. . .

Legacy Structures Defined 

1. Gym Battling (Legacy)

This section needs little introduction and even less elaboration. Gyms serve as the primary facilities in which one comes of age as a Trainer. Receiving a badge from a Gym is a major point of pride; receiving eight Gym badges is the culmination of a lifelong effort, regardless of how long that life may have been lived before its realization. 

Importantly, Gym Leaders scale their teams to particular level brackets to facilitate an optimal training experience regardless of the skill level of their challengers. This practice justifies the flexible Gym order of each region’s respective pilgrimages and diversifies each Trainer’s journeys. Whether one obtains all eight Gym badges is an entirely personal decision that can take months, years, or decades to complete depending on one’s training prowess and priorities. With that said, obtaining all eight badges in a given region is not a Trainer guarantee, and possessing them justifies a lifelong career in Pokémon battling should one wish to pursue it.

2. Victory Road (Legacy)

Victory Road is a curated walk through wilderness that tests the strength of one’s bonds with their Pokémon. While each region has variations on the actual route to their respective summits, “Victory Road” broadly indicates a space designed to test a Trainer’s self-sufficiency and ability to navigate the challenges of the natural world with the help of their Pokémon. Only through time-tested trust in one’s companions can a Trainer survive harsh camping conditions, unruly weather, and distance from civilization and existing support networks. 

Victory Road’s “curation” is minimal. Pathways exist, as well as small-scale infrastructure (such as bridges), but the climb is intentionally arduous and can take a week to complete. Yet battle prowess alone does not signify Pokémon mastery. Therefore, each “Victory Road” weeds out those that might excel in combat but fail to see their Pokémon as comrades. 

3. The Elite Four (Legacy) and Regional Champion (Contemporary)

The Elite Four are precisely what they claim to be: a cohort of Pokémon Masters that have proven themselves to be the greatest of their respective regions. Challenging them is a privilege given to any Trainer who can claim eight badges and reach the end of Victory Road. 

After defeating the Elite Four, the victorious Trainer is invited to battle the standing Champion. Should the Trainer usurp the Champion, the Trainer is enlisted into the Hall of Fame and crowned the current Champion of their respective region. 

It’s important to note, however, the multiplicativity of Championhood and the relatively newer role of Regional Champion. Many Champions exist. Anyone who can defeat the current reigning Champion is crowned as such. Despite this new title, a Regional Champion acts as the active Champion of a particular region and is an administrative role that is formally given by the region’s Pokémon League. An incoming Champion may be considered for the role, as a previous Champion title is required to be Regional Champion; however, it is not necessarily the case that a newly crowned Champion would immediately become the Regional Champion. Such a title as Regional Champion would be negotiated, and later bestowed, by the region’s Pokémon League following one’s victory. Therefore, there need be only one regional representative of the title at a time regardless of the success of the most recent victor—and the status of Regional Champion may be denied (by the League) or rejected (by the victor) at will. 

4. Hall of Fame (Legacy)

One enters the Hall of Fame by becoming the standing Champion of a particular region. Once an honor reserved for a select few, the Hall of Fame has expanded exponentially over the decades as Trainers have become better versed in the arts of Pokémon battling and bonding both. Despite its growth, a place in the Hall of Fame sanctions a Trainer as a living legend, one whose Poké-prowess will be spoken of for years to come. 

Outside of garnering social capital and the undying trust of the Trainer community, the primary benefit of entering the Hall of Fame for a modern-day Trainer is that a Hall of Famer receives lifelong qualification to the Pokémon World Tournament. The Pokémon World Tournament (or PWT) is the newest structure built to sustain new chapters of the stories of Hall of Famers past and future. The PWT and its supporting ladder system are documented below under “Contemporary Structures Defined.” 

Contemporary Structures Defined 

At this point, one could consider their journey “over.” Such were the assumptions of each region at the turn of the century, who had not seen such meteoric rises to Champion status as Red, Blue, Gold, Crystal, Brendan, May, and the rest of them. These too-talented Trainers—now Masters in their own rights—deserved a “postgame” structure so as to continue to hone their skills and contribute to the ever-growing field of battle research. 

Thus was born the Pokémon World Tournament, an invite-only tournament structure catered to Champions and those of similar mettle. Showcasing high-powered Pokémon and training talent across all regions, the PWT is the ultimate goal of every professional Trainer who wishes to see their name in lights. 

The creation of the PWT, however, subsequently opened up alternative routes to Pokémon Mastery that play to different strengths and social environments. These pathways are documented below. Please note that the numbers do not correspond to a linear trajectory as they do in the Legacy pathways; they are solely for ease of listing. Consult the flowchart above for a visual representation of each progression pathway. 

1. Battle Facilities (Battle Subway, Battle Towers, etc.) 

Battle facilities are among the first high-end training opportunities available for anyone with eight Gym Badges of a given region. More than simple training grounds, however, these battle facilities are longstanding prestigious institutions, success in which rivals Hall of Famer status within the regional underground. Hence these battle facilities are extremely indebted to the socio-cultural makeups of their regions: Unova, for example, pioneered the creation of the Battle Subway in honor of its trademark train, while Battle Maisons represent the aesthetics and theatrics of their Kalosian homes. Featured battle formats are also variable by region, with facilities often boasting formats that are popular, or had been popularized, in that particular region. 

The biggest drawback of battle facilities is their lack of connection to other institutions, including the PWT proper. Riding the Battle Subway will not grant a Trainer access to the Elite Four, nor will a high ranking at a Battle House enshrine one in the Hall of Fame, regardless of region. Despite this pitfall, battle facilities are beloved pastimes with strong competition and even stronger communities, which more closely approximate art collectives than tournament series. Those who frequent these facilities are more likely to use combat as a form of creative expression, intersecting battling with thespianism, musicality, vocal performance, or other means of inciting applause. Becoming a Subway lifer, for instance, is an excellent way to make a name for oneself as both a competent Trainer and entertainer, just as Emmet and Ingo have before them. Though there may be no “greater pathway” that follows battle facility success, there is no greater pathway to crafting a fulfilling, self-contained competitive circuit than by visiting regional battle facilities. Their regulars make them worth the trip. 

2. Regional Conferences

Regional conferences are equivalent to national championships of their respective regions. Held once a year per region, conferences are high-stakes tournaments that are open to Trainers who have completed eight Gym badges in a given region. These events feature single-elimination rounds of typically single battles, though conference rulesets vary year to year, with certain regions tentatively supporting nationally beloved battle formats. One is only qualified to compete in a regional conference if they possess all eight badges of that region, which encourages Trainers to extensively travel to maximize their chances of annual victory. 

The draw to conferences lies in their ties to the PWT. The top 32 contestants of a regional conference are invited to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. The top 4 contestants of a regional conference receive an instant, one-time invitation to the PWT itself alongside a chance to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. These challenger invites last until the next PWT, which occurs every two years, giving contestants time to train before taking down the Elite Four once and for all. This prize structure serves two purposes. Firstly, those who achieve top 32 status are given a “last-chance” opportunity to qualify for the PWT by defeating the Elite Four and Regional Champion, as anyone who enters the Hall of Fame receives automatic invitations to compete in the PWT for life thereafter. In addition, this provisional invitation allows for a one-time skip of Victory Road, which may save a Trainer a traumatic week of trekking depending on the region. For those in the top 4, a guaranteed spot in the PWT could be a career high, while the added opportunity to challenge the Elite Four for future automatic invitations might solidify their Champion status for the rest of their lives. Given the absurdly high levels of competition at conferences themselves, it is not unlikely that a top 32 contestant would be competitive against an Elite Four member. However, the Elite Four is known to upscale their teams’ strengths based on the determined skill levels of their challengers, which greatly raises the stakes of one’s invitational battle. 

Conferences were created as a first step in sanctioning high-end competitive battling in response to the influx of incoming Champions, thus sanctifying a true “competitive circuit” with an on-ramp to the PWT. Champions themselves have little need for conferences: Their Hall of Fame status guarantees that they need not qualify for the PWT through conference grinding. To maximize community-building in the competitive scene, however, previous Champions are enlisted as Guests of Honor and given special airtime at each conference. A Guest of Honor may be asked to commentate feature matches, engage in opening or closing ceremonies, perform moveset showcases at halftime, or simply allow VIPs to pet their Pokémon. Most importantly, the winner of every regional conference is invited to close the tournament with a no-stakes exhibition match against the Guest of Honor. Guests of Honor are usually announced two weeks ahead of a regional conference. This time frame fosters an air of excitement and added pressure for those who wish to win, as Trainers may begin to fill their crunch-time training sessions with daydreams of battling Cynthia or Green beneath the blinding lights. The Guest of Honor system thus encourages conference contestants to aim high in their performances while continuously enshrining previous Champions as the ones to watch out for, promoting environments as starry as the eyes of their competitors. 

Conferences typically last two days and occur once a month. Their dates vary based on calendar week, but conferences follow a standard pattern. Kanto jump-starts the conference season around late February to early March, with Johto’s conference in late March following it. Hoenn confers in mid-April; Sinnoh rounds out mid-May; and late June into early July hosts the PWT, providing a month of crunch-time to Tournament hopefuls. Unova restarts conferences in late July, followed by Galar in August. Paldea boasts a conference in October, and Alola ends the season in late November. Online metastrategy guides document the best way to grind conferences month by month, while full-time conference contestants blog about their culturally shocking experiences with Unovan trains, Kanto ferries, and Alolan “island time.” With their constant release cycles and rich opportunities for cultural exchange, conferences satisfy Trainers’ wanderlust, needs for endless competition, and desires for community, giving them the positive competitive outlet that older Champions wish they could have received throughout their careers. 

3. Battle Frontiers

Battle Frontiers are sprawling campuses designed to hone the competitive spirits of those who have completed a given region’s Gym circuit. Battle Frontiers were popularized in Hoenn and Sinnoh around the same time, differentiated by their arena infrastructures, battle formats, and prize support, and then exported to other regions with minimal renovation. 

Like the catch-all “battle facilities” described above, Battle Frontiers have a long history of being regional mainstays. However, upon the creation of the PWT and the streamlining of its corresponding ladder system, Pokémon Leagues revised Battle Frontiers to facilitate a pipeline to the PWT. Because of the regional specificity of facilities like the Battle Subway or Battle Maisons, it would be impossible for one tournament body to standardize them all. Doing so would be, at best, a massive cultural overreach, damaging the legacies of each region’s beloved battle environs. Alternatively, Battle Frontiers take similar forms across regions, and the diversity of their battle offerings ensure that Trainers are conference-ready rather than format one-tricks. Given the ease of normalizing their Trainer-focused features, the founding members of the PWT integrated Battle Frontiers into the PWT circuit rather than revise any other existing institutions.  

Simply put, Trainers that obtain all gold challenge items for a given region’s Battle Frontier (such as Hoenn’s “symbols” and Sinnoh’s “ceremonial prints”) receive a one-time PWT invitation, as well as an invitation to skip Victory Road and directly challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion, just as a top-4 placement at a regional conference would guarantee. On the surface, this math seems incongruent with conference math: A Battle Frontier grinder must battle hundreds of opponents to reach their chosen goal, whereas a conference attendee need only battle ten to fifteen contestants in a given weekend. Justifying this equivalency is that most battles in the Battle Frontier are versus less-skilled opponents, with difficulty ramping upward as one progresses. Conference skill levels, on the other hand, are relatively equivalent throughout the weekend because of the higher skill floor that one must meet to convincingly compete within them. In other words, most Battle Frontier rounds (Frontier Brains notwithstanding) could be considered fluff battles that would equal the amount of battles that a conference contestant would conduct throughout their preceding year of training, which rationalizes the consistency of conference difficulty levels. Once these “fluff battles” are subtracted from one’s record, the amount of Battle Frontier battles needed to obtain one’s golden prizes are equivalent to, or even less than, the amount of battles a conference contestant would conduct in a given weekend.

Even among aspiring Trainers, there is no social hierarchy nor rivalry between Battle Frontier grinders and regional conferencegoers. These two systems exist because they sustain different training pressures and senses of progression. A Trainer who fears the shame of being eliminated after round one at a conference might thrive on the Battle Frontier treadmill, whose incline is more level. A Trainer who might feel claustrophobic on a neighborhood Battle Frontier campus might revel in the worldly community of a regional conference across the pond. Regardless of one’s preferred qualification method, the PWT maintains both to ensure a steady stream of Hall of Fame hopefuls.

4. Pokémon World Tournament 

The Pokémon World Tournament is the pinnacle of Pokémon battling. Hosted in Unova every two years, the PWT is the most televised event in the world, bringing together all who value Pokémon regardless of experience in a manner analogous to the real-world Olympics. Once qualified, whether provisionally through the ladder or vis-à-vis Hall of Fame status, Trainers drop everything to prepare. After all, the list of PWT registrants reads like the index of a history book. Being so much as in the margins of it is an honor not to be taken lightly. 

The PWT lasts two weeks, Monday through Friday, between late June and early July. During the first week of competition, challengers complete ten Swiss rounds, two per contestant each day. Each round is best-of-one, Trainer versus Trainer, and has a time limit of one hour. Before rounds begin, contestants are split into two randomized player pools to accommodate space and time constraints, as it is not feasible to have hundreds of battles occurring simultaneously. The daily timetable for PWT week one, Monday through Friday, is as follows:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Round One, Group One 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Round One, Group Two 12:00 - 2:00 PM: Lunch and Halftime 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Round Two, Group One 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Round Two, Group Two 5:00 PM: Festivities end for the day, to be continued the following day with the next subsequent round

At 5:00 PM on Friday of the first week, Swiss round rankings are finalized with a cut to top 32. Tiebreakers are calculated based on opponent match win percentage (OMW%) and the amount of a Trainer’s conscious Pokémon at the end of each round. No match ties are possible: Self-K.O. moves, recoil moves, and status, weather, and force-K.O. moves are ruled in favor of either the attacker or defender depending on the category of the move. The top 32 contestants advance to the second week of competition following a weekend break, which begins a single-elimination best-of-one knockout bracket. Quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches have no time restrictions. The weekly timetable for PWT week two is as follows:

Monday: Top 32 bracket matches (16 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Tuesday: Top 16 bracket matches (8 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Wednesday: Quarterfinals (4 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Thursday: Semifinals (2 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Friday: Final championship match and closing ceremony

Opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, and halftime shows are extravagant performances that celebrate diverse elements of the Pokémon world. Professors from all regions show off their recent evolutionary discoveries. Champions choreograph synchronized moveset showcases with other Champions. Beloved entertainers from battle facilities like the Subway create elaborate setpieces of their homes in which they dance, sing, or mock-battle, honoring the intersection of the mainstream and the underground from which they rose. Much like the ceremonies of the real-world Olympics, these aesthetic indulgences commemorate the cultures that make Pokémon society special, inspiring all peoples to appreciate their pasts and internalize the brightness of their collective futures. 

