| Event | Victory Road: Welcome to Paldea |
|---|---|
| Location | Online |
| Date | 10–11 December 2022 |
| Attendance | 465 players |
| Videogame | Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet |
| Season | 2023 Season – VGC Series 1 |
| Format | 9 Swiss rounds + X-2 top cut single elimination Closed teamsheets, public Tera Types |
| Organizer | Victory Road |
Table of Contents
Teams and results
Top cut
| # | Swiss | Flag | Player | Prize | Team | Exp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7-2 |  | Adrien Hurley (ColdingLight) | $1383 |       |  |
| 2 | 7-2 | | Nick Navarre (Nails) | $791 |      | |
| 3 | 7-2 |  | Mattie Morgan (Mattie) | $296 |      | |
| 4 | 7-2 |  | Xie Yantong (Darko) | $296 |    |  Report |
| 5 | 8-1 |  | Arash Ommati (Alstroemeria) | $148 |      | |
| 6 | 7-2 | | Peng Chongjun (伊藤峻峻) | $148 |  |  |
| 7 | 7-2 |  | Aapo Niemiranta (Aapo) | $148 |    |  Report |
| 8 | 7-2 | | Kasper Kallio (Kasper) | $148 |  | |
| 9 | 8-1 |  | Shohei Kimura (ナンス) | $74 |  |  |
| 10 | 8-1 | | Ren Chengfu (小夫) | $74 |     | |
| 11 | 7-2 |  | Daniel Rodríguez (Nanami) | $74 | | |
| 12 | 7-2 | | Wang Bingjie (小肥仔圆圆) | $74 | | |
| 13 | 7-2 |  | Markus Stadter (Yoshi) | $74 | |  |
| 14 | 7-2 | | Francesco Iozzia (Nova) | $74 |  | |
| 15 | 7-2 | | Marco Silva (marcofiero) | $74 | | |
| 16 | 7-2 | | Joshua Dimond (Dimond>5) | $74 |     |  |
| 17 | 9-0 | | Conan Yoshikawa (スカーレット) | – |  | |
| 18 | 8-1 | | Mao Harada (シズ) | – | | |
| 19 | 8-1 |  | Paschalis Dermentzis (PasDer) | – | | |
| 20 | 8-1 |  | Narawitch Naenna (MyStars) | – | | |
| 21 | 8-1 |  | Gaëtan Lugon-Moulin (gataen CH) | – |   |  |
| 22 | 8-1 | | Andrew Gouck (Andy) | – |    | |
| 23 | 7-2 | | Stefano Greppi (Ste) | – | | |
| 24 | 7-2 |  | Bartosz Kuskowski (Bartek) | – |  | |
| 25 | 7-2 | | Ethan Simpson (Generic name) | – |  | |
| 26 | 7-2 |  | Max Waterman (Simipour) | – |  | |
| 27 | 7-2 | | Keisuke Sunaoshi (けいすけ) | – | | |
| 28 | 7-2 | | Daniele Fanelli (daniele) | – |    | |
| 29 | 7-2 | | Tim Sudermann (Flip) | – | | |
| 30 | 7-2 | | Eugenio Calafato (Eughe) | – | | |
| 31 | 7-2 | | Tang Shiliang (20亮亮) | – | | |
| 32 | 7-2 | | Gilberto Goracci (Gilberto) | – |  | |
| 33 | 7-2 |  | Devon Singh (Teenspirit) | – |  | |
| 34 | 7-2 | | Seth Rutman (Ferret) | – |  | |
| 35 | 7-2 |  | Kevin Salvetto (Lil Bo Peep) | – | | |
| 36 | 7-2 | | Juanma Luque (JuanmaEl32) | – |  |  |
| 37 | 7-2 | | Xi Xiangyu (lily) | – | | |
| 38 | 7-2 | | Constantin Klose (Conni) | – |  | |
| 39 | 7-2 | | Jeremy Parson (Zanzibar) | – | | |
| 40 | 7-2 | | Dan Brown (StoutGaming) | – |  |  |
| 41 | 7-2 | | Joseph Ugarte (JoeUX9) | – | | |
Further standings
If applicable, insert here the table from TopCut_Automatizado with the rest of standings (limited to 32 in the sheet).
Seeding
The bracket was seeded according to the Swiss rounds results:
Usage stats
| # | Pokémon | Usage | Top Cut |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | | 47.41% | 18/220 |
| 2 | | 46.34% | 14/215 |
| 3 | | 45.47% | 13/211 |
| 4 | | 41.59% | 8/193 |
| 5 | | 28.02% | 16/130 |
| 6 | | 25.22% | 12/117 |
| 7 | | 21.55% | 12/100 |
| 8 | | 18.97% | 8/88 |
| 9 | | 17.67% | 10/82 |
| 10 | | 17.67% | 8/82 |
| 11 | | 17.24% | 5/80 |
| 12 | | 17.24% | 5/80 |
| 13 | | 15.73% | 4/73 |
| 14 | | 11.21% | 11/52 |
| 15 | | 10.99% | 5/51 |
| # | Pokémon | Usage | Top Cut |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | | 9.91% | 7/46 |
| 17 | | 9.70% | 2/45 |
| 18 | | 8.84% | 3/41 |
| 19 | | 7.97% | 1/37 |
| 20 | | 7.33% | 4/34 |
| 21 | | 7.33% | 1/34 |
| 22 | | 7.11% | 5/33 |
| 23 | (all) | 7.11% | 5/33 |
| 24 | | 6.90% | 4/32 |
| 25 | | 6.68% | 6/31 |
| 26 | | 6.68% | 1/31 |
| 27 | | 6.47% | 3/30 |
| 28 | | 6.47% | 1/30 |
| 29 | | 6.25% | 4/29 |
| 30 | | 6.03% | 3/28 |
Some takeaways:
- Hydreigon, Gholdengo, Garchomp and Murkrow establish themselves in the top spots!
