Tournament: Raid Group Cup

It has been a long time since I've participated in a Pokémon tournament and covered it on this blog, so this is quite a great opportunity. There's only one really big difference: this isn't a VGC tournament as in all previous tournament posts. As the "raid group" in the title of this post indicates, it's a Pokémon Go tournament. More specifically, it's a PvP tournament, which is something that the PvP battle feature has opened the doors for. I'll save that for a more thorough discussion later, but for now, there is this one.

This tournament is the first major one that is held by my raid group. Previously, there was a minor one that had a good number of participants, but it was slightly weather-challenged and was almost threatened by other schedules. (It still is today, but it didn't seem as much.) Moreover, I didn't attend that one due to other priorities, and I only received reports of what transpired in that tournament. There was also a test tournament last week after Community Day so that today could work well, but I had other affairs as well. Whatever happened on both of those times, they must have been sufficiently good, though, which is most likely why they went ahead with this one. From what I saw, this one was worlds away from the first and sufficiently more developed from the second.

With 40 participants (the limit, though it became 39 due to one person dropping out at the last minute), this tournament had the greatest number of participants for any Pokémon battle tournament I've participated in; even the VGC ones pale in comparison. But, like some of the VGC ones, the preliminaries of this tournament use a similar system, the Swiss system, with a slight modification. I was also required to register my team (party) beforehand, since the system took this into account. All matches were best-of-three battles, and three Pokémon were selected from the party, much like a Battle Spot single battle in the main series.

And the results of this tournament were... dismal for me, to say the least. I ranked third from the bottom, with five losses plus a "win" by bye. In individual battles, I was able to occasionally steal a win and force a third battle, but then the third fizzled, if the first two hadn't. Among the "bottom feeders", I ranked higher by the number of points, taking into account others' Pokémon. I suppose it just might be that I'm a bit challenged by competitions, Pokémon or otherwise. Practice - and lots of it - should help. Regardless, like any competition that I take part in, I know if I've got Pokémon, I'm "at home" and I can enjoy things no matter what the results. 

Something this major has to have entertainment on the side, and it did. Between the matches of the Swiss round, there were periodic mini-contests. I participated in two of them: one was a Shiny contest to see who had more (powerful) Shiny forms and the other was a trade contest to see who could get many Lucky Pokémon. I won the first one, outnumbering a friend with more Shiny forms with greater CP, while in the second one, I got no Lucky Pokémon with my partner over the course of 10 trades, while two other pairs got at least two. That first one rewarded something which is unique and should also be covered in another post.

The exhibited competitors are on the middle-left.

Meanwhile, during the Swiss round as well as the knockout round, selected matches were also cast on two screens, one for each player. Sometimes it didn't work too well, but it was workable for the most part. This provided a source of entertainment for spectators not competing in the tournament and those who had just completed their matches. The audience was most active when the competitors were initiating Charged moves or defending from them. It was euphoric and thrilling, and it was something I personally rarely see with Pokémon battles. It made me quite happy as a Pokémon fan.

This tournament was quite successful in most regards. The system is solid, the participants were plentiful even with the limit, and entertainment kept things really going. It's something totally new for myself but also quite familiar due to all the Pokémon aspects. Future tournaments ought to be just as good if not better. On that note, I can stand to improve myself as well. That should prove helpful for my stride with my raid group, Pokémon Go, and Pokémon in general.

One year ago: Lugia Raid Burnout
Two years ago: Ice Is Nice with Pokémon