Standard Ruleset for 2015 VGC Season Updated
The Standard Ruleset has been updated. All tournaments that are a part of the Pokémon Video Game Championships (VGC) will use these rules starting January 1st, 2015. As many have predicted, it will mirror the ruleset used in the ΩR/αS League Doubles ladder on Battle Spot. For those who need a refresher, that means:
Standard Ruleset
- All matches are played in the Doubles format.
- Pokémon 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 Pokémon after team preview.
- Pentagon Rule: All Pokémon must have the blue pentagon on their stats page indicating they were caught, bred, or received as an official gift in Pokémon X, Y, Omega Ruby, or Alpha Sapphire.
- Species Clause: No two Pokémon on your team can share the same Pokédex number.
- Item Clause: No two Pokémon on your team can hold the same held item.
- The following items are banned:
- Soul Dew
- The following moves are banned:
- none
- The following Pokémon are banned (all forms):
- Mewtwo
- Mew
- Lugia
- Ho-oh
- Celebi
- Kyogre
- Groudon
- Rayquaza
- Jirachi
- Deoxys
- Dialga
- Palkia
- Giratina
- Phione
- Manaphy
- Darkrai
- Shaymin
- Arceus
- Victini
- Reshiram
- Zekrom
- Kyurem
- Keldeo
- Meloetta
- Genesect
- Xerneas
- Yveltal
- Zygarde
- Diancie
For full rules, download the rules document here.
Additional Rule Clarifications
Headphones
You are allowed to use headphones while playing as long as they are wired and plugged into your 3DS. The cord must be visible.
Time Limits at Premier Challenges
Due to the longer than normal timers when using the Player Search System, Premier Challenges and other tournaments where you don’t have your Battle Box locked and rules downloaded at registration can have time limits enforced manually by a judge. Time limits may also be extended if the organizer sees fit. Changes should be communicated at the beginning of the tournament alongside the number of rounds and top cut size.
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’m gonna abuse the heck out of that Theme 6. Regardless, predictable format, and should be fun.
EDIT: lol screwed up with the quote system. not sure how it quoted hunter.
You can still SR for 6 IVs, although that’s a bit of a hassle since it’s different back in Gen 5. That’s like hitting a jackpot or something already.
yep, but it requires a lot of SR though :s (fortunately only thundy and lando are good)
I have so many plans for VGC 2015… I don’t know where to begin!
So for Latias/os, Terrakion and the three weather-legends you have to get a lot of soft resetting going.
Especially the Lati Twins will be really hard to get in a legit way because you can´t even use a synchronise on them.
I kinda just started with Pokemon that were good in VGC ’13 lol
@keyno I’m fairly certain that Synchronize works 100% of the time on the Lati in your game. I haven’t tested it yet.
And darn, my Thundurus isn’t good. I don’t want to reset the whole game… 🙁
@Hunter
Well, read that as sending quick prayers to the RNG gods then.
@Keyno, I can officially deconfirm that. Synchronize DOES work, i’ve been using my timid gardevoir on MANY occasions for pokemon that needed to be timid for me and that includes Latias or any pokemon you can press A before battle.
However it is a 50% chance, i’ve had to SR many times until I that actual nature popped up with desirable Ivs.
In-game/story/plot Lati@s, Synchronize 100% of the time. Eon ticket, 50%.
Love how there’s more allowed Pokemon now but I can’t help but worry that this will promote more Powersave usage because of SRing being such a massive time sink.
But alas, looking forward to playing this meta.
Hey, what about Cosplay Pikachu? Can we use that?
Regigigas isnt listed???
not sure if typo but its something interesting to note
Relieved VGC 2015 will be National Dex – opening up a Pandoras Box of options. Hopefully, it’ll keep the metagame relatively balanced.
A bit annoyed about Smeargle though. Its usually not a big deal if you have a check but its going to discourage beginners a lot if they end up going against it.
SRing Legends this Gen is ridiculously tough and time consuming, but it kinda creates a reward mechanism for those that put in the effort to get flawless ones.
I like the format, I dislike gamefreak. Now tell me, how are we supposed to get perfect legendaries without WASTING an horrific amount of time without any guarantees. Then, later in the season you decide you want another nature, IVs / hidden power. What do you do then?
This format will bring back AR / Powersaves / whatever, and I think blue pentagon and kalos dex was amazing because we could get perfect pokémon in a reasonable time barring Zapdos and Moltres (ask Osirus).
