VGC '12 United States National - Indianapolis - WON by Cybertron and Wolfey

[Superpokemon67]

Two points: I'm almost sure top cut at Nationals will be at least 32 for all divisions. An x-3 can make it in even it it's a top 16 though (kingofkongs last year), and in the rare chance this does happen, it will most likely be someone with byes. Your last sentence contradicts your first; there is no way we would have a top 16 if we have even bigger numbers than Regionals.

Touche. Even if they do have a top 32 cut (which I hope they do) the vast majority of those spots will be taken by the X-2s. Me and my sister both went 6-2 at Philly and she got 9th place, while I ended up in 21st.

Food for thought. I'm probably really bad at getting my point across.

 

[LPFan]

Just got word from my cousins that they also are planning on playing as well, put down one for seniors and the other one for masters.

 

[Human]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apjdpm_nRTpZdEU4ZW9fUVRwNVAzWERUVzQ5d1JvYXc#gid=0

I made a Google Doc so people will be able to see for themselves how Nationals Swiss will work, this excel google doc assumes all people with Byes are coming to Nationals.

EDIT: If you want to be able to edit the document just download it for yourself too. I'm not going to let a lot of people mess with it and ruin it for others.

 

[Cybertron]

Hi, a couple of notes.

First off, I'm currently cleaning up the first post by updating with attendees and a FAQ. I removed the list of players with byes, since it was inconsistent. (There were people that don't go on Smogon, we didn't have everyone, etc.) Smogon members with byes are now indicated with an * next to their name.

I also got rid of people who had siblings/friends on Smogon because it was cluttering everything, and if they're not on Smogon, they really shouldn't be up there. Sorry about that! (I removed the Juniors division since you're not even supposed to be on Smogon as a Junior...) Please let me know if I forgot to include you.

Finally, please let me know of what you think of the FAQ. If there are any questions you have, I would be glad to answer them as well as add them to the OP. Hopefully I did my best at explaining stuff like resistance. Thanks everyone, hope it helps you out!

EDIT: Finally added everyone to the list, let me know if I missed you.

 

[MiniWade]

Lets compare prizes now :o

VGC
------

1st Place:

A National Champion Trophy
An invitation to compete at the Pokémon Video Game World Championships in Waikoloa, Hawaii, on August 11th and 12th, 2012
Airfare and 5-day/4-night hotel accommodations for the winner (including parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to attend the Pokémon Video Game World Championships
2nd Place:

A National Championships Finalist Trophy
An invitation to compete at the Pokémon Video Game World Championships in Waikoloa, Hawaii, on August 11th and 12th, 2012
Airfare and 5-day/4-night hotel accommodations for the winner (including parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to attend the Pokémon Video Game World Championships
3rd and 4th Place:

A National Championships Semi-Finalist Trophy
An invitation to compete at the Pokémon Video Game World Championships in Waikoloa, Hawaii, on August 11th and 12th, 2012
Airfare and 5-day/4-night hotel accommodations for the winner (including parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to attend the Pokémon Video Game World Championships



TCG
------

1st Place

A Pokémon TCG National Championships First-Place Trophy
An invitation to the 2012 Pokémon TCG World Championships
20 Championship Points
A Travel Award for the winner (and parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to the 2012 World Championships
A scholarship award worth $5,000. Go to http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized-play/championship-series/scholarships/ for scholarship details and restrictions
A combination of 72 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
Other great Pokémon-themed merchandise!
2nd Place

A Pokémon TCG National Championships Second-Place Trophy
An invitation to the 2012 Pokémon TCG World Championships
16 Championship Points
A Travel Award for the winner (and parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to the 2012 World Championships
A scholarship award worth $3,000. Go to http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized-play/championship-series/scholarships/ for scholarship details and restrictions
A combination of 72 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
Other great Pokémon-themed merchandise!
3rd & 4th Place

