2011 Season information

[Phazon Elite]

ELO is awful for a heavily luck-influenced game like PKMN.

After not playing for the entire season, I went to Regionals this year and was 6-1 after swiss. I only had two legitimste wins; the other games I swept with a Belted Solrock doing 50 and grabbing 3 prizes (against a good player with a bad hand), went second w/Solrock/Belt/DCE to my opponent's lone Uxie (in round six!) and similar stupid tricks. lol. So basicly, I took my 1600 ELO ranking and ruined everyone's day.

Thank you P!P for making these corrections. Almost makes up for some of the questionable rule changes that were out of your control. : )

 

[baby mario]

Yeah, I really don't like the idea of Nationals not being a completely open tournament. I'd rather they didn't give away a free T-shirt (if that's the problem) and just let everyone play who wanted to, regardless.

 

[Phazon Elite]

RE: Vegetta

Yeah, I noticed the similarity to MTG too. For those unaware, MTG also had the problem of people getting a high ELO ranking and then just chillin, so they VERY recently scrapped that in favor of Planeswalker Points: 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, 0 for a loss.

Links: http://www.wizards.com/magic/planeswalkerpoints Official Announcement of Points System, with more in-depth explanation.

 

[Prof Clay]

I hate this system. I awards the people who can travel to the most tournaments, not the best players.

.

Um...how was this different than the former system...travel to the most events, pile up wins and get a nice ranking...

Now at least you have to finish high to gain points...

And for those who think battle roads are going to be easy points this season...I think we are all going to be surprised by the turnouts

 

[Articjedi]

Nationals should be an open tournament. This is EASILY the biggest travisty I have ever heard of in this game.

The on thing I can say is BR's the most unimportant tournament of the year now has a KEY role in everything. I always viewed BR's as a joke and a way to test new decks because there is no real gain/loss to it.

To be fair, Nationals hasn't been technically an open tournament since 2006. The restriction is living in the country where you're playing. Maybe the so called restriction this year is just that?

Or it's play points instead of championship points. I can't see them wrecking the second best event of the year.

 

[pokeMATHter]

To be fair, Nationals hasn't been technically an open tournament since 2006. The restriction is living in the country where you're playing. Maybe the so called restriction this year is just that?

Or it's play points instead of championship points. I can't see them wrecking the second best event of the year.

It is Play! Pokemon Points, not championship points. If you scroll down to the National Championship on the page linked below, you can read it for yourself.

URL="http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized-play/championship-series/"]http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized-play/championship-series/[/URL]

It sounds like Play! Pokemon points will be very easy to get. Play! Pokemon points replace the player reward points, and you got player rewards for attending league, playing in any sanctioned tournament, as well as all premier events. Assuming they give out Play! Pokemon points just as easily, there should be very little restriction to entry in Nationals. Plus Regional winners can play at Nat's and not worry about losing all the rating points they racked up with their win.

 

[Vegeta ss4]

Clay-It is COMPLETLY different than how it used to be.
Old format, you could go to 6 cities, go 3-0 drop at each tournament. You would have gained potentially of over 130 points because you elected to stay away from BR's and let everyone else have an edge until cities in which you use their advantage against them. Now you go to states, and this is where you REALLY rack up your points. You would go to 2 states and each go for a 3/4-0 then drop, you just earned yourself another 100 points, potentially. You are now at 1830 and in contention for worlds invite now. Regionals comes around and you decide to go all the way. You make top 8 going 5-2 and drop before the pairings are up. You gained 30 points. You are now officially in the running for Worlds Invite at 1860 without even having to win a tourney, or go to many events.

Now, with this format. You basically MUST win 5 BR's, 5 Cites. This isn't likely unless you go to 10 br's and 10 cities.

I will say the one thing that could annoy me, is the lack of rogue potentially. This new system seems to favor consistancy over rogue. Here we go again with a boring format...

Articjedi-Touche, but I was meaning inside the US.

