National Pokémon Association 3 is Starting Soon
It’s been almost a year since the last season of the National Pokémon Association started, and we’re back at it for another! Last season had 12 teams with 72 players total fight it out for that #1 spot on top, which led to the Seafoam Islanders’ victory. This season we have a few changes from last season that I’m sure some people might be excited about. Unlike other tournament held here on Nugget Bridge, the NPA does not give any Nugget Bridge Circuit points.
For those who don’t know, the NPA is a team tournament held here on Nugget Bridge that lets players join together and work as a team to try to best the competition. All 16 teams play in 8 rounds with the top 6 making playoffs. The last remaining team in the playoffs will become the champions for this season. Unlike the Dodrio Cup, there are no special rules that the players must abide by. All matches will be played in the Standard format. Just a reminder the rules are:
- Players must use Pokémon X or Pokémon Y
- All matches are played in Doubles format
- Pokemon above Level 50 will be brought down to 50 for the match while those below 50 will stay as-is
- Players choose 4 of their 6 registered Pokemon after team preview
- Species Clause: No two Pokémon can share the same Pokédex number.
- Item Clause: No two Pokémon can hold the same held item.
- Pokémon must be bred or caught in Kalos
- Pokémon must be part of the Central Kalos Dex (1-150), Coastal Kalos Dex (1-153), or Mountain Kalos Dex (1-147)
Players sign ups will start August 1st. There will be weekly coverage going on throughout this season, so even if you aren’t drafted be sure to follow all of that!
Tournament Structure
- Each week, teams will go head to head in a fight to win the best of 6 games. So the winning team for the week will have to win 4 or more games. If the week goes 3-3, the week is recorded as a tie for each team. A win is worth two points, and a tie is worth one point.
- The 6 matches will consist of 6 standard ruleset matches between each member of the team.
- There are 8 weeks in the season, two weeks for playoffs, and a week for finals for a total of 11 weeks
- Each team will consist of the 1 manager and a minimum of 6 battlers. Each week, each manager must submit a roster of what 6 players they are using for the week to Duy and Biosci. Managers are not allowed to play in the weekly games, but are encouraged to help the team practice.
- Managers must post saying they’re subbing an inactive player out to put in another player. Once a player is subbed in that week, they must either play or the match will be decided on activity.
- All games will be played on Nintendo 3DS systems using Pokémon X or Pokémon Y
Managers
A thread will go up Saturday July 19th to see who is interested in managing this season. Duy and Biosci will personally decide who manages each of the teams with some input from advisors. All managers will be decided upon by the end of July 30th.
Draft
Players will have a chance to sign up from August 1st to August 17th, and the draft will be held on August 22nd (subject to change). The draft will happen in the synIRC channel #npa. The draft this year will be an auction, which you can learn about here (if you have questions about it, just comment below). As a manager’s turn comes around, they will quickly choose who to nominate and the bidding will commence. It’s recommended that a manager come into the draft with a set of players already in mind to draft.
Details of the draft will be worked out soon.
Trades
If teams wish, they may trade for players from other teams for players of their own or cash for the mid-season auction. They will first start out by proposing the trade to the team manager they want to deal with. If both managers agree to the trade, PM the trade info to Duy and Biosci using the forum PM system. Once you receive approval, the trade is official and considered done. If a trade is done mid-week, the player swap is done immediately even if the player still has a match yet to finish that week. The player can be subbed out for the team substitute or subbed in for the new player.
No more trades may be made after mid-season is over.
Mid-Season and All-Star Week
There will be a mid-season break after week 4 for teams to pick up new players in the mid-season auction and conduct final trades for the season. While this is going on, the current 12 players with the best records will be able to participate in All-Star Week.
Playoffs
The playoffs will contain the top 6 teams from the season. The top 2 teams will earn a round 1 bye while the remaining 4 fight it out to move onto top 4.
Related Posts
Nugget Bridge Update →
GS Cup Announced as Pokémon’s 2016 Ruleset →
2016 Pokémon World Championships Date & Location Surfaces →
New here, but give me a tryout if you need a lowkey ringer lol
i amended my sign up post to include the VR rank
Looking to maybe get a tryout or at least talk to a few managers to up my chances
first competitive season but I got CP in all 3 events (VGC Wisco, May IC, June IC) put my rankings in each on the signup post. I hope to be drafted to ever advance my skills in this great game 
I know I’m late to the party but if any managers are still holding tryouts pls pm me.
