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!
Related Posts
Nugget Bridge Update →
GS Cup Announced as Pokémon’s 2016 Ruleset →
2016 Pokémon World Championships Date & Location Surfaces →
NPA News: Season 4, Week 1 →
76 Responses to 2015 VGC Championship Point Breakdown and Season Outline Announced
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
what if you live in an area of the U.S, where it is not feasible to expect even PCs in your area? bottom line this new system rewards deep pockets and people who can travel around the country to attend 4-5 people PCs rather than good play at larger events, which is awful. Have you seen some of the attendance numbers for the PCs that have already happened some have only had 4-5 masters. also can you define “good finish at nationals” as that term is incredibly ambiguous
Not at all. If a Senior and Junior show up to a PC, and are the only Senior and Junior in the tournament, they will be paired with the Masters (need at least 6 Masters to make 8 total), and at the end of the day, no matter the record (0-4, 1-3), the Senior and Junior will both end up 1st in their age division. 40 CP a piece! If you live in an area where more Seniors and Juniors show up, then you might play and get no points while battling a very competitive group. If you live in the Northeast, good luck winning! If you live in dead spots where there are no PCs (and few TOs), good luck getting to a PC tournament! There are disproportionate opportunities. This is a reality. Call it a complaint if you like. I am fortunate to live in a small city that hosts a Regional (or at least that has the last several years). I have been very devoted to the game and competitions. More is not always better.
Jeez, I never knew you had to win games to get into World’s.
You can do this right now. As Hibiki said, people are doing it in Europe already (and it may be working as I see another four Italian TOs applying to host events already). I asked a few TOs in our area to apply as well so we can have more events (and I can play in the ones I don’t need to run!).
Look for leagues or tournaments in your area and use the contact info to email or call them: External
Let them know about Premier Challenges and that you can help them every step of the way. Tell them the information is on the Professor Forums that they have access to as a TO.
Where do you live that it isn’t feasible? Why should people who live far away from Regionals not have a chance to play in meaningful events in the circuit without traveling?
So clearly you should keep whining about Premier Challenges being too far away rather than talking to organizers nearby to see if they’ll host some. Especially given I think you’re someone who used to play in the TCG circuit, I’d think you have the contacts to find out who is willing to and can run them. How about becoming a leader in your community and helping run them yourself so your kids can play in more events and maybe even meet new kids who want to play in the local area? Otherwise, I guess you can wait until your kids are these mythical “college kids with money” you speak of.
That’s the problem they aren’t really meaningful events, they are for the most part incredibly small and the biggest ones will have at most 50 people attending them and that’s not even getting into the problems that come with essentially no timer for matches. also thanks for assuming I live in an area with no PC’s as I don’t, I live in southern California and have access to pretty much any event in northern California as well so this system actually benefits me. But I also realize that I am not the only person that plays the game and want as many people to have a chance to be competitive as possible and this system rewards those who can go to a ton of PCs rather than good play at Regionals.
I expect more than one Premier Challenge to get over 100 players. You live in Southern California and have access to a Regional next door. Anyone in my area without a passport has zero Regionals they can attend. The City Championship Series was super important in TCG for getting me interested in competitive play. I’m pretty happy the video game is starting to get something on that level because we need more local events in areas to get people playing in competitive environments. What I like most about Premier Challenges is that any area that has someone apply to get them actually gives a ton of chances to play. In the TCG, City Championships are restricted to a few for some areas (mine may not get more than two) whereas other areas get 8+ with a BFL of 4. A BFL of 5 with around 10+ per area is way better.
your right I agree that this system benefits me which is why I am not arguing for myself, rather for a good portion of the country that may have one or two PCs they can feasibly attend and one or two regionals. if PCs were available at an equal amount in each area I would agree this system is better but we live in the real world where their are places where due to population size, PCs are very scarce. also have you seen some of the recent PCs, their was one with 4 master and 4 seniors, just enough to qualify as a premier event at all, and winning that gives you 1/3 the cp as winning a regional with 500-1,000 players in attendance that’s a problem anyway you slice it.
Well, much of this is likely unfair to me, as the concerns about PCs are legitimate. I really don’t want to encourage them. Also, don’t think that every TCG TO is crazy about the PC idea either. The TO who organized a couple Georgia PCs last year was very disappointed in the turn-outs, and many TOs have their hands full organizing TCG events. I really have no interest in being pushy when it comes to PCs, but we’ll participate in them if possible.
Your “college kids with money” jab is fair, though I hadn’t meant to suggest I have illusions of such myth. Frankly, I don’t know how to explain some of the enthusiasm about the busy circuit. I don’t know how anyone (student or salaried employee) can afford to go to multiple Regionals (the days of stackable travel prizes seem long gone). Time and money? Not easy for anyone to find either and definitely not both.
As far as the leader in the community thing goes, there are many choices one can make to be a leader in the community (as I’m sure you know), and Pokemon, as fun as it is, is pretty far down that list for me. I like Pokemon because it’s something I can do with my kids. Well, my daughter doesn’t want to do it anymore, but it remains, for now, something I can do with my son. In the community, I’m more inclined to local education needs.