 

[Prof Clay]

Clay-It is COMPLETLY different than how it used to be.
Old format, you could go to 6 cities, go 3-0 drop at each tournament. You would have gained potentially of over 130 points because you elected to stay away from BR's and let everyone else have an edge until cities in which you use their advantage against them. Now you go to states, and this is where you REALLY rack up your points. You would go to 2 states and each go for a 3/4-0 then drop, you just earned yourself another 100 points, potentially. You are now at 1830 and in contention for worlds invite now. Regionals comes around and you decide to go all the way. You make top 8 going 5-2 and drop before the pairings are up. You gained 30 points. You are now officially in the running for Worlds Invite at 1860 without even having to win a tourney, or go to many events.

Now, with this format. You basically MUST win 5 BR's, 5 Cites. This isn't likely unless you go to 10 br's and 10 cities.

I will say the one thing that could annoy me, is the lack of rogue potentially. This new system seems to favor consistancy over rogue. Here we go again with a boring format...

Articjedi-Touche, but I was meaning inside the US.

OOOOOOOHHHH.....so you are saying that the BEST players, (who apparently are supporting tournament play the most) will be at Worlds because they made TOP CUT consistently or even WON many tournaments...how horribly unfair.(note my sarcasm)

Sorry guys who can't go to many events...thems the breaks....there is always the auto invites at Nats...if you can make it...Think of Nats as your grinder...very similar

 

[Ice'Cold]

I would guess that putting a min. requirement for nationals was to combat the fact that there were a not insignificant number of people who registered from the tournament to get the free swag and then never showed up the next day, leading to an unnecessary delay in getting the event going. I would also guess that the min. requirements will be very, very low (4 or 5 events over the course of the year?)

 

[espeon200]

Since I'm feeling mathematical all of the sudden, I wanted to break down a couple of things about Championship points to put it all in perspective. Using the Best Finish Limit, here's the maximum amount of points you could potentially earn if you won every event you could and what percentage that is of the overall total (I'm excluding Worlds since this is the first year, though it would be interesting if they awarded Championship points to the players who won the last Worlds):

Battle Roads (Autumn and Spring): 16 (16%)
City Championships: 30 (30%)
States and Regionals: 40 (40%)
Nationals: 14 (14%)

Total: 100 (100%)

Wow, that was easy... I wonder if that was intentional (not being sarcastic).

So basically, attending every single Battle Roads that you can and placing first in every single won is about on par with winning Nats. I don't know, do you think that winning 8 Battle Roads shows consistency and the same level of skill as winning the National Championship? Currently you'd probably say no since, as has already been pointed out, Battle Roads are seen as more of a fun tournament (akin to a prerelease) so players are not as focused on winning them. But who says that's the way that P!P wants Battle Roads to be? For awhile I've heard players say that they want more high-level tournaments (Cities and above level). What if by giving Battle Roads this kind of importance, P!P is trying to do that? If Battle Roads had had a K-Value of 16 last year, would you have been more likely to go? Probably not because of the risk factor. Now P!P has essentially given Battle Roads a "K-Value" of 32... if you plan on attending 8 of them over a season and winning every single one you attend. And they did it without creating a "disincentive" of doing poorly and having your rating smashed.

Of course there a lot more math to be done since the 100% applies only to first-place finishes, but its a start if anyone wants to break stuff down further.

I get what some of you are saying, that this makes an unimportant tournament too important, but even if it does, I still believe it is miles above using ELO, which is unsuitable for a game that depends on luck as much as Pokemon does. It also sucks for players who live far from OP. Having lived in a location where I had to drive two hours minimum to attend a Battle Roads, I understand that frustration. The only thing I can say is that if there is a big enough playerbase, you can more than likely convince a PTO to go the distance to throw premier events. Sorry if that's not what you want to hear. The new system is not going to be perfect the first time, but good things rarely are.

