2013-2014 Play! Pokemon Season Rules, Dates Revealed
Lots of news today in relation to next season’s rules. The Pokemon website has revealed a number of things about the next season.
The official changes document has been posted on the Play! website but we have also included links to more specific information where necessary.
First off Regionals, Nationals, and Worlds dates have been revealed, though no information on location has been revealed just yet for the stuff we didn’t already know. You can see those dates here, but they are also as follows:
Fall Regionals
Weekends of October 12th, 19th, 26th
Winter Regionals (2014)
Weekends of January 11th, 18th, 25th
Spring Regionals (2014)
Weekends of April 5th, 12th, 19th
US Nationals
July 4th-6th, 2014
Worlds
August 15th-17th, 2014
Fall Regionals will continue to use Pokemon Black 2 and Pokemon White 2, while further tournaments will transition to Pokemon X and Pokemon Y.
Along with these changes to Regionals dates there has been a restructuring of prizes for the next season. Instead of directly giving you a travel award from your performance at a Regional, your Championship Point standing will determine which prizes you will qualify for. Winning a Regional will now give the first place winner a Nintendo 3DS. All the information related to Championship Points can be found here.
After the Spring Regional Championships, the Championship Point rankings will award Travel Awards and Stipends for North American players to the 2014 U.S. National Championships with the following distribution (per age division):
1st–16th: Travel Award and a $300 Stipend
17th–32th: $700 Travel Stipend
33rd–64th: $350 Travel Stipend
After July 10th, 2014, the final video game Championship Point rankings will be pulled. Accounts must be in good standing and updated by the user to reflect accurate information. At this time, Championship Points earned at the 2013 World Championships will also be added to players’ accounts. The following prizes will be awarded (per age division):
1st–4th in North America: Travel Award to the 2014 World Championships
1st–16th in Europe: Travel Award to the 2014 World Championships
Included are also best finish limits to the number of Regionals that will count towards your Championship Point total. Only 3 of your best Regionals performances will be counted towards Travel Awards/Stipends and Worlds Invites. The Top 16 North American players at the end of the season will receive an invitation to the World Championships, with the Top 32 European players also getting invites to the World Championships. There will also be 4 spots available for Last Chance Qualifier top 4.
What do you think of these changes Nugget Bridge? You can find all the information related to VGC for next season on the Play! Pokemon website.
About the Author
makiri started playing VGC in 2008 and has been an advocate for VGC play since then. With three Regional Championship victories and multiple other high placings, makiri is a seasoned competitor ready to impart knowledge of the game to others.
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I’m saddened by the lack of a CP bar, but all the rest of the changes seem to be for the better. I know I’m very excited for this season, can’t wait!
So worlds can be locked up in one month pretty much? It says your best 3 regional finishes. So, I can travel to all 3 fall regionals, win all 3 and those 3 count?
I’ll let someone like Scott analyze this in more words than I will, but I’ll sum up a few of the issues we have:
1 This is the big issue.. Winning a regional is no longer enough to get a Nats trip. Being in top 16 means you must attend three events and most likely top cut all of them. Considering hotel and travel costs, you will be behind the eight ball financially. Considering the inherent inconsistency of Pokemon, you’ll also need the luck to ensure you consistently finish. For those of us living in the western half of the country (I’m looking at you California), you guys are pretty screwed since driving is prohibitively expensive as is flying.
2. After the Duy/TDS fiasco this year, I simply do not understand how we don’t have a flat goal for worlds invites. We’re still operating on top 16 CP, which further turns this into a “who has the most money to show up to the most regionals”.
3. The system promotes artificial consistency in Worlds trips. CP for the 2014 season comes in part from 2013 worlds. While I am not arguing that Human or Cybertron are inconsistent players, they will most likely be at a significant advantage for any travel compensation. This all depends on how much they decide to award for Worlds, which has not been disclosed yet.
4. OmegaDonut covered this already, but why we still have t16 in a game as variable as Pokemon is beyond me.
I’m willing to discuss any of these points in more detail, but I’m gonna leave it at this for length purposes. Needless to say, I am not pleased with this system.
dangit now i have to get a lot of cp if i want the money how do you even get a lot of cp before the first event in the new season I CAN ONLY GO TO 1 REGIONAL TPCI
The answer is: you don’t. My Philly win would have meant squat under this new system since I prioritized school over travelling 5-10 hours multiple times for Pokemon. Considering I maxed out for one event and wasn’t even close to a would-be travel award, it means everyone else who can only show up to one regional is screwed too.
Beautiful system, ain’t it?
The only thing I am miffed about is no CP threshold being introduced. I do think it’d be much fairer on everyone involved in the series…
However, I am stoked for the initial way Europe will work. 1-16 getting paid invites is great, and still having the fall back option of 17-32 unpaid is how it should be. It should probably be closer to this in America, but I’ll let some of you US players tear that apart.
I’m looking forward to this season and Europe have little reason to complain right now. It’s also nice to see a lot of information put forward early this time, such as dates for the US tournaments which at least allows a bit more diary planning!
