Only Pokémon from the Kalos Pokédex to be Usable in VGC ’14 Winter Regionals?
We’ve recently learned that there is a very high possibility that the ruleset for the upcoming set of Regional Championships will only allow Pokémon attainable in the Kalos Pokédex. This may sound familiar to those of you who played in 2011 where only Pokémon in the Unova Pokédex were allowed in order to promote the recently released Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version.
Unlike the 2011 ruleset however, a Kalos-only tournament with Pokémon X and Y would have some very important differences. Most obviously, the Kalos Pokédex includes Pokémon from many different generations rather than just the ones introduced in Kalos. Though this allows for more teambuilding options, it may create a harder to understand ruleset for newer players. To add to the confusion, many Pokémon that can be caught in Kiloude City’s Friend Safari are not actually a part of the Kalos Pokédex even though they can be caught in Pokémon X & Y, which would ban them from use.
It’s important to note that there is no way to practice a Kalos-only ruleset in the game at the moment. The ladder allows all Pokémon but certain legendary Pokémon, and one of the single most used Pokémon is currently Togekiss, which would not be allowed come January if this ruleset turns out to be the one we play under. To give you an idea of what wouldn’t be allowed, we have a list of some of the more metagame-relevant Pokémon not in the Kalos Pokédex below:
- Arcanine
- Bronzong
- Chansey
- Cresselia
- Dusclops
- Electabuzz
- Empoleon
- Excadrill
- Gastrodon
- Grotle
- Heatran
- Hitmontop
- Infernape
- Jellicent
- Landorus
- Latias
- Latios
- Magmar
- Metagross
- Misdreavus
- Musharna
- Ninetales
- Porygon2
- Porygon-Z
- Raikou
- Registeel
- Stoutland
- Suicune
- Swampert
- Terrakion
- Thundurus
- Togekiss
- Tornadus
- Virizion
- Volcarona
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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I was right Toquill!!!!!
If this does happen there will be barely any flexibility with team building and the meta game won’t be very diverse.
I’m conflicted over any notion that the competitive scene needs to cater to novices. I am a parent of two younger players who are graduating from juniors to seniors this season, and honestly the potential rules set (if it is Kalos-only) bothers me much less than the spread-out Regional format. My family has been doing this for a while, and our first couple years of knowing nothing about RNGing or power-breeding are long behind us, but I still recall my epiphany (and anger) when realizing how the better kids get such strong shiny Pokemon. The next year, my son made Worlds for the first time (using “power-item” bred Pokemon). We learned RNGing before Worlds that year. My daughter joined my son at Worlds last year.
For the casual parent who takes their kid to competitions, it can be very bothersome when one realizes that there’s a way to give your kids a better chance. It’s not just the smarter, more passionate kids who win! I know from experience that only a small percentage of parents continue to take their kids to the competitions once they have an inkling of why their kids aren’t winning. Many get aggravated. Only a small percentage of parents go through the process of learning how to capture/breed/teach competitive Pokemon. As long as the process of training strong Pokemon is difficult and beyond what a kid can do on his/her own, there will always be families who bring kids to competitions who are very unlikely to win. If the family/kids are confused about the allowable Pokemon, they’re probably going to finish with a losing record no matter what, as they may not even know a thing about IVs and EVs or egg moves, etc.
Let’s not fool ourselves into to thinking that a Pokedex that’s a tad complicated (given the Pokemon in X/Y) is going to really be the deal-breaker in regard to whether a kid knows what’s going on and is ready to compete, or whether they’ll end up with a good tourney experience. That may seem harsh, but it’s only meant to emphasize that the casual player or the regular parent with a bright-eyed kid is only going to get so much out of the competitions. What seems more problematic than any Pokedex concerns is the spread-out Regionals where there’s even more of an imbalance between those who are in the know (and supported) and those who won’t know till a Regional next Spring that their kid really needed to accrue points in the previous Fall. Not everyone can hop around the country to multiple Regionals, or for multiple weekends in a Regional season. And many parents are turned off when they realize that the competition isn’t just a bunch of kids, like their son or daugher, who are playing the game independently.
I’m going to read over this thread later, but one initial thought. I know you read this Chris Brown and I am begging you from the bottom of my heart not to go through with this. It’s just so arbitrary and hard to understand for any newer player. There’s no reason to put restrictions like that on the game, and I don’t think anyone really wants it, or will want it once they actually play with it.
