 Hello friends, welcome back to another episode here on the channel. If anyone new to the channel, my name is Lee, also known as Osiris. And in today's episode, we're going to be talking about something a little different to our usual content. And that is regarding a big VGC competitive circuit that we are about to launch. It will be starting on the 1st of February, and it is the Flinch Squad Championship Series. It will be the 2021 series that we are running. And we've run this for the last two years. It's an incredibly fun circuit. It gives players the opportunity to have regular competitive practice against other players online and with some nice pricing on top of that and some nice end goals at the end of it. We'll get into the bare bones of the tournament in a minute, but I just want to give you a quick overview about today's episode. We're going to be discussing weeklies as well because weekly tournaments are something that will be arranging over on a Discord server that you can access and have on top of the Flinch Squad circuit. And it doesn't require anything. Just hop on over and join in the Discord as all you would need to do. And all the information for the weeklies, ongoing weeklies will be over there. Getting into the Flinch Squad circuit. As I say, we've run it for the last two years. Basically, it's a big year long circuit where we organize a bunch of events throughout the year and every event gives out pricing and flinch points. And those flinch points are what go towards a end of year invitational for our highest ranked players. So after you hit a bar of a number of points, X number of points, you will get an invite to an invitational, which is a big year end event, which is live stream. We'll have commentary and it's just a place for us to showcase our best performing players throughout the season and kind of top off the season in general and see who our overall season champion is. Now, each season is split into three series. We run three series, which always start with a circuit, which is a Swiss week by week, Swiss round tournament and that will then lead into a top cut. We also have majors and minors their weekend tournament. So they'll predominantly be run on a Saturday and Sunday and obviously they'll be just Swiss rounds and then a top cut following that and all will mirror the official VGC rules, which are on the ranked ladder. So currently we're going into series eight on the 1st of February. That's when our tournaments kick off and hopefully our series mirrors all of the rule changes along the way, which is going to take us really to into November just before potential remakes are dropped. But we haven't gotten news officially on those yet, but that's what we're kind of planning to do. So let's take a deeper dive into the circuit itself. So as you can see, we're over here on the patron. Now, the tournaments are tied to the patron. So you would have to be a member of the patron to access the actual championship series. There will be additional entry fees on top of that, but the entry fees will all be going towards prizing. There is an administrative fee. We have mods that actually run the tournament for us. So it's only fair that they get paid, but it's all detailed in this document here. Now, this is the document, the master document of the Flinch Squad circuit. It's got all of the information that you're going to need to know about the circuit, how it runs and overview of it, who can play the structure of the season. We've got all of the separate tournaments that will be running within the circuit, their point payouts. We've got all of the dates. As you can see, series one signups have begun already. They're over on the Discord server right now. And then the circuit one starting on the 1st of February with all of the additional dates for our majors and minors throughout the season, all listed already with dates with our invitational on the 6th of November 2021. So a long time away from now, but plenty of Pokemon to play between now and then and we also have a last chance to qualify as well. The doc explains all of the flinch points as I've mentioned as well. You're going to be acquiring flinch points throughout all of these tournaments throughout the season with a bar of 250 points to really get into that invitational at the end of the season. So there's plenty of opportunities there and we also have weeklies as well, which I go into in a moment, which are free to enter tournaments for anyone. No one needs to be a member of the Patreon or the YouTube channel to access those they're going to be open to anyone on the Discord server and they will be weekly tournaments, but they will also tie into the circuit give our players just a weekly kind of a tournament to take part in for that regular practice that I think is so important and so beneficial to players when they are competing in this series. So the invitational, like I said, is the big end of event. The big end of year event. We stream it. We have casters. We showcase all of our players live playing these events and then you can see the entry fees for the tournament. Now the tournament, although you are exclusively getting involved in the tournaments with the patron, you will have to pay an entry fee for each circuit. Now the circuit is $15 to enter. There is a 10% butterfly surcharge obviously on top of that. We want to be as transparent as possible with these these fees, especially when we're talking about money and there is the cut. So as I say, we've got Worms Eye and Krim who are a min admins who run the entire circuit. I don't really do too much. I'll obviously help out in the back end of things, but they're primarily doing it and there's been a long, long discussion in the community about Tio's getting a cut of pair and I think it's only fair that these people are putting in work running these things. They