Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

2011 Season information

So I won a BR yesterday, and I guess this means I picked up 2 Championship Points. Here are a couple observations I had:

1. We had enough players to reach our "kicker", so 3rd and 4th place each got a point as well. In my opinion, 1st and 2nd place should get a bump in points here as well. It is much more difficult to win a BR with 40ish people than it is to win one with 16 people (I've been to both).

2. I searched the rankings today and found that my ELO rating had been updated. However, I couldn't even find a reference to my "Championship Points" anywhere on pokemon.com. Am I just missing it or something? If Championship Points are the new standard and ELO is just a tie-breaker, why would the ELO be on the website but not my C.P.'s?

3. My friend Ryan went 4-1 and bubbled, finishing 5th because of tiebreakers. That's pretty good at a 40 person tourney, yet he got NOTHING for his efforts. In the past, he could've at least taken some consolation in the fact that he improved his rating that day, but now he didn't get rewarded at all for a solid showing. I think combining ELO and some sort of Championship Point system would have been the way to do things.
 
Pikabruce said:
It does say at
http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized-play/championship-series/

This is what is said about Play! Points
http://www.pokemon.com/us/news/op_2012_champ_series-2011-09-15

Which I interpret as meaning exactly what it says. There are no invitations required, and no Championship Points required to enter the National Championship. But a certain number of Play! Points (which you get for participating in tournaments, prereleases, league, etc.) ARE required. So that means a total newbie cannot go and play in the National Championship.
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I think it's a mistake to look at the Play Points requirement as an "invitation" to nats.
It is more of a requirement level.
And my understanding of it is that the bar will not be very high.
Basically, a large event like Nationals is not the place for Johnny FirstTimer to show up with his deck of 75 Pokemon and 8 energy cards (one of each color) and not have a clue about what to do.
The Play Points requirement will merely insure that all players know their way around a tournament and won't need massive judge assistance to play the game.
New players will be directed to side events/league area.

Smaller events such as Battle Roads and Leagues are the proper place for new players to stick their toes into the water, not at a nationals.
 
I am super excited about the new points system. It's a giant step up for competitive Pokemon, and I'm sure it'll have a positive ripple effect on the card game in general as a result. It has its flaws, but no system can be perfect.

I hope the points earned at Worlds hints at some cool things in the future. Like, maybe a Champion Club? Which is basically just more of an incentive to really dedicate yourself to the game, etc. I don't know, but there's a ton of possibilities here. Exciting stuff.
 
Vegeta ss4 said:
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...
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Actually, I think it's the other way around. Most people know I like to play rogues or even fun-decks, however at States I usually sticked to one deck I was comfortable with because of the high risk of losing a lot of points when ending badly. Now there's nothing to lose.

btw, you shouldn't overestimate Battle roads. They're 2 points which isn't very much. More than K-4 elo, but still the lowest rated tournaments.

Glumanda said:
- 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.
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Really good point imo, which mainly affects the lower age divisions. If points are compared by continent, it's really the case that there are Juniors who don't have any real opponents in their area, and some who actually have to compete for their placement. Giving a standard number of points just by placement would be unfair to the later.

EvanBaker said:
3. My friend Ryan went 4-1 and bubbled, finishing 5th because of tiebreakers. That's pretty good at a 40 person tourney, yet he got NOTHING for his efforts. In the past, he could've at least taken some consolation in the fact that he improved his rating that day, but now he didn't get rewarded at all for a solid showing. I think combining ELO and some sort of Championship Point system would have been the way to do things.
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Thanks for bringing up another good example on this issue.
As I said, a solution would be to give out points not only by placement, but by win-rate finish. Like, let's say, for a 75% or better win rate at swiss level you get the same points as the lowest player in top cut. Not too difficult to implement, but a lot fairer and less frustrating for players who got bad luck on TieBreakers (as I said before, I really know what I'm speaking about).
 
Hi Evan! This is Carlos, your T32 Nats opponent. Congrats on your 2 points! My son, Xander, got 2 pts on Saturday with our deck.

EvanBaker said:
3. My friend Ryan went 4-1 and bubbled, finishing 5th because of tiebreakers. That's pretty good at a 40 person tourney, yet he got NOTHING for his efforts. In the past, he could've at least taken some consolation in the fact that he improved his rating that day, but now he didn't get rewarded at all for a solid showing. I think combining ELO and some sort of Championship Point system would have been the way to do things.
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Yesterday here in Chicago, a talented Master went 5-1 and bubbled finishing 5th unfortunately. 34 people. No Championship Points for him.

It's going to be harder for me, a competitive Pokedad, to ever earn points I think. I finished 4-2 yesterday, so at least I'm working on my Premier Rating, just in case. The same goes for your 4-1 friend Ryan.

Is it fair? At its core, I really think so. In the end, there can be only 40. It's going to be the 40 best Masters in North America who earn an invitation to Worlds. And "best" as determined by winning events (or at least making Top Cut) throughout the year. It's a change for sure, and a bit of bitter medicine for the average competitive player, but I think we all agree it's an objective bar to reach for. And its primary effect is to encourage the real "best" players to play through every tournament, and not sit out later rounds in an attempt to earn said invitation.