Rules coming soon: External
I’ve played a 100 games or so. The game is far from stale atm I must say. It will be interesting to see how things change when we get Pokemon from the bank. But yeah, as I said earlier, for me this isn’t a big question for me. But I will want to be able to practise in-game whatever ruleset we get.
Most of these posts tl;dr. A new ruleset will be fine folks. It just Pokemon, people will be able to wrap their minds around it.
I don’t understand the “people won’t know whether or not they can use pokemon _______” complaint. As long as the rules are communicated reasonably, you open your pokedex and if its in the regional dex you can use it, if its not you can’t. If you don’t know how to use a pokedex what are you doing at a tournament?
I think what they are trying to get at is this:
Lets say a little kid heard about a tournament close to his house for pokemon! He has a copy of pokemon X/Y, and he decides to train up his favorite pokemon, making sure they have the best moveset the little guy could think up, and making sure that he trained the one with the highest attack out of the few he found. If he goes to the event, and this prize pokemon of his is not allowed, being the little kid he is, he will get upset, really upset. Not only this, but he won’t have the best pokemon he could possibly have had for the event, making the standard for battles even lower than it is for most juniors. If the Pokemon Company can advertise the events and the rules for the events better, then this probably won’t be too much of a problem. Based on past seasons, this hasn’t really been Pokemon’s strong-suit though…
We’ll just have to see how it plays out over the next few days/weeks when Pokemon decides to release the info we all crave.
I think you and others are vastly overestimating the accessibility of the rules. Trying to find the rules on the Pokemon website is not an easy task, especially when you are someone new to the scene or didn’t “get your parents permission.” We don’t even have a good place to find the rules here on NB. The casual player who may have a passing interest in VGC because they primarily play TCG, they saw a flyer for it at league, they got an invite to it on Facebook, etc. There is a reason VGC attendance dropped starting in 2012, it no longer had a dedicated website or got some of the press releases it once did. VGC is now buried in the Play! section of the Pokemon website, the casual player probably doesn’t realize this when they find a way to VGC that doesn’t involve being a part of the NB community or a long time VGC player. If this game wants to grow, adding barriers like an arbitrary ruleset that isn’t depicted in the ingame battling system is not going to help in the slightest. Turning people away from their first tournament experience or making it difficult to register because what the game presents is different from what the VGC rules present is not something conducive to helping foster a community of new players.
What are the some thoughts on different drawbacks / benefits if the format were to allow anything obtainable in X and Y (minus Zygarde, Xerneas, and Yveltal) without using the Pokemon Bank? I’ve seen it indirectly mentioned in some comments, but haven’t seen too many thoughts on it. While it would still restrict 55 fully evolved Pokemon, only 12-15 of those were hugely relevant in VGC 2012-2013.
It is true that too much decoding is involved in figuring out the rules, and the rule set seems always delayed in the coming. I suppose there’s a little more reason for the rules being delayed this time since X & Y just came out. My family skipped the Fall Regionals this year (mainly due to distance to events), and I’m personally waiting on a decision about the X & Y rule set before investing too much energy on the new game mechanics. I am baffled that there isn’t any more promotion for the VGC Regionals, though I understand that 2011 crowds couldn’t be supported in the Swiss format. I miss the spectacle of 2009-11, when the VGC Regionals had a bit of the “circus comes to town” excitement, and I suppose that excitement–and the promotion for it– was really good for attracting and motivating more casual fans of the Pokemon game. I don’t miss the single-elimination though . . .
I will be very disappointed if we aren’t allowed to migrate and use Pokemon in the Kalos Pokedex from former games. Like many on this board, I’ve spent a lot of time and energy building the ability to produce competitive Pokemon. I understand I may need to power-item-breed to get competitive versions of any of the wholly new Pokemon, but I won’t be happy if I have to start all over again on Pokemon formerly bred/caught/trained-with-love-and-care in Generation IV or V. I also wouldn’t be pleased with the inability to breed egg moves in X & Y using Pokemon migrated via the Pokemon Bank. With Pokemon, there always needs to be a link to the past, and any VGC rule set should give some attention to longtime fans who have invested time in earlier games. I have no problem with limiting the usable Pokemon to the Kalos Pokedex, unless they must all be Kalos raised.
I care pretty much zero what the format is as long as there’s a ladder for it in-game and it is as simple and unlikely to change without an external variable in the future as possible. Both Kalos-themed suggestions lose the unlikely to change check because 2015 will almost definitely be National dex, but can-be-caught-in-Kalos is probably simpler to execute than Kalosdex(but less simple if only versions actually caught/hatched in Kalos are allowed) judging by our IRC channel having about a 30% success rate at the “Wait is (pokemon) in the Kalosdex?” guessing game. At least at that point the banned Pokemon list is readable.
