No stipend, no problem. The current #2 player in the world, Sam Pandelis, organized yet another “challenge” tournament that reached a prize pool of over $2000. These tournaments have been held since the beginning of the 2017 season, with the goal of raising enough money for the winner to travel to one of the four International Championships. With 2018’s reintroduction of the “International” tournament structure, the community has once again created a tournament that has awarded its winner nearly $1700. Congratulations to Justin Carris, 2016 Worlds quarterfinalist, and now, your 2018 London Challenge Champion.

How the tournament worked

For just a $15 entry fee, players were able to enter for a chance to win a trip to London. Players battled using the current VGC 2017 rule set in a tournament that functioned much like a typical regional-level tournament: eight rounds of Swiss and a Top Cut, permitting all players with a 6-2 record to advance. The tournament took place in its entirety using Pokemon Showdown! with the bracket being hosted via Battlefy. Matches were streamed on Pandelis’ Twitch Channel, featuring commentary from other players in the community.

The tournament reached 149 players in total, and since this was open to players across the world, those living in places like Japan and Australia had matches scheduled as early as 4 a.m. After nearly 13 hours of competition, a winner was finally crowned.

If you’d like to view the top teams from the tournament, check out Trainer Tower’s list of results from the event here.

While we’re (sort of) on the topic, let’s talk stipends

After a few months of anticipation, the official travel awards for the London International Championships were announced for players who have placed high enough in their respective region’s Championship Point rankings. What’s important to note here is that the awards apply to those players with the highest amount of Championship Points from the 2017 season, meaning those at the top of the 2018 rankings are not included.

The Masters players who qualified from each region are as follows:

US and Canada

Nick Navarre

Ashton Cox

Chuppa Cross

Tommy Cooleen

Europe

Markus Stadter

Baris Ackos

Ben Kyriakou

William Tansley

Oceania

Christopher Kan

Melvin Keh

Baringa

Sam Pandelis

Latin America

Sebastian Escalante

Frederico Andino

Paul Ruiz

Juan

IRNemesiz

Full stipend information can be found on the official webpage for the 2018 European International Championships

Looking to London

With three more International Championships left to go, make sure to keep an eye out for more of these “challenge” tournaments. If you’d like to keep up to date with the details regarding these tournaments, make sure to follow Sam Pandelis’ Twitter (@zeldavgc) and follow him on Twitch to catch some of the action from these tournaments if you’re not able to compete.

The 2018 London International Championships are just on the horizon, and they’re shaping up to be one of the last exciting tournaments for the 2017 format. Not only do we have players who’ve earned their trip through their performances in the previous season, but now thanks to these challenge tournaments, even more top players from other countries will be able to make the trip to London. It’s only a matter of time before we’re able to see which of these players goes home with the title of 2018’s European International Champion.

Thanks for reading!

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Images from Battlefy, Pokemon, Ken Sugimori and The Pokemon Company International

Featured Image(s) from Pokemon Sun and Moon

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