Pokémon TCG Circuit: Championship Points and th...

Hey everyone, Wallysson here.

One of the questions I get the most is some version of this:

"Alright, I play Pokémon. How do I get to Worlds?"

And right after it comes the second one: how many points do I need?

The answer is a bit disappointing: that number doesn't exist. A Worlds invite isn't a minimum score, it's a ranking. You need to finish the season among the best players in your region, and how many points that takes depends on how much the rest of the region scores. It changes every year, and nobody knows the number until the season is over.

What you can do is understand the path: which tournaments exist, how much each one pays, and how the invite is decided at the end. That's what this guide does, in the order you'll run into each thing, starting at your local store and ending at Worlds in Singapore, in August 2027.

The League is where it all starts, and it's worth zero points

The foundation of everything is the Pokémon League. It's the casual meetup at your local store, for fun: you show up, play, trade cards and get to know people. There's no competitive pressure, it's about playing and learning.

Here's something important that almost nobody knows: League results don't count toward any ranking and don't award Championship Points. Zero. What you get there is 1 Play! Point per League season, up to 12 per year, plus the prize packs with promo cards, which is pretty cool when you're starting out.

And that's fine. The League isn't where you score points, it's where you learn to play without losing anything. If you've never played a tournament in your life, that's the place. Seriously.

Points start to exist at the next event.

League Challenge: your first points show up here

Leaving the League, the first tournament that awards CP is the League Challenge. It's the smallest official tournament and the one that shows up most often on your store's schedule. The champion takes 15 CP.

And right at your first pointed tournament, you run into the system's first gotcha, the one that trips up a lot of people.

The kicker, or why your Top 8 can be worth zero

CP isn't paid out by placement alone. Each placement bracket only opens if the tournament has a minimum number of players in your division. That minimum is the kicker.

An example with real numbers, which is the best way to get it:

In a League Challenge, the 5th-8th place bracket pays 8 CP. But it only opens with 14 players in the division.

You finished sixth in a 12-player Challenge?

Zero CP.

Same sixth place, in a 20-player Challenge: 8 CP. Same placement, same games, same person. What changed was how many people showed up.

That's why "I made Top 8" is not, by itself, information about points. Small tournaments pay less because fewer brackets open.

The CP table is the same for the game's three divisions: Junior (born in 2015 or later), Senior (2011 to 2014) and Masters (2010 or earlier). In practice Juniors and Seniors score less, and it's not because the table changes, it's because the division is small and the deeper brackets never open. From here on, every money and invite figure I mention is for Masters.

It's the kind of detail that makes people leave a tournament thinking they scored and find out later they scored nothing.

With the kicker understood, the Challenge table reads in full:

Placement	CP	Kicker
1st	15	0
2nd	12	4
3rd-4th	10	8
5th-8th	8	14
9th-16th	6	25
17th-32nd	4	48

League Cup: the big brother

The League Cup is the biggest tournament a store can run. It's the real competition between the players in your area: everyone who's taking it seriously shows up, and the champion takes 50 CP. More than three times the Challenge. And on top of the points, the champion gets the exclusive playmat of the quarter, which changes every cycle and is a heck of a trophy to have on your table.

To see what a Cup in Brazil looks like in practice: Alex won the Betim League Cup with Dragapult Blaziken and wrote the report here on the site.

Placement	CP	Kicker
1st	50	0
2nd	40	4
3rd-4th	32	8
5th-8th	25	17
9th-16th	20	48
17th-32nd	16	80
33rd-64th	13	128

Regionals and Specials: this is where it gets serious

The Regional Championship is where the circuit changes size. You don't need an invite or any points to enter. You need to register and be quick about it, because seats run out. In Brazil, registration is always through RK9.

