Pokémon World Championships 2023: Day One Recap

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Day one of the Pokémon World Championships has drawn to a close, and the pool has shrunk to just 114 players who will compete in day two. Seven rounds of Swiss were played, and players were required to have at least five wins in order to advance.

Worlds this year is like no other, with a completely new regulation just for the tournament. This includes many strong Pokémon from other games that players have not had the chance to play with this year. Six of the top 12 most used Pokémon were from outside Scarlet and Violet, with Flutter Mane maintaining its ridiculously high percentage of use.

Here are the top twelve Pokémon from day one of the Pokémon World Championship 2023.

• Flutter Mane – 71.7%

• Iron Hands – 41.3%

• Urshifu – 38.8%

• Tornadus Incarnate – 36.7%

• Amoonguss – 30.8%

• Chien Pao – 30.1%

• Landorus Therian – 29.7%

• Heatran – 28%

• Rillaboom – 27.6%

• Chi Yu – 23.8%

• Gholdengo – 23.8%

• Ursaluna – 19.2%

The tournament has already had a number of upsets with North American favorite Wolfe Glick getting knocked out of the day two race by Shiliang Tang on stream. Glick brought a team of only Pokémon from Scarlet and Violet declining to add the strong legendaries that have been added for this tournament. While 50 players automatically qualified for day two due to their performances throughout the year, 64 players managed to battle their way through day one for their spots.

The other shake up this year was stricter checks for hacked or genned Pokémon leading to a record number of disqualifications. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has added more tools than ever before for players to train their teams legitimately in-game. As such there have been stricter rules for using external software to create teams and many players have been kicked out of the tournament for using them. This is strictly against the rules of Pokémon, but checks have been more lax in the past, allowing players to get away with this.

Here is a list of everyone who will be competing on the second day of the Pokémon World Championship 2023. The names of people who automatically advanced to day two are in italics.

North America

From North America 20 players will move on to day two, with eight of these automatically qualifying before the event. Several of these players had a very strong year and are at the top of their play. Chuppa Cross IV, James Evans, Joseph Ugarte, and Paul Chua are definitely ones to watch, though others like Alberto Lara, Emilio Forbes, Zackary Thornberg, Gavin Michaels and Nick Navarre could definitely shake things up.

• Abdullah Mohayyuddin

• Alberto Lara

• Aaron Brok

• Chuppa Cross IV

• Emilio Forbes

• Gavin Michaels

• James Evans

• Jeremy Parsons

• Joseph Ugarte

• Justin Burns

• Kyle Livinghouse

• Luka Trejgut

• Marcus Dion

• Neil Patel

• Nick Navarre

• Nils Dunlop

• Paul Chua

• Raghav Malaviya

• Scott Iwafuchi

• Zackary Thornberg

Europe

Alex Gómez is coming hot out of his convincing NAIC victory, while Víctor Medina is another strong competitor we should be looking out for. Marco Silva and Eric Rios are two other players we’ll be watching out for in day two following their amazing performances throughout the year. In total 40 European players have made it into day two, with 16 of these progressing automatically.

• Adam Cherfaoui

• Alex Gómez

• Álex Soto

• Anthony Liuzzo

• Aurélien Soula

• Baris Akcos

• Davide Carrer

• Enosh Shachar

• Eric Rios

• Federico Camporesi

• Flavio Del Pidio

• Florian Henry

• Francesco Iozzia

• Guilio Tarlao

• Guillermo Castilla

• Hippolyte Bernard

• Jack Clarke

• Joan Perelló

• Juan Benítez

• Kevin Salvetto

• Kurt Wonka

• Leonardo Bonanomi

• Luca Ceribelli

• Luca Lussignoli

• Maurice Uteg

• Marco Marras

• Marco Silva

• Mattie Morgan

• Michael Kelsch

• Nathan Rouby

• Nico Davide Cognetta

• Nicolaj Høj Nielsen

• Pan Si Ming

• Patrick Donegan

• Rafa Busutíl

• Sellahattin Sturm

• Simone Sanvito

• Taran Birdee

• Thomas Gravouille

• Víctor Medina

Latin America

Gabriel Agati is always the one to watch here, though Paul Ruiz is another strong contender for the title. Twelve Latin American players have qualified for day two, with seven qualifying in advance.

• Dorian Quiñonez

• Estephan Valdebenito

• Gabriel Agati

• Galo Orbea

• Hugo Nascimento

• Javier Valdés

• Joaquín Salerno

• Juan Salerno

• Michael Navas

• Paul Ruiz

• Renzo Navarro

• Sebastián Bisbal

Oceania

Just five players will advance from Oceania, with only Nicholas Kan fighting their way through day one. Meaghan Rattle has had good results this year, and could be the region’s best chance at victory.

• Alister Sandover

• Alfredo Chang-Gonzalez

• Meaghan Rattle

• Nicholas Kan

• Sam Pandelis

Asia

As the event is held in Japan this year, it’s not surprising that there is a huge number of Japanese players that are competing. Japan is also the favorite to win this year due to the sheer number of players competing on their home turf. South Korea has a disappointing showing this year due to a protest which saw the removal of day two invites for the region. Jiseok Lee won the San Diego Regionals and could shake things up here too. Our favorite from the region is Kaito Arii who has dominated this year, and could take the whole tournament. There are 37 players who will make day two from Asia, with 14 players who advanced automatically.

• Francis Tai

• Hodaka Hatakeyama

• Hirofumi Kimura

• Jasdil Singh Deo

• Jiseok Lee

• Jun Mikami

• Kaito Arii

• Kai Yazawa

• Kanade Mizoguchi

• Kazuya Kitazawa

• Kengo Hirata

• Kenji Miura

• Kenji Yabata

• Kentaro Matsumoto

• Mao Harada

• Melvin Keh

• Mizuki Sasaki

• Panyawut Noijan

• Ren Kotorii

• Ryoma Okamoto

• Satoru Mutsuno

• Shohei Kimura

• Taeseok Roe

• Tang Shiliang

• Taro Okada

• Wan Aqil

• Wayne Yu

• Xiao Haotian

• Yang Da Wei

• Yohei Yamane

• Yosuke Takayanagi

• Yuma Miyamoto

• Yuma Suzuki

• Yusuke Tsuganezawa

• Yuta Hiroki

• Yuta Takahashi

• Yuya Tada

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.