 10th, 2014 — after all National Championships in Europe and North America have been completed. This is the time at which Championship Points from Worlds 2013 will be added. If a player who already has an invitation from placing in the Top 4 at the 2013 Pokémon World Championships is in the Top 16 or 32, their invite will be passed down to the next eligible player.
Players who do not have an invite via the normal qualifying methods can play in the Last Chance Qualifier that will be held in Washington, DC the day before the 2014 World Championships officially start. Four Players in each age division will qualify through this tournament.
Travel Awards, Stipends, and Byes
Unlike previous years, this year’s travel awards to the World Championships and US National Championships will also rely on Championship Points. The players with the most Championship Points at the end of the 2014 Spring Regional Championships will receive one of the following awards to the 2014 US National Championships in Indianapolis, IN:
- 1st – 16th: Travel Award, $300 Travel Stipend, 1 Round Bye
- 17th – 32nd: $700 Travel Stipend
- 33rd – 64th: $350 Travel Stipend
On July 10th, 2014 after all National Championship Points have been added along with Championship Points added from the 2013 World Championships, players will receive the following awards to the 2014 World Championships in Washington, DC:
- 1st – 4th in North America: Travel Award
- 1st – 16th in Europe: Travel Award
A Travel Award consists of a paid flight and accommodations to the event.
Championship Points
The amount of Championship Points you earn at this year’s season’s events will differ from last season. Please pay close attention as many criticisms from last season’s system have been addressed!
Select Online Competitions
| Placement | Points |
| 1 | 10 |
| 2–8 | 8 |
| 9–16 | 4 |
| 17–64 | 2 |
| 65–128 | 1 |
Regional Championships
Best Finish Limit: 3
| Placement | Points | Kicker |
| 1 | 120 | 0 |
| 2 | 110 | 0 |
| 3–4 | 90 | 0 |
| 5–8 | 70 | 0 |
| 9–16 | 50 | 0 |
| 17–32 | 30 | 64 |
| 33–64 | 10 | 128 |
| 65–128 | 5 | 256 |
National Championships
| Placement | Points | Kicker |
| 1 | 480 | 0 |
| 2 | 440 | 0 |
| 3–4 | 360 | 0 |
| 5–8 | 210 | 0 |
| 9–16 | 150 | 0 |
| 17–32 | 90 | 0 |
| 33–64 | 30 | 128 |
| 65–128 | 15 | 256 |
2013 World Championships
| Placement | Points |
| 1 | 600 |
| 2 | 550 |
| 3–4 | 150 |
| 5–8 | 120 |
A best finish limit of 3 means only your top 3 placings at Regional Championships will count.
Regional Prizes
With travel awards depending on cumulative Championship Point counts, Regional prizing has shifted:
1st Place
- A Pokémon VG Regional Championships 1st Place award
- A Nintendo 3DS system
- A copy of Pokémon X or Pokémon Y
- A combination of 72 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
- 120 Championship Points
2nd Place
- A Pokémon VG Regional Championships 2nd Place award
- A copy of Pokémon X or Pokémon Y
- A combination of 72 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
- 110 Championship Points
3rd & 4th Place
- A Pokémon VG Regional Championships 3rd or 4th Place award
- A copy of Pokémon X or Pokémon Y
- A combination of 36 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
- 90 Championship Points
5th Place through 8th Place
- A combination of 18 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
- 70 Championship Points
9th Place through 16th Place
- A combination of 9 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
- 50 Championship Points
17th Place through 32nd Place
- 30 Championship Points (if division attendance is 64 or greater)
33rd Place through 64th Place
- 10 Championship Points (if division attendance is 128 or greater)
65th Place through 128th Place
- 5 Championship Points (if division attendance is 256 or greater)
The Fall Regional Championships will use Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémon White Version 2. Regional Championships in Winter and Spring will use Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Please check this thread for the ruleset. Regional Championships are open to all.