What changes is the scale. Look at the size of the fields we've had in Brazil over the last seasons, Masters division only:

Regional	When	Masters in the field
Belo Horizonte	Oct 2025	1,117
Curitiba	Mar 2026	1,449
Campinas	May 2026	1,725

That's a different sport compared to a store Cup. And the payout follows: the champion of a Regional takes 350 CP, US$ 10,000 and a direct invite to Worlds, no ranking required. I'll get back to that shortcut in a bit.

A lone number says nothing, so let me put it into something of mine. I played the Campinas Regional with Garchomp and finished 210th, in a field of 1,725. It wasn't a standout result, I wasn't anywhere near Top Cut. By today's table, that's worth 60 CP.

Hold on to that 60, it comes back in a moment.

The Special Event is the Regional's sibling for regions that don't get a Regional. It pays exactly the same CP, including the direct invite for the champion, but no prize money. In Latin America this season, that's Buenos Aires and Lima.

The Regional table (Specials pay the same):

Placement	CP	Kicker
1st	350	0
2nd	325	4
3rd-4th	300	8
5th-8th	280	17
9th-16th	200	33
17th-32nd	160	65
33rd-64th	120	129
65th-128th	80	257
129th-256th	60	513
257th-512th	45	1,025
513th-1,024th	22	2,049

Internationals: Latin America's biggest one is in São Paulo

Above the Regional, before Worlds, there's only one kind of tournament left: the International Championships. This season there are three in the whole world.

International	Where	When
LAIC	São Paulo, Anhembi	November 20-22, 2026
EUIC	London, Excel	February 19-21, 2027
NAIC	Chicago, McCormick Place	June 18-20, 2027

Look at the first row. Latin America's International is in Brazil, a little over two months from now.

And it's big. The November 2025 LAIC, also in São Paulo, had more than 2,100 players in Masters alone, up from 1,810 the previous edition. It grew by roughly 300 people in one year and crossed the two thousand mark.

The champion of an International takes 500 CP and US$ 25,000. Its table is the fattest in the circuit:

Placement	CP	Kicker
1st	500	0
2nd	480	4
3rd-4th	420	8
5th-8th	380	17
9th-16th	300	33
17th-32nd	240	65
33rd-64th	180	129
65th-128th	140	257
129th-256th	100	513
257th-512th	85	1,025
513th-1,024th	42	2,049

The champion of that LAIC was the Brazilian Pedro Pertusi, with Gardevoir/Jellicent. The Top 8 had players from the United States, Japan, Canada and Finland.

The whole world came to play here, and a Brazilian won.

Best Finish Limit: playing ten Regionals doesn't add up ten

This is the second gotcha, and it's the most important one in this whole article.

Not every result of yours counts. There's a cap on how many results of each type count in a season, and it's called the Best Finish Limit:

4 League Challenges
4 League Cups
5 results across Regionals, Specials and Internationals

Each limit is separate: your 4 best Challenges count, your 4 best Cups count, and your 5 best big-event results count. And notice that Regionals, Specials and Internationals fight over those same 5 slots.

In other words: you can play fifteen Regionals in a season, but only your five best count. The sixth only changes anything if it's better than one of the five already in.

And this is where the math gets interesting. Run the numbers on a perfect local season, someone who won everything they played at the store:

4 Challenge wins: 4 × 15 = 60 CP

4 Cup wins: 4 × 50 = 200 CP

Absolute ceiling: 260 CP

That's a flawless local season. You didn't lose a single store tournament all year.

Now compare:

A single Regional win: 350 CP.

One Sunday afternoon is worth more than a whole undefeated year in your city.

Remember my 210th place in Campinas, worth 60 CP?

A result I didn't celebrate, in a single tournament, ties four Challenge wins. Four undefeated Saturdays at your store are worth the same as one Sunday where I finished 210th. That's how the system is designed: it rewards the people who play the big tournaments.

So how many CP do I need for Worlds?

We're back at the opening question. And now we can answer it properly.

There is no number. The invite isn't a minimum score, it's a ranking within your rating zone.

