It’s that time of the year again: the Indonesian grassroots circuit, also known as PKMN-id Trainer Circuit (PTC), is approaching its Grand Final.

The Circuit

Indonesia used to be allowed to hold official VGC events in 2015, and as many as 117 trainers attended the first Premier Challenge. As the leading Pokémon community in Indonesia, PKMN-id chose to create a grassroots circuit to accommodate the desire of the Indonesian trainers to play competitive Pokémon. Soon after Indonesia’s ability to host official events was revoked by The Pokémon Company, PKMN-id created the Indonesia Trainer Arena (ITA). ITA ran from May 2015 to April 2016, so the trainers played two different formats. The qualification was played in the VGC15 format and the final was played in the VGC16 format.

With the arrival of a new game and generation of Pokémon, PKMN-id decided to replace ITA with a new circuit, known as PTC. PTC gives out PTC Points (PP), similar to Championship Points, for the top finishers in tournaments. The top 8 trainers qualified to the Grand Final, as did the top 8 trainers from the Last Chance Qualifiers. PTC tournaments are played both online and offline. The offline tournaments are streamed, and you can watch the battles on PKMN-id’s YouTube channel.

To reach a wider player base, this year’s PTC qualification stage will only be played online due to Indonesia being an archipelago. PKMN-id has removed the LCQ, and only the top 8 trainers will be playing in the Grand Final, which will be played offline. Trainers outside Jakarta that made it to the final 8 will be granted a stipend to allow them to attend the Grand Final.

The Top Trainers

In 1st place, we have Guntur Prabowo with 112 PP. Guntur is arguably the most decorated player in Indonesia: he has top 8 and top 4 Regionals finishes under his belt this season. He was the first Indonesian VGC player to play in the World Championships, and that’s not even mentioning that he won Sydney Regionals last season.

In 2nd place with 92 PP is Hafidz. His notable international achievements include being a runner-up in the Singapore Open 2017. Amelia Safitri, in 3rd place, could have topped the ranking had she not skipped the Ultra Series tournaments. She won one Sun and Moon series tournament. Amelia is also the winner of this year’s PKMN-id Showdown League (PSL), a circuit aimed at trainers who do not have a 3DS.

Aldrich and Angga are in 4th and 5th place, respectively. Both are new players to the scene, but have shown good progress. Aldrich finished second in the MSS Side Event at Malaysia Regionals 2019. As for Soma, he qualified by using a Charizard on his teams (even in Ultra Series)! These two are surely the black horses for the tournament.

In 6th place we have Taufik Wiradarmo, the PTC’s head of tournament. Taufik tends to have a defensive playstyle, and it will be interesting to see what he might bring to the Grand Final. The 7th and 8th players have the same amount of PP at 32, and they also went to the same college. They are Andrew Loekmanto and Brandon Chandra. Andrew is one of the trainers who always qualifies to the PTC Grand Finals (the other two being Hafidz and Taufik). As for Brandon, this is his chance at redemption, as he failed to qualify last season.

The PTC Grand Final 2019 will be held on Saturday, 29th of June 2019 in Jakarta. The matches will be streamed on https://facebook.com/pkmnid starting from 10AM GMT +7 with English commentary, so make sure to tune in and see how the Indonesians play VGC!