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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66 Responses to 2014 VGC Championship Points, Invite Structure, and Regional Prizes Revealed
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It’s not about rushing things, it’s about knowing significant information beforehand and as Flash already pointed out knowing about our tournaments in time. Of course they probably won’t have a finalized schedule until December/January but it doesn’t hurt anyone to know at the beginning of the season that we will have three nationals with or without region lock in a certain period of time next year because that makes it way easier for everyone to plan their stuff.
Yeah if I know all the European dates for nationals, it will make it easier to schedule the time at work to attend 2 European nationals instead of just one. Attending 10+ VGC events in a season to buy your worlds invite takes a lot of planning and knowing the dates far in advance
Yeah, I do agree, But I think they’re more likely to give us the information all at once. All we know is that our Nationals will likely take place in the same time period (May/June), so my money is going to be on the same format as this year except a probably change of two-day events being introduced everywhere for Nationals.
Thanks TPCI
not liking? one Trip is now reserved in Europe by default and others have a huge advantage to get one, when we reallly only get 3-4 nationals.
its more a money race then ever -.-
I like these changes.
Does anyone know if there are restrictions on the best finish limit? I was just wondering because it would be interesting if someone was able to attend all three fall regionals, perform well at each, and then not have to worry about the format change until US nationals. (Not that I think anyone would actually do this, but it’s an interesting hypothetical.)
The best finish limit is 3 for Regionals, you can go to as many as you want, but they will only count your best 3.
Man, NA is looking awesome this year.
Why didn’t I emigrate???Especially the regional prize support is humongous — everyone who is decent at this game basically has a fair chance of winning something that they can at least sell. And we most likely still have to put up with a nats marathon crapshoot with small cuts, less rounds, insane byes and possibly also much fewer prizes because the money already goes towards the trips that will be as hard to win as 2012… And with how the 2012 system has been “proved successful” with Vancouver’s results, I’m afraid they see no reason to change much for us. No doubt about that they do get the best players at a certain point in time, which is basically also what Worlds does, if you will…I’d likely be more excited about the changes if they’d announce a Fall Regional site that’s less than 11 hours drive away from my house. I suppose there are a number of Fall “dead spots” in the county, and I expect the Southeast will be represented in the Winter and Spring, but given the unknowns of X & Y, it’d be nice to get some points in the Fall. Any chance that Richmond will end up being in the Fall this time since Toronto is apparently switching till the winter? We flew to Houston last year, which was costly.
I know that most are glad we don’t have “stackable” travel prizes/awards this year, but at least in the lower age groups, that could cut down on parents’ willingness to travel. The stackable prizes from Regionals are the only thing that allowed some Worlds qualifiers without Worlds money to make it to Vancouver, as North America receives too few Worlds travel awards. I don’t expect much sympathy on this point, as there’s always going to be more who want a share in the prizes, but it is costly to make it to even one Regional per season, and the current structure pretty much requires season-wide participation. One has to invest to get to the Regionals, of course, and the only way I stomached Europe’s high number of Worlds travel awards last year was by noting that N.A. received a ton of Nat’l funds and could use excess funds (from stacking) to help fund a Worlds trip. For top level players (those capable of a Top 4 in two regions), the new prize structure will likely mean less overall travel support, though this is probably more impactful at the Juniors and Seniors level. More will get a piece of the pie, which is fair, but under this new distribution, North America should receive more Worlds travel awards.
yeah i would agree with scott that there are definitly more incentives to keep trying even if you one bad event or even a few bad games in an event.
over all im looking forward to the new season and trying a lot harder to do well and attend events
also it will be interesting to see which players are and are not able to adapt to the new enviroment after the X an Y release
Pretty sure the Fall Regionals are now set in stone and there won’t be any more. So what we have now is what we are stuck with for Fall.
Now that I am in charge of a Junior player I do agree with you with the lack of stacking for the lower age groups. It is nice that more kids have a chance to get money and not the same 6 or so kids who win every event, but overall it could cause problems with having to lug entire families across the country. And as you said with the current structure so reliant on going to multiple Regionals each successive Regional means more and more out of pocket for the families with less payoff each time. Again the spreading the wealth may go to retain or introduce new younger players to the game so I am really conflicted on what I really want to see.
