ryanvergel
New Member
This past weekend at Nationals has opened my eyes to a few changes I have experienced while playing this game. I began playing in May of 2005, right at the release of Emerald. Scramble energy had just been released, and the game took a strategic turn once again.
I remember the bad beat stories and sour grapes people had. Needing to draw a Warp Point out of 8 cards with a Steven’s Advice to draw 6; having 3 Blaziken prized; getting paralyzed for 3 turns in a row against a Dunsparce, anything. One thing I know is that I almost never heard of someone with sour grapes about losing turn 1 or turn 2. Games went out longer. Games were not decided so easily on turn 1/2 as they are now.
When I hear a disgruntled story now, it’s a Regionals winner getting turn t1d by Machamp game 1 of Nationals. It’s about a player losing against a Gengar who flipped 3 heads for 3 flips with Fainting Spell. It’s someone playing 7 turns total at a tournament. It’s someone losing t1 to Machamp 4 rounds in a row of a premiere event.
This year’s US Nationals boasted a total of 1190 players, and 681 Masters players, with growth in all age groups, and with the same consistent growth in masters above 25%. If we can expect the same growth next year, another 25% or so, we will be looking at about 1500 players. That is an absolutely stupendous amount, and would mean a Masters turnout nearing 850. This is more than double entire rating sections see for their entire player base at one tournament. The LA zone has roughly 380 players, meaning our Nationals should double the size of their entire player base.
APAC zone has 1404 players (MA of course), while our Nationals nearly had half of their player based matched by our turnout. This region receives 46 invites via Nationals invite, and 20 invites via ranking. Our country has to fight for 25 rating invites and 8 National invites. If we received a similar distribution of invites for our player base, we would be looking at 24 invites- about 3 times as many as we see now.
The distribution of invites obviously has a huge bias against the US. It will only be that much harder to earn an invite here in the US next year, with out nationals likely booming more masters, while we receive the same invites.
While I love the idea of a huge turnout for a Nationals, I am not quite satisfied with this event truly proving the nation’s best. When we are expecting 800 players for a tournament, luck has an undeniably huge impact on who wins. It also makes management a huge issue (fire hazards, anyone?). I am beginning to think the US is too large for 1 main event. I would like to see the US adopt a system similar to regional championships. An east/west coast championship of two tournaments of the US national scale, each likely pulling a solid amount of players, but with more growth since more people overall will attend Nationals. I am sure the younger divisions would easily pull 150 kids, and the masters pull 400+, making them on the scale of the first nationals! The two winners of each divisional challenge would play at Worlds in a feature match to decide the United States National Champion. I think we either need a smaller, more manageable/fair/less ridiculous tournament set, or we need more invites. Both require more money, sadly- so I know I’m being optimistic.
I think the game definitely has some issues right now. I see a 30,000 inflatable hanging above me and think how much more thrilled the players would be to see 4 additional trips per age division for a year. I think the game would definitely benefit from adopting Europe’s best of three swiss. With the kind of game mechanics available, we need a way to offset the randomness.
I think my grapes lately have been a bit more sour. The bad beats hurt more, and there are more players, better players every year and less prizes every year.
How is everyone else feeling about the state of the current Nationals?
I remember the bad beat stories and sour grapes people had. Needing to draw a Warp Point out of 8 cards with a Steven’s Advice to draw 6; having 3 Blaziken prized; getting paralyzed for 3 turns in a row against a Dunsparce, anything. One thing I know is that I almost never heard of someone with sour grapes about losing turn 1 or turn 2. Games went out longer. Games were not decided so easily on turn 1/2 as they are now.
When I hear a disgruntled story now, it’s a Regionals winner getting turn t1d by Machamp game 1 of Nationals. It’s about a player losing against a Gengar who flipped 3 heads for 3 flips with Fainting Spell. It’s someone playing 7 turns total at a tournament. It’s someone losing t1 to Machamp 4 rounds in a row of a premiere event.
This year’s US Nationals boasted a total of 1190 players, and 681 Masters players, with growth in all age groups, and with the same consistent growth in masters above 25%. If we can expect the same growth next year, another 25% or so, we will be looking at about 1500 players. That is an absolutely stupendous amount, and would mean a Masters turnout nearing 850. This is more than double entire rating sections see for their entire player base at one tournament. The LA zone has roughly 380 players, meaning our Nationals should double the size of their entire player base.
APAC zone has 1404 players (MA of course), while our Nationals nearly had half of their player based matched by our turnout. This region receives 46 invites via Nationals invite, and 20 invites via ranking. Our country has to fight for 25 rating invites and 8 National invites. If we received a similar distribution of invites for our player base, we would be looking at 24 invites- about 3 times as many as we see now.
The distribution of invites obviously has a huge bias against the US. It will only be that much harder to earn an invite here in the US next year, with out nationals likely booming more masters, while we receive the same invites.
While I love the idea of a huge turnout for a Nationals, I am not quite satisfied with this event truly proving the nation’s best. When we are expecting 800 players for a tournament, luck has an undeniably huge impact on who wins. It also makes management a huge issue (fire hazards, anyone?). I am beginning to think the US is too large for 1 main event. I would like to see the US adopt a system similar to regional championships. An east/west coast championship of two tournaments of the US national scale, each likely pulling a solid amount of players, but with more growth since more people overall will attend Nationals. I am sure the younger divisions would easily pull 150 kids, and the masters pull 400+, making them on the scale of the first nationals! The two winners of each divisional challenge would play at Worlds in a feature match to decide the United States National Champion. I think we either need a smaller, more manageable/fair/less ridiculous tournament set, or we need more invites. Both require more money, sadly- so I know I’m being optimistic.
I think the game definitely has some issues right now. I see a 30,000 inflatable hanging above me and think how much more thrilled the players would be to see 4 additional trips per age division for a year. I think the game would definitely benefit from adopting Europe’s best of three swiss. With the kind of game mechanics available, we need a way to offset the randomness.
I think my grapes lately have been a bit more sour. The bad beats hurt more, and there are more players, better players every year and less prizes every year.
How is everyone else feeling about the state of the current Nationals?
