Do you want to compete in the Pokémon World Championships? Many people play in the Play! Pokémon circuit with the ultimate goal of qualifying to Worlds in August, which is VGC’s largest and most prestigious tournament. You’ll need above a certain amount of Championship Points (CP) in order to qualify and play, though, and that means coming up with a year-long strategy for getting enough points to cross that bar. Here’s our advice on coming up with a plan to get from 0 points to 400 points. 

The first thing to keep in mind is to only compete in a way that is healthy for you financially and mentally. It’s important to know beforehand how traveling to tournaments will affect your financial and mental health. Keep in mind the cost of the tournaments that you want to travel to. Also know that traveling every weekend to play in tournaments can be exhausting for many reasons, and may affect your performance and mental health. Make a plan at the beginning of the season for attending events that is safe for you financially and takes how much rest you think you’ll need into account.

The second thing is that there is no “right” way to qualify for Worlds. A player who gets most of their points from small local tournaments qualifies to Worlds just the same as someone who only has high-ranking Regional and International finishes. In fact, most players will get their invites over many weekends rather than breezing through in a few. Get your Worlds invite however is right for you. 

Third, championship points are not a sure bet at any tournament, no matter who you are. Due to the nature of how CP are awarded, you may try to make your plan transactional-- for example, if I’m going to this Regional, I can expect to finish in the Top 64 and earn 50 CP. While this is a great strategy for eyeballing how many events in general you might plan to attend, there are a lot of different factors that can affect your run at a tournament, many of which are out of your control. We recommend making your plan as general as possible in regards to how the points will be earned.

Finally, keep in mind your carbon footprint! If you can, cut down on the number of flights you plan to take, and carpool and take public transportation as often as possible.

Making a Plan

The CP season begins as soon as the previous year’s Worlds ends (August) and ends immediately after the North American International Championship tournament in July. It’s important to know how many points you have as that deadline approaches.

Your strategy for gaining CP will revolve around three elements:

• How easy is it for you to travel to smaller tournaments (Premier Challenges and Midseason Showdowns)? 

Points from smaller events can add up quickly. However, you might not live in an area where you can attend that many events. In general, it isn’t sustainable to travel long distances for these events-- you should never plan to fly to one. If the closest small event is three or four hours from you, it might be challenging for small events to make up a chunk of your points. On the plus side, these tournaments usually take half a day at most from start to finish.

• How easy is it for you to travel to larger tournaments (Regionals and Internationals)?

Larger events award more points, but are less frequent, more expensive, and usually require travel. They also have a more substantial time cost, as a Regional will take up a whole weekend, and Internationals actually begin on Friday. Regionals are spread out evenly throughout each rating zone-- if you live in a central place in the US, you may have 3 or 4 Regionals within 8 hours of driving distance. There is only one International in each rating zone (North America, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania), so if you want to travel to an event outside your rating zone, it will take an entire weekend plus travel time-- and we don’t endorse flying across the world just to play Pokémon, so we’d recommend you make a trip out of it.

• How likely do you think you are to earn points at the events that you travel to?

This is the big question-- to know how many events to go to, you need to estimate how each event is going to go for you. Keep in mind that, while local tournaments may be small, there are plenty of strong players at any event that you will attend. However, large events are certainly more challenging. Our advice here is to see each tournament as an opportunity to gain points rather than viewing them transactionally. Go to enough tournaments to give yourself opportunities to earn the points that you’re going to need. It might be hard to estimate your tournament performance before you attend any-- you’ll learn to do this with time and practice. 

Here is the most common recipe to qualify to Worlds, but again, there is no correct path:

• Attend as many local PC/MSS events as you want to. The points from these events really do add up, and it’s worth trying to get as many points as you can with light travel. This will reduce pressure at larger events and potentially reduce the amount of Regionals you’ll have to play in. However, there’s no guarantee that the points from small events will be “easy”, and local tournaments are often casual but challenging.

• Attend 3-5 Regional events. Regionals are a good mid-level source of points, and you don’t have to reach Top Cut to slowly build your way to an invite. If you do manage to reach Top Cut of a regional, you’ll earn a lot of points. A Regional champion earns half of the points that they need for an invite.

• Attend your region zone’s International Championships. This tournament has the highest number of points for offer-- a 6-3 performance at Regionals might earn you 30 or 50 CP, but a 6-3 performance at Internationals might earn you 100 or more. However, International Championships are longer and often more challenging to get to, making them more costly. If you have the financial ability, attending more than one International can make qualifying a breeze.

Here is the “budget” qualification method:

• If you’re trying to qualify for Worlds on a budget, you will need to perform consistently well at your local events-- PCs and MSSes. 

• In general, it is not going to be possible or practical in most cases to qualify to Worlds off of only PCs and MSSes. You theoretically can get an invite off of mostly these points alone, but it’s challenging depending on how many players there are in your area.

• Don’t forget about the online International Challenges! These each award about as much as an MSS without overlapping on the Best Finish Limit. Furthermore, they’re free, and playable from your living room. The downside is that they’re rather challenging and a bit of a grind.

• If you’re close to a Regional, try to go to it.

• If you’re able to pick one “large” event to go to, pick an International-level tournament if you can. These events award much more points than Regionals, but you’ll only get one shot, so take the event seriously. 

What happens if my plan falls apart?

No plan is going to be 100% perfect, and if you find the season speeding by and you’re short of points, don’t worry-- it happens to everyone. No one can fully control the outcome of a Pokémon tournament. If you still have tournaments left, you never know how they’re going to go.

At this point, you might be considering booking additional travel to go to more large events to eke out the last points. We would again like to caution you to be aware of how booking last-minute Pokémon travel will affect you financially and mentally, and that there is no sure bet of points from any event. Remember that there is always next year-- VGC isn’t going away any time soon! Taking a step back from the circuit and regrouping can mean that you have more financial, time, and mental resources with which to approach the next season. 

What if I need a certain amount of points from a tournament to qualify?

You might find yourself in a position where you need a certain number of points from the last tournament you can attend before the July cutoff. Most often, this will be the North American International Championship, but if you can’t attend, your last tournament might be whatever last tournament you can go to before that.

Don’t panic. This situation happens to lots of people. If you need a high number of points from a large tournament to qualify for Worlds, you’ll need to work very hard. If you need a small number of points, we still recommend working hard-- however, you might want to take less risks with your tournament preparation. Play a team that you know inside and out that you trust yourself to perform with. 

Adjust either of these plans to your needs, and check out our cost guide.