Pokemon tournament interest/advice [Vancouver, WA]

[anti_z3r0]

Hello there fellow Serebii forum goers,

I was recently talking to my manager at work (I work at GameStop) and he was asking about any good ideas to get some people into the store, and any ideas about a tournament to offer. Well, I suggested to hold a pokemon tournament. I remember a while ago I went to one that was hosted by Nintendo in a mall, and it turned out to be a bunch of fun.

So what I'm posting on here for, is to see if there would be some people interested in coming to the tournament, and ask for any sort of advice regarding hosting pokemon tournaments. If anyone has any experience in either hosting them or participating in them, I would greatly appreciate some feedback.

As for the tournament itself, if we do end up having one, it will be in Vancouver, WA at a local GameStop. So if you live in the area or know some people that live in the area, and are interested in participating in a pokemon tournament, post on here and let me know so I can tell my manager that there would be a response for the tournament.

What we would be able to do is talk to the Nintendo representative that comes in every other week, and get some Nintendo/pokemon merchendise. Get some posters or something to give to everyone that enters the tourney, and then some really cool prizes for the top 3. Something along those lines. I do remember when I was at the pokemon tournament a while ago, it was not a typical tournament format. So, if anyone has some experience in pokemon tournaments, I'd love it to get some feedback as to either sites that have some good information about it, or any observations/advice that you have.

Thanks in advance to everyone that posts, I hope we can get this tournament rolling!

 

[PDL]

Pokemon Tournaments eh? well, I've never been to one, but I would suggest having some ground rules when it comes to the actual link cable battling (if there is any at your tournament dealy)

1. certain pokemon are restricted from tourneys such as Mewtwo, Lugia and other legendaries because they're quite difficult to beat unless you're using one yourself, then most of the contestents would just be using that handful of pokemon, rather then the wide selection of regular pokemon.

here's a list of pokemon that are considered "uber" and should be resricted from the tourney (borrowed from the Team Rate fourm) :

Deoxys (all forms)
Groudon
Ho-oh
Kyogre
Latias (with or without soul dew)
Latios (with or without soul dew)
Lugia
Mew (it's debateable, but it has a huge huge movepool)
Mewtwo
Rayquaza
Wobbuffet (not a "legendary" persay, but extremely difficult to counter)

These are the ONLY pokemon that are uber, but "legendarys" that CAN be allowed are:

Jirachi (limited movepool)
Celebi, (7 weaknesses)
Slaking (due to its abillity, Truant)

Other legends aren't uber (Articuno/Zapdos/Moltres/Raikou/Suicune/Entei/Regice/Registeel/Regirock)

2. it's up to you, but moves that alter accuracy and evasion (such as double team or sand attack) are frowned upon in the metagame, such as Netbattle, but it's up to you if you want to enforce this rule in your tournement or not.

3. there should another resriction on the number of legendaries on a team, maybe only one legendary per team. This should discourage people from using an entire team of them.

anyway, I hope this helps

 

[~Shining-Metagross~]

Try and have age brackets, so from 10-13, 14-16, 17+ or something like that.

Also, get people to submit thier team/move sets on a piece of paper or something a week before, so you can find out cheaters before you start.

The only advice I can give. ^_^

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I'd try to come, but I may have to get a ride from someone.

 

[anti_z3r0]

Thanks for the feedback so far. It seems like there are some pretty complex rules to restrict unfair play/matches. When you mentioned the team rate forum, can you please post a link to that forum? Also, if you have any other websites about pokemon tournaments it would be greatly appreciated. I want to have a fair and balanced tournament.

As for the age brackets, I'm not sure if we'll have a big enough turn-out to justify age brackets, since they would most likely be too small.

 

[PDL]

Thanks for the feedback so far. It seems like there are some pretty complex rules to restrict unfair play/matches. When you mentioned the team rate forum, can you please post a link to that forum? Also, if you have any other websites about pokemon tournaments it would be greatly appreciated. I want to have a fair and balanced tournament.

well, there are 2 team rate forums in Serebii, both are pretty easy to find, but I'll post the links to them anyway:

the Ingame Team Rate fourm: this one would probably be more relevent to you, considering that the competitors are people using actual pokemon game packs.

the Competitive/Link-Up Team Rate fourm: this one's would be for Metagame players which the competitors would most likely not be.