I also agree with you on the Worlds Travel Awards. 16 for Europe and 4 for NA seems really tilted in favor of Europe there. For those of us on the West Coast getting to Nationals and even some Regionals is a big cost, we can’t exactly drive to some of these events to mitigate cost and we most certainly cannot drive to Worlds this year. I’d like to see 8 Travel Awards to Worlds for NA though we haven’t seen that number in several years so I doubt that change will ever be made.
Hopefully the year turns out just fine, but I can see my wallet suffering a lot more than years past trying to get to a good position to qualify for these Travel Awards.
People are seriously going to complain about only being able to win one free trip to nationals?
Winning or topping a regional nets you hundreds of dollars in prizes (tax free). And you can potentially earn a free trip + $300 on top of that? If you win 2 regionals you should easily have $1000 to put towards worlds ($300 from nats + $700 in regionals prizes)
I’m liking the changes they made for this year. It would be nice if we could get some info about European events a bit earlier this year though. It’s nice to see some great UK seniors graduating to masters too
as if it wasn’t hard enough to try and top cut already.
I would try to get clarification if you’re still eligible for a Travel Award this year. From the way the official page is worded, you might not be…
I don’t think force is the word you were looking for here… In any case, I really, really doubt they have finalized plans on the European circuit. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about TPCi by being both a TCG and VGC player, it’s that they will not make an official statement until everything is finalized. And by finalized I mean finalized. I still don’t know where my Regional venue is and that’s happening in about 5 weeks. I don’t know what League Challenges will be worth, cost, or anything and that’s also coming up soon. This is not Europe getting the short end of the stick. This is what we unfortunately have to deal with when it comes to Pokemon and their very careful legal department.
I’ll give you my best estimations on how Europe will play out. I know the big question on many of your minds is if you’ll get Regionals this year. I don’t think you will because it’s probably too late. Check your local TCG websites and such to see when their dates are. European Fall Regionals happen from October 26th to December 1st. I think we’d have heard something by now if you were getting Fall Regionals.
Winter Regionals in Europe do not exist. Spring Regionals would take place March 1st to April 27th. Again, I have a feeling Regionals won’t be used yet, but that’s when they take place if you’re looking out for them.
As for Nationals, they will take place between May 3rd and June 30th this season. From what I heard from a few people at UK Nationals, they wanted to do a Spanish National but weren’t able to due to schedule/venue issues and probably because there’s no established organizer there. If Spain can happen this year, then I think Europe will have 4 Nationals. My prediction is 0 Regionals, 4 Nationals and hopefully a Best Finish Limit of 3. I also hope VGC will be Saturday + Sunday with TCG moved to Sunday because of the attendance difference in Europe.
This information is all based off what we already know from TCG. You guys had a year of this format already. You were at the events. Make friends with the organizers. TPCi no longer runs these tournaments directly. They do them through their partners. The fall regionals were only officially announced by TPCi yesterday. We knew them before because we pay attention to our local Pokemon areas.
I don’t know German or Italian so I’m not going to search through all the websites to double check, but I would bet on the venues being the same again too. Usually TCG organizers stick to the same places unless they are too small.
A couple of thoughts:
1. I’m incredibly ecstatic over getting my invite already and it was a really nice treat! I’ve been wishing for Top 4 Worlds getting invites since, and I’m glad I got Top 4 in the year they decided to extend the invites down, haha. I know Chris mentioned to me that he didn’t want top players sitting out the season, but don’t worry, I’ll be around for at least three Regionals and Nationals! Also opens up another spot for someone in the top 16
2. I don’t understand why Worlds Top 4 get any CP at all. In my opinion, they should be given 0 CP (but a guaranteed invite for the top 4, trip for the top 2). I want to point out a specific line in the CP page on the Pokemon website: “Travel Awards and invitations that would be awarded to a position on the Championship Point standings that one of these Top 4 players occupies will pass down to the next eligible player.” What’s the point of getting CP if the line before that states “Players who finished in the Top 4 at the 2013 Pokémon World Championships will receive their designated rewards regardless of their final Championship Point standing?”
