Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Announcement European Challenge Cup 2014

sandshrew

sandshrew

Member
European Challenge Cup 2014​

Last year the European Challenge Cup was an International Special Premier Event visited by 340 players from 16 European countries and USA.

Location
This tournament will be held on Saturday 15 February (Swiss rounds) and Sunday 16 February 2014 (finals) at Sporthal Elderveld, Breezandpad 13, NL-6843 JM Arnhem, The Netherlands.*

*The venue is just a couple of kilometers from the German border, it's train station one of the major stops of international trains coming from the Airports of Cologne (Köln - Germany) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands). There is a public tribune where family and nonplaying friends can watch the games from reasonable distance. A catering service is present at the location, just like a shopping mall at a distance of 500 meters with several restaurants and supermarkets. The venue is easily to reach with public transport from the Central Station, where also most of the hotels are located. There are enough possibilities for parking cars in the vicinity of the venue. The whole building will be available for the whole weekend for the tournament exclusively. No food or drinks allowed in the playing area, at the tribunes only drinks in plastic cups.

The tournament starts at 10.30 am, but the registration at the venue opens at 08.00 am (till 09.45 am).
A total of nearly 600 participants can be accommodated at most.

The size of the divisions are dependent on the number of players. The tournament is open to participants from all over the world.

(Pre)registration
Preregistration starts at: December, 6th, 2013 (direct link: http://www.pokemon-organizedplay.eu/html/EN/formulier.html)
Please add your country code behind your name in the registration form. For example: Danny Player (UK)


Tournament structure
Participants play with their own decks in the Modified Constructed format.
That means that the use of cards is limited to certain series. Prior to the tournament, during the player meeting, one has to hand over a decklist and during the tournaments there will be deck checks.
Cards present in the series mentioned below are allowed:
NXD BW Next Destinies
DEX - BW Dark Explorers
DRX - BW Dragons Exalted
BCR - BW Boundaries Crossed
PLS - BW Plasma Storm
PLF - BW Plasma Freeze
PLB - BW Plasma Blast
LET - BW Legendary Treasures
KD - Kalos Starter Deck
DRV - Dragon Vault
PR - promo's BW 33 en verder; XY 1 e.v.
MCD - McDonalds Collection 2
MCD - McDonalds Collection 3

NOTE: The next release of XY is scheduled at February 6th in the European zone, but due to the possibility that this set will not yet be available in the larger part of countries it will not be included in the format of this tournament. Hence, (pre)releases of the new set are scheduled for February 16th as side event for those who want to have more Pokémon fun and is not in the Topcut of the main event!


Participants are divided into 3 divisions, dependent on the year of birth. These divisions are:
Junior division: born in 2003 or later;
Senior division: born in 1999, 2000, 2001 or 2002;
Masters division: born in 1998 or earlier.

The tournament will be using double swiss (More information about "double swiss"(click here)). Saturday swiss rounds will be played, with best-of-3 in rounds of 50 minutes + 3 turns. During this part of the tournament each pairing is made randomly by the Tournament Operations Manager program, the results of the competitors will influence the pairings of the next round. The outcome of a match of each player is of importance to one’s rating and thus helps players to earn an invite for the World Championships. The European Challenge Cup 2014 is intended as a higher qualifying tournament and winners will earn Championship points and the results will be used for calculating your rating. This is important for players to earn an invite for the World Championships (Learn more about Championship points (click here)). Top-cut will be played at Sunday after a second series of swiss rounds of best-of-3 + 3 turns in rounds of 75 minutes. Sunday, depending on the number of participants per division, swiss will be played also with 2-aus-3 in rounds of 50 mintes + 3 turns (max. 32 players). This will result in a max. Top-cut 8 that will play best-of-3 in rounds of 75 minutes + 3 turns

Program (preliminary)
Saturday 15 February 2014:
8.00 - 9.45 am - Registration players
10.00 am - opening hall to players to check player roster (10.10 a.m.) and pairings (10.20 a.m.)
10.30 am - start first round Swiss.
Lunch after round 2 for 45 minutes.

