| Event | Victory Road Winter Challenge |
|---|---|
| Location | Online |
| Date | 13-14 January 2024 |
| Attendance | 258 players |
| Videogame | Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet |
| Season | 2024 Season – VGC Regulation Set F |
| Format | 9 Swiss rounds + X-2 top cut single elimination Open team lists |
| Organizer | Victory Road |
Table of Contents
Teams and results
Top cut
| # | Swiss | Flag | Player | Prize | Team | List | Exp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7-2 |  | Hyungwoo Shin (閃光) | $877.20 |       |  | |
| 2 | 7-2 |  | Ryan Haig (Botchkiss) | $438.60 |    | | |
| 3 | 7-2 |  | Taro Okada (さなみ) | $219.30 |     | | |
| 4 | 7-2 |  | Abraham Gómez (Slam) | $219.30 | | | |
| 5 | 8-1 |  | Roberto Parente (Roberto) | $109.65 |   | | |
| 6 | 8-1 |  | Thiago Lattanzi (Robson Bamboo) | $109.65 |    | | |
| 7 | 7-2 |  | Mattie Morgan (Mattie) | $109.65 |    | | |
| 8 | 7-2 | | Allan Martinez (Mando) | $109.65 | | | |
| 9 | 8-1 | | Daniel Rocha (daii) | – | | | |
| 10 | 8-1 | | Giulio Tarlao (Giulio) | – |  | | |
| 11 | 8-1 |  | Jude Lee (OZASHI1) | – |   | | |
| 12 | 7-2 | | Ko Tsukide (ストレリチア) | – |   | | |
| 13 | 7-2 | | Marco Silva (marcofiero) | – | | | |
| 14 | 7-2 |  | Robbie Schaaij (Robbie) | – | | | |
| 15 | 7-2 | | Brady Smith (VGC CORNER) | – | | | |
| 16 | 7-2 | | Jorge Tabuyo (Tabu) | – |  | | |
| 17 | 7-2 | | Ethan Mattos (SplattyDaddy) | – |     | | |
| 18 | 7-2 | | Masahide Tamaki (violet) | – |  | | |
| 19 | 7-2 | | Yosuke Takayanagi (やなぎ) | – |    | | |
| 20 | 7-2 | | Tomoyuki Yoshimura (SNOW) | – |  | | |
| 21 | 7-2 | | Yuki Zaninovich (ゆうき) | – |  | | |
| 22 | 7-2 |  | Lin Guli (古力鸭) | – | | | |
| 23 | 7-2 |  | Stefan Mott (Pengy) | – |   | | |
| 24 | 7-2 | | Kandai Nagatome (Candy) | – | | |
Seeding
The bracket is seeded according to the Swiss rounds results:
Streaming
Top 16 onwards will be streamed in the Victory Road Twitch Channel as long as the players are able to send their signal smoothly, with Simon Van der Borght, Shonali Kenn and Sierra Dawn as casters.
Players that stream their run are promoted by Victory Road during Day 1.
| Round | Player 1 | vs | Player 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 16 | Giulio Tarlao | vs | Hyungwoo Shin |
Unfortunately, no players had a capture card available from top 8 onwards.
Usage stats
| # | Pokémon | D1 Usage | D2 Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | | 61.2% (158) | 83% (20) |
| 2 | | 45.3% (117) | 38% (9) |
| 3 | | 35.3% (91) | 38% (9) |
| 4 | | 33.7% (87) | 33% (8) |
| 5 | | 27.1% (70) | 29% (7) |
| 6 | | 26.4% (68) | 29% (7) |
| 7 | (Rapid) | 24.4% (63) | 38% (9) |
| 8 | | 21.7% (56) | 21% (5) |
| 9 | | 21.3% (55) | 13% (3) |
| 10 | | 20.9% (54) | 13% (3) |
| 11 | | 18.6% (48) | 38% (9) |
| 12 | | 18.6% (48) | 8% (2) |
| 13 | (Single) | 17.4% (45) | 21% (5) |
| 14 | | 14.7% (38) | 13% (3) |
| 15 | | 12.0% (31) | 17% (4) |
| # | Pokémon | D1 Usage | D2 Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | | 10.9% (28) | 13% (3) |
| 17 | | 10.9% (28) | 4% (1) |
| 18 | | 9.3% (24) | 8% (2) |
| 19 | | 8.5% (22) | 13% (3) |
| 20 | | 8.1% (21) | 17% (4) |
| 21 | | 7.4% (19) | 8% (2) |
| 22 |  | 7.4% (19) | 0% (0) |
| 23 | | 7.0% (18) | 13% (3) |
| 24 |  | 6.6% (17) | 0% (0) |
| 25 | | 6.2% (16) | 8% (2) |
| 26 | | 5.8% (15) | 13% (3) |
| 27 | | 5.8% (15) | 4% (1) |
| 28 | | 5.4% (14) | 8% (2) |
| 29 | | 5.0% (13) | 4% (1) |
| 30 |  | 5.0% (13) | 0% (0) |
Platform and schedule
The tournament is 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 starts on 13 January 2024 at 14:00 UTC with the Swiss rounds. The top cut, to which all players with 2 or fewer losses (X-2) advance, is played on 14 January at the same time.
Prizes
This event is a grassroots tournament and is not a part of any 2024 official circuit. This means that it does not reward any Championship Points (CPs).
The best-placed players receive the following prizes depending on attendance.
| Placement | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | 40% of the prizepool |
| Runner-up | 20% of the prizepool |
| Semifinalists | 10% of the prizepool |
| 5th to 8th | 5% of the prizepool |
Overview
The Victory Road Winter Challenge is an online event hosted by Victory Road, with the purpose of serving as practice for the upcoming live tournaments.
The ruleset is VGC Regulation Set F, with open team lists.
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 September Challenge, played with the VGC Regulation Set D in September 2023. The finals saw 2017 Worlds semifinalist Tomoyuki Yoshimura defeat fellow Japanese Kazuki Ogushi to win his second VR tournament, after an earlier victory in 2022!
Sign-up instructions
Sign-ups for the event are done through Battlefy platform. Sign-ups are $10 (+ $1 Battlefy tax) and open on 8 January. 85% of the total entry fee money is directed towards the prizes ($8.5 per player), and 15% is used to compensate the staff members, tournament organizers, judges and casters ($1.5 per player).
All players need to provide a team list in PokéPaste format with all open team list data about the team’s Pokémon (including form, Tera Type, ability, held item and moves).
Additionally, all players need to provide another closed team list (only for TOs) with all previous information and either stat values or minted Nature + IVs + EVs. This list may be password-protected.
Please ask any staff member if you need help registering the team lists!
Sign-ups close 15 min before the event starts. Players that do not show up for the first three rounds are dropped from the tournament before round 4.