It seems like they are trying to get people to come to every single event, but they need to offer more of a financial incentive to get people to go. Right now, it seems like people are forced to go in order to be competitive, that doesn’t not make for a fun environment. They only thing they did right was cap the number of regionals that count towards your CP.
i want to smash my ds right now
Don’t lose you’re hopes right now , there’s a chance that they will have different locations for winter and spring, if god listens to my prayers then it will happen.
I’m glad that they have more opportunities for CP awards but as bearsfan092 said, it’s gonna be down to whomever can pull out the money to be out there. Top 32 invites for europe seems far to top 16 for North America because Europe is across ocean from North america, so this should seem pretty satisfactory.
I’ll been looking forward to this season, though.
Well, I guess I’ll just have to wait till’ next season.
My parents aren’t gonna pay money for a plane ticket or roadtrip far distances just for Pokemon…
(Bottom of External
I’m going to assume this is an oversight error?
I’m really not sure what’s the big deal with the money thing. I know west coasters probably have a tough time of it, but I’ve managed to make the trips to regionals in the midwest (and they were by no means “close”) which included 8+ hour drives sometimes on less than $100 (and for Ft. Wayne, less than $50), which is more than worth getting to hang out with fellow pogglemonz players, see a new city, play some mons. Carpool and room with 3-4 other people, get a good hotel deal, use a fuel efficient car, it’s not that exorbitant if you’re smart (if you don’t have friends to carpool and room with than I’m sorry and yes it is expensive and maybe you should make some/bring some).
I also really don’t understand this “Oh TPCi is forcing players to go to all of the regionals in order to make it to worlds and that’s bs” mentality. If there was a flat CP bar for worlds it wouldn’t be yamsing 100 CP, it would probably be something like 250, which only 15 players managed this season and I would actually expect it to be less this season because consistency over the course of this season will almost definitely be more difficult with the MASSIVE format change mid-season that will be conducive to new players coming in with new technology and beating everyone’s rumpuses. Maybe I’ll eat my words and 17 players will hit 250 CP this season and if that happens you guys can laugh and call me names and not let me play any reindeer games, but until that happens, consider that top 16 CP might actually make it easier to qualify than flat CP bar, while it is unfortunately less clear cut. I just think it’s ridiculous that someone would think that top 16 is conducive to making it “who can go to the most regionals” whereas a flat bar wouldn’t. You can pay to go to more regionals and have decent performances in enough of them to get there either way.
I think that’s from last season
so am i correct in assuming that all 3 of the fall regional dates have a tournament in each region? for example will there be 3 regionals in fall for the NE region?
Well considering my main issue is with nationals travel awards, I’m going to disregard your second paragraph darkeness.
However your first paragraph has merit until you remember the hidden costs of going to a regional. I’m in the middle of my electrical engineering degree right now, and sinking a weekend of time in can be pretty disastrous. Also, before this year, I had no car (and lot of us don’t have access to one still), so it was even more time consuming to travel by bus. Then if you room with 3 other people, you’re going to be sinking 50-150 bucks depending on how long you stay. Then there are things like food, which probably will sink you for 30-50 for a weekend. So if we take the modest estimate of 80-200 USD per trip, do that three times and you still are in the 240-600 range, and that’s assuming it all goes according to plan. You’ll have to assign dollar values to the opportunity costs of missing studies or work.
So, we’ll say you were fairly frugal and spent 400 for three regionals (hint: not a realistic expectation). If you fall in the top 64 bracket, you’re still out at least 50 dollars, and probably more especially considering you seem willing to write off 8 hours for free.
In short, if you were already the type who shows up to three regionals, you probably don’t need to worry about this. If you aren’t that type, you do need to worry.
I love these changes. The only flaw is the system for providing Worlds invites, because as our European friends love to say, adding additional unpaid invites does not cost TPCi anything! The changes to Nationals invites is superb, as it rewards consistency for playing throughout the year. My only hope is that there are not too many people that abuse the fact that there are essentially 9 opportunities to play in Regionals, as I feel that will lead to a “pay to win” scenario. If all 3 sets of regionals occurred simultaneously or in a short enough time period that it is virtually impossible to attend multiple regionals in the same set, I would think the regional system would be near perfect. I feel a little bit for the guys on the west coast, but it isn’t a whole lot different for myself in Madison (1 regional in the city, 1 6~ hours away, 1 ~10 hours away) and I plan to attend all 3 regionals (assuming same locations as last year). I love the fact that TPCi continually pours more money into the game year after year and is willing to support players who come from all situations (top 64 getting travel stipends!)
They’re going to put Nationals on the 4th of July? Are they ‘merican?
And even through all that went down that night – some 17 year old kid on the streets of Indy getting shot.?
This is a load of horse feces.
Better not be in Indianapolis this year either, that god-forsaken city.
I strongly agree with bearsfan, it is a great shame that they changed national’s travel awards. As a west coaster, it is pretty much mandatory to have to get a hotel for each regional since most of them are such long drives. I can see that they want to reward people who have been consistently good in regionals, but now they are stopping people who can afford one from going to nationals.
