The Pokémon Company announces King of Dragons Tournament for Japan
Special ruleset tournaments such as the Kanto Cup, Christmas Cup and All-Star Cup are nothing new to the Japanese scene. Recently, The Pokémon Company has unveiled its first such tournament for the 6th Generation, called the King of Dragons Tournament (ポケモン竜王戦). The tournament, including both Video Game and Trading Card Game categories, is open only to Japanese players who are in primary school or younger, and consists of eight live event preliminaries held in various Japanese cities leading up to the finals in Tokyo.
As its name suggests, the tournament will revolve around the usage of Dragon-type Pokémon. The video game rules are similar to the standard Flat Doubles rules, with the following points of interest:
- All Pokémon in the National Pokedex (001-718), with the exception of Pokémon usually banned under Flat battle rules, are allowed.
- Of the 4 Pokémon participants choose to send into battle at team preview, at least 1 Pokémon must be a Dragon-type, or be capable of Mega Evolving into a Dragon-type, in which case that Pokémon is required to hold the respective Mega Stone.
- Pokémon transferred from Pokémon Black, White, Black 2 and White 2 versions via Pokémon Bank are not allowed to be used.
- The battle time limit is 15 minutes, and the turn time limit is 30 seconds.
The website further states that a Pokémon’s eligibility can be checked by seeing if the blue pentagonal symbol on the Pokemon’s status screen is present.
The notable rules for the Trading Card Game event are:
- Participants will play with a 60 card deck and 6 prizes.
- Only cards from the Black and White series and later are allowed.
- Within the deck, there must be at least 1 Dragon-typed Pokémon card.
The Finals will take place on March 22nd, 2014 in the Yomiuri Newspaper Building in Ootemachi, Tokyo, with the top 2 players from each preliminary event qualifying. Further details regarding the finals, as well as details of the tournament structure and prizes, have not been released at the moment.
More details can be found at the official site (Japanese)
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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Basically asked tanzying if he could translate this for us so I could use that awesome image for article art. Just want to note that the reason Pokébank isn’t allowed for this tournament is likely because applications for the first few events are due on December 26th, 2013.
hmm, this seems really interesting. although, I could easily see Mawile doing well, since it synergizes really well with Dragons and can easily hit the commonly-expected Fairies and Dragons bound to show up.
Was about to complain about it being Japan only, but saw it was for the younger set. Kinda cool regardless, wish they’d have these kinds of things in the rest of the world though. Even if it’s not practical since Japan is much more concentrated.
Mega Ampharos’ time to shine.
Japan have got it down, having something just for the kids. It’s like they’re training their young only, but, it’s cool, considering it’s a kids game and all….
I’d be interested to see the way these games and this weird meta pan out though, aren’t they worried it’s just going to become a race to smash off a silly strong Draco Meteor?
My personal thoughts:
(Disclaimer: this is all conjecture pending the release of an official VGC14 ruleset)
While this event has not been stated to be related to the official VGC World Championship Series in anyway, I have a feeling that some of the points in the rulings might tell us some things about this year’s official ruleset. Firstly, the time limits, and secondly, the pentagonal symbol representing a Pokemon’s ability to participate. If they are allowing the entire National Dex, yet forbidding the use of Pokemon brought in by Pokebank, this probably confirms the idea that the pentagon represents a Pokemon generated in 6th gen. If official VGC events also end up restricting entry by this symbol, that means no past gen mons, past gen tutors, past gen TMs, whatever, and thats pretty much going to shake the metagame up by quite a bit.
Also, those people who were spectulating in the other thread about how would one explain a custom banlist such as Kalos-obtained only to casuals may have their answer here, with TPCJ simply announcing that pentagon = OK. Well, IMO its better than nothing but I still forsee it causing a hell lot of confusion among casuals who show up at events without reading the rules beforehand.
We don’t know know this though. According from what I’ve read the pentagonal symbol means the pokemon was generated in gen 6, nothing more. If we can bring over pokemon with moves from the move tutor, and we breed them in gen 6, the baby pokemon might have the symbol, aswell as the move tutor moves.
We just don’t know, and I wish they would just come out and say what the ruleset is already.
You can’t just breed Move Tutor moves… Scizor can’t inherit Bug Bite, Tyranitar can’t inherit Low Kick, etc.
