Japan’s Battle Road Gloria Circuit Qualifiers – Complete Team Details and Usage Statistics
The start of Japan’s official VGC/World Championship Series 14 circuit may still be months away, but the Japanese tournament scene has been far from inactive! Among the numerous grassroots offline tournaments, or off-kai, which have already taken place or are scheduled to take place soon, a particularly noteworthy series of events stand out. We have already brought you team reports from some of these events, but for those unfamilliar, these events combined are known as the Battle Road Gloria, a nationwide circuit of off-kais using the current Standard rules and culminating in a National Finals in Osaka on March 23 (this Sunday). All the qualifying events besides the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) have been successfully concluded, and the stage is set for the showdown this weekend to determine who goes home with the glory!
So strap yourselves in for the weekend (there will most likely be a stream and organiser @masaVAmpharos will tweet the details) and LET’S GLORIA!
Circuit and Tournament Structure
The circuit comprises of eight events: 6 regional qualifiers, an LCQ on the eve of the finals, and the finals itself. The events and the number of players who advanced through them are:
- 18 Jan – Arena Off – Tokyo (Kanto Region) – Top 4 advance
- 1 Feb – Bibu Off – Hiroshima (Chu-shikoku Region) – Top 2 advance
- 9 Feb – Ganyu Off – Fukuoka (Kyushu Region), Top 2 advance
- 23 Feb – Shade Off – Osaka (Kansai Region), Top 2 advance
- 8 Mar – Hokuriku Off – Ishikawa (Hokuriku Region), Top 2 advance
- 15 Mar – Touhoku Off – Miyagi (Touhoku Region), Top 2 advance
- 22 Mar – Last Chance Qualifier – Osaka, Top 6 advance
- 23 Mar – National Finals – Osaka
Unlike the standard best-of-1 Swiss rounds leading to single elimination best-of-3 top cut format that official VGC events have adopted, Japan’s off-kais do things a little differently and these events are no exception. The ~60-80 players are broken up into 8 groups/blocks, and a best-of-1 Round Robin (everyone plays everyone else in the group once) takes place. The top two players from each group advance to a top 16 cut, where the final placings are determined by single elimination best-of-1. Advancement from the groups is determined by, in order of priority:
- Win-Loss Rate
- Number of Completed Matches
- Tiebreaker Match
- Combined Opponents’ Win-Loss Rate
- Rock-Paper-Scissors
The National Finals is set to follow the same format, except that the 20 participants will be divided into 4 groups from which the top 8 players will advance.
All battles are played in person on actual consoles, and use the standard VGC ’14 rules except for the timer which follows the default local multiplayer settings.
Qualified Players
Through their outstanding performances at the qualifying events, these players have succesfully advanced to the next leg of their glorious journey! They and their qualifying teams are:
Arena Off (18 Jan, Tokyo, Kanto Region Qualifier, 114 Players)
Champion: Viera
Runner-up: Yuuichi
3rd place: Suraimu
4th place: Rasuku
Bibu Off (1 Feb, Hiroshima, Chu-shikoku Region Qualifier, 47 Players)
Champion: Takasazo
Runner-up: Hashidam
Ganyu Off (9 Feb, Fukuoka, Kyushu Region Qualifier, 65 Players)
Champion: see_miruo (translated team report)
Runner-up: Tony
Shade Off (23 Feb, Osaka, Kansai Region Qualifier, 86 Players)
Champion: Gonbe
Runner-up: Mouhu
Hokuriku Off (8 Mar, Ishikawa, Hokuriku Region Qualifier, 67 Players)
Champion: Rei
Runner-up: Fukunyan
Touhoku Off (15 Mar, Miyagi, Touhoku Region Qualifier, 64 Players)
Champion: Alcana
Runner-up: masa
Usage Statistics and Team Details of All Players
We move on to the details of the rest of the players. The tournament organisers have done an extremely thorough job of collating this data, and have already made them public on various Japanese blogs. My job was mostly to translate Pokémon names, though I took the opportunity to do some compiling and create some statistics.
