Ok I'll cut to the chase, this is more of a joke list. Because it's about a big joke going on with Pokemon scene, TCG, VGC or Pokken. You might have heard of it, the "Player's Cup". There's a reason why I have a strong emphasis on "Player's Cup" in the way I've written it. I did have some interest when it was first announced but after a few more announcement, that started to slide away until the point of yesterday where my interest in completely gone.
Still, those of you who are interested, please do give it a go and all the best in qualifying for it. I'll be keeping tabs on how my friends are doing and watching their streams to watch their games. I of course won't be trying because of a few reasons. But just for fun, my top 30 list this time are reasons why I think this will fail. There'll be a running joke if you catch it.
#30 - Only Masters
Pretty simple, only players in the Masters division are allowed in due to legal reasons so Juniors and Seniors can't even attempt which is a shame. Ever since I started playing in more of these online tournaments, I've gotten to know a few Seniors from around the world and they are some of the better players I've played against (shoutout to Noah and Pablo, they're killing it every week for the Sunday Open). It sucks that they can't even attempt to try to qualify.
#29 - It's rubbish
#28 - Leaderboard is buggy
Need I say more? So many of my friends have complained about how they were either not showing up on the leaderboard or how their points were not updated to what it should have been.
#27 - Wrong Location
And it's not just that some points are incorrect, some aren't even in their region! How that is even possible, I'll never know.
#26 - It's rubbish
#25 - Zero information on PTCGO
Surely for a tournament based on points scored in the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, why can't the game do a simple update and have something in the game to let players know about the "Player's Cup"? They do that for pre-releases and new sets releasing soon but not this?
#24 - It's rubbish
#23 - Best of 1 Format
You already know.
#22 - PTCGO's own issues.
The game is not perfect. It still has so many bugs ruining it, especially with the current bug of Metal Goggles interaction with Horror Energy. In fact, I lost one of my games in the recent Limitless online qualifier because the game has bugged out on me. I tried to use Tag Call but nothing happened, and I got timed out, costing me one turn and pretty much losing me the game.
#21 - It's rubbish
#20 - Tickets
One of the biggest reasons why I'm not a fan of this. The main way to qualify for the first part is to score enough Tournament Reps and to do that, you need to do well in these PTCGO 8-man tourneys. And the best way to do that? Keep playing in tourneys but it does take 8 tickets to enter in one.
Here's my issue, not everyone has saved up as many tickets as say myself (I've got 1400+ tickets) and those guys would have a real disadvantage trying to make the top 256 (or 128 for Oceania) of their region. We might have a situation where a really good player may win all the tourney they've enetered with the limited amount of tickets they have but miss out on a spot to some ordinary joe who spams all of his tickets, loses in the first round and keeps entering in more tourneys. Rinse and repeat. I just don't think that method will work the way the intended it to do so.
#19 - It's rubbish
#18 - Solution for lack of ranked ladder?
Was this their best idea to get a "ranked" system in PTCGO? It's not the best way to go about it honestly. Still would prefer a ranked ladder like many other games have done so.
#17 - It's rubbish
#16 - One less spot for Oceania
Seriously why? The amount of players to qualify for North America is 256. Latin America, 256. Europe, 256. Oceania however only has 128. I was already upset when I saw this. Not sure why that was the case but we got our answer a few days later...
#15 - "Player's Cup" Kickoff Tourney
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea. Seeing 8 of the best from TCG, VGC and Pokken fight it out in a mini tournament is great, but why is it at the expense of one more spot for a player in Oceania?
Just to make a point, who are these big name players competing in it?
TCG:
- Andrew Mahone (USA)
- Henry Brand (Australia)
- Michael Pramawat (USA)
- Nathália Fernandes (Brazil)
- Pablo Meza (Mexico)
- Rahul Reddy (USA)
- Ross Cawthon (USA)
- Tord Reklev (Norway)
That's a great list of players but unless Henry wins it, a place that should have gone to an Oceania player would go to someone from the other regions. To me that's not right. They've already got more qualifying spots to fight for anyway.
#14 - It's rubbish
#13 - Other games have done it right
I saw a comment on Azul GG's post on why he wouldn't compete in it and this comment from Edward Khodaei made complete sense to me. I don't really play other card games so I didn't know how they might do with their tourneys but this made sense:
"Yugioh duel links does it correctly. They have a qualifier round where you play until you're level 20. Once you reach the you play for ranking. Based on the amount of wins/ losses you have determines your placement.
