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Published on May 10th, 2013 | by Scott

19

2013 Italian Nationals Preview

Finally, the first European National tournament is here! For the first time, instead of the abysmal single elimination format European National tournaments have used in the past, this year Italian National tournament will be the first to use the Swiss + Top 16 Cut format. The needed and exciting improvement in format should ensure Europe qualifies the best players for Worlds it has ever qualified, and that starts this weekend!

This tournament will probably be an interesting learning experience for many of the players who haven’t been able to play a live event with the Swiss + Top Cut format before, but I’ve never met a player who preferred single elimination over it after playing in both and I’m really grateful the European players finally get a format we’ve enjoyed in our most important events for years. I think comparing our experience on the other side of the ocean with the change in format from single elimination Regionals to Swiss + Top Cut over the last two years, the quality of play and the validity of results from Regionals has vastly improved, so I expect a similar impact here in the European National tournaments. We’ve all endured the frustration of being eliminated from a tournament due to one strange loss to Sand Veil Garchomp entering the Matrix, or to a chain of Rock Slide flinches, or more recently because we couldn’t handle that Swagger, so I’m really glad that one particularly Pokemon game of Pokemon won’t be knocking out any deserving European players this year… finally.

Another big change for Milan specifically is the addition of byes. I feel like byes going to be a little wonky later in the season with the top 16 of Milan getting byes at the next event and essentially the top 8 from the first two Nationals getting byes at the third (even though half of them won’t need to continue playing), but I love the impact byes have on Milan, with the 16(well, actually more like 18) players who performed the best in Wi-Fi tournaments getting not only a free win, but the gigantic opponent win % boost that comes with it. Players with the byes dominated the tiebreakers at 2012 US Nationals and all of the 2013 Regionals and the same will likely hold true here. I’d expect many of the players with byes to wind up at X-0 and X-1 and wind up not needing the byes, but the X-2s with byes who cut will be good enough to belong in the top cut.

2013 Italian Nationals Predictions

It should be noted before I go any further: I expected the National tournaments in Europe to be somewhat unpredictable this year. It is Europe’s first year with a vastly improved tournament format, and I expected that will lead to better players making it deeper in the tournaments than in the past. However, since I am both not a player in the European region and because the terrible format of previous tournaments has likely caused some good players to have worse results than they deserved, I would expect some people will fly under my radar (especially because we don’t have an accurate list of everyone attending). Making things even more volatile is the fact this is Europe’s first live event of the year, so there isn’t a lot of great evidence about who is has been practicing and who has not. Don’t take it as an insult if you aren’t included or if I describe your chances as worse than you think they are unless that motivation will help you prove me wrong. Pokemon VGC is also growing again (and will likely continue to do so with the more palatable format), so players will likely come seemingly out of nowhere to do well in the National tournaments. That’s a good thing — the more the game grows, the better it is for those of us who play it.  However, I can’t write about people we don’t know yet, so don’t take there being no further mentions of anyone but established players as an expectation that big names are going to sweep all of the top cut slots, because they won’t.

Difficulty Rating:  

/ 5

(FIVE SPAGHETTI MONSTERS OUT OF FIVE)

The Story:  While I feel like this is one tournament where almost anything could happen, it would be a surprise to everyone if the players who have had a great deal of success in the past don’t have strong showings. Players who have top cut Worlds tend to be the safest bets to do well in future tournaments because of the difficulty involved with achieving that feat, and this event will have three players who have accomplished it worth noting: Matty, Flash, and Kasty. Matty seems to be the community favorite to win this event. He is the only one of the three who has the advantage of a bye from the Wi-Fi tournaments and his last two seasons were both very successful, making it to the finals of 2011 Worlds and having a respectable 3-3 record in 2012 Worlds in spite of a really difficult schedule. Flash is probably the player in the field I think is the most individually skilled after a top 4 finish at the challenging 2012 Worlds tournament, but he’s seemed to be a little reclusive since then, so I’m not sure if he’s as prepared as he was last year. Kasty rounds out the trio, and while of the three he’s the one I know the least about because he hasn’t interacted with us on the English speaking forums much, from what I can tell from last year he’s good enough that he should be able to power through most of the competition pretty easily. I’d be surprised if all three of these guys don’t top cut.

There’s about fifteen other players I think have vastly above average shots of top cutting, but most of them could put up underwhelming performances just as easily. I think the next group of players are the players who have proven they’re both solid players and that have byes to help make sure they get to the main event on Sunday. There’s a fun mix of nationalities in this group, so I’m kind of hoping most of them top cut to make things more fun on Sunday, but I’d put recent European Wi-Fi tournament winner BraindeadPrimape, Osirus, 2012 Worlds competitor DaFlo, and my powerful moderators Fatum and Baz Anderson(who I demand live up to the standard set by fellow moderator Zach in North America) in this group. I’d expect probably 4/5 of these guys will make it, give or take one person in either direction.

Most of the rest of the favorites either don’t have the advantage of a bye or don’t have a superb recent history, so while I think they’re strong enough players to cut, their odds are probably a little worse than the people mentioned before them. Bellanko is the only well known Spaniard with a bye, though I’m a little less confident in him than the people in the last section without seeing him in a live event. As usual, the Spanish Army will be there in force, with Deku, Mithos, Sekiam, and K-OS also threatening to take top cut slots. While the UK has been much maligned over the past couple of years due to the ease with which Spain has come in and won their Nationals, I think as a group they’re better than they’ve been since I started playing VGC and I wouldn’t be surprised if Koryo, El Fenomeno, and Worlds 2012 participant Kyriakou have strong performances in the first European live event of the season. I feel like I’m a little light on information about which Germans will be competing, but I know at least they will be represented by Billa, drug duck, and Picollo, who along with the aforementioned DaFlo are pretty formidable on their own.

The Smart Money is on…: Matty. I feel like I get burned whenever I don’t make the popular pick in these columns, and while I think that maybe each of the top players’ odds of winning are a little lower here than some of the players I’ve predicted to win other events  Matty’s odds are definitely the best of anyone’s here. The combination of his skill level, his Wi-Fi standing being evidence that he’s actually kept playing consistently since last season, and the bye to help make sure he gets into top cut make him the safest pick by far. Good luck!

Attending this event? Join your fellow competitors in discussion on our forum.

I feel a little out of sorts having analyzed an event I won’t be at where I haven’t met most of the players, but hopefully you guys enjoyed the attempt. Have fun out there — I know those of you attending this have waited an awful long time for another live event, with it having been almost a year since the 2012 Nationals and 9 months since Worlds. Hopefully, the improved format is worth the wait — I think Europe is a lot stronger as a whole than it tends to be given credit for because the qualifying system in the past has sent some of the right players but also some of the wrong ones, so I expect to see a great showing this season from Europe at Worlds and some excellent matches late in the Nationals this year because of the improved format. Show us all what you’ve been practicing for!

About the Author

Scott started playing VGC in 2011. He finished 17th at US Nationals, then lost in the final round of 2011 Worlds LCQ. He finished 10th in the 2012 World Championships and qualified for Worlds again in 2013 after going into US Nationals second in CP. Instead of playing, he commentated at US Nationals and the World Championships in 2013 and 2014. Follow him on Twitter @NBNostrom!

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