A rating zone is the competitive region where you play. There are five:

US and Canada
Europe
Latin America
Oceania
Middle East and South Africa

Japan, South Korea, mainland China and the Asia-Pacific region are not on that list. They run their own Organized Play programs and qualify through a different path. If someone tells you "in Japan it took X points", ignore it. It's a different championship.

Each zone has a fixed number of invites per division, and the players who get in are the best in that zone's CP ranking. That's it. There's no cutoff grade, there's a queue.

Before the table, a warning: this season's allocations haven't been published for the TCG. Pokémon's official page is still showing last season. So what's below is the 2026 season, labeled as such, and it's there to give you a sense of scale:

Rating zone	Junior	Senior	Masters
US and Canada	80	100	135
Europe	80	100	135
Latin America	50	50	125
Oceania	10	10	20

2026 season allocations. The 2027 ones had not been published by the time this article closed.

In practice: your goal isn't "reach X CP". It's finishing among the top players of your rating zone, and by last year's yardstick that meant top 125 in Latin America. How many points that ends up taking depends on how much the rest of the zone scores. You don't control that part. You control how many points you make.

That's why the cut moves.

The back door: direct invites

There's a second path, and it's much simpler to explain. Some results qualify you on the spot, no ranking involved:

Result	What happens
Regional champion	Worlds invite
Special Event champion	Worlds invite
Top 4 at an International	Worlds invite
Top 4 at the previous Worlds	Invite to the next Worlds

And here's the detail that changes everything:

Regional, 1st place: 350 CP and a guaranteed invite.

Regional, 2nd place: 325 CP and nothing.

Twenty-five points apart on the table, and an abyss apart in the season. The same thing happens higher up:

International, semifinals: 420 CP and a guaranteed invite.

International, quarterfinals: 380 CP and back to the ranking queue.

The distance between two neighboring placements isn't measured in points. That quarterfinals match at an International isn't worth 40 CP, it's worth the season.

And direct invites don't trickle down. If the Regional champion already had an invite, the runner-up inherits nothing.

How much it took last season

Now, the number you've wanted since the beginning. It exists, but only looking backwards.

These are last season's real cuts, read from Pokémon's official ranking after the dust settled. It's the CP of the player who finished in the last position that still got an invite, in Masters:

Rating zone	Masters invites	CP of the last one in
US and Canada	135	740
Europe	135	660
Latin America	125	627
Oceania	20	740

Numbers read from Pokémon's official ranking at season close. Oceania's came from a public mirror of that same ranking, so it deserves a bit more caution than the others.

Look at the Oceania row and the US row.

Same cut. 740 for both.

Except the US had more than twice as many majors at home over the season. Oceania had four.

That kills the idea that a zone with more tournaments qualifies more easily. What decides the cut isn't how many points are available, it's how many invites exist for how many people are chasing them. Oceania has twenty invites. Twenty. It's the tightest funnel in the entire circuit.

And look at our row: 627 was the cheapest cut among the big zones, more than a hundred points below the US.

Who was the last one in through Latin America? A Brazilian. Anthony Ribeiro, at position 125, the last name above the line. The next Brazilian on the list missed it with 622, just 5 CP short.

Five points. A third of a League Challenge win.

Now put that 627 next to what you learned in the Best Finish Limit section.

Our zone's cut was 627. The ceiling of a perfect local season is 260.

It doesn't add up. There is no path to Worlds playing only in your city, even if you win absolutely everything that shows up at your store all year long. And it's not close, it's short by more than half. Everyone who qualified through Latin America carried most of their points from Regionals, Specials and Internationals. There's no other way.

One warning before you write 627 in your notebook: that's last year, not your target. If the zone scores heavily this season, 627 won't be enough. If it's weaker, it's more than enough. The number is there to give you a sense of scale, not for you to aim at it. It's that thing from the beginning: the number changes as the zone scores, and nobody knows it before the end.

