Rules Document Updated for Fall Regionals
The 2014 season’s first Premiere event officially kicks off next weekend and the rules document has been updated to better guide players and judges through a tournament. Some of the changes are minor wording fixes for better clarity — for example Team Registration is now Battle Box Registration and the section on External Devices is now Illegally Manipulated Pokémon — but there has been a completely new section added for Technical Issues that all players and judges should read in case problems arise.
5. Technical Issues
Over the course of a tournament, a player’s game connection may become disrupted in a number of ways.
5.1. Double Frozen Game State
If both players’ game systems are stuck in an unfixable frozen game state and it cannot be determined which player’s Game Card or system is responsible for the frozen state, both players will receive a tie for that game.
5.2. Single Frozen Game State
If one player’s game system is stuck in an unfixable frozen game state and it can be determined which player’s Game Card or system is responsible for the frozen state, the player whose game system is frozen will receive a game loss.
5.3. Game State Disruption
Players should attempt to fix any game disruption by checking their DS systems and making sure they are aligned properly. If issues persist, contact a judge for immediate assistance. If consistent disruptions are determined to be due to actions on the part of a player, the judge may issue an appropriate penalty as outlined in the Pokémon Penalty Guidelines.
Additionally, the sanctioned ruleset will be called “Standard” rather than “Modified” moving forward which should be less confusing for players just getting started.
This rules document will receive an overhaul for Pokémon X and Y which is expected around November or December. The current document is set to go live later next week on the Rules & Resources page.
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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17 Responses to Rules Document Updated for Fall Regionals
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Don’t DC irl kids.
it really is good that they’re ironing this out now though
it really would suck to find yourself in that situation with the judges just standing there like “uhhhhhhhhh…..”
Way to go, Ben7000
Since draws are possible, are players allowed to intentionally draw?
How will perpetual connection issues in a single elimination portion of the tournament be handled? The issue at Worlds this year where two players could not connect fortunately came up during Swiss so a tie was possible. What would happen if this was during top cut? Would a Union Room battle (if they can connect) where judges are given stopwatches count as a replacement or maybe some other solution?
2.2. Trainer and Pokémon Names
Players are responsible for using appropriate names for their Trainer character and any Pokémon placed in their Battle Box. Players must avoid the use of obscene or otherwise offensive words or phrases when naming their Trainer or their Pokémon.
I guess this is the
kingofkongskingofmars rule? Offensive trainer card greetings can also be an issue but aren’t mentioned here.6.1. Tiebreakers
2. Average Percentage of HP Remaining
a. If one player’s team has a higher average percentage of HP remaining, that player wins the game.
I know this is super late and may not even matter in XY, but I’ve never liked the wording of this rule. Most people seem to interpret it as you take the percentage of HP each Pokemon has and take the average of those percentages. This is incorrect. If both players have 1 Pokemon standing, the person with a Pokemon at 100% of its HP thinks they will win this tiebreaker against an opponent with a Pokemon at 80%. However, they can easily lose if the opponent’s Pokemon is Blissey or if the opponent used Shedinja. The actual tiebreaker is calculated as the sum of HP of all 4 of your Pokemon divided by the max HP of all 4 of your Pokemon. That’s what I’ve determined from in game testing at least:
http://nuggetbridge.com/forums/topic/913-on-going-to-the-timer-in-the-international-challenge/
Noting how they even bother mentioning about naming your Pokemon appropriately…
Does that mean that displayed Pokemon Nicknames may be coming back to us?
“Illegally manipulated” isn’t a clear term unless they’re referring to DNS shenanigans or other methods of hack injection because 3DS haven’t been broken. yet.
calling the intentional 0-0-x right now
PLEASE ALLOW INTENTIONAL DRAWS FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY
Do people really want intentional draws? I remember back during the 2009 US Nationals, two players ID’d during the last swiss round. They got blasted on the (Smogon) VGC topic for doing that.
Nope. Can’t think of a single video game community look kindly upon IDs.
Would handle it case-by-case – 5.3 exists specifically for odd-ball situations (e.g. Italian Nationals, for example, where a disruption was not the fault of the player and a rematch was done). In the situation above, where it cannot be determined which cartridge is causing an issue and it is single-elimination, the players would likely need to transfer their team to a third-party cartridge and connect from there.
Suggestions on how to clearly word this rule are welcome.
I am a bit weary that a “double freeze” could be counted as a draw at all – considering how tight Swiss rankings are, and a 4-1-1 record will always beat a 4-2 (for example).
I’m not saying it would happen because I like to think we have a pretty honest community, but there is potential for two friends in the last round of Swiss to both dislodge their cartridge or something to get this tie and ensure both top cut. Surely games need to end in a result to ensure things like this don’t happen.
Also, I am pretty disappointed this “tie” was allowed to happen at Worlds, considering I finished 9th and blah blah blah… but that’s history now.
Thanks for the reply.
That makes sense. Hopefully XY doesn’t have anything important that relies on Friendship like Return and Frustration do since trading would mess that up.
In 5th gen it was sort of necessary since it was incredibly difficult for normal players to figure out tiebreaker rules on their own. Outside of competition, the only way to do timed battles was through GBU against random opponents. Trying to figure out how timer based tiebreaker rules worked using this would be nearly impossible. The only way to test it practically was to go to an official competition, get a copy of the ruleset download and test as best you can with the teams you ran in the tournament. However, XY seems like it changes this and you can do your own timed battles. I sort of see what you mean by the document isn’t meant to cover game mechanics in high detail. However, tiebreaker rules due to timer sort of gives me a “tournament operations” kind of feel and is something I might want to see listed in the rules document.
If intentional draws are allowed, this won’t matter because they could just agree on the draw. I think that makes things even worse from your perspective, though.
I could see someone finding a way to abuse this.
If draws are now officially recognized, should we even declare a winner when it comes down to the percentage of HP remaining? What about in other situations that end with both pokemon fainting on the last turn?
I think draws in the last round of swiss should be either replayed or a loss given to both players. But since basically judges get to make whatever decision they want, I fully expect to enter tournaments now where the judges allow players they know to get intentional draws.
Perhaps a silly question, but am I allowed to use my JP cart at my upcoming regional?
It’s been stated numerous times that only carts from their respective region can be used at events.
Thanks for seismic tossing me a bone, KoWL.