I won’t cheat but I’m pissed because I can’t trust anyone outside my circle because you don’t know if the pokémon you are getting has been altered or not and I don’t like to take that risk when as an European player I can only compete in 2 events to try to qualify for worlds. And I’m pissed as weel because I spent 40 hours until I got a perfect timid Latios but you have to be prepared to some perfect hidden power X on a legendary even if it’s almost impossible to get that without cheating (ask Osirus again).
TLDR; Gj TPCI, nice ruleset. Awful job Game Freak for having such a poor concept of what grinding/farming means in a rpg and it’s even worse because this rpg is played in a competitive way.
I’m looking forward to another good year. A few questions about the rules, though:
1. Game Version
Which game cards are legal in Latin America, Asia Pacific and South Africa?
1.1 Game Systems
Not a big deal but should the New Nintendo 3DS be mentioned? It’s out in Australia and it probably isn’t much longer before it’s out in North America and Europe.
4.4 Untethered Time Limits
I guess manual tiebreaker calculation is official now. It might be better to explicitly give out the exact formula for tiebreaker 6.1.2. similar to how it’s usually done in Japanese documents.
Interesting to see deoxsys remain banned as it is available in game now. On another note, sine these rules are the same (or at least similiar to) ORAS league rules does this mean we have a ingame ladder to practice on?
hyper voice mega gardevoir but not by much.
Watch out for Bisharp when using either one. Iron head will hurt sylveon, knock off for aegislash.
Regigigas has issues that balance it out, and has never been banned since its introduction.
Deoxys, while now available to all, is not a balanced Pokemon in the sense other Pokemon are. I agree with keeping it banned. Not to mention its banned on battle spot. (Also do we really want it in the first place? I do not)
Alright! then all that time SRing for legends wasn’t a waste
pretty cool man
You move what you have to the Pokebank and restart the game to get another one. After SRing for all the legendaries once that’s what I plan on doing, just so I can later on pick between Modest and Timid, Jolly and Adamant.
I’m just frustrated that I have Omega Ruby and no way to get a legal Thundurus. Probably going to offer up my Modest HP Ice Zapdos from Y that I spent forever getting and hope for a taker.
It’s a huge time-sink, but them’s the breaks. At least it’ll allow you to change natures on the fly throughout the season if you need to.
Nothing is stopping you from buying AlphaSapphire, besides money. If you are playing to win, this is a non-issue anyway.
Although highly expected, it’s good to remove that small shred of doubt people may have had about what the VGC ruleset for 2015 would be.
Sprocket, nope. Still 50%
It took me 3 resets before my latias on alpha sapphire went Timid.
I don’t mean to be rude but I know. It was a rhetorical question. My point is that there isn’t a good way around must need legrndaries. What is the point of getting the game and collecting stuff if you just have to erase all your progress? A game is supposed to be fun and hard at times but not hard the way it is right now. Just endessly soft resseting without any guarantee and sometimes even hard resseting it. Pointless, rudimentary and not up to the standards of the competitive environments right now.
You know, they could create some kind of Super training to edit the IV’s at a high cost, just like the ability capsule, that way you will spend a lot of time but farming in a real way. Or at least make synchronizers work 100% of the time for batteable legendaries, not only for gift Pokemon.
Checks banned Pokemon list, no Smeargle on it.
HALLELUJAH.
So uh, let’s go Smeargle. Together we hit the Dark Void button while you fiddle with your scarf.
I’m excited for this seasons rules, I feel like I’m not limited as to which Pokemon I can use now.
Also headphones ftw
That shouldn’t be the case. In my Alpha Sapphire I soft-resetted Latias 30+ times and always got Timid.
Well, I’m not happy about the “pentagon rule,” and I could do without “Dark Void” also, but I’m not surprised about the rule set, and I’m glad to see the National Dex back. I have a feeling that the “pentagon rule” will shrink the pool of strong players down a bit with all the legal legendaries. There will be the school of soft-resetters (battling Thundurus over and over again, etc.), and then there will be a group of people who take short cuts and share perfect-IV clones. As I’ve noted before, I’m not sure the pentagon rule is going to achieve an even playing field, and I don’t believe it’ll solve undesired manipulations (saw some of that slip into Nationals last year), though I do understand the desire to get “Follow Me Magmar” and a few other oddities out of the field. There are other ways to go about getting rid of oddities that would still allow Gen V Bank transfers to be legal (only allow XY-ORAS move sets). Hate losing so much prior work, but it’s not like the people on this board haven’t been preparing me. Love the wide-open Pokemon list, though. And for those that take exception to my “pentagon” criticism, note that you can’t be from the school of “no one should mind as long as a Pokemon has legal stats/moves” and also be against Gen V transfers (provided the move sets match XY-ORAS possibilities).