Pokemon Worlds Invite Changes 2025: What They Mean for Players

Photo credit: Pokemon Company International

After many rumors about big changes coming to the Pokemon TCG competitive scene began swirling about, the Pokemon Company more or less confirmed those rumors in a lengthy post published on June 27, 2024. While much of interest to Pokemon TCG players was announced in the post, the most jarring change introduced by the Pokemon Company has to do with changes made to the World’s invite system. Namely, there will no longer be a championship points threshold for players to qualify for the most prestigious Pokemon tournament in the world. Instead, each region will have a limited number of qualifiers taken from only the very top players with the most championship points.

In this article, I’ll be looking at the background and context of why this is such a major change, and evaluating what it means for players. Additionally, we’ll be taking a look at the bigger picture of what the Pokemon Championship Series is all about, and the significance not only to players but to Pokemon TCG customers and even the Pokemon Company themselves.

Why removing the championship points threshold is a big deal

First of all, if you aren’t already in the know or maybe new to the Pokemon TCG, you may not get what the big deal is. So Pokemon removed the CP threshold. What’s the deal?

Well, it’s actually a very, very big deal, and here’s why.

With a CP threshold, players of all backgrounds had what appeared to be a chance at qualifying for Worlds. All you had to do, after all, was reach 600 CP. That’s doable, right?

Well, only a couple hundred players from thousands actually qualified for worlds under this former system. In reality, that 600 CP bar while sounding attainable on paper really was still only attainable for a certain number of people. Still, if you played well enough, and were consistent at tournaments, you had some odds of making it.

Removing that threshold makes the attempt at World’s significantly more challenging. People will be absolutely duking it out for those top spots on the CP ladder, and will undoubtedly do whatever it takes to end up on top. This also means hightened levels of competition up to the very end of the season. Before you might have been able to sit back and relax after hitting your 600 CP number. Now, however, you’re going to be grinding to the very end to make sure you don’t lose your spot.

Just to give you an idea of how difficult this was: half the number of players will be qualifying for next year’s worlds as those that qualified this year. Essentially, I would say it will be at least twice as hard to make World’s next year as it was the previous. Getting into World’s has really become no joke.

We need to face it: Pokemon TCG is a big deal now

With massive prizes handed out at tournaments (players are now playing for $50,000 for the first place prize at Worlds and even smaller regional tournaments have generous prize payouts), events drawing thousands and thousands of players, Pokemon TCG has surpassed what anyone might have thought was possible, and could very well be considered a mainstream “sport” now given its broad appeal, professional circuit, and growing fanbase.

To me, that’s bittersweet. I love the Pokemon TCG and I want to see it grow. I saw that it had the potential to be a major “sport” when I got back into it during he pandemic and saw the excitement for the game. To me, the competitive scene becoming more exclusive and more competitive only goes to show that Pokemon TCG is becoming just as big as other, similar competitive events out there.

However, with that change I lost just about any chance I had of ever qualifying for World’s (not that I had ever tried before but I still fantasized about it sometimes like most serious players). Wether I’m good or not, I simply don’t have the time to compete at that level with pro Pokemon TCG players for the top spot, and my only chance really of making it would be to win a Regional (something which is very unlikely to happen just statistically).

Any major sport has insane and demanding qualificiations to make it to the very top, and a difficult field of competitors to face in hopes of achieving your goal. Why should Pokemon be any different? We may have lost the illusion that World’s could conceivably be for anybody, but we have also seen Pokemon TCG’s ascendency as a serious card game.

Getting to worlds will require a professional level of investment and certainly there is no doubt that if you are at world’s you are a serious, pro player.

What is the Pokemon Company’s motivation in the change?

I don’t know the Pokemon Company personally so I can only make my best guess here as to why they would be making this change. For starters, it can be hard for players who are so entrenched in strategies and meta analysis to remember what it is that The Pokemon Company is. They are a company selling products to consumers. Their main business is and will always be that: selling products. They aren’t an event company, they aren’t a sports company or league – they’re a company selling products.

So how does making this change benefit them?

