2014 International Challenge – June
The second and final International Challenge is coming up in a few weeks! As the final chance for European players to earn points before Worlds and North American players to earn points before Nationals, it’s going to be a very heated event! The Top 128 players in each age division from each of those two regions will receive Championship Points for their efforts.
The International Challenge is an online ladder-based tournament. You will be able to play up to 20 battles per day (unplayed games will roll over to the next day) from 00:00 UTC on Friday, June 20th, 2014 (5:00 PM PDT on Thursday, June 19th ) to 23:59 UTC on Sunday June 22nd, 2014 (4:59 PM PDT on Sunday June 22nd).
To register, you’ll need to have an account on Pokemon.com and register your game with the Global Link. Your game must be attached to the same account that has the player ID you use to play in Regionals, Nationals, and other events in the Play! Pokémon program if you want to receive Championship Points. You will be able to participate if you are one of the first 50,000 players to register on the Global Link for the event between 00:00 UTC on Thursday June 12th, 2014 (5:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, June 11th) and 23:59 UTC on Thursday, June 19th, 2014 (4:59 PM PDT on Thursday, June 19th).
The tournament will use the Standard ruleset and should prove to be the most competitive tournament yet with thousands of players worldwide playing to prove themselves and increase their chances at a World Championship invite! Championship Points will be awarded as follows:
| Placement | Points |
| 1 | 10 |
| 2–8 | 8 |
| 9–16 | 4 |
| 17–64 | 2 |
| 65–128 | 1 |
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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Turn 1:
Garchomp used Rock Slide!
The opposing X avoided the attack!
The opposing Gengar avoided the attack!
The opposing Gengar used Will-o-Wisp!
Garchomp avoided the attack!
…
Turn 2:
Garchomp used Rock Slide!
The opposing X avoided the attack!
The opposing Gengar avoided the attack!
The opposing Gengar used Will-o-Wisp!
Garchomp was burned!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I’ll be finishing the day on a high note at 13-1. Starting at 0-1 I lost to a team that could only be described as completely normal, played by a sub 1500 player I was 4-0d by some stock standard stuff and they basically helped me realise how I SHOULD be playing this team, and got on a 13 win streak from there.
~167X, my last game was awesome, a huge lapse in concentration had me thinking I’d lost the game at t1, but I was able to squeeze it back with what were surprisingly safe plays given I was a straight 4-3 down. Hopefully I find some time for some more games as the weekend progresses though.
I think its worth mentioning that i just faced a japaense guy who was 1716 which is probably the highest ive heard anyone mention so far. I beat him so hes probably dropped below 1700 for now. He was running a team of politoed (scarf) / ludicolo (vest) / weavile (lorb) / smeargle (sash w/FO) / kangaskhan / azumarill
Just shows how strong smeargle teams can be in ICs
So how much rain are people seeing in general. My team is quite weak too it and im wondering if it would be worth running ttar to counter it.
Scott summed it up fairly well over, in Bearfans092’s article. You should probably go and look at what he said about matchups and the like http://nuggetbridge.com/forums/topic/7008-2014-may-international-challenge-retrospective/?p
Honestly, you should be going into a WiFi tournament without an answer to a fairly popular archetype, it does appear, so you may as well make sure you have an answer to it.
Hmm I can tell it’s not my tournament. Not hax or anything, I’ve played 3 and connection dropped in two of those….should’ve won all 3 :'( it’s one thing or another lol
went 14-6. Pretty terrible. But thats what I get for testing stuff I guess.
I don’t know why, but it’s like I can’t finish these kind of tournaments* without messing it severely up for myself. As if I subconciously say to myself “hey, you’re winning. You’re not supposed to win. Here. Let me pick your moves for you. There we go.”
Either way, I don’t know if the opponent’s disconnecting counts as a win for me. If it does, I finished with a graceful ton of misplays at 14-6.
*I don’t know what else to call the International Challenge.
If MrEobo reads this, I was Jake.
Really sorry for the insane hax in a game you were in control of. (Traced swift swim and double crit with dazzling gleam). That was the first time this tournament that luck was on my side and it came in one huge bunch.
after my first 10 battles, im 8-2 i lost one due to a rockslide miss that i could have avioded had i thought a little and the other to being out played by a very similar team. Ive seen some wierd suff like snarl Umbreon, 2 extreme speed lukes, and a hypnosis Gallade of all things. No rain yet but i bet that will change as i enter the 1600`s.
I was at 12-0 last night but finished at 16-4 hopefully I can get top ten in this tourney
Well, i think that time’s up for me ^^. Pretty good first day. I finished at 14-6 ^_^ ( 3 losses due to disconnection, i was so mad xD). I Hope they will give more than 20 battles per day x). Good luck everyone !