Please don’t take my exception to anything personally. I know that participation is voluntary, and that it’s not all about a dad with kids in Georgia.
I don’t really wanna pull a bunch of quotes here and get in a direct argument with anyone, but after talking to people the last few days and reading this thread I think there’s two general stances around the PC changes that I want to address. I’m still not sure what specifically my opinion on the big picture here yet. My potential complaints here mostly revolve around the implications on Worlds qualification, which we don’t have all the information on yet. However, I feel like I can probably help people understand the issues here a little better. This is pretty long, but clearly explanation is needed.
Many of the more dedicated players seem to be making the following probably incorrect leap of logic: Premier Challenges are worth more CP this year, and ostensibly they will be very important for Worlds qualification, so that must mean that [someone] thinks that Premier Challenges are going to be widely distributed and even in difficulty enough that they will be the fairest and most competitive way to distribute about 1/2 to 2/5 of top players’ CP earnings for 2015. I don’t think anyone holds that opinion — that’s not what it looks like the system is supposed to do to me. The system strong-arms grassroots growth and both makes it possible and almost necessary to play year-round by making local tournaments valuable. The lack of these factors in the past were clear weaknesses in the way VGC was setup — some of us commented as much in the season feedback thread. The way this year’s system is setup both makes events more accessible to increase grassroots growth as well as more frequent to help sustain interest in the game.
The local events being weighted the way they are basically forces all the people who care about the circuit to show up regularly if they want to be competitive. That constant influx of experienced players helps establish groups of regulars at Premier Challenges, which gives those contacts to new players and starts building local communities. VGC has had nice growth the past year especially, but it was primarily because of one-time events like game releases and the dawn of streaming we can’t count on over the long term. Sustainable growth comes from healthy, self-sufficient local communities. At this point, VGC’s dedicated fanbase beyond that of Pokemon itself basically just has online communities like us (as Nugget Bridge) and few communities based in other languages, and we’re all very spread out geographically. We are good for sustaining the community at large at the size it is now in that regard — we keep the most dedicated players connected. To get more consistent attendees, in addition to advertising as often mentioned, VGC has to have more accessible events. New players aren’t going to want to travel 200 miles for a Regional unless they’re already very interested. It is not very viable to significantly expand Regionals. It is viable to have smaller tournaments in more locations, which is probably why we see this focus on Premier Challenges. It definitely isn’t the same feeling going to a PC with a dozen people as it is to go to a Regional, but it’s an experience that can be brought to more players.
The other thing about Regionals is that if you don’t fly or drive an outrageous distance, you get anywhere from zero to two events per year, depending on your definition of an outrageous distance. That’s an awful lot of weekends of no Pokemon for most people, which is going to lead to them moving on to other interest. Contrary to the complaints in this thread about the horrors of having to play more than three weekends per year, I feel very comfortable making the assumption that more people are turned off by the previous situation, where there were very, very few opportunities to play in real life for most players. To get more consistent attendees, VGC has to have more frequent events. Without events, people are going to spend most of their time with other hobbies, and when the next Regional comes around, maybe they just don’t care enough to bother. Getting more local events, especially every few months the way Premier Challenges are setup, makes people a lot more likely to stick with it. Maybe getting to play two weekends every three months on top of a Regional keeps players more interested even if they aren’t taking advantage of those big CP payouts because they get to enjoy more events. Maybe those experiences get them to travel to Regionals they wouldn’t have otherwise or play for more years than they otherwise would have. Even though those players probably aren’t chasing stipends, the fact that many of the people reading this post will be is putting players in seats at those events and giving those potential players something to be part of.
Is so much weight on Premier Challenges what I think is the best way to qualify players for Worlds? Almost definitely not, but it is what is going to get people going to Premier Challenges and building the game on the local level. It’s probably what’s best for VGC.
It is a misconception I am seeing that people think the Premier Challenges meaningfully make money an important part of success for players in the circuit. For the most part, they actually alleviate the benefit of spending a lot of money. What they do is increase the time investment. You know what does make the game revolve around money? Having Regionals and Nationals as the only real sources of CP. Even just hitting your Best Finish Limit on Regionals basically requires you to fly at least once, twice from many locations. That’s before considering playing in more than three to improve your CP totals, which many of the most dedicated players did. That’s where the financial end plays a huge factor. There’s a reason I basically accidentally got the 700$ stipend last year even when I was sandbagging because I figured I’d probably be commentating Nationals and Worlds. It really is that much of an advantage to get to play in more events. Pay2Win was a pretty real issue before outside of the National tournament level in North America.
