Structure Revealed for US Nationals and Advance Registration is Required
The 2014 US Pokémon Video Game National Championships is coming and it looks to be the largest yet, with more than last year’s participants already pre-registered for the Masters division. Quite a few new details have surfaced over the last 24 hours and we’d like to make sure everyone is aware of them, as it will affect you as an attendee.
Pre-Registration is Required
If you do not pre-register using this link before check-in begins, you will not be allowed to play in the National Championships. There will be no at-the-door registration like for Regional events. You are not allowed to play unless you pre-register. Please do so now. With the increased numbers of players expected at the event, it has become no longer feasible to process registration at the door.
The following amount spots are guaranteed for each age group:
- 150 Junior division players
- 250 Senior division players
- 800 Masters division players
However, keep in mind that you must check-in at the event at 7:00 PM on Thursday (Masters) or 5:00 PM on Friday (Juniors/Seniors) even if you did pre-register. This is the full check-in schedule:
Thursday
- A couple of computers will be setup to “register online” in a different area than the check in area from 4:00PM – 6:00PM Note: you can use your phone to register online at any time instead of these kiosks
- Masters division check in – 7:00PM – 8:00PM
Friday
- Masters division late check in – 7:00AM – 7:30AM (please avoid this window unless you really need it – like for a delayed flight on Thursday)
- Masters tournament starts at 8:00AM
- Junior/Senior division check in – 5:00PM – 6:00PM
Saturday
- Junior/Senior late check in – 8:00AM – 8:30AM
- Junior/Senior tournament starts with the player meeting at 9:30AM
Tournament Structure
Juniors & Seniors
Juniors and Seniors will play on Saturday and each division will cut to a Top 16 which will happen on Sunday. All registered players are eligible to play on Saturday as there is no invitation or qualifications required to play in the National Championships.
Friday
- Check-In
Saturday
- Swiss Rounds
- Best-of-1
- Top 16 move to Sunday
Sunday
- Single Elimination
- Best-of-3
Masters Division
All registered players will be able to play in the Swiss rounds on Friday. All players with two or fewer losses will move on to the second day of competition. On Saturday, these players will do an additional six or seven round Swiss tournament with the Top 8 moving on to the single elimination portion of the event that will take place immediately afterwards. The finals will be played out on Sunday. There will be a stream on Pokémon’s Twitch channel starting around Round 4 of Saturday’s Swiss tournament running until the end of Top Cut before switching to TCG.
Thursday
- Check-In
Friday
- Swiss Rounds
- Best-of-1
- Everyone with 2 or fewer losses moves on to Saturday
Saturday Swiss
- Swiss Rounds
- Best-of-3
- Records are not carried over from Friday, everyone starts with a 0-0 record again
- Top 8 move on to Top Cut
Saturday Top Cut
- Single Elimination
- Best-of-3
- Finals happen on Sunday
Sunday
- Finals
- Best-of-3
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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9 Responses to Structure Revealed for US Nationals and Advance Registration is Required
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Looks like a fantastic new tournament structure.
The link isn’t working for me
Commented a little in the other thread, but think the format here is almost perfect. I know time constraints at other events sort of limit potential formats a little bit, but I think this is about as perfect as it can be at a Pokemon event that is open to everyone.
While I’d love best-of-three play all the time every time, I’m sure it makes a little more sense to play best-of-one for the first few rounds where there a lot more players who might not be as interested in getting to play fewer series instead of more single games, as well as to cut down on those series where game 2 is more of a formality because of a big mismatch between players in the earlier rounds. Cutting all the X-2s afterward instead of just the top however-many makes the tournament a lot simpler and goes a llong way toward making it feel more fair from players’ end, with players at each record being treated the same on Day 1 at least.
Day 2/3 basically adds the Worlds format to US Nationals, which I think has proven to be effective at getting the best players to the end. I like the format here because I’d much rather have a second Swiss stage than a longer single elimination bracket and I think this definitely ensures the players who make it to the top 8 will all be excellent with this many rounds to get through, without any of the “so-and-so had an easy bracket” crap we normally get. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of… excitement over whichever couple of 5-2/4-2s get into top 8, but I’m really happy with the format of this event given how heavily the concentration of prizes and circuit points are on US Nats. The format of the event is in line with its importance this time, for sure.
I only have one complaint with the structure, and that’s in the restarting of the records completely. Restarting is clearly better than having records carry over, since equating best of three games to best of one games is clearly incorrect. However, Players who perform exceedingly well in swiss should get some sort of advantage. As we’ve seen from pretty much every tournament one can think of, seeding doesn’t work in pokemon (at least based on swiss results), because the best x-2 always ends up being better than the worst x-1, seriously try to find a tournament where that isn’t the case. What I think would be a good reward for people who do well in swiss is to get a tie added to their record for each game above x-2 won (1 or 2 points). While the better performance in swiss isn’t equivalent to a win, what it does mean is that this acts as the de facto tie breaker over opponent’s resistance. It encourages people to take their swiss games seriously after they go 7-0, and bypasses the annoyance of opponent’s resistance as a tie breaker.
Everything else in this format is perfect though, while it might seem arbitrary to have the top 32 line be around 2/3 of the cut instead of the entire cut, and could potentially make it so that someone loses out on a worlds invite, if you can’t go positive in a nats pool, you should not be at worlds.
This format is amazing, a huge step forward. I wish I live in the US D: Sadly it comes at the cost of Europe taking an step back from an already poor season structure.
But no hard feelings, I’m glad you guys are geting this amazing Nats and hoping for a great success so it can be dittoed overseas with some sort of European Championships
Not getting into top cut when the guy next to you with the same record gets in is pretty disheartening. This is really good news.
This format is actually good enough that I’m seriously reconsidering my “decision” to not go to nationals.
check in is Thursday? I only planned to get there Thursday night and play Friday-on. Is there going to be a time Friday to check in? I preregistered already.
Whoops nvm. I only glanced at the bottom schedule and didnt see check in for Friday. This will work out haha.