TPCi Reveals 2025 Season to Limit Worlds Invites, Only 125 TCG Masters for North America

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onJun 27, 2024 at 6:31 AM · 45 Comments

In the midst of the huge Stellar Crown reveal just minutes ago, TPCi posted a lengthy breakdown of changes coming to the 2025 season of Organized Play.

There will be a set number of Worlds invites per region going forward:

The qualification system for the Pokémon World Championships is changing for the 2025 season. In 2025, a set number of players from each rating zone, age division, and game will earn an invitation to the World Championships based on their Championship Points leaderboard standings. This update applies to Pokémon TCG, Pokémon video game, and Pokémon GO players. Most recently, invitations were based on a fixed CP threshold that players needed to accumulate to receive an invitation.

In addition to the players who qualify via Championship Points, individual top performers at major events will earn automatic invitations to the Pokémon World Championships. Regional and Special Champions will receive an invitation, and the top four finishers of each International Championships will earn an invitation. Invites earned through this method will not count against the total invitation slots for that player’s rating zone.

The number of TCG invitees will be as follows:

Age Division Junior Senior Masters
US and Canada 75 100 125
Europe 75 100 125
Latin America 50 50 100
Oceania 10 10 20
Middle East & South Africa 5 5 10

This year Worlds saw about 270 TCG Masters for North America. These changes will cut that amount in half.

You can see all the details of the announcement on Pokemon.com.

View thread (45 replies)
Limiting regions makes it no longer the top players by definition. It should always be the top players, regardless of where they’re from. For example, if there are many more skilled players from Japan than other regions, then they should have more. I don’t like this change.
 
I'm not a big fan of this, because now anyone who wants to play for their first worlds invite has to compete to get more points than all of the pro players, who are likely going to way more majors than you are.
Another thing I don't like is that if you earn your invite through making it to the top 125, then you can have your invite taken away if someone gets more points then you, leading to potentially toxic situations where someone could have worlds taken away from them just before the points season ends.
Although I guess none of this matters to me because I can't exactly travel to go to majors or worlds anyways, but I wouldn't be surprised to see others get upset over this.
 
ThatUnlimitedProf said:
Limiting regions makes it no longer the top players by definition. It should always be the top players, regardless of where they’re from. For example, if there are many more skilled players from Japan than other regions, then they should have more. I don’t like this change.
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Who has more money has better chance for invite. I can go max 3 major events during season so this means I have super slim chance for worlds invite
 
ZekromFan said:
Who has more money has better chance for invite. I can go max 3 major events during season so this means I have super slim chance for worlds invite
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That seems to me an issue with the way the competitive scene is organized. The best players should automatically be able to make it, regardless of their financial situation. Not to mention, if you wanna stay in the Standard format, you have to constantly buy new cards and decks.

Standard is a rich man’s game. I’m glad I’m not involved in this. Yikes.
 
ThatUnlimitedProf said:
That seems to me an issue with the way the competitive scene is organized. The best players should automatically be able to make it, regardless of their financial situation. Not to mention, if you wanna stay in the Standard format, you have to constantly buy new cards and decks.

Standard is a rich man’s game. I’m glad I’m not involved in this. Yikes.
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True. Standard format cost more than collecting old cards. They seem expensive but in long therm they are cheaper than playing standard format. Now it even got more expensive if going after invite. I'm sure people now gonna travel more because in Europe 500 cp is not enough anymore and probably next season even higher cp number for 125 standing than now

I think I just have to play for fun and forget about worlds invite
 
Reading this doesn't feel great, even worse after reading the original article and seeing they added a kicker of 4 players to be able to win CP as second place in a League Cup, we are very few senior players in my league, not sure if we will consistently be 4 or more players :/

Edit: Just noticed too that the BFL is now 4 and the news managed to feel even worse now 😩
Some players just can't afford getting out of their country to find more events.
 
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Well, if you are a casual player then you really don't have a chance to make it to a worlds tournament. Which I guess is okay. They don't just want anyone showing up. But I do like how they are extending the invites to the top 4 players at regionals which don't add towards the invite count. I'm curious how large the casual scene is in pokemon? Is there enough people to start a casual ladder or casual format? Standard seems so competitive, soooo competitive, and with the recent changes I've heard an uproar for the casual player. I find that the invite structure has always been catered towards the players who can afford to put in the time and money into the game, and the casual player has had little to no affect on that. Pokemon is super fun to play but locals seem to be getting more expensive and competitive and ptcgl sucks cherubis. The casual player should have an environment to play pokemon that isn't standard, expanded, or glc.
 
ThatUnlimitedProf said:
Limiting regions makes it no longer the top players by definition. It should always be the top players, regardless of where they’re from. For example, if there are many more skilled players from Japan than other regions, then they should have more. I don’t like this change.
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No it shouldn't. Because America has a bajillion events, so is easier to go to them.

This change also rewards people with more time and money, not necessarily the best players.
 
ThatUnlimitedProf said:
That seems to me an issue with the way the competitive scene is organized. The best players should automatically be able to make it, regardless of their financial situation. Not to mention, if you wanna stay in the Standard format, you have to constantly buy new cards and decks.

