Introducing VGC ’14 Premier Challenges (Updated)
Late next month, we’ll see an expansion to the Pokémon Video Game Championship Series with a pilot program at a very local level in North America. Select tournament organizers who have been active in running sanctioned video game tournaments have received the opportunity to run up to two VGC ’14 Premier Challenge events between April 21st and June 23rd. They will have a Best Finish Limit of 2 and award Championship Points. Prizes as well as entry fees will vary as they will be up to the organizer’s discretion but the yet to be announced Championship Point payout will be standard.
Over the next month, you’ll find events coming up on the Event Locator on Pokemon.com as well as our brand new sub-forum for Pokémon Premier Challenges. Check back frequently as organizers get their tournaments approved after locking down venues and dates.
Keep in mind that this is a pilot program, much like the TCG’s League Challenge program this season. This means only a few dozen tournament organizers will be allowed to run these events in the VGC ’14 season. This pool of organizers was determined by organizers who were proactive in holding sanctioned Pokémon X & Y tournaments. Based on its success, we should see an expansion of the program in North America, Europe, and then other countries in the Play! Pokémon program.
Helpful Tips to Players
- Remember your Player IDs as you would for a Regional event. If you don’t have one yet, you can get one online to save time during registration!
- Fill out a team sheet before heading to the event and double check it. We’ll have these available for download and printing before the events begin.
Many players have been hoping for events closer to home than a Regional that are a part of the official Video Game Championship Series and these Premier Challenges will be a first step to a strong local scene for the video game much like the one that currently exists for the TCG. Even if your local area hasn’t had enough sanctioned tournaments to earn a Premier Challenge yet, please do work with your local organizers to hold sanctioned events so that it may get one in the future!
Championship Points
Keep in mind that 8 players are required for this to be a sanctioned event. Otherwise nobody will receive Championship Points.
| Finish | CP Awarded | Kicker |
| 1st | 15 | 0 |
| 2nd | 12 | 0 |
| 3rd – 4th | 10 | 0 |
| 5th – 8th | 8 | 16 |
| 9th – 12th | 4 | 32 |
| 13th – 16th | 2 | 32 |
| 17th – 32nd | 1 | 64 |
Number of Rounds and Top Cut Size
| Players | Swiss Rounds | Cut Size |
| 8 | 3 | 2 |
| 9 – 16 | 4 | 4 |
| 17 – 32 | 5 | 8 |
| 33 – 64 | 6 | 8 |
| 65 – 128 | 7 | 8 |
| 129 – 226 | 8 | 8 |
| 227 – 256 | 8 | 16 |
| 257 – 409 | 9 | 16 |
| 410 – 512 | 9 | 32 |
| 513+ | 10 | 32 |
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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What is the player ID?
This is great! My local league has been doing this for the last few months, and have been talking about the League Challenges coming, but I didn’t think it would come this soon.
There’s still a lot of info we don’t have here, so I’m trying to reserve judgement on some level for a while, but at a glance it looks like most circuit changes since we switched to CP: very good for the game in the long term, potentially very dangerous for the circuit’s integrity in the short term.
I’m always really conflicted as far as whether or not I like this sort of stuff because I feel strongly in both directions: I am sympathetic to the players grinding for Worlds after last year and I care a lot about the system successfully sending as close to the best players in the region in a given year to Worlds as possible, but I’m also very concerned about the longer term health of the game as someone who cares a lot about maintaining the community and has spent some effort trying to build it with NB and commentating. Obviously, longer term this is something the circuit needs. Four official events a year tops for most players (ignoring Wi-Fi) is way too little to keep players engaged in the game. This will almost definitely get more people playing the game more frequently. It is definitely a good thing for overall long term growth. I am actually much more interested in this next year in Europe, since hopefully when these events show up over there the European guys will be able to play in official events out of the summer(ish) season, finally. i don’t have much to say in that regard: the idea of these tournaments is obviously good.
What isn’t good, potentially, is giving a non-irrelevant amount of CP for test tournaments many players won’t have access to. It is sort of a constant struggle trying to build the competitive Pokemon scene because it is an IP that targets kids and there’s always a certain amount of pushback related to that. I think it becomes more difficult to sell Pokemon as a competitive game when every year since 2011 has seemed to have been ~~A TRANSITION YEAR~~, and once again the format is apparently going to be a little messed up this year with the addition of a new type of tournament many players won’t have access to 3/4 through the year.
