The 2016 U.S. Pokémon National Championships are going down this weekend, bringing the best Trading Card Game, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and Pokken Tournament players to Columbus, Ohio to determine which of the country’s best players will be heading to San Francisco in August for the big show.
The Pokémon Company has set up a lovely hub site for this year’s Nationals, with different Twitch channels for each of the three competitions and highlights running down the side. For the sake of avoiding annoying autoplay, here’s a link.
I’m keeping an eye on the Pokken Tournament stream myself. As much as I appreciate the strategy that goes into traditional Pokémon battles, it’s nice to have something to watch that isn’t mainly two players thinking at each other really hard.
Those thinking and fighting players are competing for a chance to represent the U.S. in the World Championships, held in San Francisco August 19-21. I suppose the $10,000 top prize for the Trading Card Game and $5,000 for the video game competition is also worth fighting for, if you’re into that sort of thing. The top Pokken prize at the nationals is $3,000 plus travel to San Fran.
You can read more about the Pokemon National Championships here.