Pokémon World Championship 2023: All Levels, Championship Format, Rules, Teams And More
The competitive Pokémon will soon bring us lots of exciting battles thanks to the most important competition of the year. This season has had all kinds of surprises, from a surprising Talonflame without items, to a Jumpluff staging an epic victory. Gyarados and Ferropalmas have been the focus of attention, and although the true protagonist has been Melenaleteo, he was overthrown by another ghost.
But a few days before the start of the World Cup we have found ourselves with one of the most important and celebrated changes of the season. Pokémon: Professional players celebrate this new change to the format. The most experienced trainers in competitive Pokémon are sure to be very busy lately.
This is because the 2023 Pokémon World Championship will officially start this coming August 11 in Yokohama, Japan. The competition will not be easy and players must be preparing the best teams and strategies that can give them victory. But recently they have had to suspend the preparation to celebrate a new change announced before the world championship. And for a change, it is a modification that has undoubtedly excited the community.
The Victory Road account, which specializes in posting competitive Pokémon content, has highlighted recent changes to the format for the 2024 Championships. As he points out, there will now be three levels of invitation:
Level 1: Invitation to the World Cup + Travel Award + Waiver of Round 1
Tier 2: World Cup Invitation + Travel Stipend
Level 3: Invitation to the World Cup
With this world system, the invitations for the second day will be eliminated. This means that starting next season, the winners of the regional and international championships will have a guaranteed invitation to the world championships.
Also Read: Pokemon UNITE World Championship 2023: Prize Pool, Quests, Teams, When And Where To Play
Professionals celebrate the new change
Very rarely do competitive Pokemon changes receive the massive support that the Day 2 removal did. The pros have spoken out strongly on social networks to congratulate The Pokémon Company on the change. The reason is that the competition for an invitation to the second day of the Pokémon World Cup was a very stressful and in some cases “unrealistic” experience.
Despite the efforts of some of the best in the world, earning a wild card on the second day was almost impossible. Not even Justin Tang, who claimed two regional wins on top of an excellent season, could get it. Senior coaches Gavin Michaels and Paul Chua, who did earn a day two invite, also celebrated the changes on social media. They especially criticized the fact that only select players can safely skip the first day. “The new system gives more people the chance to win the World Cup with even fewer invites,” Gavin said. “The advantage of Day 2 is ridiculous: nobody plays at their best after 9 gruelling rounds the day before.”
Now professional Pokémon players seem to be more liberated. The pressure to earn those precious invitations will no longer be there and they can focus on improving their teams to win the regionals.
It should be noted that these changes will only come into effect for the 2024 season. This means that nothing should change during the World Championship that will be held in just over a week in Japan.
And speaking of Japan, they may not get a chance to celebrate. The new changes don’t mention anything about the Asian circuit, where the rules for Pokémon tournaments are usually a bit different. We will have to wait to find out more about how the event will be treated in different parts of the world.
