2015 VGC Championship Point Breakdown and Season Outline Announced
Today on Pokemon.com both the season outline and the breakdown of Championship Points awarded at events were announced. While we still don’t know exactly how players will be qualifying for the mysterious 2015 World Championships in location unknown, almost everything else about the 2015 North American European VGC circuits was revealed today.
Perhaps the most important change is the vast increase in scope and value of Premier Challenges. There is a FAQ about Premier Challenges on Pokemon.com.
The outline for the 2015 VGC season is as follows:
- September 2014: Premier Challenge Kickoff Series
- October 2014: Autumn Regional Championships (US only)
- November 2014–January 2015: Premier Challenge Alpha Series
- January 1, 2015: Format switches to Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire
- February 2015: Winter Regional Championships (US only)
- March–May 2015: Premier Challenge Omega Series
- May 2015: Spring Regional Championships (US only)
- April–July 2015: National Championships
The Championship Point values for the 2015 season follow. The kicker, when applicable, is how many players need to be playing in the event for the CP at that level to be awarded.:
Online Competitions
Best Finish Limit: None
| Placement | CP |
| 1–2 | 12 |
| 3–4 | 10 |
| 5–8 | 8 |
| 9–16 | 6 |
| 17–32 | 4 |
| 33–64 | 3 |
| 65–128 | 2 |
| 129–256 | 1 |
Important Note: CP is now global for Wi-Fi events instead of being a separate pool for each region. Players still need a Player ID to count for Championship Points.
Premier Challenges
Best Finish Limit: 5
| Placement | CP | Kicker |
| 1 | 40 | 0 |
| 2 | 32 | 0 |
| 3–4 | 26 | 0 |
| 5–8 | 20 | 16 |
| 9–12 | 14 | 32 |
| 13–16 | 8 | 32 |
| 17–32 | 4 | 64 |
| 33–64 | 2 | 128 |
Regional Championships
Best Finish Limit: 3
| Placement | CP | Kicker |
| 1 | 120 | 0 |
| 2 | 100 | 0 |
| 3–4 | 80 | 0 |
| 5–8 | 60 | 0 |
| 9–16 | 40 | 0 |
| 17–32 | 30 | 64 |
| 33–64 | 20 | 128 |
| 65–128 | 10 | 256 |
National Championships
Best Finish Limit: 5
| Placement | CP | Kicker |
| 1 | 600 | 0 |
| 2 | 500 | 0 |
| 3–4 | 400 | 0 |
| 5–8 | 300 | 0 |
| 9–16 | 200 | 0 |
| 17–32 | 150 | 0 |
| 33–64 | 100 | 128 |
| 65–128 | 50 | 256 |
We now have a much less foggy view of the 2015 VGC circuit in North America and Europe. To say there is a much greater focus on more local tournaments this year would be an understatement, so find your local Premier Challenges and support your local events! Let us know in the comments what you think about the 2015 schedule so far!
About the Author
Scott started playing VGC in 2011. He finished 17th at US Nationals, then lost in the final round of 2011 Worlds LCQ. He finished 10th in the 2012 World Championships and qualified for Worlds again in 2013 after going into US Nationals second in CP. Instead of playing, he commentated at US Nationals and the World Championships in 2013 and 2014. Follow him on Twitter @NBNostrom!
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40 CP for Premier Challenge Wins? Holy smokes!
I like it! This is exactly what we have been clamoring for in VGC since forever.
Maximum possible CP is 3560 now, assuming you win 5 nationals, 3 regionals, and 5 premiers. Not entirely sure that is realistic for North America though.
Winning 3 regionals and 5 PC is 560 CP, 1 regional and 5 PC is 360. You are going to have to do really well at regionals and premier challenges, or really really good at nationals to qualify for worlds.
I really hope we have a CP cutoff this year. Top 16 would be a bloodbath.
An important question: Since ORAS releases in November, and the Alpha Premier series will continue to use XY, will we be able to use moves that are exclusively taught in ORAS but not in XY in the Alpha Premier series?
Years past the answer has been no, but its important to ask now.
Wow is the BFL for Nationals really 5? Although this mainly affects European players, I’m curious to see what kind of impact this has.
Otherwise, the CP numbers appear that we may be heading towards a cutoff value rather than a Top X system for Worlds qualification. It’s just a hunch, but there is always hope.
Holy crap, it just went from being a maximum of 45 CP for PCs to 200 CP…. I like and don’t luke this new system.
Some interesting rearrangements of CP for this year.
The heavier weighting on Premier Challenges look like they are to try to help promote local scenes. Two worries, on opposite extremes I may have for this would be that boosting championship points will not really give much incentive to people entering the scene, or people who aren’t that serious for going for a Worlds Invite/other CP rewards. The opposite would be the extreme that the boost in weighting may cause some people to fly around to try to “prey” on what they may think will be low attendace Premier Challenges, or be forced to fly in simply because their location is really poor in terms of trying to reach PCs.
