The Triumph and Tragedy of Competing in the Pokémon World Championships

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

You’re reading the sixth chapter of my eight-day travelog recounting my unbelievable trip to Japan to cover the 2023 Pokémon World Championships.

Day 6 – The Competition (and the Weather) Heats Up

7:00 am – I have some hot tea with honey with my breakfast lasagna. My voice seems to be holding up alright.

7:20 am – I meet up with the media group and get ready to take a tour of the main stage.

7:30 am – We’re taken up on the Worlds main stage, pose for a group picture, and are told we have 30 minutes to explore. And boy is there a lot to see! The Worlds stages traditionally feature iconic elements of the hosting city and have grown in elaborateness over the years. I remember being blown away seeing the Washington, D.C. Worlds stage that had the giant skeletons of Fossil Pokémon.

The Yokohama stage is massive and features the main presentation area and four distinct zones to spotlight each game, each one styled after a different season. Signature Yokohama landmarks such as the Cosmo Clock 21 ferris wheel and the Yokohama Landmark Tower. The stage looks spectacular from the crowd but getting to see the craftsmanship up close makes me appreciate little details, like how different colored seasonal leaves from each of the four sections come together in the center where the presenter stands. Walking the stage from end to end feels like going to a Pokémon theme park, with standees of different Pokémon like Mew and Squirtle scattered about, and much like Disney World and Universal Studios, I feel a pang of sadness when we’re told we have to leave.

My last stop is the TCG table that I’ve seen a hundred times from afar on stream, so it feels surreal to actually stand in front of it. I sit down in the padded chair and run my hands across the desk marked with the TCG playzones and wonder if I’ll ever make a successful Worlds run and get to play here one day. Yeah, when Tepigs fly.

9:10 am – We wrap up and exit the stage. As we walk to our next activity, Cody from ScreenRant tells me he noticed I really seem to enjoy breakfast more than the average person.

9:52 am – We brave the relentless heat once more and head to Pokémon Matsuri Park.

We’re attending a Japanese-styled summer festival at Rinko Park. We arrive to see a large, wooden tower topped with a huge Poké Ball, which is standing in the center of a grassy field. It’s covered with Pokémon decorations and is known as a yagura stage. Atop the tower is a taiko drummer pounding away, and a woman starts the Bon Show by singing a cute Pokémon song for the kids in attendance, instructing them to parade around the tower and perform some Pikachu dance moves. It’s the cutest thing in the world. But it’s so hot and humid that it’s unbearable, and we retreat under a tree across the field and watch from afar.

It’s marginally better under the tree. My clothes are so drenched with sweat they’re sticking to my body and I’m feeling a little light-headed.

A Pokémon rep encourages us to try some of the Pokémon-themed carnival games, such as Poké Ball Throw or Magikarp Fishing, and I see that the heat isn’t stopping the kids, so what excuse do I have? We stand in line for about 30 minutes to try our hand at Voltorb’s Rollout, where we have three tries to roll a Voltorb down an obstacle course without letting it fall off and land it in the goal. I manage to succeed on the final try and as my prize to myself I immediately head over to the Full Restore Tents where there’s shade and misting fans, aka Heaven on Earth.

11:30 am – Mercifully, we’re done with the festival and I return to the hotel to take the coldest shower of my life yet somehow still feel warm.

12:40 pm – I head to the media room inside the convention center and eat some little sandwiches for lunch, then we get ready for our interview with someone who has only been described as a “special guest.”

1:00 pm – That special guest, as it turns out, is The Pokémon Company COO Takato Utsunomiya. He’s wearing glasses, a nice suit with a black and yellow checkered tie, and a white shirt dotted with little Unowns. We’re speaking to him through a translator but it’s clear to see he has a good sense of humor. He laughs and smiles a lot and is full of little anecdotes about his life and his experiences with Pokémon.

He says that his first Worlds was in Hawaii back in 2010, and he was moved by how amazing the show was and had wanted to bring it to Japan ever since. Now, 13 years later, his dream is finally realized. However, he says that bringing Worlds to Japan was very challenging, and I get the impression that it isn’t likely to happen again, at least not anytime soon. This makes me appreciate how special this trip is even more than before. Talk turns to whether Pokémon is “beholden” to a certain release schedule, and he says The Pokémon Company is currently having conversations about its constant release schedule. And with that, our Q&A is over.