It’s a bit unfair that 3rd/4th can’t win a travel award to Worlds at all given the current information, and while this doesn’t really affect me given how close Worlds is to where I live, it’s huge for Ben Gould who lives over in Europe. Pokemon should get rid of CP for the Top 4 overall, give them invites that are separate from CP invites, and let them play the normal season out. If they are in the top after US Nationals, pass the invite down to the next person, and if 3rd/4th from Worlds are eligible for a trip, give them the trip and pass the invite down. I’d be pretty concerned if I were Ben right now.
Otherwise thank you so much, this was the best surprise I’ve ever had playing this game.
3. Trips/money being tied to CP is a super neat idea. Scott already has touched upon this but now a lot more people will be winning money. It is very realistic to be in the 33rd-64th range if you can just perform well at two Regionals (Top 16 two/50 CP each), and your chances are even higher if you attend three (Top 32 three/30 each). Play in a few Wi-Fi tournaments to stay on top and you’ll be coming out with some money for sure. This was announced earlier but I think it’s important to stress that a lot more players will be winning prizes now, and I’m all for that.
4. Regional prizes are AWESOME. I’m a huge fan of the new additions and they are why I will be taking Fall Regionals seriously even with an invite already. It’s great to see the 3DS being reintroduced back into the prize system, and a copy of X/Y for the top 4 is even neater. TCG boxes are also easy to sell, and you are almost guaranteed to be in the Top 32 / win $700 if you just win one regional and play in a few Wi-Fi tournaments. I want to address Maestro’s point earlier on because I think it’s a good one, but there are a couple of things I want to put my perspective on:
While it is true that travel allowances do not stack up now, I think you underestimate how much the prizes for the top are worth. I’ll use my season and Brendan’s season from 2012-2013 as a benchmark to show how much we won last year/how much we’d win under the new system, since we profited a significant amount after Regionals and allowed us to convince our parents to attend Worlds without a trip.
Brendan:
1st Philly – Trip/hotel to Nationals
1st Virginia – $750 (trip passed down to 2nd)
2nd Mass – $750
Aaron:
1st Mass – Trip/hotel to Nationals
2nd Philly – $300
Total: 2 trips/hotel rooms at Nationals, $1800. (One hotel room later sold for $400)
How much cash made: $2200
Under this new system…
Brendan:
1st – 3DS, 2 boxes, Pokemon X, 120 CP
1st – 3DS, 2 boxes, Pokemon Y, 120 CP
2nd – 2 boxes, Pokemon X, 110 CP
360 CP = Trip/hotel to Nationals + $300
Aaron:
1st – 3DS, 2 boxes, Pokemon X, 120 CP
2nd – 2 boxes, Pokemon Y, 110 CP
250 CP = Trip/hotel to Nationals + $300
Assuming we can sell a box for $80, a 3DS for $130, and the new games for $25 (all reasonably low prices)
Total: 2 trips/hotel to Nationals, 3 3DSes, 5 copies of X/Y, 10 boxes, $600
How much cash made: $300 for selling a hotel room, $390 for the 3DSes, $125 for the games, $800 for the boxes, $600 = $2215
We would have made a bit more if all the things we won sold (which I expect it would given how much in demand they are, these aren’t playmats/hats we’re talking about), and I gave some low prices for all 3 things. Of course, this is factoring in two people instead of one, so we get extra for selling a hotel room, but you can see that you are not losing as much money as you think you are. To put this into Maestro’s perspective, since your son had the same run at Regionals as my brother:
2013: Trip/hotel to Nationals, $1500
2014: Trip/hotel to Nationals, $300, 2 3DSes, 6 boxes, 3 games ($260+$480+$125) for a total of $1165
No doubt there is a loss of $335, but I think coming out of Regionals with an extra $1165 is nothing to scoff at, it would certainly pay a considerable amount for a Worlds trip. Not to mention you come out with a significant amount of CP after Regionals, which will make getting Top 4 in NA CP easier. Obviously Top 4 in CP is not an easy task at all, but getting 350 CP post Regs is a huge head start.
