It's official – Pokemon's competitive video game scene will "make the shift to Pokemon Champions" at next year's World Championships tournament.
Pokemon Champions was unveiled earlier this year, and basically looked like a modern Pokemon Stadium that'll be playable across Switch 2, Switch, and mobile devices. You can fight with your actual Pokemon that you've trained up from the main-series games, or new recruits from Champions itself.
Up until now, official Pokemon VGC – including big tournaments like the World Championships – has always taken place in the most up-to-date main series games, like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. From next year, though, that will no longer be the case, as Pokemon reiterates that Champions is set to be "the one-stop shop for everyone interested in Pokemon battles."
"The Pokemon World Championships is the peak of competitive Pokemon play, and Pokemon Champions will soon be a part of that," an official press release reveals. "Pokemon VGC battles will take place on Pokemon Champions at the 2026 Pokemon World Championships in San Francisco and in future Championship Series events."
It's worth noting that the Champions website adds that "in certain regions, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet may be used for Championship Series events."
While the VGC's move to Champions might not sound like a big deal if you're not someone who actually attends the big tournaments, this may have a bigger impact than you'd expect. One former Pokemon world champion, Wolfe "Wolfey" Glick, already predicted when Champions was announced that it could "change the way that Pokemon operates forever," with the potential to divide the mainline games from the competitive scene.
Up until now, games like Scarlet and Violet have had to remain balanced enough for things to work in a competitive format, but that also has a knock-on effect on the single-player experience, and potentially limits what you can do to spice up the battle format for casual players. As Wolfey suggested before, if this is the way forward, it could allow the devs to "make changes independently" to both the competitive and casual sides of the series. This is pure speculation, but it could even allow things like Pokemon Legends: Z-A's real-time battles to become more of a mainstay option in future releases. We'll just have to wait and see.
In the latest flurry of news, it was also confirmed that Ranked Battles are coming to Pokemon Champions, and that Mega Evolutions will take the stage in "the first set" of rules. It was previously revealed that battle "gimmicks" like Terastalization and Z-Moves were set to return, and we now know that players will have an "Omni Ring" item to facilitate all this.
"The first set of Ranked Battles rules will allow your Pokemon to Mega Evolve, further amping the intensity!" the press release states. "Trainers in Pokemon Champions wear a device known as an Omni Ring, which functions as a Key Stone necessary for Mega Evolution – and it seems like it may support other special battle features in the future. Stay tuned for more!"