Premier Challenges are not a significant monetary burden. Costs are going to vary — probably especially the first half of this season in particular while the infrastructure of tournament organizers is built up and people get used to where events are located — but once we have a network of events like the TCG has most players aren’t going to need to travel to any events farther than a couple hours away to hit their Best Finish Limit. You can hit it on a single organizer over the course of a season, and most people are going to have at least a couple within a driveable enough distance that hotels shouldn’t be getting involved. You end up with some pretty cheap events that way, compared to the previous situation where you absolutely had to use a plane just to hit your Best Finish Limit, and as people love pointing out, Regionals weren’t equivalent in difficulty either. Most of us don’t have Regionals anywhere near us. For instance, my closest is over four hours. Of course people around where I live aren’t going to get into the game very frequently, and you’ll notice on the CP rankings there’s always almost no one from Michigan at all. Pockets like the areas around where I live will likely benefit a lot by having closer events for people to try the game.
On a related note: If you are serious enough about Pokemon that you want to contend for the World Championships, having to spend a couple weekends on it every few months shouldn’t be an overwhelming expectation to you. Ignoring that if you’re playing for Worlds you probably enjoy the game enough that you should like playing in events to begin with (and if you don’t, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your hobbies a little), all these other hobbies people mention that compete for time occur a lot more frequently than the five weekends per year you had to play in the system before last year. If I was serious about soccer I wouldn’t expect to play one tournament only every three months to qualify for a National Championship and I wouldn’t expect to play one tournament period to make the World Championship. That would be ridiculous: why would you expect something else from Pokemon? I know I am getting old now, but when I was young we tended to play awfully frequently at the local level before trying to qualify for bigger and bigger events. Yes, if Pokemon is more frequent some people are going to have make choice. I like both chocolate and strawberry ice cream, but sometimes I have to pick one or the other.
The time investment here is still very reasonable. The realistic BFL in NA is now 9, with 5 Premier Challenges, 3 Regionals, and a National tournament. I expect most dedicated players will exceed that. Players who were doing Nationals but not 3 Regionals will probably be advantaged in this system, because Premier Challenges by design will be much closer to most players than a second (or usually first) Regional and thus a bigger portion of the available points are accessible. 9 weekends per year is still only like 1/6 of your weekends per year, which is still a lot less than I spent on the sports i played when I was younger and not something that seems especially unreachable to me if I enjoy Pokemon and want to play it with some degree of seriousness.
I don’t think time is a big issue here. I don’t think the focus on grassroots events is off-base. I’m not sure I’m going to like what all of this does to Worlds. I think it’ll be good for long term game health and that a lot of people are overreacting without thinking very much.
after sleeping on this I definitely overreacted to the new Weighting of CPs. for the long term when we get more events it sounds actually cool to have a local competitive scene like the TCG. hopefully we get alot of them for this season. my only issue now is with the absence of a viable timer, because now garbage,verlisify caliber strategies can actually do well at these events.
Scott, Firestorm, captain feathersword, and all have made great points. If we begin to see more evenly distributed PCs (as we very well may) and when we get more rules information (CP cut score for Worlds?, Worlds invite structure, Nationals/Worlds locations, travel award prizes), then a lot more of us may get fully on board. Just wish we had all the details now, and I suppose I am by nature skeptical when details that seemingly could be available aren’t. That could all change later today, later this week, later this month, later this year–with more announcements from Pokemon.
As far as growing the game goes, I suppose I’m skeptical there too, as I don’t fully understand the intent when the Pokemon video games are such high sellers. Perhaps there’s more marketing value in the VGC circuit than I understand, but to me, the competitions seem more a nod to fans than they are a money generator. I’m grateful the competitions are available, and I fully understand that Pokemon has every right to structure competitions in a way that promotes their products and makes sense to their bottom line.
For the most part, I am excited for the changes in Cp for Premier Challenges. I know that living in California means I get the honor to possibly face Makiri, King of Mars, Huy, and other great players at these small events. So I don’t expect any “free Cp” this season. Hopefully they announce how people will be getting their invites to worlds this year because I want to shoot for a worlds invite this season.
I should note I do agree about the timer thing being a big problem. The timer being a win condition makes it really important for it to be consistent among all CP events. It isn’t really the same game if the timer isn’t there because it changes the strength of some playstyles. Even teams that stall more conventionally but play to timer more tend to be less powerful without a timer because in normal events winning is being ahead at 15 minutes, not having to knock out four Pokemon. It’s one thing to make a different team choice for a local event because it’s more appropriate for a local metagame (and people should be doing this), but it’s very much another to have to change teams because the rules can’t be emulated locally properly.
I don’t think there’s a fix on the tech end of this yet to automate this sort of thing in-game at the local level, unfortunately.
I did try and contact them however they wouldn’t cooperate. Guess I have to convince them really hard if I really want premier challenges in my region.
Let’s get something straight here: Last weekend’s tournaments were announced only a week in advance. In areas without much attendance to begin with, not much time to spread the word just kills things, ya know?
Combine that with the way growth works and May’s PCs should hopefully have notably better attendance than last weekend’s. If they are the same then feel free to freak out, though.
I really need to encourage tournament organizes or something for the Illinois area. I swear I didn’t seen any event remotely local on the list which is really disappointing. The increase in CP warrants traveling farther for some of these but it’d really be nice to not have to drive three hours just for pokemon for once.