Unfortunately, I only help with leagues at times. I don’t run them anymore. I tried bringing up ideas before about having a lot more variety, but I was shot down. They only want to run weekly standard events.
TPCi Reveals 2025 Season to Limit Worlds Invites, Only 125 TCG Masters for North America
- Thread starter Water Pokémon Master
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Huh, yeah that's not what most leagues are like in my city, some leagues run weekly tournaments but that's separate from league, they almost all have a normal league casual night where you just show up at the shop, chat, play games with whoever you want, make some trades, maybe help a new player build or improve a deck. It's why I think Pokemon is so much better to get into than something like YuGiOh or Vanguard since there's no pressure to win at locals since there's nothing on the line, no entry fee that can feel like you're paying for someone with a better deck to get packs.
RIP Canadians. No ones getting in if they group us with the USA.
I hate this change for a lot of reasons, but my main one is that it crushes the dream of anyone without the means to travel to 85%+ of events to qualify for worlds. There are many world-caliber players that earn their invites by placing high at a couple of championship events but can't afford/don't have the time to travel more. Those players are going to be the ones edged out by this change. Given this is the most realistic path to worlds for many TCG players, and the idea that personally got me competing at a high level to begin with, I find this change really saddening. A lot of very talented younger players will fall by the wayside unless they have the skill and luck to win a regional.
Now I actually got some time to type. Far fewer people than what people would claim end up affected by the changes to the worlds structure, but this is still a mixed bag.
For the worlds invitation itself, this is mainly affecting people who were just on the border of making worlds this year. The top placement bar for reaching worlds is somewhere around 50-150 points above the threshold of what was required for this year's worlds. You aren't safe in your worlds invite if you are close to the border of making it and not making it, and ICs swinging the point values as much as they do leaves a decent amount of room for volatility. That said, you have to be close to the line of placing for that to affect you. If you attend 1-2 regionals a season, which is totally fine in itself, you likely will not be affected because you would still be that far off from hitting the threshold for worlds. At that point, you set your own expectation on what events you want to attend, and aim to do the best you can in the events you are able to and want to attend. I don't like the top cut change because of the volatility, and I don't like how much influence ICs have over your point total especially with NAIC being mid June, but I also acknowledge that this won't affect me and I should work on a different goal. It was barely any bit reachable before, and is now just as reachable for me because it is win-a-regionals or miss worlds.
It's best to examine how much you want to do with the game, and not force yourself to play the game more to get more than you are bargaining for out of the game. Enjoy the game first and simply do better in the game along the way, whatever better might be.
The day 2 point threshold changes are designed to cut down on the amount people play into time for ties, and trying to alleviate some of the logistical nightmares tournament organization would have over rounds going well past time. However, this will likely result in a good amount more gentlemen's agreements being brought. I think this will be an improvement on the current system, but I don't think it will solve issues with logistical problems of end of rounds. Making ties less favorable is a thing I like.
The number of regionals being cut down is only gonna contribute to the FOMO of regionals topping out their attendance. I do not think the changes will affect attendance overall, and simply hope caps on event attendance are higher this year to compensate. Needless to say, I have 2 regionals picked out that I want to attend that are in reasonable driving distance for me, and hoping maybe there will be a third down the road. I am very interested in attendance caps for these events.
At-home competitions are something I would never see PTCG having the in the near future because Live is still that poor at handling new sets.
The part of the updates I am very concerned about is the potential of better prizing for sticking it out a season and accumulating points, even while missing worlds. This can substantially help deal with the difference in scale of Locals to Regionals if there's something of a middle ground for prizing, even if it is closer to locals prizing than regionals prizing. They should be encouraging going to your local game store.
Overall, the worse of the changes don't really affect me, but we still don't have all the info on what does affect me.