While running the PWT is a logistic nightmare, the rewards are plentiful. For the Trainers themselves, competing in the PWT solidifies Pokémon Mastery no matter their final result. One could leave the PWT reasonably assured that they would be back, either as a future Hall of Famer or a returning conference champion, after having learned many a lesson throughout the Swiss. The Swiss structure of the Tournament also increases the possibility that a PWT newcomer might battle against one of their heroes throughout the weeks. First-round pairings are variant, which makes pairing into a Champion possible for a newcomer, and points-based matchmaking increases the likelihood that an underdog may reach top 32 even if they meet Red in the first round. After-hours, the ability to coexist with fellow Masters increases opportunities for networking, community-building, and even bonding with others’ Pokémon. Friends are made for life based on their shared status as the best in the world, and it’s common for pockets of Champions to storm the streets like tourists in their own rights, temporarily living lives unburdened by League drama, Gym responsibilities, or full conference schedules. 

5. Mt. Silver

Red’s rise to Champion was unprecedented at the time. Between taking down Team Rocket and effortlessly sweeping the Indigo League, Red was arguably the first to embody the previously mythological ideal of Pokémon Master. In talks (or emails, rather) with the Indigo League succeeding his success, the League and Red agreed to sanction him as an ultimate Champion of sorts. Tucked away in a remote location of his choosing, Red would be the final pilgrimage of any Champion daring to meet Red’s level of fame. Upon scouting myriad regions to determine an appropriate locale, Red chose Mt. Silver for its environmental approximation of Victory Road and its unparalleled isolation. Mt. Silver was sanctioned thereafter as a nature preserve off-limits to all but the most capable of Hall of Famers, featuring minimal League interference with its natural state.

The danger of Mt. Silver cannot be overstated. One may only declare intent to climb Mt. Silver should they enter a regional Hall of Fame or achieve top-32 standing of a Pokémon World Tournament. Upon declaring such intent, a Trainer must submit to the League a dossier of their prospective team. This dossier includes a resume of each Pokémon’s previous achievements (such as Elite Four challenger appearances), their learned moves, and audiovisual documentation of their capabilities outside of combat (such as their usage of Fly, Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb, or other HM moves; or evidence of extraordinary strength, mental fortitude, or capacities for care [in Pokémon such as Chansey]). While Mt. Silver is not strictly comparable to climbing Mt. Everest, one is required to make the journey with solely the six submitted Pokémon, skyrocketing the climb’s threat level. In addition, unlike Victory Road, the League cannot promise infrastructural assistance (such as bridges or paved pathways) outside of a basic trail that Red maintains monthly. Thus Mt. Silver remains one of the only pockets of true untamed wilderness in the region and cannot be assumed safe.

The requirements of the climb itself have been refined since the days of Gold’s ascension. Today, climbers are assigned a specific day and time of their battle. Climbers are then given one week to ascend to the top. Should they fail to arrive by their appointed battle time, their battle is cancelled, and they must journey back down the mountain from their current point without assistance. Challengers usually arrive a day or two early, upon which they enter a safe house with standard accommodations at which they may stay until the day of their battle. The safe house is customarily “booked” from the day of their climb and stocked to ensure at least seven days of hospitable living. Red does not socialize with challengers at this safe house, nor are they allowed inside his home. However, the summit upon which challengers battle Red marks an approximate halfway point between the safe house and Red’s house, making Red easily accessible in case of emergencies. 

Mt. Silver’s weather is notoriously savage. From November through March, no challengers are allowed to scale Mt. Silver. Red’s travel prospects are limited throughout that window as well, necessitating bulk grocery purchases and discouraging conference attendance (to this day, Red has never been to a conference in Alola). The Indigo League maintains a waitlist of challengers during the inaccessible winter season, who are then scheduled from the beginning of March onward (pending Red’s conference obligations), causing a deluge of battles for Red between March and late April. By the end of the summer, the flood of challengers slows to a trickle, only to become dammed throughout December again. This seasonal battle pattern allows Red to enjoy long stretches of spring activity before hibernating for the winter. 

6. Red

Legacy Structures Defined 

1. Gym Battling (Legacy)

This section needs little introduction and even less elaboration. Gyms serve as the primary facilities in which one comes of age as a Trainer. Receiving a badge from a Gym is a major point of pride; receiving eight Gym badges is the culmination of a lifelong effort, regardless of how long that life may have been lived before its realization. 

Importantly, Gym Leaders scale their teams to particular level brackets to facilitate an optimal training experience regardless of the skill level of their challengers. This practice justifies the flexible Gym order of each region’s respective pilgrimages and diversifies each Trainer’s journeys. Whether one obtains all eight Gym badges is an entirely personal decision that can take months, years, or decades to complete depending on one’s training prowess and priorities. With that said, obtaining all eight badges in a given region is not a Trainer guarantee, and possessing them justifies a lifelong career in Pokémon battling should one wish to pursue it.

2. Victory Road (Legacy)

Victory Road is a curated walk through wilderness that tests the strength of one’s bonds with their Pokémon. While each region has variations on the actual route to their respective summits, “Victory Road” broadly indicates a space designed to test a Trainer’s self-sufficiency and ability to navigate the challenges of the natural world with the help of their Pokémon. Only through time-tested trust in one’s companions can a Trainer survive harsh camping conditions, unruly weather, and distance from civilization and existing support networks. 

Victory Road’s “curation” is minimal. Pathways exist, as well as small-scale infrastructure (such as bridges), but the climb is intentionally arduous and can take a week to complete. Yet battle prowess alone does not signify Pokémon mastery. Therefore, each “Victory Road” weeds out those that might excel in combat but fail to see their Pokémon as comrades. 

3. The Elite Four (Legacy) and Regional Champion (Contemporary)

The Elite Four are precisely what they claim to be: a cohort of Pokémon Masters that have proven themselves to be the greatest of their respective regions. Challenging them is a privilege given to any Trainer who can claim eight badges and reach the end of Victory Road. 

After defeating the Elite Four, the victorious Trainer is invited to battle the standing Champion. Should the Trainer usurp the Champion, the Trainer is enlisted into the Hall of Fame and crowned the current Champion of their respective region. 

It’s important to note, however, the multiplicativity of Championhood and the relatively newer role of Regional Champion. Many Champions exist. Anyone who can defeat the current reigning Champion is crowned as such. Despite this new title, a Regional Champion acts as the active Champion of a particular region and is an administrative role that is formally given by the region’s Pokémon League. An incoming Champion may be considered for the role, as a previous Champion title is required to be Regional Champion; however, it is not necessarily the case that a newly crowned Champion would immediately become the Regional Champion. Such a title as Regional Champion would be negotiated, and later bestowed, by the region’s Pokémon League following one’s victory. Therefore, there need be only one regional representative of the title at a time regardless of the success of the most recent victor—and the status of Regional Champion may be denied (by the League) or rejected (by the victor) at will. 

4. Hall of Fame (Legacy)

One enters the Hall of Fame by becoming the standing Champion of a particular region. Once an honor reserved for a select few, the Hall of Fame has expanded exponentially over the decades as Trainers have become better versed in the arts of Pokémon battling and bonding both. Despite its growth, a place in the Hall of Fame sanctions a Trainer as a living legend, one whose Poké-prowess will be spoken of for years to come. 

Outside of garnering social capital and the undying trust of the Trainer community, the primary benefit of entering the Hall of Fame for a modern-day Trainer is that a Hall of Famer receives lifelong qualification to the Pokémon World Tournament. The Pokémon World Tournament (or PWT) is the newest structure built to sustain new chapters of the stories of Hall of Famers past and future. The PWT and its supporting ladder system are documented below under “Contemporary Structures Defined.” 

Contemporary Structures Defined 

At this point, one could consider their journey “over.” Such were the assumptions of each region at the turn of the century, who had not seen such meteoric rises to Champion status as Red, Blue, Gold, Crystal, Brendan, May, and the rest of them. These too-talented Trainers—now Masters in their own rights—deserved a “postgame” structure so as to continue to hone their skills and contribute to the ever-growing field of battle research. 

Thus was born the Pokémon World Tournament, an invite-only tournament structure catered to Champions and those of similar mettle. Showcasing high-powered Pokémon and training talent across all regions, the PWT is the ultimate goal of every professional Trainer who wishes to see their name in lights. 

The creation of the PWT, however, subsequently opened up alternative routes to Pokémon Mastery that play to different strengths and social environments. These pathways are documented below. Please note that the numbers do not correspond to a linear trajectory as they do in the Legacy pathways; they are solely for ease of listing. Consult the flowchart above for a visual representation of each progression pathway. 

1. Battle Facilities (Battle Subway, Battle Towers, etc.) 

Battle facilities are among the first high-end training opportunities available for anyone with eight Gym Badges of a given region. More than simple training grounds, however, these battle facilities are longstanding prestigious institutions, success in which rivals Hall of Famer status within the regional underground. Hence these battle facilities are extremely indebted to the socio-cultural makeups of their regions: Unova, for example, pioneered the creation of the Battle Subway in honor of its trademark train, while Battle Maisons represent the aesthetics and theatrics of their Kalosian homes. Featured battle formats are also variable by region, with facilities often boasting formats that are popular, or had been popularized, in that particular region. 

The biggest drawback of battle facilities is their lack of connection to other institutions, including the PWT proper. Riding the Battle Subway will not grant a Trainer access to the Elite Four, nor will a high ranking at a Battle House enshrine one in the Hall of Fame, regardless of region. Despite this pitfall, battle facilities are beloved pastimes with strong competition and even stronger communities, which more closely approximate art collectives than tournament series. Those who frequent these facilities are more likely to use combat as a form of creative expression, intersecting battling with thespianism, musicality, vocal performance, or other means of inciting applause. Becoming a Subway lifer, for instance, is an excellent way to make a name for oneself as both a competent Trainer and entertainer, just as Emmet and Ingo have before them. Though there may be no “greater pathway” that follows battle facility success, there is no greater pathway to crafting a fulfilling, self-contained competitive circuit than by visiting regional battle facilities. Their regulars make them worth the trip. 

2. Regional Conferences

Regional conferences are equivalent to national championships of their respective regions. Held once a year per region, conferences are high-stakes tournaments that are open to Trainers who have completed eight Gym badges in a given region. These events feature single-elimination rounds of typically single battles, though conference rulesets vary year to year, with certain regions tentatively supporting nationally beloved battle formats. One is only qualified to compete in a regional conference if they possess all eight badges of that region, which encourages Trainers to extensively travel to maximize their chances of annual victory. 

The draw to conferences lies in their ties to the PWT. The top 32 contestants of a regional conference are invited to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. The top 4 contestants of a regional conference receive an instant, one-time invitation to the PWT itself alongside a chance to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. These challenger invites last until the next PWT, which occurs every two years, giving contestants time to train before taking down the Elite Four once and for all. This prize structure serves two purposes. Firstly, those who achieve top 32 status are given a “last-chance” opportunity to qualify for the PWT by defeating the Elite Four and Regional Champion, as anyone who enters the Hall of Fame receives automatic invitations to compete in the PWT for life thereafter. In addition, this provisional invitation allows for a one-time skip of Victory Road, which may save a Trainer a traumatic week of trekking depending on the region. For those in the top 4, a guaranteed spot in the PWT could be a career high, while the added opportunity to challenge the Elite Four for future automatic invitations might solidify their Champion status for the rest of their lives. Given the absurdly high levels of competition at conferences themselves, it is not unlikely that a top 32 contestant would be competitive against an Elite Four member. However, the Elite Four is known to upscale their teams’ strengths based on the determined skill levels of their challengers, which greatly raises the stakes of one’s invitational battle. 

Conferences were created as a first step in sanctioning high-end competitive battling in response to the influx of incoming Champions, thus sanctifying a true “competitive circuit” with an on-ramp to the PWT. Champions themselves have little need for conferences: Their Hall of Fame status guarantees that they need not qualify for the PWT through conference grinding. To maximize community-building in the competitive scene, however, previous Champions are enlisted as Guests of Honor and given special airtime at each conference. A Guest of Honor may be asked to commentate feature matches, engage in opening or closing ceremonies, perform moveset showcases at halftime, or simply allow VIPs to pet their Pokémon. Most importantly, the winner of every regional conference is invited to close the tournament with a no-stakes exhibition match against the Guest of Honor. Guests of Honor are usually announced two weeks ahead of a regional conference. This time frame fosters an air of excitement and added pressure for those who wish to win, as Trainers may begin to fill their crunch-time training sessions with daydreams of battling Cynthia or Green beneath the blinding lights. The Guest of Honor system thus encourages conference contestants to aim high in their performances while continuously enshrining previous Champions as the ones to watch out for, promoting environments as starry as the eyes of their competitors. 

Conferences typically last two days and occur once a month. Their dates vary based on calendar week, but conferences follow a standard pattern. Kanto jump-starts the conference season around late February to early March, with Johto’s conference in late March following it. Hoenn confers in mid-April; Sinnoh rounds out mid-May; and late June into early July hosts the PWT, providing a month of crunch-time to Tournament hopefuls. Unova restarts conferences in late July, followed by Galar in August. Paldea boasts a conference in October, and Alola ends the season in late November. Online metastrategy guides document the best way to grind conferences month by month, while full-time conference contestants blog about their culturally shocking experiences with Unovan trains, Kanto ferries, and Alolan “island time.” With their constant release cycles and rich opportunities for cultural exchange, conferences satisfy Trainers’ wanderlust, needs for endless competition, and desires for community, giving them the positive competitive outlet that older Champions wish they could have received throughout their careers. 