---------- Post added 09/19/2011 at 05:32 AM ----------
ShadowGuard said:
Thanks for bringing up another good example on this issue.
As I said, a solution would be to give out points not only by placement, but by win-rate finish. Like, let's say, for a 75% or better win rate at swiss level you get the same points as the lowest player in top cut. Not too difficult to implement, but a lot fairer and less frustrating for players who got bad luck on TieBreakers (as I said before, I really know what I'm speaking about).
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I also think there is something to be said to let all of the X-1's get the same minimum reward like a Championship Point. TOM software wouldn't have to change, Top Cut proceeds normally (players competing for the additonal point and more booster packs), but at the very least all the "winning" players earned something towards a Worlds invite.

Said another way, pesky Resistance is still factoring into who gets a Point and who doesn't, given that 2nd place automatically earns 1 Point. My Junior son placed 3rd yesterday, because he was unfortunately matched against a new player who went 0-4 for the day, and as I understand it that brought his resistance way down among the 3-1's (no one was undefeated), denying him the chance for Top 2 and said Point.

As Professor Dav said, this is a transitional year, the system won't be perfect. But I really like this idea. I wonder if P!P would be willing to make a retroactive change like this. If so, does anyone think it's a bad idea? Does it take away from the truly "best" players who finished Top 2 or Top 4?
 
EvanBaker said:
3. My friend Ryan went 4-1 and bubbled, finishing 5th because of tiebreakers. That's pretty good at a 40 person tourney, yet he got NOTHING for his efforts. In the past, he could've at least taken some consolation in the fact that he improved his rating that day, but now he didn't get rewarded at all for a solid showing. I think combining ELO and some sort of Championship Point system would have been the way to do things.
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I got 5th also going 5-1 at my event due to bad resistance (lost rd 1) but since we didn't even have enough people I didn't't even get a point (I think my PTO said we had 49 people). They could also just decrease the amount of people required for the # of points you get. So basically give 5-8 place a point if there are 32 people at the event.
 
Maybe it's just me, but the Sunday BR I went to was one of the best events I've been to in a while from the perspective of a Master. Lots of strong players. I was paired against good competition each round. It was fun.
 
Let's just play the game and have fun. I am so looking forward to playing and judging at some Autumn Battle Roads. Nobody fretting about points, nobody dropping halfway through or, in many cases, not even bothering to show up! Three cheers for the folks at Play! Pokemon HQ.
 
M_Liesik said:
The VG events will use the Modified format, which can be found in the new Tournament Rules document that will be posted in the next few days. I could tell you what it is now, but what's the fun in that? :wink:
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To quote Brick Tamland:

*cough*
*lookoverhere!*
 
dtrain said:
I got 5th also going 5-1 at my event due to bad resistance (lost rd 1) but since we didn't even have enough people I didn't't even get a point (I think my PTO said we had 49 people). They could also just decrease the amount of people required for the # of points you get. So basically give 5-8 place a point if there are 32 people at the event.
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Then the player who places 9th with be disappointed he or she didn't get a point. They'll never be able to please everyone.
 
Amt said:
Then the player who places 9th with be disappointed he or she didn't get a point. They'll never be able to please everyone.
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Now that isn't fair =/, 9th would have been X-2 anyways (or is there a chance an X-1 can come in 9th?)
 
Yoshi- said:
^- 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?
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I think the necessity of doing something like this will be different from country to country. I can understand the reasoning in the US where the tournament has a monstrous size and because of that "T-shirt problem" this year.
In Austria e.g., it would not make any sense to do something like this because you just do not have that many possibilites to even earn that minimum requirement.

And you have to see this from another perspective: It is certainly nice if new players come to Nationals. But if you see these players never again, then what did you gain? The goal for a growing OP can not be to maximize the one-timers, but to bind the players to the OP programmes on a regular basis.

The minimum play requirement can be a good way to achieve this goal, but only if your area coverage is good, and this is something we do not have in Germany because there are many "dead" spots.
 
M_Liesik said:
To quote Brick Tamland:

*cough*
*lookoverhere!*
Click to expand...
Thanks for uploading that (but out of thanks today). ^^

Question from a friend in our German forum:
Is Jirachi allowed in VGC Modified or is it an error that it's not listed as banned?
 
Glumanda said:
I think the necessity of doing something like this will be different from country to country. I can understand the reasoning in the US where the tournament has a monstrous size and because of that "T-shirt problem" this year.
In Austria e.g., it would not make any sense to do something like this because you just do not have that many possibilites to even earn that minimum requirement.

And you have to see this from another perspective: It is certainly nice if new players come to Nationals. But if you see these players never again, then what did you gain? The goal for a growing OP can not be to maximize the one-timers, but to bind the players to the OP programmes on a regular basis.

The minimum play requirement can be a good way to achieve this goal, but only if your area coverage is good, and this is something we do not have in Germany because there are many "dead" spots.
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Two words: Side events.

And if you think about it, new players will have a much better experience at the side events, no?
How much fun can it be to get slaughtered by a top tier deck when you are playing a "binder deck"?
 
EvanBaker said:
2. I searched the rankings today and found that my ELO rating had been updated. However, I couldn't even find a reference to my "Championship Points" anywhere on pokemon.com. Am I just missing it or something? If Championship Points are the new standard and ELO is just a tie-breaker, why would the ELO be on the website but not my C.P.'s?
Click to expand...

The player display for Championship Points should launch near the end of the month. While we would like to have had this active and ready for Battle Roads, it just didn't happen. Once it's up, you'll most certainly be able to review what you've won, and where and report any errors you find.

We will be compiling the display data from the event reports we've already received, so we don't anticipate a lot of corrections needing to be made.

Thanks,
Prof. Dav
 
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