I continue to think people stretching to find reasons why getting what they want is somehow objectively right is pretty ridiculous(not to mention unconvincing), but as long as there’s a place in-game for players to practice I think the impact of whatever ruleset is picked is marginal. I am super skeptical the ladders in-game are going to be malleable, though.
Also, I wish people would stop referring to the Kalosdex thing as confusing… it’s probably a much better choice to say that it is not intuitive instead. In 2011, new pokemon = legal, old pokemon = illegal was intuitive. The line was obvious and you didn’t need a reference list at all. Similarly, VGC 12/13’s ban list is simple with event legendaries and superlegendaries removed. There’s nothing intuitive about Kalosdex, since some old Pokemon are legal and some aren’t and some you catch in-game are legal and some aren’t. Especially since most people probably don’t see more than 2/3 of the Kalosdex playing through, it’s just an arbitrary banlist that needs to be consulted. The concept shouldn’t confuse anyone, but it’s definitely something people are going to have to check repeatedly because there isn’t an obvious quality that ties the Pokemon together beyond being what Gamefreak felt like including in the story. Unintuitive, not confusing.
Quoted just to reference and keep it shorter, but thanks, that whole post really cleared the air on some of the opinions / preferences I wasn’t sure of. Can’t say I agree with some of the personal preferences (which is/should be, like you said, pretty much arbitrary anyways), but the ideas on structure and what the format should be focusing on at a bare minimum (minus marketing, which is out of our hands entirely) should be able to be universally agreed upon.
More of a personal preference thing, but I’m not exactly sure if I prefer the “unlikely to change” thing too much as a year-to-year thing, because even very subtle changes can help kick the tires on a really stale, immobile metagame (example: right now). I agree the format shouldn’t have ridiculously drastic changes, though, in interest of the larger part of the community (although I personally would be fine with it.)
It’d be interesting to gauge general player interest on a couple different format proposals, since I think if one of the long-term goals is to establish relatively good continuity year-to-year, there should be a universally likable format in place to begin that trend. Maybe something like a poll of general interest in each proposal on a few key traits of each would be a good idea.
Has anyone considered the possibility that TPC might try something a little different to work around the [late] release of Pokemon Bank? Such as…
Have the Winter Regionals be Kalos-caught only, then open up the National dex for Spring, Nats, and Worlds?
Kalos Dex only doesn’t solve anything regarding the Pokemon Bank issue. People without it will still be at a disadvantage if they don’t have access to old tutors. You can probably play around it, but it’s still a disadvantage. With that said, everyone starts with a free trial so it’s not really much of a problem to begin with.
I’ve seen some complaints about “a metagame consisting of only 66 pokemon”, but I don’t understand that specific complaint. If it’s about the fact that the Kalos Dex will limit the amount of variables in teams? Sure, but look at teams that have performed this last season, not much variation there. If it’s about the “fact” that you consider the Kalos dex to be “only 66 pokemon” then you are sorely mistaken.
At a combined total of 454, the Kalos dex has largest amount of Pokémon. Just because there are only about 66 new pokemon, doesn’t mean that there are only 66 USEABLE pokemon.
Scott used confusion, it was super effective.
Although I personally feel like constantly changing formats would be interesting, coming from a guy who really enjoyed how fundamentally different 2010 was from 2009 (as in reading warstories and watching battles), but this system could only exist in a world where TPCi better communicates with its players. If the VGC had official, local-level tournaments, it would be very easy to change the rules, given that each player would check their Play! accounts for point standings and announcements much more often and there would be a direct channel of communication (the professor / facilitator of the tournament) between TPCi and the playerbase.
Why would you want to change the rulesets? For one, with different seasons, you could implement a “starter ruleset”, like a Kalos-dex minus. One of the only real benefits of a Kalos-dex style metagame is that it would be much easier to explain such a metagame to new players, as you’re trading-off the convolution of available Pokemon with the simplicity of having to deal with far fewer threats. {*I am not saying such a metagame is less competitive; even Eeveelution Cup was competitive, in that you still had to make thoughtful, skillful decisions, but it is less complex} I know that at the beginning of every generation, you have people who come out of hiatus that can be overwhelmed by the number of new Pokemon, moves, et cetera, so a simpler season (like 3-4 month period) at the beginning of the tournament cycle could help ease new players into VGC-style play, with the rules then changing to National / World standards to give players 5 – 7 months to prepare for Regionals and the rest to prepare for Nationals and Worlds. I feel as though Pokemon never reaches a “steady state” such that a long period of interrupted rule changes (as a means of continuing to tweak and evolve the metagame a la SSB Melee) would be feasible, as new Pokemon Formes, tutors, and abilities are always added consistently over a generation’s lifespan.