Nothing comes to my mind immediately, but this would probably allow for various egg moves not currently accessible at the least.
Will it be possible to breed a gen6 scizor and send him back to gen5 to learn bug bite?
I doubt that Pokétransfer will allow Gen VI -> Gen V transfers.. but I don’t think it has been confirmed yet.
But isn’t Bug Bite a Gen III move tutor move anyways?
No, either Gen IV or V.
What the hell, I always thought it was Gen III only.. my whole life is a lie.
This tournament seems unnecessary. We already know Goodra is the King of Dragons.
Always been bugging me what the heck that pentagon shape thing was…so it’s supposed to indicate it’s a Pokemon generated in the 6th gen games?
Yet another ruleset i am mad that i dont get to partake in and that the US will never see =[
Also i cant wait for someone to win the tcg with darkrai and like one gible tech or something
30 second turns are a horrific idea and I hope its only a rule because this tournament can’t possibly be competitively serious and they just want to move the kids along. They might as well blindfold these juniors.
No, shinryu, it indicates if the Pokemon is authentic or not. IE hacked, generated, etc etc.
Sounds like fun 🙂 we should try it forsure!.
This is unconfirmed and likely incorrect.
Unconfirmed?
Direct from Serebii…definitely a far cry from “likely incorrect”. You think the pentagon is purely in the game so that it will be an absolutely worthless symbol once the Pokebank releases?
I can’t seem to find a citation for that, unless I missed it somewhere.
And I’m not sure if Game Freak would even want to implement something like that, since it basically tells hackers, “You did good enough on this one.”
So about as confirmed as not receiving experience points at the beginning of Black & White. Got it. Serebii read the same page we did, interepreted it incorrectly, but didn’t source it. The edit is after he figured out his error and did source it to shift blame. Please don’t use what’s on that website as any sort of “confirmation” of facts.
Someone’s on the hate-o-rade. Serebii.net is probably the most visited news site for Pokemon on the internet, butt buddied with Bulbapedia, no reason to ooze.
As I already said, it’s still partially unclear, but to say it’s “likely incorrect” seems like a stretch, ne? You’re jumping as far out of the assumption truck as they are. He’s using some pretty logical common sense to make the assumption he did.
What is your logic for thinking it’s “likely” otherwise?
Maybe from the retraction that came 5 and a half hours later that you quoted in your post?
Yes, much like Fox is the most watched news network in America, Serebii is the most viewed Pokemon website on the internet. Please don’t equate viewership with reliability. Always look to see what an outlet’s source is.
The reason it is most likely just an indication of the region is was caught in is because the screenshot is attached to the point that says “Only Pokémon caught in normal play in the Kalos region (aside from special Pokemon) can be used.” with the subnote “It is OK if the status screen is marked with a blue pentagon.”
Gonna go ahead and leave that post but if you keep using terms like butt buddied(in a context that doesn’t even make it a reasonable word choice…?) you’re going to have a real short future on this site. Shocked based on your profile you’re apparently not in the senior division.
Not quite sure what your last statement is even referring to…but I used the term “butt buddied” in a pretty loose (see : intended to be layman, not literal) context to refer to the fact that they are essentially “The big two”, so please calm down. The group admin display here in response to my reliance on Serebii for information is seeming a little bit like projection at the moment.
I don’t think there’s anything odd or unreasonable in thinking that it’s a valid reason for the pentagon to exist, whether Serebii ends up being accurate or not. In any case, NB doesn’t know the facts either, so it seems a bit pointless to unsheath the sword and clash over it anyway, does it not? When we know exactly what it’s for, we’ll know exactly what it’s for, but at the time I posted that original post, I had only read the un-redacted version of that news update.
Also, calling Serebii.net Fox News is a blatantly silly analogy. There’s no reason to have political or economical vert in Pokemon news, like real news. You just report what you hear and see. It’s not like there’s sway or bias.
When I weigh the facts, I think having a symbol purely to identify Pokemon valid for one competition in contrast to a symbol that would be pretty universally useful for the entire length of the games life…I’m inclined to think the latter can be a real possibility.
No need to get all up in arms.
I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that the symbol was created just for this one tournament. I don’t think anyone who thinks it is just a region marker is arguing that. I think it is plenty reasonable to think Game Freak just wanted an easy way to differentiate between Pokemon created in XY and Pokemon transferred from the Bank.