League Championship 2015 - Kalos Open

The tournament entourage in Santalune City manages to flee cross-country just before the authorities from Lumiose catch onto their position. The hats were fun to wear, but unfortunately they must be left behind as escape requires one to travel light. Perhaps, if their names are ever cleared, the trainers will visit the beautiful Kalosian countryside again to enjoy the massive headgear collection at their own pace. Or maybe they will, I don't know, do something significantly more interesting with their trip.

Fortunately, not much is wanted for on the road, as the many powerful Pokémon in tow ease the logistics. And better yet, the citizens of western Kalos are eager to welcome ASB trainers, as they've recently been entertained by the Sky Battles from the late bracket and remain unaware of the crisis in the central region. And so, two separate groups of trainers, each having already shed their defeated participants, flow into Shalour City from opposite directions, blending into one as they cross a thin, precarious sandbar -- the first challenge of worthiness required for entry in the hallowed Tower of Mastery.

The otherwordly architecture sprawling ever skyward fascinates the visitors as they head up the first flight of stairs and through the broad entranceway. They are greeted by a strange twosome: a shriveling old man in a sweatsuit and a young woman in rollerblading attire, each with specific bits of extremely overgrown hair. They bicker slightly as they speak and seem almost on verge of getting into a serious fight, but the lady is happy to welcome Asber's finest for an evalution of talent, of her own preparation. She likes to call it... Battle Korrina. No one laughs. She pouts.

Supposedly, the Mega Evolution masters of Kalos are hoping to find worthy trainers amidst the tournament participants... and of course, only so many can even be put to consideration. Although most of the judgement will be out of her hands, their heiress has been given the privilege of handling one of the stages of it. And for her part, she has prepared a little round where, instead of being put up to arbitrary external standards, the examinees can show off what they consider their own particular strengths and talents.

The structure of the battle will be simple: each Pokémon sent out will battle for three rounds at most before being recalled, at which point the sums of their remaining percentages of Health and Energy will be compared to determine the winner of the bout. After this, two new Pokémon will be sent out and fight for another three rounds, and evaluated likewise, and, if needed, this will be done a third time. The first trainer to win two bouts will immediately win the match.

But there is yet a twist. Each trainer may be able to add extra points to their Health and Energy total at the end of each third round in order to tilt the comparison towards their favor. These bonuses are granted by Masteries, which are proven by fulfilling specific criteria, often requiring a different kind of strategy than the usual. Although there are several Masteries, only two will be available at a time, and the trainers themselves will be picking which ones apply.

The selection of Masteries will happen as the trainers send out Pokémon -- at any time during the sendouts, the trainers will send their assigned referee a PM choosing a Mastery out of the list. This need not follow sendout order; both trainers can send their choice in only after all sendouts are made (note, however, that failing to PM a Mastery within DQ time of the last sendout will result in disqualification) and even freely change their choice. As soon as the referee has all Masteries in their inbox and all sendouts are posted in the thread, they will then publically announce in the thread which Masteries are in effect, and after that point, trainers will no longer get to change their chosen Mastery and will procceed to issuing commands regularly. This will be done for the first and second pairs of sendouts; for the last, however, the Masteries in effect for the second bout will be applied again.

Without further ado, the following Masteries can be chosen from:

• Movepool Master: Awarded to the Pokémon that used the highest amount of different moves during the bout.
• Elementalist: Awarded to the Pokémon that used moves of the highest amount of different types.
• Skill Striker: Awarded to the Pokémon that used the most moves with 70 or less Base Power (after accounting for effects that change a move's Base Power).
• Efficiency Expert: Awarded to the Pokémon that spent the least energy during the bout (restored energy, such as that gained by Chills or energy-targeting indirect recovery, does not contribute to this Mastery).
• Set-Up Specialist: Awarded to the Pokémon that had the highest net total of stat changes at the end of the bout (eg, 6+ Attack and 2- Defense makes for a total of 4+).
• Plague Pawner: Awarded to the Pokémon that inflicted the most status conditions on the opponent.
• Daredevil: Awarded to the Pokémon that had the least Health remaining at the end of the bout.
• Own Worst Enemy: Awarded to the Pokémon that took the most self-inflicted damage during the bout (only self-inflicted damage from regular sources like recoil and costs are counted; intentionally attacking oneself does not contribute to this Mastery).
• Obstinate Orders: Awarded to the trainer that used the least conditionals in their commands. Only the trainer who is issuing the first commands in the current bout can choose this Mastery.