And you also have the fact that changing the ruleset gives players the illusion that you’re shaking things up from a stale metagame, since a lot of the nuances of late metagame evolution seem to be lost on newer players (I am not claiming to understand this evolving trend or even remotely be a part of it, but I do like reading about crazy EV spreads get in World level play), but again, this would not be a problem were more of the fanbase consistently playing at a semi-competitive level instead of just before Regionals.
But all of the exists in the hypothetical world where VGC is much bigger than it is today, so keeping things standardized would probably help keep younger players in the loop.
In 2011, the amount of participants in regionals dropped off considerably. One of the factors was that casual players couldn’t use their favorite pokemon. In 2010, the average regional attendance was far greater than any other year ever. That year you got to use every pokemon attainable in game. Coincidence?
Can you guys sit down and think for a second and realize that we are trying to grow competitive tournaments for the game. Casual players won’t go to tournaments if they can’t use there favorite pokemon. Sometimes it takes attending a tournament and getting stomped to look online for places like nugget bridge.
If people hate cresselia that much maybe we should just petition AZ to ban non-breedable pokemon. The good players won’t suddenly suck because their legendary pokemon are gone.
Did participation drop in 2010? I remember the division groupings being a little smaller in Atlanta, but wasn’t 2011 the year we split the divisions from two to three age groups? In my opinion, participation dropped after 2011 because promotion dropped and because “spectacle support” dropped. My wife, who doesn’t play, was incredibly disappointed when we walked into the first VGC Florida Regional under the TCG staff and saw nothing of the spectacle/excitement of 2011. It was a much less kid-friendly atmosphere, though admittedly we’d seen that world before as card players. We invited a few relatives to the Athens Regional that year, and with no MC and no TV screens, those relatives were largely bored during the entire event. I’m not complaining about the changes, because I like the system of competition we have now (Swiss rounds, top cut); I’m merely stating that the newer format, and the lack of big promotion, is not particularly friendly to the casual fan. Also, my family has stopped playing cards since the VGC and TCG circuits conflict. It’s not impossible to participate in both circuits this year–especially given the added regional dates–but the schedules overlap at many events; however, once upon a time, we played TCG throughout the year and then attended a regional for VGC on a separate weekend.
In 2010, the attendance for all divisions was a lot larger than in 2011. The Newark regional had to turn away masters because they reached the 768 person limit. In 2011, the Newark and DC regional combined didn’t reach that many. In 2012, the regional attendance was even less than in 2011. I imagine because the tournaments were on Sunday and they intentionally did not advertise at all to not overwhelm tournament organizers.
Also there could be the fact that many people who went to their first regional in 2009/2010 may have vowed to never attend again because of not actually getting to play in 2009 or waiting in a line of a few hundred people to get 4-0d by topogre in 2010.
I too, am a parent of a competitive Junior and have talked with both feathers and Maestro (Both great people!)
First on a slight side not, I wanted to clear up one common misconception of the TCG. Unlike Magic, the TCG Sales are not heavily driven by the competitive scene. Most of the sales are from Walmart / Target / etc. to kids who never use them to play a game, but just collect them and play with them like toys. This is one of the principal reasons TCPi spends so much energy keeping the cost barrier of entry to the TCG low – there is still a huge pool of available players who already are buying some product that they can bring into the fold.
Similarly with the Video Game. Over its history, the core Pokemon games have sold over 250 million total units. Compare this to how huge of a news event it was when Madden crossed the 100 million total units earlier this year. Only the Mario franchise is larger. The question is the barrier of entry. Currently the TCG has a cost barrier of entry (fluctuating around $100-$150 for a full play set of competitive trainer cards) while the VGC has had a serious time barrier of entry.
Whatever the format is, the games themselves needs to have an option for it. Kids, even the young ones, will easily understand if my team is allowed here, I can bring it to a tournament otherwise modify it. A lot of your first time Juniors either use a team they are given by someone else or the team they beat the game with. They all want to use their Legendaries and it is easy for them all to understand why they can’t. I think as the discussion gets into Egg Moves, and Poke Bank, and Friend Safari it is easy to lose sight of how many players just play on their own until they get hooked in to a community.