The complete data, including all usage statistics and (almost) every player’s team can be found here. I will not present all the information in this article because the quantity of it is simply staggering.
With that out of the way, I shall explain an important term in Japanese tournament usage statistics which is used in these statistics as well: the Kaburi Point (KP). The Kaburi Point of a particular species of Pokemon is simply the number of players that used it in the tournament. Since each player brings 6 Pokemon, the species clause then ensures that the sum of the KP of all Pokemon is equal to the tournament attendance multiplied by 6. Going further, the Japanese also define the KP of a player’s team to be equal to the sum of the KP of its constituent Pokemon, so a team with high KP would be full of popular Pokemon, wheras one with low KP would be full of unique choices. Since KP depends on the tournament attendance, raw KP numbers cannot be compared across tournaments with different attendance and must be divided by the attendance to obtain the percentage of players who used a particular Pokemon. I have sorted all the data presented in this article and in spreadsheets attached to this article by KP, from top to bottom and left to right in descending order. In other words, you can expect to see all the more unique Pokemon picks, such as miruo’s Pyroar and Gonbe’s Hippowdon, clustered towards the right.
Firstly, the various Pokemon used by average % usage for all the 6 qualifiers:
(to see the pie charts for individual tournaments: Arena Bibu Ganyu Shade Hokuriku Touhoku)
Next, a look at the top 10 Pokemon by by average % usage across the 6 qualifiers:
Top 16 teams from each qualifier
Finally, I leave you with the teams that got past the preliminary round robin stages for all the qualifier tournaments. Qualifying teams already listed above have been omitted. In addition, you may notice certain strong players who attended multiple events and managed to top cut multiple times!
Arena off (18 Jan, Tokyo, Kanto region qualifier, 114 players)
Top 4: Qualified and listed above
Top 8: Ryokucha
Top 8: Secchan
Top 8: Mikoto
Top 8: R Justice
Top 16: Uiww
Top 16: MAS
Top 16: Miyako
Top 16: Itou
Top 16: Huuuryu
Top 16: Masahiro
Top 16: YT
Top 16: Yasumatsu
Bibu Off (1 Feb, Hiroshima, Chu-shikoku region qualifier, 47 Players)
Top 2: Qualified and listed above
3rd place: Kaede
4th place: Arue (translated team report)
Top 8: Denjiha
Top 8: Shien
Top 8: Marou
Top 8: Nikoru
Top 16: Surairi
Top 16: Tony
Top 16: masa
Top 16: Hashimura
Top 16: Miyanoakemi
Top 16: Torun
Top 16: Abi
Top 16: Rai
Ganyu Off (9 Feb, Fukuoka, Kyushu region qualifier, 65 Players)
Top 2: Qualified and listed above
3rd place: Chikuha
4th place: Sana
Top 8: Shichikin
Top 8: Bandoru
Top 8: Torun
Top 8: YT
Top 16: Tomoya
Top 16: Hashidam
Top 16: Fuoru
Top 16: Zaha
Top 16: Viera
Top 16: Aroe
Top 16: Gincho
Top 16: imP
Shade Off (23 Feb, Osaka, Kansai region qualifier, 86 Players)
Top 2: Qualified and listed above
3rd place: Nemuru
4th place: YT
Top 8: Kousuke
Top 8: Kande
Top 8: Bunbun
Top 8: Right
Top 16: Gacha
Top 16: Sunlight
Top 16: Yamacha
Top 16: Viera
Top 16: haru
Top 16: Moudameda
Top 16: Tsubasa
Top 16: see_miruo
Hokuriku Off (8 Mar, Ishikawa, Hokuriku region qualifier, 67 Players)
Top 2: Qualified and listed above
3rd place: Rurito
4th place: Mopi
Top 8: Zunda
Top 8: Leon
Top 8: Kandachibe
Top 8: Moudameda
Top 16: Sena
Top 16: Pentagon
Top 16: Bicho
Top 16: Gacha
Top 16: Tsunku
Top 16: Yura
Top 16: Beko
Top 16: Yukikage
Touhoku Off (15 Mar, Miyagi, Touhoku region qualifier, 64 Players)
Top 2: Qualified and listed above
3rd place: Roto
4th place: Miya
Top 8: Nako
Top 8: Doru
Top 8: HAL
Top 8: Seravi
Top 16: Suraimu
Top 16: At least an E Cup
Top 16: Kaede
Top 16: Rasu
Top 16: Sukiru
Top 16: Pippi
Top 16: Zecchan
Top 16: Tsuzuli
About the Author
tanzying is a VGC player hailing from the tropical island of Singapore. Previously involved mostly in translating Japanese VGC blog articles for the rest of the world, organising official VGC events and friendlies with other countries for Singapore has come to be his primary role.