People are going to have to push really hard if they want more than 3 or 4 CP on a tourney. We’ll have to wrestle those extra points out of the hands of all the Japanese Players who are constantly topping the leaderboards. RIP, my record of consistantly being able to pick up 8CP per WiFi tourney.
It’s hard to say exactly what this will all mean for us as we do not know whether we are aiming for a CP Bar, or Top x CP placement for this year.
Time will tell…
Applications for Premier Challenge organizers are still being accepted. Ask your local tournament organizers if they are going to be running any. If they don’t know about it, explain what Premier Challenges are and ask them to check the Professor forums. This is very important if you want these events.
As usual I agree with Scott on his points about the structure of the circuit. I will assume tundra refers to Ontario and not Beautiful British Columbia :3
how many CP do you need to qualify for Nationals/Worlds?
^ we don’t know. In the past, it’s been the 16 with the most cp qualify, but we can’t say for certain if that might change to the kind of system you’re describing
I found out there was a league actually pretty close to me, so I emailed them asking about premier challenges. I think it would be a good idea for everybody to try to find some local TO’s and ask around, like Rushan said. I had pretty much no idea I had any local scene at all, so it’s worth investigating for everybody who feels like they don’t have anything near them. Try using External.
One of the issues in 2014 was putting too much value on one tournament. So what do they do? Put even more value on it!
I guess I don’t mind the Premier Challenges being worth more because they weigh down Nationals a bit, but inflating Nats CP was ridiculously dumb without also doing so for Regionals CP. Simon’s theory of “Regionals don’t matter” is slowly starting to become a reality…
Depending on flight prices, it might be more economical to go to Europe for a national or two than spend money on 5-6 regionals. Apparently top 32 at Nationals is 30 points better than winning a regional, and apparently top 64 at Nationals is as good as 2nd place at a Regional. Come on, really?
Also, External if you apply the new CP values to them (I didn’t bother with ICs) and add 3 top 4s at PCs to everyone’s points. So if we do get a CP bar, somewhere between 400 and 500 seems like a good number (would assume it’ll be 400 because of the new Nationals values, but 450 seems the most reasonable).
Nationals has been open entry since 2011, but we don’t technically know the answer to that one, either.
Since people only seem to read my posts when I do things like the first half of this post, I thought I would quote this in exciting bold rainbow colo(u)rs. To me, this is the brilliant part of the way the system is setup. You basically need Premier Challenges to have a shot at a good season without a huge Nats finish or LCQ… what better way to get players and organizers clamoring for more PCs? Smart way to get the grassroots happening.
One other thing. I know Texas has a couple Premier Challenges attached to their Regional. I don’t know if this would be a players-bug-organizers thing, a TPCi-needs-to-bug-organizers-thing, or a organizers-miraculously-do-this-on-their-own thing, but that becoming the norm would sure be good. Those PCs will be tougher than normal, but at least people get the shot at them when they’re travelling for Pokemon anyway, which both gives them better value and helps people who care to make sure they hit both BFLs. It’d be nice to see that sort of thing at all Regionals in the future.
I would definitely suggest this to people who are going to have to fly more than once anyway, assuming you can find an economical way to kill the week in the middle. I think the next step of us being eSports now is to get a sick rule that players have to stay in their own regions, but until we do have one…
0 CP to qualify for Nats.
Qualifying for Worlds will depend on whether we have a CP Bar or a Top X Cut for worlds invites.
The past two years had Top X Cuts of 274, and 308 CP. We do not know how much it would be for this year.
I’m in the middle of sending emails to a bunch of league coordinators in the area (and by area I mean 150 mile radius), but I can’t help but be a little miffed about this situation. Through a bit of luck, I’m financially in a position to grind the CP circuit this year, or so I thought. As a student at a university in Eastern Alabama, the closest PC to me is in Tampa, Florida and I really can’t justify a 7 hour drive for 40 CP. I’m already booked for the Philadelphia and Fort Wayne regionals, both of which obviously require flights, so flying again for a much smaller tournament worth 1/3 the CP isn’t a good option either.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that while it’s thrilling for the circuit to be expanding like this, it puts a lot of us in a bad position. Either spend an impractical amount of money to make it to as many PC’s and Regionals as possible, or be put in a pretty bad position when it comes to CP. I suppose if a CP bar was instituted this year the situation would be partially alleviated, just requiring top performance at the tournaments I am able to attend (which, frankly, would be a great motivation to be at my best). However, if I’m in direct competition for, say, the top 16 slots in North America, I’d be placed at a clearly unfair advantage compared to people that will have multiple PC’s within an a couple hours in just one season.