3. Battle Frontiers

Battle Frontiers are sprawling campuses designed to hone the competitive spirits of those who have completed a given region’s Gym circuit. Battle Frontiers were popularized in Hoenn and Sinnoh around the same time, differentiated by their arena infrastructures, battle formats, and prize support, and then exported to other regions with minimal renovation. 

Like the catch-all “battle facilities” described above, Battle Frontiers have a long history of being regional mainstays. However, upon the creation of the PWT and the streamlining of its corresponding ladder system, Pokémon Leagues revised Battle Frontiers to facilitate a pipeline to the PWT. Because of the regional specificity of facilities like the Battle Subway or Battle Maisons, it would be impossible for one tournament body to standardize them all. Doing so would be, at best, a massive cultural overreach, damaging the legacies of each region’s beloved battle environs. Alternatively, Battle Frontiers take similar forms across regions, and the diversity of their battle offerings ensure that Trainers are conference-ready rather than format one-tricks. Given the ease of normalizing their Trainer-focused features, the founding members of the PWT integrated Battle Frontiers into the PWT circuit rather than revise any other existing institutions.  

Simply put, Trainers that obtain all gold challenge items for a given region’s Battle Frontier (such as Hoenn’s “symbols” and Sinnoh’s “ceremonial prints”) receive a one-time PWT invitation, as well as an invitation to skip Victory Road and directly challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion, just as a top-4 placement at a regional conference would guarantee. On the surface, this math seems incongruent with conference math: A Battle Frontier grinder must battle hundreds of opponents to reach their chosen goal, whereas a conference attendee need only battle ten to fifteen contestants in a given weekend. Justifying this equivalency is that most battles in the Battle Frontier are versus less-skilled opponents, with difficulty ramping upward as one progresses. Conference skill levels, on the other hand, are relatively equivalent throughout the weekend because of the higher skill floor that one must meet to convincingly compete within them. In other words, most Battle Frontier rounds (Frontier Brains notwithstanding) could be considered fluff battles that would equal the amount of battles that a conference contestant would conduct throughout their preceding year of training, which rationalizes the consistency of conference difficulty levels. Once these “fluff battles” are subtracted from one’s record, the amount of Battle Frontier battles needed to obtain one’s golden prizes are equivalent to, or even less than, the amount of battles a conference contestant would conduct in a given weekend.

Even among aspiring Trainers, there is no social hierarchy nor rivalry between Battle Frontier grinders and regional conferencegoers. These two systems exist because they sustain different training pressures and senses of progression. A Trainer who fears the shame of being eliminated after round one at a conference might thrive on the Battle Frontier treadmill, whose incline is more level. A Trainer who might feel claustrophobic on a neighborhood Battle Frontier campus might revel in the worldly community of a regional conference across the pond. Regardless of one’s preferred qualification method, the PWT maintains both to ensure a steady stream of Hall of Fame hopefuls.

4. Pokémon World Tournament 

The Pokémon World Tournament is the pinnacle of Pokémon battling. Hosted in Unova every two years, the PWT is the most televised event in the world, bringing together all who value Pokémon regardless of experience in a manner analogous to the real-world Olympics. Once qualified, whether provisionally through the ladder or vis-à-vis Hall of Fame status, Trainers drop everything to prepare. After all, the list of PWT registrants reads like the index of a history book. Being so much as in the margins of it is an honor not to be taken lightly. 

The PWT lasts two weeks, Monday through Friday, between late June and early July. During the first week of competition, challengers complete ten Swiss rounds, two per contestant each day. Each round is best-of-one, Trainer versus Trainer, and has a time limit of one hour. Before rounds begin, contestants are split into two randomized player pools to accommodate space and time constraints, as it is not feasible to have hundreds of battles occurring simultaneously. The daily timetable for PWT week one, Monday through Friday, is as follows:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Round One, Group One 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Round One, Group Two 12:00 - 2:00 PM: Lunch and Halftime 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Round Two, Group One 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Round Two, Group Two 5:00 PM: Festivities end for the day, to be continued the following day with the next subsequent round

At 5:00 PM on Friday of the first week, Swiss round rankings are finalized with a cut to top 32. Tiebreakers are calculated based on opponent match win percentage (OMW%) and the amount of a Trainer’s conscious Pokémon at the end of each round. No match ties are possible: Self-K.O. moves, recoil moves, and status, weather, and force-K.O. moves are ruled in favor of either the attacker or defender depending on the category of the move. The top 32 contestants advance to the second week of competition following a weekend break, which begins a single-elimination best-of-one knockout bracket. Quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches have no time restrictions. The weekly timetable for PWT week two is as follows:

Monday: Top 32 bracket matches (16 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Tuesday: Top 16 bracket matches (8 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Wednesday: Quarterfinals (4 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Thursday: Semifinals (2 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Friday: Final championship match and closing ceremony

Opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, and halftime shows are extravagant performances that celebrate diverse elements of the Pokémon world. Professors from all regions show off their recent evolutionary discoveries. Champions choreograph synchronized moveset showcases with other Champions. Beloved entertainers from battle facilities like the Subway create elaborate setpieces of their homes in which they dance, sing, or mock-battle, honoring the intersection of the mainstream and the underground from which they rose. Much like the ceremonies of the real-world Olympics, these aesthetic indulgences commemorate the cultures that make Pokémon society special, inspiring all peoples to appreciate their pasts and internalize the brightness of their collective futures. 

While running the PWT is a logistic nightmare, the rewards are plentiful. For the Trainers themselves, competing in the PWT solidifies Pokémon Mastery no matter their final result. One could leave the PWT reasonably assured that they would be back, either as a future Hall of Famer or a returning conference champion, after having learned many a lesson throughout the Swiss. The Swiss structure of the Tournament also increases the possibility that a PWT newcomer might battle against one of their heroes throughout the weeks. First-round pairings are variant, which makes pairing into a Champion possible for a newcomer, and points-based matchmaking increases the likelihood that an underdog may reach top 32 even if they meet Red in the first round. After-hours, the ability to coexist with fellow Masters increases opportunities for networking, community-building, and even bonding with others’ Pokémon. Friends are made for life based on their shared status as the best in the world, and it’s common for pockets of Champions to storm the streets like tourists in their own rights, temporarily living lives unburdened by League drama, Gym responsibilities, or full conference schedules. 

5. Mt. Silver

Red’s rise to Champion was unprecedented at the time. Between taking down Team Rocket and effortlessly sweeping the Indigo League, Red was arguably the first to embody the previously mythological ideal of Pokémon Master. In talks (or emails, rather) with the Indigo League succeeding his success, the League and Red agreed to sanction him as an ultimate Champion of sorts. Tucked away in a remote location of his choosing, Red would be the final pilgrimage of any Champion daring to meet Red’s level of fame. Upon scouting myriad regions to determine an appropriate locale, Red chose Mt. Silver for its environmental approximation of Victory Road and its unparalleled isolation. Mt. Silver was sanctioned thereafter as a nature preserve off-limits to all but the most capable of Hall of Famers, featuring minimal League interference with its natural state.

The danger of Mt. Silver cannot be overstated. One may only declare intent to climb Mt. Silver should they enter a regional Hall of Fame or achieve top-32 standing of a Pokémon World Tournament. Upon declaring such intent, a Trainer must submit to the League a dossier of their prospective team. This dossier includes a resume of each Pokémon’s previous achievements (such as Elite Four challenger appearances), their learned moves, and audiovisual documentation of their capabilities outside of combat (such as their usage of Fly, Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb, or other HM moves; or evidence of extraordinary strength, mental fortitude, or capacities for care [in Pokémon such as Chansey]). While Mt. Silver is not strictly comparable to climbing Mt. Everest, one is required to make the journey with solely the six submitted Pokémon, skyrocketing the climb’s threat level. In addition, unlike Victory Road, the League cannot promise infrastructural assistance (such as bridges or paved pathways) outside of a basic trail that Red maintains monthly. Thus Mt. Silver remains one of the only pockets of true untamed wilderness in the region and cannot be assumed safe.

The requirements of the climb itself have been refined since the days of Gold’s ascension. Today, climbers are assigned a specific day and time of their battle. Climbers are then given one week to ascend to the top. Should they fail to arrive by their appointed battle time, their battle is cancelled, and they must journey back down the mountain from their current point without assistance. Challengers usually arrive a day or two early, upon which they enter a safe house with standard accommodations at which they may stay until the day of their battle. The safe house is customarily “booked” from the day of their climb and stocked to ensure at least seven days of hospitable living. Red does not socialize with challengers at this safe house, nor are they allowed inside his home. However, the summit upon which challengers battle Red marks an approximate halfway point between the safe house and Red’s house, making Red easily accessible in case of emergencies. 

Mt. Silver’s weather is notoriously savage. From November through March, no challengers are allowed to scale Mt. Silver. Red’s travel prospects are limited throughout that window as well, necessitating bulk grocery purchases and discouraging conference attendance (to this day, Red has never been to a conference in Alola). The Indigo League maintains a waitlist of challengers during the inaccessible winter season, who are then scheduled from the beginning of March onward (pending Red’s conference obligations), causing a deluge of battles for Red between March and late April. By the end of the summer, the flood of challengers slows to a trickle, only to become dammed throughout December again. This seasonal battle pattern allows Red to enjoy long stretches of spring activity before hibernating for the winter. 

6. Red

Legacy Structures Defined 

1. Gym Battling (Legacy)

This section needs little introduction and even less elaboration. Gyms serve as the primary facilities in which one comes of age as a Trainer. Receiving a badge from a Gym is a major point of pride; receiving eight Gym badges is the culmination of a lifelong effort, regardless of how long that life may have been lived before its realization. 

Importantly, Gym Leaders scale their teams to particular level brackets to facilitate an optimal training experience regardless of the skill level of their challengers. This practice justifies the flexible Gym order of each region’s respective pilgrimages and diversifies each Trainer’s journeys. Whether one obtains all eight Gym badges is an entirely personal decision that can take months, years, or decades to complete depending on one’s training prowess and priorities. With that said, obtaining all eight badges in a given region is not a Trainer guarantee, and possessing them justifies a lifelong career in Pokémon battling should one wish to pursue it.

2. Victory Road (Legacy)

Victory Road is a curated walk through wilderness that tests the strength of one’s bonds with their Pokémon. While each region has variations on the actual route to their respective summits, “Victory Road” broadly indicates a space designed to test a Trainer’s self-sufficiency and ability to navigate the challenges of the natural world with the help of their Pokémon. Only through time-tested trust in one’s companions can a Trainer survive harsh camping conditions, unruly weather, and distance from civilization and existing support networks. 

Victory Road’s “curation” is minimal. Pathways exist, as well as small-scale infrastructure (such as bridges), but the climb is intentionally arduous and can take a week to complete. Yet battle prowess alone does not signify Pokémon mastery. Therefore, each “Victory Road” weeds out those that might excel in combat but fail to see their Pokémon as comrades. 

3. The Elite Four (Legacy) and Regional Champion (Contemporary)

The Elite Four are precisely what they claim to be: a cohort of Pokémon Masters that have proven themselves to be the greatest of their respective regions. Challenging them is a privilege given to any Trainer who can claim eight badges and reach the end of Victory Road. 

After defeating the Elite Four, the victorious Trainer is invited to battle the standing Champion. Should the Trainer usurp the Champion, the Trainer is enlisted into the Hall of Fame and crowned the current Champion of their respective region. 

It’s important to note, however, the multiplicativity of Championhood and the relatively newer role of Regional Champion. Many Champions exist. Anyone who can defeat the current reigning Champion is crowned as such. Despite this new title, a Regional Champion acts as the active Champion of a particular region and is an administrative role that is formally given by the region’s Pokémon League. An incoming Champion may be considered for the role, as a previous Champion title is required to be Regional Champion; however, it is not necessarily the case that a newly crowned Champion would immediately become the Regional Champion. Such a title as Regional Champion would be negotiated, and later bestowed, by the region’s Pokémon League following one’s victory. Therefore, there need be only one regional representative of the title at a time regardless of the success of the most recent victor—and the status of Regional Champion may be denied (by the League) or rejected (by the victor) at will. 

4. Hall of Fame (Legacy)

One enters the Hall of Fame by becoming the standing Champion of a particular region. Once an honor reserved for a select few, the Hall of Fame has expanded exponentially over the decades as Trainers have become better versed in the arts of Pokémon battling and bonding both. Despite its growth, a place in the Hall of Fame sanctions a Trainer as a living legend, one whose Poké-prowess will be spoken of for years to come. 

Outside of garnering social capital and the undying trust of the Trainer community, the primary benefit of entering the Hall of Fame for a modern-day Trainer is that a Hall of Famer receives lifelong qualification to the Pokémon World Tournament. The Pokémon World Tournament (or PWT) is the newest structure built to sustain new chapters of the stories of Hall of Famers past and future. The PWT and its supporting ladder system are documented below under “Contemporary Structures Defined.” 

Contemporary Structures Defined 

At this point, one could consider their journey “over.” Such were the assumptions of each region at the turn of the century, who had not seen such meteoric rises to Champion status as Red, Blue, Gold, Crystal, Brendan, May, and the rest of them. These too-talented Trainers—now Masters in their own rights—deserved a “postgame” structure so as to continue to hone their skills and contribute to the ever-growing field of battle research. 

Thus was born the Pokémon World Tournament, an invite-only tournament structure catered to Champions and those of similar mettle. Showcasing high-powered Pokémon and training talent across all regions, the PWT is the ultimate goal of every professional Trainer who wishes to see their name in lights. 

The creation of the PWT, however, subsequently opened up alternative routes to Pokémon Mastery that play to different strengths and social environments. These pathways are documented below. Please note that the numbers do not correspond to a linear trajectory as they do in the Legacy pathways; they are solely for ease of listing. Consult the flowchart above for a visual representation of each progression pathway. 

