The 2023 World Championships, which will be held on 11–13 August 2023, are hosted in Japan for the first time! In these articles, we will take a look at the best players that are qualified to compete in the biggest event of the year.
Here we have North America! Let’s meet the 8 players with a Day 2 invite, and take a look at the other 100 Day 1 invitees the “US & Canada” TPCi region brings.
Table of Contents
North America at Worlds
The World Championships will be played outside North America for the second consecutive time, and we will have to see whether that is influential to the players from this region!
North America has seen two World Champions and four crowns, as Ray Rizzo won the title three times in a row (2010, 2011 and 2012), setting up a legendary record that is unlikely to be broken; and Wolfe Glick raised the trophy in 2016.
There are other Americans that have reached finals without success, such as Wolfe yet again, four years prior to his win in Ray Rizzo’s third win (2012), Jeudy Azzarelli (2014), Jonathan Evans (2016) and Emilio Forbes (2018).
The latest World Championships featured James Baek and Paul Chua in semifinals and other four players in top cut. Will North America come back to the top after seven years empty-handed?
Requirements for a Worlds invite
As per the North American system, all players that have achieved at least 300 Championship Points in the 2023 season receive an invite to Day 1. Additionally, the top 8 players achieve a direct pass to Day 2 and a Travel Award.
Day 2 players
At 1342 CP, Joseph leads the most hunted CP leaderboard for the second year in a row and will compete in Worlds also for the second time, after making it into the top cut last year at his first appearance.
The results started to come for Joseph in Australia, as he finished in top 16 at OCIC. He returned home for a top 16 in Knoxville, made top cut and then finals to finish second in Charlotte, and repeated that again with another second place in Fort Wayne. They say third time’s the charm, and he found himself in his third finals match of the season when he competed in Portland to finally win a Regional again. A top 32 in Hartford was added to his accomplishments later in the same month. Eventually, it was time for the big event of the continent, and Joseph made it to semifinals at NAIC, but finals remain elusive to him as this is his third IC Top 4 finish of his carreer.
Joseph likes to play in grassroots tournaments, and he is extremely successful at them. He made top cut in the VR Welcome to Paldea; won a big X9 League event and two big Beanie Brawl events (WW#2 and WW#4); and also won the VR April Challenge one week before Portland. Recently, he has made it to a new top cut in the Victory Road to Yokohama, in which he experimented with a team with Incarnate Landorus and Regieleki. Joseph is also part of Team United States in the World Cup since 2021; last year, they reached top 8. Additionally, the American is a content creator focusing in VGC, and you can find him in his Twitch channel “JoeUX9”.
At 1281 CP, Chuppa has qualified for his sixth World Championship in a row, and his second Day 2 invite after 2017. He’s also participated in 2016, 2018 and 2019, only advancing to Day 2 in the latter.
Chuppa started the season very strong, making it to top cut and finishing in second in San Diego, and repeating the top cut for a top 8 finish in Orlando, which holds the record of being the VGC live event with most participation in history. He culminated the early season with a top 8 finish at OCIC.
Chuppa’s next results were a top 16 in Charlotte, a Day 2 finish at EUIC, a top 32 in Hartford and a Day 2 finish in Milwaukee. Chuppa found himself in top cut again as he finished top 8 in Fresno, as a preface of a new top 8 finish at NAIC, his second International top cut in the season.
3. 
Paul Chua
At 1280 CP, Paul is one of the most veteran players in the Worlds invitee list, with this being his tenth World Championships, and seventh in the Masters Division. He participated in 2012-14 as a Senior, and qualified for Masters Day 1 in 2016 and 2019; and Day 2 in 2015, 2017, 2018 and last year, 2022, where he finished in Top 4.
Paul’s season started with a top cut which got cut short, due to the old Regional structure, to a top 32 in Orlando. Already with the new tournament structure, he got a new top 32 in Knoxville before making top cut again and reaching the semifinals in Charlotte.
He finished in top 16 of Fort Wayne before refining that team, which eventually carried him to his first International as he won this year’s EUIC.
After his major win, he got a 23rd place in the Global Challenge III and a top 16 in Hartford, before finding himself in top cut for the fourth time this season: he reached the semifinals at Milwaukee. A modest Day 2 finish at Top 64 in NAIC closed the season for Paul, who is looking forward to improving his stellar appearance in London 2022 into a win.
Watch Paul’s final match at EUIC!
