Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Bigger accomplishment?

M

Moss Factor

New Member
Mom is obviously jealous of my amazing Pokemon TCG achievements (not knocking you mom, your album covers for DAC's wonderful CDs are great in their own right. Really, truely amazing stuff. I guess we're all gifted in our own way), so she locked the thread where we had a nice debate over the worth of an STS win after getting in the (incorrect) last word.

So, what is a bigger accomplishment? Winning an STS, or winning Worlds?

Pros for Worlds:
  • Once per year, only one event per year
  • More prizes (I assume people try harder when cash is on the line)
  • Top cut is best-of-three
  • Japanese players

Pros for STS:
  • Open event, thus massive fields
  • Only T8 cut, so you literally could afford 1 or NO losses during the swiss
  • Pokemon was much more popular during the day, thus there were more solid players in the game

You certainly had more opportunities to win an STS, but I feel its more difficult to win one on its own merits. You had to not only play flawlessly, but you had to survive the highest numbered pokemon tournament fields in the history of the game. On the other hand Worlds does seem to take more skill to win: with a 2/3 top cut, which occupies such a large portion of your total games (38.5% of your total games), it removes a lot of luck from the game. However on the other hand, I've always been of the opinion that T32 cuts are far too liberal. Allowing someone with a 5-3 record into the final cuts is rediculous, plain and simple. You've got a 62.5% win rate and you're still alive to win WORLDS? That's far too weak of a record in my opinion.

Regardless, I think that no matter how you slice it, Super Trainer Showdowns are quite congruent to World Championships in that its close enough for to describe an STS as one to someone who doesn't understand what a "Super Trainer Showdown" is. If you were to describe an STS's worth in current standards, is it safe to say you could relate it to worlds? I think so.
 
The pros you listed for worlds generally outweigh the pros for STS when it comes to how they gauge player skill.
First off, there's more pros for worlds listed.
Second off...there's money.
Third, "open field"-how does that relate to player skill?
 
Worlds wins hands down. You need to be even at least semi-good to get to worlds, And what if those were horrible starts.i.e. starting with a feebas while using queen, does that mean that the deck still can't win because of extremly bad luck? I still think worlds.
 
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One could note that you have tried to win Worlds multiple times and fell short.
 
Worlds > STS

Only T8 cut, so you literally could afford 1 or NO losses during the swiss
Click to expand...

Isnt nessecarily a benefit. Look at the grinder at worlds, did that prove who the best out of that group was?

No I dont think so. Having to win out is not nessecarily a true way to gauge skill. I dont find it as a benefit since you DO cut out the people who sometimes ARE truely better and lost ONE game out of EIGHT to luck.
 
June 23 - 24, more than 1,600 Pokémon trading card game (TCG) trainers of all ages gathered at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, New Jersey, for the second annual Pokémon TCG League Super Trainer Showdown (STS) East.
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There were 3 age groups, the largets was the 11-14, followed by the 15+. Check here Working on figuring out the WCSTS.

EDIT: Pop, I've only been to worlds once.

Also, in terms of the player skill debate, there has been two repeat STS winners (Hanley, Brooks), and many players who have had repeatedly made T8s, T4s and T2s. I believe the only person to repeat T8s at Worlds was Yamato. Seems to me that there is more skill in STSs if the better players are able to consistently place well.
 
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Mossy brings up some good points. Though I wasn't at an STS, I'm sure the level of competition was higher than any other Pokemon tournament to date. Last year's U.S. Nationals was probably the most recent comparable tournament. I'm guessing with no trips to Worlds at the Regional tournaments this year U.S. Nationals will be even bigger than last year. Maybe even comparable to an STS...
 
For the record I've only tried to qualify for one worlds, successfully did it, and at that worlds, finished 20th with a 7-2 overall record.

I've played in two STSs, placing 12th and DNF in one, T8 and 1st in the second.
 
Moss, care to describe what an STS is in detail?
I stopped playing at Gym Heroes and got back into the game as Emerald was released, so STS tournaments are completely unknown to me, and I'm sure a lot of players. Care to give a brief description of player base, number of tournaments, types of decks/rules?
Thanks.
 
The STS is definately a bigger acomplishment. I went 7-1-1 day 1 and MISSED the cut. 7-1-1 is AMAZING comapred to the records that made the cut at worlds. Day 2 I BARELY made the cut with 8-0-1. EIGHT WINS AND A DRAW BARELY MADE THE CUT?! AM I ON PUNKED?
 
The East Coast STS's were held in the NJ Meadowlands Convention center and filled it up!
There were a ton of side events: Leagues, contests, mini touraments, card drawing, etc. etc.
Yes, they were a lot bigger than Worlds. On the other hand, the deck variety was a lot less than we see nowadays.
People would have played a Feralgatr or Slowking deck in the last one.
People would have played Wigglytuff or Haymaker in the first.
Some would argue, with everyone playing the same deck, the better player rather than matchups determined the winners.
 
The WCSTS was two seperate tournaments run over two days at the San Diego Convention Center in December 2001. Pre-registration was required for the main event, so it was NOT a 'walk-in' tourney; there were FOUR age groups (-10, 11-12, 13-14, and 15+). There were champions in each age group on each day, so eight tourney winners during the event.