- Kingambit and Talonflame had around a 20% top cut percentage, which is pretty big. Keep an eye on them going forward!
- Gothitelle was in both finalists’ teams, even though it was 50th in usage: there were only 7 in the whole tournament. Big meta call!
- Weather teams are shy for now. Tyranitar‘s Sand has been more used, but Torkoal‘s Sun has been more successful!
Platform and schedule
The tournament was held online through Battlefy. All communication between the players must be done through the Battlefy chat enabled in each round.
Official communication from the organizer staff is performed through Discord, in the Victory Road Discord server.
The tournament started on 10 December at 13:00 UTC with the Swiss rounds. The top cut, to which all players with 2 or fewer losses (X-2) advanced, was played on 11 December at the same time.
Prizes
This event is a grassroots tournament and is not a part of any 2023 official circuit. This means that it does not reward any Championship Points (CPs).
The best-placed players received the following prizes depending on attendance. Final prizepool was confirmed upon closure of registrations:
| Placement | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | $1383 |
| Runner-up | $791 |
| Semifinalists | $296 each |
| 5th to 8th | $148 each |
| 9th to 16th | $74 each |
| Placement | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | Around 30~35% of the prizepool |
| Runner-up | Around 15~20% of the prizepool |
| Semifinalists | Around 8~10% of the prizepool |
| 5th to 8th | Around 4~5% of the prizepool |
| Placement | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | Around 30~35% of the prizepool |
| Runner-up | Around 15~20% of the prizepool |
| Semifinalists | Around 8~10% of the prizepool |
| 5th to 8th | Around 4~5% of the prizepool |
| 9th to 16th | Around 0.5~1% of the prizepool |
| Placement | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | Around 30~35% of the prizepool |
| Runner-up | Around 15~20% of the prizepool |
| Semifinalists | Around 8~10% of the prizepool |
| 5th to 8th | Around 4~5% of the prizepool |
| 9th to 16th | Around 0.5~1% of the prizepool |
| 17th to 32nd | Around 0.5% of the prizepool |
| Placement | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | Around 30~35% of the prizepool |
| Runner-up | Around 15~20% of the prizepool |
| Semifinalists | Around 8~10% of the prizepool |
| 5th to 8th | Around 4~5% of the prizepool |
| 9th to 16th | Around 0.5~1% of the prizepool |
| 17th to 32nd | Around 0.5% of the prizepool |
| 33rd to 64th | Around 0.2% of the prizepool |
Streaming
Unfortunately, there was no stream for this tournament due to team constraints. Players that streamed their run were promoted by Victory Road during the tournament.
Sign-up instructions
Sign-ups for the event were done through Battlefy platform. Sign-ups were $10 (+ $1 Battlefy tax) and open upon announcement. 85% of the total entry fee money was directed towards the prizes ($8.5 per player), and 15% was used to compensate the staff members, tournament organizers & judges ($1.5 per player). This was initially announced as 80%/20%, but was modified due to the lack of stream and its related cost.
All players needed to provide a teamsheet in PokéPaste format with all data about the team’s Pokémon (including form, Tera Type, ability, held item, moves and either stat values or minted Nature + IVs + EVs).
Additionally, since Tera Types would be revealed to the opponents, the six Pokémon with their forms (even aesthetic ones) and their Tera Types had to be provided. If you are using Pokémon Showdown for this, please write the omitted Tera Types to avoid ambiguities!
Please ask any staff member if you need help registering the teamsheets.
Sign-ups closed 15 min before the event started. Players that did not show up for the first three rounds were dropped from the tournament before round 4.
Overview
VR Welcome to Paldea was an online event hosted by Victory Road. It also was the first VGC major online event to be hosted by VR worldwide in the new Pokémon Scarlet & Pokémon Violet games!
The ruleset was VGC Series 1. The tournament was closed teamsheets except for Tera Types, which were revealed to the opponents. To clarify any doubts, Female Indeedee with Trick Room could be used since it could be found through normal gameplay and was allowed in online battles.
All detailed tournament procedures, including rules and penalties, can be found here.
A little bit of history
Victory Road has been consistently holding online grassroots tournaments for years, including standalone events, online invitationals featuring qualifier events, and the yearly biggest online team competition in the World Cup of Pokémon VGC. Victory Road has also provided streams to several official Regional Championships in Europe since 2019.
Our most recent tournament was the VR Galar Farewell, the last one played in Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield with the VGC Series 12 ruleset in November 2022. The finals saw Japanese Tomoyuki Yoshimura defeat Spaniard Juan Manuel Odriozola.
