Japanese PGL Announces Christmas Cup and New Dream Park Details

Like department stores decorating for Christmas despite Thanksgiving being almost two weeks away, the Japanese Pokémon Global Link is hanging their stockings up with care a little early. Coming up next in the recent string of Japanese Wi-Fi tournament announcements, including the recently reported Eevee Cup, is the Christmas Cup. This festive tournament will be played in the double battle format, and, as a special treat to players nostalgic for the 2010 metagame, every Pokémon in the National Dex other than Chatot will be allowed. Yes, that’s right, this includes not only regulars Mewtwo, Groudon and Kyogre but also event Pokémon like Genesect, Jirachi and Darkrai. Unfortunately for everyone already theorying Darkrai teams, the moves Dark Void and Sky Drop remain banned. As a thanks for participating, every player who plays at least one valid match will be ranked at the end and will receive a Custap Berry, likely with a note reading “From: Santa” and covered in cookie crumbs.

Entry begins at 13:00 JST, December 14th, 2012 and closes at 23:59 JST, December 20th, 2012. The tournament will start at 00:00 JST, December 21st, 2012 and end at 23:59 JST, December 24th, 2012. Unlike previous tournaments, players will be divided into only two categories: those born before April 2nd, 2000 and those born after April 1st, 2000. The tournament is open to Japanese Black 2 and White 2 games only.

If that weren’t enough, the Japanese PGL has also revealed more details about Dream Park, the new Pokémon Dream World area set to be released on November 21st for the Japanese PGL. Most notably it has been confirmed that the area will contain Pinsir, Heracross, Seedot, Shroomish, Timburr, Throh, Sawk, and Scraggy, all with their Hidden Abilities. This means that Dream World abilities for the Seedot, Timburr and Scraggy lines as well as Sawk and Throh are now legal. That means we’ll be receiving both Intimidate Scrafty and Iron Fist Conkeldurr when the Dream Park is released, two Pokémon on Nugget Bridge’s Christmas list. The area will also feature a new mini-game and unlock new Japanese-themed Decors.

Merry Christmas!

About the Author

crobert is Nugget Bridge's Japanese correspondent. His fluency in English and Japanese helps keep the English-speaking Pokémon community informed about the going-ons in Japan. He is also an accomplished battler placing highly at both the 2012 Ontario Regional and Canadian National tournaments.