Pokémon Sword and Shield competitions will start before 2020. South Korea is set to host the prestigious first tournament for the new games next month.
The tournament will begin on Dec. 15 and will use the VGC 2020 ruleset. It’ll be the first time that the Sword and Shield titles will reward points for the 2020 World Championship, which will be held in London at the end of next year.
T1’s new Pokémon pro, 2014 world champion Park Se-jun, translated certain details about the event on social media, confirming that matches at the venue will be Ranked Double Battles. He also revealed that the tournament falls under the Korean League season one.
Other venues across the world are expected to pick up Sword and Shield as the main VGC title from January onward. The World Championship will also be played on Sword and Shield, even though the 2019-2020 season has been rewarding points for those still playing Ultra Sun and Moon for the last few months.
This announcement officially means that as of Dec. 15, the 3DS and Pokémon handheld games will stop being the competitive console and titles for the series for the first time. The series and the games will move to the Nintendo Switch moving forward.