At the Pokemon League I assist with, due to us having a couple of competitive players around, we get new kids wanting to try it out quite regularly. They show up with their in game team, argue about legendaries, switch some things around, and then they see how much there is left to learn. At the Junior level, kids are mostly qualifying for Nationals or not on the strength of their type matching. Stats and Metagames aren’t playing as much into it. It isn’t until the top rounds of Nationals and Worlds that the Juniors game becomes very like the Masters top game.
I think the Kalos dex would work out just fine. The catches for getting new players involved will have very little to do with the rule set. The fact that IV breeding and EV training are significantly more transparent will have much heavier impact. Whether PokeBank blocks or continues the trend of hacked Pokemon in tournaments or not will have a heavy impact (Explaining why a child can’t get an Eruption Heatran or Speed Boost Blaziken etc after they see others with it can be a little challenging).
It is also important to realize what yearly changes to the rule set gets us: It significantly helps lower the barrier of entry each year. It helps keep the amount of information a new player needs to learn to be competitive lower. It also allows in Juniors and Seniors the kids who grasp the game as a whole a better chance to shine.
I am quite excited for this year and my son is quite excited to be able to do tournament breeding himself.
I think this is great! If this holds true, this will give a chance for other Pokemon to shine and people could get more creative with their teams. I’m not a big fan of using the same common Pokemon over and over again, so I should love this if this claim holds true for Winter regionals.
Hate this line of thought because it’s incorrect. This just changes who becomes common and you’ll be bored again within a month. There is plenty of room for creativity. I saw that Enosh used Charizard earlier this month. Duy used Tangela. Angel used Seel. I saw Len testing a team with Miltank. A more defined metagame allows for more creative Pokemon it.
Was the era of the SkarmBliss Special more or less “creative” than the state of the metagame earlier this month? How about the era of TopOgre just 2 weeks into the format?
kalos only?
can’t wait
This is different
One thing that I noticed that I’m sure other people did, but Kalos excludes Togekiss as well as Clefable. Meaning that the only 2 Pokemon that can get the move Follow Me are…
Sentret/Furret
Riolu/Lucario (Breeding)
So it seems like rage powder will be the go-to move, and with grass types being able to ignore it, make this strategy a little bit more strategic to land.
This
As a Tournament Organizer, this has been the greatest difficulty in recruiting new players. If I advertise a tournament as VGC, and state the banlist for Pokemon, kids still show up with a team of uber legendaries and are left scrambling to come up with random crap from their box so they can still compete. It doesn’t matter what format you’re playing in if the thought process goes “I’m the Pokemon League Champion and my Reshiram is the Bestest!” Not to mention that most kids/parents don’t realize it’s doubles until they get there.
Long story short, uninformed kids are going to have a poor tournament experience no matter what ruleset you implement. And uninformed kids are the vast majority of the Juniors division. It’s one of the biggest reasons why P!P has random prize giveaways in between rounds. If they didn’t do that, anyone who came and lost all day has no reason to come back. Random raffle prizes, I am realizing more and more, are the lifeblood of casual player recruitment.
As for the Seniors/Masters, they’re more informed and more likely to figure things out. By the time the tournament hits, people will have legal teams tested and built, regardless of format. But I agree with Scott’s initial sentiments that TPCi needs to release a ruleset and a way for people to practice it via Wi-Fi.
Also, as a “my 2 cents” thing, I’m a fan of adjusted formats each season. Different mons become meta after a short while, sure. But those first couple months are exciting, and surprises are still emerging at the end of the season. Not metagame shifts, but completely new ways to use Pokemon/moves. Think of Gothitelle in 2011. I recall it being completely under the radar as Worlds hit, and then it stormed the Worlds metagame. Sure it was Unova only. Sure there were only X number of Pokemon in the dex. But with new Pokemon there are more unexplored options, so a year’s worth of metagame is unlikely to become stale. Then switch ‘er up and start over! Super excited for the next three years as the Fairy type redifines interactions in top tier mons. Not much, but enough to make things interesting and undeveloped.
From what Amarillo says that AZ said the VGC’14 rules would be “Region Locked”. This could mean either KalosDex or KalosDex + The Friend Safari Pokémon, either way we can and should expect that Pokémon received through Pokebank will be banned.