Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

The grinder

Jaeger said:
Were you the guy with Infernape?
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No, played a deck that had an interesting machup with Infernape. I played Delta Meganium/Meganium Ex with Crawdaunt EX. Boost energy was legal then so I could OHKO most of my opponents pokemon. Holons Castfrom made it super easy to play a deck with three energy type needs. I miss those days.
 
Barkjon said:
This will sound dumb. but as I'm fairly new to Pokemon competetive play, what is the grinder?
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The Grinder is the common colloquial term for the Last Chance Qualifier, sometimes shortened to LCQ. This tournament usually happens the day before Day 1 of Worlds, and is used to determine, as the name suggests, the final few competitors that will make it into Worlds.

I tend to refer to the LCQ as Worlds Day 1, while the Invite portion of Worlds are Days 2 and 3. This way, it makes the event seem more open to the casual player, even if very few people tend to make it into Day 2. I think the most was around 30 players in the Junior division. And it tends to be the second largest tournament in the world run by PCI.

Yes, there are spots available for you to play even if you didn't make it in with an invite.
 
metalbird said:
However, if you're looking at 2007 as a basis keep in mind that people with rating invites that year were given a paid trip to worlds, while this year they are just given an invite. I still expect that there will be a lot of people that will go to the Grinder and there will be a decent amount of invites, but it is very cut throat (last year I grinded in but I went 7-0 and then lost my last game if you lose more than 1 game your shots of getting in are very very small).
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So here are the 2007 stats...

2007:
Jr: 54 Players, 6 Rounds, 13 invites
Sr: 64 Players, 6 Rounds, 7 invites
Ma: 141 Players, 8 Rounds, 6 invites
Total players: 259


I think Metalbird is right. This is the right estimate to start from, but I think (and this is purely my speculation) that it's safe expect that more invites will be available because more people will be unable to pay for the trip to Hawaii.

Does anyone know how many invited player in each age group did not make the trip to San Diego last year? I would expect that number to be significantly higher to Hawaii this year.
 
Is it not possible this year that there are more invite handed down here since top 40 invites are passed directly to the grinder. The LCQ has a guaranteed invites allotted, but factoring in all the no-shows, it should leave for quite a bit. For instance, in Europe, I'm under the impression that the vast majority of invites are not being taken unless they have the trip as well. Have I made correct assumptions or am I drastically wrong?
 
WittyNameHere said:
But With the no pass downs this year, and MUCH fewer paid invites, Expect a LOT more invites available.
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Mune said:
Is it not possible this year that there are more invite handed down here since top 40 invites are passed directly to the grinder. The LCQ has a guaranteed invites allotted, but factoring in all the no-shows, it should leave for quite a bit. For instance, in Europe, I'm under the impression that the vast majority of invites are not being taken unless they have the trip as well. Have I made correct assumptions or am I drastically wrong?
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there is NOTHING that states that every unused invite will be passed to the grinder! the only guaranteed LCQ seats are the 4 per age group as stated on the website!

i think a lot of people are making assumptions that will prove to be untrue at the event itself, which is then going to trigger a lot of 'omg OP is unfair!!1!' complaints.

sure players may wish there will be lots of seats available...but it's not a done deal, and getting people's hopes up by stating it's so is unfair to all involved.

jmho
'mom
 
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'mom, it's a claim that's been supported by history. Yes, only the 4 spots have been guaranteed. But I believe those 4 spots have been guaranteed every single year. And every single year they've been augmented at the event itself. It's the history that has raised expectations, not the wishes of the players (though that probably has something to do with it as well ^_^)
 
So how many participants are expected to be playing in each age group?

If what SD PokeMom is saying is correct, then there really is no anticipated number.

It could be as few as some number of people who were invited and show up, plus 4 more from the Grinder.
 
I think SD PokeMom is simply reminding everyone to remember that these are assumptions. Before FAQs for this year's World's were posted players assumed that the invite structure would be the same. Historically, that made sense but in reality it was not correct. We can speculate all that we want but the bottom line is at this moment the ONLY guarantee is 4 spots. I don't want someone taking speculative information from this thread and using it as a motivation to plan a very expensive trip to end up disappointed when someone's guess was wrong.
 
SD PokéMom said:
there is NOTHING that states that every unused invite will be passed to the grinder! the only guaranteed LCQ seats are the 4 per age group as stated on the website!

i think a lot of people are making assumptions that will prove to be untrue at the event itself, which is then going to trigger a lot of 'omg OP is unfair!!1!' complaints.

sure players may wish there will be lots of seats available...but it's not a done deal, and getting people's hopes up by stating it's so is unfair to all involved.

jmho
'mom
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Just wondering, 'Mom, why do you feel the need to support POP and judges and bash complaining players at every single opportunity available?