Sohaib good job buddy 😉 i hope i will see you in the tournament ^^ ( i’m rexilbogoss on showdown ^^).
I’m sure the name Jedi from UK rings a bell. Who is?
I swear i’ve only registered 19 games and i cant play anymore for today. I guess that the system registered the game error vs devon as a null game. That probably leaves me at 1630 for today which is already 70+ points off the pace :/
Ended up 8-2 for today, will do more tomorrow and probably be streaming it as well
If my past experiences count then you can play that unplayed game during day 2 as neither of you got the win I presume
Capping off today at 16-4 and about a 1640 rating. Frustrated as all my loses so far were due to my poor judgement and just being too reckless too early. Gotta readjust myself for the next 40 games, if I choose to play them all.
Finished the first day 16-4. Not particularly happy with how I’ve been approaching this tournament because I’ve been falling prey to pretty much every pitfall that leads to bad records at in-person tournaments. Losing the first round by playing stupidly, losing the last round by jumping the gun and not thinking things through, STILL not playing around Mega Tyranitar properly even though it’s been giving me grimer in tournaments since winter regionals…bleh. Gotta do better in day 2.
Finished my day one 15-5 and somewhere right above 1630 (took out a 1610 to end it when I was at 1620). Normally 15-5 would be nothing too special, but considering the fact I haven’t slept in 28 hours I’ll take it. Now to get some rest and hopefully do even better tomorrow!
Couldn’t have asked for a better start to the event. My day 1 record is 18-2, which I think is around the 1710 area rating-wise. Not really much I can comment about in terms of losses, both of them were very well deserved as I think both were down to poor choice of four at the start, so can’t really complain. I am fairly happy though with how I’ve managed to battle, especially in a handful of scenarios where I’ve been up against it, and managed to claw back the deficits and turn them around.
Seen a few interesting pokemon and setups, including a non-protean, non LO Greninja using Hydro Cannon, and a Sheer Cold Lapras. As far as common stuff, there seem to be a large number of Charizard teams and those running Rain in general from my experience. The Charizard’s themselves have been fairly easy to deal with what I am running ( I have a large pool of resists at disposal), but the rain teams have been quite interesting and varied. There appears to be a greater shift to using Politoed and Kingdra leads over perhaps Ludicolo who is the other main partner. And the lack of Kangaskhan has been somewhat disturbing, I think I’ve only ran into one in total.
But looking forward to playing tomorrow, probably a little bit after I finish working because I play poorly when I’ve done a shift.
So far 13-4.
Played Kyriakou in my most recent match.
That happened.
Visiting a friend and she left for work without telling me the WiFi password. Looks like I’m finishing my day’s battles in a Starbucks parking lot.
First day of my first VGC “thing” ever and, as expected, not much of a rating to show. From trying to use Will-O-Wisp before my opponents Safeguard ended to waisting a rare one-turn sleep to take out the wrong pokemon to not checking if my Sableye was actually carrying the item I wanted it to before registering my battle box, my newbie-ness shines right through. It’s been a great experience thus far, though, and if not anything else, I’ll have a pile of battle videos to analyze to show for it.
I would be really happy if I ended up with, say, 60% win ratio
Finished day one 15-5 sitting around 1645, in one on my last battle i beat a guy with ditto and pikachu……also i never se a mawile in 20 battles and i faced some gimmick team like a trick room team with octillery and gigalith.
So I just lost to the dumbest team in the world.
Assist Liepard + Dark Void Smeargle and Focus Punch Kangaskhan and Conkeldurr?
What the yams is going on with this tournament
2-2 right now for today, don’t know if I’ll continue after that..
I also drew this cause rain still sux as much as yesterday
help ;~;
May as well say I finished day 1 with a 15-5 record (2 wifi errors on my part from winning positions). Most notable match was versus Baz Anderson.
Notable happenings:
Smeargle winning from 3-1 down
Lapras winning vs 2 full HP pokemon from 2-1 down.
Onwards and upwards
Actually, this team is well thought out. Assist doesn’t copy some moves, Focus Punch is one of those. This team abuses Prankster Assist to only select Smeargle’s Dark Void, since the moves on other Pokes can’t be selected by Assist. Not necessarily competitive, but it’s a funny composition.
Also tough to hear you’re having problems using a rain team. Hopefully that’s not also coming from the Squirtle I gave you ._.
16-2 right now. At least the losses were legitiment where I misplayed (especially DV Smeargle). Just had a haxy game with a guy named Cameron where I got about every flinch possible.
I just ran into a physical Charizard Y.
Why, just why?
Oh, and a scarfed Drapion spamming Rockslide, with a Klefki and a Noivern that was spamming Airslash. Much Flinch.