MAJOR Changes to the 2025 Season! Full Breakdown with Pros & Cons! 

My Perspective as someone who's played for 14 Years, achieved multiple invites in years past and may never get a Worlds Invite again: As long as the Championship Points Season Reward Program isn't completely woeful I'd be happy to compete in multiple Regional and IC's throughout the season knowing full well an invite won't ever come my way and that I'm slowly chipping away at other tangible rewards during my season. The Rewards Program should benefit the less available, less wealthy or less competitive by receiving cool new things or having more realistic goals to strive for within the season based on the time or money you can commit to the hobby compared to an out of reach invite each year Fewer Rounds at events is the news i'm actively against, as it is harmful to the player experience across the board, but logistically I understand the choice with event sizes drastically ballooning Personally as someone who want's Worlds attendees to only consist of "the most dedicated good players" and "the very best players" I'm pro the BFL merge/reduction and the reduced Local vs Higher Tier point scaling in 2025 (there is an element of "wallet warriors" being rewarded, but I'm not sure there will ever be an effective fix for this Happy to debate more in comments, but these are my feelings about the more controversial changes coming in 2025

The measure is way too focused on Europe and NA. As a LATAM player, traveling between Mexico-Peru-Argentina-Brasil is just too much, and it doesn't seem like locals will be enough now.

As a pokedad I'm slightly annoyed that the miniscule chance of me going to compete at worlds with my kid is reduced but the change you didn't pick up on is that juniors and seniors will get day 2s at all regionals. That's a great change.

I'm just a casual player from Latam, not ever aiming for a Worlds invite, I hope the rewards program will have something worth chasing for Professors already get several promos, playmats and other goodies, all exclusive to their program, so I'm thinking they might just do something like that for the players that reach a certain CP threshold, just not as nice as a competitor's kit from Worlds But i'm not quite understanding why LA regions are being shafted, is it because of the players from other regions coming to play at LAIC or Regionals and taking those available slots? Traveling for the locals is already quite expensive

Thanks for the breakdown, this was the most comprehensive explanation I've seen! For the local BFL discussion, I've heard a few folks say "fewer grinders at locals is bad bc newer players won't learn about the circuit," and I think that's pretty overblown. The game has exploded in popularity, and even the casual players are often going to a major or two per year. If anything, top players attending fewer Cups will make those events feel more within reach for the newer/less experienced players. There are often times during a season where you'd go to a Cup at your LGS and recognize almost no one because the out-of-towners were grinding. Cups and Challenges are great ways to bring new folks into the competitive world, and lowering the stakes for these events seems like a huge win for everyone involved.

I mostly agree with this. I do think that the new swiss structure is very problematic, as it ignores the fact that many decks in the format are prone to ties. Either TPCi needs to increase the time per round, or they need to move to best-of-1. Best-of-2 doesn't work, because it still punishes slower decks that can't consistently 2-0. Best-of-1 is really the best solution if we want every powerful archetype to be viable. TPCi could implement a Gentleman's Mulligan rule to help bad feeling from bricking. A band-aid fix would be reverting to a similar system as last year, where one tie will not hurt your record, but that would not permanently solve the problem. Ultimately, a healthy meta needs slow and controlling decks as well as fast decks, and in order for those archetypes to exist, they need to have enough time to win games.

GOAT. All questions answered in detail, so not much of a debate to be had here with me besides the system itself, obviously giving players who can compete early on in the season the advantage. But such is life, right? Early bird gets the worm. Compared to this current season, one could get 600CP at any point for the invite. Now, it'll be a constant refresh of the leaderboard looking on others with disdain in your region. I estimate the 125th slot will be 800-900CP to qualify this go around. Also RIP OCIC and LATAM talk about CutThroat TPCI 😂

I think there should be a restriction on out of region regional attendance. I’m NA, but in this structure the pay to win is WAY bigger in the LA and OC regions. That seems kinda scummy for them. Edit: I don’t want a full ban, but maybe a 1/year or something. It’s cool to travel but requiring Australians to travel sucks for them

One advantage of top X, similar to your point about making Worlds logistics easier to plan, is that it also makes it easier for TPCI to calibrate difficulty by region to the level they want. Last year, there were about 12500 people in NA who earned any championship points at all, compared to about 6800 in Europe and 4200 in LA, yet NA got fewer invites than the other two regions because of the higher points bar. Oceania only had 700 players getting any CP, yet 125 of them (18% of the CP-earning playerbase!) got their worlds invite. TPCI probably didn't intend for there to be such big differences in difficulty by region, they just set the CP threshold to a number that seemed reasonable for each region. This lets them set their target for the number of people who should make it from each region, and stick to that target pretty much exactly, without having to guess how the points will shake out exactly in a rapidly evolving and growing system.

Very concise and well thought out video. You basically share my views on it like for like, so go me I guess 😂 Great work though, the community needed a level head to straighten everything out and lay it all out as it is!

