Korea Competing in VGC 2011?

[Cybertron]

I heard that it was confirmed Korea will me participating in the 2011 VGC's. Does anyone has a link to that?

More so; discuss! How do you feel about their addition to this year?

[JRank]

Since they haven't competed with either us or Japan, I expect their "metagame" to have developed and be something far different than what we expect. It might just be me, though.

[Cybertron]

That's exactly what I've been thinking; though honest to say I'm curious about what the winning teams are over there.

Can anyone provide more information on this? And if they have 3 divisions or 2?

[Havak]

http://pokemonkorea.co.kr/html/event...1&EventPeriod=

This is the official Korean Pokémon website, stating that there will be a qualifier tournament in Korea.

[Unreality]

o.o

curiouser and curiouser

[opkil]

This would be interesting...
Korea has had a rather interesting history with Competitive games in general. IIRC, Starcraft is like a religion over there, and they invented stuff like Maplestory and Gunbound.
(Might be over-generalising here.)

It would be interesting to see if their playstyle greatly differs from US and Japanese players.

[Ace Emerald]

I don't see why the playstyle should differ too much. It might not be a carbon copy of ours, but the same stuff is still good. I've always thought of the metagame like natural selection: the good will always rise to the top. Why wouldn't it?

[Rukario]

Hmmm, this is the closest country to have a qualifier next to Japan. It's expected that many of the Japanese might just enter this qualifier. Who knows, we might see more Japanese than we expected.

[Maestrol55]

IMO, the more the merrier. :)

[Unreality]

Originally Posted by Fat Maestrol55

IMO, the more the merrier. :)

imo the less the easier it is to win


just a thought

[Pokemafia]

Just out of curiosity, are we talking North or South Korea here?

[Maestrol55]

Originally Posted by Fat Unreality

imo the less the easier it is to win


just a thought

But you feel like you accomplished more

just an idea

EDIT: @Pokemafia: Probably South, since they mention the Republic of Korea.

[Cybertron]

Originally Posted by Fat Pokemafia

Just out of curiosity, are we talking North or South Korea here?

...you honestly think it's North Korea?

[Unreality]

Originally Posted by Fat Maestrol55

But you feel like you accomplished more

just an idea

EDIT: @Pokemafia: Probably South, since they mention the Republic of Korea.

i'd rather win than feel like i accomplished more

just a notion

[Pokemafia]

Originally Posted by Fat Maestrol55

But you feel like you accomplished more

just an idea

Would rather capitalise on the opportunity tbh.

Originally Posted by Fat Cybertron

...you honestly think it's North Korea?

Wouldn't that be fun :)?

[Nakun]

I think there are regional variations to pokemon, different countries think different pokes are cool, and so the metagame evolves to counter the most popular. Although there will be an element of natural selection to it, no metagame will focus around Farfetch'd...

[JRank]

Originally Posted by Fat Pokemafia

Would rather capitalise on the opportunity tbh.

If you win this year I won't consider whoever wins the best, the 2012 Worlds winner (who will have played the Japanese) would be the best (in their respective division). "Taking advantage of an opportunity" makes you sound like a jerk tbh. It's not fun to win against someone not at full strength. (Unless you think that's cool)

[Firestorm]

The only ones being dicks and talking about how it will be easier to win are the ones who aren't going to win. You're still going to get your asses kicked by the best the West have to offer. Now stop shitting up every topic talking about your chances with the Japanese unfortunately out of the picture.

Originally Posted by Fat King Emerald

I don't see why the playstyle should differ too much. It might not be a carbon copy of ours, but the same stuff is still good. I've always thought of the metagame like natural selection: the good will always rise to the top. Why wouldn't it?

The metagame is going to revolve around the playstyles. For example, Japan plays a somewhat slower and more defensive game than the United States which makes for some different Pokemon and strategies used. People use teams that do well against other people they play against so they all evolve somewhat differently. If we all played in the same environment (say if Nintendo had an official setting on wifi for VGC that everyone used), then the metagame would be the same. However, we don't interact with each other nearly as much so although a few know of the other region's style, it's still somewhat separate.

It's the same way teams built for Regionals / LCQ metagames are different from Nationals / Worlds.

[mattj]

i for one look forward to defending our land from the Korean invaders

---

I absolutely do expect SKorea to have a significantly different play-style than either we do, or the Japanese (and possibly the Europeans I suppose). Seems like play-styles loosely correlate to Languages, probably because of forums like these (I've seen German and spanish only forums too). We've been playing the Japanese on random-wifi for a couple years now, but I don't believe anybody at all has been able to play against the Koreans because of the prior incompatibility issues. I'm looking forward to this. This should be fun!

[Cybertron]

I think Firestorm and mattj summed it up pretty well.

