News: Wolfe Glick wins VGC Masters at Worlds

A 2-0 victory gives Wolfe the title of Worlds Champion. Check out who else won in TCG and the other VGC divisions!

Click here to read the article!

So next year, the VGC will be going to Disneyland? That's awesome! It also makes me happy that a Raichu, a low tier Pokémon mind you, was part of the winner's team.

Meanwhile, Verlisify is ranting about how much of a disaster this year's VGC has been.

So, Raichu recently got an Alola Form and now it's part of a VGC-winning team? Guess 2016 is being a kind year to Raichu fans and that is something I am very happy with.

California is hosting the Worlds events next year which looks promising. Hopefully they won't block out the general public next time.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

Meanwhile, Verlisify is ranting about how much of a disaster this year's VGC has been.

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Well I mean, to be fair, it is pretty bad that timer stalling is being commended as a win condition.

Time stalling is a perfectly legitimate tactic that's within the rules. If it wasn't then there wouldn't be a timer period. One can argue there isn't enough time allotted but this would negatively affect local events and regionals. Anyone who disagrees has clearly not been to CA regionals where 1 hr rounds means that events with a registration time of 8am run until 8pm that night at the very earliest, or in one case, 1am during a SoCal regional a few years ago.

Verlisify is the Alex Jones of the Pokemon community, I wonder what next "conspiracy" he's going to come up with to try and "expose" the Poke-Illuminati rigging everything.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

So next year, the VGC will be going to Disneyland? That's awesome! It also makes me happy that a Raichu, a low tier Pokémon mind you, was part of the winner's team.

Meanwhile, Verlisify is ranting about how much of a disaster this year's VGC has been.

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Raichu may be low tier in singles/etc, but this year in VGC it's always been a decent option. Likes of Fake Out, Endeavour, Encore and a useful supportive ability means it's a useful support Pokemon to go with. Still, neat to see it used in the winner's team. Pity they were both dominated by 'big 6' options, but that's the VGC this year.

And eh, someone's always going to be upset.

Hikamaru said:

So, Raichu recently got an Alola Form and now it's part of a VGC-winning team? Guess 2016 is being a kind year to Raichu fans and that is something I am very happy with.

California is hosting the Worlds events next year which looks promising. Hopefully they won't block out the general public next time.

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Yeah, it'd be good if they didn't cancel worlds on people like they did this year, haha.

Karous said:

Time stalling is a perfectly legitimate tactic that's within the rules. If it wasn't then there wouldn't be a timer period. One can argue there isn't enough time allotted but this would negatively affect local events and regionals. Anyone who disagrees has clearly not been to CA regionals where 1 hr rounds means that events with a registration time of 8am run until 8pm that night at the very earliest, or in one case, 1am during a SoCal regional a few years ago.

Verlisify is the Alex Jones of the Pokemon community, I wonder what next "conspiracy" he's going to come up with to try and "expose" the Poke-Illuminati rigging everything.

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Nobody said it's against the rules. It's just massively unfair and unsportsmanlike. Even the official rules agree with that much.

Caaethil said:

Nobody said it's against the rules. It's just massively unfair and unsportsmanlike. Even the official rules agree with that much.

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Show me where the official rules say that. It's not unfair in the least, if you're going to lose to a time out then you were already in a worse position and shouldn't have made mistakes earlier in the match. Unsportsmanlike is just pish-posh, one of the reasons matches run to time is that there's so many variables that can happen in a match that deciding each move takes a really long time. I used to be one of those people who took 15 seconds to make a move, now I completely understand why everyone takes a long time because there's so many mind games and predictions and cost-benefit analyses to consider.

The official rules state:

At major events (Regional Championships and above), battles will have a 15-minute time limit, 45-second move timer, and a 90-second Team Preview.

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At the very most, this allows for 20 turn games although in practice, it will be far less because you have to account for move animations. So let's say, a maximum of 15 turns per game accounting for move animations. I've had 3v3 battles on Showdown that last for longer than 15 turns, so it's inevitable that matches will run to time at a high level esp since VGC tends to lean towards a defensive meta.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm extremely uncomfortable with people with little to no experience playing at a high level criticizing timeouts, especially since the players who actually played the match accept that it's part of the game. (Examples: check out Trista Medine's and Jonathan Evan's Twitters.) They don't need the input of outsiders who don't understand the game turning it into a crusade against their community.

bobandbill said:

And eh, someone's always going to be upset.Yeah, it'd be good if they didn't cancel worlds on people like they did this year, haha.

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You think it had something to do with the shooting that prevented last year, and it's just Game Freak making sure such an occurrence doesn't happen again?

Karous said:

Show me where the official rules say that.

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Sure.

1. Go here: http://www.pokemon.com/uk/play-pokemon/about/tournaments-rules-and-resources.
2. Click 'Play! Pokemon General Event Rules.'
3. Read them.