Hello, thanks so much for such an informative video! I was wondering whether these changes will affect regions with a different system, say Japan and Hong Kong? I am also wondering what would happen to players who have the exact same number of points. Will they have the same rank? Or it will be based on what tournaments they went to and how they did in those tournaments for tie breaking? Thanks!

As you've mentioned in video I also think that rotation will be 2025 before EUIC in the beginning of Feb. It also aligns very nicely into JP rotation which is always done in mid/end Jan. I think it's not coincidence and we'll at last align our rotation with JP.

Pokemon just tweeted that they’re paying attention to everyone’s suggestions, let’s hope it’s not sugar coated. I would like to go to worlds 2025

I understand that due to the game growing there needs to be a player cap for worlds. I mean a worlds with 1500 players wouldn't really feel like prestigious tournament, it would just feel like another regionals, just like how a football world cup with 256 teams would be awful. However, the new grind to make worlds seems kind of terrible. You almost have no choice (unless you win a regionals or IC) to keep playing in Regionals and ICs throughout the year so you don't lose your place on the leaderboard, and potentially lose your world's place. This makes qualifying for worlds a lot more stressful imo (which you mention in the video), it could also see an increase in cheating at regionals/ICs as players will do everything in order to rise up the leaderboards. Realistically it doesn't affect me anyway as I probably wouldn't have qualified for worlds even under the old system, but the new system seems like a horrible stressful non-stop grind in which you're constantly looking over your shoulder to check you haven't lost your place in the top 125, or whatever the cut off is for your region. It's not something I have any interest in. I'll still play the game, and just try to attend EUIC and liverpool. On a plus side, it means I won't have to spend money travelling abroad because I cba with trying to rank up a leaderboard. Also means we might see more meme/rogue decks at locals, because most players will know they can't qualify for worlds so won't be tryharding as much. There's pro and cons to the changes and you've covered them well in this video.

I think the changes are mostly good. I do wish they did a bfl of 1 ic and 2-3 regionals tho. I still think the main problem is the insane number of people that can afford to go to almost every major and get an invite with mediocre finishes. I think if you don't think you can win a regional worlds probably shouldn't be the goal but maybe doing well at a regional should be. I also wish they would make locals worth more because locals are the most fun when a people are traveling from all over to cups and they're more competitive

Most of this will be wait and see. The only big issue I see is IC not having a bfl of one. My feeling is if you want a invite it’s 2-3 IC, get a guaranteed invite or bust

What camera are you using to record this video??

Will they increase the fee to enter the Regionals / Internationals? 🤔 Now that they give out more booster packs etc.

Hey i want to ttend all EU regionals this season, when are we able to register for teh regionals and EUIC? so i dotn miss them and can get my ticket for it ? :/

I get making the tournaments more cutthroat and that the normal numbers are too high but the new numbers seem insanely low

A testing buddy of mine got his 2024 worlds invite and we were practically at a very similar skill level placing comparitively at the OC regionals we've attended over the past 2 years. Upon hearing that he got his invite I was pumped to give 2025 a shot but hearing I have to be one of the 20 best players in OC I'm absolutely guttered and wondering if I even want to play the game anymore...

So is this CP reward thing replacing Play Point rewards? Are PP rewards even still a thing? 😂 I have no clue. I only remember last getting some BW stitch foils and haven't played a lot since then.

This makes LAIC super important due to its player count the record 4-4-1 would achieve 80 points equal to a regional day 2/ 5-2-1 record

Going to world should be a challenge… just not an economic one, as a latam player I just can’t pick up my deck and just go to Peru

I don't mind the change to make worlds more exclusive, but it's absurd that LATAM have 5x more places than OCE. Would love to see a LCQ for players with X amount of points, who didn't make the world's bar. Pokémon have promoted worlds as a celebration of the game, these changes don't continue that.

Great video... happy they have CP PLAY! Program. Gonna be SUPER COMPETITIVE 2025

I get trying to make worlds more for top players, but I can't afford constant travel aside from topping every tournament I go to, just to get bubbled out of a leader board that decides who goes and who stays. Absolutely brainless lack of solution to a prevalent problem

I feel like theres a genuine divide in opinions ive seen, EU players seem to be in favour of the changes and USA feel like thye are the worst thing ever and have ruined the game. I have nothing to back this up just the general consensus from tweets ive seen

Possibly one of the worst decisions they've made in recent memory. Yes most people don't aim for world's but if the day comes that you do want to go the chance of you being able to go without extreme financial expenditures is slim to none.

the dream is over, time to retire.

I want Expanded and Unlimited to become Things again. :(

I get you need to suck up to TPCI to get them to let you cast events, but this is a lot even for you… especially your twitter comments basically defending these changes to death because there might be a plushie consolation prize lol

I mean this is one way to deal with the games growth… screw everyone whose not rich or a Tord level of skill so they will give up playing 😂

As a competive person who has a 1-year old and enjoyed competing in this season, these changes unfortunately solidify my decision to largely move on from Pokemon TCG. I'm much more skeptical with the rewards program being worth the financial and time commitment. The fact you have to both be good and be wealthy to make worlds is a sad commentary on where our world is.