This is strictly a "if you're decent and have a lot of tickets, you'll do well" tourney. There's no caps on points, nothing. So it literally is just grinding points. Punishes players who are still working in the pandemic. Punishes players for not having tickets. It's just a bad system overall."
Agreed.
#12 - It's rubbish
#11 - Why a limit of 256/128?
Seriously why can't they just do what Limitless TCG did with their Qualifier events? They opened it up to everyone, giving everybody a fair shot to do well. And their events always had a 1000+ players in them. Sure there we some issues for the first few ones but it got better eventually. Won't be the first time I'll mention this tourney too. So why limit it to just 256 or 128 people when Limitless has shown that it's possible to run an event with more people involved.
#10 - No easy access to tickets
If you're one the players struggling with tickets, it's not looking good for you sadly. The fact that there isn't any real easy access to gain tickets other than login bonuses and ladders just makes it harder for newer players especially.
#9 - Armbar! Oh wait, wrong list. It's rubbish.
#8 - Problems linking accounts
I can't remember how many times I've seen many people asking about this. Quite a number of guys have had issues trying to link their accounts to the one on their game and the process for some to get it back sounds very tedious. Some good players might miss out just because of this.
#7 - Others have done it better
Look at how Limitless went about with their qualifiers. I'd say it was an all round success despite a shaky start. PokeX held a 200+ person tournament, free for anyone, and that ran smoothly too. In fact they added more slots in just so others could join in. PokeStats continues to hosts current and past formats that are popular to even the biggest names in the games.
Yet TPCi suggestion was this. Azul GG said it best in his video, it's just sad.
#6 - No effort
Clearly not much effort was put in into this idea for the "Player's Cup". And even if they did, it was a poor excuse of an idea.
#5 - Back up your own saying
"The Pokémon Company International is committed, in its role as the sanctioning body of Play! Pokémon tournaments worldwide, to fostering an environment that is inclusive to all participants regardless of factors including but not limited to age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and/or disability."
If you're gonna preach it, follow with it.
#4 - It's rubbish
#3 - It's rubbish. Yup I've ran out of stupid points to cover. This list was meant to be a joke anyways.
#2 - "Player's Cup"
They might as well change the name because not all players will be able to compete it in right? I've got a better name, the Ticket Cup.
#1 - Oceania - but only Australia & New Zealand players
So here's the thing, I had already made up my mind that I wouldn't really care if I qualified or not. I tend to enter these PTCGO tourney events for the sole purpose of giving decks I wanted to play in either league cups or online tournaments a test run and I'd usually do 3 events to see what my deck can do. So I'd still would have done events, my points would still be somewhere.
But here's the kicker. Of those 128 spots, it's only going to Australian and New Zealand players. So what about the players from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Phillipines, Taiwan, Vietnam, UAE, Israel, China to name a few. All these Asian and Middle Eastern countries fall under the Oceania banner but are not included for this "Player's Cup". Why?
I honestly cannot think of a good reason why that even is the case. I'm not upset that I can't attempt to qualify, like I said, I couldn't be bothered by it. I'm more upset that many friends of mine can't even try to qualify for this event just because of their location. The Junior/Senior bit made sense to me but this (and Quebec for NA) doesn't make any sense to me at all.
As if it wasn't bad enough as a player from Asia trying our luck to compete in the Limitless qualifier in the middle of the night to early morning, now we can't even try our luck to qualify for a tournament that was to cater for certain regions. And if you think TCG players have it bad, my VGC friends have it worse. I feel even more upset for them because they've been hard at work this whole time and now their efforts don't mean anything. That's just not right nor is it fair.
But hey I'm not all that bitter or disappointed by this, I won't suddenly just give up playing the game I've enjoyed playing for the past 2-3 years. There may not be any events to look forward to but I'll keep training and testing and grinding out games. I've still got online events such as JGB's tourneys, PokeX's tourneys, Sunday Open's tourneys to compete in, those are my only ways to play in this constant search for competition to continuously improve myself as a player. As for those of you trying your luck for the "Player's Cup", I wish you all the best, keep grinding out those results and I'll be cheering on my friends to do well.
