Pokemon World Championship 2025 and 2026 to take place in California

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Pokemon Trainers, prepare your best card decks! The Pokemon Company has announced the host cities for its two upcoming world championships will both be in California.

According to a release from the company Monday, the announcement came during Sunday’s closing ceremony of the 2024 Pokemon World Championship , which was held in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The three-day tournament brought the best players — colloquially referred to as “Trainers” — from around the world to compete in Pokemon TCG, Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet, Pokemon GO and Pokemon UNITE.

On Sunday, Tsunekazu Ishihara, the company’s CEO and president, revealed next year’s tournament will take place in Anaheim from Aug. 15 to 17, while the 2026 Pokemon Worlds will be held in San Francisco from Aug. 28 to 30.

The last time the tournament was held in Anaheim and San Francisco back-to-back was in 2017 and 2016 respectively. Those were also the most recent years the tournament was held in the Golden State.

In June, the company announced several changes to the 2025 season, including adjustments to how Trainers will qualify and how Championship Points (CP) will be tallied.

Instead of getting invitations based on a fixed CP that Trainers need to meet, a set number of players from each rating zone, age division and individual game will earn an invitation to Worlds based on their leaderboard standings, the company said in a previous release .

Also in 2025, fans can expect to see new Pokemon TCG cards including Lillie’s Clefairy ex, Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex and N’s Zoroark ex, the company said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17.