A Pokémon TCG National Championships Semi-Finalist Trophy
An invitation to the 2012 Pokémon TCG World Championships
12 Championship Points
A Travel Award for the winner (and parent or legal guardian for players under 18) to the 2012 World Championships
A scholarship award worth $1,500. Go to http://www.pokemon.com/us/organized-play/championship-series/scholarships/ for scholarship details and restrictions
A combination of 36 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
Other great Pokémon-themed merchandise!
5th through 8th Place

An invitation to the 2012 Pokémon TCG World Championships
10 Championship Points
A combination of 36 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
9th through 12th Place

8 Championship Points
A combination of 36 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
13h through 16th Place

6 Championship Points
A combination of 36 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
17th through 32nd Place

4 Championship Points
A combination of 18 booster packs from current Pokémon TCG expansions
33rd through 64th Place

3 Championship Points (if division attendance is 128 or greater)


Lol

 

[Admiral Kuzan]

Huh, I wonder why TCG prizes are better than VGC, lmao! 72 booster packs if you win first in the TCG Nationals, wow.....They should give out 3DS's for the VGC's again; I don't have one yet. :/

 

[Cassie]

I expected TCG to get more prizes, the setup of Nationals shows why. VGC is open so you don't even have to have played anywhere else to have the chance to get in. TCG players, on the other hand, had to acquire 10 championship points through league, prereleases, states, etc, so you'd need to either be good, or to have attended a lot of events. They spend a lot more money to actually play, and there are a lot more TCG players than VGC players, so the fact that they get more prizes is expected. VGC Nationals being open is a reward in itself really.

 

[Firestorm]

TCG has about 3x the attendance and directly generates revenue for TPCi.
VGC is a money sink.

That doesn't excuse why 4th to 8th don't get unpaid invites for Worlds - especially considering the amount of qualified players in the US, but that's why they can afford to pay more prizes for TCG.

 

[Admiral Kuzan]

Yeah, hopefully the VGC's will evolve to something else; that's why we need to promote it!

 

[Sapphire Birch]

I expected TCG to get more prizes, the setup of Nationals shows why. VGC is open so you don't even have to have played anywhere else to have the chance to get in. TCG players, on the other hand, had to acquire 10 championship points through league, prereleases, states, etc, so you'd need to either be good, or to have attended a lot of events. They spend a lot more money to actually play, and there are a lot more TCG players than VGC players, so the fact that they get more prizes is expected. VGC Nationals being open is a reward in itself really.

Actually to enter tcg nationals you need 10 play points which is just basically participation points and are different than championship points. So you just need to have attended a few tcg tournaments(or 2 regionals since they give you 5 play points for entering) before.

 

[Huy]

TCG always has better prizes.

 

[soul_survivor]

I guess there aiming for a much smaller worlds. Theres really no reason not to have 5-8 unpaid trips. We can always ask the coordinator there why this year they took away top 5-8 unpaid trips.

 

[Human]

One of the things I really don't like about the prizes is that it doesn't have any incentive other than top 4, which is still a great goal, but is there any reason to care afterwards when you gain no additional prizes?

 

[Havak]

I think the incentive of being the champion is enough, but that's basically what has happened at all of the European events this year. IIRC, they didn't even change much on the actual trophy. The 1st/2nd and the 3rd/4th place trophies say the same thing on them (Finalist and Semi-Finalist), which I found a bit pointless. They could have at least added 'Champion', 'Runner-Up' etc on them. But maybe that was just to save money on mass production.

I agree that only four trips for the US is a bit odd and restricting, but at least it's looking like a level playing field for each individual country now, in a way (Europe will always be swayed until it becomes Region Locked, which I hope doesn't even happen). I'm guessing Japan will only get four trips now too, and Korea would probably be boosted from two to four as well.

I agree with Dozz about this seemingly being a transition year for VGC. Maybe the reason for four trips per country is that they hope to expand to even more countries? In 2008 VGC (or VGS?) was only between two countries. Now it's between nine only four years (five seasons) later. This is a good thing even if it has an impact on attendance of the bigger countries.