4. James Evans
At 1268 CP, James has qualified to his fifth Worlds, the third one in the Masters Division after qualifying for Day 1 in 2019 and Day 2 in last year’s event after winning NAIC. On his previous Seniors appearances, he won the entire event in Nashville, becoming the 2018 Senior World Champion.
James advanced to top cut and landed a top 8 in this season’s opener event in San Diego, and again finished in top 4 in Orlando. He followed this up with Day 2 participations in Charlotte and in Fort Wayne, and then scored his third top cut of the season and ended top 8 at EUIC.
The season continued with more top cuts for him, finishing in top 8 in Hartford and in second place in Milwaukee. As the previous NAIC Champion, he fell short in the title defense after only finishing in the top 32 at this year’s NAIC, but that didn’t stop him from landing a comfortable Day 2 invite.
At 1235 CP, Gavin has qualified to Worlds for the eighth time in the Masters division. The former US National Champion earned a Day 1 invite in 2013-16, 2019 and 2022, the latter of which he did not attend, and a direct Day 2 invite in 2017. Both in 2015 and 2019, he made it through Day 1 and into Day 2 of the main event.
This season for Gavin started with a top 16 finish in San Diego. He then travelled to Australia and claimed the first Scarlet & Violet International after winning OCIC and becoming a new name in the Internationals Hall of Fame.
Gavin continued with his streak and ended top 8 in Vancouver, but unfortunately fell short of a good finish at EUIC. Afterwards, he played in Portland for a top 16 finish, and earned his fourth top cut of the season to end up in second place at Fresno. Gavin finished the season with a Day 2 finish at NAIC, securing his Worlds Day 2 invite.
Watch Gavin’s win at OCIC!
6. Alberto Lara
At 1222 CP, Alberto has qualified to his sixth World Championships, as he already participated in Day 1 in 2015-17 and 2022, and directly into Day 2 in 2018. This will be his third Day 2 appearance, after qualifying through Day 1 in 2015, and 2018.
The American’s season started with a top 16 at Orlando, and he followed this up with a second place result at OCIC. The following events for him went as follows: top 16 in Knoxville, Day 2 finish in Charlotte, top 16 in Fort Wayne, and top 32 at EUIC. In the latter part of the season, he made his third top cut of the season to reach top 8 in Fresno, and finished a very solid season with yet another Day 2 finish at NAIC.
At 1202 CP, Zackary will be playing his second World Championships, his first Worlds as a Masters division player after participating in Seniors almost a decade ago in 2014.
Zackary started his season with an amazing 8-2 record in the Swiss rounds of the largest-ever live event, Orlando. However, due to the old structure of Regionals, it was not enough for a spot in the second day of play. After that, it was trip time to Australia, where Zackary earned a solid top 16 finish at OCIC.
He followed this up with top 8 finishes in Knoxville and Vancouver, but scored some modest top 32 finishes in Portland and Milwaukee. However, the end of the season allowed him to secure a Day 2 spot as he finished in top 4 at Fresno, got his first major win at the Caguas Special Event, and barely missed top cut at NAIC, where he finished in top 16 again.
At 1110 CP and only 4 points above the ninth-place finisher, Raghav earned the last Day 2 spot for North America. This is the fourth World Championships for them, as they already participated in Day 1 in 2018-22. Last year, they survived Day 1 and made it into Day 2, meaning this will be their second Day 2 appearance.
Raghav is an expert in International Championships. Although they earned some points here and there, they never made it to Day 2 of Regionals during the season; the big performances came in the higher-tier tournaments. They made top cut and reached semifinals at OCIC, made it to Day 2 at EUIC, and improved it all by finishing second at NAIC.
In the grassroots scene, Raghav has been part of Team India in the World Cup since 2021. In last year’s edition, they made it to a top 8 finish!
Day 1 players
North America has 100 representatives in Day 1 of Worlds, some of which are big names in the scene. These include:
- 2012 Senior World Champion Toler Webb
- 2013 Junior World Champion Brendan Zheng
- 2014 Worlds finalist Jeudy Azzarelli
- 2016 World Champion Wolfe Glick
- 2016 Senior World Champion and International Champion Carson Confer
- 2018 Worlds finalist Emilio Forbes
- 2-time International Champion Ashton Cox
- Former National Champion Jiseok Lee
- 2-time Regional Champion Justin Tang.
