After a huge success last year, Victory Road is happy to host a new edition of the World Cup of Pokémon VGC! The World Cup is a community-run online tournament that aims to gather the best Pokémon players from all over the world, with over 50 countries and territories being represented!
This year, we’re partnering again with Elgato, who also sponsored last year’s World Cup, and for the first time adding the wonderful GGtoor and Metafy to the tournament! Because of this, for the first time ever, the World Cup of VGC will have $5000 USD in prizes!
Format
- 56 teams representing countries and regions from all corners of the world will be playing, with 52 returning teams from last year and 4 new additions!
- Each team will have from 8 to 12 players, and team managers are eligible to play if they wish to do so by taking one of these slots in the process.
- The tournament is played in three segments:
- Qualifiers, where teams will be randomly drafted into groups and will play in a round-robin (all-vs-all). All weeks will be played in 8v8 individual matches. Overall, the best 24 teams will advance.
- Group Stage, where the 24 qualifiers and the Top 8 teams from last year will be randomly drafted, again, into new groups for a second round-robin. All weeks will be played in 8v8 individual sets, too. The best 16 teams will advance.
- Play-offs, where the remaining teams battle it out for the championship in a single-elimination bracket. All weeks will be played 7v7 individual matches.
- All matches played in VGC 2021, with the current rules in play (Series 12).
- All matches will be played on the Nintendo Switch.
- All matches will be played using closed teamsheets format.
- Players are allowed to change their team each week. However, it is strictly prohibited changing moves, items, or training any Pokémon to have different stats, using an Ability Capsule or any other item that may modify its stats during the course of a best-of-3 set.
- All weeks will have featured matches streamed on Victory Road’s Twitch channel, as well as extra matches and content on Victory Road’s YouTube channel.
Calendar
Each round takes a week, from Monday to Sunday, beginning on July 4.
Qualifiers: July 4 to July 24, 2022
- Draft: July 3, live streamed on Twitch.
- Week 1: July 4-10
- Week 2: July 11-17
- Week 3: July 18-24
Group Stage: July 25 to August 14, 2022 (32 qualified teams)
- Draft: July 25, streamed internally for players and managers.
- Week 4: July 25-31
- Week 5: August 1-7
- Week 6: August 8-14
Worlds Break: to allow preparations and travel to and back from the 2022 World Championships in London, there will be no games on August 14-28.
Play-offs: August 29 to September 25, 2022 (16 qualified teams)
- Eighthfinals: August 29-September 4
- Quarterfinals: September 5-11
- Semifinals: September 12-18
- Finals: September 19-25
Eligibility criteria
- Players may apply to join any given team provided they either:
- Were born or hold citizenship rights in said country or any of its territories.
- Are currently living in said country or any of its territories.
- OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) are allowed to join the tournament and play for India.
- Both player’s parents/tutors were born or hold citizenship rights in said country or any of its territories.
- Players may only apply for a team provided they can prove at least one of the above criteria as true.
- Players eligible for multiple countries are free to choose where to apply, but may only play for one team.
- Once players join a team, they can not join other national teams for future country-based events hosted by Victory Road. This means that those players who took part of a team last year, are tied to them for this edition.
- This rule gets priority over the regular eligibility criteria shown above.
- This rule will apply for the following country-based event hosted (for example: from World Cup 2021 to World Cup 2022). This means that players who want to leave their previous team may wait until the following event (in this case, a potential World Cup 2023).
- Any applications not meeting the eligibility criteria will be dismissed. Please keep in mind these rules are final and will be subjected to no exceptions.
Seedings
- The top 8 teams from the 2021 World Cup will be automatically qualified for the Group Stage, thus skipping qualifiers. The teams affected by this are Spain, Italy, China, South Korea, United States, Singapore, Thailand and Switzerland.
- All other participating teams from the 2021 World Cup will be divided into 4 pots of 12 teams based on their performance last year. During the Qualifiers draft on July 2, one team from each pot will be randomly allocated to each group, so that no two teams in the same pot can meet in the first round of competition.
- The top 16 teams from last year are all part of Pot 1.
- The remaining teams are allocated into Pots 1 to 4 according to their points earned/weeks played ratio.
- Any new teams debuting in 2022 will be added to Pot 4.
Prizes
For the first time in history, we will have cash prizes for this edition of the World Cup of VGC thanks to our sponsors. The prizepool of $5,000 USD will be distributed across the top 4 teams as follows:
- Champion team: $2,500 USD
- Runner-up team: $1,500 USD
- Top 4 teams: $500 USD each
Managers
Each team will have from one to three managers. Their job is to create their team’s roster of players, select their weekly line-ups and manage all internal communications with the tournament staff and Victory Road.
