Pokemon's biggest weekend of the year lands in San Francisco from August 28 to 30. If you only dip into competitive Pokemon once a year, this is the one to watch, and there's a genuine change to the format this time.
This is the first World Championships where the video game side (VGC) is played on Pokemon Champions, the dedicated battle game that launched back in April on Switch and Switch 2. No more running the sport's premier event inside the newest mainline RPG. Champions is built for exactly this, with the team-building and ladder tools competitive players have wanted for years.
There's a giveaway angle too
Alongside the tournament, The Pokemon Company is running a crossover: from August 28, players can visit a PokemonXP and Worlds Cloud Island inside Pokemon Pokopia, the laid-back island game that's already past five million sales. Access codes go out during the PokemonXP event the week after. It's a soft bit of cross-promotion, sure, but a free island to poke around isn't the worst deal.
The main show streams over the weekend on Pokemon's official channels. If you want to see what the best VGC players do with Champions before you try it yourself, block out the 28th.
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