The following list comprises all other players with 300 or more CP in the US & Canada rating zone, and is based on the official Play! Pokémon leaderboard, or who qualified through last year’s Worlds results.
- James Baek (2022 Worlds semifinalist)
- Collin Heier (1096 CP)
- Nick Navarre (1092 CP)
- Wolfe Glick (996 CP)
- Sohaib Mufti (980 CP)
- Justin Tang (856 CP)
- Luka Trejgut (764 CP)
- Luca Paz (748 CP)
- Carson Confer (732 CP)
- Ashton Cox (730 CP)
- Justin Carris (668 CP)
- Alexander D’Andrea (652 CP)
- Kyle Livinghouse (650 CP)
- Jeudy Azzarelli (600 CP)
Tang Shiliang (530 CP)
Neil Patel (518 CP)- Alex Underhill (502 CP)
- Riley Factura (490 CP)
- Len Deuel (490 CP)
Enrique Grimaldo (482 CP)- Emilio Forbes (470 CP)
- Alex Arand (470 CP)
- Ryan Haig (464 CP)
- Brandon Tuchtenhagen (464 CP)
Stefan Mott (449 CP)- Peng Chongjun (440 CP)
- Giovanni Cischke (440 CP)
- Ian McLaughlin (436 CP)
- Brady Smith (432 CP)
- Austin Acosta (430 CP)
- Leonard Craft III (426 CP)
- Si Dawei (426 CP)
- Dylan Salvanera (422 CP)
- Grant Laird (422 CP)
Siddharth Singhal (420 CP)
Ezequiel Cordero (406 CP)- Jon Hu (406 CP)
- Brian Youm (400 CP)
- Giovanni Costa (400 CP)
- Joshua Lorcy (400 CP)
- Jeremy Parson (400 CP)
- Jered Hunn (400 CP)
- Norah Bowman (392 CP)
Jonathan Zuniga (390 CP)- Wu Yichun (389 CP)
- Matthew Cecil (386 CP)
- Ding Zishuo (385 CP)
Aditya Subramanian (385 CP)- Toler Webb (380 CP)
Brian Collins (379 CP)- Brendan Zheng (378 CP)
- Michael Zhang (371 CP)
- Anton Galkin (370 CP)
- Ben Grissmer (370 CP)
- Zee Costagliola (366 CP)
- Thomas Hayden (362 CP)
- Andrew Ding (359 CP)
- George Tifverman (355 CP)
- Yotam Cohen (354 CP)
- Marco Martinez (352 CP)
Jiseok Lee (350 CP)
Yuki Zaninovich (350 CP)- Ian Lee (350 CP)
- Jourdan Bul-lalayao (345 CP)
- Caelan Brown (342 CP)
Nathan Ortiz (342 CP)- Justin Burns (340 CP)
- Aaron Clemons (332 CP)
- Kyle Ayala (330 CP)
- Olivia Moledzki (330 CP)
- Kevin Swastek (330 CP)
- Aaron Traylor (330 CP)
- Cade Bowles (330 CP)
Jonathan Quiñones (329 CP)- Thomas DeRosa (328 CP)
- Jairo Contreras (328 CP)
- Allan Martinez (324 CP)
- Bhushan Thumsi (324 CP)
- Abdullah Mohayyuddin (320 CP)
- Scott Iwafuchi (320 CP)
- Marcus Dion (320 CP)
- Xiao Haotian (320 CP)
- Michael D’Angelo (317 CP)
- Patrick Donegan (316 CP)
- Chase Tiedtke (316 CP)
- Calvin Nisson (312 CP)
- Ryan Loseto (310 CP)
- Aaron Zheng (310 CP)
- Stephen Mea (310 CP)
- Justin Knox (310 CP)
- Gary Qian (310 CP)
- River Davis (310 CP)
- Rajan Bal (310 CP)
- Jimmy Friedle (307 CP)
- Austin Forcinito (307 CP)
- Aaron Brok (302 CP)
- Lev Willey (301 CP)
- Kimo Nishimura (301 CP)
- Rushil Thakkar (300 CP)
- Donald Smith (300 CP)
Closing words
Congratulations to all North American players having qualified for the World Championships! As the region with most players, they are the favourites of many to take the title home, and will definitely look forward to earn a fifth World Championship for the region. We wish you all the best of luck!
If you’re not attending, you can follow their battles from home. Check all info about the Pokémon World Championships here!