1. Battle Facilities (Battle Subway, Battle Towers, etc.) 

Battle facilities are among the first high-end training opportunities available for anyone with eight Gym Badges of a given region. More than simple training grounds, however, these battle facilities are longstanding prestigious institutions, success in which rivals Hall of Famer status within the regional underground. Hence these battle facilities are extremely indebted to the socio-cultural makeups of their regions: Unova, for example, pioneered the creation of the Battle Subway in honor of its trademark train, while Battle Maisons represent the aesthetics and theatrics of their Kalosian homes. Featured battle formats are also variable by region, with facilities often boasting formats that are popular, or had been popularized, in that particular region. 

The biggest drawback of battle facilities is their lack of connection to other institutions, including the PWT proper. Riding the Battle Subway will not grant a Trainer access to the Elite Four, nor will a high ranking at a Battle House enshrine one in the Hall of Fame, regardless of region. Despite this pitfall, battle facilities are beloved pastimes with strong competition and even stronger communities, which more closely approximate art collectives than tournament series. Those who frequent these facilities are more likely to use combat as a form of creative expression, intersecting battling with thespianism, musicality, vocal performance, or other means of inciting applause. Becoming a Subway lifer, for instance, is an excellent way to make a name for oneself as both a competent Trainer and entertainer, just as Emmet and Ingo have before them. Though there may be no “greater pathway” that follows battle facility success, there is no greater pathway to crafting a fulfilling, self-contained competitive circuit than by visiting regional battle facilities. Their regulars make them worth the trip. 

2. Regional Conferences

Regional conferences are equivalent to national championships of their respective regions. Held once a year per region, conferences are high-stakes tournaments that are open to Trainers who have completed eight Gym badges in a given region. These events feature single-elimination rounds of typically single battles, though conference rulesets vary year to year, with certain regions tentatively supporting nationally beloved battle formats. One is only qualified to compete in a regional conference if they possess all eight badges of that region, which encourages Trainers to extensively travel to maximize their chances of annual victory. 

The draw to conferences lies in their ties to the PWT. The top 32 contestants of a regional conference are invited to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. The top 4 contestants of a regional conference receive an instant, one-time invitation to the PWT itself alongside a chance to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. These challenger invites last until the next PWT, which occurs every two years, giving contestants time to train before taking down the Elite Four once and for all. This prize structure serves two purposes. Firstly, those who achieve top 32 status are given a “last-chance” opportunity to qualify for the PWT by defeating the Elite Four and Regional Champion, as anyone who enters the Hall of Fame receives automatic invitations to compete in the PWT for life thereafter. In addition, this provisional invitation allows for a one-time skip of Victory Road, which may save a Trainer a traumatic week of trekking depending on the region. For those in the top 4, a guaranteed spot in the PWT could be a career high, while the added opportunity to challenge the Elite Four for future automatic invitations might solidify their Champion status for the rest of their lives. Given the absurdly high levels of competition at conferences themselves, it is not unlikely that a top 32 contestant would be competitive against an Elite Four member. However, the Elite Four is known to upscale their teams’ strengths based on the determined skill levels of their challengers, which greatly raises the stakes of one’s invitational battle. 

Conferences were created as a first step in sanctioning high-end competitive battling in response to the influx of incoming Champions, thus sanctifying a true “competitive circuit” with an on-ramp to the PWT. Champions themselves have little need for conferences: Their Hall of Fame status guarantees that they need not qualify for the PWT through conference grinding. To maximize community-building in the competitive scene, however, previous Champions are enlisted as Guests of Honor and given special airtime at each conference. A Guest of Honor may be asked to commentate feature matches, engage in opening or closing ceremonies, perform moveset showcases at halftime, or simply allow VIPs to pet their Pokémon. Most importantly, the winner of every regional conference is invited to close the tournament with a no-stakes exhibition match against the Guest of Honor. Guests of Honor are usually announced two weeks ahead of a regional conference. This time frame fosters an air of excitement and added pressure for those who wish to win, as Trainers may begin to fill their crunch-time training sessions with daydreams of battling Cynthia or Green beneath the blinding lights. The Guest of Honor system thus encourages conference contestants to aim high in their performances while continuously enshrining previous Champions as the ones to watch out for, promoting environments as starry as the eyes of their competitors. 

Conferences typically last two days and occur once a month. Their dates vary based on calendar week, but conferences follow a standard pattern. Kanto jump-starts the conference season around late February to early March, with Johto’s conference in late March following it. Hoenn confers in mid-April; Sinnoh rounds out mid-May; and late June into early July hosts the PWT, providing a month of crunch-time to Tournament hopefuls. Unova restarts conferences in late July, followed by Galar in August. Paldea boasts a conference in October, and Alola ends the season in late November. Online metastrategy guides document the best way to grind conferences month by month, while full-time conference contestants blog about their culturally shocking experiences with Unovan trains, Kanto ferries, and Alolan “island time.” With their constant release cycles and rich opportunities for cultural exchange, conferences satisfy Trainers’ wanderlust, needs for endless competition, and desires for community, giving them the positive competitive outlet that older Champions wish they could have received throughout their careers. 

3. Battle Frontiers

Battle Frontiers are sprawling campuses designed to hone the competitive spirits of those who have completed a given region’s Gym circuit. Battle Frontiers were popularized in Hoenn and Sinnoh around the same time, differentiated by their arena infrastructures, battle formats, and prize support, and then exported to other regions with minimal renovation. 

Like the catch-all “battle facilities” described above, Battle Frontiers have a long history of being regional mainstays. However, upon the creation of the PWT and the streamlining of its corresponding ladder system, Pokémon Leagues revised Battle Frontiers to facilitate a pipeline to the PWT. Because of the regional specificity of facilities like the Battle Subway or Battle Maisons, it would be impossible for one tournament body to standardize them all. Doing so would be, at best, a massive cultural overreach, damaging the legacies of each region’s beloved battle environs. Alternatively, Battle Frontiers take similar forms across regions, and the diversity of their battle offerings ensure that Trainers are conference-ready rather than format one-tricks. Given the ease of normalizing their Trainer-focused features, the founding members of the PWT integrated Battle Frontiers into the PWT circuit rather than revise any other existing institutions.  

Simply put, Trainers that obtain all gold challenge items for a given region’s Battle Frontier (such as Hoenn’s “symbols” and Sinnoh’s “ceremonial prints”) receive a one-time PWT invitation, as well as an invitation to skip Victory Road and directly challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion, just as a top-4 placement at a regional conference would guarantee. On the surface, this math seems incongruent with conference math: A Battle Frontier grinder must battle hundreds of opponents to reach their chosen goal, whereas a conference attendee need only battle ten to fifteen contestants in a given weekend. Justifying this equivalency is that most battles in the Battle Frontier are versus less-skilled opponents, with difficulty ramping upward as one progresses. Conference skill levels, on the other hand, are relatively equivalent throughout the weekend because of the higher skill floor that one must meet to convincingly compete within them. In other words, most Battle Frontier rounds (Frontier Brains notwithstanding) could be considered fluff battles that would equal the amount of battles that a conference contestant would conduct throughout their preceding year of training, which rationalizes the consistency of conference difficulty levels. Once these “fluff battles” are subtracted from one’s record, the amount of Battle Frontier battles needed to obtain one’s golden prizes are equivalent to, or even less than, the amount of battles a conference contestant would conduct in a given weekend.

Even among aspiring Trainers, there is no social hierarchy nor rivalry between Battle Frontier grinders and regional conferencegoers. These two systems exist because they sustain different training pressures and senses of progression. A Trainer who fears the shame of being eliminated after round one at a conference might thrive on the Battle Frontier treadmill, whose incline is more level. A Trainer who might feel claustrophobic on a neighborhood Battle Frontier campus might revel in the worldly community of a regional conference across the pond. Regardless of one’s preferred qualification method, the PWT maintains both to ensure a steady stream of Hall of Fame hopefuls.

4. Pokémon World Tournament 

The Pokémon World Tournament is the pinnacle of Pokémon battling. Hosted in Unova every two years, the PWT is the most televised event in the world, bringing together all who value Pokémon regardless of experience in a manner analogous to the real-world Olympics. Once qualified, whether provisionally through the ladder or vis-à-vis Hall of Fame status, Trainers drop everything to prepare. After all, the list of PWT registrants reads like the index of a history book. Being so much as in the margins of it is an honor not to be taken lightly. 

The PWT lasts two weeks, Monday through Friday, between late June and early July. During the first week of competition, challengers complete ten Swiss rounds, two per contestant each day. Each round is best-of-one, Trainer versus Trainer, and has a time limit of one hour. Before rounds begin, contestants are split into two randomized player pools to accommodate space and time constraints, as it is not feasible to have hundreds of battles occurring simultaneously. The daily timetable for PWT week one, Monday through Friday, is as follows:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Round One, Group One 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Round One, Group Two 12:00 - 2:00 PM: Lunch and Halftime 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Round Two, Group One 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Round Two, Group Two 5:00 PM: Festivities end for the day, to be continued the following day with the next subsequent round

At 5:00 PM on Friday of the first week, Swiss round rankings are finalized with a cut to top 32. Tiebreakers are calculated based on opponent match win percentage (OMW%) and the amount of a Trainer’s conscious Pokémon at the end of each round. No match ties are possible: Self-K.O. moves, recoil moves, and status, weather, and force-K.O. moves are ruled in favor of either the attacker or defender depending on the category of the move. The top 32 contestants advance to the second week of competition following a weekend break, which begins a single-elimination best-of-one knockout bracket. Quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches have no time restrictions. The weekly timetable for PWT week two is as follows:

Monday: Top 32 bracket matches (16 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Tuesday: Top 16 bracket matches (8 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Wednesday: Quarterfinals (4 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Thursday: Semifinals (2 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Friday: Final championship match and closing ceremony

Opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, and halftime shows are extravagant performances that celebrate diverse elements of the Pokémon world. Professors from all regions show off their recent evolutionary discoveries. Champions choreograph synchronized moveset showcases with other Champions. Beloved entertainers from battle facilities like the Subway create elaborate setpieces of their homes in which they dance, sing, or mock-battle, honoring the intersection of the mainstream and the underground from which they rose. Much like the ceremonies of the real-world Olympics, these aesthetic indulgences commemorate the cultures that make Pokémon society special, inspiring all peoples to appreciate their pasts and internalize the brightness of their collective futures. 

While running the PWT is a logistic nightmare, the rewards are plentiful. For the Trainers themselves, competing in the PWT solidifies Pokémon Mastery no matter their final result. One could leave the PWT reasonably assured that they would be back, either as a future Hall of Famer or a returning conference champion, after having learned many a lesson throughout the Swiss. The Swiss structure of the Tournament also increases the possibility that a PWT newcomer might battle against one of their heroes throughout the weeks. First-round pairings are variant, which makes pairing into a Champion possible for a newcomer, and points-based matchmaking increases the likelihood that an underdog may reach top 32 even if they meet Red in the first round. After-hours, the ability to coexist with fellow Masters increases opportunities for networking, community-building, and even bonding with others’ Pokémon. Friends are made for life based on their shared status as the best in the world, and it’s common for pockets of Champions to storm the streets like tourists in their own rights, temporarily living lives unburdened by League drama, Gym responsibilities, or full conference schedules. 

5. Mt. Silver

Red’s rise to Champion was unprecedented at the time. Between taking down Team Rocket and effortlessly sweeping the Indigo League, Red was arguably the first to embody the previously mythological ideal of Pokémon Master. In talks (or emails, rather) with the Indigo League succeeding his success, the League and Red agreed to sanction him as an ultimate Champion of sorts. Tucked away in a remote location of his choosing, Red would be the final pilgrimage of any Champion daring to meet Red’s level of fame. Upon scouting myriad regions to determine an appropriate locale, Red chose Mt. Silver for its environmental approximation of Victory Road and its unparalleled isolation. Mt. Silver was sanctioned thereafter as a nature preserve off-limits to all but the most capable of Hall of Famers, featuring minimal League interference with its natural state.

The danger of Mt. Silver cannot be overstated. One may only declare intent to climb Mt. Silver should they enter a regional Hall of Fame or achieve top-32 standing of a Pokémon World Tournament. Upon declaring such intent, a Trainer must submit to the League a dossier of their prospective team. This dossier includes a resume of each Pokémon’s previous achievements (such as Elite Four challenger appearances), their learned moves, and audiovisual documentation of their capabilities outside of combat (such as their usage of Fly, Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb, or other HM moves; or evidence of extraordinary strength, mental fortitude, or capacities for care [in Pokémon such as Chansey]). While Mt. Silver is not strictly comparable to climbing Mt. Everest, one is required to make the journey with solely the six submitted Pokémon, skyrocketing the climb’s threat level. In addition, unlike Victory Road, the League cannot promise infrastructural assistance (such as bridges or paved pathways) outside of a basic trail that Red maintains monthly. Thus Mt. Silver remains one of the only pockets of true untamed wilderness in the region and cannot be assumed safe.

The requirements of the climb itself have been refined since the days of Gold’s ascension. Today, climbers are assigned a specific day and time of their battle. Climbers are then given one week to ascend to the top. Should they fail to arrive by their appointed battle time, their battle is cancelled, and they must journey back down the mountain from their current point without assistance. Challengers usually arrive a day or two early, upon which they enter a safe house with standard accommodations at which they may stay until the day of their battle. The safe house is customarily “booked” from the day of their climb and stocked to ensure at least seven days of hospitable living. Red does not socialize with challengers at this safe house, nor are they allowed inside his home. However, the summit upon which challengers battle Red marks an approximate halfway point between the safe house and Red’s house, making Red easily accessible in case of emergencies. 

Mt. Silver’s weather is notoriously savage. From November through March, no challengers are allowed to scale Mt. Silver. Red’s travel prospects are limited throughout that window as well, necessitating bulk grocery purchases and discouraging conference attendance (to this day, Red has never been to a conference in Alola). The Indigo League maintains a waitlist of challengers during the inaccessible winter season, who are then scheduled from the beginning of March onward (pending Red’s conference obligations), causing a deluge of battles for Red between March and late April. By the end of the summer, the flood of challengers slows to a trickle, only to become dammed throughout December again. This seasonal battle pattern allows Red to enjoy long stretches of spring activity before hibernating for the winter. 