I do think America and Japan should get slightly more trips, eight each would be fair. But I guess this is still fair in the long-run. As for prizes, it's a bit more difficult to give things out for VGC players, unless we just get TCG boosters as well (but I bet the majority wouldn't even want them). I'm actually thinking that in the future, these Play! Points will become some form of online currency in a Play! Pokemon Online Shop, where we can purchase merchandise with our points we earn from each season, or something along those lines. But yeah, it's not like they could just hand out in-game items or event Pokémon. Most of the players wouldn't care for those since they can get them through other means very easily. Handing out 3DS's / Wii U's all the time will get very costly and might just become a Worlds exclusive thing for us.

Once again, in the grand scheme of things I think this is still a step in the right direction and I'm happy with the growth of VGC.

 

[Cybertron]

I think the trophies say Champion, Finalist, and Semi-Finalist. That's at least what they did for all the other trophies.

Also soul_survivor, Worlds will actually be around the same / bigger this year. I'm sure that everyone who is invited is going because of the free trip, meaning at least 20 Europeans, 4 Americans, 4 Canadians, and most likely 4 Japanese and Korean players for a total of 32. You also have the finalists from VGC 2011, and if there is a LCQ, that too.

 

[Celestavian]

EDIT: Finally added everyone to the list, let me know if I missed you.

That would be me!

I'm really excited for the tournament and hopefully I'll actually meet some Smogoners this year. And hopefully I take the right bag with me this time.

 

[Superpokemon67]

Dang, TCG gets $5,000 scholarships!?!?!

If only I wasn't to bad at it ._.

The prizes for the VGC have degraded, even from last year. Format wise it's gotten better, but wow. I would gladly pay $5-$10 to get into an event if there were better prizes.

 

[TheGr8]

just throwing this out there, it's official I got my time off for Nats :DDDDD so I will be there 100% :D

 

[ShreyasPokemon]

I need to get myself into TCG...

Anyway, I can't make it to nationals anymore. :(

 

[Firestorm]

Take one brown out, put another in.
Imma pull a skarm.

 

[Pokérob]

Wow only four spots for America, didn't see that coming at all.

Good luck to all those attending!

UK: 4
Germany: 4
France: 4
Spain: 4
Italy: 4
USA: 4
Canada: 4?
Japan: 4?
Korea: 4?
LCQ: ??

 

[Matty85]

Wow only four spots for America, didn't see that coming at all.

Good luck to all those attending!

UK: 4
Germany: 4
France: 4
Spain: 4
Italy: 4
USA: 4
Canada: 4?
Japan: 4?
Korea: 4?
LCQ: ??

I think that also 4 spots for Canada are confirmed. Probably also Japan and Korea will have 4 spots, and maybe also LCQ. Add to this the finalist and runner up from the 2011 season and each division will have ~40 players.

 

[Firestorm]

Canada's spots aren't confirmed. For TCG we only have 2 trips (last year there was only 1) with 4 invites. LCQ has been 8 spots in previous years and I think it'll likely be the same this year as it's meant for all countries.

 

[Pokérob]

If it's 4 for canada, then to do 40 places they would do 2 spots in LCQ and then obviously matty and bluecookies get there auto qualifications too, do any senior winners go into masters this year?

 

[Human]

If it's 4 for canada, then to do 40 places they would do 2 spots in LCQ and then obviously matty and bluecookies get there auto qualifications too, do any senior winners go into masters this year?

You make absolutely no sense.

With the 5 European Qualifiers there are 20 people. LCQ is always 8 people. Canada and US have 4 respectively, this puts us up to a total of 36 people. Matty and BlueCookies make it 38. Korea and China may have two or four, Japan may have four or eight. If Korea and China have two and Japan has eight then there are 12 more and we have 50. If they all have four then we still have 50.

There are most likely going to have 50 invites and, I guess, 42 trips.

It really isn't that hard to understand...