I want to emphasize the won’t have access thing. The list of TOs that are allowed to host these isn’t public info yet afaik, so I don’t want to comment too specifically, but there are huge competitive balance issues here. Like I mentioned in the other thread, in my case, there are literally zero tournament organizers in Michigan, so if I want to try to get this CP I’m going to have to drive a minimum of four hours — basically exactly the same distance to my closest Regional. If the tournaments start any earlier than about 11, it is probably completely unviable for me to participate without a night of hotel, which means I’m going to end up paying at least a hundred bucks every time I try to chase 15 CP. Unless there winds up being a situation where I can do two on a weekend somewhere, I probably won’t play, which basically guarantees I’ll instead lose money by falling down a CP bracket (but because of taxes, it is likely a better deal to lose out this way). This would be a lot more irritating to me if I were fighting for Worlds, but it is still pretty irritating to me in that I plan out how much I’m willing to spend travelling to the events at the start of the year and plan it against my probable earnings, so this unforeseeable circumstance is pretty freaking annoying. This is a lot worse for people who are competing for Worlds but don’t have nearby events, particularly because there are a lot of people who already have giant advantages because they live near Regionals. I’m not the only case of a player who already had to travel an outrageous distance to play in three Regionals who will either add a ton of travel for little reward or just have to miss out on points. I would be shocked if we don’t end up with 2 or 3 Worlds invites from NA this year that go to players that aren’t playing at quite the level you’d expect from a Worlds competitor because geography keeps becoming a bigger and bigger factor.
I mentioned this on IRC the other day when we were chatting about this and EnFuego mentioned it in the other thread, but I think the solution here is to actually have Wi-Fi tournaments, and then have them count toward the same BFL as these tournaments. You still get the grassroots-type growth, but you don’t risk screwing over competitive players in regions that don’t have a TCG scene to spawn these VGC events. At least that way, everyone has an opportunity to play for points.
For now, this is a cool idea in theory, but I’m getting more and more disheartened at how this season could turn out, even with like 10 of the current top 11 in NA being amazing players.
A Player ID is what is used as your ID for all official tournaments. You can find out how to get one before an event http://nuggetbridge.com/forums/topic/5008-getting-a-player-id/.
So America, after having successful regionals, now gets shop tournaments too. Europe (and Asia) still has no regionals in sight and we don’t even have information about how exactly our nationals, starting in only 5 weeks, will play out. Or, as our friend Evan would say: #TPCiLogic.
But it’s great anyway, for those who are lucky to be close enough, at least. More Pokémon tournaments are never a bad thing per se.
Thank you very much.
I am so hoping that at least one of these will also show up locally for me as well! I do have one quick question. Are the team sheets a new thing that is being done or has it always existed for VGC? Also, where exactly is the link to download these team sheets?
Team Sheets existed before the Battle Box was created (so up to the end of the 2010 season) and are now used for local events where the TO is unable to lock the Battle Box because it’s something you need special hardware to do.
Team sheets will be provided by TOs but we’re working on having ones downloadable for you to fill out ahead of time before the events start. Will make an announcement once that’s done.
i’ll probably try to get to 2 if only to have babbyfeathers rake up the extra cp. no real point for me but i’ll get to wherever i can.
@Firestorm: Not sure if this is on your “team sheet plan” radar or if someone on staff even has the tech know-how for this idea, but having a team sheet generator that accepts inputs from simulators like Pokemon Showdown would be a good idea. Export a team from Showdown as text, copy the information into the generator, and then the tool populates all the fields on the team sheet for you. This could be useful in preventing mistakes when players fill out their team sheets in the future.
Will this increase the amount of events in obscure areas? Because I care far more about that than getting the opportunity to earn CP.
Yeah this is a part of what I’m going to work with Gabby on. When I needed to fill out decklists I really got a lot of use out of PokeGym’s decklist generator and want something similar for the video game.
Hmm… Interesting. I’m a bit indifferent here, like Scott. I’m just crossing my fingers for a Columbia, SC event.
Crossing my fingers for an event as well, I know our TO is pretty good so always hope.
There will be a couple of these in the Twin Cities area. I’m still working out the details with some of the stores in the area, but expect some fun things from this. Look forward to seeing everybody for these!
Yes, like I mentioned in the news post, the determining factor for the pilot program was TOs putting on events rather than population. This means that it won’t just be New York for example receiving small events. I saw someone from Alaska say they have been approved and will be setting up a Premier Challenge.
