Competitive Pokémon is on phones now, but you still need a Switch to become a champion

To get started with competitive Pokémon battles, all you need is your phone. But to compete at the highest level, like at the Pokémon World Championships, you’re going to need a Switch. And there doesn’t seem to be a good reason why.

Battle simulator Pokémon Champions originally launched on the Switch and Switch 2 in April, with the mobile version following in June. The experience is nearly identical across the game’s versions; since it’s cross-platform, the choice really comes down to what devices you own and whether you prefer tapping or using a controller. I find myself playing Champions on my phone more often just because it’s always in my pocket and I’m blessed with unlimited data.

But at this year’s World Championships, the mobile version of Champions wasn’t allowed in competition. As of September 1st, certain local tournaments will allow the mobile version, but regional-level tournaments and above will still require Switch hardware to compete.

During a roundtable interview at Worlds last week — before the September 1st rules refresh — Champions producer Masaaki Hoshino addressed its absence from the competition. “The reason why we’re using Switch right now is just because graphics are quite nice on the Switch 2,” he said via an interpreter. “Also, because [with] mobile there’s just so many devices out there, if we allow people to bring their own devices, it can be a bit complicated from that perspective.”

This answer made less sense before the rules were updated. Tournaments at the regional level and higher are streamed on official channels, and VGC — the name for the competitive video game circuit — was the most viewed of the four games featured at Worlds this year, according to Esports Charts. Based on Hoshino’s answer and the new rules, it seems like The Pokémon Company views mobile as fine for smaller tournaments, but maybe not premium enough for the biggest VGC stages. (The Worlds finals took place in the Chase Center in San Francisco this year, only the second time the finals have ever been held in an arena as opposed to a hotel ballroom or convention center hall. Production values and attendance were especially high.)

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Pokémon Champions on my Switch 2…

Image: The Pokémon Company, Nintendo

Champions is certainly sharper on Switch 2 than on my iPhone 14 Pro, and it makes sense to want to present the best version of the flagship VGC game in a series often criticized for its graphics. But while competitors are required to bring their own devices to tournaments, the official VGC rules handbook does call out one case where hardware might be provided: during streamed matches. Players can generate a “team ID” for the battle team they’re using in a tournament, and technically anyone can use that ID to create a “replica” of that team on their own account. The handbook says specifically that “Team IDs may be used for recordkeeping or team checks, and they may be utilized on hardware provided by the Tournament Organizer for streamed matches.” If visual fidelity is a concern, there’s at least a workaround already available.

But is there a technical reason not to allow mobile at every level of competition? “Given that Champions is available on both mobile and Switch, cross-platform play is the trickiest thing,” Hoshino said. “All of the battle calculation is done on the server side, so this is what enables the cross-platform play, but it also was one of the trickiest things in developing Champions.”

So in short, not really. The trickiness of cross-platform play possibly explains the gap between the console and mobile releases of Champions, but that’s solved now that both versions are out (barring things like regular server maintenance, I suppose).

Mobile is also not a problem for other competitive Pokémon games. The mobile version of Pokémon Unite is allowed in high-level competition and it’s worked just fine, though only one player in the finals this year appeared to be playing on a phone as opposed to a Switch. Pokémon Go is only on mobile, and its competitive matches are streamed just like the VGC ones are. These aren’t the best examples in favor of mobile — this was Unite’s last year in the World Championships, and the Pokémon Go spectator experience is by far the worst of the bunch for several reasons — but it’s clearly possible to make mobile work.

Hoshino said that across the Switch 2 and mobile combined, Pokémon Champions has been downloaded around 25 million times. Given that number is higher than the total Switch 2 install base as of June, it’s likely that at least a few million of those downloads were on mobile devices. It’s anyone’s guess how many of those players are exclusively playing on mobile, but with the recent Switch 2 price hike and higher tech prices overall, it’s possible that at least some prospective Champions competitors will own a phone but not have the budget for a Switch.

Building a team and prepping for a tournament is the same whether you’re playing Champions on Switch or your phone. With the single exception of Eternal Flower Floette, which is only obtainable through Pokémon Legends: Z-A, you can get every pokémon you might need for a team within Champions using the gacha-style “recruit” feature. It’s quicker and easier if you already own some Switch Pokémon games, since you can transfer pokémon you caught from those games into Champions via the cloud storage service Pokémon Home, but it’s possible to get the pokémon you need without spending any money on Champions. It’s also easier than ever to train those pokémon and get them battle-ready; what used to take hours in-game now only takes a few minutes.

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Thousands of people attended the VGC finals at the Chase Center in San Francisco. A spectator view of the matches was on the jumbotron.

Photo: Kallie Plagge / The Verge

So it’s not like mobile-only players — or those who’ve only played Champions in general — are majorly disadvantaged in teambuilding. (That said, Eternal Floette was on the winning team this year and many other competitors’ teams besides, and players have criticized it for being a “pay-to-win” pokémon.) If you don’t have a Switch for whatever reason, you could absolutely start your championship run on mobile and potentially qualify for Worlds — and then not have the hardware needed to compete there.

Locking those players out of high-level competition feels like a mistake when the stated ethos of Pokémon Champions is “to be inclusive and accessible to all players.” That’s evident in the game’s design, which makes previously obfuscated information easy to access and understand, and it’s clear from the viewership of this year’s World Championships — in addition to the thousands of spectators in attendance at the arena — that VGC is growing. When I attended the Pokémon World Championships in 2016, the last time they were in San Francisco, it was a niche event held in a hotel; now the official MLB account is posting references to the championship-winning VGC play.

I’ve been playing and following VGC for a long time, and it’s a rich, deep game with a passionate and largely welcoming community — I’m thrilled to see it getting more popular and accessible. It just makes sense to keep tournaments as accessible as possible, too.

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