HOWEVER that being said I really feel for you and your family on Regional locations, it stinks that they’re all so far away from you and I wish Pokemon would center it so each Regional would have one that is reasonable to drive to, since you bring up a great point that you are kind of stuck doing X/Y and don’t get a chance at BW2 without dishing out money to spend for trips. Winning money seems really sweet but not as much when you have to put a lot into attending these tournaments in the first place. Hope your family gets to attend a few, Brendan and I would love to see Tristan and Klara back at Worlds!
BASICALLY I THINK the new prizes encourages everyone to try their best, awards showings that are not towards the top, and you can sell all the winning items for a nice amount. Besides I think it’s a lot cooler to be given a whole bunch of neat stuff instead of “Oh, congrats, you won Regionals! Here’s a plastic brick, some forms, a Scrafty playmat, and a hat”
(also hoping they make new trophies, or even replace the Regional logo on it for a neat looking Pokemon.)
5. New CP structure looks good, I’m glad they listened to us and put a lot more weight into Nationals. Looking forward to seeing how this impacts the circuit.
6. HUGE props to AZ and Pokemon for getting this information out so soon. I wish I knew about my invite before booking my ticket to California but I look forward to taking it easier there and hanging out with all my friends I don’t get to normally see. I really think I am watching competitive Pokemon grow before my eyes and seeing the Worlds stream this year and now all these changes gives me a lot of hope for the future of this game. Thanks a ton to the work you all put in, this is really setting up to be the best season by far.
Rambled a bit much there, but I think I touched on my reaction to all this news. Looking forward to seeing you all in Cali/Philly next month!
3rd/4th from Worlds have already locked up an invitation regardless of Championship Point level. If they are ranked at the end of the season such that they would be in the top 16 in Europe or Top 4 in North America they will receive their Travel Award. I tried to make this concept clear with the wording that only a ‘designated’ reward will cause a pass-down.
Makes a lot more sense now, thanks
I just wish the CP trip thing came a year earlier so I’d have something to complain about bubbling from 2013
Wow, this system is a lot better of the 2013 one, for both the American and the European region (and I was alredy quite satisfied this year after the introduction of the swiss+top cut tournaments in Europe) and even if all this doesnt affect me in any way I’m still very happy to see how tpci heavily improves the qualification system year by year.
I mean, I really cant be happier: I was indeed discussing about this topic with someone one month ago in Vancouver, and I remember I said that the best thing that could be done in Europe this year would have been to give travel awards with championship points, instead of the top x like it has been done so far.
This introduction is furthermore supported by an adjustment of the cps won at nationals, now there is no longer an abyss between the top8 and the top4 cps, and this is huge.
I also love the fact that it’s alredy announced that the invites will be what will be, therefore hopefully avoiding surprises like the Birmingham one ,even if it was not a news undesirable at all for somone…, and even if I still dont see why Europe should have SO many invites more than NA (I was told that the invites should be a exponentiation of 2, but still…why?!)
the other new introductions and adjustments are amazing as well: like travel awards and prizes given at Regionals.
Also
I really want to point out this quote from Firestorm. It’s perfectly feasible and it’s what I did in Italy. The organizers can give the infos in a considerable advance making easier to book flights and stuff.
Realized a bit earlier that my http://nuggetbridge.com/forums/topic/2295-2014-vgc-championship-points-invite-structure-and-regional-prizes-revealed/page-2#entry44619 may have been seen as complaining about the new system. I in fact really love the new system for VGC as a whole, my sister (Maylee/Maykiri) is in a tiny minority that this really affects. Regardless even then it affects her so very little that my complaints about the system are almost nonexistent.
