The official English portal for Cardfight!! Vanguard has updated with information on the upcoming 2014 team tournaments, "Team League 2014: Invasion." The Invasion is slated to begin in April and last through July; the current schedule states that nationals will start before regionals, but appears to rely on a different definition of "national" and "regional" championships. As defined further down, placing first or second in the national tournaments will qualify the teams for regionals. Taking place after the release of VGE-BT13: Catastrophic Outbreak in May, the Invasion's special rules will deliver a more immersive game experience by dividing participating teams into the Cray Defenders and Void Invaders, and the outcome of their battles will determine whether Cray is overtaken by the forces of darkness or if the soldiers of Link Joker are successfully repelled.
As in Team League 2013 players will form teams of three to participate in triples fights, and each team member must use a different clan. However, the Invasion ruleset regulates teams more heavily than they were in the preceding team tournaments, drawing clear inspiration from Japan's New Years 2014 tournament. Cray Defender teams cannot use cards from the Link Joker clan or “Яeverse” cards in their decks, while Void Invader teams may only use Link Joker or decks with 3 or more “Яeverse” cards bearing the same name in them. A special rule allows Royal Paladin cardfighters on the Cray Defender side to use up to 10 Shadow Paladin cards in their decks, making a provision for Majesty Lord Blaster cardfighters. Each team member will receive a corresponding button as a participation prize, identifying them as a Defender or Invader, although team alignment will not be taken into account when determining round pairings. Which players fight which is determined by a team member's number. Each member is assigned either 1st, 2nd or 3rd position, and they are paired against opponents of the same number on the opposing team. This is similar to the Japanese team tournament structure used from 2011 to 2013, where players were assigned to be 先鋒 senpou "Foreward," 中堅 chuuken "Middle player" and the 大将 taishou "General" which have similar meanings, but also have double meanings like "Vanguard" for the Foreward and "Team Captain" for the General.
Unlike in Teams 2013, there will be no shop qualifiers. Currently there are national championships scheduled for the North American, European and Asia-Oceanian territories. The initial rounds of each tournament will use a modified Swiss, double elimination ruleset where if an entire team loses two rounds they are eliminated from the tournament, with each round being best of 1 games, followed by a cut to top 8. Top 8 will be single elimination but best 2 out of 3 games. This is an important development as previously best of 3 was reserved for continental and international-level events, and starting with League 2014 it is being implemented at lower levels. The winning team will receive the Team League 2014 national champion's trophy, a corresponding certificate, and an invitation to their respective regional championship finals, while the runner-up team will receive a second place certificate and an invitation to the regional finals. For first place travel accommodations will be provided, except for players from the United Kingdom and Singapore.
There will be no entry fees for the Invasion's qualifiers, except if the venues themselves charge for entry because of the tournament being held instead of another event.
