After much deliberation, and a fair share of drama, we are finally here...the qualifying round of the World Cup of Pokemon IV. The stage is set, and 14 teams from around the globe will now duke it out to ultimately determine which nation can claim the honour of best in the world.
The final rosters can be viewed here
The format for this round can be found here
The rules of the tournament can be found here
With that out of the way, I want to wish every team good luck. Let's make this thing an instant classic :) Battles are to be completed by Sunday, July 5th, 2009. On this day, we will freeze the divisions and then calculate the points based off of the standings as they sit. Battles that are not completed will NOT have a winner declared, and will simply not count in deciding final standing. (Exceptions may be granted if proof can be shown that one user was clearly avoiding the battle / severely inactive. We will use our discretion). But I expect captains to stay on top of their players and ensure they are all getting ALL their battles done, as it will be tough to make the top 8 if you are not even ensuring every battle gets completed!
Furthermore, if by Sunday, June 28, 2009 you have not completed at least one battle, I will force the captain to sub you out. I will NOT accept inactivity.
Now, for the big deal: the divisions.
In trying to preserve the integrity of the tournament, we assembled the divisions so that each team plays each other team at least once, most teams play each other twice, and in rare cases teams will play each other three times. We assembled these with numbers, and then randomized the teams and players to each number. It is unforntunate that the math did not work out perfectly as it did last year, but with 14 teams we had to work with what we had. At any rate, we managed to keep the random pairings while still ensuring that teams did not have unfair advantages.
The divisions for the qualifying round can be found here. You will notice each division is a venue based in a city around the world, this is simply for effect and does not mean anything significant.
***A note on lag/disconnects***
We toyed with the idea of a server specifically dedicated to the World Cup, but for various reasons it was deemed to be a pretty unnecessary idea. However, use common sense. If the lag on Smogon is too great, or you feel it will DC you, there are other options for servers, specifically CAP. Also, ensure you ALWAYS meet your opponent on the Smogon server first to ensure there is no identity theft. If I hear of anything like that I will disqualify your entire team in a heartbeat. Don't do it.
One last thing, this year we have decided to take a more "fluid" approach to the rosters, so captains can make adjustments to the roster as they see fit. If you sub a player out BETWEEN rounds, he may be subbed back in at a later time. If you sub a player out DURING a round (meaning the player has an active, uncompleted pairing), that player cannot be subbed back in at a later time.
So that's everything, feel free to post predictions and smack talk, but let's try to keep the personal attacks out of this. Let's have a good tournament, good luck everyone! Be sure to join #worldcup on irc.synirc.net for live chat!
FIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY!!
PS: azn threepeat? ya ok
