The 2023 Pokemon World Championships have officially crowned itsAXN the champion of this year’s Pokemon GO tournament. The popular mobile game from Niantic has seen a tumultuous past year, but the dedicated fanbase seems predominantly excited with this news and with the tournament overall.
Pokemon obviously has no shortage of games, being one of the most successful franchises of all time, and many of those current games with active and competitive fans are coalescing into one world tournament currently being held in Japan. The games that have players competing vary from video games like Pokemon Unite and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet to card games like Pokemon TCG along with the massive mobile game that just crowned its 2023 world champion, Pokemon GO.
The Pokemon GO World Champion
ItsAXN is your 2023 #PokemonGO World Champion! 👑
Congratulations to @ItsAXN on an incredible performance throughout the entire season, completing his Championship resume as a Regional, International, and now World Champion! #PokemonWorlds#PokemonGOWorlds2023 pic.twitter.com/sIeQomsQ7n
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) August 13, 2023
The final match wound up falling between the two American players itsAXN and xXRubixMasterXx where AXN handily took the championship with a 3-1 victory. The final 3 were all American players, but the tournament had players representing more than ten different countries including Malaysia, Chile, The Netherlands, and of course, Japan. In the post-game interview, itsAXN said he feels “over the moon” about the results, and his advice to other Pokemon GO players who aspire to get even better after watching games like these is to keep practicing and put themselves out there.
He said, “I started this last year at the Indianapolis tournament. I didn’t have any experience in this kind of format at all, but I just put myself out there. I just went to these tournaments. Trial and error, playing a lot, and eventually, you’ll get the hang of it.”
For his 1st place finish, itsAXN wins the top prize of $10,000, but there were also increasingly smaller prizes for every player that finished in the top 50%. The championship tournaments for Pokemon Unite and Pokemon TCG have also concluded, producing the team Luminosity and Vance Kelley as winners, respectively. The Pokemon Scarlet and Violet tournament is still ongoing.