 

[eriknance]

OOOOOOOHHHH.....so you are saying that the BEST players, (who apparently are supporting tournament play the most) will be at Worlds because they made TOP CUT consistently or even WON many tournaments...how horribly unfair.(note my sarcasm)

Sorry guys who can't go to many events...thems the breaks....there is always the auto invites at Nats...if you can make it...Think of Nats as your grinder...very similar

yeah, I have to agree with this sentiment. look, if you want to be the best in this game, the new system requires you to be present at more events. some people are complaining about that, but it's just a reality that players have to accept: if you want to be "pro," you have to play. for some this may mean finding friends that you can carpool with, for others it may require proper planning with a work schedule, but I think the notion that a ranking system that discourages playing is somehow better than one that encourages it is entirely absurd.

I will, however, agree that the numbers for the different tourneys (best finish limit, championship point distribution) are seemingly problematic. I think it should be fixed, and I'll stress again that it's unbelievabl annoying that P!P was so slow on getting this information out to us, the players.
Posted with Mobile style...

 

[bulbasnore]

Early next week I'll add a link on the VG Regional page that points to the TCG Regional locator, with text indicating that the VG events are in the same location on the following day.

No longer waiting to exhale: Regionals are two day events with TCG (mostly day 1) & VGC (official event day 2).

Gotta say. Living in California just got better.
2 regional events, 1 state, a few billion cities and battle roads....

I like the way you think.

"do championship points invitations come with scholarships?" ... we're working on all of those announcements now, and we anticipate a roll out of said announcements over the coming weeks.

So, maybe there are scholarships for championship points invites (or not) - that announcement will come later. If that is what is announced, you just found out where the Regional scholarships went.

If you guys are short on money which is acceptable, why not stop having worlds in hawai

I know that flights from Europe to Hawaii make the wallet and the body hate the trip, but who is making that location decision? As for me, someday, I hope to make it to a tournament in Europe... on my own.

This blows my mind.

'nuf said!

Question: How do special Premiere tournaments in Europe fall into this equation?

Fantastic question.

Either that, or this marks the return of the Tropical Mega Battle, with invites awarded based on all your Championship points from September through August including Worlds ;D
Posted with Mobile style...

Or maybe this means that points hang around after the season in some fashion.

I'm very happy with the changes overall. I don't know another card company that has listened to their players as much as Pokemon.

Let me introduce the Play!Pokemon crew: Fearless. Smart about their business. Knows and appreciates their players. Honest yet not breaking confidence. Measured in response to negatives. Always improving.

Putting requirements in place to attend Nationals? Mis-play!

Maybe the thought here is: Nationals, the tournament, shouldn't be little Johnnies first rodeo.

Yeah, I really don't like the idea of Nationals not being a completely open tournament. I'd rather they didn't give away a free T-shirt (if that's the problem) and just let everyone play who wanted to, regardless.

I'm sure there will be something cool to do at Nationals the event for someone who walks in who has never filled out a league card or been to a tournament, premiere or sanctioned. But sitting down at Nats, maybe not. I'm pretty sure there are other ways to handle the shirt thing - Lord knows we discussed enough of them - and I would guess that this change has next to nothing to do with people registering for shirts.

Since I'm feeling mathematical all of the sudden, I wanted to break down a couple of things about Championship points to put it all in perspective. Using the Best Finish Limit, here's the maximum amount of points you could potentially earn if you won every event you could and what percentage that is of the overall total ...:

Battle Roads (Autumn and Spring): 16 (16%)
City Championships: 30 (30%)
States and Regionals: 40 (40%)
Nationals: 14 (14%)

Total: 100 (100%)

Wow, that was easy... I wonder if that was intentional (not being sarcastic).

{snip...}

I get what some of you are saying, that this makes an unimportant tournament too important, but...

Apparently, as observed above, a lot of folks are upset because they previous deemed BR as an unimportant tournament. So, maybe its no longer such an unimportant tournament? It _had_ to stay unimportant? Go forth and win 8, Ace.

Ran out of THANKS and just wanted to note that I thought espeon200 wins the thread.

 

[Pikabruce]

It looks to me like the "Ratings & Rankings" is still set up under the old system, with players starting at 1600 and going up or down for each match won or lost, and some players dropping below 1600.
http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized...cycle=9&location=176&btn-search=Search&page_1

I wonder how long it will be before it's changed to reflect the new Championship Points setup?