Also, if you caught the running joke, let me know. And if you got a good laugh out of some of these, my job is done. We're all facing tough times now. Be nice to each other, take care of one another and stay safe.
#12 - It's rubbish
#11 - Why a limit of 256/128?
Seriously why can't they just do what Limitless TCG did with their Qualifier events? They opened it up to everyone, giving everybody a fair shot to do well. And their events always had a 1000+ players in them. Sure there we some issues for the first few ones but it got better eventually. Won't be the first time I'll mention this tourney too. So why limit it to just 256 or 128 people when Limitless has shown that it's possible to run an event with more people involved.
#10 - No easy access to tickets
If you're one the players struggling with tickets, it's not looking good for you sadly. The fact that there isn't any real easy access to gain tickets other than login bonuses and ladders just makes it harder for newer players especially.
#9 - Armbar! Oh wait, wrong list. It's rubbish.
#8 - Problems linking accounts
I can't remember how many times I've seen many people asking about this. Quite a number of guys have had issues trying to link their accounts to the one on their game and the process for some to get it back sounds very tedious. Some good players might miss out just because of this.
#7 - Others have done it better
Look at how Limitless went about with their qualifiers. I'd say it was an all round success despite a shaky start. PokeX held a 200+ person tournament, free for anyone, and that ran smoothly too. In fact they added more slots in just so others could join in. PokeStats continues to hosts current and past formats that are popular to even the biggest names in the games.
Yet TPCi suggestion was this. Azul GG said it best in his video, it's just sad.
#6 - No effort
Clearly not much effort was put in into this idea for the "Player's Cup". And even if they did, it was a poor excuse of an idea.
#5 - Back up your own saying
"The Pokémon Company International is committed, in its role as the sanctioning body of Play! Pokémon tournaments worldwide, to fostering an environment that is inclusive to all participants regardless of factors including but not limited to age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and/or disability."
If you're gonna preach it, follow with it.
#4 - It's rubbish
#3 - It's rubbish. Yup I've ran out of stupid points to cover. This list was meant to be a joke anyways.
#2 - "Player's Cup"
They might as well change the name because not all players will be able to compete it in right? I've got a better name, the Ticket Cup.
#1 - Oceania - but only Australia & New Zealand players
So here's the thing, I had already made up my mind that I wouldn't really care if I qualified or not. I tend to enter these PTCGO tourney events for the sole purpose of giving decks I wanted to play in either league cups or online tournaments a test run and I'd usually do 3 events to see what my deck can do. So I'd still would have done events, my points would still be somewhere.
But here's the kicker. Of those 128 spots, it's only going to Australian and New Zealand players. So what about the players from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Phillipines, Taiwan, Vietnam, UAE, Israel, China to name a few. All these Asian and Middle Eastern countries fall under the Oceania banner but are not included for this "Player's Cup". Why?
I honestly cannot think of a good reason why that even is the case. I'm not upset that I can't attempt to qualify, like I said, I couldn't be bothered by it. I'm more upset that many friends of mine can't even try to qualify for this event just because of their location. The Junior/Senior bit made sense to me but this (and Quebec for NA) doesn't make any sense to me at all.
As if it wasn't bad enough as a player from Asia trying our luck to compete in the Limitless qualifier in the middle of the night to early morning, now we can't even try our luck to qualify for a tournament that was to cater for certain regions. And if you think TCG players have it bad, my VGC friends have it worse. I feel even more upset for them because they've been hard at work this whole time and now their efforts don't mean anything. That's just not right nor is it fair.
But hey I'm not all that bitter or disappointed by this, I won't suddenly just give up playing the game I've enjoyed playing for the past 2-3 years. There may not be any events to look forward to but I'll keep training and testing and grinding out games. I've still got online events such as JGB's tourneys, PokeX's tourneys, Sunday Open's tourneys to compete in, those are my only ways to play in this constant search for competition to continuously improve myself as a player. As for those of you trying your luck for the "Player's Cup", I wish you all the best, keep grinding out those results and I'll be cheering on my friends to do well.
Also, if you caught the running joke, let me know. And if you got a good laugh out of some of these, my job is done. We're all facing tough times now. Be nice to each other, take care of one another and stay safe.
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