2:30 pm – I head back down to the tournament hall and bump into French player and Pokémon TCG champion Stéphane Ivanoff. He talks to me about how Worlds is usually held in North America but he really appreciates how it’s now being held in other places around the world. He says coming here to Japan shows him how Pokémon is still a huge phenomenon among the Japanese people, and he’s seen tons of people outside the venue wearing Pikachu stuff and participating in the activities, even if they’re not involved in the competition. He’s wowed by how the city of Yokohama has been transformed for Worlds and says how nice it is to see Pokémon recognized outside of the tournament hall. All this makes him proud to be a competitor.

3:00 pm – I continue my lap around the hall and meet a staff member named Demarcus. He has multiple Pokémon plushies resting on his hat and shoulders and says he’s really enjoying helping run the event. He tells me that Japan is not built for tall people. He says he has to crouch to take a shower, get through doorways, or even walk down the hall. He looks to be about 6’5, if not more. I can totally see what he means.

3:10 pm – Earlier I requested an interview through Pokémon, and now it’s time. I meet up with a Pokémon rep and they introduce me to Diane Schemanske. I had heard some buzz about her on Twitter, where she’s known as “The Best Schemanske,” so I wanted to write an article about her unique experience. She and her son Alex both qualified to compete in the Pokémon TCG World Championship. A mother-son duo is incredibly rare in the Pokémon competitive scene.

She shares the story of how she started playing the same time her kids did, 13 years ago, and always traveled around the world with them to compete. Alex went on to become a multi-time Pokémon champion. Diane had come close to earning enough Championship Points several times before, and this year she finally crossed the finish line, earning her a spot to play in the prestigious tournament alongside her son.

She tells me she got four wins and four losses and was knocked out on the first day of the competition, but that didn’t matter to her because she was proud of herself for making it here and had fun playing and getting to know her opponents. I think about how any competitive gaming scene would be a bit better if more people had Diane’s attitude.

3:43 pm – I pop outside to grab a drink from a vending machine, although I barely have any idea what I’m ordering and wind up with a fizzy apple drink with a bitter aftertaste.

I see a Japanese couple playing on a window ledge next to the elevator. Miraidon ex versus Chien-Pao/Baxcalibur. I don’t see them wearing badges so I ask what brings them here, and they say they weren’t able to get into the event but they just wanted to come play and have fun.

3:50 pm – A man stops me to ask for directions to the Pokémon store and I point him down to the far end of the convention center. There’s a massive line of people, you can’t miss it. I ask him what brings him to the tournament. He says he and his girlfriend are from Taiwan but they live in Japan. He works at a local Pokémon card shop and came to Worlds to see if he could buy a pair of spectator badges to watch some games inside the hall, but they’re so expensive that he hasn’t been able to secure them yet. He says even if they don’t get inside, he’s just happy to be here because he’s been a fan of Pokémon since childhood and it’s really cool to be here and see famous players walking around. I wish them luck on getting inside. It seems like they’d really enjoy it.

4:35 pm – I make my way back inside and watch a Pokémon TCG match. I’m sitting next to a couple from France wearing spectator badges. They tell me they’ve always wanted to visit Japan and are huge Pokémon fans, so they planned a trip around Worlds, then they’ll explore the rest of the country. They say they went to Worlds in London last year, and it was fun, but nothing compares to the hype generated by the Japanese people because they’re so passionate about Pokémon. I ask where they’d like to see Worlds next year and they say Paris. I should have seen that coming.

6:40 pm – The second day of Worlds is starting to wrap up, with finalists being decided for each division. Pokémon Unite will decide a winner tonight, but the rest of the finalists will battle it out for the top prize tomorrow. The TCG Masters tournament seems to be running long, so I go hang out by the top tables to see which players are in contention for top cut. A big group of people starts to form to watch the final round of Swiss and I look around to see it’s a murderer’s row of Pokémon TCG talent. Lots of top players who were knocked out of the contest but stuck around the venue to root for their teammates.

I see a handful of judges are huddled around Table 3, which is usually a sign that a rule was broken and they’re deliberating on what the penalty should be. A friendly guy fills me in on what’s happening and it turns out to be Isiah Cheville, Pokémon TCG champion extraordinaire. He explains that one of the players received a Double Prize Penalty for making a gameplay error. Even though I’d never met Isiah before, I’ve read his articles on PokeBeach.com and tried out some of his decks. The chance meeting reminds me of how big Pokémon events like Worlds brings people together who would otherwise never meet.