This season's Latin America calendar

This is our zone's majors calendar for the season:

Event	Where	When
Recife Regional	Brazil	October 3-4, 2026
Puebla Regional	Mexico	October 24-25
Buenos Aires Special	Argentina	November 14-15
LAIC	São Paulo	November 20-22
Mérida Regional	Mexico	January 23-24, 2027
Santiago Regional	Chile	February 27-28
Rio de Janeiro Regional	Brazil	March 6-7
Monterrey Regional	Mexico	April 10-11
Lima Special	Peru	April 24-25
Porto Alegre Regional	Brazil	May 8-9

That's four majors inside Brazil: Recife, the LAIC in São Paulo, Rio and Porto Alegre. Since only your five best major results count, you can fill almost the entire limit playing at home. And the first one is just a month away, in Recife.

The full schedule, including what's happening in Minas, is always up to date on our calendar page.

How much chasing points costs

Let me give you the real registration numbers, because nobody talks about this and everybody needs to know. Look at how the Regional price in Brazil has moved:

Regional	When	Masters registration
Rio de Janeiro	2025	R$ 150
Last season's Regionals	2026	R$ 220
Recife	October 2026	R$ 230

From R$ 150 to R$ 230 in a bit over a year: up more than 50%. Juniors and Seniors pay R$ 150.

Beyond the Regional, the November 2025 LAIC cost R$ 300 (the 2026 edition's price isn't out yet), and a store League Cup runs around R$ 50.

Adding up the four Brazilian events this season, using past editions' prices where the new one isn't out yet, it's more than R$ 990 in registration alone, before flights, hotel, food and cards.

It's expensive, and it's better to know that now than to find out when booking the flight. With the dates in hand you can plan ahead.

How strong is Latin America?

And how good is our zone? Two facts from last season answer that.

The 2026 Worlds, in San Francisco, had 797 players in Masters. The champion was the American Andrew Hedrick with Dragapult. And the world runner-up was the Argentinian Diego Cassiraga, with Alakazam/Dudunsparce. Second best player on the planet, from our zone. If you didn't follow it, the full Worlds recap is here.

And the last International played on Brazilian soil was won by a Brazilian, in front of more than two thousand players.

There's more. In Latin America's final ranking last season, 39 of the 125 Masters qualifiers were Brazilian. That's the zone's biggest delegation, ahead of Chile with 33 and Mexico with 27. And it's not just volume: six of Latin America's top ten were Brazilian, with William Azevedo closing the season in second place in the entire zone.

The zone is strong. And Brazil is its biggest force.

Road to Singapore

Summing up the path: find a League, play Challenges and Cups until you're comfortable, and plan your five majors. After that, what decides it is your position in your zone's ranking, not your point total.

And at the very end, Worlds 2027, at the Singapore EXPO, August 13-15. First time in Singapore, first time back in Asia since Yokohama in 2023.

One last thing, and then I'll leave you alone.

I wrote this article because I'm going to need it myself. This season, I'm going for it.

And it starts in Recife, October 3-4.

First major of the season in Brazil, R$ 230 to register, far enough from Minas that I need a plane, and the first of the five major slots I have to spend through May. Today I have 0 CP, same as you.

The plan is to play the four Brazilian ones and, if everything works out, leave the country to play Santiago and Lima too. That's six tournaments for a limit of five results, so one of them gets left out of the count. Hopefully it's left out because the other five were good.

I'll play the tournaments and count the points here, the good results and the embarrassing ones. What it cost, what I got wrong, and what it's like to try to get from Minas to Worlds. And if in May, in Porto Alegre, I'm nowhere near Latin America's top 125, that'll be written here too.

Now that you know how someone gets to Worlds, what's left is finding out whether I can.

It starts in Recife. Let's go?

From Minas Gerais or nearby?

How the official circuit works and how to qualify for Worlds