Sunday 16 February 2014:8.15 - 8.30 am - Arrival finalists/pairings
8.30 am - Start first round swisss.
10.15 - 10.45 am - Registration Release Events XY
11.00 am - 16.00 pm Release events XY
18.30 pm - End of last round finalists (MA division) followed by handing out the prizes to the Winners of the ECC 2014


Don’t forget when you participate in this tournament
- Take care that you have your PlayerID at hand;
- Read the tournament rules, so you know what to bring to this event;
- Have your decklist form (see left under the "Registration › decklist” button) filled in completely prior to the tournament;
- Have your cards at the same follow order as you decklist for deckcheck;
- Be at the venue in time, as those that arrive too late will receive a “round loss”.


Prizes (preliminary)
1st place - ECC 2014 Trophy and 72 boosters of XY and 150 Championship Points
2nd place - Regionals Trophy and 72 boosters of XY and 135 Championship Points [Kicker 4]
3rd place - Regionals Trophy and 36 boosters of XY and 105 Championship Points [Kicker 8]
4rd place - Regionals Trophy and 36 boosters of XY and 105 Championship Points [Kicker 8]
5th-8th place - 18 boosters (master division: + 9) of XY and 75 Championship Points [Kicker 32]
9th-12th place - 9 boosters (master division: + 9) of XY and 45 Championship Points [Kicker 64]
13th-16th place - 9 boosters (master division: + 9) of XY and 45 Championship Points [Kicker 64]
17th-24th place - 3 boosters (master division: + 3) and 30 Championship Points [Kicker 128]
25th-32nd place - 3 boosters and 30 Championship Points [Kicker 128]
33th-64th place - 15 Championship Points [Kicker 256]

All participants receive an attention, (if available) a booster XY and a promo at registration (while supplies last!).


Admission fee
€ 7,50


Side Events
On Sunday there will be a (pre)release event of the new XY set (€ 24,- à person).
 
Last edited:
Last year the European Challenge Cup was an International Special Premier Event visited by 340 players from 16 European countries and USA.
Click to expand...

I was single guy who added +1 to country list ;D. This year we're coming in bigger numbers.

Already booked flight and hostel. Totally love you for not allowing XY. It'll make it much more fair although some cards would've helped my deck greatly.
 
When I click on Click here to make the registracion it doesn´t work :/ "Preregistration starts at: December, 6th, 2013 (click here)"
 
Glad to hear that :). Got few questions:

As old domain still works if I preregistered there should I do it on a new one too? I havn't gotten my confirmation yet.

And secondary questions: What matters when deciding who gets into top8 cut? Points from total 13 rounds of swiss or just Sunday 5 rounds and Saturday's 8 rounds are not important at all?
 
Hi Tomasz,

In meantime you have received your confirmation. Your server refused the confirmation mail and defined it as spam. Through personal emailbox my confirmation reached you.

Thus far no tournament reached the playerlimit for a full two day swiss in Europe. Top 32 at second day swiss is executed when 227 and more players in one division is reached, otherwise top 8. For masters, if we have as much as last year (240 players) this might be possible. If we pass 256 players top 64 will receive championship points, otherwise top 32 only.
Second day affects the final listing of top 32. Then elimination rounds for top 8. I suppose the second day swiss will determine your final standings for 9th till 32nd place and top 8 single elimination will determine the standings of top 8. To be honest, I have not yet seen what happened with two day swiss, so if an US TO can shed some light on this or confirm the above that would be most welcome. I will execute a test run 2nd day swiss and let you know what happened.
 
Okay, first of all THANKS A LOT for that event. Really. It was amazing. I feel more tired than I've been during the exam season but it was well worth it. You really did a great job.


The only thing that COULD be done, would be to find rooms for players from top32 near to the playing area. (For example same place the staff is situated)
And maybe some bus to get them to there. Because as you probably figured out we were exhausted after those 9 rounds (which ended at 00:30) and made it to our rooms about 2 a.m. That left most of us with 4-5 hours of sleep what made Sunday rounds a misplay fest ;). I know that such thing generates costs and I don't know if those extra players over 256 that paid entrance fee would cover for that (I think not) and I know not every player would even need such a room (some had hostels nearby), but at least transportation would be a nice idea I think.

Well maybe it was my fault I didn't know any taxi phone numbers and had no money for it anyway, but as far as I know some groups of players had hostels booked in as far as in Apeldoorn? I don't think they made it to top32, but it would be a problem.

I know last year you were so kind to offer it to me in case I really had nowhere to go, so maybe it's possible to expand it to top32? I am not saying it is necessary (because we should be the ones who think about transportation and hostel!), but some players didn't expect it to last that long.

I hope next year it's Bo1 swiss again and none of what I wrote will be relevant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top