Despite being a host nation for one of the season’s International Championships, Australia has zero Regional Championships this season. At least, this was the case until May 26th, nearly a month before the pre-Worlds stage of the season comes to a close, where two regionals seemingly appeared overnight on the official Pokemon.com event locator.
No kidding. After an entire season of no major events since the Melbourne International Championships, Australia finally has Regional Championships on its schedule. Suffering a large downgrade from seven regionals last season, many were confused as to why there were no regionals announced for a country that was to host one of the biggest events of the season. Finally an announcement comes in May for two regionals happening two weeks apart from each other in June. These two regionals could be “make or break” tournaments for most Australian players, as their Championship totals are not as high as other major regions.
These are the current Championship Point standings for the Oceania region, where 250 points (formally 350) are required to qualify for the World Championships. Much like Europe, Australia received a 100 point deduction to their CP bar for qualification due to the low amount of potential qualifiers from these regions. According to these current standings, four players (plus Zoe Lou the Melbourne IC champion who is not listed for some reason) have qualified from Australia. Beyond the top 15, there are seven other Australian players who exceed 200 CP.
With only two regionals, a few premier challenges and the current May International Challenge happening this weekend, the remaining CP required for these players could be quite tricky to obtain.
Here is the CP payout structure for 2017 Regional Championships. Considering the fact that it is late into the season and Australia not having the largest competitive scene, the kicker here becomes very important. Some North American and European Regionals have struggled to make the 128 player mark, which makes CP possible for the top 32. If one or both of these Australian regionals don’t break 128 players, a top 16 or better placing becomes the only way for players around the 200 CP mark to qualify if they’re are only able to attend one of these events.
Timing is also a concern for some players. Since these regionals are so close together time-wise (June 10th/June 24th) this could mean only one of these events is possible for some players who have monetary or schedule conflicts. With such a high placing being necessary for some Australian players to qualify, the one event some may decide to attend could be a make or break tournament.
While the announcement of regionals for Australia will ensure more invites for the region, this is still quite a step back from the plethora of events from last season. With an invite structure like 2017’s, having a good amount of tournaments for a region is essential for reasonably distributing invites.
Australia had a total of 31 masters qualify for the 2016 World Championships, and we’re likely to see more than half of that amount reduced for 2017. Granted, 2016’s CP requirement was much lower, but Australia has shown to be a fairly formidable region with two players in the Top Cut in two of the last three World Championships.
The 2017 season has been for the most part a flop on the end of TPCi in terms of tournament organization and communication with their player base, and Australia’s situation is no different. I hope that these upcoming regionals in Sydney and Perth will secure invites for more Australian players and that TPCi learns from their mistakes this season with Australia being one of the examples to look back on.
Thanks for reading!
Images courtesy of Pokemon.com
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