And I just wanted to say something about Japan not being able to participate this year. If you've never went to Worlds before, you have to realize that it isn't just about the tournament itself, but rather the experience as a whole. The Japanese always bring so much to Worlds; whether it's memorabilia from the Poke Centers, fun battles, etc. They are also incredibly nice: I remember playing a few of them in the TCG League back in '08; and they often gave me free pins and other items after we played as a way of saying thank you.

The fact that most of them will not be able to compete this year is a disappointment; and I'm even more disappointed that most of them will probably not be at Worlds as a whole. They create a complete new experience.

I am, however, rather excited about the fact that South Korea is coming! I don't recall them being invited to Worlds any other year since they're not in the TCG. It should be really exciting :)

[Fightgar]

Hoping for a regional in/near Seoul! I will more than likely be attending.

[mudkipmaster]

More people to trounce me....

[Aqueos]

People, they won't even let you OUT of north korea. If someone says there korean they either
A.Are South Korean
B.Are North Korean but since they're out of the country and thats not really allowed so they can't tell you. And as such B. doesn't really exist.
Point is everyone who is Korean is from SOUTH KOREA around here. Also,I expect the koreans to KILL EVERYTHING. If you've seen a Sc or SC2 tournament with world competitors, you would know. Of course its also possible that pokemon is extremely small over there which with all the other games they play, and the game dojo system used to play most computer games makes a lot of sence.
Truthfully if I had a good computer, I would swap over to Sc2 immediately. However, I can only use my bros computer, so being able to play it is rare.
The koreans rarely have that problem, as most (last time I checked which is quite a while, so if someone knows otherwise PLEASE pm me,) don't even use their computer to play comp games anyway /: (not quite sure really how many) Everyone basically has access to computers with the games already loaded. So its possible very few play pokemon competitively (very few do here, but we have a lot more people.)

As for me, being in Seniors this year, the japanese were the majority of the competition at worlds. They tend to be quite good, plus they have a different playstyle which is very unique and sometimes unnerving. We shall see if korea easily fills the gap.

This is neat though, I really like korea for various reasons. Lots of Korean friends actually :D

[monkeylemur]

Hey guys, first time posting in Smogon after just purely lurking, and I've looked at the site posted in the EDIT: 4th post, not OP out of curiosity. I'm a Korean who can speak and read Korean pretty well, so I took a look at their forums etc, but they don't really seem to talk about battling very much. Most of the posts there are about trading event pokemon or dream world pokemon. They have a pretty cool looking pokedex and type charts, but other than that, I don't see any tier list or strategy analysis or anything. Nintendo products honestly aren't that big there, so I didn't really expect much, but you guys should probably not expect that much from them.

Ok, looking at their fancy flash pokedex, it's really a barebones pokedex that you find in the game, without stats or movepools or anything. Oh boy -_- there are even topics about how this one high schooler was nagged on by her parents because she was playing pokemon. I'm also seeing pages of people just talking about their national exams. Guys, I'm guessing if you're gonna see anybody from Korea, they're probably just people taking the game casually. Though you might actually see a few pretty interesting strategies, I wouldn't go out of my way to prepare for the unexpected.

Oh my goodness, so many people are commentating about how they only use legendaries >.> Unbelievable, a lot of koreans like Regigigas. If worst comes to worst, most of the people (not all) that came from Korea to compete probably won't be able to because they brought a team full of banned pokemon >.> Kinda disappointing actually. I was excited to see some interesting stuff.

[Huy]

Originally Posted by Fat monkeylemur

Hey guys, first time posting in Smogon after just purely lurking, and I've looked at the site posted in the EDIT: 4th post, not OP out of curiosity. I'm a Korean who can speak and read Korean pretty well, so I took a look at their forums etc, but they don't really seem to talk about battling very much. Most of the posts there are about trading event pokemon or dream world pokemon. They have a pretty cool looking pokedex and type charts, but other than that, I don't see any tier list or strategy analysis or anything. Nintendo products honestly aren't that big there, so I didn't really expect much, but you guys should probably not expect that much from them.

Ok, looking at their fancy flash pokedex, it's really a barebones pokedex that you find in the game, without stats or movepools or anything. Oh boy -_- there are even topics about how this one high schooler was nagged on by her parents because she was playing pokemon. I'm also seeing pages of people just talking about their national exams. Guys, I'm guessing if you're gonna see anybody from Korea, they're probably just people taking the game casually. Though you might actually see a few pretty interesting strategies, I wouldn't go out of my way to prepare for the unexpected.

Oh my goodness, so many people are commentating about how they only use legendaries >.> Unbelievable, a lot of koreans like Regigigas. If worst comes to worst, most of the people (not all) that came from Korea to compete probably won't be able to because they brought a team full of banned pokemon >.> Kinda disappointing actually. I was excited to see some interesting stuff.

Keep in mind that the Japanese players are not big on forums, either. They actually prefer to do all of their strategizing in small groups of IRL friends. While I can't say anything about what the Koreans will bring to the table, I don't think it should be based on anything you find on the internet.