 

[baby mario]

Didn't they say something about keeping the ELO for player reference and using it as a tiebreaker?

I think it's still going to have some importance next season if that's true.

 

[Pikabruce]

Didn't they say something about keeping the ELO for player reference and using it as a tiebreaker?...

Oops, you're right. My bad.

Elo ratings will still be maintained on the Pokémon.com website, and may be used to break ties in Championship Points if necessary. The Elo rankings search will still be available for players to see how they stack up against players worldwide.

But then aren't they going to have anything which shows what the comparative rankings are in terms of Championship Points?

 

[Glumanda]

Some random notes:

- I think it is certainly not a stupid idea to have some really low entry requirement for Nationals based on the Play! Points. We see year over year players at German Nationals who do not even know how to play this game. These players while very few in their numbers, eat a lot of the time of the staff and cause a lot of delays. A change like that forces these people to first go to the entry-level events like Leagues or Battle Roads and then go to the big show which is absolutely okay. The requirement should not too high though, because you do not want to restrict the low-volume players. If balanced right, this is a good thing in my opinion.

- Something I think is missing is a minimum number of players needed for earning Championship points. If only 1 player in Juniors shows up, this player automatically gets the maximum number of Championship points to be earned for playing 0-4 which is not sensible.

- On a related note: While I love that kicker system, I think the attendance should also influence somewhat the maximum points to be won at a given event. It is a big difference if I win a Battle Road with 20 players or if I win a Battle Road with 8 players. The spread has not to be big but I think that something like that could be added.

- One might answer to my last note that something like that would damage players in tournaments with low attendance. Would this be necessarily a bad thing? Let us look at four szenarios for regional tournament scenes
1. Low number of tournaments, low attendance. Well, under ELO these players had no chance to earn a Worlds invite because they would not play enough games to rack up points. So, nothing changes for these player.
2. High number of tournaments, high attendance. Under ELO these players had some good chances to do well under ELO because they can play a lot of games so that their playing data solidifies to a meaningfull ranking and if you do fairly well, you were alright. Under the new system, for such players it will get harder. They have to play more rounds and a higher top cut to be able to earn the points others can have easier. As the kicker points do not cover the top positions, it will harder for these players to have a good C-points rating.
3. Low number of tournaments, high attendance. These players had at least some chance under ELO because they were playing more rounds but their chances should diminish because it is harder for them to score big points and they have less chances.
4. High number of tournaments, low attendance. These are the big, big winners of the system, especially if you have the situation that there are two or three above-average players in a sea of noobs. While these players might not be great and would never win an invite with ELO (because if you play the same noobs again and again, at some point you cannot earn simple points), with this system they will score the big points with ease and have a lot of tournaments to rack up those points.
So, to summarize: We have two groups of players with low attendance-tournaments and my guess would be that for one of them it does not matter and the other gains a lot from this system while players with high attendance tournaments will have a harder time. Therefore, I would think that doing a little big of wiggling for the top finishers based on attendance could be a good thing to do.

 

[Yoshi-]

^- I think non open nationals will be quite the issue over here. I know its not the point of nationals but at the end of the day nationals ARE the big recuitment tournament in germany, right?

 

[NoPoke]

nationals should never be the big recruitment tournament.

 

[badganondorf]

nationals should never be the big recruitment tournament.

I find this opinion very interesting. In Finland, Nationals is the first tournament for very many people. The reason for this is that it's THE tournament and most people don't have money to/parents' allowance to travel any other tournament. I think it's the same probably in Germany as well. If a person is able to come in 1 tournament a year - we encourage always him/her to come to the National Championships because is the biggest and there you'll meet the whole Pokémon community of the country.

I understand that a lot of new players may bring delay to the tournament but so far it has worked very well at least here in Finland. IMHO Nationals in Finland will always be for everyone but I understand the Nats' decision in the U.S. because the tournamet is SO much bigger.

 

[Yoshi-]

nationals should never be the big recruitment tournament.

But it is, its the one event that attracts new people, we have so many new players there every year :/