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16 Responses to Japan’s Battle Road Gloria Circuit Qualifiers – Complete Team Details and Usage Statistics
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Dragons and Aegislashes for days. Holy.
Ugh whoops, replace one of the Garchomps with a Kangaskhan please (and if an editor could help me change it on the CMS that would be great)
It’s really interesting that no Smeargle qualfied even though we can see that plenty of people entered with them.
Two Garchomps, hah. I’d use two Garchomps if it was allowed. A lot of Fairy-Steel-Dragon Core seen on many teams.
Very interesting look at the Japanese meta, no surprise in the Garde/Aegi usage abound, but interesting to see less Charizard than I’m used to.
Also is that a mono-Psychic team I see
Are they going to update this when the other tournaments finish?
Some pretty cool info here. There were quite a lot of teams that made cut that had a TR mode to them, or were just flat out running Hard TR. I’d like to say this is surprising, noting how non-existant TR has been here, but I do believe Japan does have a thing for trying to get TR to work so it isn’t as surprsing. This would probably also explain why Mega Maw sees a lot more usage from them, since naturally, Hard TR would gravitate towards running one.
Also, I’m now very curious how Itou’s Mono-Psychic team works. Since he managed to Top Cut with that.
btw, do the names of the tourneys have any specific meaning to them?
Wow that 4th place Arena Off team is very very impressive. Torkoal/Gourgeist/Luc. I’m glad to see that smeargle isn’t as much of a factor as I thought it would be. seems like everybody has a counter to being put to sleep. I’m also glad to see hydreigon on a 1st place team even though its weakness to fairys.
1 more thing, the art for this post is amazing. love it.
Some very interesting stuff, a monotype Psychic team is very interesting. But the all-too-common Garchomp, Salamence, and Aegislash are expected. Still some nice things to see that you don’t usually see, such as Jolteon and Delphox!
I smashed that 4th place team this morning 4-0. It involved Final Gambit Lucario and a Rain and TR mode with Gourgeist/Torkoal, pretty interesting though. Surprised by that finish.
OMG a mono Psychic team made top 16!!!
Pre-XY hype: Fairy Apocalypse! Dragons, run for your lives!
Post-XY meta: Oh hai, my name is Garchomp and I’m still here to eat your children.
Gonbe’s Shade Off team looks particularly interesting. Possibly no Megas (I doubt Mega Aerodactyl was used, cos the original seems a better support AND attacker at the moment) and just a defensive orientated, good ol’ fashioned Sandstorm team.
Also that Mono Psychic team is totally rad.
It was Mega Aerodactyl. You can see his report if you follow the link to his blog.
Other notable stuff include Hokuriku Off winner Rei using Mega Charizard X instead of Y.
Whoa. That’s quite something! I would to see what the play-style was like! Also, the Amphabulous / Mewostic team he faced looks sort of like the one I’m planning… I hope mine works out better than that one.
“Top 16: Aroe” An Aron what? What? WAHT?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?no srs how