6. Red

Legacy Structures Defined 

1. Gym Battling (Legacy)

This section needs little introduction and even less elaboration. Gyms serve as the primary facilities in which one comes of age as a Trainer. Receiving a badge from a Gym is a major point of pride; receiving eight Gym badges is the culmination of a lifelong effort, regardless of how long that life may have been lived before its realization. 

Importantly, Gym Leaders scale their teams to particular level brackets to facilitate an optimal training experience regardless of the skill level of their challengers. This practice justifies the flexible Gym order of each region’s respective pilgrimages and diversifies each Trainer’s journeys. Whether one obtains all eight Gym badges is an entirely personal decision that can take months, years, or decades to complete depending on one’s training prowess and priorities. With that said, obtaining all eight badges in a given region is not a Trainer guarantee, and possessing them justifies a lifelong career in Pokémon battling should one wish to pursue it.

2. Victory Road (Legacy)

Victory Road is a curated walk through wilderness that tests the strength of one’s bonds with their Pokémon. While each region has variations on the actual route to their respective summits, “Victory Road” broadly indicates a space designed to test a Trainer’s self-sufficiency and ability to navigate the challenges of the natural world with the help of their Pokémon. Only through time-tested trust in one’s companions can a Trainer survive harsh camping conditions, unruly weather, and distance from civilization and existing support networks. 

Victory Road’s “curation” is minimal. Pathways exist, as well as small-scale infrastructure (such as bridges), but the climb is intentionally arduous and can take a week to complete. Yet battle prowess alone does not signify Pokémon mastery. Therefore, each “Victory Road” weeds out those that might excel in combat but fail to see their Pokémon as comrades. 

3. The Elite Four (Legacy) and Regional Champion (Contemporary)

The Elite Four are precisely what they claim to be: a cohort of Pokémon Masters that have proven themselves to be the greatest of their respective regions. Challenging them is a privilege given to any Trainer who can claim eight badges and reach the end of Victory Road. 

After defeating the Elite Four, the victorious Trainer is invited to battle the standing Champion. Should the Trainer usurp the Champion, the Trainer is enlisted into the Hall of Fame and crowned the current Champion of their respective region. 

It’s important to note, however, the multiplicativity of Championhood and the relatively newer role of Regional Champion. Many Champions exist. Anyone who can defeat the current reigning Champion is crowned as such. Despite this new title, a Regional Champion acts as the active Champion of a particular region and is an administrative role that is formally given by the region’s Pokémon League. An incoming Champion may be considered for the role, as a previous Champion title is required to be Regional Champion; however, it is not necessarily the case that a newly crowned Champion would immediately become the Regional Champion. Such a title as Regional Champion would be negotiated, and later bestowed, by the region’s Pokémon League following one’s victory. Therefore, there need be only one regional representative of the title at a time regardless of the success of the most recent victor—and the status of Regional Champion may be denied (by the League) or rejected (by the victor) at will. 

4. Hall of Fame (Legacy)

One enters the Hall of Fame by becoming the standing Champion of a particular region. Once an honor reserved for a select few, the Hall of Fame has expanded exponentially over the decades as Trainers have become better versed in the arts of Pokémon battling and bonding both. Despite its growth, a place in the Hall of Fame sanctions a Trainer as a living legend, one whose Poké-prowess will be spoken of for years to come. 

Outside of garnering social capital and the undying trust of the Trainer community, the primary benefit of entering the Hall of Fame for a modern-day Trainer is that a Hall of Famer receives lifelong qualification to the Pokémon World Tournament. The Pokémon World Tournament (or PWT) is the newest structure built to sustain new chapters of the stories of Hall of Famers past and future. The PWT and its supporting ladder system are documented below under “Contemporary Structures Defined.” 

Contemporary Structures Defined 

At this point, one could consider their journey “over.” Such were the assumptions of each region at the turn of the century, who had not seen such meteoric rises to Champion status as Red, Blue, Gold, Crystal, Brendan, May, and the rest of them. These too-talented Trainers—now Masters in their own rights—deserved a “postgame” structure so as to continue to hone their skills and contribute to the ever-growing field of battle research. 

Thus was born the Pokémon World Tournament, an invite-only tournament structure catered to Champions and those of similar mettle. Showcasing high-powered Pokémon and training talent across all regions, the PWT is the ultimate goal of every professional Trainer who wishes to see their name in lights. 

The creation of the PWT, however, subsequently opened up alternative routes to Pokémon Mastery that play to different strengths and social environments. These pathways are documented below. Please note that the numbers do not correspond to a linear trajectory as they do in the Legacy pathways; they are solely for ease of listing. Consult the flowchart above for a visual representation of each progression pathway. 

1. Battle Facilities (Battle Subway, Battle Towers, etc.) 

Battle facilities are among the first high-end training opportunities available for anyone with eight Gym Badges of a given region. More than simple training grounds, however, these battle facilities are longstanding prestigious institutions, success in which rivals Hall of Famer status within the regional underground. Hence these battle facilities are extremely indebted to the socio-cultural makeups of their regions: Unova, for example, pioneered the creation of the Battle Subway in honor of its trademark train, while Battle Maisons represent the aesthetics and theatrics of their Kalosian homes. Featured battle formats are also variable by region, with facilities often boasting formats that are popular, or had been popularized, in that particular region. 

The biggest drawback of battle facilities is their lack of connection to other institutions, including the PWT proper. Riding the Battle Subway will not grant a Trainer access to the Elite Four, nor will a high ranking at a Battle House enshrine one in the Hall of Fame, regardless of region. Despite this pitfall, battle facilities are beloved pastimes with strong competition and even stronger communities, which more closely approximate art collectives than tournament series. Those who frequent these facilities are more likely to use combat as a form of creative expression, intersecting battling with thespianism, musicality, vocal performance, or other means of inciting applause. Becoming a Subway lifer, for instance, is an excellent way to make a name for oneself as both a competent Trainer and entertainer, just as Emmet and Ingo have before them. Though there may be no “greater pathway” that follows battle facility success, there is no greater pathway to crafting a fulfilling, self-contained competitive circuit than by visiting regional battle facilities. Their regulars make them worth the trip. 

2. Regional Conferences

Regional conferences are equivalent to national championships of their respective regions. Held once a year per region, conferences are high-stakes tournaments that are open to Trainers who have completed eight Gym badges in a given region. These events feature single-elimination rounds of typically single battles, though conference rulesets vary year to year, with certain regions tentatively supporting nationally beloved battle formats. One is only qualified to compete in a regional conference if they possess all eight badges of that region, which encourages Trainers to extensively travel to maximize their chances of annual victory. 

The draw to conferences lies in their ties to the PWT. The top 32 contestants of a regional conference are invited to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. The top 4 contestants of a regional conference receive an instant, one-time invitation to the PWT itself alongside a chance to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. These challenger invites last until the next PWT, which occurs every two years, giving contestants time to train before taking down the Elite Four once and for all. This prize structure serves two purposes. Firstly, those who achieve top 32 status are given a “last-chance” opportunity to qualify for the PWT by defeating the Elite Four and Regional Champion, as anyone who enters the Hall of Fame receives automatic invitations to compete in the PWT for life thereafter. In addition, this provisional invitation allows for a one-time skip of Victory Road, which may save a Trainer a traumatic week of trekking depending on the region. For those in the top 4, a guaranteed spot in the PWT could be a career high, while the added opportunity to challenge the Elite Four for future automatic invitations might solidify their Champion status for the rest of their lives. Given the absurdly high levels of competition at conferences themselves, it is not unlikely that a top 32 contestant would be competitive against an Elite Four member. However, the Elite Four is known to upscale their teams’ strengths based on the determined skill levels of their challengers, which greatly raises the stakes of one’s invitational battle. 

Conferences were created as a first step in sanctioning high-end competitive battling in response to the influx of incoming Champions, thus sanctifying a true “competitive circuit” with an on-ramp to the PWT. Champions themselves have little need for conferences: Their Hall of Fame status guarantees that they need not qualify for the PWT through conference grinding. To maximize community-building in the competitive scene, however, previous Champions are enlisted as Guests of Honor and given special airtime at each conference. A Guest of Honor may be asked to commentate feature matches, engage in opening or closing ceremonies, perform moveset showcases at halftime, or simply allow VIPs to pet their Pokémon. Most importantly, the winner of every regional conference is invited to close the tournament with a no-stakes exhibition match against the Guest of Honor. Guests of Honor are usually announced two weeks ahead of a regional conference. This time frame fosters an air of excitement and added pressure for those who wish to win, as Trainers may begin to fill their crunch-time training sessions with daydreams of battling Cynthia or Green beneath the blinding lights. The Guest of Honor system thus encourages conference contestants to aim high in their performances while continuously enshrining previous Champions as the ones to watch out for, promoting environments as starry as the eyes of their competitors. 

Conferences typically last two days and occur once a month. Their dates vary based on calendar week, but conferences follow a standard pattern. Kanto jump-starts the conference season around late February to early March, with Johto’s conference in late March following it. Hoenn confers in mid-April; Sinnoh rounds out mid-May; and late June into early July hosts the PWT, providing a month of crunch-time to Tournament hopefuls. Unova restarts conferences in late July, followed by Galar in August. Paldea boasts a conference in October, and Alola ends the season in late November. Online metastrategy guides document the best way to grind conferences month by month, while full-time conference contestants blog about their culturally shocking experiences with Unovan trains, Kanto ferries, and Alolan “island time.” With their constant release cycles and rich opportunities for cultural exchange, conferences satisfy Trainers’ wanderlust, needs for endless competition, and desires for community, giving them the positive competitive outlet that older Champions wish they could have received throughout their careers. 

3. Battle Frontiers

Battle Frontiers are sprawling campuses designed to hone the competitive spirits of those who have completed a given region’s Gym circuit. Battle Frontiers were popularized in Hoenn and Sinnoh around the same time, differentiated by their arena infrastructures, battle formats, and prize support, and then exported to other regions with minimal renovation. 

Like the catch-all “battle facilities” described above, Battle Frontiers have a long history of being regional mainstays. However, upon the creation of the PWT and the streamlining of its corresponding ladder system, Pokémon Leagues revised Battle Frontiers to facilitate a pipeline to the PWT. Because of the regional specificity of facilities like the Battle Subway or Battle Maisons, it would be impossible for one tournament body to standardize them all. Doing so would be, at best, a massive cultural overreach, damaging the legacies of each region’s beloved battle environs. Alternatively, Battle Frontiers take similar forms across regions, and the diversity of their battle offerings ensure that Trainers are conference-ready rather than format one-tricks. Given the ease of normalizing their Trainer-focused features, the founding members of the PWT integrated Battle Frontiers into the PWT circuit rather than revise any other existing institutions.  

Simply put, Trainers that obtain all gold challenge items for a given region’s Battle Frontier (such as Hoenn’s “symbols” and Sinnoh’s “ceremonial prints”) receive a one-time PWT invitation, as well as an invitation to skip Victory Road and directly challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion, just as a top-4 placement at a regional conference would guarantee. On the surface, this math seems incongruent with conference math: A Battle Frontier grinder must battle hundreds of opponents to reach their chosen goal, whereas a conference attendee need only battle ten to fifteen contestants in a given weekend. Justifying this equivalency is that most battles in the Battle Frontier are versus less-skilled opponents, with difficulty ramping upward as one progresses. Conference skill levels, on the other hand, are relatively equivalent throughout the weekend because of the higher skill floor that one must meet to convincingly compete within them. In other words, most Battle Frontier rounds (Frontier Brains notwithstanding) could be considered fluff battles that would equal the amount of battles that a conference contestant would conduct throughout their preceding year of training, which rationalizes the consistency of conference difficulty levels. Once these “fluff battles” are subtracted from one’s record, the amount of Battle Frontier battles needed to obtain one’s golden prizes are equivalent to, or even less than, the amount of battles a conference contestant would conduct in a given weekend.

Even among aspiring Trainers, there is no social hierarchy nor rivalry between Battle Frontier grinders and regional conferencegoers. These two systems exist because they sustain different training pressures and senses of progression. A Trainer who fears the shame of being eliminated after round one at a conference might thrive on the Battle Frontier treadmill, whose incline is more level. A Trainer who might feel claustrophobic on a neighborhood Battle Frontier campus might revel in the worldly community of a regional conference across the pond. Regardless of one’s preferred qualification method, the PWT maintains both to ensure a steady stream of Hall of Fame hopefuls.

4. Pokémon World Tournament 

The Pokémon World Tournament is the pinnacle of Pokémon battling. Hosted in Unova every two years, the PWT is the most televised event in the world, bringing together all who value Pokémon regardless of experience in a manner analogous to the real-world Olympics. Once qualified, whether provisionally through the ladder or vis-à-vis Hall of Fame status, Trainers drop everything to prepare. After all, the list of PWT registrants reads like the index of a history book. Being so much as in the margins of it is an honor not to be taken lightly. 

The PWT lasts two weeks, Monday through Friday, between late June and early July. During the first week of competition, challengers complete ten Swiss rounds, two per contestant each day. Each round is best-of-one, Trainer versus Trainer, and has a time limit of one hour. Before rounds begin, contestants are split into two randomized player pools to accommodate space and time constraints, as it is not feasible to have hundreds of battles occurring simultaneously. The daily timetable for PWT week one, Monday through Friday, is as follows:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Round One, Group One 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Round One, Group Two 12:00 - 2:00 PM: Lunch and Halftime 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Round Two, Group One 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Round Two, Group Two 5:00 PM: Festivities end for the day, to be continued the following day with the next subsequent round

At 5:00 PM on Friday of the first week, Swiss round rankings are finalized with a cut to top 32. Tiebreakers are calculated based on opponent match win percentage (OMW%) and the amount of a Trainer’s conscious Pokémon at the end of each round. No match ties are possible: Self-K.O. moves, recoil moves, and status, weather, and force-K.O. moves are ruled in favor of either the attacker or defender depending on the category of the move. The top 32 contestants advance to the second week of competition following a weekend break, which begins a single-elimination best-of-one knockout bracket. Quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches have no time restrictions. The weekly timetable for PWT week two is as follows:

Monday: Top 32 bracket matches (16 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Tuesday: Top 16 bracket matches (8 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Wednesday: Quarterfinals (4 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Thursday: Semifinals (2 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Friday: Final championship match and closing ceremony

Opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, and halftime shows are extravagant performances that celebrate diverse elements of the Pokémon world. Professors from all regions show off their recent evolutionary discoveries. Champions choreograph synchronized moveset showcases with other Champions. Beloved entertainers from battle facilities like the Subway create elaborate setpieces of their homes in which they dance, sing, or mock-battle, honoring the intersection of the mainstream and the underground from which they rose. Much like the ceremonies of the real-world Olympics, these aesthetic indulgences commemorate the cultures that make Pokémon society special, inspiring all peoples to appreciate their pasts and internalize the brightness of their collective futures. 

