Pokemon Live Events Returning in Early 2022, Competitive Pokemon Go Added

Pokemon has announced plans to restart its live tournament circuit. Starting in "early 2022," The Pokemon Company will again start running Pokemon Premier Events. These events will give Pokemon fans a chance to play in four different competitive formats, focused on Pokemon Sword and Shield (aka the Pokemon VGC), the Pokemon Trading Card Game, Pokken Tournament DX, and for the first time ever Pokemon Go. All players who earned points in the cancelled 2020 season will have their points transferred over for the 2022 season. A full schedule of events has not been announced, but the European Championship is confirmed to take place in April 2022.

The Pokemon Company cancelled its 2020 season after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic back in March. When it became clear that the spread of COVID would not be reduced to suitable levels, the company pre-emptively cancelled the 2021 season as well. While The Pokemon Company has kept some of its online tournaments available for players to enjoy, players haven't had an "official" championship in nearly two years. The 2022 World Championship is currently scheduled to take place in London, England (which would have been the site of the 2020 and 2021 tournaments.)

One notable change is that The Pokemon Company is instituting a mandate for the COVID-19 vaccine. In order to participate in official Pokemon events, all participants must be vaccinated. 

The 2022 season will mark the first time that The Pokemon Company is organizing a competitive Pokemon Go circuit. Registration for these events will open in late January. Players will need to achieve Legend Rank in Season 9 in order to access early registration for the first batch of events. Like other competitions, the Pokemon Go league will have Senior and Master age brackets. All competitions will also use the Great League format of play that limits Pokemon to having a CP of 1,500 or less. The Great League is probably the most intriguing and fun of Pokemon Go's GO Battle League formats, mostly because players can't just use Legendary Pokemon to bludgeon their way to victory.

Expect more news to be announced about the 2022 slate of tournaments soon.