Pokemon TCG Introduces Team Challenge Tournaments

The Pokemon Trading Card Game has introduced a new tournament mode that gives 4-person teams a chance to compete for official prizes. The new "Team Challenge" is a new virtual tournament held through Pokemon TCG Online that features 4-person teams formed through local game stores. The first tournament takes place in December and will run for a 6-month period with multiple phases. The first phase is an intra-store tournament to fill a store's team slots. Once a team is officially formed, they compete against other teams in an elimination bracket, with 3v3 round robin competitions against another team. Team play will start against other teams from the same city, with the winning team moving on to regional, national, and global levels if they win. The team play will continue through May 2021 when the two winning teams compete against each other in a Grand Final.

The new tournament mode is limited to the Masters Division (those 16 or older), and only players with a Pokemon Trainer Club account and a valid Pokemon Player ID can join a team. Prizes for the tournament include exclusive playmats, TCG Online prizes, and physical prizes for those who reach the top 8 teams.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game (like other organized play systems) has had to move online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The card game did introduce a new co-op Raid Battle mode that can be played online, and this new virtual system seems designed to help supplement organized play while keeping individual stores involved in the process. Because pre-sale tournaments and other weekly tournaments can't take place in most stores due to social gathering restrictions, the Play Pokemon organized play has halted all in-person organized play events out of fairness.

You can register to participate in the Team Challenge tournament here.