Whenever somebody complains about POP here (often deliberately to make POP lose face) then you tell them to e-mail POP directly and not make it public.

Whenever anybody says a judge did a bad job, you talk about how judges are only human/ selfless volunteers / overworked, or that it's the player's fault for not appealing to the HJ.

To you, player expectations are always overly demanding or irrational. "come on, these selfless volunteers have to seat 800 players and you want it done in under 20 minutes?!"

Judges are always under-appreciated in your opinion, and players should be thankful to judges even when they are screwing up because they're trying their best....

Why do you always stick up for POP? It just seems that what players want should be the top priority.
 
Box of Fail: what in her post there is "bashing" players? She is simply stating fact that there is no promise that all unused invites will be shoehorned into the LCQ, and that people are quite possibly setting themselves up to be disappointed if they assume that is the case.

And she's also quite right that there will be people that will freak out and say its unfair that POP isn't doing that (if in fact they don't - they haven't said either way yet) even if POP DOES come out beforehand and say they aren't.


Oh, and people that claim its all about the players amuse me. It's not; it's about the dollars. Pokemon is a business. Yes, there needs to be a balance of placating the players sometimes, but in the end, it's all about the almighty dollar. If what players wanted was the top priority, there would be a Nationals in everybody's basement, everybody would get free airfare to Worlds, and everybody would be World Champion.
 
Welcome to capitalism. Being all about the money means being all about the players. Pokémon, as a business in a capitalist society, should strive to please customers should they want to retain their business. Capitalism 1-on-1.

As for 'Mom, the point of the post was valid, but she once again mocks dissatisfied customers and acts as if we should have 'reasonable' expectations from POP.

i think a lot of people are making assumptions that will prove to be untrue at the event itself, which is then going to trigger a lot of 'omg OP is unfair!!1!' complaints.
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This is just one of many, many posts which consistently defend POP and speak condescendingly to our ever-whiny player base, who keep submitting their feedback to POP and will always find a way to be upset by the way things are run. Is this bad? No.
 
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Box of Fail said:
Welcome to capitalism. Being all about the money means being all about the players. Pokémon, as a business in a capitalist society, should strive to please customers should they want to retain their business. Capitalism 1-on-1.
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shouldn't that be 'capitalism 101'?

'mom
 
Don't worry, I'm not smart enough to take college capitalism.

So I really don't see why it makes a difference. We see popular phrases being corrupted all the time; and since the phrase is not used in the original meaning, it's quite irrelevant.

I originally had written 1-0-1, but that just looked wrong. But this is unrelated to my point, so go ahead and correct my posts as much as you'd like... you're just changing the subject.
 
funny how it's 'changing the subject' when i post when YOU are the one who originally took the thread off-topic by deciding to attack me for posting simple facts.

just suppose that the OP of the thread convinces their parent(s) to take them to worlds to grind in, based on the erroneous information posted to this thread about how there will be lots and lots of invites available through the LCQ and it should be 'easy' to get one. and furthermore, suppose that...surprise!...that ISN'T so, and the OP does NOT get in.

guess what, the OP AND their parent(s) are now very unhappy that they took a trip for 'nothing'. so just who is this player and their parents going to vent their rage to? those who posted the info they went on in this thread? NO: they will complain to the OP staff at worlds!

oh btw: capitalism 101 is more like 'make as much money as you can while still keeping the customer happy'...not 'make the customer happy, regardless of the cost'...

'mom
 
So how many people are invited in, for example, Masters?

From here (http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized-play/championship-series/2010-world-championships/invitations/)...

5 from Latin America Zone
10 from Asia Pacific Zone
50 from European Zone
40 from North America Zone

That's 105 based on invites.

How many from the previous year's World Championship?

How many from 2010 National Championships?

Let's take a guess and say that if everyone who was invited shows up to play it would come to somewhere in the 140 player range.

Now, if only 120 of those invited show up would PUI take the 4 Grinder players only or would they take the 4 plus some additional players to make up for those players who didn't show?

I find it hard to believe that PUI doesn't have an idea/approach already regarding this? (It's not their first rodeo.)

For the reasons that SD PokeMom stated, it would be nice if there would be some statement from PUI to let people know how this is going to work and then they (the parents and players) can make a more informed decision.
 
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