Breaking down last year to this year and it is comparatively close:
2013: Trip+$750 for a 1st and 2nd Regional
2014: Trip+$300+$310 potentially from merch for a 1st and 2nd
Basically $750 vs $610 which isn’t something major to complain about. The problem does come when she does a 3rd Regional and assuming she got 2nd there $1500 vs $920 is a much more drastic difference. However where that difference is made up is that I can now earn money without getting top 2 at a Regional. Assuming I got $700 which is where I landed pre-Nats the difference is entirely made up and we in fact come out on top as compared to previously, $1500 vs $1620.
I do have the luxury of being able to play at a relatively high level compared to other Pokeparents to make up this difference, but I feel like the number of people that this affects is so minuscule that it is not something even worth considering changing. The system is amazing for a much larger group of people and should surely help VGC grow, and as an admin of the top VGC website this excites me to no end. I’m looking forward to a bright future in VGC.
I’m so excited for these changes!!! Now I know for a fact that during a regionals season of there is more than one that is maybe 7 or so hours from me on different weekends ill definitely be going because the payout will be worth it if I just drive there for the tournament then leave instead of making a whole weekend out of regionals. In that case I can just save money and make more of nationals and worlds! I do think that more worlds travel awards should be given to European players since worlds is in the US and cheaper to get to for us, I expect it would be the same if worlds ended up being in Paris or the UK or something
@ alphazealot:
Is there anything you can tell us about the European circuit?
I like this new CP system it could give a chance for players like me who could only go to one event could pull off a worlds invite by playing through one regional, one national, and the wifi tournaments. This system will work. I was skeptical but I like it now.
Does the 120 CP from worlds 5-8th count towards the free trip to worlds? (It appears it does from my interpretation of the rules)
If not it would be better to finish 5-8th then 3-4th at worlds. I would rather have 120 CP to work towards a free trip than to receive a worthless invite that you might not be able to use.
I don’t think this will be a big deal for Aaron but for European players it could be very costly. Imagine if WINNING your top 8 match at worlds lost you 120 CP and thousands of dollars.
Matt read above, 3/4 CP counts toward a trip but not an invite. 5-8 counts for both a trip and an invite. Don’t get 1-2 get CP still though.
I didn’t read the part where it said that top 4 at worlds get CP in addition to the invite.
That is complete bullshit. 450 CP is basically a free trip, but you screw someone else out of getting a free trip.
TPCi is biased towards cybertron. If I got 3rd, I would have gotten like 10 CP and no invite.
This has been a very helpful discussion (thank you Cybertron and makiri), and I agree that this year’s changes are overall very positive moves. I still wish that N.A. got more travel awards for Worlds, but I’m really happy Worlds will be on the east coast this year. We sold the farm to get my son to San Diego in 2011, couldn’t afford Hawaii in 2012, and then got tons of help from Pokemon to get to Vancouver. DC will be a much more affordable trip for us (even if we’re just heading for the “last change qualifier”), and it’s another great destination. Like others, we’ll have to weigh how much travel we can afford for Regionals, but bottom line, while I may have my wish list, I remain very grateful for the benefits we’ve received the last several years. Pokemon has been very generous to us, and they’re offering a great range of travel/prizes this year.
Matt if I had the option to start this season with 0 CP but an invite I would, there are others who need a trip a lot more than me since Brendan has one
Not saying it is your fault. Saying that the way the system is made is dumb.
This just looks like trickery of TPCi because in actuality they are giving you a free trip for 3rd, and now only giving 3 trips to the rest of the north America. It doesn’t help that this years rules and CP amount were not disclosed until after worlds. They could essentially make the rules to give or not give free trips away to certain people.
Are any of the seniors who got 3/4th graduating into masters?
Maybe I am just bitter on behalf of all the people who didn’t get Grimer the next year for getting top 4 at worlds.
Also, you should just finish top 4 in CP before worlds CP is added in so it doesn’t matter
Neither drizzleboy nor brian H are graduating,
but that makes seniors division even harder.