2025 Championship Series Mid-Season Update - Nov 11, 2024
Greetings, Trainers! With the 2025 Championship Series properly kicked off and underway, our team has since been diligently working behind the scenes in monitoring player sentiment and considering adjustments to the program. We sincerely thank you for submitting your feedback as you engage with our events in the interest of improving the player experience for all.
The 2025 season brought a number of changes to the Championship Series program, including the re-introduction of the Asymmetric Top Cut. Since its implementation at the Regional level, we have seen a number of players express the following point of feedback:
“We used to play 15 rounds of Swiss before Top Cut in the 2024 Season - why was this reduced to 12 rounds for events of the same size?”
We understand that some players who attend events at the Regional level dedicate a substantial amount of resources to travel and want to make the most of their trip by playing as many rounds of Pokémon as possible. We acknowledge that this reduction in the number of total Swiss rounds in Phase 1 (Day 1) conflicts with that desired experience.
The Pokémon Championship Series has been and is continuing to grow rapidly - since the 2025 Lille Regional Championships, we have seen an increase in the average number of TCG players checked in at the Regional level, which has more than doubled as compared to 2 seasons ago. While we are enthused to see more fans engaging with competitive Pokémon, this growth is also met with a set of challenges – particularly with venue time constraints when considering the average length of TCG Swiss Format Best-of-3s at roughly 80 minutes per round.
We chose to re-introduce the Asymmetric Top Cut to help prevent a significant number of players from “bubbling out” despite a strong performance throughout the event based on factors beyond their control (e.g. opponent win-rates). However, Asymmetric Top Cut requires additional rounds to complete in some scenarios and therefore impacts the total number of Swiss rounds that can be scheduled per day. Considering the aforementioned venue time constraints, this has resulted in a need for the number of rounds for Phase 1 of Swiss (Day 1) to be reduced from 15 to 12 for divisions with 1,025 to 2,048 competitors.
Upcoming Changes
With the community feedback in mind, we want to ensure that players can feel fulfilled in their tournament experience beyond aiming to become that event’s Champion. In the current format, it is possible that some Trainers in Swiss Phase 2 (Day 2) could go undefeated, but overall their full-event performance won’t qualify them for Asymmetric Top Cut. In order to give more choice to the players to continue competing even if they’ve already lost too many rounds to make Top Cut, we are lowering the required number of Swiss Match Points to qualify for Swiss Phase 2 (Day 2) by 2 points.
This change will go into effect on Monday, November 17th, for TCG and VGC competition for the remainder of the 2025 Season. This includes the 2025 World Championships in Anaheim. This change will first come into effect at the 2025 Sacramento Regional Championships, and will not impact League Cups and Challenges.
For more information, please visit this article detailing these adjustments:
We are aware that there are additional concerns regarding our current tournament structure and acknowledge that the changes announced today may not address them all. Please be assured that we are always evaluating ways to make improvements while considering the logistics side, and are taking that feedback into consideration when planning future updates. We thank you again for your continued support and care for the Championships Series program and its players, and look forward to a closer partnership with you in curating a positive experience for all competitors and fans.
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