 

[BluekiKatana]

Hello there anti z3ro,
I have been competing in locally organized Pokemon tournaments monthly for a bit over a year now. I have competed in many Official Nintendo Pokemon tournaments as well, including the battle on the big screens at Pokemon Rocks America. I am currently the organizer of a club dedicated to get competitive link battlers together in Los Angeles. We take our rules seriously and always make them in the best interest of fair play.


Here are the standard rules we use for our tournaments.
Standard Tournament Rules:
-Open level, unless otherwise stated.
-Any hold items are allowed, you may use more than one of each.
-No Destiny Bond/Selfdestruct/Explosion on final Pokémon. Use of these moves when you are down to your last pokémon will result in a loss.
-You may only inflict the sleep condition on one of your opponent's Pokémon at a time.
-Restricted/Prohibited Pokémon:
You may only use ONE of the Pokémon on the following list for your team:
Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Regirock, Regice, Registeel, Latios, Latias, Jirachi.
The following Pokemon are prohibited:
Mewtwo, Mew, Wobbuffet, Lugia, Ho-oh, Celebi, Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Deoxys.


It can be actually quiet difficult; yet sometimes simple to catch cheaters, so we just let it be known at the start of a tournament that If you're caught with a hacked Pokemon/held item you will be disqualified. There is no actual way to tell if a Pokemon is hacked before it is used in battle. Primarily you will see when you battle it. Experienced battlers will know the damage ratio of most moves by heart and the max stats of Pokemon. So it helps to have someone experienced to work as a judge to determine if someone is cheating. That is the best way I know of. Usually the threat of disqualification sets them straight.

Also I think you might find it is not so easy to organize local gameboy Pokemon link cable tournaments. Here in Los Angeles we get an average of 7-12 players monthly for every tournament and we DO recruit and advertise best we can. For a single elimination tournament you usually need at least 8 people btw. If you do not have 8 people, you can try a swiss style format, which is kind of long and complicated, but that is how Nintendo handles the "tcg format". It is easy to find people who play Pokemon, but it is hard to find people who will put in the work to make competitive Pokemon and keep on trying to improve as they lose and win through the future competitions.

If you really want to attract people to your store, I would suggest a "Supersmash bros melee tourney" over a Pokemon tourney. SSBM is more universally loved as a competitive video game and since it doesn't require much time from the players to put into their creations, it is easy to just pick up play and still be on the same level as your opponent. You will always get excuses and drop outs from Pokemon tourneys because of the simple factor of the *time* involved. Hell, I love Pokemon, but I'll tell you it is hard to organize, I've been doing it for a year, I'd know. Anyways I'd like to wish you the best of luck. If you can get more than 10 players over there contact me and let me know what you did XD.

 

[pokemon master:Stranger]

them rules sound fair but the way you classed ubers and legendarys is wrong.
1st you said latios,latias are uber 2nd most normal legendarys have normal stats and then are loads of pokemon i can think right now can kill the legendarys with ease 3rd if im not mistaken in the pokemon rocks amrica touney that players are able to use 1! uber per team and any normal legendarys where not restrcted in number. and the battles should be stadium matches where you pick 3 of your team only 1 of them may be uber wobby with leftys should be banned if the fight is wobby vs wobby then the match becomes a draw, there should be 2 types of game lv 50,open lv.

heres why the rules that i picked are fair :1 uber is fair because most people use ubers and because there wont be 1 player using more then the other then match os fair,the wobby rules i talked about 1st of wooby is the cheapess pokemon that can be used there is no way to counter thing thus making it unfair it will certenly take out at least one of your team and giving it leftovers just makes it even more unfair.2nd wobby rule you might think why start the match over because of that? well because it will take ages and i mean ages for it to end and in the end its done to luck because of critcles and whos faster.

apart form what i just posted the last set of rules where fair.

oh yeah other touneys you could do like mario kart double dash!
ssbm is a bit to much mindless botton bashing