get a cut of it. I'm taking nothing from this pot. This is solely for them. So 30% of all entry fees taken will be split between those two. Just to make that super transparent, then the rest of the pot will be split between the pricing for that particular event and then a portion of that will be taken and put into the Invitational Prize pot, which will be at the end of the year. So there the pricing, but like I say, you can have a deeper look at the dock, which will be linked down in the description to take a look at how things are running. The team sheet information is all there. Like I say, the rules are there. Rules regulations for match scheduling, signups, everything like that is all in this dock and then there'll be additional information on the circuits when they are launching the signups, the miners and the majors and all of this information will always be posted in our Discord servers as well. So there is that information, but I just wanted to make you guys aware of it. We've had a really successful past couple of years where we've run the circuit with our players and we've seen a lot of our players really excel, really progress in their playing and it's all to do with, you know, that consistent regular competitive practice that you get through these tournaments and I think it's a really nice way to now. Actually, this is the first year will be offering cash prizes maybe earn a little bit of money towards other things when real life events come back and things like that. So it's a nice incentive there as well as trying to get trophies and stuff like that, which will be funded by the patron membership from my end of things. So that'll be an additional cost, but that will be covered by the patron membership, which is really there to kind of support the channel, but it will also kind of be contributing towards a circuit and obviously the rules are changing every three months. So we'll stay fresh as well, but what we're doing on top of that is keeping team records of every single top performance team. Like I mentioned with the weeklies, we'll be doing that to make sure that we've got that really good, concise progression of the format and you can see that with the results posting every week and that is exclusive to our patron discord server channels that you'll be able to have access to as well as well as the team archives and things like that. There are all in there, which is a really good resource. It's a really nice community and it would be great to have you involved. So if this is something that you think you would like to get involved with, if you've got questions, leave them in the comments below, drop me a DM either on discord or Twitter, wherever you want. There's plenty of places to get a hold of me. If you've got questions or concerns about this, I just really wanted to put this video up today to make you aware that the tournament will be running. There is a lot of things planned for our discord server concerning competitive, regular competitive content over there. So do join. The links are all down in the description and as I say, if you've got any questions, but thank you. If you've come to this far in the video, I appreciate you sticking around. Hope it's something that does interest you. If you want to just put your feet in the water, dip your feet in the water with it, try the weeklies out first. The circuit, as I say, is running from the 1st of February right through with numerous tournaments to November. So there's plenty of opportunity if you like the weeklies, if you like the community over in the discord and you think I want to get a bit more involved in the actual circuit, maybe try and earn a little bit of money along the way. It's not really about that, but there are trophies up for grabs as well and things like that. So there will be a lot of opportunity for you to get involved if you do like the initial bit with the weeklies. And the weeklies, as I say, we're going to be running from the 5th of February starting. It will be the first series eight tournament that will be running will be kicking off with that after the rule update on the 1st of February. So it'll be very exciting and there's lots going on. Check out the overall rules doc over on Patreon. And as I say, if there's any questions at all, let me know. But the basic premise of this whole circuit is to create a really consistent grassroots tournament that is occurring evergreen, you know, every year we're going to run this circuit and it's going to be the same structure will be different sometimes depending on the rules and things like that, but we want to start and really make a good grassroots tournament that is there and really valuable for the newer players and older players coming in. You know, it's a nice entry level tournament setting. It's very friendly over on our discord and we want to kind of keep it that way. And it's a nice good base for competitive Pokémon to kind of kick you off. And a lot of our players have been doing very well and other big tournaments as well. You know, I could shout to the Hill about some of the players that we've got on our discord server about how good they are and how good they've become since joining the circuit. And it's not just down to the circuit. Obviously, it is a lot of work that they put in outside of that, but being able to see these players come in and see their development as players, it's incredibly nice to see and I feel very privileged to be in that position. And you know, the support that you get through the community as well is really nice throughout the whole season. And we've got a really nice close knit group of friends there. So if you do feel like you're interested in it for the third time and this is the last time, check it out, ask questions and I'll catch you all for another episode. Thanks so much for your time. Take care and bye bye.