I believe turnout for the WCSTS was much LESS than for the ECSTS held earlier that year, for several reasons: it was held the weekend after Thanksgiving so school was in session, and it was held in the aftermath of 9/11. There was a LOT of discussion on the old WizPoG about the 'bad timing' of the event preventing people from participating...along with how people didn't want to travel...

Glad you like my album covers, Moss; I'll be _sure_ to pass along your compliments to DAC when I speak to him next...

'mom
 
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The first STS was held on the Queen Elizabeth II cruiseliner. An open event, one could win a trip by playing in a Mall Tour tournament. However, the furthest Mall Tour spot to the east was in the Mall of America. Despite no chance for someone on the East coast to trip, the event had a massive turnout. The problem, however, was that being on a boat, there was overcrouding and many people were turned away from the event. In addition the crouding in the event was a serious problem. There were 500 players in the only large-scale Unlimited tournament ever held.

The next STS was held in the Medowlands convention center in New Jersey. The format was changed for this event, and it was done in a 15/3, where you could have 15 trainer cards maximum and 3 of any one card besides basic energy. In addition, qualifiers were now only offered to players under 14 years old. There were over 700 players at the event.

The following STS was also held in the Medowlands, and yet this was in the Modified format with sets Team Rocket and on legal, with Neo Genesis Sneasel banned. There were more than 1,600 players at this event. The second ECSTS was different in that there were two tournaments at the event: one on saturday and one on sunday. Both were open to all players as each tournament concluded by the end of the day.

The last STS was held in San Diego, California at the SDCC. The format, again, was modified. The WCSTS allowed players with a high enough DCI ranking to have byes in the event (I'm not completely sure if the ECSTS2 had byes, I cannot recall). For a 1800+ you had a 1st round bye, 1900+ you had a 2nd round bye, and for a 2000+ you had a 3-round bye. Again, the event featured two tournaments over the two days of the weekend, crowing two champions per age group. I'm still trying to figure out the numbers for the WCSTS, but I know there were four age groups at this event: 10-, 11-12, 13-14, and 15+. This was due to the inordinant number of players in the 11-14 age group at the second ECSTS. There were so many players there that they added an extra round in the 11-14 and 15+ age groups, however there were STILL players in the 11-14 that went 8-1-0 and missed the T8 cut, which was seen as a mismanagement (This could have been easilly calculated beforehand to identify the error and add an extra round).

All in all the STSs had their flaws, but they were far and away the most fun parts of my earlier pokemon career.

EDIT: Pop actually the most popular deck by FAR at the 2nd ECSTS was Big Fire. Feraligatr decks were almost rogue, but only seemed like a major force because the good players who used it did very well. Slowking was also rogue, but did well against the Feraligatr decks that dominated the later rounds after the gatrs had cleared the field of Big Fire decks. In my opinion playing slowking was a SERIOUS misplay. Its best match, Gatr, wasn't even a favorite. And there was a LOT of fire.

Gatr seemed like it was a "whoever gets set up first wins," but really there was a ton of strategy. I added a lot of tech such as Smeargle and Erika's Bellsprout to tech the mirror. Dylan Austin was really the first to add nonholo Suicune to his Gatr which was an amazing addition (he told me about it about 15 minutes after I registered my deck). There was a lot of skill in both deckbuilding and playing. The matchups wern't that huge of an issue because even Big Fire/MagEntei could beat Gatr, Gatr could beat Crobat/Slowking, and Crobat/Slowking could beat Big Fire/MagEntei. The matchups were often irrelevant and player skill was paramount in all but really bad luck situations (bands missing, baby flips).
 
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My memory of the second ECSTS is cloudy due to the fact that I judged the two days with a 102[sup]o[/sup] fever from the first stages of Lyme Disease, which at the time I had though was just a flu.
 
PokePop said:
The East Coast STS's were held in the NJ Meadowlands Convention center and filled it up!
There were a ton of side events: Leagues, contests, mini touraments, card drawing, etc. etc.
Yes, they were a lot bigger than Worlds. On the other hand, the deck variety was a lot less than we see nowadays.
People would have played a Feralgatr or Slowking deck in the last one.
People would have played Wigglytuff or Haymaker in the first.
Some would argue, with everyone playing the same deck, the better player rather than matchups determined the winners.
Click to expand...

Jason K played typlo and beat every gatr deck he played. Didn't people play Cro to counter gatr?
 
Not Hanley's! I did very well in the WCSTS day 1, playing Typhlo and beating three very good Gatr's including Tom Hanley's and Daniel Stern's before finally falling to Dallas Dalton's Gatr in the quarters.

Crobat was used at the WCSTS, but wasn't released by the 2nd ECSTS. Seena Ghaziaskar did well with it, and I defeated my opponent's Crobat in the finals on the 2nd turn. I felt that Crobat really wasn't that superior to Gatr in that even though it was a solid matchup, Gatr still have a very, very good shot. I believe Criminal's Gatr beat Bomiester's Crobat in the Quarterfinals of day 2. Seena may have lost to a Gatr deck in the T4 on day 1 as well, I'm not sure.

There were no real blowout matches. You always had a very good shot at winning, even with a disadvantage.
 
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