Scizor said:
Absolutely disagree here. You're actually quite wrong. You CAN'T "donksack" Worlds if you aren't invited. Someone that CONSISTANTLY places high at tournaments is going to be going to Worlds, everyone there should be well qualified, moreso than ever before. Less awesome players, yeah, of course, there are a lot of good players, but THIS Worlds will crown a great champion, there's no question.
Funny, I remember Jermy being INVITED and then "donking" worlds. It's not like he got through the door for free.
I bet, if Jermy won Worlds 06, many players would still not accept it because he's not in their clique. They don't like him, and can't accept the fact that he's a GOOD player.
If a foreign National Champion (ie. from Italy or something) ends up winning Worlds 07, I bet all the 'good' players will discredit the win. They just can't accept the fact that they are not on top of everything.
Reducing the numbers at Worlds only gives their arguements more credence.
Zegnarfol said:
Point 1: "It makes sense to have people from ALL OVER the World." It does, and they are. Your concern here is also about there being less representatives from all those countries rather than more. How many representatives were there from each country this year at Worlds, and was every country represented anyway? The changes for next Worlds seem to guarantee a complete representation of players world-wide, rather than the enormous skew to a few countries only. The proportion of representation has been so distorted that some countries (if represented at all) only had a token presence amongst the juggernauts. The new system redresses this imbalance and nearly equalizes representation. Numbers aren't what make Worlds a universal championship, its the representation. Also, Worlds in Hawaii is not limited to one event, at least it hasn't been announced so. The side events should satisfy those who didn't make the top cut.
Prepare to be pied.:tongue:
1 representitive from any country hardly means anything. If that 1 player does terrible (let's use Italy again), than consensus will be that their country must suck as well.
I did the math in another thread, and showed that if the US has a pathetic 4 representitives at Worlds this year, than the rest of the World will lose TWENTY-FOUR invites PER AGE GROUP.
Let's try something on the fly here. Japan has 10 invites per A.G., if we bring them down to 4, we still have to remove 18. Canada had 7, so let's cut them to 4 also. Mexico has 4, and I can't see that changing with the kind of numbers they throw around. We still have 15 to cut. Norway and France have 4, UK, Finland, Germany, Czech rep, Chile, Belgium, and Argentina each had 3 last year (as far as I can tell), If we cut all of them to 2, that means we've cut 20 invites outside of the United States. We still have to cut 4, and I have NO IDEA where they are being cut from.
In short, at least 14 countries lose invites this coming year. None that I can see gain any invites.
So tell me, WHO WINS?
EDIT: Just realized, I completely disregarded Invites given out on continental ratings. I have no idea how to account for those.
Point 2: "A small tournament seems less important to the playing public." That's not how I feel as a player. To play the best-of-the-best, rather than a statistically skewed base of players in a small number countries, is more meaningful - quality rather than quantity. This bigger numbers argument isn't necessarily consistent with players being apathetic to a tournament. If the games are challenging, the focus is then on the competitive challenge, rather than on the "I beat a thousand players, only 10 of which really challenged me", over "I beat 64 players where most of the games where a challenge." I reckon this set up is great for player interest and now publicity can be emphasized on the intensity of game-play rather than the immensity of the representation.
I think that bigger tournaments will always recieve more attention than their smaller counterparts. I'm not saying that people will completely disregard it, but with the extremely reduced numbers, and putting Worlds in a place where there will be zero spectators to the main event, I find it hard to believe that the hype will be the same as previous years.
<3
Point 4: "Worlds should logically be the HARDEST event of the Pokemon year." Well, was it "hard" because there was more chance of lucking out on draws and math-ups? Why would it be less hard to play a more diverse metagame with more likelihood of unexpected match-ups in the new set-up? The best players will still be the best players and the best of them will be at Worlds playing. Sure, it may be said that the best 10 players from a renowned OP country will beat the 10 best from any other country, but that, in my opinion, is only speculation, since the evidence doesn't support this view.
Less matches will always make it easier for matchups to play a part. Now, 1 terrible matchup means alot more to your record than before.
The more players there are, the more top-level skill there will be as well.
Point 5: "It’s what most players want." The representational value of these polls is iffy. However, the first poll indicated that 64% preferred other reasons that big, premier events (only 64 views). Hopefully Worlds next year will change that. The second poll had "More trips/invites for people outside U.S" equal topping - 25% (only 53 views). So it seems the new set-up is perfectly catering for that need. Poll three shows more than 50% interested in a category other than a trip to worlds (only 46 views). I picked a trip as well. As things go, the more difficult it is to get a prize, the more it is valued and esteemed by the individual and the community. The Toyota has now become a Lexus syndrome.
Those polls may not be perfect, but they show a trend. And that trend says that WORLDS is what the players want.
The chance of all those Polls agreeing, but NOT being what the players really want is very small indeed.
