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Published on September 7th, 2015 | by kamikaze17

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Commencing the ICPA 2015-2016 Season and Fall Series

The International Collegiate Pokémon Association (ICPA) would like to announce the beginning of the 2015-2016 season, hosted right here on Nugget Bridge! Our goal is to host an intercollegiate league for Pokémon clubs and unions around the world. That league begins today in the Collegiate forum.

Unlike our Summer Open, which was an individual tournament held in the Collegiate forum, the 2015-2016 ICPA season will be a team tournament where students form a team with other members of their school and duke it out against other institutions. The University of North Texas, our defending champions, will be looking to retain their title. The 2015-2016 ICPA season, however, is very different from last year’s ICPA season. It will consist of two tournaments, called the ICPA Fall Series and ICPA Spring Series respectively, and will eventually conclude in the ICPA Playoffs featuring the top schools from each Series.

Prizing

The top three individuals based on results from both the Fall and Spring Series will be awarded cash prizes.

  • League MVP: $150
  • 2nd/3rd Place: $50

The winning school will be sent the ICPA’s annual plaque, which will be engraved with the school’s name.

PlaqueFresh


We will be announcing details for the Spring Series and Playoffs in early 2016, but for now we have the upcoming Fall Series to look forward to!

ICPA Fall Series

Format

  • All Nugget Bridge Circuit rules apply
  • Players: 5 players from each school play per week (subject to player restrictions in Section 2a of the Rules and Regulations)
  • Tournament Structure: X number of round robin pools with the top Y teams from each pool qualifying for the end of season ICPA Playoffs (X and Y are registration-dependent)
  • Battle Format: VGC 2015 best-of-three for all matches, played on 3DS in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire
  • Additional Rule: The moves Minimize and Double Team are banned from play. Anyone attempting to use Minimize or Double Team during a match will receive an automatic match loss. This is to prevent games from going to the full 60 minutes as a result of a single move.

More specific details can be found in the ICPA 2015-2016 Rules and Regulations

Schedule

  • Sign-ups: September 7th to September 20th
  • Round 1: September 28th – October 4th
  • Round 2: October 12th – October 18th
  • Round 3: October 26th – November 1st
  • Round 4: November 9th – November 15th
  • Round 5: November 23rd – November 29th
  • Round 6: December 7th – December 13th
  • Note: There are break weeks between each round. This gives teams time to modify their Active Lineup for the next round and gives them time to prep for later matches. This also gives the organizers time to process results and put highlight matches up on YouTube between rounds.

Eligibility

To play in the ICPA, you must be one of the following:

  1. Current Student: A student currently enrolled in a college/university program
  2. Alumnus: A former student who was previously enrolled in a college/university program

This means you will have to provide some proof of university student status. Valid proofs of student status include: your current class schedule or transcript (required for Current Students), student ID, or diploma.

How to Register

  1. Each team must designate one of their members as their Captain. The Captain is responsible for communication with the organizers in regards to registering their members, modifying their rosters each week, and reporting results. Captains should also read the ICPA 2015-2016 Rules and Regulations.
  2. The Captain (and only the Captain) should post in the signup thread with their school’s complete roster by September 20th; at least five players must be on this roster.
  3. The registration fee ($10 per Series) should be paid. Check the signup thread for details.
  4. Captains must submit proof of player eligibility before their teams are allowed to play. Check the signup thread for details.

Signups for the Fall Series will close on September 20th at 11:59pm PDT. Start looking for teammates and spread the word so we can kick off a great season!


About the Author

kamikaze17 has been playing VGC for nearly 2 years since he saw the 2013 VGC World Championships. He is mainly involved in the International Collegiate Pokémon Association (ICPA), growing the VGC scene on the college front.



14 Responses to Commencing the ICPA 2015-2016 Season and Fall Series

  1. HeliosanNA says:

    Time to recruit people from my competitive Pokemon stuco* at Carnegie Mellon :] #TeamCMU
     
    *Stuco = student taught course

  2. Bazzeltroff says:

    Sooooo, UNT has this again. Calling it 😉

  3. thewildvegetable says:

    Nah, it’s definitely RIT’s year

  4. HelloRotom says:

    Anyone from NJ? Let me know on Twitter @HelloRotomVGC. Thank you so much! 🙂

  5. Kira says:

    Was wondering if GMU had a team and who their captain was, I’d love to play.

  6. kamikaze17 says:

    Hey all, so I know some people may have some difficulty finding teammates but for all you know there may be a lot more pokemon players at your school that you may not be aware of.
     
    In our pilot season some schools managed to band together and find people they didnt know about at their school.
     
    To help out those looking for teammates I made this Player Finder Thread: http://nuggetbridge.com/forums/topic/19385-icpa-2015-2016-season-player-finder-thread/

  7. JustEdo says:

    Hey, just read the whole thing and I only have one concern. Could you please explain the Spring and Fall Series with further detail? I just want to make sure I understood it. Thanks in advance.

  8. Crawdaunt says:

    Hey, just read the whole thing and I only have one concern. Could you please explain the Spring and Fall Series with further detail? I just want to make sure I understood it. Thanks in advance.

    There will be a playoffs in May that contains schools that qualified from earlier in the year. There are two separate “seasons” being called the Fall Series and Spring Series.

    Teams competing in the Fall Series will be fighting for an invitation to the playoffs. The pairings are round robin, so teams get put in pods of 7 or so, and they play 6 matches over the course of the semester; one match against each member of their pod. A team earns their invitation by doing well in their respective pod (1st place, maybe 2nd place). Exact numbers aren’t known until the ICPA knows how many teams and how many pods they’ll be dealing with. But essentially, as with any tournament, win to move on. Teams will have two series (i.e. Fall, Spring) to earn an invite to the playoffs in May.

  9. JustEdo says:

    There will be a playoffs in May that contains schools that qualified from earlier in the year. There are two separate “seasons” being called the Fall Series and Spring Series.

    Teams competing in the Fall Series will be fighting for an invitation to the playoffs. The pairings are round robin, so teams get put in pods of 7 or so, and they play 6 matches over the course of the semester; one match against each member of their pod. A team earns their invitation by doing well in their respective pod (1st place, maybe 2nd place). Exact numbers aren’t known until the ICPA knows how many teams and how many pods they’ll be dealing with. But essentially, as with any tournament, win to move on. Teams will have two series (i.e. Fall, Spring) to earn an invite to the playoffs in May.

     
    Does that mean that each school only gets to play in one season (Fall or Spring) or do they get to play in both in the scenario that they don’t quailify for playoffs in the Fall?

  10. Crawdaunt says:

    Does that mean that each school only gets to play in one season (Fall or Spring) or do they get to play in both in the scenario that they don’t quailify for playoffs in the Fall?

    They can play in both. Qualifying in both will result in higher seeding in the playoffs.

  11. Seawolf17 says:

    If a school doesn’t sign up for the Fall series, can they sign up for the Spring series?

  12. kamikaze17 says:

    If a school doesn’t sign up for the Fall series, can they sign up for the Spring series?

    Yes. We will have more details and be announcing signups for the Springs Series at the beginning of next year.

  13. Nucleose says:

    Was wondering if GMU had a team and who their captain was, I’d love to play.

    I would also love to do this as an attendant of GMU, get the feeling we don’t have a scene here though. I know a player or two here but they aren’t particularly serious about the game.

  14. Firestorm says:

    Premier Challenges this month will be a good time to see if there are others from your area that go to your school who may want to make a team! That’s how my school formed our team last season!

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