Returning for the second year in a row, Connor Meyers worked his way all year to advance to the Pokémon 2025 World Championship.
He will be battling for the title of the world championship this weekend. Meyers travels to Anaheim, CA, this year to compete from Aug. 15-17 in the world championship.
He will compete in the Trading Card Game Senior League at the Pokémon World Championship. The senior division falls between the junior and master divisions. Meyers competed as a junior last year.
The world championship is by invite only. Meyers is ranked 33rd in the U.S. and Canada.
This year, the rules changed to qualify for the 2025 season. Meyers explained that the system used to be based on points that were earned in regular season competition. Now it is based on a ranking, and only the top 75 people make it.
In 2024, if a competitor earned 450 points, they would qualify for the world championship. There were almost 2,000 juniors in 2024.
On part of Meyers’ Pokémon journey this year, he was invited to attend the European International Competition. Meyers traveled to London in the United Kingdom with his mom, Melissa Meyers, to play a round against some of the international Pokémon players. After competing in the European International Competition, he earned a stipend.
There are many types of competition when introducing the world of Pokémon. Connor primarily competes in the Trading Card Game realm. There are also PokémonGO and PokémonUNITE.
Connor went to the world championship in August 2024, and he recounted the match he had with the best player in the world.
“Worlds was definitely rough last year,” said Connor. “I went against the first match. I went against the first-place American, the first-place person worldwide. It was my first match.”
Connor said that he was in that match for about 10 minutes. A typical match can last anywhere from 40-75 minutes. Connor placed 147th out of thousands of other competitors worldwide in the 2024 championship.
Due to the increase of language barriers at these competitions, there are several trained translators who are not only fluent in several languages but also knowledgeable in the game of Pokémon. The Meyeres shared that the translators are present to translate Pokémon cards that are written in different languages.
Connor and Melissa explained that in the championship, the officiants issue “Deck Checks,” where they will randomly select a person to check their deck to ensure eligibility. All competitors must submit in advance the decks they intend to use in the competition.
Every year, the Pokémon directors are switching out what cards are allowed to be played and what isn’t. Connor’s responsibility as a competitor is to stay up to date with the decks that he holds so that he is eligible to play in the competition. In this season, the newest deck is “F” grade.
Connor said he collected almost 400 new cards this year to prepare to attend the world competition.
Parents Melissa and Robert Meyers are his regular practice partners. Both of his parents have become involved in the Pokémon world by helping him travel to all of the regional, national and international competitions all over the world.
With all of his traveling for competitions, Connor has started to fill out a scratch ticket with all of the states he’s been traveling to for competitions.
Also cheering on Connor are grandparents Geoffrey and Kersten Rink, Jack and Marilyn Rink, and Suzanne Riccio.
Connor had only been playing Pokémon for less than a year when he made it to the world championship last year in Honolulu, HI.
Connor, a rising-seventh-grader at Brown Elementary School, has been competing with Pokémon for a little over a year; however, he’s been collecting Pokémon cards since he was 5. His collection has approximately 100,000 cards encased in about 50 Pokémon card-holding binders. He keeps track of his cards on his phone through an app called “Collectr.”
Connor started competing because one day in August 2023, he stumbled across a Pokémon shop while he attended a birthday party in the former Crossville Outlet Center.
To view the competition, visit www.pokemon.com/broadcasts.