Europe & Africa
| # | Flag | Country/Region | Manager | Manager |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Austria | Steven Markhardt (Kali) | – |
| 2 |  | Belgium | Simon Van der Borght (Shmon) | – |
| 3 |  | Denmark | Benjamin Jochimsen (Benno) | – |
| 4 |  | Finland | Oliver Eskolin (Owe) | – |
| 5 |  | France | Adam Cherfaoui (Shao) | Anthony Liuzzo (Glum) |
| 6 |  | Germany | Markus Stadter (Yoshi) | – |
| 7 |  | Egypt | Karim Awad (Coldflame) | Ahmed Abdel-Moneim (Beb3em) |
| 8 |  | Greece | Paschalis Dermentzis (PasDer) | Kosta Daidimos (Kosta) |
| 9 |  | Ireland | Mattie Morgan (MattieMoo) | Patrick Donegan (Pd0nz) & Connagh Johnston (CaisealBoy) |
| 10 |  | Italy | Flavio Del Pidio (Pado) | Marco Silva (Marcofiero) & Emanuele Ciliberto (Asuya) |
| 11 |  | Luxembourg | Corentin Schepens (Dworlax) | – |
| 12 |  | Netherlands | Andres Escobosa (000aj) | Bas van der Heijden (BaarsKaasVGC) |
| 13 |  | Norway | Brede Stavø (Brede) | Ola Petersen Nordby (NostalgiaIsGreat) |
| 14 |  | Poland | Bartosz Ekiert (Naociak) | |
| 15 |  | Portugal | Ruben Pereira (Puddles) | Rafael Aleluia |
| 16 |  | South Africa | Nico Beets (GroenKobra) | – |
| 17 |  | Spain | Guillermo Castilla (KastyTP) | Álex Gómez (PokeAlex) |
| 18 |  | Sweden | Victor Larsson (Vgctor) | – |
| 19 |  | Switzerland | Stefan Mott (Pengy) | Damo Lokmic (Damo) |
| 20 |  | Turkey | Enes Safak (enessafak) | Fatih Yörük (CONQAD) |
| 21 |  | United Kingdom | Jamie Kean (Kean) | Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou) |
The Americas
| # | Flag | Country/Region | Manager | Manager |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 |  | Argentina | Juan Salerno (Juanfi) | Julián Martinez (Simius black) |
| 23 |  | Bolivia | Sergio Argandoña (SergioZ) | Giovanni Araníbar (Libiak) |
| 24 |  | Brazil | Gabriel Agati (Agati) | – |
| 25 |  | Canada | Jean-Marc Hébert (JeanMarc) | Nick Jorgensen (StarRaikou) & William Patterson (Willy) |
| 26 |  | Chile | Javier Valdés (IRNemesis) | Alejandro Díaz (Cano) |
| 27 |  | Colombia | Cristian Andre (Ruka) | – |
| 28 |  | Costa Rica | David Rodríguez (Hira) | Reynord González (Rey) |
| 29 |  | Dominican Republic | Bryant Ovalle (Bry) | Luis Franjul (Luifra) |
| 30 |  | Ecuador | Paul Ruiz (Ralfdude) | Raúl Ramírez (Rul) |
| 31 |  | El Salvador | Geovanni Polanco (Green) | – |
| 32 |  | Guatemala | Juanma Santizo (TeKa) | Andrés Samayoa (Litandres) |
| 33 |  | Honduras | Andrés Centeno (Edw) | Angel Josué Ortega (Necrid26) |
| 34 |  | Jamaica | Kevonne Boreland (Kd) | Michael Rennen (Rennen) |
| 35 |  | Mexico | Christian Ramírez (Ewokpadawan) | Arath Vega (Arath) |
| 36 |  | Panama | Gabriel Cedeño (Gabuu) | – |
| 37 |  | Peru | Diego Paredes (Zorro-T) | Sebastián Solari (Gato-T) |
| 38 |  | Puerto Rico | Alexavier Álvarez (Arekusabi) | Jonathan Quiñones (Pocha) |
| 39 |  | Uruguay | Gonzalo Sintas (Gonzs) | – |
| 40 |  | United States | Jeremy Odena (JJ) | – |
| 41 |  | Venezuela | José Brand (JotaBrand) | Gabriel Gómez (Odric) |
Asia & Oceania
| # | Flag | Country/Region | Manager | Manager |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 |  | Australia | Sam Pandelis (Zelda) | Luke Curtale (Dawg) |
| 43 |  | China | Xu Yihui (Yihui) | XinJie Zhou (Setsuku) & Bingjie Wang (Bingjie) |
| 44 |  | Hong Kong | Or Kei-yin (Cyrus) | – |
| 45 |  | India | Nikhil Reddy (tyo) | Abhay Iyer (Abhayfive) |
| 46 |  | Indonesia | Guntur Osada (Guntur) | Hashegi Hanjaya (Ryuhashegi) & M. Hafidz Syahril (MHS) |
| 47 |  | Israel | Dov Joseph Aloof (FiendRiver) | Aminadav Grant (Amin) |
| 48 |  | Japan | Kohei Sakurai (Chandy) | Kenya Kodera (Uyu) |
| 49 |  | Malaysia | Leong Yew Sun (Sunny) | Azri Firman Aqil (MrTsukkomi) |
| 50 |  | New Zealand | Isaac Lam (TokyoDrifloon) | Aidan Jackson (Miden) |
| 51 |  | Philippines | Enrico Comentan (AlphaTorónado) | Andrew Yap (Kaizen) |
| 52 |  | Singapore | Low Wai Yin (Textfont) | Brian Soh (Asada) |
| 53 |  | South Korea | Na Sang-hyeon (Nash) | Jang Wonseok (KrelCROC) |
| 54 |  | Taiwan | Tsai Chien-chien (ChienX2) | – |
| 55 |  | Thailand | Thitipong Arunrungrat (BankZenoVGC) | Narawitch Naenna (MyStars) |
| 56 |  | Vietnam | Syed Tam Husain (Arcodio) | Khue Do (Ji Cephie) |
If you wish to join the 2022 World Cup as a player, please fill out the form below.
At a later date, we will post the full list of teams and their managers. The decision on each teams’ roster is taken by each manager, so please keep in mind that different teams might have different criteria on how to do so.
Roster deadline: June 27, 2022