Like I said, I really am very happy to see this much growth in the VGC circuit. I’m just hoping the growth will continue to some of the more unreached areas of the country.
This past season I had to really consider whether or not driving 350 miles for a shot at 15 CP was worth the investment in time and money. That’s not an issue this season. While I can understand why some people are complaining about the change, I love it.
From what I know we have exactly 1 guy who can do premier challenges in germany. He chooses to have one the day before the Arena Cup in Berlin.
best finish limit of 5 seems terrible for europe, that’s almost as much as we have tournament organizers combined lol. I hope more people will apply, but it seems to be a pretty complex process to me, if you have never dealt with anything alike.
This may mean we could get more european nationals =]
To me, either CP from PC is overweighted, or Regionals are now underweighted. Regionals CP needs a bit of a boost to me, you mean I can win 3 PCs with maybe 30ish people at each and that’s the same as winning a 200+ person regional? Or 500 if you’re Cali lol. I dunno, guess we’ll see how it plays out. Like some others said, likes and dislikes here.
Would to be possible to switch to ORAS and allow ORAS at the same time as XY as transition period? XY might be at a disadvantage but that’s better than not playing at all. It lets people get the new game over time and at the same time allow players to use their new game during the hottest time period.
Wi-fi tournaments are probably still worth too little unless there are plans for like a dozen of them. While ghosting in the lower divisions is a potential problem due to the uncontrolled environment, the tournaments could probably be worth a bit more considering how much more CP Premier Challenges are adding to the system.
Which rating zones are the Latin America countries in? Some of them seem pretty far away to really count as North America. I also have the same question for any other countries that aren’t obviously in the NA or European region. I am very interested in seeing how Mexico is handled. I imagine a National level tournament is not just inevitable but has potential to show up this year due to essentially running a stealth Nationals last year under the name of “Premier Challenge”.
I know this comes up every year, but it feels like this year top 4 at Nats really might not be enough to qualify for Worlds assuming 16 invites in NA again.
As an aside, BFL for Nationals was 5 last year as well. That’s not actually new so don’t read into it too much.
I absolutely love what they’re doing with local scene and am in full support of this CP distribution. Still think regionals are worth too much but I’m ok with those numbers. The only thing that could possibly make this better is a CP bar.
Disregarding Simon’s theory that “regionals don’t matter” this is pretty clearly universally worse than last year
Where you live dictates so much more of how your season is going to go. If you live in the Northwest or Utah, congratulations you get 200 free cp. (I’d also like to congratulate my good friends Randy and Zach for getting their worlds invites!) However, let’s say you live in the northeast, specifically New York. If you live over there then your Premier Challenges are almost as tough as your regionals, and it’ll be a slaughter that results in few players getting a huge cp bump from them. This is probably the ideal, but when you add in pcs in super rural areas it does not work out well at all. Though I will say, if every premier challenge was like Vancouver, this wouldn’t be as bad. However, I happen to come from Socal (LA Specifically) Where our premier challenges hit around 16 people. Our Regionals? Over 500. So that means we have over 32 times the people at regionals than premier challenges, and they’re only worth 3 times as much, and we can go to more PCs than regionals, awesome.
Also wifi tournaments are now insanely low compared to everything else. Last season I thought that Wifi tournaments were weighted too little but oh man. Now if you win the tournament with the largest sample size which has all of the best players from around the world, you get the same cp as someone who got 12th in a 32 man premier challenge!
Finally, the scaling from nationals is pretty messed up. It works completely fine on the top side of things, but 100 cp for going 6-3 is pretty dumb especially considering that’s how much 2nd at regionals is worth
So can we please get the old system back, I’ll trade anything to get it back. Like you can even keep dark void smeargles which I’ll continue to lose to (0-4 for life) as long as we get a system that isn’t completely dumb
Or you live near in Massachusetts and never get Premier Challenges
Wait (yes people, you can call me a noob). You need CP points to qualify for worlds, even if you came first at nationals you still might not be able to qualify? I know you get these points through premier challenges and regionals but what happens if you don’t have PCs in your local area?
If you win Nationals, you automatically go to worlds.
that is not correct. At least last season, it was theoretically possible to whiff the invite even after the 480 cp you get from winning nats.
Ah, thanks for that, Haven’t been to an event in 2 years so haven’t really kept updated on how CP works.
So if you won both regionals and nats its highly likely you will be able to go to worlds
If for some reason you win nats and don’t go to worlds, there’s a flaw in the system. Nationals winners have and should always go to worlds, regionals is different but if you win a regional and do well the rest of the season then you should be good.
Ok sweet! Thanks. As everyone can probably tell I’m new to VGC and had absolutely no idea what was going on. Should be fine now though (hopefully… Maybe … Probably not… Nah kidding I’m fine
)
I hope PCs in an area try not to conflict with each other. I know it happened at least once last year.