While running the PWT is a logistic nightmare, the rewards are plentiful. For the Trainers themselves, competing in the PWT solidifies Pokémon Mastery no matter their final result. One could leave the PWT reasonably assured that they would be back, either as a future Hall of Famer or a returning conference champion, after having learned many a lesson throughout the Swiss. The Swiss structure of the Tournament also increases the possibility that a PWT newcomer might battle against one of their heroes throughout the weeks. First-round pairings are variant, which makes pairing into a Champion possible for a newcomer, and points-based matchmaking increases the likelihood that an underdog may reach top 32 even if they meet Red in the first round. After-hours, the ability to coexist with fellow Masters increases opportunities for networking, community-building, and even bonding with others’ Pokémon. Friends are made for life based on their shared status as the best in the world, and it’s common for pockets of Champions to storm the streets like tourists in their own rights, temporarily living lives unburdened by League drama, Gym responsibilities, or full conference schedules. 

5. Mt. Silver

Red’s rise to Champion was unprecedented at the time. Between taking down Team Rocket and effortlessly sweeping the Indigo League, Red was arguably the first to embody the previously mythological ideal of Pokémon Master. In talks (or emails, rather) with the Indigo League succeeding his success, the League and Red agreed to sanction him as an ultimate Champion of sorts. Tucked away in a remote location of his choosing, Red would be the final pilgrimage of any Champion daring to meet Red’s level of fame. Upon scouting myriad regions to determine an appropriate locale, Red chose Mt. Silver for its environmental approximation of Victory Road and its unparalleled isolation. Mt. Silver was sanctioned thereafter as a nature preserve off-limits to all but the most capable of Hall of Famers, featuring minimal League interference with its natural state.

The danger of Mt. Silver cannot be overstated. One may only declare intent to climb Mt. Silver should they enter a regional Hall of Fame or achieve top-32 standing of a Pokémon World Tournament. Upon declaring such intent, a Trainer must submit to the League a dossier of their prospective team. This dossier includes a resume of each Pokémon’s previous achievements (such as Elite Four challenger appearances), their learned moves, and audiovisual documentation of their capabilities outside of combat (such as their usage of Fly, Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb, or other HM moves; or evidence of extraordinary strength, mental fortitude, or capacities for care [in Pokémon such as Chansey]). While Mt. Silver is not strictly comparable to climbing Mt. Everest, one is required to make the journey with solely the six submitted Pokémon, skyrocketing the climb’s threat level. In addition, unlike Victory Road, the League cannot promise infrastructural assistance (such as bridges or paved pathways) outside of a basic trail that Red maintains monthly. Thus Mt. Silver remains one of the only pockets of true untamed wilderness in the region and cannot be assumed safe.

The requirements of the climb itself have been refined since the days of Gold’s ascension. Today, climbers are assigned a specific day and time of their battle. Climbers are then given one week to ascend to the top. Should they fail to arrive by their appointed battle time, their battle is cancelled, and they must journey back down the mountain from their current point without assistance. Challengers usually arrive a day or two early, upon which they enter a safe house with standard accommodations at which they may stay until the day of their battle. The safe house is customarily “booked” from the day of their climb and stocked to ensure at least seven days of hospitable living. Red does not socialize with challengers at this safe house, nor are they allowed inside his home. However, the summit upon which challengers battle Red marks an approximate halfway point between the safe house and Red’s house, making Red easily accessible in case of emergencies. 

Mt. Silver’s weather is notoriously savage. From November through March, no challengers are allowed to scale Mt. Silver. Red’s travel prospects are limited throughout that window as well, necessitating bulk grocery purchases and discouraging conference attendance (to this day, Red has never been to a conference in Alola). The Indigo League maintains a waitlist of challengers during the inaccessible winter season, who are then scheduled from the beginning of March onward (pending Red’s conference obligations), causing a deluge of battles for Red between March and late April. By the end of the summer, the flood of challengers slows to a trickle, only to become dammed throughout December again. This seasonal battle pattern allows Red to enjoy long stretches of spring activity before hibernating for the winter. 

6. Red

Legacy Structures Defined 

1. Gym Battling (Legacy)

This section needs little introduction and even less elaboration. Gyms serve as the primary facilities in which one comes of age as a Trainer. Receiving a badge from a Gym is a major point of pride; receiving eight Gym badges is the culmination of a lifelong effort, regardless of how long that life may have been lived before its realization. 

Importantly, Gym Leaders scale their teams to particular level brackets to facilitate an optimal training experience regardless of the skill level of their challengers. This practice justifies the flexible Gym order of each region’s respective pilgrimages and diversifies each Trainer’s journeys. Whether one obtains all eight Gym badges is an entirely personal decision that can take months, years, or decades to complete depending on one’s training prowess and priorities. With that said, obtaining all eight badges in a given region is not a Trainer guarantee, and possessing them justifies a lifelong career in Pokémon battling should one wish to pursue it.

2. Victory Road (Legacy)

Victory Road is a curated walk through wilderness that tests the strength of one’s bonds with their Pokémon. While each region has variations on the actual route to their respective summits, “Victory Road” broadly indicates a space designed to test a Trainer’s self-sufficiency and ability to navigate the challenges of the natural world with the help of their Pokémon. Only through time-tested trust in one’s companions can a Trainer survive harsh camping conditions, unruly weather, and distance from civilization and existing support networks. 

Victory Road’s “curation” is minimal. Pathways exist, as well as small-scale infrastructure (such as bridges), but the climb is intentionally arduous and can take a week to complete. Yet battle prowess alone does not signify Pokémon mastery. Therefore, each “Victory Road” weeds out those that might excel in combat but fail to see their Pokémon as comrades. 

3. The Elite Four (Legacy) and Regional Champion (Contemporary)

The Elite Four are precisely what they claim to be: a cohort of Pokémon Masters that have proven themselves to be the greatest of their respective regions. Challenging them is a privilege given to any Trainer who can claim eight badges and reach the end of Victory Road. 

After defeating the Elite Four, the victorious Trainer is invited to battle the standing Champion. Should the Trainer usurp the Champion, the Trainer is enlisted into the Hall of Fame and crowned the current Champion of their respective region. 

It’s important to note, however, the multiplicativity of Championhood and the relatively newer role of Regional Champion. Many Champions exist. Anyone who can defeat the current reigning Champion is crowned as such. Despite this new title, a Regional Champion acts as the active Champion of a particular region and is an administrative role that is formally given by the region’s Pokémon League. An incoming Champion may be considered for the role, as a previous Champion title is required to be Regional Champion; however, it is not necessarily the case that a newly crowned Champion would immediately become the Regional Champion. Such a title as Regional Champion would be negotiated, and later bestowed, by the region’s Pokémon League following one’s victory. Therefore, there need be only one regional representative of the title at a time regardless of the success of the most recent victor—and the status of Regional Champion may be denied (by the League) or rejected (by the victor) at will. 

4. Hall of Fame (Legacy)

One enters the Hall of Fame by becoming the standing Champion of a particular region. Once an honor reserved for a select few, the Hall of Fame has expanded exponentially over the decades as Trainers have become better versed in the arts of Pokémon battling and bonding both. Despite its growth, a place in the Hall of Fame sanctions a Trainer as a living legend, one whose Poké-prowess will be spoken of for years to come. 

Outside of garnering social capital and the undying trust of the Trainer community, the primary benefit of entering the Hall of Fame for a modern-day Trainer is that a Hall of Famer receives lifelong qualification to the Pokémon World Tournament. The Pokémon World Tournament (or PWT) is the newest structure built to sustain new chapters of the stories of Hall of Famers past and future. The PWT and its supporting ladder system are documented below under “Contemporary Structures Defined.” 

Contemporary Structures Defined 

At this point, one could consider their journey “over.” Such were the assumptions of each region at the turn of the century, who had not seen such meteoric rises to Champion status as Red, Blue, Gold, Crystal, Brendan, May, and the rest of them. These too-talented Trainers—now Masters in their own rights—deserved a “postgame” structure so as to continue to hone their skills and contribute to the ever-growing field of battle research. 

Thus was born the Pokémon World Tournament, an invite-only tournament structure catered to Champions and those of similar mettle. Showcasing high-powered Pokémon and training talent across all regions, the PWT is the ultimate goal of every professional Trainer who wishes to see their name in lights. 

The creation of the PWT, however, subsequently opened up alternative routes to Pokémon Mastery that play to different strengths and social environments. These pathways are documented below. Please note that the numbers do not correspond to a linear trajectory as they do in the Legacy pathways; they are solely for ease of listing. Consult the flowchart above for a visual representation of each progression pathway. 

1. Battle Facilities (Battle Subway, Battle Towers, etc.) 

Battle facilities are among the first high-end training opportunities available for anyone with eight Gym Badges of a given region. More than simple training grounds, however, these battle facilities are longstanding prestigious institutions, success in which rivals Hall of Famer status within the regional underground. Hence these battle facilities are extremely indebted to the socio-cultural makeups of their regions: Unova, for example, pioneered the creation of the Battle Subway in honor of its trademark train, while Battle Maisons represent the aesthetics and theatrics of their Kalosian homes. Featured battle formats are also variable by region, with facilities often boasting formats that are popular, or had been popularized, in that particular region. 

The biggest drawback of battle facilities is their lack of connection to other institutions, including the PWT proper. Riding the Battle Subway will not grant a Trainer access to the Elite Four, nor will a high ranking at a Battle House enshrine one in the Hall of Fame, regardless of region. Despite this pitfall, battle facilities are beloved pastimes with strong competition and even stronger communities, which more closely approximate art collectives than tournament series. Those who frequent these facilities are more likely to use combat as a form of creative expression, intersecting battling with thespianism, musicality, vocal performance, or other means of inciting applause. Becoming a Subway lifer, for instance, is an excellent way to make a name for oneself as both a competent Trainer and entertainer, just as Emmet and Ingo have before them. Though there may be no “greater pathway” that follows battle facility success, there is no greater pathway to crafting a fulfilling, self-contained competitive circuit than by visiting regional battle facilities. Their regulars make them worth the trip. 

2. Regional Conferences

Regional conferences are equivalent to national championships of their respective regions. Held once a year per region, conferences are high-stakes tournaments that are open to Trainers who have completed eight Gym badges in a given region. These events feature single-elimination rounds of typically single battles, though conference rulesets vary year to year, with certain regions tentatively supporting nationally beloved battle formats. One is only qualified to compete in a regional conference if they possess all eight badges of that region, which encourages Trainers to extensively travel to maximize their chances of annual victory. 

The draw to conferences lies in their ties to the PWT. The top 32 contestants of a regional conference are invited to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. The top 4 contestants of a regional conference receive an instant, one-time invitation to the PWT itself alongside a chance to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. These challenger invites last until the next PWT, which occurs every two years, giving contestants time to train before taking down the Elite Four once and for all. This prize structure serves two purposes. Firstly, those who achieve top 32 status are given a “last-chance” opportunity to qualify for the PWT by defeating the Elite Four and Regional Champion, as anyone who enters the Hall of Fame receives automatic invitations to compete in the PWT for life thereafter. In addition, this provisional invitation allows for a one-time skip of Victory Road, which may save a Trainer a traumatic week of trekking depending on the region. For those in the top 4, a guaranteed spot in the PWT could be a career high, while the added opportunity to challenge the Elite Four for future automatic invitations might solidify their Champion status for the rest of their lives. Given the absurdly high levels of competition at conferences themselves, it is not unlikely that a top 32 contestant would be competitive against an Elite Four member. However, the Elite Four is known to upscale their teams’ strengths based on the determined skill levels of their challengers, which greatly raises the stakes of one’s invitational battle. 

Conferences were created as a first step in sanctioning high-end competitive battling in response to the influx of incoming Champions, thus sanctifying a true “competitive circuit” with an on-ramp to the PWT. Champions themselves have little need for conferences: Their Hall of Fame status guarantees that they need not qualify for the PWT through conference grinding. To maximize community-building in the competitive scene, however, previous Champions are enlisted as Guests of Honor and given special airtime at each conference. A Guest of Honor may be asked to commentate feature matches, engage in opening or closing ceremonies, perform moveset showcases at halftime, or simply allow VIPs to pet their Pokémon. Most importantly, the winner of every regional conference is invited to close the tournament with a no-stakes exhibition match against the Guest of Honor. Guests of Honor are usually announced two weeks ahead of a regional conference. This time frame fosters an air of excitement and added pressure for those who wish to win, as Trainers may begin to fill their crunch-time training sessions with daydreams of battling Cynthia or Green beneath the blinding lights. The Guest of Honor system thus encourages conference contestants to aim high in their performances while continuously enshrining previous Champions as the ones to watch out for, promoting environments as starry as the eyes of their competitors. 

Conferences typically last two days and occur once a month. Their dates vary based on calendar week, but conferences follow a standard pattern. Kanto jump-starts the conference season around late February to early March, with Johto’s conference in late March following it. Hoenn confers in mid-April; Sinnoh rounds out mid-May; and late June into early July hosts the PWT, providing a month of crunch-time to Tournament hopefuls. Unova restarts conferences in late July, followed by Galar in August. Paldea boasts a conference in October, and Alola ends the season in late November. Online metastrategy guides document the best way to grind conferences month by month, while full-time conference contestants blog about their culturally shocking experiences with Unovan trains, Kanto ferries, and Alolan “island time.” With their constant release cycles and rich opportunities for cultural exchange, conferences satisfy Trainers’ wanderlust, needs for endless competition, and desires for community, giving them the positive competitive outlet that older Champions wish they could have received throughout their careers. 