Sportsmanship: Winning or losing with grace is vital to the enjoyment of a game. The desire to
continue playing a game can be soured by players who berate their opponents after winning or
losing a match. Likewise, a player who plays the clock, rather than the game, shows poor
sportsmanship and should be discouraged from doing so whenever possible.

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I'm not even going to respond to the rest of your post because this is pretty simple. The official rules say it is poor sportsmanship. Which it is. And that's all I said it is.

Who nice! First, Raichu's Alola Form in Sun and Moon, and now we have a pokémon champion using this pokémon?
worderful. Nice shot, Wolfe Glick!

I'm just looking at the photo and seeing basketball shorts and a kid with a blanket. Jesus. Have some class and wear a tie! Is that too much to ask? Ah well, they're kids. Can't expect too much, right? After all, shorts are comfy and easy to wear. Anyways, congrats on to who all won in the tournament this year.

The "blanket" that the kid is wearing is actually the flag of Japan (his home country), signed by his friends and family for support. And I'd expect people would rather be in comfortable clothing while they're playing twelve+ hours of Pokemon for three days straight.

I'm glad that Wolfe won finally, after so many years playing. And Cory Connor (who won the VGC Junior Championship) is exactly the type of person we need in this game. The sportsmanship and maturity he showed was really impressive.

I've been wondering, do the winners of each division ever get to play each other? It'd be interesting to see the outcome. Are the age divisions there more for allowing more winners and encouraging more to play or is there a skill difference? It seemed pretty much even to me but I'm not really in the know.

Battle Girl Spoony said:

I've been wondering, do the winners of each division ever get to play each other? It'd be interesting to see the outcome. Are the age divisions there more for allowing more winners and encouraging more to play or is there a skill difference? It seemed pretty much even to me but I'm not really in the know.

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On the TCG side, at least, as I'm not so sure how it compares on the VGC side, there's a noticeable skill difference across all 3 age tiers.

That was a really nice battle. Raichu put in so much work. Now I see why Wolfe is mentioned and highly respected in the VGC community. I also enjoyed Cybertron's commentary.

Caaethil said:

I'm not even going to respond to the rest of your post because this is pretty simple. The official rules say it is poor sportsmanship. Which it is. And that's all I said it is.

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The rules were recently updated to remove this text, though I can't speak for the UK version of the website or any other possible obfuscations. Here's a link to the tweet from Chris Brown, the head of the rules committee for VGC:

https://twitter.com/AlphaZealot/status/768319791983493120?s=09

"Players may use as much time as allowed each turn."

The timer is a resource in a turn-based game. It was enforced to prevent excessively long tournaments with respect to rental costs to venues and the general health of players. No one wants to sit through 8 rounds of best of three in swiss where a stall player is taking each game to the one-hour mark.

skyburial said:

The rules were recently updated to remove this text, though I can't speak for the UK version of the website or any other possible obfuscations. Here's a link to the tweet from Chris Brown, the head of the rules committee for VGC:

https://twitter.com/AlphaZealot/status/768319791983493120?s=09

"Players may use as much time as allowed each turn."

The timer is a resource in a turn-based game. It was enforced to prevent excessively long tournaments with respect to rental costs to venues and the general health of players. No one wants to sit through 8 rounds of best of three in swiss where a stall player is taking each game to the one-hour mark.

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Oh yeah, it's totally allowed in the rules. That's not my point. My point is that even if you go on the US site, clicking the link "Play! Pokemon General Event Rules" will give you a document which clearly says that playing the clock is poor sportsmanship, which I am compelled to agree with.

And even if it is changed, I don't think what is good or bad sportsmanship changes with the words of a document - it's a matter of opinion, and my opinion is that it's a pretty underhanded tactic.

Caaethil said:

Oh yeah, it's totally allowed in the rules. That's not my point. My point is that even if you go on the US site, clicking the link "Play! Pokemon General Event Rules" will give you a document which clearly says that playing the clock is poor sportsmanship, which I am compelled to agree with.

And even if it is changed, I don't think what is good or bad sportsmanship changes with the words of a document - it's a matter of opinion, and my opinion is that it's a pretty underhanded tactic.

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My point, as a tournament player, is that it's not. When both players are taking all 45 seconds allowed to make their decisions, playing defensively, spending turns repositioning, and making safe plays, shouldn't the player who did a better job win? Watch the finals again closely. Jonathan Evans was the hosting player in the video. He runs the timer every turn and sealed his own fate. Wolfe would have won anyway.

skyburial said:

My point, as a tournament player, is that it's not. When both players are taking all 45 seconds allowed to make their decisions, playing defensively, spending turns repositioning, and making safe plays, shouldn't the player who did a better job win? Watch the finals again closely. Jonathan Evans was the hosting player in the video. He runs the timer every turn and sealed his own fate. Wolfe would have won anyway.

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Timer stalling isn't playing defensively or making safe plays though. It's not playing at all. And then you win for it.