Pokemon Doubles Prize Pools for Competitive Tournaments

The Pokemon World Championships is getting a big increase in its prize pools, with the prize pool doubling in value and the winners receiving a much larger prize. Today, The Pokemon Company announced some big changes to its Regional, International, and World Championship tournaments, with the prize pools doubling in size across just about every level of competition. Notably, the prizes for both the VGC and TCG tournaments have received big bumps. The winner of a regional TCG tournament will receive $10,000 (was previously $5,000), while a VGC winner will receive $6,000 (was previously $3,000.) Additionally, the winners of an International Championship TCG tournament will receive $25,000 (was previously $10,000) while the winner of the VGC tournament will receive $15,000 (was previously $5,000). The winners of the World Championships will now receive $50,000 if they win the TCG Masters Tournament and $30,000 if they win the VGC Masters Tournament, both of which are double the amount of the 2023 grand prize. 

By contrast, the winner of the Magic World Championships and the Flesh and Blood World Championships each receives $100,000. However, both of those games typically support only one level of play and have a smaller overall prize pool, while Pokemon's larger prize pool is divided between four different tournaments, two of which have three separate age divisions. 

Pokemon International Championships Dates and Locations

Additionally, The Pokemon Company announced the dates and locations for three International Championships, including the North American International Championship. The Latin America International Championships will take place in São Paulo, the Europe International Championships will take place in London and the North America International Championships in New Orleans. The North America International Championships marks a major shift in both the date and location – the North America International Championships had taken place in Columbus, OH for the last four years, with a date in late June. This year's North America International Championships takes place several weeks earlier, from June 7th through June 9th.

Additional details about this year's competitive Pokemon tournaments can be found here.