Standard is a rich man’s game. I’m glad I’m not involved in this. Yikes.
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standard is absolutely not a rich man’s game. have you seen how much the top decks cost ? please stop being dramatic
 
DaddyAug117 said:
Well, if you are a casual player then you really don't have a chance to make it to a worlds tournament. Which I guess is okay. They don't just want anyone showing up. But I do like how they are extending the invites to the top 4 players at regionals which don't add towards the invite count. I'm curious how large the casual scene is in pokemon? Is there enough people to start a casual ladder or casual format? Standard seems so competitive, soooo competitive, and with the recent changes I've heard an uproar for the casual player. I find that the invite structure has always been catered towards the players who can afford to put in the time and money into the game, and the casual player has had little to no affect on that. Pokemon is super fun to play but locals seem to be getting more expensive and competitive and ptcgl sucks cherubis. The casual player should have an environment to play pokemon that isn't standard, expanded, or glc.
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I think only winner in regionals receive invite. Top 4 in every IC
 
bunnelbyfeetsniffer said:
standard is absolutely not a rich man’s game. have you seen how much the top decks cost ? please stop being dramatic
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That post isn’t really well worded for certain, but the point is that the cost to go after a world’s invite is rather steep if you don’t place top 4 at an event. Playing in locals? Absolutely a lot cheaper and more manageable.

I do have a bunch of thoughts but don’t currently have the time to post it all out. The bottom line is “Memtally as a player, don’t make worlds invite your only carrot on the stick.” Hopefully we some more get resolved as far as giving dedicated locals attendance or results some proportional reward.
 
Man I really wish they'd separate the US and Canada, in fact if they're doing it this way it should really be player slots per nation not these larger areas
 
bunnelbyfeetsniffer said:
standard is absolutely not a rich man’s game. have you seen how much the top decks cost ? please stop being dramatic
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I’m not being overly dramatic at all. I have had several players as a professor come to me and tell me that they’re not able to continue going to league because they can’t afford the cards. You do realize that the format changes all the time and quickly right? For example, if a kid wants to buy a Gardevoir ex deck right now, including shipping, cost about $100. But guess what? The next set about to drop a bunch of darkness Pokémon that are going to possibly destroy that deck, mean that they would have to buy that deck if they wanted to continue to play effectively. It’s a nonstop cycle of spending that a lot of people cannot afford to do.

Evidently, according to how a lot of people act in league, you have to be able to afford spending a lot of money in order to be able to be involved in their Pokémon league. I thought Pokémon was about a community, not for just the people who are adults or rich. It’s a troublesome trend in our league and I do not like it at all. And the attitude that I get when I bring this up perfectly proves why we have this problem.

I don’t think I need to change my attitude at all. I think everyone else needs to start thinking about the people who leave leagues or never join due to the standard only mindset.
 
Well this is quite sad, and directly in contrast to the spirit of pokemon imo.

In both games and anime, player competes against a static finish line. Gym leaders don’t scale depending on your team’s lvl, you beat them 1 by 1 and then elite four to become a champion. You don’t compete with other players, you know beforehand what lvl your team should be to succeed.

Of course we’re in the real world so we cannot do this, but CP limit was pretty close: it was static, hit 500 and you’re in. You knew what you had to achieve beforehand.

This new leaderboard based system is much much more competitive, cannot be planned for beforehand, and basically means if you want to experience competing in Worlds, you have to play tcg as a full time job. You never have a guarantee (unless you win a big event) that you’re in, leaderboard can always change to leave you behind. That means you can never relax, you always have to be on alert. (Not that I’ve ever seen anyone hitting 500 and relaxing afterwards)

I wish they kept the old system and just scaled the Worlds up.
 
ThatUnlimitedProf said:
I’m not being overly dramatic at all. I have had several players as a professor come to me and tell me that they’re not able to continue going to league because they can’t afford the cards. You do realize that the format changes all the time and quickly right? For example, if a kid wants to buy a Gardevoir ex deck right now, including shipping, cost about $100. But guess what? The next set about to drop a bunch of darkness Pokémon that are going to possibly destroy that deck, mean that they would have to buy that deck if they wanted to continue to play effectively. It’s a nonstop cycle of spending that a lot of people cannot afford to do.

Evidently, according to how a lot of people act in league, you have to be able to afford spending a lot of money in order to be able to be involved in their Pokémon league. I thought Pokémon was about a community, not for just the people who are adults or rich. It’s a troublesome trend in our league and I do not like it at all. And the attitude that I get when I bring this up perfectly proves why we have this problem.

I don’t think I need to change my attitude at all. I think everyone else needs to start thinking about the people who leave leagues or never join due to the standard only mindset.
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Are kids not just playing random nonsense decks or like an unmodified league battle deck at your league? Are you running weekly standard tournaments or something that makes your league more competitive oriented cause my local leagues have people who are getting practice in playing meta and people who are playing like Ambipom or Seaking, or sometimes some mash up of cards from all eras since standard isn't enforced unless its a challenge or cup.
 
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