Everything to know about the 2022 Pokémon World Championships

For the first time in three years, the Pokémon World Championships are finally returning offline this weekend. Players from around the world will gather at the ExCeL London events center in England for the biggest Pokémon tournament of the year, the 2022 Pokémon World Championships.

This year’s event will feature tournaments for five games: the trading card game, the Sword and Shield video game championship, Pokémon UNITE, Pokémon GO and Pokkén Tournament DX. Here’s everything fans need to know about the 2022 Pokémon World Championships going into this weekend.

Players to watch

Park “Sejun” Se-jun is undoubtedly best-known for winning the 2014 Pokémon World Championships VGC Masters Division using a Pachirisu. However, the Korean VGC pro has also competed in the TCG and Pokkén Tournament at Worlds in the past.

This year, the Renaissance man of competitive Pokémon expanded his repertoire even further, as he qualified for Worlds in both GO and UNITE. In particular, Sejun will aim to add a new title to his resume alongside his UNITE team, Eternity, at the 2022 Pokémon World Championships.

Can Sejun become a World Champion in ANOTHER game? 😲

See what he and the rest of Eternity can do when the Korea Regional Runners-Up take the stage in London!#PokemonUNITE | #UNITEesports pic.twitter.com/UtAmkfrdyw

— Pokémon UNITE Championship Series (@UniteEsports) July 31, 2022

While the outcome of any VGC tournament is nearly impossible to predict, Wolfe “Wolfey” Glick is always a player viewers should keep an eye on. Wolfey is the only player to have won every kind of VGC tournament, with wins at Regional, National, International and World Championships, alongside an online Players Cup victory.

At the 2022 Pokémon World Championships, Wolfey will aim to become only the second-ever repeat World Champion in the VGC. Currently, the only player to hold this distinction is Ray Rizzo, who won three consecutive World Championships from 2010-2012.

How to watch the 2022 Pokémon World Championships

Each game featured in the World Championships will have its own Twitch stream. To see the entire tournament broadcast, fans will have to watch the Pokemon, PokemonTCG, PokemonGO, PokemonUNITE and PokkenTournament channels. While the GO, UNITE and Pokkén Tournament finals will take place on their respective channels, both the VGC and TCG finals will happen on the main Pokemon channel.

The tournament will kick off at 1 a.m. PT on Thursday with Swiss pools for both the TCG and VGC. In addition, the last chance qualifiers for both GO and Pokkén Tournament will start at the same time. The first day of competition is scheduled to end at 1 p.m.

Swiss pools for the TCG and VGC will resume at 1 a.m. on Friday. At the same time, the group stage for UNITE will begin, along with the double-elimination brackets for GO and Pokkén Tournament. The Pokkén Tournament bracket will end on Friday, with the finals set to begin around 7:30 a.m.

On Saturday, the single-elimination top cut brackets for both the TCG and VGC will kick off at 1 p.m. Meanwhile, the final portions of the double-elimination brackets for GO and UNITE will take place. GO finals are scheduled to begin around 6 a.m., followed by UNITE finals around 9 a.m.

Finally, the 2022 Pokémon World Championships will conclude on Sunday with the Junior, Senior and Masters Division finals of the TCG and VGC. The TCG finals will kick off at 1 a.m. on Sunday, followed by the VGC finals at 4:30 a.m.