Hey everyone! Has anyone else noticed that the post-worlds transition is a lot less fun without any sort of real “rotation”? It seems that the format for the upcoming Battle Roads, and then Fall Regionals will not differ that greatly from that which we all played for Nationals and Worlds. I guess that leads me into the first thing I wanted to talk about then: Fall Regionals!
So from what I understand, the first major change to this years tournament structure is the “splitting up” of Regionals. Half of them will be run in the fall, the other half at their standard time during the spring. While P!P hasn’t really come out and given the player base the full amount of information regarding the upcoming season yet, its assumed that players will be able to play in 2 Regionals this year now.
Seeing how Regionals is a huge source of points and prizes, this is a good thing. This will also mean that the size of these (now announced as two day!) events will be even larger since only half the events normally running will occur at either time, so travelers should boost attendance.
I think this is an overall great idea, as it makes the fall season a bit more important, as I know a lot of players who didn’t really “put in the effort” until States, when the prizes mattered. Even those who tried to do the point grind like myself didn’t really “care” until Cities start up, so mixing up the schedule of big events is a really nice change of pace.
New Invite Structure
I've been saying it all along... WINNING
One of the other rumors that has yet to been officially commented on regards the potential change in how invites are given out each year. I’ve heard rumblings of an increased importance on “winning” events opposed to a mere win/loss record, which I fully support.
No one has really given any sort of definitive suggestion as to how this will be done, but the concept of scoring points for winning, t2ing, t4ing, t8ing, etc events with X number of points earning you an invite to Worlds seems the most likely type of approach. I think this would be a huge improvement.
The rating system was an improvement over the old Gym Challenge/Regionals/Nats structure where you basically had to win one of these tournaments to qualify. That system was outdated, and the rating system was a welcome reward to consistent players who were fed up with the agony of taking a bad matchup in the finals of a Gym Challenge they X-0ed and missing Worlds for it.
Unfortunately, the rating system is flawed too. It rewards strategic dropping, and encouraged players NOT to play in events. As probably the biggest proponent of such tactics over the past few years, I’d like to say that the system really promoted doing such an approach.
Hello ELO
Lets address the ELO system as a whole. Originally used as a way to rate and rank chess players, the concept doesn’t exactly carry over as well to TCGs. The structure was designed for a game completely devoid of variance and luck factors. Therefore, if you lost to a lower ranked player, it is because they played well, and you played worse.
With Pokemon (or Magic, who also use the same system) you have a great deal of luck involved. Taking a random loss in Swiss is very, very easy. More easily lately due to the way the format plays out, and due to the increased number of strong players.
Due to the skewed nature of wins/losses point yields, it becomes statistically unprofitable past a certain rating to play when you don’t have to. If your primary goal is to qualify for Worlds each year, as it had been for me, your best chance to do so was to work within the rating system we are given. It becomes an even bigger issue because there are SO MANY players now, and a greatly increased percentage of them are now very good.
The number of invites given out are not appropriate for the number of deserving players (capping Worlds at 128 per age group is stupid. There is no reason to keep it that small, especially now that trips aren’t paid for: It’d barely cost anything to just increase the invite range and make things a lot less cutthroat.) so in order to try and make it into that top 40 reliably, you have to really go all out. It was unnecessary, and unfair on the players.
Ideally, with a change to winning events, it will encourage players to have to play. It doesn’t do a whole ton to alleviate the pressure on needing to win a ton of events (it seems like we revert back to a system closer to the old Gym Challenge one, where players need to go very deep very often in tournaments) but it does put the pressure on in match play.
Previously, one game matches in Swiss could make or break your fate, as one Swiss loss often undid 3-4 wins, which is just crippling. It became very hard to recover from even a top cut making 5-2 finish at Regionals. At least now, your fate rides in matchplay, allowing a few rough beats in Swiss, and that is a very good thing.
Hopefully these rumors turn out to be somewhat true, because I think they would offer a favorable change for the upcoming year.