The trainer to fulfill the requirements for a Mastery will have 20 added to their Health + Energy sum when the comparison is being made. A Mastery can be earned even by the player that didn't choose to have it applied, and up to 40 points' worth can be obtained in this way. If both trainers have managed to fulfill the requirements of a Mastery to the same extent, effectively tieing for it, then they will both have 10 added to the final sum. Lastly, if both trainers happened to choose the same Mastery, that Mastery alone will apply for the bout, and achieving it will still only grant 20 points' worth.

And finally, the fixtures for this round are thus:


Winning prize: $30, one Rare Candy
Losing prize: $15, one buyable Pokémon with a Hidden Ability
Referee prize: $25


Kalos was at the forefront of one of the most earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting revelations about Pokémon to surface recently: the Fairy-type. All of a sudden, a subset of species was completely immune to the awesome power of Dragon-types -- and as it turns out, the immunity was within them all along, and all they needed to do was believe in themselves. The people of Kalos hold their lot in the mind-blowing discovery with great pride. As a matter of fact, many have come out of the woodwork to claim they'd known of it all along. More than one event has had to escort out this one man who had been bent on exposing and capturing all of the Fairy-type Pokémon, and who couldn't even pronounce their very name without twitching and screaming "FAIRY-TYPE POKEMON!".

With the great cultural revelance of this subject, Asber has wisely decided that it had a place in the tournament, although it was certainly not fresh news to its capable and studious (if for all the wrong reasons) trainers, who for the most part were already well adapted to using and countering the Fairy-type in battle. Because those who had participated through many rounds of the tournament already were practically bound to have already seen the Fairy-type in the competitive environment, a fresh batch of entrants would be the ideal scapego— erm, voluntary participants of such an all-important display of cultural awareness and respect for the people whose land is being ravag— honored for their hospitality.

For this purpose, the league has been able to count on Valerie, the local Fairy-type specialist Gym Leader, who graciously lent several fully-evolved Fairy-type Pokémon as well as her whole gym for the showdown. Apparently, she'd been thinking of getting herself a gym with a more interesting gimmick, and this deal was cheaper than paying a wrecking crew. That, and perhaps, the battles will give her and her gym trainers even more ideas on how to use the Fairy-type in battle.

As such, for this round, the participants will employ rental Pokémon, with the following being available:

• female Clefable <Unaware> @ Babiri Berry
• female Wigglytuff <Frisk> @ Babiri Berry
• female Azumarill <Sap Sipper> @ Wacan Berry
• female Sylveon <Pixilate> @ Fairy Gem
• genderless Klefki <Magician> @ Occa Berry

As with regular sendouts, a player will be designated to choose one of the rentals first, and the next will choose another (note that one same species cannot be chosen twice in the same battle).

Naturally, the turf that this match will be staked in is the Fairy-type Gym at Laverre City. Built to evoke a dollhouse, it features nine rooms of even cubic shapes, rowed and stacked neatly in a 3x3 arrangement. Although a given room will be adjacent to several others, there are no doors but the one leading outside and no stairways; instead, special tiles on the ground will teleport those who step on them, transporting challengers through the house by tricky and difficultly predicted paths. This is in principle the only way to get around the Gym, testing the challengers' willingness to learn and navigate the teleporting patterns, although any battler from Asber should know that, sometimes, walls, floors, and even ceilings can make the best doors. Valerie herself awaits at the central room of the top row, the toughest one to reach, while her apprentices, the Furisode Girls, await in several of the rooms for an unwary passing trainer.

Such will be the face-offs to take place under these rules:


Winning prize: $25
Losing prize: $13
Referee prize: $22

Now that more details of the round have been posted: if you're like to ref a tournament match this round, please say so in the thread and give an estimate of how many battles you can take (though, ideally, nobody will need to take more than one). If you've already offered to ref, please keep me updated if anything changes.

The round will begin on Sunday, July 5th. Prepare your squads!

Oops, took too long to decide whether I felt un-rusty enough to try for a late bracket spot, but eh, probably better to let people who actually remember how to strategy have the fun.

That said, though, I still want to participate in this somehow, and I think I should be able to ref one battle this round, if that's all right! No preference for main or late bracket, if that matters.

Kratos Aurion said:

Oops, took too long to decide whether I felt un-rusty enough to try for a late bracket spot, but eh, probably better to let people who actually remember how to strategy have the fun.