A match with one of Isiah’s friends named Ras Wolpe finishes. Ras didn’t get the win, and as he exits the play area he looks absolutely devastated. Who could blame him? Isiah gives him a big, long hug.

6:55 pm – I see Sam Chen finishing up his final match and race over to finally get a look at what he’s playing. Mew VMAX. One of my guesses was right, after all!

7:15 pm – I go to the main stage and see a massive crowd has gathered for the Pokémon Unite grand finals. I used to play Pokémon Unite religiously but fell off months ago so I’m seeing newer Pokémon like Lapras and Umbreon in action for the first time. The entire weekend, North American team Luminosity dominated the tournament, and they made quick work of their opponents in the finals, claiming the first Pokémon World Championship title of the weekend and taking home $100,000 in prize money for the whole team. Maybe I should pick up the game again.

7:58 pm – I run into Australian player Henry Brand, winner of the 2019 Pokémon TCG World Championship. I ask him if he feels a lot of pressure playing at subsequent Worlds tournaments because now everyone expects him to win. He laughs and says yes, absolutely.

8:30 pm – I head back to the main stage and see the Unite crowd has dispersed, leaving about one third of the seats empty. A little over half of the remaining crowd is now seated in front of the screens broadcasting the VGC Masters Top 8. VGC isn’t my specialty so I just sit back, relax, and watch Chien-Pao and Ursulana battle it out.

9:00 pm – I turn to watch the TCG Masters playoffs. The card game may have the highest number of players of any Worlds competition, but it also has the least flashy gameplay. There’s a lot (and I mean a lot) of shuffling, deck searching, and contemplating to sit through before something exciting happens. It’s like watching a chess match, where the players slowly set up their boards by benching Pokémon and evolving them up, then make a series of exchanges until one person takes all six Prize cards.

The match on stage features the fan-favorite Tord Reklev, who is largely considered to be one of the best, if not the best Pokémon TCG competitors to ever play the game. He has numerous big titles to his name and has made some admirable Worlds runs, finishing in the Top 4 last year, but he’s never taken first place at Worlds. He’s playing a Gardevoir ex mirror match, which is very grindy and involves a dizzying number of micro-decisions. Tord narrowly wins the match and looks completely exhausted. The players have been at it all day and are going well into the night but they can’t stop until only two remain. Tord looks relieved more than anything, but he’s about to immediately jump into a match against one of few players who have a list of accomplishments comparable to his

10:01 pm – The featured Top 4 match is Tord Reklev piloting Gardevoir versus Michael Pramawat on Lost Giratina. It’s Pramawat’s third time making Top 8 at Worlds and he looks determined to go the distance this time. The commentators build up how this is a battle of the ages, a contest of champions, and a clash of Pokémon TCG titans… then both draw terrible opening hands and Tord manages to land an early KO that ends the first game in a matter of minutes. Whelp.

10:46 pm – As the players set up for the next game in the series, I turn to the players next to me and see one of them is last year’s World Champion, Ondrej Skubal. The madman who won with Flying Pikachu! I ask who he thinks is going to win and he says Tord will win this match, and if he does, then he’ll go on to win the whole thing. I ask him if he feels a lot of pressure to win again. He laughs and says no, it’s too random to win twice in a row.

10:55 pm – The match wraps up with Tord taking the win and earning a spot in the finals.

11:10 pm – I realize my time in Japan is almost over, so I go to 7/11 and buy a random assortment of foods to try before I go to bed.

That’s all for now. Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 7 of my trip to Japan, finals day, where we find out who will be crowned Pokémon World Champion.

In the meantime, check out our other coverage on Pokémon Worlds:

How a Rookie Almost Won the 2023 Pokemon Video Game World ChampionshipsHow Pokemon Took Over a City for the World ChampionshipsUnderdog Defeats Pokemon TCG’s Greatest Player to Become World ChampionThe Pokémon Company Having ‘Conversations’ About Its ‘Constant’ Release ScheduleFirst Ever Poké-Mom and Son Duo Compete Together in Pokémon TCG World ChampionshipWhy the Pokémon World Championships Going to Hawaii Is Proving to be a Controversial ChoiceWhat It’s Like to Play in the World’s Hardest Pokémon Tournament