{"id":99218,"date":"2019-08-27T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/08\/feature_pokemon_world_championships_2019_bidding_farewell_to_the_nintendo_3ds"},"modified":"2019-08-27T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T13:30:00","slug":"feature-pokemon-world-championships-2019-bidding-farewell-to-the-nintendo-3ds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/08\/27\/feature-pokemon-world-championships-2019-bidding-farewell-to-the-nintendo-3ds\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Pok\u00e9mon World Championships 2019: Bidding Farewell To The Nintendo 3DS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pok\u00e9mon is an ever-changing beast, but there is currently one constant: The Pok\u00e9mon World Championships. This year was the 16th event and it was the biggest one to date, with over 8,000 people in attendance. This did cause some delays in starting the Opening Ceremony as people were still outside, but after that, everything went off without much of a hitch.<\/p>\n

This year, it returned to Washington D.C. and went with a rather clever theme: Museums, to tie in with the local Smithsonian establishments. This meant that we saw life-size fossils of Tyrantrum and Bastiodon on the stage and various other additions to the motif \u2013 a very cool feature.<\/p>\n

What are the Pok\u00e9mon World Championships?<\/h3>\n
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For those that don\u2019t know, the Pok\u00e9mon World Championships is an annual event and a culmination of all three competitive arms of Pok\u00e9mon: the Pok\u00e9mon video game series, the Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game<\/a> and the fighting game Pokk\u00e9n Tournament<\/a><\/strong>. Over the past year, players have been going to various events around the world to earn Championship Points to get an invite to the World Championships.<\/p>\n

The World Championships kicked off on Friday to win a place for Day 2 on Saturday, where the top players in each region have already gained an invite. From there, the Top 8 players in each age division battled in a ‘Top Cut’ until there were two players each. Those players then battled on the Sunday for the grand finals. Anyone could come to the event to watch as well, if they had bought a Spectator Pass.<\/p>\n

This year was also notable as it added a fourth arm into the World Championships, with the Pok\u00e9mon GO<\/a><\/strong> Invitational involving 8 players who were invited to play in a tournament. This included 2 staff members from Game Freak, 5 Youtubers and 1 person who applied for an invite.<\/p>\n

The Pok\u00e9mon Center<\/h3>\n
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Once again, the Pok\u00e9mon World Championships opened with a Pok\u00e9mon Center store. This opened on the Thursday and contained a variety of merchandise \u2013 typically all Pok\u00e9mon Center-exclusive \u2013 as well as a lot of gear that was totally exclusive to the Pok\u00e9mon World Championships itself. This year, with the motif being ‘museums’, that theme was clearly seen in the merchandise. There were exclusive plushes of Pikachu, Eevee and Piplup, deck boxes, card sleeves, hoodies, t-shirts and much, much more. We dread to think how much coinage was spent during the event.<\/p>\n

While many items were on sale, competitors also got a unique competitor bag which contained even more exclusive items \u2013 including accessory pouches, water bottles and luggage tags, all with the 2019 motif on them.<\/p>\n

Announcements<\/h3>\n

Pok\u00e9mon World Championships have become famous for their annual announcements. Since 2013, there has always been something announced for the Pok\u00e9mon franchise, and this year was no different, bringing two different reveals.<\/p>\n

First up was the reveal of Pok\u00e9mon V-Cards in the Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game. These cards replace Pok\u00e9mon GX as of the Pok\u00e9mon Sword & Shield expansion with some currently unknown mechanics, including V-MAX cards. Only Zacian-V and Zamazenta-V were shown.<\/p>\n

For the Pok\u00e9mon main series games, Pok\u00e9mon Sword & Shield<\/a><\/strong>, unlike past years a new Pok\u00e9mon was not unveiled. Instead, they took the opportunity to showcase some of the more competitive aspects of the upcoming games, showing focus on new moves, items and abilities that are sure to be seen more over the next year. It was also confirmed that Pok\u00e9mon Sword & Shield will be the games played in the 2020 Pok\u00e9mon World Championships.<\/p>\n

What was there to do?<\/h3>\n

If you weren\u2019t competing in the Pok\u00e9mon World Championships, then there may be a question of what there is to do at the Pok\u00e9mon World Championships? Other than watching matches, this year was filled to the brim with even more activities than ever before.<\/p>\n

As usual there were side events for Pok\u00e9mon VGC and TCG. The big one was the DC Open, one of the first competitions of the 2019\/2020 season and a quick opportunity for players to earn points towards next year\u2019s competition. However, there were also standard VGC pick-up events and TCG pre-release style tournaments. These all gave various prize points that could be exchanged at the prize wall for a myriad of prizes, including plushes and playmats.<\/p>\n

New to this year, there was also Pok\u00e9mon GO Trainer Battle side events where players entered a tournament in Pok\u00e9mon GO\u2019s PvP mode, as well as a Pok\u00e9mon GO scavenger hunt where you had to complete multiple tasks in order to win special Pok\u00e9mon GO related prizes of T-Shirts, Flasks and more.<\/p>\n