The recent surge of online tournament series has allowed the competitive Pokémon TCG community to persevere throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with almost every day of the week now giving players the opportunity to compete in an event ranging in size from a League Cup to a small Regional. In order to track and recognize the achievements of high-placing players in these online events, PokéStats recently established our Online Tournament Player Points Rankings system, aggregating Top 16 finishes from an assortment of the most prestigious online tournament series.We feel that a logical conclusion of these player rankings would be to host an Invitational tournament rewarding the players who have earned the most points in online events during a given period. This would be a high-stakes event that pits some of the strongest players in the game against each other, allowing previously-established "top players" to continue defending their positions as such, while also letting some of the "new blood" players who have made their name from online success to prove their skill in an Invitational setting.
With that in mind:
The first PokéStats Invitational (Standard TEU-DAA format) will take place on November 21-22, 2020.
- The Top 16 players in our Online Tournament Player Points Rankings during the time period specified below will qualify for the PokéStats Invitational.
- The final date of qualification for the Invitational (the last day for which tournament placements will earn points towards qualification) will be November 15th, 2020. This will give qualified players just under a week's notice to clear their schedules and prepare for the tournament. All tournaments featured on this page will earn qualification points for this Invitational.
- These players will compete in a double-elimination bracket tournament across the two-day time period to determine the Invitational Champion.
- Matches will be best-of-3 and will be played on PTCGO.
- PokéStats will provide exclusive live coverage of the Invitational including a Twitch stream with commentary from experienced players and a live-updated match results feed (with in-depth statistics) here on our website.
- We have chosen the November 21-22 weekend date carefully: this is the weekend after the release of Vivid Voltage, so there will be less conflict with players and streamers looking to play with the new set on November 14-15. However, the TEU-DAA format should still be fresh in qualified players' minds.
- Recognizing that this will be a global event with players from many time zones, we are not yet committing to an official time frame for the event during the weekend; as we continue to work with tournament staff and receive input from community members, we will provide information on the exact hours of the tournament.
- If a qualified player is unable or unwilling to attend the Invitational, the next-highest-ranked player in the rankings will qualify. For example, if the 10th-ranked player is unable to attend, the 17th-ranked player would qualify as the 16th seed and players ranked 11th through 16th would all move up one seed.
- Prizing for the Invitational is TBA (based on sponsors and donations over the next several weeks) but we will ensure that significant cash prizing is awarded to all players placing Top 8 or higher. Special PokéStats merchandise will also be provided to qualifiers. Please consider supporting our Patreon; we will convert a large percentage of all donations during the next several weeks into prizing for the Invitational.
Please direct any further questions about the PokéStats Invitational, as well as offers for sponsorships or donations to the prize pool, to officialpokestats@gmail.com, or contact Tate Whitesell on Twitter/Facebook/Discord.
