‘Incredibly positive changes’ to broken Pokémon pro circuit has players celebrating

Play! Pokémon is making huge changes to the competitive Pokémon VGC circuit for 2024, and pro players couldn’t be happier.

The 2023 Pokémon World Championship is right around the corner, with the best Scarlet and Violet VGC players busy prepping and finding the perfect teams to bring to the event in Yokohama, Japan. It is pencilled in to start on Aug. 11.

Today, their Worlds prep was interrupted by a pleasant surprise; interesting changes for the 2024 season, including one that has everyone very hype.

The Pokémon circuit is introducing a new tier system for Worlds invitations and will be removing day two invites altogether. Effective next season, regional winners and international finalists will automatically be invited to Worlds, and the overall Championship Point bar has been raised in order to qualify for Worlds.

However, players are most excited about the removal of the day two Worlds invites, as the race for those highly sought-after tickets was stressful and unrealistic for many competitors in the circuit. Only the top few players from each region would earn day two invites, and that would give them a huge advantage at Worlds since they’d completely avoid potential elimination on day one.

Even top players like Gavin Michaels and Paul Chua, who earned their day two invites this year, said they are stoked about the changes.

This comes after a long and exhausting VGC season with players attending as many regional and international tournaments as possible to secure day one and day two invites to Worlds. Even then, some of the best players failed to earn invites—including Justin Tang, who won two regionals and had a fantastic first season all around.

But with the stress of day two invites gone, players are feeling both liberated and optimistic for the 2024 season.

But, while most of the world can celebrate this W for the VGC community, the new changes in the Play! Pokémon program don’t necessarily reflect how the controversial circuits in Asia will be structured next year since they follow different sets of rules. Players from Asian regions have been asking The Pokémon Company (TPC) and TPC Korea to make changes in their respective circuits all season after a series of disqualifications, bans, miscommunication, and tension between players and the company.

For now, Pokémon players in Asia are still waiting to see if their efforts will also result in some positive changes to their circuit specifically.