For the worlds invitation itself, this is mainly affecting people who were just on the border of making worlds this year. The top placement bar for reaching worlds is somewhere around 50-150 points above the threshold of what was required for this year's worlds. You aren't safe in your worlds invite if you are close to the border of making it and not making it, and ICs swinging the point values as much as they do leaves a decent amount of room for volatility. That said, you have to be close to the line of placing for that to affect you. If you attend 1-2 regionals a season, which is totally fine in itself, you likely will not be affected because you would still be that far off from hitting the threshold for worlds. At that point, you set your own expectation on what events you want to attend, and aim to do the best you can in the events you are able to and want to attend. I don't like the top cut change because of the volatility, and I don't like how much influence ICs have over your point total especially with NAIC being mid June, but I also acknowledge that this won't affect me and I should work on a different goal. It was barely any bit reachable before, and is now just as reachable for me because it is win-a-regionals or miss worlds.
It's best to examine how much you want to do with the game, and not force yourself to play the game more to get more than you are bargaining for out of the game. Enjoy the game first and simply do better in the game along the way, whatever better might be.
The day 2 point threshold changes are designed to cut down on the amount people play into time for ties, and trying to alleviate some of the logistical nightmares tournament organization would have over rounds going well past time. However, this will likely result in a good amount more gentlemen's agreements being brought. I think this will be an improvement on the current system, but I don't think it will solve issues with logistical problems of end of rounds. Making ties less favorable is a thing I like.
The number of regionals being cut down is only gonna contribute to the FOMO of regionals topping out their attendance. I do not think the changes will affect attendance overall, and simply hope caps on event attendance are higher this year to compensate. Needless to say, I have 2 regionals picked out that I want to attend that are in reasonable driving distance for me, and hoping maybe there will be a third down the road. I am very interested in attendance caps for these events.
At-home competitions are something I would never see PTCG having the in the near future because Live is still that poor at handling new sets.
The part of the updates I am very concerned about is the potential of better prizing for sticking it out a season and accumulating points, even while missing worlds. This can substantially help deal with the difference in scale of Locals to Regionals if there's something of a middle ground for prizing, even if it is closer to locals prizing than regionals prizing. They should be encouraging going to your local game store.
Overall, the worse of the changes don't really affect me, but we still don't have all the info on what does affect me.
The advice I would give to start: worrying about a metagame to that much stress for a locals shouldn't really be a factor on success unless it were something as toxic and gatekeeping as like ADPZ. If you are playing a deck with a proven strategy on a larger scale, it can do well at locals. It is best to first improve your own play and improve the deck you are passionate about than worry about what everyone else might play.
While I understand that 100 USD is a lot to invest into a hobby for some, there are steps one can take to feeling more comfortable with a deck before even investing into it, which is where an online simulator comes into play, watching and observing locals comes into play, talking healthily with players at locals comes into play, making educated purchases comes into play, or even finding a starting point and building upon it little by little comes into play. Our junior plays freaking Snorlax, but our players take the time to play against the junior, play out the games, and give advice even if it isn't a deck many people want to be paired against competitively. We are doing a tournament for GLC every other week, but that doesn't stop people from showing up and playing on the side with standard decks. It doesn't have to be a 100-to-0 for attending locals if there's actual room to even just observe. Don't have to quit league altogether if you don't feel comfortable playing against the top dogs, especially for unranked events. Don't even have to build the entire deck all at once if you have a way you enjoy playing beforehand. If it really is that rough and rigid a time where playing standard is the only room to getting involved in the community and losing games in unranked locals is that big of a discouraging deal, that sounds way more like an isolated problem to your locals.
That part of about a "bunch of Dark pokemon that might destroy the deck" sounds like a very, very quick conclusion to jump to given that weakness isn't everything, and that having 1 new losing matchup doesn't automatically make a deck bad by default without looking over how popular/successful that deck might be outside of 1 matchup. Gardevoir will continue to be successful in spite of new dark cards, just like when Ancient Box became a deck, Roaring Moon before that, and Tera Zard before that. You'd need to do a deeper analysis of what could clip Gardevoir's wings.