3. Battle Frontiers

Battle Frontiers are sprawling campuses designed to hone the competitive spirits of those who have completed a given region’s Gym circuit. Battle Frontiers were popularized in Hoenn and Sinnoh around the same time, differentiated by their arena infrastructures, battle formats, and prize support, and then exported to other regions with minimal renovation. 

Like the catch-all “battle facilities” described above, Battle Frontiers have a long history of being regional mainstays. However, upon the creation of the PWT and the streamlining of its corresponding ladder system, Pokémon Leagues revised Battle Frontiers to facilitate a pipeline to the PWT. Because of the regional specificity of facilities like the Battle Subway or Battle Maisons, it would be impossible for one tournament body to standardize them all. Doing so would be, at best, a massive cultural overreach, damaging the legacies of each region’s beloved battle environs. Alternatively, Battle Frontiers take similar forms across regions, and the diversity of their battle offerings ensure that Trainers are conference-ready rather than format one-tricks. Given the ease of normalizing their Trainer-focused features, the founding members of the PWT integrated Battle Frontiers into the PWT circuit rather than revise any other existing institutions.  

Simply put, Trainers that obtain all gold challenge items for a given region’s Battle Frontier (such as Hoenn’s “symbols” and Sinnoh’s “ceremonial prints”) receive a one-time PWT invitation, as well as an invitation to skip Victory Road and directly challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion, just as a top-4 placement at a regional conference would guarantee. On the surface, this math seems incongruent with conference math: A Battle Frontier grinder must battle hundreds of opponents to reach their chosen goal, whereas a conference attendee need only battle ten to fifteen contestants in a given weekend. Justifying this equivalency is that most battles in the Battle Frontier are versus less-skilled opponents, with difficulty ramping upward as one progresses. Conference skill levels, on the other hand, are relatively equivalent throughout the weekend because of the higher skill floor that one must meet to convincingly compete within them. In other words, most Battle Frontier rounds (Frontier Brains notwithstanding) could be considered fluff battles that would equal the amount of battles that a conference contestant would conduct throughout their preceding year of training, which rationalizes the consistency of conference difficulty levels. Once these “fluff battles” are subtracted from one’s record, the amount of Battle Frontier battles needed to obtain one’s golden prizes are equivalent to, or even less than, the amount of battles a conference contestant would conduct in a given weekend.

Even among aspiring Trainers, there is no social hierarchy nor rivalry between Battle Frontier grinders and regional conferencegoers. These two systems exist because they sustain different training pressures and senses of progression. A Trainer who fears the shame of being eliminated after round one at a conference might thrive on the Battle Frontier treadmill, whose incline is more level. A Trainer who might feel claustrophobic on a neighborhood Battle Frontier campus might revel in the worldly community of a regional conference across the pond. Regardless of one’s preferred qualification method, the PWT maintains both to ensure a steady stream of Hall of Fame hopefuls.

4. Pokémon World Tournament 

The Pokémon World Tournament is the pinnacle of Pokémon battling. Hosted in Unova every two years, the PWT is the most televised event in the world, bringing together all who value Pokémon regardless of experience in a manner analogous to the real-world Olympics. Once qualified, whether provisionally through the ladder or vis-à-vis Hall of Fame status, Trainers drop everything to prepare. After all, the list of PWT registrants reads like the index of a history book. Being so much as in the margins of it is an honor not to be taken lightly. 

The PWT lasts two weeks, Monday through Friday, between late June and early July. During the first week of competition, challengers complete ten Swiss rounds, two per contestant each day. Each round is best-of-one, Trainer versus Trainer, and has a time limit of one hour. Before rounds begin, contestants are split into two randomized player pools to accommodate space and time constraints, as it is not feasible to have hundreds of battles occurring simultaneously. The daily timetable for PWT week one, Monday through Friday, is as follows:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Round One, Group One 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Round One, Group Two 12:00 - 2:00 PM: Lunch and Halftime 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Round Two, Group One 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Round Two, Group Two 5:00 PM: Festivities end for the day, to be continued the following day with the next subsequent round

At 5:00 PM on Friday of the first week, Swiss round rankings are finalized with a cut to top 32. Tiebreakers are calculated based on opponent match win percentage (OMW%) and the amount of a Trainer’s conscious Pokémon at the end of each round. No match ties are possible: Self-K.O. moves, recoil moves, and status, weather, and force-K.O. moves are ruled in favor of either the attacker or defender depending on the category of the move. The top 32 contestants advance to the second week of competition following a weekend break, which begins a single-elimination best-of-one knockout bracket. Quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches have no time restrictions. The weekly timetable for PWT week two is as follows:

Monday: Top 32 bracket matches (16 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Tuesday: Top 16 bracket matches (8 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Wednesday: Quarterfinals (4 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Thursday: Semifinals (2 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Friday: Final championship match and closing ceremony

Opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, and halftime shows are extravagant performances that celebrate diverse elements of the Pokémon world. Professors from all regions show off their recent evolutionary discoveries. Champions choreograph synchronized moveset showcases with other Champions. Beloved entertainers from battle facilities like the Subway create elaborate setpieces of their homes in which they dance, sing, or mock-battle, honoring the intersection of the mainstream and the underground from which they rose. Much like the ceremonies of the real-world Olympics, these aesthetic indulgences commemorate the cultures that make Pokémon society special, inspiring all peoples to appreciate their pasts and internalize the brightness of their collective futures. 

While running the PWT is a logistic nightmare, the rewards are plentiful. For the Trainers themselves, competing in the PWT solidifies Pokémon Mastery no matter their final result. One could leave the PWT reasonably assured that they would be back, either as a future Hall of Famer or a returning conference champion, after having learned many a lesson throughout the Swiss. The Swiss structure of the Tournament also increases the possibility that a PWT newcomer might battle against one of their heroes throughout the weeks. First-round pairings are variant, which makes pairing into a Champion possible for a newcomer, and points-based matchmaking increases the likelihood that an underdog may reach top 32 even if they meet Red in the first round. After-hours, the ability to coexist with fellow Masters increases opportunities for networking, community-building, and even bonding with others’ Pokémon. Friends are made for life based on their shared status as the best in the world, and it’s common for pockets of Champions to storm the streets like tourists in their own rights, temporarily living lives unburdened by League drama, Gym responsibilities, or full conference schedules. 

5. Mt. Silver

Red’s rise to Champion was unprecedented at the time. Between taking down Team Rocket and effortlessly sweeping the Indigo League, Red was arguably the first to embody the previously mythological ideal of Pokémon Master. In talks (or emails, rather) with the Indigo League succeeding his success, the League and Red agreed to sanction him as an ultimate Champion of sorts. Tucked away in a remote location of his choosing, Red would be the final pilgrimage of any Champion daring to meet Red’s level of fame. Upon scouting myriad regions to determine an appropriate locale, Red chose Mt. Silver for its environmental approximation of Victory Road and its unparalleled isolation. Mt. Silver was sanctioned thereafter as a nature preserve off-limits to all but the most capable of Hall of Famers, featuring minimal League interference with its natural state.

The danger of Mt. Silver cannot be overstated. One may only declare intent to climb Mt. Silver should they enter a regional Hall of Fame or achieve top-32 standing of a Pokémon World Tournament. Upon declaring such intent, a Trainer must submit to the League a dossier of their prospective team. This dossier includes a resume of each Pokémon’s previous achievements (such as Elite Four challenger appearances), their learned moves, and audiovisual documentation of their capabilities outside of combat (such as their usage of Fly, Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb, or other HM moves; or evidence of extraordinary strength, mental fortitude, or capacities for care [in Pokémon such as Chansey]). While Mt. Silver is not strictly comparable to climbing Mt. Everest, one is required to make the journey with solely the six submitted Pokémon, skyrocketing the climb’s threat level. In addition, unlike Victory Road, the League cannot promise infrastructural assistance (such as bridges or paved pathways) outside of a basic trail that Red maintains monthly. Thus Mt. Silver remains one of the only pockets of true untamed wilderness in the region and cannot be assumed safe.

The requirements of the climb itself have been refined since the days of Gold’s ascension. Today, climbers are assigned a specific day and time of their battle. Climbers are then given one week to ascend to the top. Should they fail to arrive by their appointed battle time, their battle is cancelled, and they must journey back down the mountain from their current point without assistance. Challengers usually arrive a day or two early, upon which they enter a safe house with standard accommodations at which they may stay until the day of their battle. The safe house is customarily “booked” from the day of their climb and stocked to ensure at least seven days of hospitable living. Red does not socialize with challengers at this safe house, nor are they allowed inside his home. However, the summit upon which challengers battle Red marks an approximate halfway point between the safe house and Red’s house, making Red easily accessible in case of emergencies. 

Mt. Silver’s weather is notoriously savage. From November through March, no challengers are allowed to scale Mt. Silver. Red’s travel prospects are limited throughout that window as well, necessitating bulk grocery purchases and discouraging conference attendance (to this day, Red has never been to a conference in Alola). The Indigo League maintains a waitlist of challengers during the inaccessible winter season, who are then scheduled from the beginning of March onward (pending Red’s conference obligations), causing a deluge of battles for Red between March and late April. By the end of the summer, the flood of challengers slows to a trickle, only to become dammed throughout December again. This seasonal battle pattern allows Red to enjoy long stretches of spring activity before hibernating for the winter. 

6. Red

Legacy Structures Defined 

1. Gym Battling (Legacy)

This section needs little introduction and even less elaboration. Gyms serve as the primary facilities in which one comes of age as a Trainer. Receiving a badge from a Gym is a major point of pride; receiving eight Gym badges is the culmination of a lifelong effort, regardless of how long that life may have been lived before its realization. 

Importantly, Gym Leaders scale their teams to particular level brackets to facilitate an optimal training experience regardless of the skill level of their challengers. This practice justifies the flexible Gym order of each region’s respective pilgrimages and diversifies each Trainer’s journeys. Whether one obtains all eight Gym badges is an entirely personal decision that can take months, years, or decades to complete depending on one’s training prowess and priorities. With that said, obtaining all eight badges in a given region is not a Trainer guarantee, and possessing them justifies a lifelong career in Pokémon battling should one wish to pursue it.

2. Victory Road (Legacy)

Victory Road is a curated walk through wilderness that tests the strength of one’s bonds with their Pokémon. While each region has variations on the actual route to their respective summits, “Victory Road” broadly indicates a space designed to test a Trainer’s self-sufficiency and ability to navigate the challenges of the natural world with the help of their Pokémon. Only through time-tested trust in one’s companions can a Trainer survive harsh camping conditions, unruly weather, and distance from civilization and existing support networks. 

Victory Road’s “curation” is minimal. Pathways exist, as well as small-scale infrastructure (such as bridges), but the climb is intentionally arduous and can take a week to complete. Yet battle prowess alone does not signify Pokémon mastery. Therefore, each “Victory Road” weeds out those that might excel in combat but fail to see their Pokémon as comrades. 

3. The Elite Four (Legacy) and Regional Champion (Contemporary)

The Elite Four are precisely what they claim to be: a cohort of Pokémon Masters that have proven themselves to be the greatest of their respective regions. Challenging them is a privilege given to any Trainer who can claim eight badges and reach the end of Victory Road. 

After defeating the Elite Four, the victorious Trainer is invited to battle the standing Champion. Should the Trainer usurp the Champion, the Trainer is enlisted into the Hall of Fame and crowned the current Champion of their respective region. 

It’s important to note, however, the multiplicativity of Championhood and the relatively newer role of Regional Champion. Many Champions exist. Anyone who can defeat the current reigning Champion is crowned as such. Despite this new title, a Regional Champion acts as the active Champion of a particular region and is an administrative role that is formally given by the region’s Pokémon League. An incoming Champion may be considered for the role, as a previous Champion title is required to be Regional Champion; however, it is not necessarily the case that a newly crowned Champion would immediately become the Regional Champion. Such a title as Regional Champion would be negotiated, and later bestowed, by the region’s Pokémon League following one’s victory. Therefore, there need be only one regional representative of the title at a time regardless of the success of the most recent victor—and the status of Regional Champion may be denied (by the League) or rejected (by the victor) at will. 

4. Hall of Fame (Legacy)

One enters the Hall of Fame by becoming the standing Champion of a particular region. Once an honor reserved for a select few, the Hall of Fame has expanded exponentially over the decades as Trainers have become better versed in the arts of Pokémon battling and bonding both. Despite its growth, a place in the Hall of Fame sanctions a Trainer as a living legend, one whose Poké-prowess will be spoken of for years to come. 

Outside of garnering social capital and the undying trust of the Trainer community, the primary benefit of entering the Hall of Fame for a modern-day Trainer is that a Hall of Famer receives lifelong qualification to the Pokémon World Tournament. The Pokémon World Tournament (or PWT) is the newest structure built to sustain new chapters of the stories of Hall of Famers past and future. The PWT and its supporting ladder system are documented below under “Contemporary Structures Defined.” 

Contemporary Structures Defined 

At this point, one could consider their journey “over.” Such were the assumptions of each region at the turn of the century, who had not seen such meteoric rises to Champion status as Red, Blue, Gold, Crystal, Brendan, May, and the rest of them. These too-talented Trainers—now Masters in their own rights—deserved a “postgame” structure so as to continue to hone their skills and contribute to the ever-growing field of battle research. 

Thus was born the Pokémon World Tournament, an invite-only tournament structure catered to Champions and those of similar mettle. Showcasing high-powered Pokémon and training talent across all regions, the PWT is the ultimate goal of every professional Trainer who wishes to see their name in lights. 

The creation of the PWT, however, subsequently opened up alternative routes to Pokémon Mastery that play to different strengths and social environments. These pathways are documented below. Please note that the numbers do not correspond to a linear trajectory as they do in the Legacy pathways; they are solely for ease of listing. Consult the flowchart above for a visual representation of each progression pathway. 

