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Structure of the 2024 Season

The 2024 Play! Pokémon season will start on September 2023 and will come to an end at the 2024 World Championships in Honolulu.

On this page, you can find all info regarding event types and qualification for the World Championships. Keep in mind that all information is subject to change at TPCi’s discretion. To check out the information on rules & regulations of VGC battles, check this page.

One World, Three Systems

Official Pokémon tournaments happen all around the world, but are managed by different entities and thus are ruled by different standards.

  • The Pokémon Company International (TPCi): handles events in Europe, North America, Latin America, Oceania, the Middle East-South Africa and Russia. The events are under the Play! Pokémon program. All events grant Championship Points (CP), and major events may also hand out prizes as cash money or scholarships, trophies and other Pokémon exclusive merchandise.

  • The Pokémon Company (TPC): handles events in Japan and South East Asia.

  • Pokémon Korea (TPCK): handles events in South Korea.

While all tournaments follow roughly the same structure (events are played using the Double Battles Video Game Championships, or VGC, format), there are major differences on the availability of events, as well as ways of qualifying to the World Championships.

Results on one system do not carry out to the others, and some events are also locked to residents of specific countries. However, all TPCi events are available to players from other regions, and they can still opt in for the prize money, but not the Championship Points.

On this page, we cover and summarize all info available for all three systems, with a main emphasis on the Play! Pokémon program, since it’s the one available to most regions.

Types of Events

The 2024 season is made up of events happening in all 5 continents. These events are divided into two main categories: major events and local events.

  • Major events:

    • Play! Pokémon: International Championships, hosted directly by TPCi, as well as Regional Championships and Special Events, hosted by outsourcer companies.

    • TPC/TPCK: National Championships, which usually have an online qualifier event locked for residents, as well as Regional Championships in some regions, like Taiwan.

  • Local events:

    • Play! Pokémon: Midseason Showdowns and Premier Challenges, which are events run by volunteer organizers that allow newer players and smaller communities to take part of the game. These events do also grant Championship Points, and may grant prizes at each organizer’s discretion.

    • TPC/TPCK: there’s no local events for these regions announced at the moment.

 

Age Divisions

The Play! Pokémon program separates players into three age divisions: Juniors (JR), Seniors (SR), and Masters (MA).

The age division that a player belongs to is set at the beginning of the season, based on the year of birth, and does not change over the course of that season. This allows players to compete against the same pool of opponents during the entire season.

These are the age divisions for the 2024 season:

  • Juniors: born in 2012 or later

  • Seniors: born in 2008 to 2011

  • Masters: born in 2007 or earlier

This distinction is not always used at non-TPCi regions, such as South East Asia, but it’s normally used at the World Championships.

 

Event Prizes

Championship Points (CP)

Events in the Play! Pokémon program award Championship Points (CP) to the best players at each tournament.

These points allow players to qualify for the World Championships depending on their season-long amount, as well as obtain Travel Awards for International Championships based on the amount of points obtained during specific time periods.

However, CP depend on the event’s kicker and best finish limit:

  • Best Finish Limit (BFL) is the maximum amount of tournaments of a same kind, such as Regionals and Special Events, that are counted towards the total ranking of the season. For example, if BFL of a type of tournament is 2, only the 2 best results that a player has in that type of tournament are counted.

    • However, even if a player does not obtain any seasonal CP from an event type after maxing it out, they may obtain quarterly CP towards their International Championships Travel Awards.

  • Kicker is the minimum amount of players that need to participate in any given tournament so that players with lower standings get CP. For example, if the kicker for top 8 to get CP at a tournament type is 17, it means that top 8 finishers will only get CP if there were at least 17 participants in the tournament.

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