That said, though, I still want to participate in this somehow, and I think I should be able to ref one battle this round, if that's all right! No preference for main or late bracket, if that matters.

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Thanks for the offer! I'll put you down for one battle this round, which means that we're only going to have one person reffing two battles now.

While the format of the matches is clear, I'm a bit confused as to what the actual battlefield is for the regular bracket battles. Is it somewhere within the tower, or somewhere outside? I'm a bit rusty when it comes to XY geography, so a bit of description would be very helpful.

Eta Carinae said:

While the format of the matches is clear, I'm a bit confused as to what the actual battlefield is for the regular bracket battles. Is it somewhere within the tower, or somewhere outside? I'm a bit rusty when it comes to XY geography, so a bit of description would be very helpful.

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The actual arenas will be posted with the battles on Sunday, so hopefully the detail there will be enough.

All right, battle threads will be going up momentarily. A few notes for this round:

• Battlers in the main bracket who are commanding first in the first round: remember that you don't have to post commands until your ref posts the chosen Masteries! All you have to do at first is send out and PM your choice of Mastery to your ref.
• Battlers in the late bracket who are commanding first in the first round: remember that if you choose Wigglytuff as your rental, you will actually be commanding second due to Frisk.
• Referees in the main bracket are asked to include their calculations in their reffings, since small changes in health and energy can end up being very important in this format and this makes it easy for the battlers to know exactly what's going on there. (Refs for the late bracket, you can include or leave our your calculations as you wish.)
• Refs, if you're unsure about anything to do with the arenas and battle formats, please please please feel free to ask me. I am totally willing to answer dozens of PMs to confirm tiny things in order to ensure this round goes smoothly!

Hype time!

As far as I know I'm caught up on distributing Round 2 / Late Bracket 1 prizes, so if you haven't gotten yours, poke me.

Whoops, one thing is missing from the banned moves list for the main bracket. Everyone in the main bracket, please note that Trick Room does not affect command order. (For the late bracket, Trick Room works as normal.) I'm going to edit this into all the battles now.

To keep prize stuff more organized this round I'd like to actually lay out how prize money is going to work.

For Round Three proper, the db will give out normal prizes when battles are closed, and I'll figure out how much is left and give it to you manually. Please do not claim any prize money in the bank; that got pretty confusing for me last round. (EDIT: That includes ref prizes.)

For Late Bracket II, on the other hand, battles don't seem to be in the db, since they're rentals, so you can just claim the full prize money for those battles in the bank.

I'm also gonna use this post to keep track of which battles I've already taken care of prizes for:

• Totodile vs VM
• pathos vs Keldeo
• Eifie vs Mawile
• I liek Squirtles vs Eta Carinae
• Superbird vs Byrus
• Music Dragon vs TruetoCheese

Zhorken said:

To keep prize stuff more organized this round I'd like to actually lay out how prize money works.

For Round Three proper, the db will give out normal prizes when battles are closed, and I'll figure out how much is left and give it to you manually. Please do not claim any prize money in the bank; that got pretty confusing for me last round. (EDIT: That includes ref prizes.)
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Refs in the main bracket: note that this is different from how Vipera Magnifica vs Totodile was resolved, so don't use that as an example.

Okay, since Barubu was a late bracket entrant and got DQed after only one round, we're opening up one last slot in the second late bracket. This is your very last chance to get in on the tournament! In the interest of getting things moving, you'll have three days to post here if you're interested. The first person who has not yet participated in the tournament to claim the slot will get it immediately; otherwise after the three days I will randomize among the people who post here who were eliminated in the first round, and if we don't have any of those either, among those interested who were eliminated in the second round or first late bracket.

I'll try my luck in the randomizer

I'm willing to try my luck!

All right, since Dazel was eliminated in the first round and Lilycolo in the second, there's no need to go to the randomizer. He'll be taking Barubu's place battling Lord of the Fireflies.

As I am way too excited and both of our remaining battles are about to start their final bout (if applicable), we are looking for refs for the next tournament round. Please post here if you are willing to ref a battle; we will need four refs (not including myself, who would kind of like a break). To get an idea of the commitment, these battles will be 2v2.

I demand you all get hype over this ground-breaking tournament spoiler!

I'm not sure I'm qualified, but I'll help out if you need me.

I'd be hype to ref another tourney round.

I think I can take on a battle.

I may regret this but I'd be happy to take on a battle if and only if you really super need another ref to avoid somebody having to take two battles.

Looks like you enough refs now, but I'm willing to pitch in if anyone has to drop out.