I’d like to take any chance I can get to improve in the format.
Looking to try to enter
Can a manger pm me the info I need to know.
Is the August 22nd date still viable for the draft? I’m assuming no, since we haven’t seen anything else on it. Just curious as I’d like to see the auction draft as it happens in #npa.
I didn’t want to post anything pre-maturely because the time was still subject to change, but the draft will be happening on Friday August 29th at 6 pm PDT. Sorry for the delay in announcing the time, I was a mess with organizing this. But with a solidified time you can look forward to the draft then.
With Biosci’s confirmed date posted, I can announce the next episode of NPA news will be released on Wednesday 27th August.
This week, I look ahead to the draft, with a team by team breakdown of where managers have been looking for their talent, and how they plan on spending their money. Little of it based on fact, most based on speculation, it should make for good listening!
I also caught up with a couple of managers at Worlds for brief interviews, and the Olivine City Manager Alaka will be making a big Splash with an announcement regarding his strategy! Keep your earholes open for it.
Oh no!! That’s 2am GMT, and I was hoping to charm any managers looking for a cheap veteran during the draft. That’s way past my bedtime though lol!!
You don’t have to be present for the draft.
Worth watching the draft just to see what some of the best players in the world (e.g. Ray) think are important skills (e.g. MK8 talent) for a top-tier pokemon player.
Looking forward to this NPA, I held the GCN Sherbet Land world record on MK8 for 2 days so that must mean I’m good right? :]
Are you going to touch on the draft date conspiracy? Apparently some managers thought it would be classy to refuse to draft on the date scheduled a month in advance (I am sure a little investigative journalism would help you find who). Then they picked their only available as one of the biggest party weekends of the summer in an attempt to thwart big name managers who will obviously be partying this weekend. They ensured that the strongest managers won’t be able to make it by not actually announcing a change in draft date until the day before the scheduled draft.
I thought the players should be allowed to know why they have to wait another week to draft. If I was a player, I definitely wouldn’t want to be managed by someone who can’t even make time to draft a month in advance.
im hosting a draft party at my house whos in
It’s going to be interesting to watch everything unfold.
Drafted or not, this will be fun.
Do you have enough money you can lend to me so I can fly over to your house? If so I’m in :]
I’ll bring the pizza and pints
Really excited to see how things turn out.
I should really put my Pokemon CV out to the managers xD
Looking forward to all the broken hearts and crushed dreams of players who don’t get drafted </3
Well what’s the max roster per team and how many teams are there?
There are 16 teams with a 6 player minimum and no maximum. However with a draft auction, I can’t see many teams drafting more than 6 players. There are 359 Signs-ups meaning there will be around 250 broken hearts and crushed dreams </3
Also a little tip for people in future sign ups, don’t post that you got 100th+ place in some tournament. If you didn’t get top 100 in your own region or tournament, do you really think you’re going to get picked as one of the top 100 in a tournament where the best of the best in the world are going to play?
I hope I’m not one of them haha. I’m cautiously optimistic, but one never knows for sure what happens in a draft. I thought about my roster size when I applied to manage actually. I probably would have carried 7-9 people in case real life hits my team one week, if there was a new player I could develop, or stuff like that. Some teams will definitely only go 6 players, but if some of the managers are thinking like I was, I think we’re going to have more than 96 drafted, including some people late for almost no money. Gotta love those “$1 buys”, like in fantasy football auctions.
Its gonna be a very interesting draft !!!
I think there will definitely be some 3k picks near the end, since I seriously doubt all 16 teams will end up purchasing 6 team members with exactly 100% of their funds.
I am pumped to drag down a team when I am inevitably overpaid for due to people forgetting I haven’t been in a VGC battle with anything on the line for me since the middle of January
I’m not confident of actually being in the season, but it’s alright if I get to join in somewhere. I’m so mad I missed all the Online Open tourneys months back.
TOGETHER WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD
Dang, I’m not going to be able to watch the draft. Going to catch up as soon as I’m able.