Well, I can think of several reasons. First of all, I don’t think they make very much money off of their competitive events. Indeed, they may not make money at all. Again, I’m considering this from the perspective of a billion dollar enterprise. Even if they made like a million bucks or so from events that still wouldn’t be a huge deal to them.

Events are cheap to attend, but think of the insane overhead involved with events. You have to pay staff, you have to rent the building, and on top of all that you have to pay out cash prizes

So why then does the Pokemon Company even bother with the competitive side of things?

The Championship Series that is the entire world to many players is mostly a marketing tool in the hands of Pokemon. For them, it exists to promote the game and the cards. That’s the entire reason for why Pokemon runs these events. If they didn’t think that these events would help improve their card sales they would drop them in an instant.

From their perspective, it doesn’t really matter if the professional scene grows. They may make some money from their events but if the professional scene were to be reduced by half, they could maybe book smaller venues, employ less staff, and reduce their costs by half. As long as it didn’t hurt sales numbers, it would be a non-issue.

The World Championship is likely a particularly costly event because they actually have to fly people out to that one and pay for their expenses, and the players playing there get in for free so they aren’t making money off of entrance fees.

All that being said, the Pokemon TCG competitive scene becoming more competitive might just raise its profile – making bigger stars out of those people who can afford to play at the highest level, and increase interest in the competitive side of the card game – thereby further increasing sales. So making this change seems like a win-win scenario for The Pokemon Company.

I’m not saying that the Pokemon Company is either good or bad for taking this approach – I’m just highlighting their business model lest we forget what their motivations are.

Taking on the championship series requires a huge investment in time and money

There’s a lot of frustration currently over the championship series, with many people claiming only rich kids can pursue a World’s invite. There’s some truth to this – it’s certainly expensive to travel the world, pay for hotels and meals, to attend Pokemon tournaments in hopes of maybe getting an invite.

More expensive than that cost, however, is the cost in time. How many weekends have to be given over to the pursuit of League Cups, regionals, and evenings during the week to challenges?

That doesn’t even include the amount of time spent learning the meta, building decks and practicing (you don’t win tournaments or place well without all of that).

Those that have the money to pursue the Championship Series may not have the time, and those with the time may not have the money. This change has only made both of those investments bigger – indeed I would guess the time and money commitment to pursue World’s after this change has doubled based on the fact World’s qualifiers from North America will be cut in half.

There are relatively few people who can justify this kind of commitment, and far fewer who will actually profit from it.

Much in the same way you have to consider the insane overhead involved with these sorts of events for the Pokemon Company, you have to consider the overhead to competitive players. Think about how well they would have to do in order to see a profit from their investment in time and money from tournament winnings alone. My guess is even among those top players who qualify for world’s only a tiny fraction of them are making more money via a combination of endorsements, peripheral activities and prize earnings to make the chase economically beneficial.

How will competitive Pokemon TCG play differ moving forward?

While it’s impossible to know how these changes will impact the competitive Pokemon TCG scene, I do have a few predictions.

First, the number of players at smaller events will decrease. League Cups and Challenges only offer players a chance to earn CP and most moderate to casual players won’t be bothering with CP anymore after this change.

Meanwhile, local tournaments offering cash prizes or their own limited series will get more popular. As more time is freed up from not attending league cups and challenges, those players will be looking for other ways to test their metal and get bigger prizes than they would get from just a local Pokemon sanctioned tournament.

Ironically, the local Pokemon scene could very much benefit from these changes.

At the same time, bigger events like Regionals and Internationals will still see insane levels of competitors because of the fact that top finishers can get an automatic World’s invite.

Indeed, the entire Pokemon competitive scene will shift towards these bigger events, and people will likely brag just as much about being a top finisher at NAIC or being a regional champ as getting a World’s invite.

These achievements will become massive markers in their own right of a serious player.

Lastly, the Pokemon TCG will continue on making a healthy growth towards being a major competitive card game bolstered by an incredibly difficult ultimate championships.

These changes may be difficult for many Pokemon players and fans. Ultimately, however, they were undoubtedly necessary for a game that is growing, and inevitable as it becomes entrenched as one of (if not the top) trading card games in the world.