Fernando Cifuentes of Chile became the 2024 Pokémon TCG world champion with a nail-biting 2-1 victory over Japan’s Seinosuke Shiokawa in the final of the 2024 Pokémon TCG World Championships on 18 August. In front of a crowd largely backing him, Cifuentes became the second South American player to clinch the Pokémon TCG’s biggest prize following Argentine Diego Cassiraga’s triumph in 2017 with a Gardevoir GX deck.

Swiss Rounds

The tournament began on 16 August with 1,147 players showing up at Honolulu’s Hawai’i Convention Center with dreams of leaving Hawaii as the 2024 Pokémon TCG world champion. After eight Swiss rounds on the first day of competition and four more on the next, the field was whittled down to just nine players at the commencement of the asymmetrical top cut in the latter stages of the second day.

The players who made it to top cut were, as ordered by seeding, as follows (all records are W-L-T):

1. 1. Jesse Parker (USA) 12-0-0 (Miraidon ex)
2. 2. Isaiah Bradner (USA) 11-1-0 (Regidrago VSTAR)
3. 3. James Goreling (Australia) 10-1-1 (Raging Bolt ex)
4. 4. Fernando Cifuentes (Chile) 10-2-0 (Iron Thorns ex)
5. 5. Ian Robb (USA) 10-2-0 (Regidrago VSTAR)
6. 6. Seinosuke Shiokawa (Japan) 10-2-0 (Roaring Moon ex)
7. 7. Raz Wolpe (Israel) 10-2-0 (Regidrago VSTAR)
8. 8. Michael Davidson (USA) 10-2-0 (Regidrago VSTAR)
9. 9. Rahul Reddy (USA) 10-2-0 (Lugia VSTAR)

With just one spot in the quarterfinals up for grabs, all that was needed to determine the line-up of the final eight was a play-in game between Davidson and Reddy. Davidson came out on top, setting up a quarterfinal against Parker.

Quarterfinals

Two of the four quarterfinals were shown on the official Pokémon stream. The first of these two ended in controversy; although Robb seemingly beat Cifuentes convincingly in a one-sided 2-0 victory, Robb was later defaulted after making a supposedly obscene hand gesture on live broadcast.

While there was some controversy over the nature of his hand gesture, an even greater controversy followed when instead of the usual procedure which would have seen Robb disqualified from his upcoming semifinal and putting his opponent straight into the final, tournament organizers instead opted to award Cifuentes the victory, putting the Chilean into the semis. It was widely speculated that the tournament organizers made this move in order to avoid having a large amount of filler airtime during the livestream, with the semifinals to be aired later on.

The second of the two broadcast quarterfinals saw Parker score a blowout win over Davidson, winning 2-0 without the loss of even a single Prize card in either of the two games and preserving his unbeaten record. In the two off-stream quarterfinals, Wolpe beat Bradner 2-1 while Shiokawa beat Goreling 2-0.

Semifinals

In the first semifinal, Shiokawa faced off against Wolpe. Shiokawa was utterly dominant, winning both games without surrendering any Prize cards and therefore advancing to the final as Wolpe was never really able to get his deck’s strategy properly set up, allowing his Japanese opponent to take full advantage.

The second semifinal saw Parker take on Cifuentes who had been handed an unexpected (in two ways) reprieve. Parker won the first game by a 6-1 scoreline; somewhat surprising given his Miraidon ex deck’s usual matchup difficulty against Cifuentes’ Iron Thorns ex deck. However, Cifuentes then took advantage of the matchup, winning Game 2 by 6-0 and Game 3 by 6-2 to advance to the final against Shiokawa.

Final

The final, held the next day, was a closely-fought encounter. In Game 1, both players more or less matched each other Pokémon for Pokémon before several crucial late card draws tipped the balance of the game in Cifuentes’ favor. Cifuentes took Game 1 by a 6-4 scoreline.

Game 2 was even closer, going down to the wire. Shiokawa maximized the high-risk, high-reward nature of the Roaring Moon ex deck to take key KO’s down the stretch and won 6-5 to take it to a deciding Game 3.

The story of Game 3 was all about card draws. This one also came down to almost the last Prize card; however, Shiokawa ended up bricking at the worst possible time, giving Cifuentes the opportunity of which he took full advantage. Cifuentes made the most of his superior hand, setting up his multiple Iron Thorns ex cards to pick up massive KO’s, ultimately win 6-4, and claim the world title in dramatic fashion after having seemingly been eliminated from the competition just the day before.

For winning the tournament, Cifuentes picked up the champion’s prize money of US$50,000 while runner-up Shiokawa scored himself US$30,000. Semifinalists Parker and Wolpe earned US$20,000 each.

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