And with that, the deadline has passed. (Well, 3 hours ago!)
We sit now at the conclusion of Round 1 of the World Cup of Pokemon V with... 191/192 battles complete. That is quite simply... astounding. I cannot thank everyone involved with this enough, for showing responsibility in getting battles done and especially to captains who were always there with subs ready to go when it was necessary.
You guys went at a pace of 9 battles per day, and that is remarkable. I expect the same enthusiasm as we look to close out the tournament.
But let us move on to the good stuff... much like last year, there is a clusterfuck of teams tied for the last spot. At the present, Canada, USA East, Oceania and Europe all have 24 points, meaning there is guarunteed to be a series of tiebreaker games. ISGME and UK could also have to tiebreak for second/third place.
Given the fact that a tiebreak scenario is already guarunteed, and the fact that all the battles have been completed but one, and especially due to the fact that said battle has qualifying implications, I would like to use the buffer time needed for teams to send me their tiebreak battler to let the last match finish.
I normally am incredibly against deadline extensions, and I really wanted to be firm with this one, but given there will be a buffer time anyways I would really like to see this done, for completions sake. That means I expect Mekkah vs Shep to occur on Sunday, and if not that exact matchup then a match between some appropriate subs. Both battlers are subs themselves, thus I feel like neither side deserves an activity win, and to give one "no contest" decision is just bad for consistency's sake and not fair to everyone else who did battle. I hope people understand this reasoning.
With that said, I need the captains of USA East, Oceania and even Europe, ISGME and UK (as it may happen that Europe joins the tiebreak scenario and brown/uk have their own tiebreak) to send me the following: the person who will be performing the tiebreak battles to determine qualification into Round 2 as well as the full roster you will be using for Round 2, assuming you make it. This is simply to conserve time, as I don't want to be waiting around for two rounds of decisions.
As for the teams already guarunteed entry, I await your rosters to be PM'ed to me for Round 2. I already recieved UK's and West's.
Now, I need all this information submitted to me no later than Sunday, July 18, 2010 at Midnight EST (aka 21 hours from this post). I know it is short notice, but these are decisions that you should have already considered and they shouldn't be too hard to compile.
With that said, good luck to all captains in their decision making process, and good luck in future rounds. I would also like to thank all the teams who are eliminated for coming out and supporting their country, I hope to see you again next year. The field this year was absolutely tougher than ever.
Canada got dis shit.
EDIT: also to clarify for nagai, this is an extension of round 1, so Salamence is still OU and anyone who was subbed out cannot be subbed back in for tiebreaks.
