The dust has settled on the 2024 Pokémon World Championship, and trainers are already eyeing glory for the 2025 season—but for those U.K. players that placed highly in Hawaii, there’s a lot of enthusiasm and motivation for the new season after mixed 2024 results home and abroad, despite mixed goals.
Honolulu wrapped up on Aug. 18, and during our time there after an exhausting year for some of the United Kingdom’s finest, we got a chance to talk to two players who were the top finishers for the country to reflect on their feelings on the season being over, and what their plans were for the 2025 season—if there were any.
Taran Birdee, the UK’s top VGC-performing player at Worlds, agonizingly missed out on a top 16 place, finishing 24th overall. Birdee said he had started the year “terribly,” which acted as a real wake-up call and really pushed himself up until Hawaii to prove he had what it takes to face off against the best.
You don’t get this far at a World Championship without investing much time into your preparation. “I played over 1,000 sets just trying to practice and find a team,” Birdee told Dot Esports. “It’s such a hard format to find a team in, but I loved playing it… and I was able to find a team that suited how I like to play.”
Obviously, to miss out on the top eight and the chance to play on the main stage on the last day is heartbreaking, but Birdee was still in good spirits with where he finished. In fact, when we asked him about his plans for next season considering the changes to Worlds qualification, which sees a limit to how many players per region can qualify, Birdee wasn’t worried about his chances of returning for the 2025 season.
“I feel like it hopefully doesn’t affect me too much, but I’m looking to go to two internationals and just continue as I have been,” Birdee said. “I still really enjoy playing the game, and then we’ll just see how it goes. I’ve already made a good start to the season.”
Birdee a goal and expectations he would get this far in the VG tournament, but for Ross Warren, a U.K. TCG player who finished 49th at Worlds 2024, there was an entirely different outlook and take.
He went into the tournament with no expectations he would get this far, and his goals couldn’t be more opposite to his U.K. VG counterpart. His main goal, as he put it, was to “have fun.” He felt like as he won more and got further, he “actually dislike[d] it a lot more, because there’s pressure, there’s money on the line, things like that start to affect my mental [state].” He even stated how the deck he took was crafted by a player closer to home rather than sinking all the hours into his own theory crafting.
For 2025, Warren plans to take a break from the competitive scene and play for fun, not qualification, but that isn’t the end of his journey. It’s clear he and other players at Worlds from all over the world come to these places to have fun and experience being a top player.
With his final words, Warren made a vow that resonated with many players around me: “Once I’m a bit more sorted and got the other goals I want to get in my life out of the way, I’ll come back and hit it hard, and I will make sure that I am one of the top U.K. players.”
It’s clear the competitive spirit is still burning bright on the road to the 2025 World Champions—and beyond.