I love this new system. Lorcana, Yugioh, etc, all are Pay to Win. Now, what will set Pokemon apart is, Pay to Win AND Pay Extra to travel and check on a weekly basis is you're in the 125 rankings, otherwise, sign up for more events to not fall below 125. You can be a parent for all I care. You can tell your 8 year old "We're taking you to Worlds one day," but UNLESS you have your child or yourself truly commit to the game, you don't belong at Worlds. Just do some local tourneys and prereleases and get out of our way. If say 2 weeks before Worlds announces the cut, your child is at say spot 115th and you relax enough to not compete anymore, then 1 week later your child falls to 135th because OTHER kids and parents put in the effort to keep competing to make it, too bad, you fucked up as a parent for being too lax. Only The Strongest will survive.
Same with México and Brazil
I think what the "Worlds should only be the best of the best" people are missing is that this will also have a huge effect on semi competitive players. It won't just be worlds that becomes "best of the best". I wanted to earn a worlds invite but have nowhere near enough money to travel to loads and loads of events.
If I know I can't make it to worlds from the start then what is the point of me attending cups and challenges? There's no end goal. I really hate this.
If I know I can't make it to worlds from the start then what is the point of me attending cups and challenges? There's no end goal. I really hate this.
One thing I don’t get when they say “Best of the Best”, the fact that someone got there invite is enough to prove their worth in the game. Just because they ain’t well known doesn’t mean that they can’t be good
Womp Womp. The you were never cut out to be one of the very best. In WWE, many Suoerstars, before making it big, HAVE to pay for their own travel, stay in shape, buy their own food, etc. Many did and never lasted with the WWE, but the risk is worth the rewards. For if you make it, you're set. Same goes with this hobby/life. Don't want to invest in yourself to make it to the top? Quit then. Live to be 80 and then have regrets about what could've been.
One last thing. If you had the old system, got 500+ points well before Wolrds and earned an invite, would you STILL continue to compete before Worlds? Would you feel lax and not try out new strategies in a never ending changing meta? At least with this new system, you're ALWAYS on your toes. Not only does it force you to earn more points with no end goal, but you get to see what decks are being used prior to Worlds.
Firstly, wrestlers get paid for their performing even at an amateur level. 99% of Pokémon players don't get paid to play the game. In fact - We have to pay to play the game lol.
I thought your previous post was satire but I guess you just have this insane take. It's not about "investing in myself". I have these crazy little things called bills, rent and a family. Good point tho - I guess I'll just drop all that so I can attend 3 ICs a year. I guess if you aren't dropping all your financial responsibilities then you just don't want it enough.
How you extrapolated "you will die with regrets about not making it to worlds in the Pokémon TCG" from my previous statement I do not understand.
Oh boy, another change to the tournament structure that a lot of people hate. I’d include myself here but I’m still bitter about the loss of City Championships, State Championships, National Championships, and Worlds LCQs.
Oh, and Play! Pokémon’s official Twitter account issued a statement about the initial news release in an attempt to assure players. If the retweets are any indication players aren’t buying it.
Oh, and Play! Pokémon’s official Twitter account issued a statement about the initial news release in an attempt to assure players. If the retweets are any indication players aren’t buying it.
Yeahhh... this ain't it my guy.
So I just went to comment about this on the Pokemon companies instagram page on their World 2024 post and the comment was removed for “It looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.” so we aren’t even allowed to share our outrage over this change publicly. Cool, go F yourself Pokemon company.
Same here, getting to old for this shit but wanted to make one last run since I can afford to travel to a few events next year to try to get those points for an invite but now I see literally 0 reason to invest my time and money into something I have absolutely no chance of getting. The only thing I will add to the list of things they took from us is expanded. Now if this was 125 invites for standard and say another 75 or so for expanded then I would say that could have at least made this not as big of a blow.
You’re coming off ass an entitled trust fund baby.
I hate that there are only 100 seniors from both the US AND Canada. Not enough opportunities. Doesn’t matter tho, my account got banned because I accidentally aced the professor program without any help.