As the program expands, we should see should see more events pop up in more areas. Though as I have been saying repeatedly for the last year, it won’t happen unless people work with their local TOs to put on more sanctioned events even if it’s not for CP.
As I imagined, most of the reception to this news on places like Facebook is super positive but reception by players going for an invite is negative because though this move is absolutely integral to the growth of Organized Play and the Championship Series, it does make this first set of Premier Challenges awkward and skewed towards those who have a large number of local TOs who are active with fewer competitive players in the area. On the other hand, people who didn’t have events to gain CP at in their area are ecstatic to finally be a part of the Championship Series and I am looking forward to seeing the program grow.
The goal is the grow the program and bring VG tournaments closer to more players. In addition, this provides a chance for local communities of VG players to develop and look forward to more consistent tournaments.
Balancing the above goals with issues relating to geographic opportunities is difficult and something that will require fine tuning long term. I’ll be monitoring this closely.
While the ones I go to aren’t CP related, Sydney has started to have tournaments like these where one has to fill out complete team lists, enter POP ID’s and such. I highly recommend them to anyone even considering going. The fact that there is bonus CP on the line should be enough to encourage you but the social aspect is really great in these. Generally, everyone is really friendly and as the event is noramlly smaller than a normal regional, it is a great chance to meet people you wouldn’t normally talk to outside of your normal friend group. Making the trip can be long I feel they are worth it. (For me it takes at least 2.5 hours with public transport)
Hopefully this idea can take off and can reach other countries!
Whelp, gotta start practicing hardcore for these then. I’m way too weak to win right now so I gotta improve. Once we get some more solid info I’ll see if I can get any of my Pokemon buddies to go.
Gl with grinding PreyingShark.
As for utah, I’ll attend all the ones that work allows me to, and bring as many people as I can. Hopefully the positive turnouts will help these events spread across the nation and other locations. I’d love to see these CP being able to get racked up through means that don’t require +$400 a trip. I hope it helps lessen #thestruggle.
Why do these events need to award CP to grow the game? Like people above me said, most people won’t care if they award CP or not. Many of the new players are not likely to stick around if they get destroyed by experienced players who drove 5 hours for a handful of CP.
So my logical solution is:
Why not make the prizes a first round bye at the nearest regional? The prize is worth enough that it will still attract a good amount of players. It will directly advertise and hopefully attract newer players to regionals. The first round bye will move you up in tiebreaker enough that it will probably be worth at least 10 CP.
Also, I think the easiest way to grow the game, would be to give out a rare shiny pokemon at these events. Casuals love shiny pokemon. A lot of the 2009/2010 attendance was directly impacted by shiny pokemon giveaway.
What I am not looking forward to is now traveling 6 hours to the nearest Premier challenge to compete against 100+ people from NYC.
I like the idea. I just wish it wasn’t introduced at the end of the season.
So glad these were finally announced. I can now complain a lot less now.
I’m out so I can’t update article til i get home but got an update on CP.
1st: 15 CP – Kicker 0
2nd: 12 CP – Kicker 0
3rd – 4th: 10 CP – Kicker 0
5th – 8th: 8 CP – Kicker 16
9th -12th: 4 CP – Kicker 32
13th – 16th: 2 CP – Kicker 32
17th – 32nd: 1 CP – Kicker 64
Minimum to sanction and get CP is 8 players.
There will be a top cut following same guidelines as regionals.
Utah will be holding 10 of these Premier Challenges so be excited!
We will be getting these dates sorted out very soon.
That’s……quite a lot. Hope more locations do similar!
Only 2 top finishes will count for these premier challenges. So even if you have a lot around you the biggest boost you can get is only 30CP, which is top 32(?) finish at a regional so it sounds fair to me.
Edit: stupid phone posting twice
Where can we find the amount/locations of these events? Im curious since someone said utah has 10 how do we find this out?
I now wish I lived in Utah…
Well if they’re potentially holding that many in just Utah, I take back my earlier comments, this could rack up the CP and disrupt standings quite a bit if you can go to multiple ones and win or do fairly well (I thought trial run meant maybe a couple lol, these are more like the TCG League Challenges it sounds like). The time frame is getting a bit tight though since it’s almost April, assuming most will be done by May since they need to have a cutoff somewhere to get Nats travel awards finalized.
Just want to make sure I’m reading it right, but with the bare min of 8, that means half are guaranteed at least 10 cp?