Hello from Georgia and the rest of the Southeast. Although I have one close regional, it costs me ~$500 in gas to get to and back from the closest fall regional, which is in Ft.Wayne. You claim it’s easy to be smart, but then say sorry you don’t have friends. Protip, not including hotel, it’s still more than $100 per person even if 4 people go. Basically, you’re just being a Robin to those who are graphically isolated and poor college students.
But anyway my thoughts on the new system:
1) Kinda upset there’s not a CP cut. We’re still operating on what seems to be “yay let’s have an international party” rather than “let’s have a tournament that consists of the best players”. (<= My biggest issue) Of course, assuming CP distributions are the same, a CP cut wouldn’t really work very well since winning one European National is worth more than winning 3 North American Regionals.
2) It’s nifty that there’s so many travel awards to North American Nationals, and with a good finish it’s not impossible to go to only one regional and get a travel award, but despite what some people are saying you really do have to travel to at least two regionals if you want to make the travel award worth your time. Of course, this will remove all but likely first place Regional finishes from travel awards if someone only attends one regional.
3) Hey, 3DS! That’s awesome! I’m glad we’re getting prizes that actually relate to the game we play instead of more card mats.
4) Profit
5) Do I really think the top 16 European players should get fully paid trips to worlds (of course we don’t know if they’re all fully paid, but I think it’s reasonable to expect so)? EH. Whatever, it’s probably about the same as all the money they’re dropping to get North American players to Nationals.
Why does it have to be so complicated? Championship Points sucks, it was so much better 2012 and earlier…
Sorry friends, if you’re looking to complain you’re not going to get much help from me on this one.
I’m probably just going to adapt an article I was writing to respond to this a little but more so I’m going to avoid minute details for now, but here’s my general thoughts:
Honestly, outside of the no-CP-bar-thing this is like almost exclusively really positive.
Are you telling me that your gas literally costs $8 per gallon? Or does your vehicle get less than 10 miles per gallon? Your round trip is 1310 miles from atlanta to ft wayne, and assuming $4 a gallon (a VERY high estimate) and 20 miles per gallon (a low estimate), you will spend $262 in gas for the round trip (total, not per person). Please do not lie just to try to reinforce your point.
It seems I spoke too soon and failed to realize that regional winners should be getting that $350 travel award. Though now with a best 3 finishes of 9 regionals, the 64th CP will probably increase from last season; hopefully it will still include one time regional winners and runner ups that get wifi CP.
Man. I got out of bed to write a response but Scott wrote what I wanted. Pretty much every change is positive aside from no CP bar. Darkeness incorrectly assumes that a CP bar is about “letting more people into Worlds” when really it’s about knowing what you need to hit and not having your fate in other people’s hand’s. Ask Duy, TDS, or Mean how they during US and UK Nationals. Most players expected a 250 CP cutoff. Hopefully we at least find out what number of CP Worlds Top 8 is getting soon. If we’re going to stick with the Top X system at least we’re getting 16 this year which I think is a good number. Still disagree with Europe being 32 if we have the same event structure as last year.
My only issue with prize money distribution is it feels like there’s less immediate payoff at Regionals which I think adds a bit of excitement to the whole thing. The 3DS is nice but after Fall Regionals, every competitor will have one. I hope there’s more to it!
I think two unknown factors that we will still need to find out are:
1) The regionals are on staggered dates of 3 weekends in Fall, Winter and Spring, but just how many Regionals are there going to be? There were 15 locations total for the 2013 season, but there may be more for 2014.
2) How much CP are we going to be getting from Wi-Fi tourneys? The small amount actually ended up mattering in 2013, but who knows how much they’ll be making the Wi-Fi tourneys weigh for 2014. Will they make it more, since they are changing the system to try to detect D/Cers? or are they going to keep it small as the system is untested?
maybe i’m just stupid or I didn’t read closely enough but can anyone show me all those passages explicitly about the vgc changes in any of those documents (links would be best) because I can’t seem to find the stuff regarding vgc players… cause what I understood is most of this is news for vgc players and makiri’s assumptions about Europe I couldn’t find anywhere at all
I can see money becoming the big thing this year and more in Europe if they still leave us whitout regionals…
I sure hope I’m reading this wrong because if what you posted is true than a less than average player can easily get a travel stipend by getting a top 64 at one regional and then top 16 at the other two. Top 16 is no small feat to achieve but considering that this was formerly called “bubbling” I would say that is very gracious.
A player who get three top 16 performances will receive the same prize as a player who won one regional.
That may not seem like a big deal but say someone were to win the hardest regional there was (looking at you east coast) will receive the same prize as someone who could have top 16’d some of the “easier” regionals.
Guess that’s some good motivation to play the circuit rather than just one tournament if you’re someone in either of those positions, which is sort of the point here, I think. The tournament system is healthier if people are going to multiple events, there’s now more motivation(travel reward changes) and easier ways to do that (BFL+multiple Regionals during same season) than ever before. Having to go to even 3 or 4 events instead of 2 (Regionals+Nationals) during the circuit isn’t asking that much compared to the schedules of most other games