Some thoughts on the information released about the 2013-2014 season…
1) League Challenge
I have been WAITING for this for YEARS. It makes the road towards becoming a PTO so much easier, allows players the opportunity to play in regularly scheduled tournaments that mean something, and can be done anywhere there’s a League. I love this. Even with the Swiss Only portion, I absolutely love this. Plus, it allows the TOs to run their tournaments their way. If you’ve got the time for 2/3 90 minute rounds and you wanna do it that way? Go right ahead! If you can only fit in the minimum number of 30 minute rounds? That’s good too! Wanna charge and give bigger prizes? If that’s what you wanna do, we’re cool with that! Free tournaments? Why the heck not!?!
The point here is that this is a very, very positive development, and one that I applaud.
2) High Level Tournament Structure
Let’s be clear here. This section is talking ONLY about States, Regionals, and Nationals. Cities will still have the familiar 1-day structure of Swiss+Top8 that we’ve had for a couple of years. In this instance, the 50 minute 2/3 Swiss format is designed to ensure that at least one legitimate game is being played between two players. In my opinion, this is NOT designed to have 3 good games. It’s donk protection, pure and simple. And it works rather well in that regard IMO. 50 minutes is actually LONGER than I thought we’d get if we were to do this ourselves. I was thinking 45 minutes.
Because of the Donk protection, I’m also reasonably cool with the top-8 limitation. I’m not 100% happy with it, as I feel that 2-day events like Regionals and Worlds and 3-day events like US Nationals should allow those that hit a couple of bad matchups into the top cut. The 2014 US National Champion will probably be the luckiest player of the weekend, rather than the absolute best. But, with the 2/3 Swiss, I’m not completely destroyed by this decision. I do hope, however, that TOs, especially at the events that are going to be the largest and most complex (Nationals, Worlds) have their schedules thought out well in advance of the tournament starting. This structure will be much, much more difficult to implement correctly. Even at the States level, I’m thinking there will be quite a few really, really late finishes if TOs decide to go 1 day tournaments.
I’m also hoping that More Swiss Rounds are a major part of the Top-8 restriction. I know that MTG runs something like 13 rounds of Swiss, with a single cut at the end of Day 1 getting rid of all players X-3 or worse, for their largest tournaments. Or something like that. It’d be AMAZING to see Pokemon run something like that for Nationals (and possibly Regionals). Day 1, 8 rounds Swiss, out by 7pm. Day 2, cut the X-3s, 5 more rounds of Swiss, then T8 and maybe T4 depending on timing restrictions. Day 3, Finals of all age groups.
All this being said, I HATE Ties. HATE them. It allows players to manipulate the tournament by NOT PLAYING THE GAME. And that is IMO insane. The winner of the tournament should be decided at the table. It drives me nuts when players sit down for their final match, and 16 slips come back in 30 seconds, all with “Draw” marked. I want my players to, y’know, actually PLAY the game of Pokemon. I have never liked the idea of a tie in Pokemon, and I probably never will. Tournaments should be decided at the table, not by manipulating the tournament itself.
I’m really, really looking forward to the new tournament rules. Hoping those go up quickly so that planning can commence on the larger tournaments.
3) VGC
If anybody expected XY to be legal at Autumn Regionals, they were deluding themselves. If anybody expected BW2 to be legal AFTER Autumn Regionals, they were deluding themselves. This is an expected change.
4) Entry Fees
I’m reserving judgment on this until I see exactly what the fees are going to look like and what the prize structure is going to look like with the fees. If the prize structure justifies the cost, then I’m happy with it. If not, then I’m not. Also, happy to see that the J/S tournaments will still all be free, at least at the City level and above.
5) Prize Structure
Well, whaddya know? Some questions answered immediately! They say that the prize support in Masters will increase, but they don’t say what that prize structure is going to look like. I’d like to see the tournament-level prize structure before I completely make a thought on this.
However, the Travel Award and Stipend to be based on CP rankings going into Nationals? ME GUSTA MUCHO!!!!! It’s always been rather pathetic to me how few of the truly great players end up going to Nationals because they can’t afford it. If a player can hit the Top 100, there would almost be no reason NOT to go to Nationals! Even at $300, that pretty much covers a plane ticket from most of the country to Indianapolis. You’d be paying for food wherever you go. And you can split the hotel amongst a few players to make the weekend pretty manageable. My weekend at Nationals this year cost me about $500, and I really didn’t need to spend about $100 of that cuz I carried on more than I needed. True, I live in Minneapolis right now, and that’s reasonably close to Indy. But still, that $300 will probably cover somebody’s entire trip (and then some, for some people I know).
Also, it looks like the Awards and Stipends will happen across all 3 age groups. So that’s an extra (roughly) $124650 IN JUST TRAVEL STIPENDS!!! I’m not even looking at the Travel Awards yet!
And that’s just for the TCG! The VGC is getting similar Nationals support, though it doesn’t go as deep as the TCG support. Do ya know what this means? More VGC players at Nationals! AND more VGC players IN GENERAL!
About the only (minor) gripe that I have here is that players that top at Worlds get a MASSIVE head start and are probably going to get the 1-16 Nationals Travel Award quite easily. And I’m not sure if that’s a gripe, really. But that World Championship prize just got a HELLUVA lot bigger for US players.
I absolutely LOVE this change for US Nationals.
6) Player Rewards Program going away
It was a bit of a hassle to administer anyway. If this is going away to pay for the prizes above, then it’s a wonderful tradeoff. While I’m sad to see this go, what’s replacing it is so much better that I’m not really unhappy.
7) Professor Program
This is the part that has the least definition, but the most potential impact. We need more information on this before I can make a reasonable assessment about how this is working.
8) CP Structure
There is literally no change here, though we don’t know what the Worlds Qualifying CP amount will be. I hope they don’t go back to “top 40” and instead stick with a flat line.
Anybody else find it strange that P!Ps are still being talked about even though there is no more Player Rewards Program? Maybe this has something to do with Nationals Qualification or something…
BTW, it’s nice to see that South Africa is finally getting their support. I’ve been watching them from afar (being from RSA myself), and they appear to have a wonderful LD with great Leagues and Tournaments. This has been a LONG time coming for those guys.
9) Season Schedule
OK, this is where I think TPCi goofed a bit. While I LOVE having the League Challenges taking place throughout the year, I fear that some of them will overlap with all of the new tournaments going on.
First things first. NINE DATES FOR REGIONALS?!? That’s obscene. It’ll turn Pokemon into a game of endurance and money, rather than skill and luck. I hope TPCi changes back to 3 Regional dates next year. I don’t want to have to fly out for a tournament 14 weekends a year (15 if you include the Marathon).
The City Championship season seems, well, rather short. IDK why, it’s pretty much exactly the same length it’s always been. But, now that there’s really nothing going on in the Fall or late Spring times, that length of high-level tournaments seems rather, well, short. Also, what happens to Leagues when they can’t run their League Challenge because there’s a City Championship happening in the same town on the same day as their League? Can the LL/LO delay or accelerate their LC based on the dates their PTO gives them? Or can Cities now be run more easily from the TO level, without having to get the PTO involved?
I do like that US Nationals already has a date and a location. It’ll make planning SO much easier and faster. I can already request my time off from work. This is a massive improvement from the last few years, when we didn’t know when and where Nationals was until halfway through the tournament season. Also, nice to know when Worlds will be, even if we don’t know EXACTLY where it’ll be. Still, I can now request time off with CONFIDENCE!
10) Conclusion
I’m reasonably happy with the changes being made for this year. There are a LOT of questions that have yet to be answered, but I feel as though this will be a positive step for both the game and the community.