1. Battle Facilities (Battle Subway, Battle Towers, etc.) 

Battle facilities are among the first high-end training opportunities available for anyone with eight Gym Badges of a given region. More than simple training grounds, however, these battle facilities are longstanding prestigious institutions, success in which rivals Hall of Famer status within the regional underground. Hence these battle facilities are extremely indebted to the socio-cultural makeups of their regions: Unova, for example, pioneered the creation of the Battle Subway in honor of its trademark train, while Battle Maisons represent the aesthetics and theatrics of their Kalosian homes. Featured battle formats are also variable by region, with facilities often boasting formats that are popular, or had been popularized, in that particular region. 

The biggest drawback of battle facilities is their lack of connection to other institutions, including the PWT proper. Riding the Battle Subway will not grant a Trainer access to the Elite Four, nor will a high ranking at a Battle House enshrine one in the Hall of Fame, regardless of region. Despite this pitfall, battle facilities are beloved pastimes with strong competition and even stronger communities, which more closely approximate art collectives than tournament series. Those who frequent these facilities are more likely to use combat as a form of creative expression, intersecting battling with thespianism, musicality, vocal performance, or other means of inciting applause. Becoming a Subway lifer, for instance, is an excellent way to make a name for oneself as both a competent Trainer and entertainer, just as Emmet and Ingo have before them. Though there may be no “greater pathway” that follows battle facility success, there is no greater pathway to crafting a fulfilling, self-contained competitive circuit than by visiting regional battle facilities. Their regulars make them worth the trip. 

2. Regional Conferences

Regional conferences are equivalent to national championships of their respective regions. Held once a year per region, conferences are high-stakes tournaments that are open to Trainers who have completed eight Gym badges in a given region. These events feature single-elimination rounds of typically single battles, though conference rulesets vary year to year, with certain regions tentatively supporting nationally beloved battle formats. One is only qualified to compete in a regional conference if they possess all eight badges of that region, which encourages Trainers to extensively travel to maximize their chances of annual victory. 

The draw to conferences lies in their ties to the PWT. The top 32 contestants of a regional conference are invited to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. The top 4 contestants of a regional conference receive an instant, one-time invitation to the PWT itself alongside a chance to challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion. These challenger invites last until the next PWT, which occurs every two years, giving contestants time to train before taking down the Elite Four once and for all. This prize structure serves two purposes. Firstly, those who achieve top 32 status are given a “last-chance” opportunity to qualify for the PWT by defeating the Elite Four and Regional Champion, as anyone who enters the Hall of Fame receives automatic invitations to compete in the PWT for life thereafter. In addition, this provisional invitation allows for a one-time skip of Victory Road, which may save a Trainer a traumatic week of trekking depending on the region. For those in the top 4, a guaranteed spot in the PWT could be a career high, while the added opportunity to challenge the Elite Four for future automatic invitations might solidify their Champion status for the rest of their lives. Given the absurdly high levels of competition at conferences themselves, it is not unlikely that a top 32 contestant would be competitive against an Elite Four member. However, the Elite Four is known to upscale their teams’ strengths based on the determined skill levels of their challengers, which greatly raises the stakes of one’s invitational battle. 

Conferences were created as a first step in sanctioning high-end competitive battling in response to the influx of incoming Champions, thus sanctifying a true “competitive circuit” with an on-ramp to the PWT. Champions themselves have little need for conferences: Their Hall of Fame status guarantees that they need not qualify for the PWT through conference grinding. To maximize community-building in the competitive scene, however, previous Champions are enlisted as Guests of Honor and given special airtime at each conference. A Guest of Honor may be asked to commentate feature matches, engage in opening or closing ceremonies, perform moveset showcases at halftime, or simply allow VIPs to pet their Pokémon. Most importantly, the winner of every regional conference is invited to close the tournament with a no-stakes exhibition match against the Guest of Honor. Guests of Honor are usually announced two weeks ahead of a regional conference. This time frame fosters an air of excitement and added pressure for those who wish to win, as Trainers may begin to fill their crunch-time training sessions with daydreams of battling Cynthia or Green beneath the blinding lights. The Guest of Honor system thus encourages conference contestants to aim high in their performances while continuously enshrining previous Champions as the ones to watch out for, promoting environments as starry as the eyes of their competitors. 

Conferences typically last two days and occur once a month. Their dates vary based on calendar week, but conferences follow a standard pattern. Kanto jump-starts the conference season around late February to early March, with Johto’s conference in late March following it. Hoenn confers in mid-April; Sinnoh rounds out mid-May; and late June into early July hosts the PWT, providing a month of crunch-time to Tournament hopefuls. Unova restarts conferences in late July, followed by Galar in August. Paldea boasts a conference in October, and Alola ends the season in late November. Online metastrategy guides document the best way to grind conferences month by month, while full-time conference contestants blog about their culturally shocking experiences with Unovan trains, Kanto ferries, and Alolan “island time.” With their constant release cycles and rich opportunities for cultural exchange, conferences satisfy Trainers’ wanderlust, needs for endless competition, and desires for community, giving them the positive competitive outlet that older Champions wish they could have received throughout their careers. 

3. Battle Frontiers

Battle Frontiers are sprawling campuses designed to hone the competitive spirits of those who have completed a given region’s Gym circuit. Battle Frontiers were popularized in Hoenn and Sinnoh around the same time, differentiated by their arena infrastructures, battle formats, and prize support, and then exported to other regions with minimal renovation. 

Like the catch-all “battle facilities” described above, Battle Frontiers have a long history of being regional mainstays. However, upon the creation of the PWT and the streamlining of its corresponding ladder system, Pokémon Leagues revised Battle Frontiers to facilitate a pipeline to the PWT. Because of the regional specificity of facilities like the Battle Subway or Battle Maisons, it would be impossible for one tournament body to standardize them all. Doing so would be, at best, a massive cultural overreach, damaging the legacies of each region’s beloved battle environs. Alternatively, Battle Frontiers take similar forms across regions, and the diversity of their battle offerings ensure that Trainers are conference-ready rather than format one-tricks. Given the ease of normalizing their Trainer-focused features, the founding members of the PWT integrated Battle Frontiers into the PWT circuit rather than revise any other existing institutions.  

Simply put, Trainers that obtain all gold challenge items for a given region’s Battle Frontier (such as Hoenn’s “symbols” and Sinnoh’s “ceremonial prints”) receive a one-time PWT invitation, as well as an invitation to skip Victory Road and directly challenge the Elite Four and Regional Champion, just as a top-4 placement at a regional conference would guarantee. On the surface, this math seems incongruent with conference math: A Battle Frontier grinder must battle hundreds of opponents to reach their chosen goal, whereas a conference attendee need only battle ten to fifteen contestants in a given weekend. Justifying this equivalency is that most battles in the Battle Frontier are versus less-skilled opponents, with difficulty ramping upward as one progresses. Conference skill levels, on the other hand, are relatively equivalent throughout the weekend because of the higher skill floor that one must meet to convincingly compete within them. In other words, most Battle Frontier rounds (Frontier Brains notwithstanding) could be considered fluff battles that would equal the amount of battles that a conference contestant would conduct throughout their preceding year of training, which rationalizes the consistency of conference difficulty levels. Once these “fluff battles” are subtracted from one’s record, the amount of Battle Frontier battles needed to obtain one’s golden prizes are equivalent to, or even less than, the amount of battles a conference contestant would conduct in a given weekend.

Even among aspiring Trainers, there is no social hierarchy nor rivalry between Battle Frontier grinders and regional conferencegoers. These two systems exist because they sustain different training pressures and senses of progression. A Trainer who fears the shame of being eliminated after round one at a conference might thrive on the Battle Frontier treadmill, whose incline is more level. A Trainer who might feel claustrophobic on a neighborhood Battle Frontier campus might revel in the worldly community of a regional conference across the pond. Regardless of one’s preferred qualification method, the PWT maintains both to ensure a steady stream of Hall of Fame hopefuls.

4. Pokémon World Tournament 

The Pokémon World Tournament is the pinnacle of Pokémon battling. Hosted in Unova every two years, the PWT is the most televised event in the world, bringing together all who value Pokémon regardless of experience in a manner analogous to the real-world Olympics. Once qualified, whether provisionally through the ladder or vis-à-vis Hall of Fame status, Trainers drop everything to prepare. After all, the list of PWT registrants reads like the index of a history book. Being so much as in the margins of it is an honor not to be taken lightly. 

The PWT lasts two weeks, Monday through Friday, between late June and early July. During the first week of competition, challengers complete ten Swiss rounds, two per contestant each day. Each round is best-of-one, Trainer versus Trainer, and has a time limit of one hour. Before rounds begin, contestants are split into two randomized player pools to accommodate space and time constraints, as it is not feasible to have hundreds of battles occurring simultaneously. The daily timetable for PWT week one, Monday through Friday, is as follows:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Round One, Group One 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Round One, Group Two 12:00 - 2:00 PM: Lunch and Halftime 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Round Two, Group One 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Round Two, Group Two 5:00 PM: Festivities end for the day, to be continued the following day with the next subsequent round

At 5:00 PM on Friday of the first week, Swiss round rankings are finalized with a cut to top 32. Tiebreakers are calculated based on opponent match win percentage (OMW%) and the amount of a Trainer’s conscious Pokémon at the end of each round. No match ties are possible: Self-K.O. moves, recoil moves, and status, weather, and force-K.O. moves are ruled in favor of either the attacker or defender depending on the category of the move. The top 32 contestants advance to the second week of competition following a weekend break, which begins a single-elimination best-of-one knockout bracket. Quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches have no time restrictions. The weekly timetable for PWT week two is as follows:

Monday: Top 32 bracket matches (16 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Tuesday: Top 16 bracket matches (8 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Wednesday: Quarterfinals (4 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Thursday: Semifinals (2 matches in a day; one match per contestant) Friday: Final championship match and closing ceremony

Opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, and halftime shows are extravagant performances that celebrate diverse elements of the Pokémon world. Professors from all regions show off their recent evolutionary discoveries. Champions choreograph synchronized moveset showcases with other Champions. Beloved entertainers from battle facilities like the Subway create elaborate setpieces of their homes in which they dance, sing, or mock-battle, honoring the intersection of the mainstream and the underground from which they rose. Much like the ceremonies of the real-world Olympics, these aesthetic indulgences commemorate the cultures that make Pokémon society special, inspiring all peoples to appreciate their pasts and internalize the brightness of their collective futures. 

While running the PWT is a logistic nightmare, the rewards are plentiful. For the Trainers themselves, competing in the PWT solidifies Pokémon Mastery no matter their final result. One could leave the PWT reasonably assured that they would be back, either as a future Hall of Famer or a returning conference champion, after having learned many a lesson throughout the Swiss. The Swiss structure of the Tournament also increases the possibility that a PWT newcomer might battle against one of their heroes throughout the weeks. First-round pairings are variant, which makes pairing into a Champion possible for a newcomer, and points-based matchmaking increases the likelihood that an underdog may reach top 32 even if they meet Red in the first round. After-hours, the ability to coexist with fellow Masters increases opportunities for networking, community-building, and even bonding with others’ Pokémon. Friends are made for life based on their shared status as the best in the world, and it’s common for pockets of Champions to storm the streets like tourists in their own rights, temporarily living lives unburdened by League drama, Gym responsibilities, or full conference schedules. 

5. Mt. Silver

Red’s rise to Champion was unprecedented at the time. Between taking down Team Rocket and effortlessly sweeping the Indigo League, Red was arguably the first to embody the previously mythological ideal of Pokémon Master. In talks (or emails, rather) with the Indigo League succeeding his success, the League and Red agreed to sanction him as an ultimate Champion of sorts. Tucked away in a remote location of his choosing, Red would be the final pilgrimage of any Champion daring to meet Red’s level of fame. Upon scouting myriad regions to determine an appropriate locale, Red chose Mt. Silver for its environmental approximation of Victory Road and its unparalleled isolation. Mt. Silver was sanctioned thereafter as a nature preserve off-limits to all but the most capable of Hall of Famers, featuring minimal League interference with its natural state.

The danger of Mt. Silver cannot be overstated. One may only declare intent to climb Mt. Silver should they enter a regional Hall of Fame or achieve top-32 standing of a Pokémon World Tournament. Upon declaring such intent, a Trainer must submit to the League a dossier of their prospective team. This dossier includes a resume of each Pokémon’s previous achievements (such as Elite Four challenger appearances), their learned moves, and audiovisual documentation of their capabilities outside of combat (such as their usage of Fly, Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb, or other HM moves; or evidence of extraordinary strength, mental fortitude, or capacities for care [in Pokémon such as Chansey]). While Mt. Silver is not strictly comparable to climbing Mt. Everest, one is required to make the journey with solely the six submitted Pokémon, skyrocketing the climb’s threat level. In addition, unlike Victory Road, the League cannot promise infrastructural assistance (such as bridges or paved pathways) outside of a basic trail that Red maintains monthly. Thus Mt. Silver remains one of the only pockets of true untamed wilderness in the region and cannot be assumed safe.

The requirements of the climb itself have been refined since the days of Gold’s ascension. Today, climbers are assigned a specific day and time of their battle. Climbers are then given one week to ascend to the top. Should they fail to arrive by their appointed battle time, their battle is cancelled, and they must journey back down the mountain from their current point without assistance. Challengers usually arrive a day or two early, upon which they enter a safe house with standard accommodations at which they may stay until the day of their battle. The safe house is customarily “booked” from the day of their climb and stocked to ensure at least seven days of hospitable living. Red does not socialize with challengers at this safe house, nor are they allowed inside his home. However, the summit upon which challengers battle Red marks an approximate halfway point between the safe house and Red’s house, making Red easily accessible in case of emergencies. 

Mt. Silver’s weather is notoriously savage. From November through March, no challengers are allowed to scale Mt. Silver. Red’s travel prospects are limited throughout that window as well, necessitating bulk grocery purchases and discouraging conference attendance (to this day, Red has never been to a conference in Alola). The Indigo League maintains a waitlist of challengers during the inaccessible winter season, who are then scheduled from the beginning of March onward (pending Red’s conference obligations), causing a deluge of battles for Red between March and late April. By the end of the summer, the flood of challengers slows to a trickle, only to become dammed throughout December again. This seasonal battle pattern allows Red to enjoy long stretches of spring activity before hibernating for the winter. 

6. Red